"Of these--in 48 which contain 388 houses and have a population of 3,233 persons the water supply is by stand taps only, from which the water flows daily (Sundays excepted) for a period varying from quarter to half an hour. "This intermittent supply is totally inadequate to the wants of the people." Parliament made an effort in 1862[81] to amend the law, and enacted that where a house was without a proper supply of water the owner or occupier might be required by the Vestry to obtain such supply, and if such notice was not complied with, the Vestry might do the necessary work and recover the expenses from the owner, and then require the water companies to supply the water. But the Act was of little practical value, and was made of less value by the inaction of the local authorities. A few extracts from reports of Medical Officers of Health show how thoroughly unsatisfactory and disastrous to the health of the people the existing condition of affairs was. The Medical Officer of Health for Fulham wrote in 1864:-- "The powers at present given by Statutes for enforcing a supply of water for domestic use are, within the Fulham district, all but inoperative. The cry amongst the cottagers is still for water--water without which all other sanitary appliances are at best abortive, without which in ample and continuous flow no community can be preserved in healthfulness. On this essential will depend the perfect working of our deep and costly sewers, on this alone will hang success in minor drainage matters. Water, that first and most important element of health and cleanliness, exists in name alone in masses of our cottage property here, and consequently neither purity of person nor of dwelling can be ensured." The Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields wrote in 1864 deploring that the new laws of the water companies did not provide for water being supplied on Sunday. "It is to be lamented that people should at any time have to go about begging water, and more especially so on Sundays, the very day they most require it." And the Medical Officer of Health for Westminster wrote (1864):-- "The water supply to many of the courts and alleys is very unsatisfactory. No Sunday supply. "It does seem a monstrous arrangement that for 52 days in the year the public should be deprived of that which they pay for, but have no means of substituting by anything else." And to complete the hardships which the people suffered under in the matter of water supply, if the house-owner did not pay the water rates when called upon to do so, the water company might cut off the supply of the people in the house. This was frequently done, and the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel recorded how for four months-- "The inhabitants of Tuson's Court, Spitalfields, had been entirely deprived of water in consequence of the water company refusing to continue any longer the supply, as the landlord had not paid the water rate."