The New York herald., 1875-09-16
The Water Supply and Proper
Economy.

Economy.
fastidious stranger from Europe once
visited this country and, of course, wrote
book giving his experiences among us. In
a chapter on ''hotels," he complained that
in all the hotels of the United States he was
unable to get enough water to wash himself.
An indignant American critic retorted that
if the assertion was true the traveller must
have been q very dirty fellow. We have on
hand just now q difficulty in the matter of
our water supply, which threatens to reopen
the question raised by the visitor from
Europe, the only difference being that it is
aWong ourselves that the controversy is
being waged, and while one side calls for
more water to wash with, the other asserts
that with proper economy the present rate of
supply is sufficient for the next twenty
years. The solution of the whole difficulty
lies in the Interpretation put on the 'proper
economy" To the ordinary mortal, we
mean of course the simple citizen of New
York, to whom the mysterious records of
the Water Bureau are as Egyptian
hieroglyphics, it seems Incredible that
we consume daily in this city O
quantity of water exceeding three hundred
millions of gallons, or about three hundred
gallons per inhabitant. To those who only
use water in their matutinal ablutions this is
especially startling, for it awakens horrible
suspicious associated with their daily and
nightly potations. People ask, Where is the
water used? For what purposes can such
vast quantity of water be needed? The
answer to these questions is simply that about
sixty per cent of our daily supply of water
is not used at oil, but wasted, ignorantly or
wantonly, through the sewers of the city. In
a well regulated community water is valued
as a necessity to life and healthful cleanliness,
and not as something to be wasted in every
conceivable manner and at every point The
Romans used water supplied from distant
sources through aqueducts of great length
and grandeur of construction. They con-
sumed over three hundred gallons per in
habitant daily, but they were cleanly peo-
pie, rich and poor frequenting the baths
every day. Besides, they needed vast sup
ply of water for use in their public gardens
and for the gladiatorial naval combats at the
But here the conditions are widely diff
erent, and it therefore needs explanation
where all this water goes to- Let any one
visit the docks and wharves of this city and
notice the constant waste of water going on
day and night wherever a hydrant can be
left running Go to the breweries and fac
tories and see the continuous outpour of the
precious fluid into the sewers and cutters
without object or benefit Examine the pri-
vate dwellings and the hotels and tenement
houses and see the water flowing from con-
stantly open taps in kitchens, bathrooms and
water closets, and then add the loss from
leakage of pipes into the sewers or the earth,
and the sum total of waste will astonish the
of water is that it is of no benefit whatever
to the hygienic condition of the city. The
streets are as dirty, the cutters as foul, the
sewers as ineffective, as if the supply only
equalled the actual demand, and types of
disease that owe their virulence to want of
cleanliness are as general and fatal in New
York city as if the people suffered from some
thing approaching to a water famine. We
leave to the responsible officials the defini-
ton of proper economy but we do not be-
lieve that the words mean in this instance
the purchase of another watershed and the
expenditure of more millions in putting up
additional reservoirs, from which the water
will be wasted just as it is at present