The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

LONDON. 171
Unfortunately the metropolis of England has not at its command a sufficient
supply of pure drinking water. The liquid supplied to some of the quarters of the
town abounds in organic matter in a state of decomposition ; and the death rate
rises there to double and even triple the height of what it is in more favoured
localities, where the water supply is more satisfactory.* The Thames stUl supplies
London with most of the water required for domestic purposes, and in the
neighbourhood of London that river is not by any means a limpid stream. Its
improvement has nevertheless been great since the middle of the century, when
the whole of the London sewage found its way into it. At that time the water of
the Thames was much polluted. The tide floated this matter up and down the
river ; the passing vessels stirred it to the surface ; and it was not without some
risk to health that passengers embarked in them. Even now the water of the
Thames, polluted by the waste washed into it from the river banks, or thrown out
by the crews of the vessels, is far from pure. A deposit of mud is left by it upon
the flats and steps of the landing-places when it retires with the ebb tide. The
Thames has been much " purified," as far as it flows through London proper ; but
this cannot be said of its lower coui-se.
The main draiaage of London was carried out between 1859 and 1875 under
the supervision of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The sewage is carried to a
considerable distance below London, and pumped into the Thames by powerful
steam-engines erected at the Abbey Mills, near Barking Creek, and at Crossness
Point, on the opposite bank of the river.t These works cost no less than
£4,500,000, but they have by no means answered expectations. The metropolis
has been purified, no doubt, but the towns near the outfall sewers complain of
being poisoned, and the silt in the river increases from year to year. It was hoped
more especially that the sewage discharged into the river would be carried away
to the sea. Unfortunately a considerable portion of this sewage, after having been
carried down stream by the ebb, returns with the flowing tide, and banks formed
of sewage approach nearer and nearer to the towns in the neighbourhood of its
outfalls. The Metropolitan Board of Works is responsible for this contamina-
tion. Several kinds of fish which formerly ascended the Thames have been
driven away by these impurities. Whitebait, so highly esteemed by gastro-
nomists,J and which were formerly caught as high up as Greenwich, are seen there
no longer. The Dutch fishermen, who enter the Thames in their pursuit, restrict
their incursions from year to year. In 1852 they came up to Erith ; in 1859 they
stopped short of Greenhithe ; in 1862 they were driven from Gravesend ; and at
present they hardly pass beyond the Nore.§ And yet this sewage matter, which
poisons the river and pollutes the air of the towns, might be usefully employed
* In 1877 the London water supply was classified as follows;
Unexceptionably pure 7,000,000 gallons.
Sometimes pui-e 53,000,000 „
Polluted with sewage 61,000,000 „
t Total length of main sewers 254 miles, and of local sewers 776 miles. Daily discharge of sewage
about 500,000 tons.
X According to Van Beneden (" Patria Belgica," i. p. 326) the whitebait is a young herring, but
other authorities maintain that it is a distinct species.
§ Calvert, Official Report, 1877.
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