The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-21 00:00:00

IVID.ENCE OF THE 131191E11Y AND INSALUDRITY OF THE

THAMES WATER surrmEn BY THE comrANDA.

Sir Mealy Halford pronounces the water sent into his
rtrae to be a filthy fluid, with which he is disgusted.
eft.. Thomas, the surgeon, tells us it is saturated with de-
caYed vegetable matters, and other substances prejudicial
to health. Dr. Hooper is convinced that such matters in
the stomach greatly contribute to the production of that
state of faulty digestion and impurity of blood, of which
the inhabitants of the Metropolis are constantly complain-
ing. Mr. Keate, the surgeon, avows it to be his opinion,
that it is so filthy and impure, as to be unfit for the break-
-I'l'4 table and for culinary purposes, and that it adds so
much to the other unwholesome constituents of bread, as
to render every meal injurious to the health of thousands.
Dr. Turner asserts, that the water eent into his cisterns
dnring the hot weather frequently became quite putrid;
and Dr. J. R. Hume, of Curzon-street, has no doubt that
the continued use ef it without filtering is capable of pro-
ducing deleterious effects.
Dr. Yeates says, that the Thames water is extremely
had, foul, dirty, and unwholesome, from the great quan-
tity of filthy matters continually pouring into it front nu-
merous sewers. He instances a disease which prevailed to
a very serious extent, which he had himself traced to the
impurities of the water for domestic use.
r. Kerrison makes us acquainted with a fact, the pe-
rusal of which will excite the same disgust in the mind ef
tne reader, as we ourselves feel in narrating it. in-
!fleting the Thames near the landing at Chelsea Hospital,
'le lays he saw " the and black stream from the Ila-
4thigh sewer, passing between the Company's steam-engine
t4d the Dolphin, loaded with no small portion of undivided
Ageing filth from• privies ;" from which he concludes,
that " e considerable quantity of human excrement, in a
"divided and uudecomposed state, actually passes into
our cisterns."
i)r. Somerville, the physician to Chelsea Hospital, states
the
water to be very impure. " The tide," he says, "stirs
bil) the mass of impurity produced by all that is corrupti-
„" in the animal and vegetable world, together with the
'lions filth of gas and other manufactories, that con-
ttantly flow into the Thames from Battersea down to
r.
"avesend." Alluding to the water supplied to his late
frrelidence in Hanover-squat e, lie adds, " it was not only
4,equently,
that it deposited much mud, and often enough
° tender its colour blackish."
br. James Johnson, the author of the " Treatise on In-
Itstion," pronounces the water to be disgusting to the
'lilt, and the effluvia to affect the se...s. Until he
!hattged his residence he was affected with pain after tak-
hie breakfast, which he attributes to the water. He
states the fact of several young females who bad been
tfreeted with bowel complaints from the same cause. If
thty went out of town a few days, and drank other water,
the
complaint subsided, but often returned on their again
‘rieking this water. There was a scum ott the surface of
h,.the water of an oily nature, and the deposit is immense.
,Then his cisterns were cleaned out, the smell rendered the
4asee very uncotaforteble. " We sneer," says the Doctor,
at the delicacy of the Hindoo, who slakes his thirst at
the same tank where his neighbour is sacrificing to
r 'lNteina ; but what shall we say to the delicate citizens
!Westminster, who fill their tanks and stomachs with
'''
iv4ter from the Thames, at that very spot into which a
''edred thousand cloaca, containing every species of filth
&1 unutterable things, are daily disgorging their
;deotis and abominable contents. It is absolutely asto-
,l4 whiag, that in these days of refinement, and in a Metro-
,7'h . inhabitants pride themselves on delicacy and
'lushness a practice should obtain, at which posterity
Rill shudder, if they can mdit, it. A time must come
?gen the people will open their eyes to this scene of cor-
113tion, veiled and concealed as it is by iron tubes and
6~zie pavements. It is probable that part of the insalu
tits
of the Metropolis, as compared with the country, may
t owing to this cause."
„lie last professional gentleman to whose evidence we
vork 0
3til refer, is Dr. Paris, the author of the popular N u
i'tt• He pronounces the water to be impure and n,fren-
'.4 and says that it stinks shortly after it has come in.
quantities of matter are mechanically suspended in it.
t Company send in mud with the water, and then coin-
`in that the cisterns are not kept clean. He states, that
whom he attended last autumn were all and
', believes it arose from drinking this water. " As a phY-
It,1(•
'l4l,'' he says, " I cannot find terms sufficiently expres-
,lte of the auftd effects it may be likely to produce upon
e health, and even lives, of the inhabitants of the Mes
h
°Polis." And in the last edition Of his work he goes
4t1,111 further, and asserts, that if a tented).-be nut applied to
tit evil, "the ravages of some epidemic may be fairly
t4eicipated."
We could adduce the corroborative testimony of many
°t
hen professional men of eniinence, if our space would
..zieoz tie to do so we cannot, however, conclude without
ing a short summary of the evidence of six individuals,
Ivld„.7l)se business it has been to watch the progress of the
cad to trace it up to its source.
M. Mills, the engineer, tells us, that the Thames is
'ltithet• more nor less than the common Wee, of London,
5° tat as it receive, the contents of all the sewers; which
en the not th side are ninety-nine, and on the south forty-
The water taken up opposite some of the sewers at
the tires ef discharge is nearly the substantive contents of
those channels of human ordure. Mr. Joseph Evans has
'hen seen the sewers discharging black slimy liquid, with
MI oil, dead animals, entrails front the slaughter-houses,
and ether filth too disgusting to name. Mr. Goodhugh,

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 the 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 purposes, a necessary of life, so loaded
with all sorts of itnpuritiee 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 world not have been credited, and
that ought not to have been 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 ;node of removing so crying an evil, was
next to impossible. Prevented, however, by the limits
assigned to their inquiry, from 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 Riser and
other Companies, consuming the twenty-nine millions
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 muddy, and is susceptible of much improve-
ment by filtration."

Such is the remedy pointed out and recommended by the
Commissioners. That 04cse gentlemen did not consider it
to he a perfect one, will appear by the tollowing observa-
tion :—" It must," say they, " be recollected, that insects
and suspended impurities only arc 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. lf, there-
fore, it can be shown, 't water taken from the parts of
the river whence the Compmies draw their supplies,
either is, or is likely to be, contaminated by substances
dissolved, Or chemically combined, it will follow, that
Me most per feet system of filtering can effect only a partial
purification."
. . . .

Unfortunately, at the moment when the Commissioners
were drawing up this paragraph of their Report, the
patent for " The Royal Filter for Cisterns" had Cot
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 inclinet; to believe,
would not have contained the assertion, that "the most
perfect system of filtration tan effect only a partial purifi-
cation." The subjoined extract front 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 filters hitherto invented, inasmuch as it not only
possesses the power of clarifying the water in a pre-erni-
nent degree, but also that of complete purification, ren-
dering 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 bare assertions." The fol-
lowing statement must, we think, set the doubts of the
most sceptical at rest for ever.

Mr. Home, the respectable chemist of Long-acre, who
has long been employed hr Government in analysing
waters, had two bottles of water sent to him for analysa-
tiou ; 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 font in-
gredients, but had been purified by the Royal Filter.
In the unfiltered bottle he found, he says, flirty-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 die-
solved in it : " for," he observes, " there is no water,
however pure and wholesome, whether from deep wells, su-
perficial springs, or any other source, that is free from saline
and other soluble salts, pot at all injurious to health."

In the filtered bottle he found only sixteen grains of
substances, which, on examination, proved to be the same
materials peculiar to, and soluble in, the water in its pri-
mitive state, and perfectly free front the impurities and
contingent foulness of the water, occasioned principally by
decayed vegetable matters, a alight 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, I cannot hesitate to
pronounce the method which has been adopted to filter
this specimen of water to he most effectual, and highly
deserving
cf public eneoul ugement." The same gentle-
man, at a subsequent period, analysed two other bottles,
and says,
" the opinion I had formed of this new process
for filtering
isfulty 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 throngh it ; and
which sixteen grains are proved to be peculiar to water in
its primitive state, and not at all deleterious to health.
However much, therefore, the Observation of the Com.-
s missioners may apply to all formerystems of filtration, it
is greatly to be regretted that, before the close of their la-
bours, they had not the benefit of the preceding expet.i-
mcnts, and of the following striking testimonials to the
one of the three Com • •
Professor Brandt,, nussioners ap-
pointedof " the Royal Filter."
has had a portable Royal Filter, for
.
f trine' experiments en water in a tsimilat
the purpose . .
• thed by Mr. Hume • and he
condition to that described
testimony to the has
excellence
ev
the King,
stepped forward with his ready,,singular
1 have, he says, "tiled its
merits of this discovery.
and it appears to possess the
two great
effect on vderes:y.detarrabtiad
ouilastuecrht
contrivam:er, namely, to filter
very peyectly, and very rapidly."
Mr. Brodie, the surgeon, corroborates every thing that
has been said in its favour. He 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 eery rapidly, and was drawn off in a
state of such purity, and so entirely free from the odour

THE ESTATE of BLACKBALL and
MAINS of AUCHINHOVE, as formerly advertis-
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TUESDAY the 12th day of August next, within the Royal
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unless previously disposed of by private bargain.
Apply to Russell and Mansfield, 13, Ainslie-place ;
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Stonehaven, who will show the Lands.
June 19, 1828.

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AN HISTORICAL and PRACTICAL
TREATISE 'on SYPHILIS, Gonorrhea, Gleets,
Seminal Weakness, Strictures, Eruptions, aid Nocturnal
Pains, se frequently nsistaken for Rheumatism. These
subjects are illustrated by a variety of highly interesting
cases, together with the Miseries of a secret Vice, so long
and so unhappily pursued by the youth of both sexes. In
the one it will be found the unfailing ssurce of Barrenness,
the other have its ravages fatally developed by a distressing
state of debility, which, if not timely remedied, terminates
in Impotence ; these are its remote and ultimate effects,
while Consumptions, loss of Muscular Power, and various
Nervous Complaints, usually characterise the earliest stages
of this most destructive and insidious habit, Sr the cure of
which a mode of treatment, the result of long and success-
ful practice, and nt once safe, speedy, and effectual, is
adopted by the Author. With concluding remarks on the
evils resulting from attempts at Self Cure.
Principiis obsta ; sero medicina paratur. __ _