1827,] Supply furnished to the Metropolis. 468 



waited for. The Grand Junction Company ought not to have gone on, 

 even for a single day upon any pretence in supplying the public with 

 water which appeared to be objectionable ; and we think there can be no 

 question now, that even when all is completed they must still remove 

 their Dolphin : they must not offend public feeling by keeping up even the 

 semblance of a means of supply which it is known may, under particular 

 circumstances, be noisome. The ostensible source of the water which the 

 people of London are to drink, and a focus of common sewers whether 

 they do continue to communicate, or whether they do not must not con- 

 tinue to be placed together. 



But although we agree, therefore, in the fitness of the inquiry which has 

 taken place, if only a reasonable suspicion of negligence attached to the 

 conduct of the Grand Junction Company ; and though it well becomes the 

 persons who have suffered from that negligence to take very sufficient pre- 

 cautions that the same fault shall not readily offend them again ; still the 

 public ought not to allow itself to be led, under feelings of irritation, either 

 into believing, all of a sudden, in five hundred extraordinary evils, none of 

 which exist or into subscribing Five hundred thousand pounds for a work, 

 which, if those evils did exist, would be perfectly inadequate to remedy 

 them. The moment that we heard that the people of London and West- 

 minster were being poisoned by the water that they drank, we involuntarily 

 exclaimed " Now, Heaven send this be not to conclude in a new Joint 

 Stock Water Company 1" We had a sort of instinct that the people could 

 not be about to be saved from being poisoned without being called upon to 

 pay for it. We had a presentiment of some approaching touch at the old 

 " sore place " of the town a sort of trial how far the offending spirit of 

 trying to cheat their neighbours, and eventually being cheated themselves, 

 still lurked in men's minds, in spite of whipping. 



No task on earth could be more pleasant, we are convinced, to a 

 hundred little knots of gentlemen, whom we could name, than to dispose 

 of 300,000 or 400,000 of other people's money if they could get 

 such an amount subscribed no matter if it were in a new water-work 

 in a new mine or in a new theatre. To hold the patronage of distri- 

 buting large profits to themselves, or to such other persons as they might 

 think fit ; to give jobs to engineers, architects, and surveyors ; to buy 

 land, and iron, and wood, and labour, and stone, and bricks, and mortar; 

 and to have the chance of a little dealing in " shares ;" and a little snack 

 to give to a friend in the way of law expences and agency; and moreover, 

 to have the appointment of a board of directors probably with salaries! 

 and of a " secretary," certainly with a good round salary not to speak of 

 clerks and other inferior officers; the whole thing would be very pleasant, 

 and perhaps very profitable for the persons who had the disposition of 

 the means ; but it is not quite so clear to us what would be the condition 

 of the other persons who might be benoodled into furnishing them. 



Upon this point, however, we will endeavour arguing from the past 

 and the present to the future to collect some little information. And 

 first as to the gains of the Water Companies already in existence. The 

 whole amount paid for the supply of water by the cities of London and 

 Westminster taking in the whole of the town and suburbs on the Mid- 

 dlesex side of the river is less than 200,000 a-year. This is the 

 whole income which the companies have to pay their current expendi- 

 ture, as well as to supply interest upon the vast capital sunk in plant and 

 machinery : and for i\\\$,five establishments are already combating. 



