16
NOTES ON A RECENT BLUE BOOK.
" The inhabitants put out their pails, and these are filled on
six days in the week, an extra bucketful being left on each
Saturday for Sunday's provision. By those availing themselves
of this service a payment of 1/2d. a week is made, but additional
quantity may be obtained by payment at the rate of an extra 1/2d.
a week for each additional daily bucketful."
Another public water supply is from a pump in front of the
"Yorkshire Grey Inn." Dr. Fletcher was informed that it was
some 50ft. in depth, and that the water supply became short in
summer. A third supply is by the side of the main road leading
from Coggeshall to Colchester. "It appears to be derived from
a spring or springs in higher ground near at hand." As Dr.
Fletcher remarks, the Coggeshall water supply is of a very
unsatisfactory character, and its distribution involves not only
very limited supplies to houses, but constant risk of contamina-
tion, as buckets may be used for various purposes, and may be
left standing empty or filled to receive dust and other pollution.
Referring those specially interested to the Blue Book itself
for details of the disposal of the sewage in the "Back Ditch"
(a former course of the Blackwater) and for a description of the
backward state of the sanitary arrangements of Coggeshall, I
may add that Dr. Fletcher notes that the deep well at Little
Coggeshall brewery shows that there is no difficulty in obtaining
a supply of good water. He then passes to notice the state of
various other villages and hamlets within the Braintree Rural
District, and describes the sanitary condition of the Blackwater,
Bocking, Wethersfield, Finchingfield, and part of Rayne, and
adds:—
" It will thus be seen that in every instance in which the
District Council have undertaken works of drainage they have
acted illegally in polluting streams and the river. Moreover,
the County Council, instead of preventing the use as sewers of
the main-road drains belonging to them, and instead of pro-
hibiting the fouling of water courses by sewage, is actually
encouraging the District Council in these misdoings by contri-
buting part of the cost, as at Wethersfield and Finchingfield.
So long as the two Councils continue to break the law in this
manner, they can hardly take action against private offenders."
Dr. Fletcher finds that the present system, by which a
District Medical Officer of Health is also engaged in private