234 
The object of every subscriber to The Gardeners' Bene¬ 
volent Institution must be to secure a maintenance to as 
many as possible of aged gardeners of good character, in¬ 
capable of work, and in other respects destitute. We 
lay an emphasis on aged, because it is quite impossible 
for this Institution, with restricted means, to admit as 
pensioners even middle-aged men. A disabled gardener 
at fifty is likely to live for more than twenty years, and 
however we may compassionate his early decrepitude, 
whether from blindness or other cause, yet we must re¬ 
member that there are many more in conditions equally 
pitiable, with the superadded claim of extreme old age. 
A gardener at 70, probably, will not survive five years, 
therefore the pension granted to one man of fifty would 
diu-ing the time of his benefitting by it have gladdened 
the hearts of four men of past threescore and ten, during 
the last years of their descent to the grave. If, them 
to secure the greatest amount of benefit be our object, 
one rule that we should adopt for guidance in the em¬ 
ployment of our vote, is to bestow this upon the oldest of 
the claimants, otherwise equally entitled to our pre¬ 
ference. 
Secondly, as entitled to an influence for our vote, we 
admit the length of time that the candidate has been a 
subscriber to the Society's fund. We do not place this 
first, because we think that from an Institution sup¬ 
ported so largely by amateurs and others who will never 
require to receive an annuity in return, a man who has 
supported himself until 75 without recourse to its funds, 
is more entitled to receive a pension than a man at 65, 
who has subscribed a few shillings to these funds; and 
so strongly do we feel on this, that we should never 
allow any weight to the circumstance of a candidate 
being a subscriber, unless he had been so for at least 
live years. 
If each subscriber would give his vote to the indi¬ 
viduals pointed out in each list of candidates by these 
tests, he would have an unanswerable reply to all so¬ 
licitations for his vote, and he would act in the way all 
must desire, namely, in the way to enable the funds of 
the Society to effect the greatest amount of benefit. 
We strongly recommend the Society to adopt some 
rule forbidding any one being eligible to an annuity 
until he has attained the age of sixty. When he attains 
this age we should also recommend, if he is then quite 
unable to work, and has been a subscriber for twenty 
years or more, that he should succeed without election 
to the first vacant pension. The title to such succession 
should be in tlie order of priority settled by the number 
of years tlie candidates may have been subscribers; a 
22 years subscriber to succeed before a subscriber of 21 
years; and the latter before one of 20 years. 
Water, every one knows, is a necessary of life, and the 
knowledge is as general that hard water is very disa¬ 
greeable when employed for washing, but not one of our 
readers, probably, ever minutely examined the conse¬ 
quences of using this hard water for drinking, cooking, 
and other household purposes. It is one of those occur- 
[July 18. 
rences of every day life which we meet with, deprecate, 
and submit to: we grumble, but are not sufficiently 
aroused to make an effort to remove the evil. We would 
earnestly endeavour to dispel this apathy, for the conse¬ 
quences are largely, very largely, injurious to the health 
and the purses of those who thus submit; and we do 
so the more confidently, because our attention has been 
recalled to the subject by a most interesting Report by 
the General Board of Health on the Supply of Water to 
the Metropolis. A report drawn up chiefly by Mr. Chad¬ 
wick, and which is only equally creditable with other 
similar documents, indicative of his ability and judg¬ 
ment. 
Now, with regard to the influence of hard water upon 
the health, it appears from the universal testimony of 
medical men from Hippocrates down to the day on which 
we are writing, that it has a tendency to constipate the 
bowels of the drinker. “ Hard water,” says Dr. Todd 
Thompson, “ under whatever name found, should be ex¬ 
cluded.” Dr. Sutherland says:— 
« Haring lived for a number of years in Liverpool, a town 
which has a supply of very hard water for domestic use, my 
attention has for a length of time been called to the fact, 
that the continued use of this water has a somewhat peculiar 
effect on the digestive functions in certain susceptible con¬ 
stitutions. There are so many local causes of disease in the 
town, which may be left behind by going to other more 
favourable localities, that it is not very easy to state posi¬ 
tively how much injury may be done by the quality ot the 
water alone, but after some experience and observation, both 
in myself and others, I arrived at conclusions which I fre¬ 
quently expressed several years ago, and which nothing has 
since occurred to alter, and these are, that in the class of 
constitutions referred to, the hard water tends to produce 
visceral obstructions; that it diminishes the natural secre¬ 
tions, produces a constipated or irregular state of the bowels, 
and consequently deranges the health. I have repeatedly 
known these complaints to vanish on leaving the town, and 
to reappear immediately on returning to it, and it was such 
repeated occurrences which fixed my attention on the hard 
selenitic water of the new red sandstone as the probable 
cause, as I believe it to be, of these affections. 
In these opinions he is sustained by the testimony of 
Drs. Heberden, Paton of Paisley, Leech and Cunning¬ 
ham of Glasgow, Wolstenholme of Bolton, and many 
others. 
Dr. Playfair enforces his conviction that hard water is 
injurious to human beings, by referring to its effect upon 
animals. He observes that, 
“ Horses have an instinctive love for soft water, and refuse 
hard water if they can possibly get the former. Hard water 
produces a rough and staring coat on horses, and renders 
them liable to gripes. Pigeons also refuse hard water if they 
obtain access to soft. Clegliom states, that hard water in 
Minorca causes diseases in the system of certain animals, 
especially of sheep. So much are race-liorses influenced by 
the quality of the water, that it is not unfrequent to carry a 
supply of soft water to the locality in which the race is to 
take place, lest, there being only hard water, the horses 
should lose condition. Mr. Youatt, in his book called “ The 
Horse,” remarking upon the desirableness of soft water for 
the horse, says, ‘ Instinct or experience has made the horse 
himself conscious of this, for he will never chink hard water 
if he has access to soft; he will leave the most transparent 
water of the well for a river, although the water may be 
turbid, and even for the muddiest pool.’ And again, in 
another place, he says, ‘ Hard water drawn fresh from the 
well will assuredly make the coat of a horse unaccustomed 
to it stare, and will not uufrequently gripe or further in¬ 
jure him.’ ” 
THE COTTAGE GARDENED. 
