406 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. xn. 



entrance into his native town (Lancaster) was 

 welcomed by a peal of bells. After the comple- 

 tion of the sanitary arrangements there, Owen 

 wrote a letter to the Editor of the ' Lancaster 

 Guardian,' from which the following passages may 

 be quoted. He says : 'Asa member of the Com- 

 mission for the Health of Towns .... I believe 

 myself able to give the town a trustworthy testimony 

 of the character and the value of the works that 

 have been completed and are in progress.' After 

 this he proceeds to contrast the work done with 

 that done in other Lancashire towns, and pays a 

 high tribute to the engineers and contractors em- 

 ployed. His remarks on the policy of permit- 

 ting the water supply of large towns to fall into 

 the hands of private companies may have an in- 

 terest for the present day. ' A company,' he says, 

 1 associated for profit to be made by doling out a 

 measured and intermittent supply of a necessary 

 of vital importance to a town, may be content to 

 have works good enough for their day, or perhaps 

 the next generation ; carried out, moreover, on 

 principles relating more to the profit of share- 

 holders than the welfare of the parties supplied. 

 We, in London, have more than enough of sore 

 experience of the results of this way of supply- 

 ing w T ater ; according to which experience, water 

 companies are useful as warnings of what to avoid 

 in the plan of construction and mode of supply 

 of water to a town My anxiety now is, 



