226 The Future Water-supply of London. [April, 



wealthy, and practical a nation as we boast ourselves to be, can live 

 on in peace in the midst of such foul impurity as riots on every side 

 of us ; that we can even sleep in our beds and forget that tens of 

 thousands of our fellow-countrymen are annually falling victims to 

 this curse of man's stupidity and sloth, to this vampire of filth wliich 

 haunts our towns and villages. And our wonder is increased when 

 we remember the ineffably disgusting nature of the filth with which 

 we are poisoned ; that we are in very truth, in many cases, drinking 

 and breathing human foecal matter ; and that the only consolation 

 we are offered in these cases for the nasty fact, is the comforting 

 assurance that it is " veiy much diluted ! " 



In considering the question of water-supply, it is important to 

 notice at the outset, that it is inseparably associated with another 

 question, wliich, for this and other reasons, is equally pressing, 

 namely, the question of the disposal of sewage. The Reports of the 

 Eugby Sewage Commission, and especially the elaborate and exhaus- 

 tive Thu'd Eeport, published in 1865, seem to leave no doubt upon 

 this i)oint ; and it is satisfactory to find that the Pollution of Elvers 

 Commission has adopted its suggestions, and has recommended the 

 enforcement of sewage irrigation as the only way of preserving 

 the purity of the streams. Many practical difficulties will no doubt 

 have to be overcome, and some few doubts will still have to be cleared 

 up, before this simple and rational method of utilizing sewage can 

 be generally adopted ; but enough has already been done to prove 

 that success, in the great majority of cases at any rate, will be a 

 matter of certainty. The Eivers Commissioners appear to have 

 satisfied themselves upon one important point, and assert, in their 

 Eeport on the Eiver Thames (1866), "that no ground exists for 

 serious apprehension of miasma from fields irrigated with sewage."* 



If this process were generally and thoroughly applied, if the 

 sewage were really passed through, and not merely over, the land, 

 and the filtration, when necessary, repeated a second time, there 

 would of course be a vast improvement in the quality of the river 

 water. Land irrigation is by fur the best mode of purifyuig sewage 

 which is known, and is immeasurably superior to any method of 

 precipitation. Precipitation, indeed, although it may, and often 

 does, diminish the amount of organic matter present in solution in 

 sewage, is rather a process of clarification than of absolute purifica- 

 tion ; whereas the action of grass-land is a chemical action, and, when 

 properly applied, there can be no doubt that it affects a considerable 

 alteration in the quality as well as quantity of the dissolved organic 

 matter.f It will be seen that the urgent necessity for the adoption 

 of this system raises a new question in regard to water-supply. It 



* P. 12. 



t Wnv, Evidence before Select Committee on Lea Kivcr Conscrvancv Bill, 

 May, 1868. 



