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1825.}  Impositions of Water and Gas Companies.—On Dry Rot. 
_ For the Monthly Magazine. 
Impositions of Warer and Gas Com- 
PANIES. 
BEG to call your attention, and that 
of your numerous and intelligent 
readers, to a mischievous, and, in 
my view of the case, a highly im- 
proper practice of most of the water 
and gas companies in the metropolis; 
and which, as it chiefly operates on 
the poor and middling classes of the 
community, is not so likely to meet 
the eye or ear of those able or willing 
to assist in remedying the evil. 
The practice I allude to is this: when- 
ever the collector to a water or gas com- 
pany finds that he cannot get from the 
inhabitant of a house the rates due for 
the supply of either for a year or up- 
wards, he orders that supply to be cut 
off and discontinued ; and for this, not 
an iota of blame can be attributable 
either to him or the company employing 
him. But, what I complain of is the 
course afterwards adopted; instead of 
taking a legal remedy against the parties 
y summons, or otherwise, they lie by, 
until a new tenant comes into the house, 
upon whose application for water or gas, 
he is told that house is two, three, four, 
or more quarters due by the last house- 
keeper, amounting to so and so, which 
amount if he chooses to pay he may 
have water or gas, as the case may be, 
and if not, he must go without, and help 
himself how he can; and I know of no 
method by which he can compel them 
to supply him. 
That this is the general course adopt- 
ed, I will pledge my veracity, as I have 
had opportunities of knowing the fact, 
both in my private and public capacity ; 
and I am quite sure you will agree with 
me, it is any thing but the right course, 
Is it not making the innocent pay for the 
guilty? the good for the bad? the in- 
dustrious and pains-taking mechanic for 
the lazy and abandoned? To my mind 
_ itis clearly all these; in fact, it is more 
than is ever done for the king’s taxes ; 
land-tax alone being enforced in any 
sh case, and that falls on the owner, 
_ and not the inhabitant of the house. 
-Imerely name the fact in the hope 
that an amelioration of such a mal-prac- 
tice may take place; indeed, many of 
these companies have got monstrous 
_ powers slipped into their acts of parlia- 
ment, which the Legislature should watch 
over, and remedy; and for such a pur- 
_ pose no time can be better than the pre- 
a one—of profound peace. 
Your’s, &. J.M. L. 
$99 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
Sir: 
if licon attempts to cure the Dry Rot 
have been so numerous, and the 
subject has so often engaged the atten- 
tion of the public, that some apology 
may be necessary for occupying your 
valuable pages with the following spe- 
cific, and the more so, as I believe that 
it has appeared in another periodical 
work ; but the length of time since that 
took place is ‘so great, and the circula- 
tion of your Miscellany isso much more 
extensive, that I am induced, thinking 
I am conferring a public benefit, to for- 
ward it to you. 
The greatest care must be taken to 
remove every fibre of the fungus, and 
to clear the whole of it away, even from 
the walls of the building; and previous 
to putting in new timber, the joists, if 
for a ground floor, and the back of any 
wainscot that may be used, should be 
washed with green copperas, melted in 
the manner directed below, giving it 
two coats, which will easily adhere, and 
soon cool, if the timber be dry; then 
strew the ground. with iron scales from 
the blacksmith’s forge, which will de- 
stroy the vegetable fungus, and any sea- 
weed appearance, which attacks new 
timber much sooner than old. 
Twenty years’ proof of the efficacy of 
the above process, in the residence of 
a worthy friend at Clapton, Middlesex, 
whose dining and drawing-room floors 
had been twice relaid in the short 
space of six years, is a sufficient recom- 
mendation; and it only requires to be 
known to be resorted to, when build~ 
Ings are suffering from that most de- 
structive of all enemies, the dry-rot. 
The use of iron scales, which were 
thickly strewed on the ground before 
laying the joists of a house, built six~ 
teen years since, in a damp situation, 
has preserved the building from dry-rot ; 
no symptoms having made their appear 
ance. 
To melt green copperas (which is 
very cheap) use an iron pot, as for pitch, 
putting in a little water to assist in dis- 
solving it, keeping it stirred with a 
stick, to prevent its adherence to the 
pot—the copperas to be used as soon 
as melted. Your’s, &e. 
James G. Tarem. 
Wycombe, 17th Oct. 1825. 
ReMAnkKs 
