THE TROUBLED WATER QUESTION.

My excellent and eloquent friend, Lyttleton, of Pump Court, Temple, barrister-at-law, disturbed me on a damp morning at the end of last month, to bespeak my company to a meeting at which he intended to hold forth. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘the Great Water Supply Congress, which assembles to-morrow.’

‘Do you know anything of the subject?’

‘A vast deal both practically and theoretically. Practically, I pay for my little box in the Regent’s Park, twice the price for water our friend Fielding is charged, and both supplies are derived from the same Company. Yet his is a mansion, mine is a cottage; his rent more than doubles mine in amount, and his family trebles mine in number. So much for the consistency and exactions of an irresponsible monopoly. Practically, again, there are occasions when my cisterns are without water. So much for deficient supply.’

‘Is your water bad?’

‘Not absolutely unwholesome; but I have drunk better.’

‘Now then, Theoretically.’

‘Theoretically, I learn from piles of blue books—a regular blue mountain of parliamentary inquiry instituted in the years 1810, 1821, 1827, 1828, 1834, 1840, and 1845—from a cloud of prospectuses issued by embryo 50Water Companies, from a host of pamphlets pro and con, and from the reports of the Board of Health, that of the 300,000 houses of which London is said to consist, 70,000 are without the great element of suction and cleanliness; I find also that the supply, such as it is, is derived from nine water companies all linked together to form a giant monopoly; and that, in consequence, the charge for water is in some instances excessive; that six of these companies draw their water from the filthy Thames;—and the same number, including those which use the Lea and New River water, have no system of filtration—hence it is unwholesome: that in short, the public of the metropolis are the victims of dear, insufficient and dirty water. Like Tantalus of old they are denied much of the great element of life, although it flows within reach of their parched and thirsty lips. And by whom? By that many-headed Cerberus—that nine gentlemen in one—the great monopolist Water Company combination of London! Unless, therefore, we bestir ourselves in the great cause for which this numerous, enlightened, and respectable meeting have assembled here this day—’

‘You forget; you have only two listeners at present—myself and my spaniel. I can suggest a more profitable morning’s amusement than a rehearsal of your speech.’

‘What?’

‘Your theoretical knowledge is, I doubt not, very comprehensive and varied. But second-hand information is not to be trusted too implicitly. Every statement of fact, like every story, gains something in exaggeration, or loses something in accuracy by repetition from book to book, or from book to mouth.’

‘Granted; but what do you suggest?’

‘Ocular demonstration. Let us at once visit and minutely inspect the works of one of the Companies. I am sure they will let us in at the Grand Junction, for I have already been over their premises.’

‘A capital notion! Agreed.’

The preliminaries—consisting of the hasty bundling up of Mr. Lyttleton’s notes for the morrow’s oration, and the hire of a Hansom cab—were adjusted in a few minutes.

The order to drive to Kew Bridge, was obeyed in capital style; for in three-quarters of an hour we were deposited on the towing path on the Surrey side of the Thames, opposite the King of Hanover’s house, and a quarter of a mile west of Kew Bridge.

‘Here,’ I explained, ‘is the spot whence the Grand Junction Company derive their water. In the bed of the river is an enormous culvert pipe laid parallel to this path. Its mouth—open towards Richmond—is barred across with a grating, to intercept stray fish, murdered kittens, or vegetable impurities, and—except now and then the intrusion edgeways of a small flounder, or the occasional slip of an erratic eel—it admits nothing into the pipe but what is more or less fluid. The culvert then takes a bend round the edge of the islet opposite to us; burrows beneath the Brentford road, and delivers its contents into a well under that tall chimney and taller iron “stand-pipe” which you see on the other side of the river.’

‘And is this the stuff I have to pay four pounds ten a year for?’ exclaimed Mr. Lyttleton, contemplating the opaque fluid; part of which was then making its way into the cisterns of Her Majesty’s lieges.

‘Certainly; but it is purified first. We will now cross the bridge to the Works.’

Those of my readers who make prandial expeditions to Richmond, must have noticed at the beginning of Old Brentford, a little beyond where they turn over Kew Bridge, an immensely tall thin column that shoots up into the air like an iron mast unable to support itself, and seems to require four smaller, thinner, and not much shorter props to keep it upright. This, with the engine and engine-houses, is all they can see of the Grand Junction Waterworks from the road. It is only when one gets inside, that the whole extent of the aquatic apparatus is revealed.

Determined to follow the water from the Thames till it began its travels to London, we entered the edifice, went straight to the well, and called for a glass of water. Our hosts—who had received our visit without hesitation—supplied us. ‘That,’ remarked one of them, as he held the half-filled tumbler up to the light, ‘is precisely the state of the water as emptied from the Thames into the well.’

It looked like a dose of weak magnesia, or that peculiar London liquid known as ‘skim-sky-blue,’ but deceitfully sold under the name of milk.

‘The analysis of Professor Brande,’ said Lyttleton, ‘gives to every gallon of Thames water taken from Kew Bridge, 19·2 parts of solid matter; but the water, I apprehend, in which he experimented must have been taken from the river on a serener occasion than this. To-day’s rain appears to have drained away the chalk—so as to give in this specimen a much larger proportion of solids to fluids than his estimate.’

‘In this impure state,’ one of the engineers told us, ‘the water is pumped by steam power into the reservoirs to which you will please to follow me.’

Passing out of the building and climbing a sloping bank, we now saw before us an expanse of water covering 3½ acres; but divided into two sections. Into the larger, the pump first delivers the water, that so much of the impurity as will form sediment may be precipitated. It then slowly glides through a small opening into the lesser section, which is a huge filter.

‘The impurities of water,’ said the barrister, assuming an oratorical attitude, to give 51us a taste of his ‘reading up,’ ‘are of two kinds; first, such as are mechanically suspended—say earth, chalk, sand, clay, dead vegetation or decomposed cats; and secondly, such as are dissolved or chemically combined—like salt, sugar, or alkali. Separation in the one case is easy, in the other it involves a chemical process. If you throw a pinch of sand into a tumbler of water, and stir it about, you produce a turbid mixture; but to render the fluid clear again you have only to adopt the simple process of letting it alone; for on setting the tumbler down for awhile, the particles—which, from their extreme minuteness, were easily disturbed and distributed amidst the fluid—being heavier than water, are precipitated, or in other words, fall to the bottom, leaving the liquid translucent. This is what is happening in the larger section of the reservoir to the chalky water of which we drank. I think I am correct?’ asked the speaker, angling for a single ‘cheer’ from the Engineer.

‘Quite so,’ replied that gentleman.

‘Provided the water could remain at rest long enough—which the insatiable maw of the modern Babylon does not allow,’—continued the honourable orator, rehearsing a bit more of his speech, ‘this mode of cleansing would be perfectly effectual. In proof of which I may only allude to Nature’s mode of depuration, as shown in lakes—that of Geneva for instance. The waters of the Rhone enter that expansive reservoir from the Valais in a very muddy condition; yet, after reposing in the lake, they issue at Geneva as clear as crystal. But so incessant is the London demand, that scarcely any time can be afforded for the impurities of the Thames, the Lea, or the New River to separate themselves from the water by mere deposition.’

‘True,’ interjected one of the superintendants. ‘It is for that reason that our water is passed afterwards into the filtering bed, which is four feet thick.’

‘How do you make up this enormous bed?’

‘The water rests upon, and permeates through, 1st, a surface of fine sand; 2d, a stratum of shells; 3d, a layer of garden gravel; and 4th, a base of coarse gravel. It thence falls through a number of ducts into cisterns, whence it is pumped up so as to commence its travels to town through the conduit-pipe.’

We were returning to the engine-house, when Lyttleton asked the Engineer, ‘Does your experience generally, enable you to say that water as supplied by the nine companies, is tolerably pure?’

‘Upon the whole, yes,’ was the answer.

‘Indeed!’ ejaculated the orator, sharply. ‘If that be true,’ he whispered to me, in a rueful tone, ‘I shall be cut out of one of the best points in my speech.’

‘Of course,’ continued the Engineer, ‘purity entirely depends upon the source, and the means of cleansing.’

‘Then, as to the source—how many companies take their supplies from the Thames, near to, and after it has received the contents of, the common sewers?’

‘No water is taken from the Thames below Chelsea, except that of the Lambeth Company, which is supplied from between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridges; an objectionable source, which they have obtained an act to change to Thames Ditton. The Chelsea Waterworks have a most efficient system of filtration; as also have the Southwark and Vauxhall Company; both draw their water from between the Red House, Battersea, and Chelsea Hospital. The other companies do not filter. The West Middlesex sucks up some of Father Thames as he passes Barnes Terrace. Except the lowest of these sources, Thames water is nearly as pure as that of other rivers.’

‘Perhaps it is,’ was the answer; ‘but the unwholesomeness arises from contaminations received during its course; we don’t object to the “Thames,” but to its “tributaries,” such as the black contents of common sewers, and the refuse of gut, glue, soap, and other nauseous manufactures; to say nothing of animal and vegetable offal, of which the river is the sole receptacle. Brande shows that, while the solid matter contained in the river at Teddington is 17·4, that which the water has contracted when it flows past Westminster is 24·4, and the City of London, 28·0.’

‘But,’ said the Engineer, ‘these adulterations are only mechanically suspended in the fluid, and are, as you shall see presently, totally separated from it by our mode of filtration.’

‘Which brings us to your second point, as to efficient cleansing; you admit that without filtration this is impossible, and also that only three companies filter; the deduction, therefore, is that two-thirds of the water supplied to Londoners is insufficiently cleansed. This indeed, is not a mere inference; we know it for a fact, we see it in our ewers, we taste it out of our caraffes.’

‘But this does not wholly arise from the inefficient filtration of the six companies,’ returned an officer of this Company, ‘the public is much to blame—though, when agitating against an abuse, it never thinks of blaming itself. Half the dirt, dust, and animalculæ found at table are introduced after the water has been delivered to the houses. Impurity of all sorts finds its way into out-door cisterns, even when covered, and few of them, open or closed, are often enough cleansed. In some neighbourhoods water-butts are always uncovered, and hardly ever cleaned out. The water is foul, and the companies are blamed.’

‘The blame belongs to the system,’ said the barrister. ‘Domestic reservoirs are not only an evil but an unnecessary expense. Besides filth, they cause waste and deficient supply: they should be abolished; for continuous 52supply is the real remedy. Let the pipes be always full, and the water would be always ready, always fresh, and could never acquire new impurities. Still, despite all you say, I am bound to conclude that although one-third of the water may arrive in the domestic cisterns of the metropolis in a pellucid state, the other two-thirds does not.’ Mr. L. then inscribed this calculation in his note book, whispering to me that his pet ‘dirty water point’ would come out even stronger than he had expected.

We had now returned to one of the engine-rooms.

‘You have tasted the water before, I now present you with some of it after, filtration,’ said the chief engineer, handing us a tumbler. ‘This is exactly the condition in which we deliver it to our customers.’

It was clear to the eye, and to the taste innocuous; but Lyttleton (who I should mention, occasionally turns on powerful streams of oratory at Temperance meetings, and is a judge of the article,) complained that the liquid wanted ‘flavour.’

‘In other words, then it wants impurity’ replied one of our cicerones with alacrity, ‘for perfectly pure water is quite tasteless. Indeed, water may be too pure. Distilled water which contains no salt, is insipid, and tends to indigestion. It is a wise provision of Nature, that waters should contain a greater or less quantity of foreign ingredients; for without these water is dangerous to drink. It never fails to take up from the atmosphere a certain proportion of carbonic acid gas, and when passing through lead pipes it imbibes enough carbonate of lead to constitute poison. Dr. Christison mentions several severe cases of lead (or painter’s) cholic, which arose chiefly in country houses to which water was supplied from springs through lead pipes. The most remarkable case was that at Claremont, where the ex-king of the French and several members of his family were nearly poisoned by pure spring water conveyed to the mansion through lead pipes.

‘Mercy!’ I exclaimed, with all the energy of despair that a mere water-drinker is capable of, ‘if river water be unwholesome, and pure water poison, what is to become of every temperance pledgee?’

The Engineer relieved me: ‘All the Chemists,’ he stated, ‘have agreed that a water containing from eight to ten grains of sulphate of magnesia or soda, to the imperial gallon, is best suited for alimentary, lavatory, and other domestic purposes.’

We were now introduced to the great engine. What a monster! Imagine an enormous see-saw, with a steam engine at one end, and a pump at the other. Fancy this ‘beam,’ some ten yards long, and twenty-eight tons in weight, moving on a pivot in the middle, the ends of which show a circumference greater than the crown of the biggest hat ever worn. See, with what earnest deliberation the ‘see,’ or engine, pulls up the ‘saw,’ or balance-box of the pump, which then comes down upon the water-trap with the ferocious àplomb of 49 tons, sending 400 gallons of water in one tremendous squirt nearly the twentieth part of a mile high;—that is to the top of the stand-pipe.

‘We have a smaller engine which “does” 150 gallons per stroke,’ remarked our informant: ‘each performs 11 strokes, and forces up 4400 gallons of water per minute, and thus our average delivery per diem throughout the year is from 4,000,000, to 5,000,000 gallons.’

‘What proportion of London do you supply?’ asked Mr. Lyttleton.

‘The quadrangle included between Oxford Street, Wardour Street, Pall-Mall, and Hyde Park; besides the whole of Notting-hill, Bayswater, and Paddington. We serve 14,058 houses, to each of which we supply 225 gallons per day, or, taking the average number of persons per house at nine, 25 gallons a head; besides public services, such as baths, watering streets, or manufactories; making our total daily delivery at the rate of 252 gallons per house. This delivery is performed through 80 miles of service pipes, whose diameter varies from 3 to 30 inches.

‘Now,’ said my companion, sharpening his pencil, ‘to go into the question of supply.’ He then unfolded his pocket soufflet, and brought out a calculation, of quantities derived, he said, from parliamentary returns and other authorities more or less reliable:—

Gals. daily.

New River Company 20,000,000

Chelsea Company 3,250,000

West Middlesex Company 3,650,000

Grand Junction Company 3,500,000

East London Company 7,000,000

South Lambeth Company 2,500,000

South London Company and Southwark Company 3,000,000

Hampstead Company 400,000

Kent Company 1,200,000

44,500,000

Artesian Wells 8,000,000

Land-spring Pumps 3,000,000

“Catch” rain water (say) 1,000,000

Making a total quantity supplied daily to London, from all sources, of 56,500,000

‘An abundant supply,’ said an engineer eagerly, ‘for as the present population of the metropolis is estimated at 2,336,000, the total affords about 24 gallons of water per day, for every man, woman, and child.’

‘Admitted,’ rejoined Lyttleton; ‘but we have to deal with large deductions; first, nearly half this quantity runs to waste, chiefly in consequence of the intermittent system. I live in a small house with proportionately small cisterns, which are filled no more than three times a week; now, as my neighbours have 53larger houses and larger reservoirs, the water when turned on runs for as long a time into my small, as it does into their capacious cisterns, and consequently, if my stop-taps be in the least out of order, a greater quantity descends the waste pipe than remains behind. This is universally the case in similar circumstances.’

‘We supply water daily, Sundays excepted,’ remarked the Engineer.

‘Then you are wiser than your neighbours. But every inconvenience and nearly all the waste, would be saved by the adoption of the continuous system of supply. Secondly, a large quantity of water is consumed by cattle, breweries, baths, public institutions, for putting out fires, and for laying dust. The lieges of London have only, therefore, to divide between them some 10 gallons of water each per day; and, as it is generally admitted that a sixth part of their habitations are without water at all, the division must be most unequally made. That such is the fact is shown by your own figures—your customers get 25 gallons each per day, or more than double their share. For this excess, some in poorer districts get none at all.’

‘That is no fault of the existing companies. As sellers of an article, they are but too happy to get as many customers for it as possible; but poor tenants cannot, and their landlords will not, afford the expense. If the companies were to make the outlay necessary to connect the houses with their mains, they would have no legal power to recover the money so expended—nor indeed is it clear, that were they inclined to run the risk, the parties would avail themselves of it. In one instance, the Southwark and Vauxhall Company offered to construct a tank which would give continuous supply to a block of 100 small houses, at the rate of 50 gallons per diem to each—if the proprietor would pay an additional rate sufficient to yield 5 per cent. on the outlay, such additional rate not exceeding one half-penny per week for each house, but the offer was declined.’

‘That is an extreme case of cheapness on the one side, and of stupidity on the other,’ said the barrister. ‘Other landlords will not turn on water for their tenants, because of the expense; not only of the “plant,” in the first instance, but of the after water-rent. I find, by the account rendered to the House of Commons in 1834, that the South London Company (since incorporated with the Southwark, as the “Southwark and Vauxhall,”—the very Company you mention,) charged considerably less than any other. The return shows that while they obtained only 15s. per 1000 hogsheads; the West Middlesex (the highest) exacted 48s., 6d. for the same quantity; consequently, had the houses of the foolish landlord who refused one half-penny per week for water, stood in northwestern instead of southern London, he would have had to pay more than treble, or a fraction above three half-pence per week.’

‘Allowing for difference of level,’ I remarked, ‘and other interferences with the cheap delivery of water; the disparity in the charges of the different companies, and even by the same company to different customers, is unaccountable: they are guided by no principle. You have mentioned the extreme points of the scale of rates; the remaining companies charged at the time you mention, respectively per 1000 hogsheads, 17s., 17s., 2d., 21s., 28s., 29s., and 45s. The only companies whose charges are limited by act of parliament are the Grand Junction, the East London, the Southwark and Vauxhall, and the Lambeth. The others exact precisely what they please.’

‘And,’ interposed Lyttleton, ‘there is no redress: the only appeal we, the taxed, have, is to our taxers, and the monopoly is so tight that—as is my case—although your next door neighbour is supplied from a cheaper company, you are not allowed to change.’

‘The companies were obliged to combine, to save themselves from ruin and the public from extreme inconvenience,’ said our informant; ‘during the competition streets were torn up, traffic was stopped, and confusion was worse confounded in the districts where the opposition raged.’

‘But what happened when the war ceased, and the general peace was concluded?’ said Lyttleton, chuckling. ‘To show how ill some of the companies manage their affairs, I could cite some laughable cases. When the combination commenced, some of them forgot to stop off their mains, and supplied water to customers whom they had previously turned over to their quondam rivals; so that one company gave the water, and the other pocketed the rent. This, in some instances, went on for years.’

Here the subject branched off into other topics. It is worthy of notice that the conversation was carried on by the side of the enormous Cornish engine, that was driving 4400 gallons per minute 218 feet high.

‘It is marvellous,’ I remarked, ‘that so much power can be exercised with so little noise and vibration.’

‘That’s owing to the patent valves in the pump,’ said the stoker.

Taking a last look at the monster, we went outside to view the stand-pipe. Being, we were told, 218 feet high, it tops the Monument in Fish Street-hill by 16 feet. Within it is performed the last stroke of hydraulic art which is needed; for nature does the rest. The water, sent up through the middle or thickest of the tubes, falls over into the open mouths of the smaller ones—(which most people mistake for supports)—descends through all four at once into the conduit-pipe, and travels of its own accord leisurely to London. In obedience to the law of levels, it rises without further trouble to the tops of the tallest houses on the highest spots in the Company’s district. In its way it fills a large reservoir on Camden-hill. 54The iron conduit-pipe ends at Poland street, Oxford street, and is 7½ miles long.

Our inspection was now terminated. We took a parting glass of water with our intelligent and communicative hosts, and returned to town.

I firmly believe that the success of Lyttleton’s speech at the great meeting next day, was very much owing to this visit. The room was crowded in every part. His tone was moderate. He avoided the extravagant exaggerations of the more fiery order of water spouters. Neither was he too tame; he was not—as Moore said of a tory orator—like an

‘awkward thing of wood

Which up and down its clumsy arm doth move;

And only spout, and spout, and spout away,

In one weak, washy, everlasting flood,’

but he came out capitally in the hard, argumentative style. His oration bristled with logic and statistics to a degree of which I cannot pretend to give the faintest notion.

Sipping inspiration out of a tumbler filled with the flowing subject of discussion, Mr. Lyttleton commenced by declaring his conviction that the water supplied to the metropolis was, generally speaking, bad in quality, extravagantly dear, and, from excessive waste, deficient in quantity. In order to remedy those defects an efficient control was essential. Continuous supply, filtration, and a uniform scale of rates must be enforced. Some of the companies were pocketing enormous dividends, and was it a fair argument to retort, that they are now being reimbursed for periods of no dividend at all? Are we of the present day to be mulcted to cover losses occasioned because the early career of some of these companies was marked by the ignorance, imprudence, and reckless extravagance, which he (Mr. Lyttleton) could prove it was? If our wine merchant, or coal merchant, or baker, began business badly and with loss, would he be tolerated, if, when he grew wiser and more prosperous, he tried to exact large prices to cover the consequences of his previous mismanagement? Mr. Lyttleton apprehended not. With this branch of the question—he proceeded to remark—the important subjects of distribution and supply were intimately connected. It had been ascertained that a vast proportion of the poor had no water in their houses. Why? Partly because it was too dear; but partly he (the learned speaker) was bound to say from the parsimony of landlords. He had pointed out a remedy for the first evil; for the second he would propose that every house owner should be bound to introduce pipes into every house. The law was stringent on him as to sewers and party-walls, and why should not a water supply be enforced on him also?—In dealing with the whole question of supply—the honourable gentleman went on to say, he could not agree with those who stated that the delivery of it was deficient. A moderate calculation estimated the quantity running through the underground net-work of London pipes at 56,000,000 of gallons per day. Waste (of which there is a prodigious amount), steam-engines, cattle, public baths and other supplies deducted, left more than 10 gallons per diem per head for the whole population,—that is supposing these gallons were equitably distributed; but they are not,—the rich get an excess, and the poor get none at all. He (the learned barrister) was not prepared to say that 10 or 20 gallons per head daily were sufficient for all the purposes of life in this or in any other city, great or small; but this he would say, that under proper management the existing supply might be made ample for present wants;—whether for the requirements of augmenting population and increased cleanliness we need not discuss now. What was wanted at this time was a better distribution rather than a greater supply; but what was wanted most of all was united action and one governing body. Without this, confusion, extravagance, and waste, would inevitably continue.

Mr. Lyttleton wound up with a peroration that elicited very general applause. ‘Although we must,’ he said, ‘establish an efficient control over the existing means of water supply, we must neither wholly despise nor neglect them, nor blindly rush into new and ruinous schemes. We must remove the onus of payment from the poorer tenants to their landlords, and into whatever central directing power the Waterworks of this great city shall pass,’ concluded the learned orator, with energetic unction, ‘our motto must be “continuous supply, uniform rates, and universal filtration!”’