the Editor of the Srr,—Nearly a month has now elapsed since the last Landrenters' Meeting, at which the Municipal Council was authorised to take steps for obtaining the opinion of an Engineer upon the estimates for the construction of Works for affording the Foreign Settlements under their jurisdiction an adequate Water Supply, In spite of this long interval, the public are still without any information as to the course, if any, which has been decided upon for giving effect to this resolution; and it is to be feared that the consideration on a comprehensive basis of a subject of such vital importance may eventually be deferred until a disastrous epidemic re-awakens the slumbering energies of the community and its representatives. While deprecating on the one hand anything which may tend to create groundless and dangerous alarm, yet on the other I would draw the attention of the community to the dangers which further delay in the final settlement of this question may produce, It cannot be doubted that the absence hitherto of any serious outbreak of typhoid, cholera, or other zymotic disease in the Foreign Settlements, haa been in spite of, and not in consequence of, the insalubrious conditions which prevail in our midst. The water-logged state of the subsoil, and the consequent excessive humidity of the atmosphere, doubtless contribute in no small degree to the amount of disease at times prevalent, but the most serious item of all is no doubt to be found in the fact of our notoriously insufficient and dangerous Water-supply,—insufficient not only in quantity, on account of the circumstances affecting and limiting its carriage, but dangerous in the very nature of the ssu reply thus obtained. The plain, unvarnished Annual Reports of the Health Officer to the Municipal Council, and the equally valua-blo Reports of Dr. Jamieson to the Customs Authorities, teem with allusions to the manner in which our present supply is drawn from the river and the creeks, and both these authorities agree in condemning, the system of relying upon the offices of native servants for the proper purification of the water, foul though it be. tis, therefore, needless to expatiate further on this point; and indeed, the question may fairly be said to have passed from one of expediency to one of ways and means,
na that the Municipal Council, after due A retrospect of past proceedings shews consideration of the information collected by Mr, Oliver, their Engineer, and utilised by him in the preparation of alternative schemes and estimates, decided in 1872 that the execution of the necessary works by the Municipality was not feasible, and thus the whole matter remained in statu quo until within the last few months. Briefly, the present state of things is, that three sources of supply have, in' that Whangpoo below the' Settiomonts, the riod, been proposed,—viz., the river
river Whangpoo above the junction of the Pagoda Oreck, and the Soochow Creek near Batt's bungalow. This. much has, therefore, been attained, that the matter has been reduced to within " much smaller compass than, at the time when waters were collected for analysis from all conceivable places, including the distant Inkes. It may now be asserted, that water, if brought to the Settlement at all, will be taken from a point not more distant than the remotest of these three named, and, lest be it objected that this is but little as the result of three years' waiting, I would remind objectors that the value of this limitation is still considerable. The samples of water analysed by Dr. Frankland were not selected with reference to any distinct scheme or schemes, and it was, therefore, impossible to devote such attention to the selection of these specified samples as would now be practicable. Thus, in taking samples now, we should be confined to these three sources, and would take such at all states of tide, settling, amongst other moot points, the theory of arsenical and sewage conte mination of the Whangpoo above the Settlements. This is a chief reason for
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.