Part 14
“There is a point I deem most worthy of notice, I allude to the deficiency of spring-water. The inhabitants of Salcot Virley and Great Wigborough are compelled to drink pond-water, which is impure, brackish, and most injurious to the constitution. The few who have the means, send for water a distance of four miles; to obviate this evil would be a blessing conferred upon the great mass of the population residing in these parishes.”
_Mr. William Blower_, surgeon of Bedford, states,—
“At Wootton (near Bedford) the labourers are very numerous, and before the passing the Poor Law Amendment Act the greater part of them were dependent for support upon the poor-rates. The land was enclosed and undrained, employment was scanty, and wages were very low; the water was very bad, the inhabitants being principally supplied from pits dug near their houses, and filled by rain in the winter, which in the summer, and particularly in dry seasons, were almost emptied by use and evaporation, leaving only a muddy fluid covered with a green scum, and loaded with aquatic animals and plants. Sporadic typhus prevailed extensively in the summer and autumn, and ague in the winter and spring.
“Since the introduction of the New Poor Law and the enclosure of the land, considerable draining has been effected, employment has been more plentiful, and the wages higher, and many of the labourers have allotments of ground. Typhus has been rapidly diminishing, and this year (1839) there was no case until November, and then only two. This must principally be attributed to the improved state of the parish, and partly, perhaps, this year, to the wetness of the season, by which the water-pits have been kept nearly full, so that the conditions favourable to the generation of malaria have not existed.
“A few wells have been dug lately, and good water has been obtained, and there is every probability if the water-pits were filled up, and more wells dug, and the draining completed, that sporadic typhus and ague, which have so long infested this village, and occasioned so much distress and expense, might be entirely eradicated. A respectable farmer informed me that, in the neighbouring parish of Houghton, a few years ago, his was the only family that used well-water, and almost the only one that escaped ague.”
The state of the supplies of water to the labouring classes in Scotland appears to be similar to that prevalent in the towns and the rural districts of England.
_Mr. William Tait_, surgeon, of Edinburgh, states, in regard to the houses in the High-street, Cowgate, and Canongate:—
“The dwellings of the poor are remarkable for their generally uncomfortable appearance, and I attribute this in most instances to a deficient supply of water, necessaries, and such like conveniences. There are no receptacles for filth of any description, and it is either accumulated in the stairs or dwellings themselves, and the stairs are scarcely ever washed. And how can it be otherwise, seeing that the poor have to travel for a considerable distance for water, and afterwards carry it up five, six, or seven stories?”
The Return from Glasgow states that the—
“Sewers or drains are left uncovered, and with no diluting water except the refuse of families and rain-water.”
That—
“There is no scarcity of water if carried into the poorer houses.”
_Dr. Alexander Cuddie_, of Aberdeen, states that the—
“Water is plentiful; but it would be proper to bring it into the houses of the poor as well as the rich.”
_Mr. Forrest_, in his report on the sanitary condition of the population of Stirling, states that in that town—
“The supply of water is often very deficient. There is no water-company, and the water is not conveyed into the houses even of the wealthy inhabitants. In times of scarcity it is no uncommon occurrence to see from 80 to 100 persons waiting at each public well for water; and the scarcity of it is often made an excuse by servants for the neglect of domestic duties. I may therefore with propriety say, that the poor of Stirling are often not properly supplied with water for the purposes stated in the query.”
The _Rev. George Lewis_, the minister of St. David’s parish, Dundee, in speaking of drainage, says that—
“Everything in this way is done very imperfectly; drains and sewers are insufficient, and run into the mill-pond.”
That there is—
“No water, except what is purchased or taken out of the filthy mill-pond.”
Another informant states—
“The west and south-west suburbs are destitute of water, and have no sewers; the north and east suburbs are also badly supplied with water, and have no drains. Indeed there are only two drains in the town that I know of, and I should think them rather hurtful than otherwise, as there is not water enough to scour them out.”
In answer to the question, whether the residences of the population amidst which contagious febrile diseases arise are properly supplied with water for the purposes of cleanliness of the houses, person, and clothing? _Dr. John Macintyre_, of Greenock, states that—
“Their proprietors or landlords, with a few exceptions, have not properly supplied them with water, although an ample supply of that necessary aid to cleanliness can be cheaply obtained by means of pipes from the Shaws’ Water Company.”
_Dr. James Sym_ states that—
“There are few wells of good water in Ayr. The water in general is strongly impregnated with lime, and the supply is defective. Strangers find it unpleasant, and I believe horses which have not been used with it are apt to suffer when it is given them to drink.”
_Mr. A. Cochrane_ and _Mr. W. J. Thomson_, surgeons, of Arbroath, state—
“That the town is well supplied with _hard_ water, but that an abundant supply of soft water might be brought into the town with very little expense from a spring in the neighbourhood.”
The Return from Renfrew states that—
“A plentiful supply of water may be had from the street wells, and also from a burn which runs close to the town.”
_Dr. Henry Douglas_, of Dunfermline, says—
“They are _very inadequately_ supplied with water for these purposes.”
The return from Kirkwall, states—
“That water is supplied at public wells: there is no scarcity of water, but it is somewhat hard.”
_Dr. W. B. Ross_, of Tain, in reply to the question whether the town is properly supplied with water? says—
“By no means; the water is very hard, and unfit for most domestic purposes.”
_Dr. S. Scott Alison_, in his Report on the sanatory condition of the town of Tranent, furnishes an exemplification of the condition of many of the smaller towns:—
“I do not believe there is a house in Tranent into which water is conducted by pipes. There existed great difficulty on many occasions in getting water at all. During the seven years I lived there, the village was, on the whole, extremely ill supplied with water: it was usual for it to be occasionally absent from Tranent altogether. Last summer the supply of water was stopped for several months. The inhabitants suffered the greatest inconvenience from this cause; they could not get sufficient water to maintain cleanliness of person and clothes; it was even difficult for labouring people to get enough to cook their victuals; and I know that many of the poor were, in consequence, reduced to the practice of using impure and unwholesome water. On these occasions water was carried from a considerable distance from the village. Some went the distance of a mile; some used barrels drawn on carriages; some employed children to bring it in small vessels; and, I doubt not, many went without it, when it was highly necessary, from inability or infirmity to go themselves, and from want of funds to employ another for the purpose. Since the above was written I have learned from a lady, previously resident in Tranent, that, when cholera prevailed in that district, some of the patients suffered very much indeed from want of water, and that so great was the privation, that on that calamitous occasion people went into the ploughed fields and gathered the rain water which collected in depressions in the ground, and actually in the prints made by horses’ feet. Tranent was formerly well supplied with water of excellent quality by a spring above the village, which flows through a sand-bed. The water flows into Tranent at its head, or highest quarter, and is received into about 10 wells, distributed throughout the village. The people supply themselves at these wells when they contain water. When the supply is small, the water pours in a very small stream only; and it happens, in consequence, that on these occasions of scarcity great crowds of women and children assemble at these places, waiting their ‘turn,’ as it is termed. I have seen women fighting for water. The wells are sometimes frequented throughout the whole night. It was generally believed by the population that this stoppage of the water was owing to its stream being diverted into a coal-pit which was sunk in the sand-bed above Tranent. That pit has been lined with sheets of iron, and the water has lately returned to Tranent in great abundance.”
The observations made by _Mr. Burton_, in his Report, appear to be deserving of attentive consideration. He states—
“I have reason to believe that in many parts of Scotland the want of a good supply of water is one of the most material impediments to the furtherance of cleanly habits among the working people. Besides the immediate evils of a narrow supply, much time is wasted, and many bad habits are acquired by those who have to wait their turn at the wells in a time of drought. Dundee, Stirling, Dunfermline, Lanark, and Arbroath, are all, I believe, imperfectly supplied. The community of Dundee have spent about 30,000_l._ in a contest between the supporters of two contending water-bills; and I understand that an Act which was passed about three years ago has been found incapable of being put in operation. The evil is rendered more serious by the demand for cooling water for the numerous steam-engines, and the article is so precious that it is for these purposes repeatedly re-cooled by exposure and evaporation after it has been heated. I believe that in many of the colliery and manufacturing districts there is inconvenience, amounting to suffering, from want of water. Where there is a positive deficiency of the element on the spot, the means of procuring a supply from another place are so various and so dependent on local circumstances, that nothing but some arbitrary authority, possessed of sufficient funds, could ensure its being obtained in every instance.”
On these and various reports from the medical officers and others in England, as well as from Scotland, in which it is stated in terms similar to the return from Renfrew, “that a plentiful supply of water _may_ be had from the street wells, and also from a burn which runs close to the town,” it is to be observed, that the economy of a town, or of any considerable collection of habitations, appears to be essentially defective, insofar as it leaves a large proportion of the inhabitants dependent on such a mode of supply.
Supplies of water obtained from wells by the labour of fetching and carrying it in buckets or vessels do not answer the purpose of regular supplies of water brought into the house without such labour, and kept ready in cisterns for the various purposes of cleanliness. The interposition of the labour of going out and bringing home water from a distance acts as an obstacle to the formation of better habits; and I deem it an important principle to be borne in mind, that in the actual condition of the lower classes, conveniences of this description must precede and form the habits. It is in vain to expect of the great majority of them that the disposition, still less the habits, will precede or anticipate and create the conveniences. Even with persons of a higher condition, the habits are greatly dependent on the conveniences, and it is observed, that when the supplies of water into the houses of persons of the middle class are cut off by the pipes being frozen, and when it is necessary to send for water to a distance, the house-cleansings and washings are diminished by the inconvenience; and every presumption is afforded that if it were at all times requisite for them to send to a distance for water, and in all weathers, their habits of household cleanliness would be deteriorated. In Paris and other towns where the middle classes have not the advantage of supplies of water brought into the houses, the general habits of household and personal cleanliness are inferior to those of the inhabitants of towns who do enjoy the advantage. The whole family of the labouring man in the manufacturing towns rise early, before daylight in winter time, to go to their work; they toil hard, and they return to their homes late at night. It is a serious inconvenience, as well as discomfort to them to have to fetch water at a distance out of doors from the pump or the river on every occasion that it may be wanted, whether it may be in cold, in rain, or in snow. The minor comforts of cleanliness are of course forgone, to avoid the immediate and greater discomforts of having to fetch the water. In general it has appeared in the course of the present inquiry that the state of the conveniences gives, at the same time, a very fair indication of the state of the habits of the population, in respect to household, and even personal cleanliness. The _Rev. Whitwell Elwin_, the chaplain of the Bath union, gives the following illustration of the habits of many of the working population even in that city, which is well supplied with water:—
“A man had to fetch water from one of the public pumps in Bath, the distance from his house being about a quarter of a mile,—‘It is as valuable,’ he said, ‘as strong beer. We can’t use it for cooking, or anything of that sort, but only for drinking and tea.’ ‘Then where do you get water for cooking and washing?’—‘Why, from the river. But it is muddy, and often stinks bad, because all the filth is carried there.’ ‘Do you then prefer to cook your victuals in water which is muddy and stinks to walking a quarter of a mile to fetch it from the pump?’—‘We can’t help ourselves, you know. We could not go all that way for it.’ There are many gentlemen’s houses in the same district in which the water is not fit for cooking; and I know that much privation and inconvenience is undergone to avoid the expense of water-carriage. I have often wondered to see the shifts which have been endured rather than be at the cost of an extra pail of water, of which the price was three halfpence. With the poor, far less obstacles are an absolute barrier, because no privation is felt by them so little as that of cleanliness. The propensity to dirt is so strong, the steps so few and easy, that nothing but the utmost facilities for water can act as a counterpoise; and such is the love of uncleanliness, when once contracted, that no habit, not even drunkenness, is so difficult to eradicate.”
In most towns, and certainly in the larger manufacturing towns, those members of a family who are of strength to fetch water are usually of strength to be employed in profitable industry, and the mere value of their time expended in the labour of fetching water, is almost always much higher than the cost of regular supplies of water even at the charge made by the water companies. In Glasgow the charge for supplying a labourer’s tenement is 5_s._ per annum; in Manchester 6s. In London the usual charge is 10_s._ for a tenement containing two families, for which sum two tons and a half of water per week may be obtained if needed. For 5_s._ per annum, then, as a water-rate (on which from 10 to 20 per cent. is paid to the owner for collection), each labourer’s family may be supplied in the metropolis with one ton and a quarter of water weekly, if they find it necessary to use so much. The ton is 216 gallons, equal to 108 pails full, at two gallons the pail. Thus for less than one penny farthing, 135 pails full of water are taken into the house without the labour of fetching, without spilling or disturbance, and placed in constant readiness for use. Under any circumstances, if the labourer or his wife or child would otherwise be employed, even in the lowest-paid labour or in knitting stockings, the cost of fetching water by hand is extravagantly high as compared with the highest cost of water lifted by steam and conducted through iron pipes at a large expenditure of capital (the lowest in London is about 200,000_l._) and by an expensive management. In illustration of the difference in economy of the two modes of conveyance, I may mention that the usual cost of filtered water carried into the houses at Paris by the water-carriers, is two sous the pailful, being at the rate of 9_s._ per ton; whilst the highest charge of any of the companies in London for sending the same quantity of water to any place within the range of their pipes, and delivering it at an average level of 100 feet, at the highest charge, is 6_d._ per ton.
At the highest of the water companies’ charges it would be good economy for the health of the labourer’s family to pay for water being laid on in the house, to reduce the expense of medicines and loss of work in the family, as indicated by any of the tables of sickness. The cost of laying on the water in a labourer’s tenement, and providing a butt or receptacle to hold it, may be stated to be on an average 40_s._, which will last twenty years.
The experience of the water companies tends to show that the distribution of water directly into the houses where it is wanted, would be good economy of the water. When the supply of water into the houses is stopped by frost, and cocks are, on that occasion, opened in the streets, the supply of water required is one-third greater than usual; as great, indeed, as it is in the heat of summer, when there is a large additional consumption for watering gardens and roads. I would here suggest that it is essential that the water should be charged on the owners of all the smaller weekly tenements, because, where the owner finds it necessary to collect the rent weekly, the smaller collection of rates for longer periods would often be impracticable, and the expense of the collection alone of such small rates weekly (1¼_d._ per week) would be more than the amount collected.
The mode of supplying water by private companies for the sake of a profit is not however available for the supply of a population, where the numbers are too small to defray the expense of obtaining a private Act of parliament, or the expense of management by a board of directors, or to produce profits to shareholders; it is, therefore, a mode not available to the population of the country who do not reside in the chief towns. The Poor Law Commissioners have been urgently requested to allow the expense for procuring supplies for villages to be defrayed out of the poor’s rates in England, but they could only express their regret that the law gave them no power to allow such a mode of obtaining the benefit sought. The mode of supply by private companies is, however, the subject of complaint in the populous towns, where it is the only mode.
Although there is little probability that regular supplies of water would ever have been obtained without the inducement of salaries to the managers and of returns of interest to the capitalists; although the cost of most of the supplies at the highest is much lower than the labour of fetching water from a pump close to the house, and no valid objection appears against compulsory provisions for water being laid on (_i. e._ for existing charges of labour being reduced) in the tenements of the labouring classes in towns, at the common charge of the water companies: still the appearance of a profit and of dividends on the supply of a natural commodity does, in the new districts at least, furnish pretexts for the objection of the poorer owners and ignorant occupiers to the supposed expense of the improvement which consists in an immediate outlay. Apart from such objections, however, it is a mode of obtaining supplies attended with great inconveniences, which it is desirable to have considered with respect to new improvements. The payment of a dividend for an improved supply of such a commodity will be found as imperfect a measure, even of its pecuniary value, as it would be of the pecuniary value of a good and abundant supply of air and of the light of day. There are numerous indirect effects of the use of such a commodity, of which a pecuniary estimate cannot conveniently be made, as against an immediate outlay. For example, there is little ground left for doubt that the effect of street and house cleansing by means of the supplies of water needed in the worst districts, would occasion considerable reductions in the pecuniary charge of sickness on the poor’s rates, but it would be extremely difficult to obtain these results in money to make up, with any pretence to accuracy, a profit and loss account as an undertaking for the outlay. The evidence afforded by the creation and success of a private company proves only that a certain class of persons so far appreciate the advantages of the supply as to be willing to incur such an immediate expense as will cover the cost, and yield a profit to the undertakers; it proves nothing as to the intrinsic value of the service or the commodity, which may be immense to the bulk of the community, and yet not one be found ready to volunteer to defray a portion of the expense. But the expense of the machinery of water companies, as already stated, is disproportioned to the means of the smaller towns and to a large part of the country; and generations may pass away amidst filth and pestilence before the scientific means and the economy of prevention can be appreciated by them. And there are further objections made in towns to the mode of supply itself. One is, that it creates strong interest against all improvements in the quality or the supplies of water; for every considerable improvement creates expense, which is felt, in diminution of the dividends of the private shareholders; and so long as a majority of the ratepayers are content with bad water, or deem it hopeless to seek to obtain water of a superior quality, so long as any public clamour will not endanger the dividends, it appears that no amendment entailing considerable expense can be expected. Even where there are convenient unappropriated streams, and a wide field is afforded for competition by a very populous district, the competition of different companies does not necessarily furnish to the individual consumer any choice or amendment of the supplies.