The Express.
London, England, 1861-06-28 00:00:00

SPOSI'IIIO IttTELLIODICE.

A late edition of the Express is published every
snowing during the racing season, costuming the
Issulti of the day's ram.

Wnered the Water Companies succeed or not
in establishing that the progress of the late cala-
mitous tire was in no degree owing to any defi-
ciency in the supply of water, the present seems a
sot unsuitable occasion for directing public atten-
tion to the bearing of their arrangements, and
especially of their method of rating, on the means
lee the speedy extinction of fires in private dwell-
**. The overwhelming magnitude of one disas-
ter should not make us forget that the innumera-
ble slighter occurrences of • similar nature involve
as annual aggregate of destruction, and of suffer-
ing, scarcely less in amount. Nor though it
happen that sometimes great capitalists have in
vain provided themselves with every known re-
119,1fte of science, ought we therefore to hold it
less incumbent upon us to take all possible pre-
e•ntioas, in every possible place, against the out-
break of so common and so terrible an enemy.
Isle an infectious disease, the extent of
the ravage of a fire can never be
foreseen, and commencing in a garret or a
sense it may reduce palaces to ruins and ley half
a city wads. If it gain head each moment's delay
adds to its strength. A few gallons of water ap-
plied en the instant of its discovery might often
died • conflagration. It is, therefore, • matter
of national importance that the means of at
epee subduing it should be provided, if pot-
able, in every dwelling. The loss of time in
sending for the engines and in opening the street
lisp is often irremediable ; and it is certain that
If each house contained in itself a reserve cistern
of tolerably capacious dimensions, and a short boss
for directing the water to the points endangered,
many a serious outbreak of fire would be pre-
venteli without the costly and destructive, though
at present inevitable, aid of the Fire Brigade.
Against this system amid safeguard, however, the
Water Companies oppose the following obstacles.
Their total charge on • dwelling-house is umde
spot a variety of stems. There is first • rate of
4 per cent. on tho rental. Then there is • charge
of from 4s. to 125. per annum for each single
watereloset, bath, or high service, and of 25. to
fie. per annum for each additional convenience of
such nature. A high service is a delivery of
water into a cistern more than 10 feet above the
pavement. Thus, every new cistern on an upper
lone involves a payment of 25. to 6s. per annum,
although not a drop of water may be wanted from
it or may flow into it during the whole year. In like
manner, every extra watercloset involves a similar
annual expense, though it is tolerably obvious
that it involves no additional consumption
of water or other extra expense to the
companies. It sensed be expected that
the poorer dallies should provide themselves
either with the moans of extinguishing domestic
fires, or even with the appliances of common
cleanliness, at such an annual cost. The obvious
remedy is that the Water Companies should be
induced, like the gas companies, to charge by
meter, so that water merely kept in store for an
emergency should not be liable to the annual rate.
There would be no more difficulty in doing this in
the one case than in the other, and in point of
feet the charge to large consumers of water is at
present made by meter. It might be proper, in
seder to throw no impediment in the way of the
employment of water in the quantities necessary
for health, to retain the rate on the rental, making
it serve as payment for the ordinary and sufficient
domestic supply, while the charge by meter should
apply only to the extra consumption. But it is
evident that the present forms of charge, which
Inuit the mere storage and the common and need-
ful consumption, ought at once to be abolished.

There would, indeed, be another way of attain-
ing the same end of readiness for a sudden de-
mand. It is the adoption of the system of con-
stant service instead of the present service for an
hour a day. This system was strongly advocated
by the sanitary reformers at the time when the
4leneral Water Companies Act, 15 and 16 Vic.,
e. 84, was under consideration of the Leinalature ;
but the Companies, while they yielded in name,
bad influence enough to make their concession
practically useh3.ls. Constant service can only be
demanded if four-fifths of the inhabitaute of a
district concur in requiring it, and, when
granted, it is under condition that no
waste pipes shall be retained in any of
the houses, and that• they shall be at all times
subject to inspection by the Companies' officers.
inglishmen will not readily avail themselves of a
privilege which would subject them to arch
risits, and which would turn their houses
into so many fresh channels for the New Rover, or
the Thames, in the event of a balleock becoming
atiff, or an unnoticed tap beginning to drop, as
taps always will do when kept under pressure. 'llia
question would, howevrr, be adjusted as fairly as
the other by the adoption of the metage system.
The careless waste of water would be sufficiently
prevented by its being made subject to the regular
charge for water used, and the acoidental cones-
quinces of neglect would be visited with a some-
what less tremendous penalty than immersion in a
universal deluge.