LONDON. 171 



Unfortunately the metropolis of England has not at its command a sufficient 

 supply of pure drinking water. The liquid supplied to some of the quarters of the 

 town abounds in organic matter in a state of decomposition ; and the death rate 

 rises there to double and even triple the height of what it is in more favoured 

 localities, where the water supply is more satisfactory.* The Thames still supplies 

 London with most of the water required for domestic purposes, and in the 

 neighbourhood of London that river is not by any means a limpid stream. Its 

 improvement has nevertheless been great since the middle of the century, when 

 the whole of the London sewage found its way into it. At that time the water of 

 the Thames was much polluted. The tide floated this matter up and down the 

 river ; the passing vessels stirred it to the surface ; and it was not without some 

 risk to health that passengers embarked in them. Even now the water of the 

 Thames, polluted by the waste washed into it from the river banks, or thrown out 

 by the crews of the vessels, is far from pure. A deposit of mud is left by it upon 

 the flats and steps of the landing-places when it retires with the ebb tide. The 

 Thames has been much "purified," as fur as it flows through London proper; but 

 this cannot be said of its lower course. 



The main drainage of London was carried out between 1859 and 1875 under 

 the supervision of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The sewage is carried to a 

 considerable distance below London, and pumped into the Thames by powerful 

 steam-engines erected at the Abbey Mills, near Barking Creek, and at Crossness 

 Point, on the opposite bank of the river. t These works cost no less than 

 £4,500,000, but they have by no moans answered expectations. The metropolis 

 has been purified, no doubt, but the towns near the outfall sewers complain of 

 being poisoned, and the silt in the river increases from year to year. It was hoped 

 more especially that the sewage discharged into the river would be carried away 

 to the sea. Unfortunately a considerable portion of this sewage, after having been 

 carried down stream by the ebb, returns with the flowing tide, and banks formed 

 of sewage approach nearer and nearer to the towns in the neighbourhood of its 

 outfalls. The Metropolitan Board of Works is responsible for this contamina- 

 tion. Several kinds of fish which formerly ascended the Thames have been 

 driven away by these impurities. Whitebait, so highly esteemed by gastro- 

 nomists,+ and which were formerly caught as high up as Greenwich, are seen there 

 no longer. The Dutch fishermen, who enter the Thames in their pursuit, restrict 

 their incursions from year to year. In 1852 they came up to Erith ; in 1859 they 

 stopped short of Greenhithe ; in 1862 they were driven from Gravesend ; and at 

 present they hardly pass beyond the Nore.§ And yet this sewage matter, which 

 poisons the river and pollutes the air of the towns, might be usefully employed 



* In 1877 the London water supply was classified as follows: — 



Unexceptionably pure 7,000,000 gallons. 



Sometimes pure 53,000,000 „ 



Polluted with sewage 61,000,000 „ 



t Total length of main sewers 254 miles, and of local sewers 776 miles. Daily discharge of sewage 

 about 500,000 tons. 



X According to Van Beneden (" Patria Belgica," i. p. 326) the whitebait is a young herring, but 

 other authorities maintain that it is a distinct species. 

 § Calvert, Official Repoii;, 1877. 



