in every direction beneath
the pavement of the hotly-contested streets.

'These Grand-Junction men quite astonished the town by the
magnificence of their promises. "Copious streams" of water, derived,
by the medium of the Grand Junction Canal, from the rivers Colne and
Brent: "always pure and fresh, because always coming in"--"high
service, free of extra charge;" above all, "_unintermittent supply, so
that customers may do without cisterns_;" such were a few of the
seductive allurements held out by these interlopers to tempt deserters
from the enemy's camp.

'The West Middlesex Company, in its opening circulars, also promised
"unlimited supplies" to the very "housetops," of water "clear and
bright from the gravelly bottom of the Thames, thirteen miles above
London Bridge." The East London was not behindhand with the trumpet;
and its "skilful" directors, by paying dividends in rapid succession
out of capital, raised their L.100 shares to the enormous premium of
L.130 before they had well got their machinery into play. Meanwhile
the South London (or Vauxhall) Company was started--in 1805--on the
other side of the river, with a view to wrest from its old rulers the
watery dominion of the south. The war was not, however, carried on in
a very royal sort; for, as the travelling mountebank drives
six-in-hand through a country town to entice the gaping provincials to
his booth, so these water-jugglers went round the streets of London,
throwing up rival _jets-d'eau_ from their mains, to prove the alleged
superiority of their engines, and to captivate the fancy of hesitating
customers.

'The New River Company, thus put upon its mettle, boldly took up the
gauntlet. It erected new forcing-engines, changed its remaining wooden
pipes for iron, more than doubled its consumption of coal, reduced its
charges, augmented its supplies, issued a contemptuous rejoinder to
its adversaries, and, appealing as an "old servant" to the public for
support, engaged in a war of extermination.

'For seven years, the battle raged incessantly. The combatants
sought--and openly avowed it--not their own profit, but their rivals'
ruin. Tenants were taken on almost any terms. Plumbers were bribed to
_tout_, like omnibus cads, for custom. Such was the rage for mere
numerical conquest, that a line of pipes would be often driven down a
long street, to serve one new customer at the end. Arrears remained
uncollected, lest offence should be given and influen