The Sun.
London, England, 1828-08-05 00:00:00

Important as this fact is, it is not the less true, that the
Public attention PM never fully roused, until the appear-
410e, about fifteen months ago, of a publication, called
" The Dolphin ;" the object of which was to prove, that
article, designated by the illustrious Dr. Mead as "the
*dacie of all oar nourishment," war actually supplied to
°ism in a polluted and unwholesome condition. The writer
W*, threatened with prosecution, and his statements de-
°Low' to be Wee : a public meeting of the inhabitants of
too western part ef the town nevertheless took place :
hAns were presented to Parliament : and the result was,
appointment of a Royal Cmlimission to inquire into the
Ntate of the Supply of Water to the lUetropolis.
'The long and anxiously looked-for Report of the Com-
missioners has at length made its appearance. We have
egrefully gone over the hundred and fifty folio pages of
*high it consists, and we venture to aAsert, that a docu-
Taint of greater importance has scarcely ever been laid
}Wore the public. Upon the concurring testimony of
valuay of ear most eminent chemists and physicians, facts
of the most fearful nature are therein established, beyond
1441 possibility of eontradiction ; namely, that the water
drawn by the Companies from the river Thames, is sent
Lako our cisterns in a condition impure and offensive in
the extreme—that it is loaded with decayed animal and
legetrilde matters, the proceeds *fa hundred and forty-fire
Common sewers—that it is strongly impregnated with the
4eisterions refuse of gas, colour, lead, and soap-works, drug
lulls, and manufactories of every description—and that, in
woJtequence of this mass of pollution constantly miring
with it, it has become net only disgusting to the senses, but
unit to be employed in the preparation of food, or for any
domestic purpose.
The three Ceaniseioners, Dr. Roget, Professor Brande,
sad Mr. Telford, the eminent engineer, commenced their
labours by requesting Mr. Wright, the individual who di-
rvalod the public attention to the existing evil, to furnish
thorn With a statement of the alleged grievances, and te
pout out the beet mode of obtaining information, as to
the truth of the allegations contained in the petition of
inhaleitants of the western part of the Metropolis to
Parliament. In consequence of this request, Mr. Wright
addressed to them a Memoir, which is annexed to their
Report. This Memoir, together with the Evidence taken
isefore the Counniesioners, contains a series of testimonials
to the gross impurity of the Thames water, of which we
shall here give a brief outline. All of them will be read
With interest ; some with sensations bordering upon horror.
Few would have credited the frightful facts, if they came
in a lose questionable shape.

IVIDE,NCE YP THE IMPLIILIIY AND INSALVBEITT OF THE

THAMES WATER. StIrrLIED BY THY COMPANIPI.

Sir Marry Halford pronounces the water bent into his
house to be a filthy fluid, with which he is disgusted.
Mr. 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 an 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-
fast table and for culinary purposes, and that it adds so
much to the other unwholesome constituents of bread, as
to reader every meal injurious to the health of thousands.
Dr. Turner asserts, that the water sent 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 •f it without filtering is capable of pro-
ducing deleterious effects.

Dr. Yeateo says, that the Thames water is extremely
hk.4i, foul, dirty, and unwholesome, from the great quan-
C447,0f filthy matters continually pouring into it from
"trols4 1410Ders. He instances a disease which prevailed to
• eery serious extent, which he had himself traced to the
jaaptuities of the water for domestic use.

Kerrison makes us acquainted with a fact, the pe-
'64lo sr which will excite the same disgust in the mind of
the reader, as we ourselves feel in narrating it. Ou in-
fecting the Thames near the landing at Chelsea Hospital,
he says he saw " the foul and black stream from the Ra-
latlagit sewer, passing between the Company's steam-engine
sad the Dolphin, loaded with no small portion of undivided

. -
floating filth
.from privies ;" from which he concludes,
" a considerable quantity of hunutn excrement, in a
44104kided and undecomposed state, actually passes into
our ciata•ns."

Dr. Somerrills, the physician to Chelsea Hospital, states
ti* water to be very impure. "The tide," he sap, "stirs
up the mass of impurity produced by all that is corrupti-
is the animal and vegetable world, together with the
iitriious filth of gas and other manufactories, that con-
ataattiy flow into the Thames from Battersea down to
Gravese&d." Alluding to the water supplied to his late
residence in Hanover-square, he adds, "it was slot only
irsquently, but generally, extremely impure, fatid, and
Viusive ; that it deposited much mud, and often enough
t render its colour blackish."

Dr. James Johnsen, the author of the treatise on In-
d*stiou," pronounces the water to be disgusting to the
sight, and the effluvia to affect the senses. Until he
9:Aaged hie residence he was affected with pain after tak-
pig his breakfast, which be attributes to the water. Lie
Aites tLe fact of several young females who had been
aiireeted with bowel complaints from the same cause. If
they went out of town a few days, and drank other water,
the oomplaint subsided, but often returned nu their again
making this water. There was a scum on the surface of
+t,!: water of an oily nature, and the deposit is immense.
When his cisterns were cleaned out, the smell rendered the
hares very uncorafartable. " We skeet'," says the Doctor,
at the delicacy of the Hindu°, who slakes his thirst at
Q't same tank where hie neighbour is sacrificing to
(Iloacina ; but what :lan wa say to the delicate citizens
°L. Westminster, who fill their tanks and stomachs with
water from the Thames, at that very spot into which a
44ndred thousand ckacse, containing every species of filth
t.!•1 all unutterable things, are daily disgorging their
1'1.444! cod abominable contents. It is absolutely alit°.
4„44,.ing,..thnt in these days of refinement, and in a Metro-
riu'o, whose inhabitants pridg themselves en delicltCy and
c'!'"oess, a practice should obtain, at which posterity
will shudder, if they can credit it. A time vnist awe
when the people will open their eyes to this scene of car-
"glen, veiled and concealed as it is by iron tubes and
stove pavement'. It is probable that part of the iasalu
hilly of the Metropolis, as compared with the couut,y, may
owing to this cause."
The last professional gentleman to whose evidence we
shall refer, is; Dr. Paris, the author of the popular work on
Diet. Ile pronounces the water to be impure and offen-
sive, and says that it stinks shortly after it has come in.
Large quantities of matter are mechanically suspended in it.
Tire Company send in mud with the water, and then com-
plain that the cisterns are not kept clean. lie states, that
a family whom he attended last autumn were all ill, and
he believes it arose Evora drinking this water. " As a PhY-
S!elall," he says, " I cannot find twin; sufficiently expres_
sive of the awful effects it may be likely to produce upon
the health, and even lives, of the inhabitants of the Me-
tropolis." And in the last edition of his work he goes
'till farther, and asserts, that if a remedy be not applied to
the aril, "the ravages of some epidemic may be fairly
glitioipated."
We could adduce the corroborative testimony of many
stAer professional men of eminence, if our space would
41.10 W us to do so : we cannot, however, conclude without
`'rug a short summary of the evidence of six individuals

whose business it has been to watch the progress of the
"mischief, and to trace it up to its source.
Mr.. Mills, the engineer, tells us, that the Thames is
neither more our leas than the common sewer of London,
so far as it receives the contents of all the sewers; which
on the nos th side are ninety-nine, and on the south forty-
six. The water taken up opposite some of the sewers at
the time of discharge is nearly the substantive contents of
those channels of human ordure. Mr. Joseph Evans has
often seen the sewers 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 water is muddy
and offensive : if fresh fish are put into it, they will not
live more than six Lours, and turn a yellow colour. Mr.
Butcher, a fish-salesman, states the water to be very bad,
sad that he has known three parts of a cargo of eels to die
by the gas-water passing the vessel. Mr. Newland, the
master of a Dutch vessel, says; that out of 26,0001bs of
eels, the cargo of two boats, only 9,0001b5. were marketed
alive ; they became sick on being put into the Thames
water, and soon died ; they changed colour, and became
spotted like snakes. Another captain says he has known
3,000 weight to die in half an hour, and that if the water
gets worse, they must give up the business.
William and Thomas Hetherill, fishermen, state, that
they have left off the business because it had left them off.
They used to catch flounders, eels, roach, smelts, salmon,
&c. before they were ruined. The water gets worse every
year ; the cause is the gas: they could get plenty of dead
flounders, but no live ones; hail seen the flounders put up
their heiuls above the water, and if there was a bundle of
weeds they would escape from the water upon it. Mad
seen two thousand pound weight of fish die in an hour ;
and when the wells were opened there was quite a stench,
and oil on the top of the water.
The last evidence we shall' quote from is that of Mr.
Goldham, who has been yeoman at 'Billingsgate-market
for twenty•five years. He says, he has known 50,000
smelts brought daily to Billingsgate, and 3,000 salmon in
the season caught in the Thames. He adds, that they are
now all destroyed, and this fishery gone; and this he
attributes to the impure state of the water, from the refuse
of the gas works, from all the common sewers running
into it, and the steam-boats constantly stirring up the filth.
He has seen 4,000 eels alive at night in the Dutch boats,
and the next morning three-fourths have been dead.—
Many fishermen have been ruined by the change.
THE REMEDY, AS RECOMMONDID BY THE COMMISSIONERS.
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—alrould,
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 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 would 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 mode 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
labour's 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 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 those gentlemen did not consider it
to be a perfect one, will appear by the following observa-
tion :—" It must," say they, "be recollected, that insects
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. lf, there-
fore, it can be shown, that water taken from the parts of
the river whence the Companies draw their supplies,
either is, or is likely to be, contaminated by substances
dissolved, or chemically combined, it will follow, that
the most perfect 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 not
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 pusitis
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 filters 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 ptirification, ren-
dering the roost turbid, stagnant, and foetid water, of a
crystalline brilliancy, depriving it of every noxious ingre-
dient, 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. Hume, the respectable chemist of Long-acre, who
has long been employed by Government in analysing
waters, had two bottles of water sent to hint for analysa-
don ; 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,
however 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 bottle he found only sixteen grains of
substances, which, on examination, proved to be the same
materials peculiar to, Lnd soluble in, the water in its pri-
mitive state, and perfectly free front the impurities and
contingent foulness of the ?eater, occasioned principally by
decayed vegetable matters, a slight impregnation by animal
substances, some carbureted hydrogen or coal gas, and
carbonic acid "as. Mr. Hume concludes with bearing the
following high testimony to the merits of this discovery :
pt—hr
specimenoAt enere tahVeeo,r,icit,c careful nu;
oh
iactoleia analysis, / cannot hesitate to
mostas beffeetetctaudaolp,teadndto
filter
deserving of public encon)agement." 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 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 graham of substances passed through it; and
deleteriousrvation
of
theto
However
Com-
missioners may apply to all former systems of filtration, it
which sixteen grains are proved to be peculiar to water in
te,4e.l.
ermuch, primitive state,the
therefore,
e
,notthe dbataslel
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 Brande, one of the three Commissioners ap-
pointed by the King, has had a portable Royal Filter, for
the purpose of trying experiments on water in a similar
condition to that described by Mr. Hume ; and lie has
stepped forward with his ready testimony to the singular
merits of this tti,scevery. 1 have," he says, " tried its