'The West Middlesex Company, in its opening circulars, also promised "unlimited supplies" to the very "housetops," of water "clear and bright from the gravelly bottom of the Thames, thirteen miles above London Bridge." The East London was not behindhand with the trumpet; and its "skilful" directors, by paying dividends in rapid succession out of capital, raised their L.100 shares to the enormous premium of L.130 before they had well got their machinery into play. Meanwhile the South London (or Vauxhall) Company was started--in 1805--on the other side of the river, with a view to wrest from its old rulers the watery dominion of the south. The war was not, however, carried on in a very royal sort; for, as the travelling mountebank drives six-in-hand through a country town to entice the gaping provincials to his booth, so these water-jugglers went round the streets of London, throwing up rival _jets-d'eau_ from their mains, to prove the alleged superiority of their engines, and to captivate the fancy of hesitating customers. 'The New River Company, thus put upon its mettle, boldly took up the gauntlet. It erected new forcing-engines, changed its remaining wooden pipes for iron, more than doubled its consumption of coal, reduced its charges, augmented its supplies, issued a contemptuous rejoinder to its adversaries, and, appealing as an "old servant" to the public for support, engaged in a war of extermination. 'For seven years, the battle raged incessantly. The combatants sought--and openly avowed it--not their own profit, but their rivals' ruin. Tenants were taken on almost any terms. Plumbers were bribed to _tout_, like omnibus cads, for custom. Such was the rage for mere numerical conquest, that a line of pipes would be often driven down a long street, to serve one new customer at the end. Arrears remained uncollected, lest offence should be given and influence impaired. Capricious tenants amused themselves by changing from one main to another, as they might taste this or that tap of beer. The more credulous citizens, relying on the good faith of the "public servants"--as these once powerful water-lords now humbly called themselves--were simpletons enough, on the strength of their promises, to abandon their wells, to sell off their force-pumps, and to erect water-closets or baths in the upper storeys of their houses. In many streets, there were three lines of pipes laid down, involving triple leakage, triple interest on capital, triple administrative charges, triple pumping and storage costs, and a triple army of turncocks--the whole affording a less effective supply than would have resulted from a single well-ordered service. In this desperate struggle vast sums of money were sunk. The recently-established companies worked at a ruinous loss; and such as kept up a show of prosperity were, in fact, like the East London Company, paying dividends out of capital. The New River Company's dividends went down from L.500 to L.23 per share per annum.