The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-13 00:00:00

for us the signal honour of exclusion from this
share of Town-hall patronage !! ! The fact
requires no comment from us ; it will speak for
itself; and the public will not be slow in coming
to the conclusion that the parties who could
display such a spirit ,of contemptible meanness
are utterly unfit for the position which they un-
fortunately occupy.
Who, we ask, sanctioned this profuse eipen-
diture of public money for the publication of a
document which, heither the Council or the
public ever called for ? Who that knows the
career of Mr. SPENCER, and his connection with
the Rivington scheme, would place the smallest
reliance on anything emanating from him on
the water question The people of Liverpool
omplained bitterly of the offensive character
of the water supplied to them. The most
eminent of the medical profession pro:
nounced it unwholesome ; while chemists here
and elsewhere proved that in its contact
with lead it became highly poisonous.
Under such circumstances, what more sensible
course could have been taken than that proposed
by Mr. PICTON. But, said the Pikeists—no, we
shall have nothing of the sort ; our friend, Mr,
SPENCER shall report; we will go to any expense
in publishing hisreport, as we know it will all be
in our favour, but you shall not spend a penny in
procuring an impartial investigation. What do we
care about the complaints of the people about
dirty water ; about the statements of medical
men, or the analyses of your paltry Liverpool
chemists ? Here is Mr. SPENCER'S report for
you ; he says, the water is beautifully clear ; that
it is the most wholesome in the world ; that it
exercises no deleterious effect by contact with
lead, and that such being the case you must
swallow his report along with the water, and
rest contented. Such, in fact, is the insolent
dictum of the Pikeists. These men prating about
economy, forsooth, after having squandered some
40,0001. of the public money for the most
questionable purposes.
The Pike has proved an El Dorado to,a host
of adventurers—men without reputation—ama-
teur chemists, broken-down Welsh miners,
itinerant strolling geologists, jobbing and un-
principled surveyors, and a horde of other
needy nondescripts, all at once found them-
selves :on the highway to fortune. Having
once secured the services of some Town Hall
flunkey in procuring an introductbn to the
Pike engineer, their fortunes were made. It
is positively sickening to call to mind the
hundreds, aye, and even the thousands of pounds,
which were positively lavished on such characters,
and the enormous sums paid by the corporation
for tavern and other bills, even of a more ques-
tionable character. It is enough to state that
the sum paid for subsidising this swarm of men-
dicant empirics, and defraying the costs incurred
in their indulgences, would have been sufficient
to have defrayed the cost of another public library
—and the parties who sanctioned this profligate
waste of public money, now boggle at the outlay
of a few pounds, for the purpose of determining
a very important question.
Messrs. EDWARDS and NEVINS have gone the
right way to work in making their analysis.
They have not trusted to such samples of water
as they might have procured from the empotijees
of the Water Committee. They have taken
their own at the fountain head. They have had
their tests prepared in the most satisfactory
manner. Cisterns made of new lead and old
lead, of dull lead and bright lead, with soldered
joints, and without; and their report, read at the
last meeting of the Literary and Philosophical
Society, held on the 23rd ult., is conclusive
as to certain facts relative to the action of well
water and Rivington water on lead. With regard
to the Liverpool well waters, they state, " That
although they attack and corrode the cisterns, yet
they do not hold the lead in chemical solution,
and that no evil can arise from the use of lead in
storing this water." In reference to the Rivington
water, they say, " They had instituted a large
series of experiments, upwards of sixty in number.
and extending over a period of six weeks, with
water taken in the manner described above, and
in every instance they found that the Rivington
waters acted distinctly, and in some cases largely,
on lead. In no case had any been dissolved by
the well water from Green Lane." What will our
ignorant and impertinent Town Hall charlatans
say to these, to them, damnatory results, after
asserting, with all the brazen effrontery ever dis-
played by the most arrant quacks, that the
very reverse was the fact ? "In twenty-four
hours the presence of lead was detected in
leaden cisterns containing one gallon each
of Rivington water. In thirty-three days the
quantity dissolved was ascertained, on eva-
poration, to be three grains per gallon
The cistern being again charged, and left for
eleven days, yielded, upon evaporation, two grains
of sulpha`e of lead. Thus showing that the
action or the water on the lead had rather
increased than otherwise."

We are glad to learn that the gentlemen
engaged in conducting these experiments
have resolved to continue to prosecute the
same until the most conclusive results shall
have been arrived at. Nor is it their inten-
tion to confine their experiments merely to the
action of the water on lead. These, we are
informed, will embrace the leading characteristics
of the well and Rivington waters—the true causes
of the discolouration of the latter, and the various
conditions its constituents may assume under the
influence of change of seasons, floods, &c,, &c.
We again repeat that, in common with all who
have devoted attention to this subjects we are
greatly obliged to the gentlemen who have thus
undertaken to give a satisfactory solution to
points on which there has hitherto been so much
unprofitable discussion. It was high time that
the people of Liverpool should no longer have
to submit to the insolent dogmas of paid emis-
saries of the Pike, on a matter of such vast
importance as the quality of their water supply.
We understand that in a few days the report of