parties, it will not be foreign to the subject to touch upon certain practices, by way of illustration, whereby we have caught these most wholesome ordinances in the very act of being defeated. In a great number of reservoirs I found certain ajutages of a larger size than had been granted, and among them some that had not even been stamped. Now whenever a stamped ajutage is larger than its legitimate measure it reveals designing dishonesty on the part of the deputy who stamped it; but when it is not even stamped, it clearly reveals the fault of all, especially of the grantee, also of the overseer. In some of the reservoirs, though their ajutages were stamped in conformity with their lawful admeasurements, pipes of a greater diameter [than the ajutages] were at once attached to them. As a consequence, the water not being held together for the lawful distance,[1] and being on the contrary forced through the short restricted distance,[2] easily filled the adjoining larger pipes. Care should therefore be taken, as often as an ajutage is stamped, to stamp also the adjoining pipe over the length which we stated was prescribed by the resolution of the Senate. For then and then only can the overseer be held to his full responsibility, when he understands that none but stamped pipes must be set in place.
In setting[3] ajutages also, care must be taken to set them on the level, and not place the one higher and the other lower down. The lower one will take in more; the higher one will suck in less, because the current of water is drawn in by the lower one. To some pipes no ajutages were even attached. Such pipes are called "uncontrolled," and are enlarged or diminished[4] as pleases the water-men.
