The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-05-14 00:00:00

MR. STITT AND Tru, PIKE wrxTr.T:

• . TO THE EDITOR OF TEE NORTIIETAN MIES.
Sir,—l perceive in your impression of this day a
letter from Mr. Stitt, purporting, I suppose, to be
a reply to my faithful description of the Pike reser-,
voirs and the Pike water. Mr. Stitt quotes largely
from my report. He is right. I hope he has coin
mitred every word I have written on the subject to
his memory, and " that he has graven the same on
the palms of his hands." Truth, however, is unplea-
sant at times—often ; and hence the mass of man-
kind have borne testimony to the truth of the old
proverb, that there is " as much pleasure in being
cleated as to cheat ;" at least, so thinks your
correspondent Mr. John Stitt. He says he went
up to Rivington to see the works. and he. saw
nothing but to admire, and that he paid his own
bill at the Black Boy, which. if his insinuation is
correct, is something more than you and your friends
have done—" out of your own pockets." It is
perfectly true that there is no accounting for tastes.
Commissioner Yeh is perhaps at this moment
indulging his guests- with a bowl of bird's nest
a
sotto, to be followed by plate of cat pie ; the
Aostralasian luxuriates on his slice o'f bins clay
buttered over with obese ghoules ; while the Obii,
" the last of men," feast on the putrescent carcass
of a stranded whale, or a half-devoured seal. We,
shall say nothing of Polynesian fancies for roasted
maidens, such being among the apocryphal tastes
of the human race.
It would be idle for the greatest Solon who
ever saw the sun to try to argue any of these
beings out of their tastes and habits. They are
the creatures of geographical position—in this
respect, at least—and Providence has provided for
their wants such aliments as their organiSation,
climate, and habits stood most in. need of.

Bat these are exceptions to the mass of man.
kind; in fact, they may be called the exeresences
of humanity in respelt to " food!' There it, one
Point, however on which all are agreed, whether
Jew or Gentile, Pagan or Christian, cannibal or
Vegetarian—even the brute creation, the fiercest
earnivora of whose history and habits we .have
any knowledge, all bear testimony to. the fact that,
whether from instinct or reason, they prefer pure
limpid spring water to any other. -is it in the pre-
eent day necessary to argue on the advantages, of,
a supply of spring water, cool, pure, and unconta-
minated, over that of a surface supply, the wash
of a filthy country? Assuredly not. It would,
therefore, be only a waste of time to combat the
fancies of Mr. Stitt, or any other Pike
advocate, on this point; in fact they have
long since allowed judgment to go by default, and
now only claim mitigation of punishment, by pre-
tending that they have some authority for saying
that the stuff they have palmed on the public of
Liverpool as pure water, is not quite so bail as I
have represented it to he. lam almost sick of
replving!to such laboured sophistry, as is contained
in the letter of the Water Engineer, on which Mr.
Stitt places so much reliance. Verily, ho leans on
a broken reed. bet this miserable Pike Hireling
speak for himself.
MR. DUNCAN'S LETTER

" Hotham-street, May 11, 1857.
"My Dear Sir,—ln reply to your enquiries, I have
to say that, not one drop of the foul water referred
to finds its way into the Anglezark reservoir ; it is
carried of from the goit at Brinscall row, where a
temporary dam has existed for at least two years ;
and if any water has passed this point, it has been
caught and let off below White Coppice, where
there is a pipe inserted into the bottom of the goit,
catching, meantime, all water that falls into the
goit above this point.
" There is a drain in course of construction for
the perfect drainage of the district alluded to :
this will be completed in a few days. No one
Passing up the goit for the last four months could
fail to notice this work (Signed),

" THOS. DUNCAN.
some time ago, if I remember rightly, the
'rater Committee passed a resolution making it a
elPita/ offence for any of their servants to write or
rate anything connected with the water works---
nas that resolution been repealed, if not, why
has Mr. Duncan ventured not only to
Write a letter, but a tissue of sophis-
ticated fabrications, in order to bolster up
oco of the most villianous frauds ever perpetrated
ou a great community. On this cunningly deviSed
tale Mr. Stitt rests his justification. I never said
Mr. Stitt or any other Pikeist would be guilty of
telling a deliberate falsehood, far from it—but this
I have said, that he and others had seen through
other peoples eyes ; had he been in my company,
he would have seen what I saw, and so would his
independent ,and veracious friend, Mr. Graves,
notwithstanding that piece of doubled distilled
Jesuitry and sophistry of the water engineer to
the contrary.
Ur. Stitt says he does not know N‘ho your
reporter is," and your reporter is equally unin-
formed as to who Mr. Stitt really is ; however, I
have nothing to conceal; p my statements stoo,l
in need of confirmation, or if Mr. Stitt was really
Sincere in what he states, why does he not accept
the challenge held out to him by a writer in the
Post of yesterday ? That would be the way to test
the accuracy of our conflicting statements Who
the author of that letter is I do not know ; but I
Shall willingly abide his fiat. Surely that is a fair
Offer on the part of your REPORTER.
• lay 12, 1857.