WATER AND DRAINAGE.
OIIR great towns are diseased because we will not take prop& pains to arrange the drainage, the course and nature of the build- ings, and the supply of water. It is evident that the three things hang much together : for if those who have to supply the water, for example, are at odds with those who arrange the buildin their difficulties and expenses are vastly increased ; and on we other hand, if they were of accord with those who plan and er- cute drainage, difficulties and cost of excavation and the like would be proportionately diminished. There would be no ,real difficulty in the matter. Yet, for want of some settled plan, Eng- lishmen in towns usually consent to drink water unfit for human consumption—almost so impure that the beast would cough at it arid pass by H Pa lth suffers. Other miserable misarrangements aggravate and extend the morbid influences • and to such passive manslaughter is a body of human beings equal to the population af a county sacrificed every year.
"The Commissioners' Reports of the results of the recent inquiries into the circumstances affecting the health of towns have shown, that in only six out of Oy of the towns to which their inquiries were directed, could the arrangements and supplies of water be deemed in any comprehensive sense good, whilst in thirteen they are indifferent, and in thirty-two they appear to be so deficient as to be pronounced bad, and so far as yet examined, frequently inferior in purity'; that of the same fifty towns scarcely one can the drainage or the sewerage be pronounced to be complete or good, whilst in seven it is indifferent, and in forty- two decidedly bad as regards the districts inhabited by the labouring classes.' These official reports also show that this state of things had generally arisen from want of science in the plans, deficient practical skill, insufficient capital, the separation of works which ought to be combined in one system, and the ab- sence of adequate motives to due economy in their execution and maintenance. In a large proportion of cases, measures of improvement are frustrated by the in- completeness of the areas for proper drainage and the other works, by local party-
spirit, and by the want of the information requisite for the direction of improve- ments. With a view to economy and efficiency, the Commissioners have recommended as essential, that the whole of the works for the supply of water—
the house and branch and main drains, and the sewers—should be combined under one management. The evidence which exposes the general inefficiency of these works, whether undertaken by elected or non-elected bodies, who have only
a slight personal interest in constantly comparing pecuniary results with the ex- penditure, also shows that the expense of thew management is rarely less than
twenty per cent per annum on extraordinary outlays. The Commissioners deem it impracticable to insure from any such bodies the same constant attention to economy in the expenditure of other people's money that contractors would give in the expenditure and the management of tWir own.' They therefore recommend as an important and main security to the public, that all such work should be maintained as well as executed upon contract; and they add, Many of such works are, however, too large for single contractors, and it appears to be desirable to give facilities for the execution and maintenance of such works by public companies, as lessees or con- tractors for terms of years, with liberty of redemption on terms previously settled.' They recommend, as advantageous to the consumers, that for the con- tractors' labour and risk, fairly remunerative net returns beyond the common rate of interest on the capital invested should be guaranteed to them."*
At length a prospect offers that the state of supine discomfort will be broken up, and that the suggestions of common sense will form something more tangible than a recommendation in a "blue book." Philanthropy brings to bear upon the subject the spirit of commercial enterprise. A. great company is about to be formed for draining and improving towns and supplying them with water. It has been found that, with profit to the undertakers, water can be furnished in such manner as to give a constant instead of an intermittent supply in the highest rooms of every house, allowing the most copious use at the most moderate cost—threepence for about 1,000 gallons, or about twopence weekly for the domestic use of every house in a town.-1- This is about one-third of the charge of the usual intermittent supplies ; less than the cost for the wear and tear of common pumps—less to the large consumer than the usual wages for hand-labour in pumping, even where he gets the water, pump, and well, gratis. The apparatus also, paradoxical as it may appear, is less costly for the constant and more copious than for the intermittent and limited supply : in fact, the apparatus is all concentrated ; instead of tanks distributed in every house to receive the periodical stream, there will only need a pipe and its turning-valve ; for the pressure at the main reservoir will keep the pipes full, and the water will always be ready to flow at a turn of the finger and thumb. The advantages of such a system to economy, comfort, and health, are inestimable.
The company will also undertake the drainage of towns ; and will remove the refuse,—which, instead of being a waste and a -nuisance, will become valuable for agricultural purposes. Some- thing of the kind is already managed in country-towns, but in a _very imperfect and objectionable way ; whereas the company will attain better results with all the best improvements as to the
means.
All this the company proposes to effect with every advantage of local superintendence, with saving to the user of its plan, and with full profit to the shareholder. Enough has been done by isolated and imperfect methods to show that with a more power- ful and a well-adjusted machinery success must be certain and striking. The list of names already attached to the company, as trustees, directors, officers, and engineers is a guarantee at once of the honest and philanthropic purpose Of the projectors and of
the practical nature of the project: for we observe as active in the undertaking, accomplished and highminded noblemen—men of trust in Government offices, and in offices connected with these very subjects—men already noted for great and successful im- provements in the public service—men eminent in physic, in agriculture, and in engineering. We welcome the project the more gladly, as it is one among many pregnant instances of the way in which the commercial spirit may be brought to bear as a vast public engine available still more to the philanthropist than to the mere nioneygetter, and performing in the shape of com- petition the offices of coiiperation. Indeed, if there is a power of advancement in the human race which will ultimately bring our kind to that stage in which men will struggle not against each Other but in company against common difficulties, it seems more rational, more analogous to our past progress, that we should not abruptly turn back and begin anew, but go on through our "com- petitive system" to a better. In these vast enterprises to benefit man, the poor and the rich, by means which unite the individual * Prospectus of the Water Supply, Drainage, and Towns Improvement Com- PanY; Lord Francis pErton, Chairman. 't "A constant supply being carried into the poorer class of tenements at a nressare of above a hundred feet, so as to deliver forty gallons of filtered water pte.diein to the highest attic, at a rate of one penny per week."
profit of competition with the strength and economy of union, we seem already to discern signs of that better stage ; as a few strange flowers straggling by the wayside indicate the traveller's approach to a new region.
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