Morning journal and courier., 1881-08-26
Friday Morning, August 26, 1881.


s.CITY WATERVORKS' S'' IN RICHMOND.
 If this city should buy the works of the
 New Haven Water Company and they should
 be managed as the city waterworks of Rich
 mond, Virginia, have been, the change would
 not be immensely popular. In Richmond
 the people are very justly enraged because
 with plenty of water flowing by the city
 there is not proper provision for furnishing
 it to them. So severe has the water famine
 there been that citizens have been obliged to
 buy water by the buoketful. and in some
 cases go long distances to get it.
 The water used in Richmond comes from
 the James river, and for two or three years
 the City Council has been dillydallying about
 the construction of new pump works, which
 are not now near completion. though they
 were begun to avert just such 8 calamity as
 now eonfronts the people of Richmond.
 There have been only two small pumps at
 work, and the water they supply runs down
 into the valleys, leaving the greater part of
 the population, which is on the hills, with
 out water. The blame for this condition of
 things is placed upon the Committee on Wa
 ter, which, by it's determination not to buy
 steam pump to serve until the new
 pump house was built, made water famine
 possible. The Richmond StGte says: ''The
 immense harm already done to the city of
 Richmond by the failure of the water supply
 is thing hardly to be calculated. In any
 one day of the stoppage of our factories a
 third or half of the cost of the proper
 pumping power is wasted. In week our citizens pay for water by the bucket at least ten per cent. of that payment they have had to make to the waterworks office for abun- dant water. This destroys in the minds of the people of the country all the claim that Richmond can make to be in the future great manufacturing centre We doubt whether any of our people have appreciated at its cost or weighed by reasonable scales the great the almost infinite loss we must suffer by this vile, this inexcusable this al- most incredible failure of the city's agents to furnish for our use the water that flows by our doors daily and nightly, it's stream giving always lullaby to the sleeping city, and trying in vain to remind us how we neg leot it's benefits how we starve in sight of succor, how we and our little ones pine on the point of plenty"
 canal to supply factories runs past the l city waterworks. Finding that something l must be done immediately for the suffering ! people the city authorities held a conference md the Mayor sent the following to the SUI of the works: ''In the face of
 threatening death and destruction, and hay ng failed to obtain the consent of others ! who control and consume this water, it be- comes duty to obtain that SUD- ply which we regard as our right l md which has been turned from it's natural | channel and from our works into the canal | Desirous to do this by the process of least our people, and being advised that this ,an best be accomplished by opening the wa ;er gates at Rutherford's old mill in the canal hereby direct and require you, through | your officers and employees, to proceed at once to the point indicated and turn the wa | ter from the canal into the river" This or | der was obeyed, and the diverting of water l from the factories threw 2,OOO men out of | work, but gave those suffering from lack of l water partial relief Wednesday evening | special meeting of the Common Council was \ held, and resolution was passed appropri- l atipg $70,0OO for the purchase of steam | pump and engines, with the capacity of G. l poo, GOO gallons every twenty -four hours, the ! same to be placed in working order in sixty I days from the time the contract is signed.
 The experience of Richmond with ''city l is not of character to serve as | an argument for the purchase of waterworks | by this city. Officials busy with politics, and | seeking to make themselves "solid with the | voters, are not the best persons to trust with 1 SO important a matter as the water supply of B city. A company like the New Haven l Water Company, working under suitable re- strictions is much more to be relied upon.