London’s Water Supply.

London’s Water Supply.

At last there is a reasonable prospect that in the course of a few years the water supply of London, on the wretched condition of which I have so often commented, will be made worthy of the great metropolis. The Board of Works, already famed for its Thames Embankment and other grand improvements, has taken the matter in hand, and goes to Parliament next session for the necessary powers. The scheme is briefly as follows : The board will buy up, under a compulsory act, all the existing water companies, and take their systems under its control. In the end, the water supplied by these systems, almost all from impure sources, will be used only in extinguishing fires, flushing the drains, watering the streets, &c. New reservoirs are to be constructed, to be supplied from the chalk beds or other pure sources, and this alone is to be furnished to the London dwelling-houses, shops, factories, &c., and this supply is to be constant. The scheme is a grand one, and will cost a lot of money—the lowest estimate exceeds one hundred millions of dollars—but this will be nothing in consideration of the certain effect that will be produced on the health of the population, to say nothing of the increased facilities for checking fires. The water companies will resist the measure, but I think the popular sentiment is strong enough to render their resistance unavailing.—London Correspondent Chicago Evening Journal.

—Oswego in this state has a well equipped Ftre Department. It consists of three steam engines, two in service and one kept in reserve, four horse hose carriages, three in service one kept in reserve,