The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-13 00:00:00

♦STLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITLIZATRA,
Pvoprietor, Mr. W. Batty.
Last Week of the Pantomime.
An entire change in the Scenes of the Arena.
New Grand Spectacle.
TO-MORROW
The performance will commence at a Quarter to Seven, with a
new Grand Spectacle of THE CORSE DE LEO T; or, the Brigand
of Savoy.
To be followed by a brilliant display of litatty's peerless seenes of
the Circle, supported by the asefbraplished artistes of the establish-
ment.
To conclude with a Brand Equestrian Combo Pantomime, by
Nelson Lee, celled HARLEQUIN YANKEE DOODLE, who came
to Town epos his little Pliny.
nom-ernes ,i7e, from EIVIte till Poor.

inori KR AT LONDON BRIDGE.

Tan DAT —Vorning, IA min. after 2 I Evening, 7 min. after I
Cs- ,i•asevr -)♦[irniny 23 min. after 3 Eveamg, 38 min after 3

poured into the Excise ! These 16,500/. were subse-
quently increased to no less than 29,0001., which
amount was heightened through seventeen years' in-
fliction "in the chronic form of interest and compound
interest," to the enormous sum already mentioned,
of 32,0001. Thirty-two thousand pounds
dead weight of taxation on a single work, and that
work the " Penny Cyclopsedia"—a work calculated so
directly to promote the cause of popular education
Surely never were imposts more cruelly, more un-
warrantably, or more injudiciously applied ! Nor
is this all. After exposing the miserable effects of
the paper duty upon any one adventuring upon a
scheme so magnificent as that which has, notwithstand-
ing all losses and obstructions, been actually realised
in the " Penny.Cyclopxdia," Mr. CHARLES KNIGHT
declares in so many words that unless the paper duty
be abolished he will be wholly debarred from at-
tempting the publication of a new edition of this
splendid work, a work in every respect honourable to
the national enterprize and the national abilities. Of
itself this is a sufficiently sorrowful and impressive
declaration. But, while pronouncing it, Mr. CHARLES
KEIGHT must not be regarded as numbered
amongst the class of grumblers. He has nobly earned
for himself in this matter the right of remonstrance.
During the last twenty years, he says, " upon a tole-
rably accurate calculation, I have, from my own
unaided resources, expended Eighty Thousand Pounds
upcn Copyright and Editorial Labour ! " Again,
says he, " During the same period I have paid Fifty
Thousand Pounds Paper Duty 1 "—the latter sum
being a double charge " by the inevitable opera-
tion of a tax upon raw material." Having
fought so gallantly, and for so long a period, against
all the crushing obstructions of excessive taxation,
in the good cause of popular education, in the cause
which is identical with the intellectual development
and moral elevation of the masses, Mr. CHARLES
KNIGHT has assuredly a right at last to appeal to the
sense, and the justice, and the prudence of the Legis-
lature.

Beyond the enforcement of his most powerful
arguments against the intolerable duty upon paper by
reference to the fortunes and misfortunes incident to
his own great enterprise of the " Penny.Cyclopreiia,"
Mr. CHARLES KNIGHT demonstrates very clearly
the impossibility of a good cheap periodical
competing, under the present system of taxation,
with the bad and vicious catch-penny publications
now pouring in such poisonous quantities
from the printing-press. At the first blush,
it may appear absurd to argue the matter,
one effusion having apparently precisely the same
chance as the other. A moment's consideration,
however, will show that the fact is quite otherwise.
While the former, called for the nonce by our distin-
guished pamphleteer, " The Fountain," has to pay
so much for good paper, so much for efficient editors
and contributors, so much again for the proper labour of
compositors, and so much for the work of correction,
the latter, called by him for the nonce, on the other
hand, " The Sewer," would be issued in reams of vile
paper, from manufactories, where large bodies of chil-
dren are employed to arrange types at the wages
of shirtmakers from copy furnished by the most ig-
norant, at the " wages of scavengers." Both " The
Sewer " and " The Fountai❑ " being published
at the same price, say a penny per weekly
number, it must be sufficiently obvious from
the previous considerations that the balance-
sheets would, with an equal circulation, pre-
sent to view a very striking and deplorable difference.
Without the duties on paper, the tables would be
very speedily turned ; with it, " the Sewer would reek
on—the Fountain would cease to flow." After the
hint afforded by the promised motion of Mr. MILNER
GIBSON, and especially after the damning facts
disclosed in the remarkable pamphlet of Mr.
CHARLES KNIGHT—no one can possibly have
the temerity to deny the necessity for some im-
mediate and comprehensive alteration. Not without
cause did the printers, paper-makers, and publishers of
Great Britain, wait yesterday upon the Prime
Minister of England, through the medium of an im-
portant deputation ; not without reason do they re-
monstrate with the Legislature against an im-
post as unnecessarily severe in its operations upon
themselves as it is detrimental to the interests, the
morality, and the enlightenment of the vast body of
the community.

Among the many causes exciting to disease, there

is not, perhaps, one more fatal than an insufficient
supply of water ; to quote the words of Mr. Satost's
report, " its unrestricted supply is the first essential
of decency, of comfort, and of health, and any limita-
tion to its use in the metropolis is a barrier which
must maintain thousands in a state of the most un-
wholesome filth and degradation." That the supply
of water to the inhabitants of the metropolis is re-
stricted and insufficient, and that thousands of them
must consequently remain in a state of the most un-
wholesome filth and degradation, is, alas! but too

evident. It appears from the statements of the Ex

ecutive Committee of the Metropolitan Parochia
Water-Supply Association that there are at present

in the metropolis not fewer than 80,000 houses, with
a population of 640,000 persons, without a supply of
water. The Health of Towns Report for 1845 thus
adverts to the insufficiency of water supply to the

metropolitan poor :
" Although there is no portion of the town into which
the mains and pipes of some water companies are not
carried, yet we find that large numbers of the houses of
the poorer classes receive no supply. In the district
supplied by th• New River Company, containing about
900,000 persons, about one-third are unsupplied; and in
the district of the Southwark Company, 30,000 persons
have no supply, although the pipes of more than one

company are Carried into some parts. A still greater
proportion can obtain water only from stand-pipes, com-
wo❑ to a large number of persons, and supplied only at
int‘amittent periods. We have already pointed out the
evils of this system, and we haves no reason to believe
them to be less injurious in London than elsewhere.
they are attributable to the same causes—the natural

reluctance of the companies to supply the poor except
through the medium cf the landlord, and the expense of
a separate cistern or water-but; for each house neces-
sarily entsiled by the system of intermittent supply."
It is to the insufficiency of the supply of water that
is in a great measure to be attributed that fearful
epidemic from the visitations of which the metropolis
now periodically suffers, and there can be no doubt

tliat the ravages of cholera were caused quite as much

by a scanty supply of water as by insufficient drain-
age, indeed without an illimitable supply of water
perfect drainage is impossible. Under the present
system we can have no perfect supply of water to the
metropolis. Private companies look only to their divi-
dends, and will not, and indeed cannot, furnish a con-
stant and unintermitting supply of water at a cheap
rate. There are at present no less_than ten private
water companies, and consequently the establishments
of each, with a numerous staff of officers, to be sup-
ported by the public, who are therefore obliged
to pay ten times as much for an insufficient supply as
they would have to pay for an unlimited supply under
a properly organized system. To remedy this evil, a
Metropolitan Parochial Water-Supply Association has
been organized, of which Mr. deices WYLD, M.P., is
chairman, and the executive committee of which is
composed of representatives of the different boards of
guardians of the metropolis. " This association"—
we quote from their address, dated Central Offices,
30, Bucklersbury, Ist Feb., 1850—
" This Association has been founded for the practical
application of the following principles:—
" 1. That water, a primary necessary of life, and es-
sential of health—an indispensable element of domestic
comfort and decent social bahits' furnished by Provi-
dence for human use, without skill or labour—is not a
proper object of mercantile profit or private specula-
tion.

" 2. That its unlimited and pure supply ought to be
secured to the community at the bare lost of its conve-
nient distribution.
"3. That it is equally the interest and the duty of
the community, as a protection from contagion and dis-
ease; as a relief from the pressure of rates caused b;
the bad health and debility of the poor ; and as an in-
strument of the elevation of the morals of the labouring
classes, by affording them every facility for the improve-
ment of their domestic habits, to enforce the
.introduc-
tion of an abundant conveyed supply of pure water into
every house in the metropolis, without exception or dis-
tinction of class, on the principle of constant service and
high pressure.
"4. That economy in cost of distribution, in survey,
collection, and management, uniformity of plan. asses-
me9t, and regulation, and the requisitions of sanitary
police and domestic morals, equally suggest that the
necessary supply should be in the hands and under the
control of the public, managed by a parochial repre-
sentation, which shall embrace the whole area of distri-
bution, regulated by a competent commission chosen by

* " lp of Water to the Metropolis. The Cse
of the payersßate and Consumers statcd by the Execau-
t!va Cornm,ttee (f the Metropolitan Parochial Water-
Supply Association." London: kienry Renshaw.