4o6 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. XII. 
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 : ‘ As a member of the Com- 
mission for the Health of Towns .... I believe 
myself abletogive 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, 
‘ 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 water ; 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, 
