Much satire has been wasted over the Parish Pump; but one can understand the interest that humble installation must have possessed for the little group of households, which had to draw their own water from it daily in their own buckets.

The Governance of England (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons; London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1904) ch. 11, p. 210. Misquoted in Viscount Samuel (ed.) Book of Quotations, 2nd ed. (London: James Barrie, 1954) p. 122: "People laugh at the Parish Pump, but they would not laugh if they had to depend on it for their daily water-supply."