The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-07 00:00:00

TKAIIES WATER SUPPLIED ItY THE COMPANIES.

Sir Henry Halford pronounces the water sent into his
house to be a tilthy fluid, with which he is disgusted.
Mr. Thomas, the surgeon, tells us it is saturated with de-
cayed vegetable mutters, and other substances prejudicial
to health. Dr. Hooper is convinced that such matters in
the stountoli greatly contribute to' the production of that
state of faulty digestion and impurity of blood, of which
the inhabitants of the Aletrolsolis are constantly complain-
ing. Mr. Keate, the surgeons avows it to be his opinion,
that it is su filthy and impure, us tole unit for the break-
fast table and for culinary orposes, and that it adds so
much to the other unwholesome constituents of bread, as
to render every meal injurious to the health of thousandl.
Dr. Turner asserts, that the water' tent into his: cisterns
during the hot weather frequently became. quite putrid;
and Dr. J. R. Hume, of Curzon-street, has no doubt 'that
the continued use of it without altering is capable of pro-
dusiag deleterious effects.

Dr. Yenta says, that the Thames water is extremely
load, foul, dirty, and unwholesome, from the great quan-
tity of filthy matters continually pouring into it from nu-
merous sewers. He instances a disease which prevailed to
a very serious extent, which he had hitnself traced to the

_
impurities of the water for domestic use.
Dr: Kerrison makes us acquainted with a fact, the pe-
rusal of which will excite the same disgust in the mind of
the reader, as we ourselves feel in narrating it. On in-
specting the hunnes near the landing at Chelsea Hospital,
he says he saw " the foul and black stream from the Ile.
nelagh sewer, posing between the Company's steam-engine
and the Dolphin, loaded with no small portion of undivided
floating filth from privies ;" from which he concludes,
that " a considerable quantity of human excrement, in a
subdivided and undecomposed state, actually passes into.
our cisterns."

Dr. Somerville, the physician to Chelsea Hospital, states
the water to be very impure. • " The tide," he says, "stirs
up the mass rf impurity produced by all that is corrupti-
ble in the animal and vegetable world, together with the
noxious filth of gas and other manufactories, that con-
stantly flow into the Thames from Battersea down to
Gravesend." Alluding-to the water supplied to his late
residence in Hanover-squat e, he adds, "it was not only
frequently, but generally, extremely impure, pad, and
offensive ; that it deposited much mud, and often enough
to render its colour blackish."

Dr. James Johnson, the author of t'le " Treatise on In-
digestion," pronounces the water to be disgusting to the
sight, and the effluvia to affect the senses. Until he
changed his residence he was affected with pain after tak-
ing his breakfast, which he attributes to the water. He
states the fact of several young females who had been
affected with bowel complaints from the same cause. If
they went out of town a few days, and drank other water,
the complaint subsided, but often returned on their again
drinking this water. There was a scum ou the surface of
the water of an oily nature, awl the deposit is immense.
When his cisterns were cleaned out, the smell rendered the
house very uncomfortable. "We sneer," says the Doctor,
" at the delicacy of the I-tindoo, who slakes his thirst at
the same tank where his neighbour is sacrificing to
Cloacina ; but what shall we say to the delicate citizens
of Westminster, who fill their tanks and stinnachs with
water from the Thames, at that very spot into which a
hundred thousand cloaca, containing every species of filth
and nil unutterable things, are daily disgorging. their
hideous and abominable conteuts. It is absolutely suite-
fishing, that in these days of refinement, and in a Metro-
polis whose inhabitants pride themselves on delicacy and
cleanliness, a practice should -obtain, at which posterity
will shudder, if they ran credit it. A time must come
when the people will open their eyes to this scene of Cot-
caption, veiled and concealed as it is by iron tubes and
stone pavements. It is probable that part of the iusalu
brity of the Metropolis, as compared with the country, way
be owing to this cause."
The last professional gentle:elan to whose evidence we
shall refer, is Dr. Paris, the author of the popular work on
Diet. He pronounces the water to be impure and offen-
sive, and says that it stinks shortly after it has crane in.
Large quantities of matter are mechanically suspended in it.
The Company send in mud with the water, and then coin
plain that the cisterns are not kept clean. lie states, that
ah.ef.abnieliil,ey,vews hi
to t:sr
wahee
far attended
drinkinged t autumnt,s ‘vat
water.
were allA ill,s
a 'and
swim], he says, " I cannot find terms sufficiently expres-
tshivsehoefailthles,anwfindafeencltisceist, noufjYt the inhabitants it )7
uo(flut lclee (117‘
Me-
tropolis." And in the last edition of his work he goes
still further, and asserts, that if a remedy be not applied to
the evil, " the ravages of 'some epidemic man be fairly
anticipated."
We could adduce the corroborative testimony of Mane
other professional men of eminhel7e,4f,- ocuorneisupda
::ewviithoouult(ti
esruleuee of six individuals,
givingallotv uss.
sthul dr
to
ssuom:
ma:er
ycannot,(f he
whose business it has been to, watch the progress of the
mischief, and to trace if up to its source.
Mr. Mills, the engineer, tells us, that the Thames is
neither more nor less than the common sew) of London,
of
andall onet
Istee''s. oe rust h; for which
y -
so far as it receives the contents
on the north side are ninety-nine,
sin. The water taken bp opposite sonic of the sewers at
the time of diSeharge ;6 nearly the substantive coutents of
those channels of human ordure. Mr. Joseph Evans has
often seen thelewers discharging black slimy liquid; with
gas, oil, dead animals, entrails from the slaughter-houses,
and other filth too disgusting to name. Mr. Goodhugh,
the fishmonger, says, that the Company's wa'er as muddy
and `offensive ; if fresh fish are put into it,-they, will not
live wore than six hours, and turn a yellow colour. Mr.

Such is the picture—the faithful and frightful picture
—of the condition of the water of the Thames, 'as supplied
by the Companies to their customers. That tbe '
'inhabit-
ants of the richest, largest, most populous
,city in the
world—the seat of a more opulent body of nobility and
gentry than is to be found in any other metropolis—should,
for'so long a time, have been contented to have seen daily
running into their cisterns, and to have used, for all do-
mestic and culinary Purpo'ses; a necessary of life, so loaded
with all sorts of impurities as to be pronounced, by profes-
sional men of the first eminence, to be offensive to the
sight, disgusting to the imagination, and destructive to
health, is a fact that woald nut have been credited, and
thst ought not to have Leen credited, but upon evidence
strong as proof of Holy,Writ!"
That the Commissioners, 'with these facts before them,
should terminate their labours without taking into consi.
deration the best mode of removing so crying an evil, was
next to hripossible. Prevented, however, by the limits
assigned to their inquiry, froth looking abroad for a purer
source, they naturally turned their attention to the im-
provement of the supply at, home;
.and the result of their
labours is the recommendation of a general system of fil-
tration—a system, not limited to the fifty-three thousand
families daily drinking the filthy fluid of which we have
been speaking, but extending itself to the hundred and
seventy-six thousand tenants
,of the New River and
other Companies, consuming the twenty-nine mylicins
of gallons daily supplied to the Metropolis. "Although,"
say they, "the New River water is not open to the same
objectionable impregnations as that of the Thames, it
receives the •drainage of a large extent of country, is occa-
sionally very inuddy, and is Susceptible of ?ouch improve-
ment by filtration."

Such is the remedy pointed out and recommended by the
Comnipissioners. That those gentlemen did not consider it
LSo be a perfect one, will appear by the following observe-
ton :—" It must," say they, "be recollected, that insecti
and suspended impurities only are separated by filtration,
and that the purity of' the water, as' dependent upon
.matters held in a state of solution, cannot be improved by
any practicable modification of the process. If,' there-
fore, it can be shown, that
.water taken from the parts of
the river whence the Compnies draw 'their supplies,
either is, or is likely to be, contantinated' by substances
dissolved, or- chemically combined, it will follow, that
the most per feet system of filtering can effect only a partial
purification."
Unfortunately, at the moment tvhen the Commissioners
were drawing up this paragraph of their Report, the
Patent for " The Royal Filter for Cisterns" had 'tot
passed through the tedious Ordeal of office; for if the
merits of this invaluable discovery had been submitted to
their consideration, that Report, we are inclined to believe,
would not have contained the assertion, that "the most
perfect system of filtration can effect only a partial purifi-
cation." The subjoined extract from a Prospectus, issued
by the Proprietors, will be perused with the liveliest in-
terest by all who consider cleanliness to be essential to health,
and the purity of the element of which we are treating, to
be nearly of equal importance with the air we breathe

" The Royal Filter for Cisterns will be found superior
to all Oars hitherto invented, inasmuch as it not only
possesses the power of . clarifying the water in a pre-emi-
nent degree, but also that of complete purification, ren-
der* the most turbid, stagnant, and foetid water, of a
crystalline brilliancy, depriving it of every noxious ingre-
dier.t, and, in fact, producing ' Nature's nectar' in the
highest possible perfection;' that is to say, clear and des.
titute of taste and smell."
" But where," the reader will naturally exclaim, " is the
proof of all this to be found? We must have something
more solid and satisfactory than hare assertions." • The fol-
lowing statement must, we think, set the doubtsof the
most sceptical at rest for ever.
Mr. Hume, the respectable chemist of Long-acre, who
has long been employed,, by Government in analysing
waters, had two bottles of water sent to him for analyse-
tion ; the one full 'of all animal and vegetable matters in a
state of decomposition, and strongly impregnated with gas;
the other, a bottle which had contained the same foul in-
gredients, but had. been purified by the Royal Filter.
In the unfiltered bottle he found, he says, forty-six
grains and a half of solid matter, of which thirty grains
consisted of impurities, and the remaining sixteen grains
were the original ingredients peculiar to the water; and dis-
solved in it : " for," he observes, " there is no water,
howeeer .pure and wholesome, whether from deep wells, su-
perficial springs, or any other source, that is free from saline
and other soluble salts, not at all injurious to health."
In the filtered hot tle lie found only sixteen grains of
subst inces, which, on exatnivation, proved to be the same
materials peculiar to, and soluble in, the water in its pri-
mitive state, and perfectly free from the impurities and
contingent foulness of the water, ,occasioned principally by
decayed vegetable matters, a slight impregnation by animal
substances, some carbureted hydrogen or coal gas, and
carbonic acid gas. Mr. Hume concludes with bearing the
following high testimony to the merits of this discovery,
—" After a very careful analysis, .1 cannot hesitate to
pronounce the method
.which has been adopted to filter
this specimen of water to be most effectual, and highly
descroittg of public enema agertent." The same gentle-
-Mae, at a subsequent period, analysed two other bottles,
and says, " the opinion I had formed of this new process
for filtering is fully confirmed." We should add, that the
water thus analysed, although purposely strongly impreg-
nated with gas and other impurities, became crystallised,
and destitute of taste and smell.

Thus it is clearly proved, that of the forty-six grains and
a half of solid matter originally placed in the Royal Filter,
only sixteen grains of substances passed through it ; and
which sixteen grains are proved to be peculiar to water in
its primitive •state, and not at .all deleterious tojtealth.
Howevi r much, therefore, the abservation of the Com-
missioners may apply to- all former systems of filtration, it
is greatly to be regretted that, before the close 'of their la-
boors,. they had not the benefit of the preceding experi-
ments, and. of the following striking testimonials to the
excellence of " the Royal Filter."

Professor Brandi., one of the three Commissioner,: ap-
pointed by the King, has had a portable Royal Filter, fOr
the purpose of trying experitnents en water in a similar
coniition to that described by Mi. Hume; a:141 he has
stepped forward with his ready testimony to the singular
merits of this discovery. "I have," he says, " tiicd its
effect on very turbid water, and it appears to pcssess the
two great desiderata of such contrivance:,, namely, to filter
eery peafeetly, and very rapidly."
Mr. Brodie, the surgeon, corroborates every thing that
has been said in its• favour. lie states, that having pro-
cured some of. the foulest water his .house afforded, and
mixed with it a quantity of water impregnated with gas
from coals,
,he poured it into the Royal Filter; that it
passed through it very rapidly, and was drawn off in a
state of such purity, and so entirely free from the odour
t ' '
and taste of the gas, as tn„10 quite fit for being placed in a
decanter on the, talole,
Dr. cudaore sa ~,:e4itts
.made sufficient :•aperi-
it drank during dinner.
in
ments with the Filterl42Apparatus to satisfy his judgment
of its efficacy in rendering the must turbid water quite clear

EARLY CHRISTIAN COINS, MEDALS, &v.
This day was published, in one vol. foolscap Svo. with 39
plates, • price 75.. 6d. on cloth, a second edition, much
enlarged. of •
AN ESSAY ON ANCIENT: COINS,
MEDALS, GEMS, &c. as illustrating the Pre-
gre,S of Christianity in the Early Ages.
By the Rev. R. WALSH, L.L.D. A. &e.
And Author:of the Journey from Constantinople to England.