Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 280

Transcript

Whole families were swept off. There were no artesian wells then. The River to those near and surface wells were in use, and many of those wells were covered with a slimy film. People in these grand days would hardly believe for instance that in the olden time the White Hart was supplied with drinking water from a surface well within six feet of the water closet. But it is nevertheless the fact. That the drainage percolated through, people didn’t bother about. And the landlord less. As to artesian wells, there had been a discussion on that question. John Jebson of Malvern Hills, asserts that he was the first man that sunk and got water from an artesian well in Christchurch, or the vicinity. Others say, that the artesian flow that Mr Jebson got on a section in a back road abutting on the Lincoln road was only the natural overflow of a spring. Be that as it may, Josiah Hadley who once had a shop at the rear of where now stands the Shades in Hereford Street, and who was a sort of untutored mechanical genius, always insisted that he was the man who first struck artesian water in the City. One thing is very certain and that is that Hadley, before artesian wells came into use, used to contract for and sink pipe wells to the depth of twelve or twenty feet, and affix a pump to the surface tube. That was the origin of the Norton’s Abyssinian tube well, There can be no doubt whatever about that.

The first artesian well that was publicly sunk in the City, there can I believe be no doubt was sunk on the block opposite the Scotch stores and White’s – then Bethel Ware’s – store, and I think that was done by Hadley for the Corporation. That can easily be ascertained. Hadley was a rare old stick. Years ago, go along, I was twenty five years younger, there was one mail day, an explosion, a loud report. The mail then came in once a month. You had to take it when you got it. Well, on this supposed mail day, a loud report was heard, that was thought to be Jimmy Ballard’s gun announcing that the mail was in. Old Pigeon, who was a recognized character, and kept a spirit store where now is Beath, Sutherland & Co, rushed out of his office and talking through his nose as was his wont said “Py Jorge, the mail is hurly this munth”. The early mail was that old Hadley had put a few pounds of gunpowder to dry on the side of his forge, and the blessed combustible had exploded, and sent the front of his establishment into the street. And as to Josiah Hadley, there is a story to be told as to certain transactions that happened after his decease, and to his estate, and to his heirs, and if the transactions had been, or were, properly enquired into, there is no doubt whatever that some people who flourish as very respectable would be prosecuted as thieves. Just take a note of that. By the way

[Note that in the original, pages 5 and 7 are on one page, and 6 and 8, on another. In this transcription they have been re-placed in correct order]