At the present moment there exists no authority which can cause a parish to be supplied with good drinking water. While the great centres of population have received the most minute attention from the Legislature, the large population which resides in villages has been left to its own devices, with the exception of the three measures, the first of which is unsuitable and strenuously opposed, the second a dead-letter, and the third cumbrous and practically inoperative. Let us now examine the authorities which act under ancient enactments, or by reason of long standing, immemorial custom. The first of these may be taken to be the Vestry. The powers of the vestries appear to have formerly been somewhat extended, but in these latter times the influence they exercise has been very much curtailed. At the time when each parish relieved its own poor, the Vestry was practically the governing authority of the village, and possessed almost unlimited power, so far as the poor were concerned. That power was derived from its control over the supply of bread to the destitute. As the greater part of the working population received relief, it followed that the Vestry, composed of the agriculturists and landowners, was practically autocratic. Still longer ago, when the laws of the land contained certain enactments as to the attendance of persons at church, the Vestry had still greater powers. But at present, in most parishes, the Vestry is a nominal assembly, and frequently there is a difficulty in getting sufficient numbers of people together to constitute a legal authority. The poor rate is no longer made at the Vestry; the church rate is a thing of the past; and what is then left? There is the appointment of overseers, churchwardens, and similar formal matters; but the power has departed. In all probability they will never be resuscitated, because in all authorities of the kind there is a suspicion of Church influence; and there seems to be almost as much dislike to any shadow of that as against the political and temporal claims of the Roman Pontiff. The Vestry can never again become a popular vehicle of administration. The second is the Board of Guardians--though this is not properly a village or local authority at all, but merely a representative firm for the supervision of certain funds in which a number of villages are partners, and which can only be applied to a few stated purposes, under strictly limited conditions. There is no popular feeling involved in the expenditure of this fund, except that of economy, and almost any ratepayer may be trusted to vote for this; so that the office of guardian is a most routine one, and offers no opportunity of reform. Often one gentleman will represent a village for twenty years, being simply nominated, or even not as much as nominated, from year to year. If at last he grows tired of the monotony, and mentions it to his friends, they nominate another gentleman, always chosen for his