In St. Giles' (1858-9), "the water of the wells was not deemed good enough (on analysis) for watering the roads." In St. Marylebone "44 public wells supplied water which was for the most part offensive to taste and smell." In Kensington (1860) "all the well waters of the parish were foul." In Rotherhithe (1857), "The water from the tidal well smelt as if it had recently been dipped from a sewer." The Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth declared (1856) that "the shallow well waters of London combined the worst features--they represent the drainage of a great manure bed." The people were driven to the use of the water from these wells owing to the deficient and intermittent supply of water by the various Water Companies--water supplied for less than an hour a day by one single stand-pipe in a court containing hundreds of people--water supplied only every second and third day, and none on Sundays, the day of all others on which it was most wanted; and the house-owners had provided no cisterns or reservoirs of proper capacity, and the Vestries had not compelled the house-owners to do so. In some parishes hundreds of houses had no supply at all. In some houses which had a supply the tenants were deliberately deprived thereof by the Water Companies, because the house-owner had not paid the water-rate. The defective supply had the disastrous effect of putting a constant premium upon dirt--dirt of person, of room, of houses, and their surroundings. And such drains and sewers as there were, were insufficiently flushed. Time after time the consequential evils were pointed out, and Water Companies and house-owners were vigorously censured. But the censure had little practical effect. The great inconveniences and evils, however, evoked the expression of opinion that the duty of supplying water to the community ought to be in the hands of the community. Even in 1844 it had been pointed out that:-- "Water is as indispensable for many purposes as air is for life itself, and its supply ought not to be allowed to depend on the cupidity or caprice of landlords or Water Companies." And the Metropolitan Sanitary Association had enunciated the principle:-- "That inasmuch as water is a prime necessity of life, attainable in large cities by combined effort only, and not to be denied to any without injury to all, its supply should not be dependent on commercial enterprise, but be provided at the expense of the community for the common benefit." And the Medical Officer of Health for St. George-in-the East wrote in 1856:--