Correspondence.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 382, 21 June 1861, Page 2

Correspondence.

WATER SUPPLY. To the Editor of the. Colonist.

Sir—Had time and space permitted I should havo endeavored to remark more at length upon what I judge to be the special pleading in the letter by A Householder, published in your last. But I presume H. D., on whose epistle ho animadverts, will, at his leisure, set this correspondent thoroughly right. The writer is quite unknown to myselr, and therefore I t may be allowed to assure him that his communication does not.kindle one spark "of unkindness, nor do I desire to disturb anything of the sort in any one. His correspondence is all I have to consider, and is the sole ground of my observations. ~ . Your friend's strictures then, I take leave, to say, appear to betray something like too close an interest^ in what he calls Water Supply. This seems to vitiate the force of his attacks very seriously. It prompts his temper too evidently, particularly when he styles 11. D. and others ' obstructives,' or ' penny-wise and pound-foolish politicians:' May I ask, did it not occur to him that the extravagant scheme advocated by himself, with not a little warmth, is rather more likely to be charged with the copper-wisdom and gold-folly which «he censures somewhat snappishly. Does A Householder absolutely desire the numerous readers of his pon-derously-pondered letter, or say, gentlemen who are fain to employ tens of thousands of English capital in our watervyork s, to believe on his bold representation, that many a one of the unfortunate inhabitants here,' many a man' in Nelson, feels so wretchedly circumstanced and demoralised as to be forced to * drink beer and ardent spirits, because,' forsooth, 'he cannot get a draught of pure water ?'. Oh, fie ! One of our bona-fide householders has to say all this out of the very fulness of his afflicted heart! Now this is awfully eloquent. Your friends, the teetotalers, in their most inspired moment?, have always enjoyed too much healthy sobriety to perpetrate such an argumentative onslaught as this. They may complain that beer is too often spoilt water, truly enough; but they are more shrewd than to cloak the unclean vice of tippling by saying that 'beer and ardent spirits' are the purest water to be obtained in this unhappy city! This exposes our aqua pura with a vengeance! So gin in this view, is drunk instead of water. Is that only then a cooling substitute for the real thing itself? If so, the purer the drink the more waterish; and, by parity of reasoning, our purest water drinkers are they who, disgusted, so to say with bad water, imbibe ardent spirits instead, in some mode of improvement in water imbibition. That is to say, I suppose, our alcoholics are found to be practically our better kind of water. Does not this look severely at innkeepers ? They must havo either the best casks or pumps for the genuine Adam's entire or aqua vitw. Naughty men to sell such spirits that many a man uses the same in lieu of water! But I humbly trust this exposure will not hinder really sane and sober people from emigrating to this unnatural country. Do I trespass too much on propriety when I ask you, Mr. Editor, in confidence of course, whether A Householder be about to break up his establishment and leave this spirituous region? If so, he had better be quick, or else the publicans must either lose their licences, or jointly prosecute him for the worst libel ever branded on the honest publican character. .

What A Householder says concerning Liverpool, Glasgow, New York, or Boston^ vast and yet chiefly compact citie^s, is so foreign to the condition of tiny Nelson, with small dwellings, resembling a straggling flock of sheep, that we can only smile, and leave your ingenious friend to elaborate any comparison of the latter with the former.

It is quite idle to refer us, as A Householder has done, to Melbourne, where most of the houses are of brick or stone. In such a largely united capital, aquatic works might lower considerably the charge for insurance, although it now comes out that dreadful jobbery prevails in the very case mentioned as a specimen. But in our scattered city-village of low wooden buildings, the mere idea of a lowering of the rates of insurance to the figure of torty per cent, consequent on water works is rather indicative of other green ideas that have not been taught by experience «how to shoot.' Mr. Edwards is quoted by way of shielding weak statements, but that gentleman is-too acute to encourage such luxuriant absurdities; he at least can, if he choose, convince your friend that the present saving, by any system of water supply, to'tho already insured, would be very different from forty per cent, or £\ 6OO yearly. A Householder, as if accustomed to a * fire brigade, pours all his ' water supply' upon H. D. with something almost felonious in the force of his stream of rebuke. But why? Simply because H. D. candidly acknowledges that he has placed his family where plenty of pure water is to be found; he does not go to the public houses for it: but a little higher, I fancy. For this offence a deluge of something worse than brackish i& pumped pitilessly upon him; so if h should find

jmsvy have a fi»r chance of being smothered in the mud Hat, or of being carried out hopelessly to sea, unless he can anchor his buoyant self and occupation where -water supplies mightier than the Iklaitai never rage. Now the writer of this happens to live, with his large family, in one of the most stining thoroughfares in Nelson. In an easily, constructed well, lie finds, even in summer, some twenty feet depth of excellent water; and yet, if the works offered to Nelsonian imaginings, or rather, far less amhitious and more appropriate ones, confined in their present action and rateage to Bridge-street, Trafalgar-street, and adjoining branches, with probably the New Wharf,—if such as these costing a moderate sum,—a far less frightful amount than the one injudiciously proposed,—would save foity per cent, insurance to his neighbors,—why, then, he would dare to oppose all sorts of 'colored spectacle.*,' 'selfish notions, 4 penny-wise' folk in whole squadrons, and would join any zealous householder in crying for an Lnglish company's ' water supply.' Yourp, &c, ANOTHER HOUSEHOLDER. Nelson, June 19.