sterling, and it gives employment to at least
three hundred men.

One water company scarcely differs from
another, saving in the extent of its operations;
hence, the details given respecting the New River
and its modern works must be nearly the same
in all water-supplying enterprises. On the
north side of the Thames, the company that
stands next in importance to the New River, is
the East London, established in 1807, at Old
Ford. It represents a capital of one million
sterling, and it supplies eighty thousand houses
daily with about seventeen millions of gallons
of water. Its source of supply is the River
Lea, above Tottenham, and its total length of
mains and branches may be estimated at about
three hundred and eighty miles.

The West Middlesex Water Works comes
next, established in 1806, and its source of
supply is now the Thames, at Hampton, in
Middlesex. Its capital is about seven hundred
thousand pounds, and it supplies thirty thousand
nine hundred and fifty-two houses with about
seven and a half millions of gallons daily. The
total length of mains and services for the
distribution of this water is two hundred and four miles.

The Chelsea Water Works, another north-
side enterprise, was started in 1724, and it
now supplies twenty-seven thousand houses with
about eight millions and a half gallons of water,
every day drawn from the Thames, at Seething,
near Thames Ditton. Its mains and branches
are estimated at about two hundred miles, and
its present capital is nearly one million sterling.

The Grand Junction Company—the last on
the north-side list—was born in 1798, and its
source of supply, originally the Grand Junction
Canal, which drew the waters from the rivers
Colne and Brent, is now the Thames at Hampton.
It distributes about seven millions and a half of
gallons daily to about eighteen thousand houses;
and its capital is nearly three-quarters of a
million sterling. The length of its main pipeage is
estimated at two hundred and ten miles.

The south side of the river Thames is now
provided with three water companies, making,
with the five on the north side, eight in all.
The Southwark and Vauxhall Company stands
first, by reason of its importance. It was
started in 1822, and supplies a district originally
satisfied by an ancient pond at St. Mary
Overies, in Southwark. Its source of supply is
the river Thames, at Hampton, and it furnishes
ten millions and a half gallons daily, to about
forty-two thousand houses. Its capital may be
set down as about six hundred and fifty thousand
pounds; and its mains and branches are
estimated at five hundred and sixty-five miles.

The Lambeth Water Company was founded in
1785, and its capital is now about six hundred
and eighty thousand pounds. It supplies thirty-
three thousand houses with about seven
millions of gallons daily, drawn from the river
Thames between Kingston and Thames Ditton.
The total length of the company's main pipes is
now two hundred and sixty miles.

Lastly comes the Kent Waterworks, which
dates its origin from 1699, and which now
includes the Plumstead Company. Its source of
supply was originally the river Ravensbourne,
but this has been abandoned, and the water is
now drawn from Artesian wells. Its capital is
three hundred and ten thousand pounds sterling;
it supplies twenty-six thousand houses with
four and a half millions of gallons daily; and
its main pipes are one hundred and sixty-seven
miles long. The Plumstead Waterworks,
recently purchased by this company, represent a
capital of fifty thousand pounds, sixteen miles
of main pipes, and a supply of about half a
million of gallons a day, drawn from wells in the
chalk, to three thousand houses.

These figures and details, which I have taken
great pains to collect from the companies
themselves, show that the present water supply of
London, by the eight existing waterworks, is
about eighty-eight millions of gallons daily, sent
through about two thousand five hundred and
thirty miles of underground main pipes, all
changed from wood to iron since 1810. This
supply, which consumes a lake every day of sixty
acres, six feet deep, flows into some three hundred
and sixty-eight thousand houses and tenements,*
through about six thousand miles of lead pipes;
and the whole present capital of the water
companies is seven millions six hundred and forty
thousand pounds. Such a supply of water
gives a daily average to each member of our
metropolitan population of about thirty-one
gallons—although no one really uses more than
six gallons a day—at an average cost of about
five per cent on the house rental.

* Inhabited houses (Census, 1861) in London,
362,890

It is surely something, in these times, to be
able, by touching a tap at our own sweet
will, to turn a stream into our pitchers from
Hertfordshire or the other end of Middlesex.
The ingenious and powerful mechanism that
has helped us to do this, is something to be
proud of amongst the many wonders of
universal trade. If this machinery were to break
down, if the sources of supply were to fail,
.if there were no inducement for keen trading
companies to find out fresh fountains in the
fruitful earth, our population could not
advance another step, and we should wither from
the face of the earth. We lie down at night
with no misgivings on this head, and we rise
in the morning with a full faith that the globe
will never be sucked as dry as an exhausted
orange.

THE FAIR MAN OF DARK FORTUNE.

ON the fourth of Floréal, year five of the
Glorious Republic One and Indivisible—or on what
ordinary Christian men and women would call
April the twenty-third, seventeen hundred and
ninety-six—one Guesno, a native of Douai, gave
a little breakfast at the house of his friend and
host, the citizen Richard. Guesno was a master
carrier who had come to Paris on account of a
robbery which one of his carmen had committed,