SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. (continued 2)

The consumption of smoke in private houses is unfortunately a matter to which hitherto little attention has been given; and it would be vain to hope that the reform should begin with those, whose individual contributions to the public stock of nuisance are comparatively trifling. With the progress of knowledge on these subjects, a time will undoubtedly arrive, and at no distant period, when chimneys will cease to convey to the atmosphere their present immense freight of fuel that has not been burnt, and of heat that has not been utilised; when each entire house will be uniformly warmed with less expenditure of material than now suffices to its one kitchen fire; and our successors[53] will wonder at the ludicrous ingenuity with which we have so long managed to diffuse our caloric and waste our coal in the directions where they least conduce to the purposes of comfort and utility.

But, while the arrangements of private establishments may, perhaps wisely, be left to the operation of this spontaneous reform, I would venture to recommend in regard to furnaces, employed for steam-engines and otherwise for manufactures within the City, that you should endeavour to control the nuisance of smoke.

The members of your Hon. Court are probably cognisant of the great mass of evidence on this subject, collected by two separate committees of the House of Commons, and of the almost unanimous conclusions to which that evidence led; ‘that opaque smoke issuing from steam-engine chimneys may be so abated as no longer to be a public nuisance; that a variety of means are found to exist for the accomplishment of this object, simple in construction, moderate in expense, and applicable to existing furnaces and flues of stationary steam-engines; that a sufficient body of evidence has been adduced, founded upon the experience of practical men, to induce the opinion that a law, making it imperative upon the owners of stationary steam-engines, to abate the issue of opaque smoke is desirable for the benefit of the community;’[54] ‘that the expense attendant on putting up whatever apparatus may be required to prevent smoke arising from furnaces is very trifling, and (as some of the witnesses observed) the outlay may be repaid within the year, by the diminished consumption of fuel; that the means of preventing smoke might also be applied to the furnaces of steam-boats, but such application would be attended with rather more expense than on land, from the occasional want of space, and the setting of boilers in a steam-vessel. No doubt, however, existed, in the opinions of those examined, that the prevention of smoke could be accomplished in steam-vessels.’[55]

In two local improvement Acts (those of Leeds and Manchester) clauses have been introduced in accordance with the sense of these conclusions; and in order to render them as little oppressive as possible to those whose interests might be affected by their operation, the enactments (which apply to every variety of furnace) have been so framed as to enforce penalties for the issuing of smoke only when it should appear (as no doubt it commonly would appear) that the proprietor had refrained from “using the best practicable means for preventing or counteracting such annoyance.”

Surely if such applicable means exist, it is a just and reasonable thing that the public should be defended against offence and injury, arising in the mere indifference or obstinacy of those who inflict them; and I venture to hope that your Hon. Court, in renewing your application to Parliament, may procure the enactment of a clause, giving you control over so much of the nuisance as is wanton and avoidable.

There are still under the present head, some points to which I am anxious to advert. During the two years that your Act has been in operation, various complaints have been made with respect to nuisances arising in particular trades; and with many of the causes of complaint you have been unable effectually to contend. Soap-makers, tallow-melters, gut-spinners, naphtha-distillers, preparers of patent manure, dealers in soot, exposers of stinking hides, wire-makers, dealers in kitchen-stuff, fish-curers, tripe-boilers, type-founders, gold-refiners, slaughterers, varnish-makers, roasters of coffee and chicory, whalebone-boilers, iron and brass-founders, keepers of cattle-sheds, makers of printing-ink, dealers in camphine, cookers of cats’-meat, and manufacturing chemists, have all, at different times and in various degrees, been complained of.

In respect of those of the enumerated trades which deal in the manufacture or sale of organic materials in a putrid or putrescent state, I have already submitted to you my opinion that the City of London, the home of a large and crowded population, is no place for them. With regard to the many other occupations, it would obviously be absurd, in the present state of society, to think of banishing them from the City which their industry has contributed to enrich, and where immemorial custom has given sanction to their continuance, unless you could with certainty affirm of them, that they cause direct and inevitable detriment to their neighbourhood. Every useful purpose, as regards the health of the City, might be fulfilled by the enactment of some moderate restriction.

Manifestly, it is opposed to the spirit of your Act of Parliament, that any trader or manufacturer should possess the right of diffusing in the vicinity of his house, to the detriment and disgust of his neighbours, any product (whether in the form of running fluid, or volatile dust, or vapour, or smoke, or odour) which is either disagreeable to the senses or may be hurtful to the health. Many of the instances which I have enumerated fall within this description, and yet remain unaffected by the restrictive sections of your Act.

I would submit to the consideration of your Hon. Court, whether, in the renewal of your Act, some comprehensive clause might not be introduced, which should deal with these difficulties, as well as with the nuisance of smoke—and deal with them, too, on the same principle: a clause, which (without enumerating all trades which have been, or possibly may become, sources of nuisance in the City, and without specifying too narrowly the nature of the nuisances to be guarded against) should empower your Commission generally, in respect of every trade practised within the City, to require that its operations shall be conducted with the least possible amount of inconvenience to the neighbourhood; and which should enable you to enforce penalties in case of every nuisance arising in such operations, unless it should be distinctly shown on the part of the proprietor, that every practicable measure for abatement of the inconvenience had been constantly and thoroughly employed.[56]

I would beg to express my conviction that your possession of the authority with which such a clause would invest you, would very largely increase your powers of utility, in respect of many acknowledged grievances hitherto beyond your control; and the influence of your example, in the achievement of this great municipal purpose, would, I doubt not, speedily lead to the adoption of general measures throughout the metropolis, for the total suppression of smoke, and for the mitigation of other nuisances which now exist around your territory no less than within it.[57]

Burial-Grounds.

In my last year’s Report I had occasion to represent to your Hon. Court the evils of intramural sepulture. I testified to that large accumulation of human remains, by which, in numerous parts of the City, the soil of burial-grounds has been raised many feet above its original level; and I advised you of the injury which must accrue to health from the constant organic decomposition thus suffered to proceed in the midst of our crowded population. I likewise invited your attention to the still greater evil of burial in vaults; I explained and endeavoured to remove the misconception which commonly prevails, as to the preservation of bodies under those circumstances; and I showed you how unfailingly, sooner or later after such burial, the products of putrefaction make their way from within the coffin (whatever may have been its construction) and diffuse themselves offensively and injuriously through the air. I concluded by expressing to you my strong conviction of the necessity that some comprehensive measure should be undertaken, for abolishing, at once and for ever, all burial within the City of London.

During the session of Parliament that has intervened between that Report and my present one, an event has occurred, which promises to remove effectually the evils on which I then addressed you. Her Majesty’s government, acting at the instigation of the General Board of Health, carried through Parliament a Bill, enacting that the Queen, by Order in Council, may prohibit further burials within any district of the metropolis, so soon (after the close of this year) as the General Board of Health should have provided the means of extramural interment. The operation of this Act of Parliament is such as, I have every reason to believe, you will welcome within the City of London: and I look forward to the complete cessation of burial within your territory, as a matter for warm congratulation among all who are interested in the cause of sanitary improvement.[58]

From the terms of the Act in question I find that Her Majesty’s Order in Council is to be preceded by a Report from the General Board of Health, stating their opinion of the expediency, that (in any particular case reported on) burial should forthwith be discontinued. Accordingly, in the present state of the law, it will devolve on that Board to initiate whatever measures may be necessary for the prohibition of further interment in the City.

Two clauses of your Act of Parliament, which have hitherto been inoperative, may perhaps come into requisition whenever Her Majesty’s Order in Council closes the burial-grounds of the City; viz., clause 89, which empowers your Commission, if you shall “think fit, to provide fit and proper places, in which the poor, under proper rules and regulations, may be permitted to deposit the bodies of their dead previous to interment;” and the following clause, which authorises your Officer of Health, in case of necessity, and for protection of the living, to cause any dead body to be removed at your expense, to whatever building may have been provided for the reception of the dead, previous to interment. It may hardly be necessary that I should trouble you with any remarks on the subject of these clauses, till such time as they are likely to come into operation.

With respect to the burial-grounds within the City, which will fall into disuse so soon as the new Interment Act becomes operative, I trust that your Hon. Commission will procure the power of regulating and supervising their maintenance, so that they may no longer be hurtful to the health of their vicinity. The arrangement of them, which would be most advantageous to their locality, would be that of planting them with whatever trees or shrubs may be made to flourish in a London atmosphere. The putrefactive changes, which for some years longer must proceed in these saturated soils, will be rendered comparatively harmless and imperceptible, if at the same time there advance in the ground a sufficiency of vegetation, which for its growth would gradually appropriate, as fast as they are evolved, the products of animal decay.

It seems almost superfluous for me to observe, that, from the time when burials are discontinued, no unnecessary disturbance of the soil should be allowed; nor any attempts at levelling or the like, except under the direct sanction of your Hon. Court.

Another point in connexion with these burial-grounds, to which I may here advert (though I must recur to it hereafter) is, that while great advantage may be expected from the discontinuance of their former uses, if their several areas be left open and without building, so as to subserve the ventilation of their neighbourhood, all that advantage would be lost, and a heavier evil inflicted on the neighbourhood than that of which it purports to be relieved, if these spaces were at any time to be covered with houses; and I trust it may be found within the province of your Hon. Court to obtain authority for preventing any encroachment of this nature on the limited breathing-spaces of the City.

Habitations and Social Condition of the Poor.

In my last Report (under its fifth and sixth heads) I particularly solicited the attention of your Hon. Court to certain circumstances connected with the dwellings and habits of the poor, which, though they then lay apparently out of your jurisdiction, as defined by the Act of Parliament, yet appeared to me of immeasurable weight in the sanitary fluctuations of the City, as tending in their operation constantly to thwart your endeavours for improvement, and to neutralise day by day whatever good you could achieve.

I reported to you that there were sanitary defects, inherent in certain large proportions of your municipal cure, which the most absolute control of drainage and water-supply would do nothing to amend,—constructional defects of houses and of courts, whereby their crowded inhabitants were excluded from a sufficiency of light and air, and were constrained, without remission or change, to breathe an atmosphere fetid with their own stagnant exhalations. I reported to you that, however unexceptionable might be the arrangement of such localities in matters already within your control—however clean their pavements, however pure their water, however effective their drainage, yet fever and the allied disorders could never be absent from their population; while under opposite arrangements, with nuisances around them, with organic poisons rising from the soil or mingling in the water, their mortality would rise to the horrors of pestilence, and might easily renew the most awful precedents in history. I described to you the class of miserable dwellings alluded to—‘Courts and alleys with low, dark, filthy, tenements, hemmed in on all sides by higher buildings, having no possibility of any current of air, and (worst of all) sometimes so constructed, back to back, as to forbid the advantage of double windows or back doors, and thus to render the house as perfect a cul-de-sac out of the court, as the court is a cul-de-sac out of the next thoroughfare:’ I affirmed that ‘this could never be otherwise than a cause of sickness and mortality to those whose necessities allot them such residence;’ and assured you of the ‘incontrovertible fact, that subsistence in closed courts is an unhealthy and short-lived subsistence, in comparison with that of the dwellers in open streets.’

In habitations of this kind the death-rate would of necessity be high, even if the population were distributed thinly in the district. A single pair of persons, with their children, having such a court for their sole occupancy, would hardly be otherwise than unhealthy; the infants would die teething, or would live pallid and scrofulous; or a parent would perish prematurely—the father, perhaps, with typhus, the mother with puerperal fever. Judge then, gentlemen, how the mortality of such courts must swell your aggregate death-rate for the City, when I tell you that their population is in many instances so excessive, as, in itself, and by its mere density, to breed disease.

Statistics can give you no conception of this crowding. If you refer to the results of the last census, you find the average population per house, in the City of London Union to be 7·1; in the East and West London Unions, 8·8; for the construction of these averages, the most dissimilar materials are blended together; and the density of population is apparently reduced by the very large number of business-houses which have no resident inmates, beyond the porter or the housekeeper who has charge of them. If you turn from the deceptions of an average to the exact analysis of detail, you will find many single rooms in the City with a larger number of inmates than you might otherwise ascribe to entire houses. Instances are innumerable, in which a single room is occupied by a whole family—whatever may be its number, and whatever the ages and sexes of the children; where birth and death go on side by side; where the mother in travail, or the child with small-pox, or the corpse waiting interment, has no separation from the rest.

This is evil enough; but worse remains behind. It is no uncommon thing, in a room of twelve feet square or less, to find three or four families styed together (perhaps with infectious disease among them) filling the same space night and day—men, women, and children, in the promiscuous intimacy of cattle.[59] Of these inmates it is nearly superfluous to observe, that in all offices of nature they are gregarious and public; that every instinct of personal or sexual decency is stifled; that every nakedness of life is uncovered there. Such an apartment is commonly hired in the first instance by a single pair, who sub-let a participation in the shelter, probably to as many others as apply. Sometimes a noxious occupation is carried on within the space: thus, I have seen mud-larks (chiffonniers) sitting on the floor with baskets of filth before them, sorting out the occasional bit of coal or bone, from a heterogeneous collection made along the bed of the river, or in the mouths of the sewers; and this in a small room, inhabited night and day by such a population as I have described.

Who can wonder at what becomes, physically or morally, of infants begotten and born in these bestial crowds?

In my former Report, I drew your attention to this pestilential heaping of human beings, and suggested to you its results; and on many occasions, during the past year, complaints have been before your Hon. Court which have had their real origin in this uncontrolled evil. I revert to it because of its infinite importance. While it maintains physical filth that is indescribable, while it perpetuates fever and the allied disorders, while it creates mortality enough to mask the results of all your sanitary progress, its moral consequences are too dreadful to be detailed. I have to deal with the matter only as it relates to bodily health. Whatever is morally hideous and savage in the scene—whatever contrast it offers to the superficial magnificence of the metropolis—whatever profligacy it implies and continues—whatever recklessness and obscene brutality arise from it—whatever deep injury it inflicts on the community—whatever debasement or abolition of God’s image in men’s hearts is tokened by it—these matters belong not to my office, nor would it become me to dwell on them. Only because of the physical sufferings am I entitled to speak; only because pestilence is for ever within the circle; only because Death so largely comforts these poor orphans of civilisation. To my duty it alone belongs, in such respects, to tell you where disease ravages the people under your charge, and wherefore; but while I lift the curtain to show you this—a curtain which propriety might gladly leave unraised, you cannot but see that side by side with pestilence there stalks a deadlier presence; blighting the moral existence of a rising population; rendering their hearts hopeless, their acts ruffianly and incestuous; and scattering, while society averts her eyes, the retributive seeds of increase for crime, turbulence, and pauperism.

While I refer to these painful topics, I may remind your Hon. Court of the Report of your Committee on Health, in respect of the same heads in my previous communication, and may strengthen myself with their testimony: ‘We feel it due to Mr. Simon to add, from the result of personal investigation, that the statements contained in his Report under this subject, distressing as they are, are not exaggerated:’ and, as regards whatever I may have recapitulated from that Report, I would beg leave to add, that my experience during the past year has confirmed the opinions which I then expressed; assuring me more and more, that the correction of these crying evils must advance simultaneously with the other labours of sanitary reform.

Recently, while having the honour to attend your Committee of Health in their deliberations on your Act of Parliament, I have submitted to them, as my view of what is desirable for legislation on the subject of my present section, substantially the same suggestions as I formerly laid before your Hon. Court. As their recommendations must shortly come before you for consideration, and as I entertain the deepest conviction that the subject is of paramount importance to the cause in which you are interested, I have hoped you would excuse my recurrence to it, and my brief repetition of those suggestions which the incompleteness of your Act of Parliament has hitherto prevented your adopting.

1. There are within the City some blocks of houses which are, I fear, irremediably bad and pestilential from such errors of construction as I have already described; and which, further, are so dilapidated, as to show at a glance their little pecuniary value. In many instances the destruction of such a block of houses would confer a sensible advantage on the population of a considerable district. Of this class I could hardly give you a better illustration than would be seen in the ground-plan of Seven-step alley. There are other instances (frequent in Cripplegate) where the removal of a single house at the extremity of a court or passage would make a material difference to the ventilation of several houses, and to the health of a numerous population.

2. Again, in very many parts of the City, you find illustrations of a constructional error to which I have adverted as in the highest degree pernicious to health. You find a number of courts, probably with very narrow inlets, diverging from the open street in such close succession, that their backs adjoin with no intermediate space whatsoever. Consequently, each row of houses has but a single row of windows, facing into the confined court; and thus there is no possibility of ventilation, either through the court generally, or through the houses which compose it. In the Out-Wards of Cripplegate, Farringdon, and Bishopsgate, examples of this arrangement are both most numerous, and I believe, most removable: but they may likewise be found in considerable numbers in the In-Wards of the City; e.g., in the neighbourhood of Printing-house-square, of Great Bell-alley, of Leadenhall-street, of Aldgate, of Skinner-street, and of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.

In many of these cases, if the management of the property were under a single control, it is possible that effectual relief might be given, by converting any two rows of houses which are back to back, each having windows only on one side, into a single row of houses, with doors and windows both before and behind: and if changes of this nature were accompanied by the removal of an occasional house, or other impediment to the circulation of air, I would guarantee to your Hon. Court that the next year’s register would show a very large diminution in the local amount of preventable sickness and mortality.

3. In other cases, the immediate impediment to ventilation apparently consists in the operation of the window-tax. Your Hon. Court, at various times, has heard how unfortunate for the health of cities is this ill-chosen method of taxation, assessing the amount of rate for houses in proportion to their means of ventilation. You can easily conceive how much it would impede your endeavours to promote health and cleanliness within the City, if an additional direct tax were levied on houses by reason of their drainage; or if the assessor regulated his rate according to the consumption of water for household purposes. The working of the window-tax is on this principle; and although it may be very true that health is the greatest of treasures, and that, on this ground, its means and appliances are eligible for taxation, I cannot but regret that a struggling population should be tempted by the hope of some small saving, to make a sensible diminution in their chances of life, by retrenching within the narrowest measures their inlets of ventilation and light.

In reference to the more important constructional errors which I have described to you, as affecting the courts and alleys of the City, it will be obvious, from the remedies which I have suggested, that no hope of alteration can be expected from landlords. To throw together the adjoining houses of two different courts, or to remove one house for the advantage of certain others, or to destroy a whole block of houses for the sake of its neighbourhood, could evidently be undertaken, as a matter of private enterprise, only where property of very considerable extent, and close juxtaposition, happened to be in the hands of a single individual; and, as regards the City of London, this is rarely or never the case. The only manner, then, it occurs to me, in which the requisite remedies could be applied, would be through the wealth and benevolence of the Corporation. If there were vested in your Hon. Court (or in any other authority of the Corporation) the power to make compulsory purchases of house-property, on the ground of its unfitness for human habitation, it would be easy to correct the extreme errors which exist; and, under a single large landlordship of this nature, it might not improbably be found that measures such as I have described would give to the localities in which they might be effected as much improvement in value as in health. After the necessary alterations, such houses would no longer need to continue under tenure of the Corporation, and the proceeds of their sale might again be applied to the reclamation of similar property in other parts of the City.

In throwing out this suggestion to your Hon. Court, I, of course, do not pretend to offer you any details for its realisation. These can more fitly be supplied by others; nor should I have introduced even this general mention of a plan, but for the vividness with which its practicability and usefulness have struck me. During my period of office, I have seen distinctly that what seems incurable in the dark intricacies of our worst courts and alleys often depends for its difficulty on the number of landlords, and on their mutual independence. The conviction had thus been forced on me, which I have endeavoured briefly to express to you; that the only available cure for such evils would consist in the Corporation assuming to itself (if only for a time, and in gradual succession) the proprietage of such wretched tenements, and fulfilling towards them those large and liberal duties of landlordship, which now remain unperformed through the multiplicity and neediness of petty owners. And, as a precedent for one species of such improvement, I may mention to your Hon. Court, that in such property as I have described to you, situated in other parts of the metropolis, private societies have already effected purchases which have enabled them to convert bad and unwholesome residences into the form of model lodgings for the working classes.

Before leaving the consideration of evils, in which over-density of building and defective ventilation form such important parts, I would avail myself of the opportunity to observe, that it is of incalculable importance to preserve, for the health of the City, every open space which at present exists. The density of buildings within the City of London Union is very great, and in the East and West London Unions, is very considerably greater than in any other part of the metropolis; and not merely are the houses closely packed together, but (as I have already described them) very thickly inhabited. Within the City of London Union, each human being, on an average, has less than an eighth part of the space he would have if residing in the district of Islington; and, small as is this pittance, it is more than double what he would enjoy if he were living in the district of the East and West London Unions. With such density of population, it would, of course, be advantageous if any space now occupied by buildings should hereafter become vacant, so as to increase the breathing-room of the neighbourhood; and your Hon. Court will see the imperative necessity of discountenancing, so far as may be, the erection of additional houses on the few unoccupied spaces which remain. In order to do this effectually, it would be desirable to procure the enactment of a clause, giving you absolute prohibiting power in this respect, whenever, for sanitary reasons, you might think it right to interfere.

With respect to those evils which I have set before you, as arising from the unrestricted accumulation of persons of both sexes, and of all ages, within a single sleeping-room—dreadful as they are, I do not consider them irremediable. In the first place, I would beg you to observe, that the very restricted definition of a ‘lodging-house’ given in your Act of Parliament, has hitherto rendered it impossible, in any degree, to regulate dwellings of the description referred to. An amendment of that definition might bring them within your control, and might enable you, not only in these instances, but in many others, to restrict the numbers of inmates, to compel the removal of persons with infectious disease, and to enforce provisions of decency, cleanliness, and ventilation.

Not, however, alone to restrictive and compulsory measures do I look for the social improvement of numbers, now so destitute and miserable. That our entire industrial population within the City might, in such respects, gain great advantage from an enlightened supervision and guidance, I formerly endeavoured to show. I sought (from other experience) to illustrate the benefits they would derive, not only from your exercising habitual inspection, and possessing a more extensive control, in many matters relative to their dwellings and mode of life; but likewise, from the establishment, under the auspices of the Corporation, of institutions which, raising before them a higher standard of civilisation, would improve their social habits by an indirect educational influence, and would elevate the general tone and character of their class.

On the subject of Model Dwellings for the labouring classes, and of Public Baths and Wash-houses, as illustrating this view, I dwelt at some length in my former Report; and, deeply convinced of the boon which their establishment would confer on the poor, I explained, to the best of my ability, the nature and the extent of their usefulness.

I now recur to the subject, only that I may repeat my profound conviction of its importance; and that in doing so, I may congratulate your Hon. Court, and may utter my deep thankfulness for the labouring and suffering poor of this great community, that, in compliance with the Standing Orders of Parliament, formal notice has been given on the part of the Corporation of the City of London, of their intention, in the approaching session of the Legislature, to apply for authority which may enable them to achieve, for their dependent fellow-citizens, this almost incalculable good.[60]

I cannot too strongly express the importance I attach to this implied intention of the Corporation, to establish model dwellings for the industrial population of the City. But the first and immediate operation of such an Act will, from the nature of things, hardly reach to those very destitute and degraded classes of which I have spoken. Model lodgings of the ordinary character will become the residence of men, who now pay from two to five shillings a week for such space as they occupy, and who have the habit of sleeping in beds. To them the gain will be very great; and the example of improved domestic habits will be beneficial to their entire class. But among the lowest order which I have described to you, as it subsists in thronged and pestilent heaps within your worst quarters, there is little knowledge of beds. The first hirer of the room may possibly have a pile of rags on which he lies, with his wife and children, in one corner of the tenement; but the majority of his sub-tenants (paying for their family-lodging from sixpence to ten-pence a week) lie on straw, or on the bare boards. It will be obvious to you, that no Model Lodging-house could be reduced to the level of their means. By those restrictions to which I have adverted, something may be done, no doubt, for improving the arrangement of houses so tenanted—something to prevent the more glaring outrages of decency which at present prevail—something to maintain comparative cleanliness, and to check the spread of disease. I fear that no further remedy than this would prove effectual, unless it were universal for the metropolis. Unquestionably, it would be possible, with persons even of the lowest sort above pauperism, to proceed on the same principle as in the establishment of model-lodgings for the working orders; to provide for them, namely, under respectable control and supervision, the best accommodation which their price could purchase, of the kind to which they have been habituated; to give them the means of lying down, free from damp or cold, partitioned from one another, and with isolation of sexes, in a building constructed or arranged for the purpose, where the ventilation and the facilities for cleanliness might be complete. There seems little room to doubt that this might be done, on a very large scale, at a rate considerably less than the poorest now pay for the right of lairage amid vermin, filth, obscenity, and fever; and with such dormitories, obviously, there might be connected other arrangements for giving comfort and cleanliness to the very poor and destitute, at the lowest possible price. Of gratuitous reception I do not speak, because that is already provided, under certain regulations, in all the work-houses of the metropolis. But while I conceive that such a measure, if generally adopted throughout London, would defray its own cost, and would remove evils and miseries horrid to contemplate, I cannot but feel that it would be inadmissible (in its cheapest form) as a local measure. For if the price of reception—for instance, here, were so low as to allure the wretched population in question from their places of present resort within the City, it cannot be doubted that its influence would extend beyond your jurisdiction, and would throng your dormitories with the destitute of other districts. As the evil is metropolitan, so ought the remedy to be; and if there were thus instituted within each Union of the metropolis, a Ragged Dormitory of the nature described, I am persuaded, from my knowledge of the poorest classes, that its establishment would be of infinite advantage in improving the habits, and diminishing the mortality of those who would become its inmates.

III. Suggested Alterations in the Act of Parliament.

Finally, gentlemen, considering that you are about to procure a renewal of your Act of Parliament, and that you contemplate strengthening it with such additional clauses as may render it effective for the eradication of all preventable disease within the City of London, I would ask permission, in this point of view, to submit to you in a connected series, such modifications as in my judgment would contribute to that purpose. Most of these I have already had the advantage of suggesting to your Committee on Health; and to many of them I have adverted by anticipation, in previous passages of my Report. I would beg to enumerate the desiderata under the following heads, viz.

1. A clause, which would give you control over the supply and distribution of water, would enable you in your corporate capacity to contract with any person or any company for the total service of the City; and would authorise you to defray the expenses of such contract by certain specified rates.

2. A clause empowering you to require, that every trade or manufacture practised within the City shall be carried on with such precautions, and with such available improvements, from time to time, as shall reduce to the lowest practicable amount whatever nuisance or inconvenience to the neighbourhood is apt to arise therefrom.

3. Such change in the definition affixed to your 91st clause as would render this operative for the regulation and improvement of a larger number of houses; and such addition to the clause as would enable you, on the joint certificate of your Officer of Health and Surveyor, to enforce the making of additional windows, where requisite for the proper ventilation of houses.

4. A clause permitting and empowering you, on sufficient medical testimony, to remove, or to call upon the Board of Guardians to remove, from any lodging-house, within the new definition of your Act, any person diseased with fever or other infectious malady, whose continuance there would endanger the lives of other inmates.

5. A clause prohibiting the occupation of under-ground cellars for the purposes of dwelling.

6. A clause prohibiting the keeping of cattle in or under dwelling-houses.

7. A clause vesting in the Commission a right to purchase houses by jury valuation, in any case where they shall determine that such houses are permanently unwholesome and unfit for human habitation, or that their alteration or removal is necessary for the public health.

8. A clause enabling the Commission to control all further encroachments on spaces which are now open within the City; so that on ground now unoccupied by buildings, no future erection shall be made, except with the sanction of the Commission.

9. A clause to protect the purity and wholesomeness of human food, as sold within the City, by affixing penalties to its exposure for sale in any adulterated, decayed, or corrupted condition, which may impair its fitness for consumption.

These are the heads under which it has appeared to me that the most useful additions might be made to your Act of Parliament, in matters within the scope of my official observation. There are some other minor modifications, which I have submitted to your Committee of Health, and which, as they relate merely to detail, it is unnecessary for me to bring before you. All the recommendations which I have made on this subject result from a careful scrutiny of the operation of your present Act, during the two years that I have had the honour of serving you. Each separate paragraph of my enumeration founds itself upon a distinct recollection of occasions, sometimes numerous, wherein, for want of such enactments, nuisances which you were anxious to suppress have eluded your authority, or advantages which you were desirous to realise have stood beyond your attainment.

It was in the nature of things that this should be so; for the period has been one of experiment. When the City Sewers Act became law for a period of two years, every one interested in its success must have felt the advantage of that limited duration, and have rejoiced in the opportunity, thus afforded, of rendering it eventually the most perfect embodiment of sanitary law.

Parts of the Act have abundantly fulfilled your intention. In the all-important particular of house-drainage—in the enforcement of water-supply, so far as circumstances rendered possible—in the effective preservation of exterior cleanliness—in the abatement of innumerable nuisances—in the provision and maintenance of sewerage and paving and lighting throughout the City—the public has seen your Hon. Court exercising very large powers with very unusual success. And this, let me add, during a time of no ordinary difficulty: a time when, day by day, the vast importance of sanitary improvement has been gaining ground among the educated classes of the country, as a deep and settled conviction; a time when the feelings of all classes have been powerfully excited, and when the metropolis especially has been convulsed with alarm, in the anticipation and in the aspect of a pestilence.

In some other respects the Act has been less operative, and for an obvious reason. To legislate for health was new to you. It was only through the gradual investigation of officers, appointed under the Act, that you could become adequately informed of those sanitary requirements on which your ultimate legislation for the City must found itself. Only by their slow experience, only by failure as well as by success, was it possible that correct knowledge could be obtained of the powers really needful for fulfilling your sanitary intentions.

In carefully watching the fluctuations of health amid your population; in investigating the causes which determine them; and in testing, on every occasion, how far these causes are amenable to the control of your Act of Parliament, I have arrived at the conclusions submitted to you in the present and in my previous Report.

To excuse the length at which I have addressed you, I have but another word to say. My apology consists in the assurance, which again I lay before you, that in spite of all your exertions, untimely and preventable death still prevails most largely in the population under your charge. If the deliberate promises of Science be not an empty delusion, it is practicable to reduce human mortality within your jurisdiction to nearly the half of its present prevalence.

It is the sad prerogative of my Profession to have such knowledge of death as cannot lie within your experience. Knowing all that is implied in each one separate instance of its visitation—how much pain and sorrow, often how much bereavement and destitution, we, perhaps better than others, learn to appreciate that vast amount of social misery which has its symbol in the high death-rate of a population. It is from this practical point of view that I have ever estimated the importance of your functions, and have fixed the obligations of my own humbler office. Notwithstanding all that Medicine can achieve, to succour the body as it struggles against actual disease—notwithstanding those resources of drugs and handicraft, by which the physician or surgeon opposes death or mitigates pain in the detailed exercise of his art, all past experience, and every transaction of our daily practice, confirm the popular adage that prevention is better than cure. If this be true in any particular case, much more is it true in the largest application. While Curative Medicine—ministering step by step to the individual units of a population, can produce only minute and molecular changes in the health of society; Sanitary Law, embodying the principles of Preventive Medicine, may ensure to the aggregate masses of the community prolongation of life and diminution of suffering: in the working of some single enactment, it may affect the lives of generations of men, and may moderate in respect of millions the sources of orphanage and poverty.

Surely, it is no common epoch in the history of the metropolis when you are appealing to the Legislature, on behalf of the Corporation, for the grant of additional powers towards the accomplishment of so great a beneficence. To me it has always been an act of the deepest and most anxious responsibility to address you; and it would ill have become me now, in the attempt to discharge so grave a duty, if I had spared any pains or withholden any conviction.

While endeavouring in this, and in my previous Report, faithfully and in detail to depict for you the actual condition of human life within the City, and while seeking to deduce for you, from reason and experience, those sanitary principles which are applicable for its improvement, I have had no trivial or easy task; and you will pardon me, I hope, both if I have incompletely surmounted the difficulties of so large a subject, and if, by the length of my Report, I have made too great claims on your indulgence.

I have the honour to remain, &c., &c.

Note to Column I.

Speaking generally, this column may be taken to express the number of houses in each Ward. Exception must be made, however, in respect of the four wards marked with asterisks; for in them the real number of houses somewhat exceeds the number of assessments. This discrepancy depends on the fact that, in the specified wards, a court containing several houses is often assessed by composition as a single property. Mr. Daw informs me that in order to correct on this score the numbers which stand opposite the Wards in question, addition should be made as follows:—to Bishopsgate Without, 80—raising its number to 1100; to Cripplegate Without, 150—raising its number to 1112; to Farringdon Without, 100—raising its number to 3633; to Portsoken, 150—raising its number to 1408. This would raise the total number to 16,384, which is about the estimated number of houses in the City. From the results of the last census it appeared that the population of the City was distributed as follows:—within the district of the City of London Union on an average of 7·1 persons to each house; within the district of the East and West London Unions on an average of 8·8 persons to each house.

Comparative prevalence, in the several Wards of the City, of such Deaths as particularly depend on local circumstances.

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII.

Number of Assess- ments. vide Note. WARDS. Total for the biennial period, from Oct. 1, 1848, to Sept. 28, 1850. Separate Totals of the two years ending respec- tively Sept. 29. Cholera, Dysentery, Epidemic Diarrhœa. Year ending Sept. Fever, &c. Year ending Sept. Small Pox, &c. Year ending Sept. Erysipelas, Puerp. Fever, Pyæmia, &c. Year ending Sept. Scarlet Fever, Cynanche Maligna, &c. Year ending Sept. Diarrhœa, Pneumonia, & Bronchitis of Infants. Year ending Sept. Infantile Zymotic Dis. Hooping- cough, Croup, Measles, &c. Year ending Sept. Hydro- cephalus, Con- vulsions, &c. Year ending Sept.

1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850

184 Aldersgate Within 30 15 15 1 ... 1 1 ... ... ... 1 4 2 3 7 2 2 4 2

572 Aldersgate Without 179 122 57 32 4 15 5 1 5 4 3 14 ... 27 12 13 9 16 19

809 Aldgate 102 66 36 3 1 7 7 2 ... 2 2 5 2 18 9 9 5 20 10

133 Bassishaw 7 5 2 3 ... ... 1 ... ... 1 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 1

314 Billingsgate 33 28 5 15 ... 2 ... ... ... 2 ... 3 ... 2 1 4 ... ... 4

334 Bishopsgate Within 60 43 17 20 ... 1 3 ... ... 1 1 2 ... 3 5 6 5 5 3

*1020 Bishopsgate Without 329 231 98 88 7 18 13 4 5 3 5 10 3 41 19 32 15 35 31

251 Bread Street 22 16 6 2 ... 3 ... ... ... 1 1 ... ... 6 3 ... ... 4 2

205 Bridge 18 12 6 4 ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 1 2

536 Broad Street 42 29 13 7 ... 4 1 ... ... 1 ... 3 3 4 6 7 1 3 2

194 Candlewick 13 12 1 7 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 ... 3 1

499 Castlebaynard 103 75 28 28 ... 5 5 1 ... 1 ... 4 ... 6 11 10 5 20 7

341 Cheap 32 22 10 4 1 3 ... ... ... 2 1 2 ... 5 3 ... 2 5 3

626 Coleman Street 66 42 24 1 3 8 3 ... ... 2 ... 3 ... 10 9 6 2 12 7

294 Cordwainer 5 5 ... 2 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 ...

158 Cornhill 4 2 2 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 ... ... 1 ... 1

471 Cripplegate Within 80 50 30 8 ... 4 1 ... ... 2 2 3 ... 12 8 7 7 14 12

*962 Cripplegate Without 299 207 92 86 11 15 6 3 7 3 3 17 ... 33 29 31 15 19 21

232 Dowgate 25 20 5 12 ... ... ... ... 2 ... ... 1 1 2 ... 1 1 4 1

961 Farringdon Within 153 117 36 67 ... 9 4 1 1 1 1 4 1 15 17 9 2 11 10

*3533 Farringdon Without 845 613 232 370 19 48 40 2 10 13 12 34 10 56 72 33 31 57 38

409 Langbourn 29 12 17 3 1 1 2 1 ... ... 2 1 1 1 2 3 2 2 7

166 Lime Street 8 4 4 1 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 1 ... 2 2 1

*1258 Portsoken 143 82 61 29 5 7 14 ... 2 2 1 9 1 14 10 12 10 9 18

343 Queenhithe 59 36 23 14 1 2 4 2 1 1 1 7 2 5 4 4 4 1 6

611 Tower 46 22 24 9 ... 4 3 ... ... 1 3 1 2 3 8 ... 1 4 7

253 Vintry 14 11 3 5 ... 2 1 ... ... ... ... 1 ... 1 ... 1 ... 5 2

235 Walbrook 24 15 9 3 1 ... 2 ... ... ... ... 2 2 4 3 1 1 5 ...

City of London Union 25 18 7 1 ... 7 2 ... ... 1 ... 2 1 3 3 1 ... 3 1

15904 The Deaths from all causes within same period were 6551 - 2795 1932 863 825 54 166 118 17 33 44 40 135 32 285 243 196 124 264 219

480

16384 2795 879 284 50 84 167 528 320 483

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII.

Number of Assess- ments. vide Note. WARDS. Total for the biennial period, from Oct. 1, 1848, to Sept. 28, 1850. Separate Totals of the two years ending respec- tively Sept. 29. Cholera, Dysentery, Epidemic Diarrhœa. Year ending Sept. Fever, &c. Year ending Sept. Small Pox, &c. Year ending Sept.

1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850

184 Aldersgate Within 30 15 15 1 ... 1 1 ... ...

572 Aldersgate Without 179 122 57 32 4 15 5 1 5

809 Aldgate 102 66 36 3 1 7 7 2 ...

133 Bassishaw 7 5 2 3 ... ... 1 ... ...

314 Billingsgate 33 28 5 15 ... 2 ... ... ...

334 Bishopsgate Within 60 43 17 20 ... 1 3 ... ...

*1020 Bishopsgate Without 329 231 98 88 7 18 13 4 5

251 Bread Street 22 16 6 2 ... 3 ... ... ...

205 Bridge 18 12 6 4 ... ... ... ... ...

536 Broad Street 42 29 13 7 ... 4 1 ... ...

194 Candlewick 13 12 1 7 ... ... ... ... ...

499 Castlebaynard 103 75 28 28 ... 5 5 1 ...

341 Cheap 32 22 10 4 1 3 ... ... ...

626 Coleman Street 66 42 24 1 3 8 3 ... ...

294 Cordwainer 5 5 ... 2 ... ... ... ... ...

158 Cornhill 4 2 2 ... ... ... ... ... ...

471 Cripplegate Within 80 50 30 8 ... 4 1 ... ...

*962 Cripplegate Without 299 207 92 86 11 15 6 3 7

232 Dowgate 25 20 5 12 ... ... ... ... 2

961 Farringdon Within 153 117 36 67 ... 9 4 1 1

*3533 Farringdon Without 845 613 232 370 19 48 40 2 10

409 Langbourn 29 12 17 3 1 1 2 1 ...

166 Lime Street 8 4 4 1 ... ... ... ... ...

*1258 Portsoken 143 82 61 29 5 7 14 ... 2

343 Queenhithe 59 36 23 14 1 2 4 2 1

611 Tower 46 22 24 9 ... 4 3 ... ...

253 Vintry 14 11 3 5 ... 2 1 ... ...

235 Walbrook 24 15 9 3 1 ... 2 ... ...

City of London Union 25 18 7 1 ... 7 2 ... ...

15904 The Deaths from all causes within same period were 6551 - 2795 1932 863 825 54 166 118 17 33

480

16384 2795 879 284 50

I. II. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII.

Number of Assess- ments. vide Note. WARDS. Erysipelas, Puerp. Fever, Pyæmia, &c. Year ending Sept. Scarlet Fever, Cynanche Maligna, &c. Year ending Sept. Diarrhœa, Pneumonia, & Bronchitis of Infants. Year ending Sept. Infantile Zymotic Dis. Hooping- cough, Croup, Measles, &c. Year ending Sept. Hydro- cephalus, Con- vulsions, &c. Year ending Sept.

1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850 1849 1850

184 Aldersgate Within ... 1 4 2 3 7 2 2 4 2

572 Aldersgate Without 4 3 14 ... 27 12 13 9 16 19

809 Aldgate 2 2 5 2 18 9 9 5 20 10

133 Bassishaw 1 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 1

314 Billingsgate 2 ... 3 ... 2 1 4 ... ... 4

334 Bishopsgate Within 1 1 2 ... 3 5 6 5 5 3

*1020 Bishopsgate Without 3 5 10 3 41 19 32 15 35 31

251 Bread Street 1 1 ... ... 6 3 ... ... 4 2

205 Bridge ... 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 1 2

536 Broad Street 1 ... 3 3 4 6 7 1 3 2

194 Candlewick ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 ... 3 1

499 Castlebaynard 1 ... 4 ... 6 11 10 5 20 7

341 Cheap 2 1 2 ... 5 3 ... 2 5 3

626 Coleman Street 2 ... 3 ... 10 9 6 2 12 7

294 Cordwainer ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 ...

158 Cornhill ... ... ... ... 2 ... ... 1 ... 1

471 Cripplegate Within 2 2 3 ... 12 8 7 7 14 12

*962 Cripplegate Without 3 3 17 ... 33 29 31 15 19 21

232 Dowgate ... ... 1 1 2 ... 1 1 4 1

961 Farringdon Within 1 1 4 1 15 17 9 2 11 10

*3533 Farringdon Without 13 12 34 10 56 72 33 31 57 38

409 Langbourn ... 2 1 1 1 2 3 2 2 7

166 Lime Street ... ... ... ... 1 1 ... 2 2 1

*1258 Portsoken 2 1 9 1 14 10 12 10 9 18

343 Queenhithe 1 1 7 2 5 4 4 4 1 6

611 Tower 1 3 1 2 3 8 ... 1 4 7

253 Vintry ... ... 1 ... 1 ... 1 ... 5 2

235 Walbrook ... ... 2 2 4 3 1 1 5 ...

City of London Union 1 ... 2 1 3 3 1 ... 3 1

15904 The Deaths from all causes within same period were 6551 - 44 40 135 32 285 243 196 124 264 219

480

16384 84 167 528 320 483

Letter by Mr. Thomas Taylor, Lecturer on Chemistry at the Medical School of the Middlesex Hospital, on the Chemical Qualities of certain Waters.

4, Vere-street, Oxford-street, November, 1850.

Dear Sir,

Having, by your desire, submitted the following samples of water to chemical analysis, I now beg leave to lay before you the result; and also, at the same time, to reply to certain questions which you likewise proposed.

The samples of water taken for examination were derived from the following sources:—

A. Water supplied by the New River Company.

B. Water supplied by the East London Company.

C. Water from a spring in the neighbourhood of Haslemere, Surrey.

D. Water from a well in Bishopsgate-street.

A. This water was taken from an upright pipe in a court-yard of the Guildhall. It was slightly opalescent, inodorous, and tasteless; numerous small particles floated in it, which took a considerable time to subside. The matter deposited was of a rust colour, and consisted of peroxide of iron, with a little sulphate and carbonate of lime, and organic matter. It is to be observed that, as the water from this pipe is seldom used, these impurities collect in the pipe, and are therefore in some measure accidental, although, prior to collecting the water, a considerable quantity had been allowed to run away. The water was allowed to free itself from these impurities by subsidence, before being submitted to analysis.

By evaporation to dryness, an imperial gallon left a solid residue, weighing 17·33 grs., which consisted of—

Carbonate of lime, with a little oxide of iron 11·12

Carbonate of magnesia 0·60

Sulphate of lime 1·56

Chloride of sodium 2·40

Silicic acid 0·37

Organic matter 1·19

17·24

When heated, this water became turbid; and, by continued boiling for two hours in an apparatus so arranged that the whole of the steam was condensed and returned to the water, 10·95 grs. of the earthy carbonates, coloured by oxide of iron, were deposited.

The relative hardness of this water, as determined by the soap test, distilled water being taken as unity, was 13·3.

B. The second sample of water was taken from a small tap in the house of Mr. Hall, Bishopsgate-street. The tap was attached to the main.

This water was without smell or taste, and free from floating matter. After standing some time, it deposited a very small quantity of oxide of iron. Although clear and transparent, it was not bright.

It contained 19·10 grs. of solid matter in the imperial gallon. The solid matter consisted of—

Carbonate of lime, with a little oxide of iron 14·58

Carbonate of magnesia 0·44

Sulphate of lime 1·54

Chloride of sodium 1·71

Silicic acid 0·32

Organic matter 0·72

19·31

Like the preceding water it became turbid when heated to the boiling point, and by continued ebullition for two hours, 12·90 grs. of carbonate of lime, coloured by oxide of iron, were precipitated.

Hardness in reference to distilled water as unity = 19.

C. This water was taken by ourselves from a spring-head near Haslemere, Surrey. The spring issued from the foot of a low sand-hill covered with bushes, and was received into a natural basin about four or five feet in diameter, the bottom of which was lined with pebbles and small gravel. From this basin the water flowed into a large shallow pond.

The temperature of the spring at its source was 49° Fahr., that of the air being 56° Fahr.

This water was perfectly clear and brilliant, but not sparkling. It had no appreciable taste, but was peculiarly soft and agreeable. It did not contain carbonic acid in a free state, for when mixed with a solution of chloride of calcium and of ammonia not the slightest turbidity was produced. When boiled it did not lose its transparency, nor produce any deposit, until concentrated to about one-sixth of its volume, when glittering scales of hydrated silicic acid separated.

An imperial gallon, when evaporated to dryness, left a solid residue, which weighed 5·24 grs.

This residue was perfectly white when dried at 300° Fahr.; when heated to low redness, it charred slightly at the edges. The quantity of organic matter was therefore exceedingly small.

Hardness in reference to distilled water as unity = 2·4.

On analysis, an imperial gallon was found to contain—

Carbonate of lime 2·00

Chloride of sodium 1·46

Sulphate of soda 0·407

Silicic acid 1·143

Organic matter 0·23

5·24

Traces of an alkaline nitrate were also detected.

During the short visit I made with you to Farnham, we examined several other springs near to their sources. In their general characters these waters closely resembled the preceding sample, all of them being remarkably soft, clear, transparent, inodorous, and free from any excess of organic matter, or of oxide of iron.

By your desire two samples were subsequently sent to me; one marked ‘Barford,’ the other ‘Boorley.’

The water marked Barford contained 6·30 grs. of solid matter in the imperial gallon; when evaporated, scales of silicic acid separated from it in the same manner as from the water taken at Haslemere. Neither of these waters contained any trace of carbonic acid. Their relative hardness (distilled being unity) was—Barford 2·4, Boorley 1·5.

D. The fourth sample of water was drawn from the pump near the church in Bishopsgate-street.

This water was selected as exemplifying the general composition of the shallow well-water of the City of London, when the well is situated near to a burial-ground, as is frequently the case with the parochial wells.

The water from this well is perfectly bright, clear, and even brilliant; it has an agreeable soft taste, and is much esteemed by the inhabitants of the parish, although, as will be seen by the subjoined analysis, it is an exceedingly hard water, and the large quantity of earthy salts it contains renders it unfit for all culinary and for most domestic purposes.

When heated to the boiling point, this water becomes turbid, and by continued boiling of an imperial gallon of the water for two hours, 23·03 grs. of solid matter were deposited, consisting of 22·15 grs. carbonate of lime, and 0·88 carbonate of magnesia, with a trace of phosphate of lime.

An imperial gallon of this water, when evaporated to dryness and the residue dried at a temperature of about 300° Fahr., left a residue which amounted to 88·07 grs. From another sample of the same water taken a month afterwards, 84·53 grs. of solid residue were obtained.

By an analysis, an imperial gallon of the water gave—

Carbonate of lime 28·97

Carbonate of magnesia 2·61

Sulphate of lime 17·85

Chloride of sodium 16·95

Nitrate of potass 12·40

Nitrate of soda 1·50

Nitrate of magnesia 4·92

Nitrate of ammonia 4·01

Silica 0·80

Phosphate of lime traces

Organic matter

90·01

The residue left by evaporation was of a light brown colour; when calcined at a low red heat it became slightly charred; but I could not, with any degree of certainty, determine the precise quantity of organic matter it contained: it was certainly very small.

The excess of solid matter, as shown by the analysis, over the quantity obtained by evaporating the water to dryness, is owing to the decomposition of the nitrate of ammonia.

The quantity of alkaline and earthy nitrates in this water is very remarkable. These salts are doubtless derived from the decomposition of animal matter in the adjacent churchyard. Their presence, conjoined with the inconsiderable quantity of organic matter which the water contains, illustrates in a very forcible manner the power the earth possesses of depriving the water that percolates it of any animal matter it may hold in solution; and moreover shows in how complete and rapid a manner this process is effected.

In this case the distance of the well from the churchyard is little more than the breadth of the footpath, and yet this short extent of intervening ground has, by virtue of the oxidizing power of the earth, been sufficient wholly to decompose and render inoffensive the liquid animal matter that has oozed from the putrefying corpses in the churchyard.

The result of these analyses confirms the general statement that the water derived from the sandy districts of Farnham and Bagshot is of eminent purity, and therefore peculiarly fitted for all those purposes of domestic and manufacturing economy which require the use of a very soft water.

When regarded in conjunction with the analyses made by other chemists, of the water taken from the streams, pools, and other collections of water in the same locality, it also points out that, if it be desirable to secure the water in its utmost state of purity, it should be collected at its very source, before it has had time to become impregnated with the various mineral and saline ingredients of the different soils through which it would have to pass. The total absence of free carbonic acid in these waters is a very remarkable fact, and one which I believe has not been hitherto noticed.

It will also be perceived that the principal solid constituent of the water supplied by the New River and the East London companies is carbonate of lime, held in solution by an excess of carbonic acid, an opinion already expressed by several chemists. These waters also contain an appreciable quantity of oxide of iron.

When the water from these sources is boiled, or simply brought to the boiling temperature, the excess of carbonic acid is driven off, and the carbonate of lime being thus deprived of its solvent, the greater portion of it, together with the oxide of iron, is thrown down in the form of an insoluble crystalline powder, while the water is rendered comparatively soft and pure.

Were it therefore possible that means could be devised by which the quantity of water necessary for the daily supply of London could be deprived of its excess of earthy carbonates in a manner sufficiently economic, comprehensive, and effectual, the citizens of the metropolis would enjoy the advantage of a tolerably pure soft water, free from those inconveniences which attend the use of the present hard-water supply.

Confining myself wholly to a chemical view of the subject, the principal disadvantages attending the use of hard river waters are—

First, The precipitation of earthy matter on the inside of vessels in which the water is heated. This furring of the vessel, as it is called, leads to its more rapid destruction, and has also the inconvenience of rendering it more difficult to cleanse, so that the flavour and odour of the various substances cooked in it are not readily removed. From the non-conducting power of the earthy crust, an increased consumption of fuel is also required for the due heating of the vessel.

Secondly, The admixture of the earthy salts with the various articles of food submitted to the action of hot water.

Thirdly, Diminished solvent power, as required for the purposes of the chemist, the brewer, and for many domestic purposes, as in the making of tea, soups, &c.

Fourthly, Diminished cleansing power, both as regards the direct solvent action of the water, and also as causing the decomposition of soap, and consequent increased consumption of that article. I must, however, remark that the annual loss reported to arise from this cause appears to me considerably overrated, since water is rarely used for the washing of linen until previously boiled, and the common practice of adding carbonate of soda to the water completely destroys the ill effects resulting from the hardness of the water. The additional expense of the carbonate of soda, thus added, is too trifling to merit notice; but when this salt is used in excess, as is generally the case, it produces the more serious evil of materially impairing the strength of the fabric submitted to its action.

The only real advantage which hard water possesses over soft (and in the present state of things one of considerable importance), is, that it does not act upon or erode the lead of the pipes and cisterns in which it is contained.

There are also some particular cases of minor importance in which hard water is preferred; thus dyers prefer hard water for rinsing of their goods, soft water extracting too much of the colour; but these cases are comparatively rare, and might be easily accomplished by an artificial hardening of the water.

The following Table indicates the relative hardness of the different waters as determined by the Soap test; distilled water being taken as unity, as proposed by Professor Brande. It also shows the effect of boiling in reducing the hardness of the water. The numbers express the direct quantity of an alcoholic solution of soap, which an equal bulk of each water requires in order to form a lather remaining permanent for from five to ten minutes.

Distilled water 1·0

Water from Haslemere 2·4

Boorley 1·5

Barford 2·4

Water of the New River Company 13·3

Ditto after being boiled 4·7

Water of the East London Company 19·0

Ditto after being boiled 5·6

Water from the well in Bishopsgate-street 47·4

Ditto after being boiled 26·0

The experiments which I have recently made on the action of pure water upon lead, clearly point out the necessity of keeping the pipes always full, especially in those instances in which the water has a tendency, however slight, to erode the lead. As the importance of this part of the question does not appear to have been sufficiently appreciated by the advocates of a constant instead of an intermittent supply, I will briefly recount the facts of the case, although I do not offer them as presenting anything particularly novel. If a piece of bright lead be placed in a stoppered bottle, completely filled with recently distilled water, so that the access of air be wholly excluded, the lead is but very slightly acted upon, and it is only after the lapse of three or four days that its surface becomes spangled with a few minute crystals of carbonate of lead.

If the stopper of the bottle be now removed, the lead still remaining beneath the surface of the water, the erosive action of the water on the lead proceeds more rapidly, but still slowly. But if now a portion of the water be poured off, so as to leave the lead only partially immersed, rapid action on the lead immediately commences. In the course of thirty-six or forty-eight hours, its surface becomes coated with crystalline scales of carbonate of lead, which, falling off, are succeeded by others, so that after the lapse of a few days an abundant deposit of carbonate and hydrated oxide of lead is found at the bottom of the vessel. If the experiment be made with distilled water that has been previously agitated with air, so as to completely aërate it, the lead is more rapidly acted upon, even in a closed vessel, thus clearly showing how much the action of the water upon the lead depends upon the presence or absence of atmospheric air.

Now, in a minor degree, this is precisely what takes place in a leaden pipe conveying water capable of eroding lead. While the pipe is full, comparatively but little action occurs; but when the pipe is filled alternately with air and with water, it is placed under the most favourable circumstances to ensure a rapid erosion of its substance, and consequent contamination of the water.

The rush of water necessarily produced by an intermittent flow must also detach portions of carbonate of lead from the sides of the pipe, even in those cases where the water has no very decided action on lead, and it is therefore far from improbable that in this manner the poison of lead is occasionally conveyed into our kitchens, and becomes mixed with our food.

According to your desire, I have examined the action of the waters from the above-mentioned sources on clean lead, and have arrived at the following conclusions:—the water from Haslemere has a slow though decided action upon the metal, no effect taking place until the lead had been partially immersed for four or five days. After that time, a small deposit of carbonate of lead was perceptible at the bottom of the vessel, although none could be detected in solution. The absence of carbonic acid in the water from Haslemere, Boorley, and Barford, would in all probability prevent their acting upon lead, were atmospheric air at the same time excluded. A piece of lead that had been kept for a week in a closed bottle filled with water from Haslemere did not exhibit the least trace of carbonate of lead, nor could the presence of lead be detected in the water.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that the water as drawn from the pipes of the New River and East London Companies does not exhibit the least solvent action upon lead; when, however, purified by boiling, and placed in contact with lead, crystals of carbonate of lead were observable after the lapse of three days in the water of the New River Company, while, owing to its greater hardness, the water of the East London Company did not exhibit any traces of carbonate of lead until the expiration of more than a week, and even then only in a slight degree. The same waters purified by the patented process of Clark did not exhibit so decided an action upon lead as when purified by boiling; but after evaporating to dryness the water in which lead had been immersed for three weeks, and dissolving the residue in dilute nitric acid, the presence of a minute quantity of lead was rendered evident.

It therefore appears that if leaden pipes, and especially if leaden cisterns, are to be employed in the distribution and storage of water, on the system of interrupted supply, it will be a necessary safeguard, that the water thus conveyed and stored should not be of less hardness than from six to seven degrees, compared with distilled water as unity; and conversely, it also follows, that if the inhabitants of the metropolis are to gain the advantage of using a still purer and softer water, it will be requisite to do away with the existing leaden pipes and cisterns, and to substitute for them some material which shall not communicate any poisonous or noxious ingredient to the water. As matters now stand, we escape daily poisoning by the use of water loaded with earthy salts, and are thus compelled to drink an impure water on account of the impurity of our vessels. Would it not be better, and is it impossible, to drink the pure element from a pure cup?

I remain, dear sir, with much respect, Yours obediently, Thomas Taylor.

To John Simon, Esq., F.R.S., Officer of Health to the City of London.