74 
The London Water-Supply . 
[February, 
lastly, the management and property of the supply should 
be vested in an elective local authority, diredtly responsible 
to the rate-payers. 
The first of these requirements will not, we presume, give 
rise to any discussion. All will admit that the consumption 
of water for purposes domestic, manufacturing, sanitary, 
and ornamental, is likely to increase even more rapidly than 
in a direCt ratio to the population. One only economy is 
possible : were Macadamised roads, as they ought to be, 
banished from all urban districts, the floods of water daily 
spent in converting their stratum of dust into mire, to the 
promotion of evil odours, might be a great part saved. 
Our second requirement also will scarcely be called in 
question, at least by the only parties entitled to be heard, 
namely, the consumers. On this subject Mr. Bateman re- 
marks that, where the constant system is in vogue, “ the 
first cost of introducing the water is reduced to the lowest 
possible point, and the pollution which more or less com- 
monly attends the storage of water in house cisterns is 
entirely prevented ; the water is delivered in the purest, 
freshest, and coolest condition, and very much of the an- 
noyance and inconvenience arising from frozen cisterns and 
burst pipes is avoided. There is no occasion for exposed 
pipes in out of the way places — for cisterns, in roofs, or on the 
top of houses — to be filled with soot and dust in summer, 
and to be frozen in winter ; and a man may live in tolerable 
comfort without the dread of the water bursting above his 
head.” Another defeCt of the intermittent system is that 
in case of a fire there is often no water in the mains, and 
precious time is lost while the turncock is being fetched to 
the scene of action. In a warm summer — an event rare 
indeed, but still within the range of possibility — we have 
known the water drawn from a house-top cistern in London 
to mark 71 0 F. It is needless to show at length that water 
exposed at such temperatures to contact with so promiscuous 
a mixture as town dust cannot be fit for human consump- 
tion. As regards those who undertake to supply water, it 
may justly be said that if they feel unable to conform with 
indispensable conditions they are bound to withdraw in 
favour of those who can. But Mr. Bateman shows that in 
his wide experience a constant water-supply by no means 
involves waste. We incline to think that the loss involved 
by the intermittent system is the greater. Ball-cocks are 
often out of order, or are purposely tied down, so that after 
the cistern is full the water rushes out at the escape-pipe 
until it is turned “off” at the main. 
