Part 7

London was without cholera from the latter part of 1849 to August 1853. During this interval an important change had taken place in the water supply of several of the south districts of London. The Lambeth Company removed their water works, in 1852, from opposite Hungerford Market to Thames Ditton; thus obtaining a supply of water quite free from the sewage of London. The districts supplied by the Lambeth Company are, however, also supplied, to a certain extent, by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, the pipes of both companies going down every street, in the places where the supply is mixed, as was previously stated. In consequence of this intermixing of the water supply, the effect of the alteration made by the Lambeth Company on the progress of cholera was not so evident, to a cursory observer, as it would otherwise have been. It attracted the attention, however, of the Registrar-General, who published a table in the “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” for 26th November 1853, of which the following is an abstract, containing as much as applies to the south districts of London.

=TABLE IV.=

┌─────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬────────────┐ │ Water │ Sources of Supply. │ Aggregate of Districts │ Deaths in │ │ Companies. │ │ supplied chiefly by the │ 100,000 │ │ │ │ respective Companies. │inhabitants.│ ├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼────────────┬──────────────┼────────────┤ │ „ │ „ │ │ Deaths by │ │ │ │ │ │Cholera in 13 │ │ │ │ │ │ wks. ending │ │ │ │ │Population. │ Nov. 19. │ „ │ ├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼────────────┤ │(1) Lambeth │Thames, at Thames │ │ │ │ │ and (2) │ Ditton and at │ │ │ │ │ Southwark │ Battersea │ │ │ │ │ and │ │ │ │ │ │ Vauxhall │ │ 346,363│ 211│ 61│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Southwark and│Thames, at Battersea │ │ │ │ │ Vauxhall │ │ 118,267│ 111│ 94│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │(1) Southwark│Thames, at Battersea;│ │ │ │ │ and │ the Ravensbourne, │ │ │ │ │ Vauxhall, │ in Kent, & ditches │ │ │ │ │ (2) Kent │ and wells │ 17,805│ 19│ 107│ └─────────────┴─────────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┴────────────┘

It thus appears that the districts partially supplied with the improved water suffered much less than the others, although, in 1849, when the Lambeth Company obtained their supply opposite Hungerford Market, these same districts suffered quite as much as those supplied entirely by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, as was shown in table III, p. 62. The Lambeth water extends to only a small portion of some of the districts necessarily included in the group supplied by both Companies; and when the division is made a little more in detail, by taking sub-districts instead of districts, the effect of the new water supply is shown to be greater than appears in the above table. The Kent Water Company was introduced into the table by the Registrar-General on account of its supplying a small part of Rotherhithe. The following interesting remarks appeared, respecting this portion of Rotherhithe, in the “Weekly Return” of December 10, 1853:—

[Sidenote: THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853.]

“_London Water Supply._—The following is an extract from a letter which the Registrar-General has received from Mr. Pitt, the Registrar of Rotherhithe:—

“‘I consider Mr. Morris’s description of the part of the parish through which the pipes of the Kent Water Company were laid in 1849, is in the main correct; for though the Company had entered the parish, the water was but partially taken by the inhabitants up to the time of the fearful visitation in the above year.

“‘With respect to the deaths in 1849, they were certainly more numerous in the district now generally supplied by the Kent Company than in any other part of the parish. I only need mention Charlotte Row, Ram Alley, and Silver Street,—places where the scourge fell with tremendous severity.

“‘Among the recent cases of cholera, not one has occurred in the district supplied by the Kent Water Company.

“‘The parish of Rotherhithe has been badly supplied with water for many ages past. The people drank from old wells, old pumps, open ditches, and the muddy stream of the Thames.’

“In 1848–9 the mortality from cholera in Rotherhithe was higher than it was in any other district of London. This is quite in conformity with the general rule, that when cholera prevails, it is most fatal where the waters are most impure.”

The following table (which, with a little alteration in the arrangement, is taken from the “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” for 31st December 1853) shows the mortality from cholera, in the epidemic of 1853, down to a period when the disease had almost disappeared.

The districts are arranged in the order of their mortality from Cholera.

=TABLE V.=

┌──────────────────────┬──────────┬──────┬───────┬───────────────────────────┐ │ │ │Deaths│ │ │ │ │ │ by │ │ │ │ │ │Chol. │Deaths │ │ │ │Population│in 17 │ by │ │ │ Districts. │ in 1853 │wks., │Cholera│ Water Supply. │ │ │ (estim.) │ Aug. │ to │ │ │ │ │21 to │100,000│ │ │ │ │ Dec. │living.│ │ │ │ │ 17, │ │ │ │ │ │1853. │ │ │ ├──────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼───────────────────────────┤ │Bermondsey │ 48,128│ 73│ 150│Southwark & Vauxhall. │ │S. Saviour, Southwark │ 35,731│ 52│ 146│Southwark and Vauxhall, │ │ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │ │S. George, Southwark │ 51,824│ 74│ 143│Southwark and Vauxhall, │ │ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │ │St. Olave │ 19,375│ 26│ 134│Southwark & Vauxhall. │ │Rotherhithe │ 17,805│ 20│ 112│South. & Vaux., Kent. │ │Whitechapel │ 79,759│ 78│ 95│East London. │ │Newington │ 64,816│ 37│ 57│Southwark and Vauxhall, │ │ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │ │Kensington,—except │ 73,699│ 40│ 53│West Middlesex, Chelsea, │ │ Paddington │ │ │ │ Grand Junction. │ │Wandsworth │ 50,764│ 26│ 51│South. & Vaux., Pump-wells,│ │ │ │ │ │ River Wandle. │ │St. George (East) │ 48,376│ 21│ 43│East London. │ │Camberwell │ 54,667│ 22│ 40│Southwark and Vauxhall, │ │ │ │ │ │ Lambeth. │ │Stepney │ 110,775│ 40│ 34│East London. │ │Lambeth │ 139,325│ 48│ 34│Lambeth, Sou. & Vaux. │ │Greenwich │ 99,365│ 32│ 31│Kent. │ │Marylebone │ 157,696│ 48│ 30│West Middlesex. │ │Westminster │ 65,609│ 19│ 27│Chelsea. │ │St. James, Westminster│ 36,406│ 9│ 25│Grand Junction, New River. │ │Hackney │ 58,429│ 13│ 22│New Riv., East London. │ │Paddington │ 46,305│ 10│ 22│Grand Junction. │ │Shoreditch │ 109,257│ 23│ 21│New Riv., East London. │ │Bethnal Green │ 90,193│ 18│ 20│East London. │ │Poplar │ 47,162│ 9│ 17│East London. │ │West London │ 28,840│ 4│ 14│New River. │ │Hanover Square and May│ 33,196│ 5│ 12│Grand Junction. │ │ Fair │ │ │ │ │ │Islington │ 95,329│ 12│ 12│New River. │ │Chelsea │ 56,538│ 6│ 11│Chelsea. │ │East London │ 44,406│ 4│ 9│New River. │ │London City │ 55,932│ 5│ 9│New River. │ │Clerkenwell │ 64,778│ 5│ 8│New River. │ │Belgrave │ 40,034│ 3│ 7│Chelsea. │ │St. │ 24,640│ 1│ 5│New River. │ │ Martin-in-the-Fields│ │ │ │ │ │St. Pancras │ 166,956│ 8│ 5│New River, Hampstead, West │ │ │ │ │ │ Middlesex. │ │St. Luke │ 54,055│ 2│ 4│New River. │ │Lewisham │ 34,835│ 1│ 3│Kent. │ │Holborn │ 46,571│ 1│ 2│New River. │ │St. Giles │ 54,214│ 1│ 2│New River. │ │Strand │ 44,460│ │ │New River. │ │Hampstead │ 11,986│ │ │Hampst., West Mid’sex. │ ├──────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────┼───────────────────────────┤ │ │ 2,362,236│ 796│ │ │ └──────────────────────┴──────────┴──────┴───────┴───────────────────────────┘

[Sidenote: THE EPIDEMIC OF 1853, IN LONDON.]

It will be observed that Lambeth, which is supplied with water in a great measure by the Lambeth Company, occupies a lower position in the above table than it did in the previous table showing the mortality in 1849. Rotherhithe also has been removed from the first to the fifth place; owing, no doubt, to the portion of the district supplied with water from the Kent Water Works, instead of the ditches, being altogether free from the disease, as was noticed above.

As the Registrar-General published a list of all the deaths from cholera which occurred in London in 1853, from the commencement of the epidemic in August to its conclusion in January 1854, I have been able to add up the number which occurred in the various sub-districts on the south side of the Thames, to which the water supply of the Southwark and Vauxhall, and the Lambeth Companies, extends. I have presented them in the table opposite, arranged in three groups.

=TABLE VI.=

┌───────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬───────────────┐ │ │ │ Deaths from │ Deaths by │ │ │Sub-Districts. │Population in │ Cholera in │ Cholera in │ Water Supply. │ │ │ 1851. │ 1853. │ each 100,000 │ │ │ │ │ │ living. │ │ ├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │Southwark and │ │St. Saviour, │19,709 │45 │227 │ Vauxhall │ │ Southwark │ │ │ │ Water Company│ │ │ │ │ │ only. │ │St. Olave │8,015 │19 │237 │ „ │ │St. John, │11,360 │7 │61 │ „ │ │ Horsleydown │ │ │ │ │ │St. James, │18,899 │21 │111 │ „ │ │ Bermondsey │ │ │ │ │ │St. Mary │13,934 │27 │193 │ „ │ │ Magdalen │ │ │ │ │ │Leather Market │15,295 │23 │153 │ „ │ │Rotherhithe[15]│17,805 │20 │112 │ „ │ │Wandsworth │9,611 │3 │31 │ „ │ │Battersea │10,560 │11 │104 │ „ │ │Putney │5,280 │ │ │ „ │ │Camberwell │17,742 │9 │50 │ „ │ │Peckham │19,444 │7 │36 │ „ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Lambeth Water │ │Christchurch, │ │ │ │ Company, and │ │ Southwk. │16,022 │7 │43 │ Southwark and│ │ │ │ │ │ Vauxhall │ │ │ │ │ │ Company │ │Kent Road │18,126 │37 │204 │ „ │ │Borough Road │15,862 │26 │163 │ „ │ │London Road │17,836 │9 │50 │ „ │ │Trinity, │20,922 │11 │52 │ „ │ │ Newington │ │ │ │ │ │St. Peter, │29,861 │23 │77 │ „ │ │ Walworth │ │ │ │ │ │St. Mary, │14,033 │5 │35 │ „ │ │ Newington │ │ │ │ │ │Waterloo (1st │14,088 │1 │7 │ „ │ │ part) │ │ │ │ │ │Waterloo (2nd │18,348 │7 │38 │ „ │ │ part) │ │ │ │ │ │Lambeth Church │18,409 │9 │48 │ „ │ │ (1st part) │ │ │ │ │ │Lambeth Church │26,784 │11 │41 │ „ │ │ (2nd part) │ │ │ │ │ │Kennington (1st│24,261 │12 │49 │ „ │ │ part) │ │ │ │ │ │Kennington (2nd│18,848 │6 │31 │ „ │ │ part) │ │ │ │ │ │Brixton │14,610 │2 │13 │ „ │ │Clapham │16,290 │10 │61 │ „ │ │St. George, │15,849 │6 │37 │ „ │ │ Camberwell │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Norwood │3,977 │ │ │Lambeth Water │ │ │ │ │ │ Company only.│ │Streatham │9,023 │ │ │ „ │ │Dulwich │1,632 │ │ │ „ │ ├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤ │First 12 │167,654 │192 │114 │Southwk. & │ │ sub-districts│ │ │ │ Vaux. │ ├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤ │Next 16 │301,149 │182 │60 │Both Companies │ │ sub-districts│ │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤ │Last 3 │14,632 │ │ │Lambeth Comp. │ │ sub-districts│ │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴───────────────┘

Besides the general result shown in the table, there are some particular facts well worthy of consideration. In 1849, when the water of the Lambeth Company was quite as impure as that of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, the parish of Christchurch suffered a rather higher rate of mortality from cholera than the adjoining parish of St. Saviour; but in 1853, whilst the mortality in St. Saviour’s was at the rate of two hundred and twenty-seven to one hundred thousand living, that of Christchurch was only at the rate of forty-three. Now St. Saviour’s is supplied with water entirely by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, and Christchurch is chiefly supplied by the Lambeth Company. The pipes and other property of the Lambeth Company, in the parish of Christchurch, are rated at about £316, whilst the property of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company in this parish is only rated at about £108. Waterloo Road, 1st part, suffered almost as much as St. Saviour’s in 1849, and had but a single death in 1853; it is supplied almost exclusively by the Lambeth Company. The sub-districts of Kent Road and Borough Road, which suffered severely from cholera, are supplied, through a great part of their extent, exclusively by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company; the supply of the Lambeth Company being intermingled with that of the other only in a part of these districts, as may be seen by consulting the accompanying map (No. 2). The rural districts of Wandsworth and Peckham contain a number of pump-wells, and are only partially supplied by the Water Company; on this account they suffered a lower mortality than the other sub-districts supplied with the water from Battersea Fields. In the three sub-districts to which this water does not extend, there was no death from cholera in 1853.

[Sidenote: THE NEW WATER SUPPLY OF THE LAMBETH COMPANY.]

Although the facts shown in the above table afford very strong evidence of the powerful influence which the drinking of water containing the sewage of a town exerts over the spread of cholera, when that disease is present, yet the question does not end here; for the intermixing of the water supply of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company with that of the Lambeth Company, over an extensive part of London, admitted of the subject being sifted in such a way as to yield the most incontrovertible proof on one side or the other. In the sub-districts enumerated in the above table as being supplied by both Companies, the mixing of the supply is of the most intimate kind. The pipes of each Company go down all the streets, and into nearly all the courts and alleys. A few houses are supplied by one Company and a few by the other, according to the decision of the owner or occupier at that time when the Water Companies were in active competition. In many cases a single house has a supply different from that on either side. Each Company supplies both rich and poor, both large houses and small; there is no difference either in the condition or occupation of the persons receiving the water of the different Companies. Now it must be evident that, if the diminution of cholera, in the districts partly supplied with the improved water, depended on this supply, the houses receiving it would be the houses enjoying the whole benefit of the diminution of the malady, whilst the houses supplied with the water from Battersea Fields would suffer the same mortality as they would if the improved supply did not exist at all. As there is no difference whatever, either in the houses or the people receiving the supply of the two Water Companies, or in any of the physical conditions with which they are surrounded, it is obvious that no experiment could have been devised which would more thoroughly test the effect of water supply on the progress of cholera than this, which circumstances placed ready made before the observer.

The experiment, too, was on the grandest scale. No fewer than three hundred thousand people of both sexes, of every age and occupation, and of every rank and station, from gentlefolks down to the very poor, were divided into two groups without their choice, and, in most cases, without their knowledge; one group being supplied with water containing the sewage of London, and, amongst it, whatever might have come from the cholera patients, the other group having water quite free from such impurity.

[Sidenote: EPIDEMIC OF 1854, IN THE SOUTH DISTRICTS OF LONDON.]

To turn this grand experiment to account, all that was required was to learn the supply of water to each individual house where a fatal attack of cholera might occur. I regret that, in the short days at the latter part of last year, I could not spare the time to make the inquiry; and, indeed, I was not fully aware, at that time, of the very intimate mixture of the supply of the two Water Companies, and the consequently important nature of the desired inquiry.

When the cholera returned to London in July of the present year, however, I resolved to spare no exertion which might be necessary to ascertain the exact effect of the water supply on the progress of the epidemic, in the places where all the circumstances were so happily adapted for the inquiry. I was desirous of making the investigation myself, in order that I might have the most satisfactory proof of the truth or fallacy of the doctrine which I had been advocating for five years. I had no reason to doubt the correctness of the conclusions I had drawn from the great number of facts already in my possession, but I felt that the circumstance of the cholera poison passing down the sewers into a great river, and being distributed through miles of pipes, and yet producing its specific effects, was a fact of so startling a nature, and of so vast importance to the community, that it could not be too rigidly examined, or established on too firm a basis.

I accordingly asked permission at the General Register Office to be supplied with the addresses of persons dying of cholera, in those districts where the supply of the two Companies is intermingled in the manner I have stated above. Some of these addresses were published in the “Weekly Returns,” and I was kindly permitted to take a copy of others. I commenced my inquiry about the middle of August with two sub-districts of Lambeth, called Kennington, first part, and Kennington, second part. There were forty-four deaths in these sub-districts down to 12th August, and I found that thirty-eight of the houses in which these deaths occurred were supplied with water by the Southwark and Vauxhall Company, four houses were supplied by the Lambeth Company, and two had pump-wells on the premises and no supply from either of the Companies.