102 3Ir. John H. Balfour Broivne [March 17, 



at least 1,000,000 people and about 800,000 other animals. The 

 London water is supplied to nearly 7,000,000 people. This is 

 obviously a large experiment, for there are about as many people in 

 Water London as in the two kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, about 

 the same population as there is in widespread Canada. The water 

 mains of London, according to the chairman of the Board, would 

 reach from London to New York and back ; and yet, notwithstanding 

 the supply of river water, the health of London is exceptionally good. 

 Indeed, there are some persons who seem to think tliat river water is 

 really more wholesome than any other, and there is an interesting 

 statistic produced in proof of this assertion. The death rate of Great 

 Yarmouth, which, as I have said, now takes its water from the Bure, 

 is 15 per 1000 ; Chester, which is supplied from the Dee, 15*4 per 

 1000 ; and Greater London, which drinks water from the Lea and the 

 Thames, has a death rate of l:->-3. But against this the death rate of 

 the great towns which have pure hill waters for their supplies are, 

 in the case of Birmingham, 15 '9 ; Manchester, 18"2; and Liver- 

 pool, 19 "2. If statistics were absolutely convincing, the case for 

 river water as against hill water would seem to be made out. But we 

 must weigh statistics, and not allow them merely to count. It might 

 almost as reasonably be suggested by anyone, who was an opponent of 

 municipal trading, that the results were due to the fact that in the 

 three first cases the water was supplied by companies and in the three 

 last by corporations. 



But, apart from any such questions, it is obvious that Thames and 

 Lea water as supplied to Loudon is far from being an unsatisfactory 

 drinking water. But it is only fair to remember that just as in 

 economics there is no such thing as " raw material," so in the case of 

 our raw waters the water as delivered is in most cases a manufactured 

 article. 



It was always understood that mere sedimentation carried down a 

 certain number of the germs which were contained in water, but the 

 experiments of Dr. Houston and others show that millions of these 

 germs in water artificially infected with cholera vibrios are dead at 

 the end of a week's storage.* 



It is under these circumstances that tlie Metropolitan Water Board 

 has abandoned the idea of going to AYales for its supplementary water 

 supply, and proposes, by a Bill in the present Parliament, to obtain 

 power to construct a chain of reservoirs for the purpose of decanting 

 the raw river water at Staines, and to spend £6,900,000 on this great 

 scheme which is to supply the wants of Greater London for the next 

 thirty years — until, indeed, the population of the MetropoHs may be 

 twelve milHons. 



* Dr. Houston has found, too, that even a week's storage of raw river water 

 is an enormous protection against the "cultured" and "uncultured" bacilli 

 of typhoid fever, and " that less than a month's storage is an absolute protec- 

 tion against typhoid fever." 



