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24
WATER-SUPPLY.
constantly sees butts for the reception of water,
either public, or in the open yards of the houses, or
sometimes in their cellars; and these butts, dirty,
mouldering, and coverless; receiving soot and all
other impurities from the air; absorbing stench
from the adjacent cesspool; inviting filth from
insects, vermin, sparrows, cats, and children; their
contents often augmented through a rain waterpipe
by the washings of the roof, and every hour
becoming fustier and more offensive. Nothing can
be less like what water should be than the fluid
obtained under such circumstances, and one hardly
knows whether this arrangement can be considered
preferable to the precarious chance of scuffling or
dawdling at a standcock. It may be doubted, too,
whether, even in a far better class of houses, the
tenants' water-supply can be pronounced good.
The cisternage is better, and all arrangements connected
with it are generally such as to protect it
from the grosser impurities which defile the waterbutts
of the poor; but the long retention of water
in leaden cisterns impairs its fitness for drinking;
and the quantity which any moderate cistern will
contain is very generally insufficient for the legitimate
requirements of the house during the intervals
of supply. Every one who is personally familiar
with the working of this system of intermittent
supply, can testify to its inconvenience; and though
its evils press with immeasurably greater severity