18S0.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



31 



of the London water companies, that filtration, to which they had only 

 partially resorted in or about the year 1829, was in full operation many 

 years previously at Manchester for the supply of pure water to the cotton 

 manufacturers ; of whose filters, in fact, those subsequently established ou 

 the banks of the Thames were but imitations at second-hand. 



The example thus set was followed by several of the other companies ; 

 those, for instance, whose sources of water were the foulest and worst, began 

 to thinly of exiending their suction pipes to less objectionable quarters. Thus, 

 the East London Company, which had previously pumped, at flood tide, from 

 a point of the Lea so near its mouth, that the water obtained was in fact the 

 turbid infiu?c of the Tliarnes itself, now brought their water by a canal three 

 miles long from a place above the influence of Ihe tide. The South Loudon, 

 following the example of the Chelsea, began to filter their drain-polluted 

 water through beds of gravel and sand; and several other companies 

 adopted, or discussed, similar partial measures of improvement. As for 

 the Grand .Junction directors — who had, from the first, been distinguislied 

 for the splendour of their promises — they gave out that they had in view a 

 scheme of almost IJomau grandeur. This dazzling proposal was to bring 

 the water of the Colne to London by a canal twenty five feet wide, witii 

 several tunnels and colossal aqueducts (of which lalter, one was to be as 

 high and three times as long as Blackfriars-hridge) and to undertake, by 

 this means, the supply of water to the whole metropolis ! This schenie was 

 the revival of one originally proposed in 1719, during the South-Sea-bubble 

 mania ; and which, afiei- being three times reproducfd in tlie last century, 

 and three times more in the present, by a serias of more or less visionary 

 projectors, was adopted by Ihe Grand Junction Company. The directors 

 introduced their bill into parliament ; and were, of course, stopped by a 

 resolution of the house to await the result of INtr. Telford's survey. It need 

 hardly be added that the project was subsequently abandoned. 



Suddenly, in the midst of these dilatory proceedings, the cholera morbus 

 of 1S32 broke out, and public attention in the metropolis was again drawn 

 to the defective state of the water supply. 



The Asiatic plague had not yet entirely subsided, when a new water com- 

 mittee was appointed to receive and consider Mr. Telford's scheme, and to 

 examine generally the remedial branch of the question. As the two pre- 

 vious committees had reported respectively on tlie price, and on the quality 

 of the water actually sold in London, so the business of the present com- 

 mittee was to investigate the relative feasibility of the various projects for 

 improving, in both these respects, the future supply of the metropolis. 

 This comiuiltee produced no report; but the minutes of evidence taken 

 before them filled a large blue book, dated 1834. 



It would be dilficult to determine which of the various engineers exa- 

 mined cut the sorriest figure. Mr. Telford's assistant, Mr. Mills, charged 

 his employer with filching his ideas ; and the illustrious constructor of the 

 Menai-bridge seems certainly, on this occasion, to have looked through his 

 colleague's eyes somewhat more than he was willing to confess. 



The plan was to form two aqueducts : one for the supply of London 

 north of the Thames, the otlier for the service of the southern nietrojiolitan 

 districts. The northern aqueduct, 10 miles long, was to bring water from 

 the Verulam, near Watford, at the rale of 30 cubic feet per second (about 

 double the actual consumption of the northern districts); tlie southern 

 aqueduct, 6 miles long, was to convey water from Ihe U'andle, near Bed- 

 dingtou, at the rate of 13 cubic feet per second — the actual consumption of 

 the metropolis south of the Thames being then about 5J cubic feel per 

 second. The northern reservoir was to be on l*rimrose-hill, 146 feet above 

 high water in Ihe Thames ; Ihe southern one on Clapham-comir.on, at a 

 level of 80 feet above high water mark. The cost, including compensation 

 to millers, was to be 785,9G5Z. for the nortliern, at'd 391,873/. for the 

 southern works. These works were to be executed at the public cost by 

 government, who were to raise the money by loan, and to deliver the 

 water into the pipes of the several companies, charging them interest on the 

 capital expended, and leaving to them its retail distribution through the 

 town. 



Altogetlier Ihe result of ihis third inquiry was negative. The need of 

 improvement was clearer than ever, but Ihe means of etlecting it seemed 

 proportionably more doubtful Ihau before. The clashing opinions of Ihe 

 rival engineers showed on how empirical a basis our water system had 

 grown up ; and the i)old pretensions of the chartered companies atibrded a 

 uew proof how firmly corporate privileges, once concetled, lake root ; and 

 liow difficult it becomes, in the process of time, to correct the evil conse- 

 quences of past legislative errors. 



One point, however, was very clearly made out— viz., that notwith- 

 standing Ihe iuertial resistance thus opposed by some companies to the 

 public demand for progress, aud the narrowness of the concessions which 

 even the most liberal of them reluctantly made, Ihe collective metropolitau 

 water rents had increased since Ihe last return in 1821 no less than 79,054/. 

 a-year, an augmentation equivalent, at 5 per cent., to an expenditure in 

 fixed capital by Ihe companies of 1,581,000/. sterling ; whereas 300,000/. 

 only, or less than a fifth of the due proportion, had actually been laid out 

 on extension of "plant" within Ihe same period. Nor was this all. The 

 added capital, thus virtually producing upwards of 26 percent, per annum 

 profit to the companies, had been mainly provided by the application of 

 surplus revenues ; or, in other words, had been extracted from the pockets 

 of the public ; against whom, nevertheless, this very outlay was now 

 reckoned as a reason for maintaining the monopoly rales. 729,885/. was 

 the vast total of capitalised plunder confessed to, iu 1834, by six. of the 



eight great companies, — the two others (the Southwaik and the New River) 

 setting down their plunder at zero. 



The West Middlesex Company, in like manner, returned their "real 

 capital embarked" as 568,045/. — a purely nominal and ficlilious amount, 

 eked out by Ihe monstrous charge of 163,712/. as the interest which their 

 plant should have produced, but did not, during the ruinous contest which 

 they themselves set on fool. Wooden pipes, persisted iu after iron ones 

 had been invented ; stone pipes, rashly adopted on insufficient trial, and 

 burst by Ihe first influx of Ihe water ; iron pipes screwed together in incon- 

 ceiyable defiance of the first principles of physics, so that Ihcy formed a 

 solid rod, which, by its own contraction in the cold weather, lore itself 

 asunder into fragments about 100 yards long— fragments which had to be 

 patched together, and in that bungled condition remain to this day, a 

 hidden monument of engineering incapacity ; all these, and scores of equally 

 costly errors, stand charged against the public as " capital embarked." la 

 what other trade is such a mode of compulation admitted ? But if, adopt- 

 ing a truer standard, we compare their charges with the real value of Ihe 

 service rendered, as shown by the payment for which it can be, and is, 

 profitably performed elsewhere, we shall find their rates something like 

 2,000 per cent, beyond the fair market price of the accommodation. Thus, 

 at Tavistock, 4,000 inhabitants, residing in 650 houses, receive a constant 

 and unlimited supply of water at an average charge of 2s. 5d. per house per 

 annum; Ihe average charge of Ihe West Middlesexbeing 52s. \0d. per house 

 per annum, Ihe difTerence 2,200 per cent. And if 200 per cent, be thrown off 

 to meet Ihe objection that Tavistock is iu respect of water service more 

 favourably situated than Loudon, and other such like pleas, there will still 

 remain the monstrous excess of 2,000 per cent, as the measure of monopolist 

 extortion ! 



No wonder that the public indignation remained unabated ; that new- 

 water schemes abounded ; and that Sir F. Burdett, who had already taken 

 a prominent part in the free-water agitation, should again, in 1810, bring 

 this question before a parliamentary committee — this time, however, of the 

 House of Lords. 



The Water-Committee of Ihe Lords, in 1840, was specially charged to 

 examine ihe project of a Mr. Paten, who enjoyed the patronage of Sir F. 

 Burdett, aud who proposed to bring water for the supply of London from 

 the springs in a valley at Ihe foot of the chalk hills near liushey, by an 

 aqueduct 12J miles long, to a reservoir behind the Eyre Arms at St. John's- 

 wood. This scheme virtually raised the important question how far the 

 Artesian or deep-well system is available as a means of supplying Ihe 

 metropolis with water! Their lordships, however, separated without set- 

 tling this or any other qiieslion, and without even making any report. 

 But they printed the evidence taken before them iu an entertaining blue 

 book. 



But the water companies, since llieir confederation in 1818, and after 

 weathering the storms of 1828 and 1834, began to feel and exercise the 

 independent powers of an imperium in imperio. In reply to the request of 

 the Lords for returns of llieir pumping-costs, coal-cunsuniption and Ihe 

 like, they one and all sent civilly-worded but firm and positive refusals of 

 the Inquired information. 



Having thus, for the third time, passed through the ordeal of a parlia- 

 mentary investigation without any legislative curtailment of their privi- 

 leges, the waier companies, in 1840, began again to regard their position 

 as impregnable ; and from that time to the present day they have accord- 

 ingly continued to draw from Ihe metropolitan public revenues, constantly 

 augmenting with the annual extension of the town. 



In the meantime, however, a new influence, unobserved by them, had 

 been slowly growing up, and silently gathering strength— an influence 

 which bids fair, at no distant period, to overthrow their confederated 

 strength, and to emancipate London from their henceforth intolerable mo- 

 nopoly. This influence was Ihe Sanitary movement. 



In 1842, Mr. Chadwick condensed the information obtained as to the 

 general health and conilition of the people, in a report (the first on the 

 Health of Towns) which created a profound sensation, aud may be said 

 to have given its first definite shape and powerful impulse to the rising 

 sanitary parly. Several thousand copies of Ihis work wore eagerly 

 bought, besides 8,000 or 10,000 which were distributed to members of 

 parliament and to the union olficers. The horrible consequences of high- 

 priced, scanty, and polluted water-supplies, detailed and demonstrated \n 

 Ihis book, made a powerful iinpressiou ou the public mind; and struck a 

 deep though noiseless blow at the root of the metropolitan monopoly. 



In 1843 this successful stroke was followed by another from tlie same 

 hand, in Ihe shape of a supplemental report on Intramural Sepulture — a 

 work which extended and enforced Ihe views of Mr. Walker on this sub- 

 ject ; and which, amongst other things, proved the horrible pollution of 

 the urban landsprings by the percolation of graveyard sanies. 



These disclosures, though apparently lending to strengthen the water 

 traders by discouraging reliauce on the pump as a means o escaping 

 their exorbitant charges, produced, in fact, a precisely opposite eiTect, — 

 increasing the public abhorrence of the water monopoly by making its 

 absolute and oppressive nature more undeniable. 



In 1841 Sir IJobert I'eel (who had taken office three years previously), 

 perceiving the strong current of public opinion that had set in towards 

 sanitary reform, and fully recognising its importance himself, appointed a 

 commission to inquire into l!:e means and appliances, mechanical and 

 administrative, proper for carrying into effect the sanitary principles that 



