of London pump-water, lives in
perpetual danger of disease."

But one of the greatest and most unexpected sources of danger is, that
the sense of taste or smell fails to warn us of the danger of using such
water, since clearness, coolness, and tastelessness, may exist, without
being evidences of wholesomeness. We are also told that "the carbonic
acid of the decomposed matter makes them sparkling, and the nitrates they
contain give them a pleasant coolness to the taste, so that nothing could
be better adapted to lure their victims to destruction than the external
qualities of these waters--hence the worst of them are most popular for
drinking purposes."

The nitrates with which these waters are charged generally proceed from
the decomposition of animal matter, such as the corpses interred in
London churchyards; hence the popularity of some pumps near churchyards;
and to such an extent are some of these waters charged with this
ingredient, that J. B. C. Aldis, M.D., declares the water of a
surface-well (though cool and sparkling to the taste) twice exploded
during the process of incineration when he was analysing it!

Under these peculiar circumstances it does seem strange that in London
the weary, the thirsty, and the poor have thus practically been driven to
the public house, and that they should have been left without an
alternative. A man toiling all day, bearing, it may be, heavy burdens in
the summer sun, miles it may be from his home, parched with thirst,
practically to quench that thirst has been compelled to resort to the
beer-shop or the gin-palace. And what has been the consequence, that the
man has been led to drink more than was good for him--that he has got
into bad company--that he has wasted his time and his money, injured his
health, and possibly been led into the commission of vice and crime.
Every day the evil has been demonstrated in the most striking, in the
most alarming, and in the most abundant manner. A benevolent gentleman
at Liverpool was the first to see the evil, and to devise a remedy. He
erected fountains, elegant and attractive in character, furnished with
pure water, and in one day of about thirteen hours twenty-four thousand
seven hundred and two persons drank at the thirteen fountains in that
town. Of that twenty-four thousand seven hundred and two persons, many
would otherwise have resorted to public-houses or gin-palaces to quench
their thirst. In smaller places, where result