462 The Water Companies : [MAT, 



no water issues from it ; but we are bound to take the thing as it has been, 

 and will be again not as it happens to be at one particular moment. And, 

 besides, by a peculiar infelicitousness in the arrangements of the Grand 

 Junction Company, their Dolphin gains very little by all this closing of the 

 Ranelagh sewer it stands so perfectly in a nest of sinks and drainage. 

 While the Ranelagh sewer is shut, an opening lower down the river, about 

 twenty yards, pours out a stream which having got into the bed of the 

 river at low water floats, with the rising of the tide, directly up to the 

 Dolphin ; and, on the other hand' though there may be some error as to 

 the two '* openings under Chelsea Hospital," which Mr. Wright's drawing 

 describes as " minor common sewers" yet there is another sewer, which 

 Mr. Wright entirely omits the sewer which runs along the western boun- 

 dary of the hospital, and is widened at the mouth so as to admit, we 

 believe, of pushing barges up to deliver coals, &c. at the door of the 

 house, ofthe contents of which sewer the Grand Junction Company is 

 not accused in the drawing which they complain of but which, in fact, 

 must go on pouring its stream down upon its Dolphin (unless we are much 

 mistaken) during the whole time ofthe returning tide. 



So, again, Mr. Coe says in his letter 



" The Dolphin of the Chelsea Water Company is immediately below, 

 and not many yards distant from, that ofthe Grand Junction Company; 

 and if the supply of either company be affected by the Ranelagh drainage 

 (which is, in i'act, the discharge of water from the Serpentine River in times 

 of flood), it would not be difficult to decide which would be so in the higher 

 degree." 



This inference is not a fair one. The Dolphin of the Chelsea Company 

 is not placed at " not many yards" from the Ranelagh sewer, but at a 

 considerable distance from it ; we should say at a distance of from one to 

 two bunded yards. And that which is of far more importance the Dol- 

 phin of the Chelsea Company is pushed out considerably farther from 

 shore than that ofthe Grand Junction Company beyond the reach of the 

 sewer streams, and into the bed of the river. 



Personally, therefore, we have not a doubt that these circumstances explain 

 the real cause of the occasional impurity ofthe Grand Junction Company's 

 supply. The foul water of which Mr. Wright's witnesses complain must have 

 been that which was taken up at some of the unfavourable periods which 

 we have described, and sent at once without being previously deposited in 

 any reservoir into the cisterns of the company's customers; and we 

 repeat that, it was acting with very culpable negligence not at once with- 

 out a moment's delay when the evil was perceived, to go about applying a 

 remedy. We believe that a remedy either by this time has been, or very shortly 

 will be, applied. We understand that the Grand Junction Company has, 

 at a great expense, been preparing, and in a few weeks at farthest will have 

 completed, an extensive reservoir on the banks of the Thames, which will 

 enable them to dispense entirely with the supply from their Dolphin at any 

 time when it may seem convenient to do so. Into this great reservoir the 

 water of the Thames is to be admitted, by means of flood-gates, when the 

 tide is up. The gates being closed as the tide falls, a body of water will 

 remain : from which, after it has been duly allowed to filter and settle, the 

 town will be supplied, in lieu of pumping as is at present done directly 

 from tho bed of the river. But while justice compels us to give credit to 

 the company for this intended improvement, still nothing can be more 

 clear than that the completion of such a project ought not to have been 



