“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.