---
title: Are You Guilty? Your Leaky Water Tap Wastes
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-are-you-guilty-leaky-water-tap-1939/
description: A brass tap drips under the headline 'Are YOU guilty?' with the figures 1 drop per second, 7 pints per day, 6 gallons per week and 312 gallons per year.
section: Collection
---

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3. Are You Guilty? Your Leaky Water Tap Wastes

[![Are You Guilty? Your Leaky Water Tap Wastes, 1939 UK poster: A brass tap drips under the headline 'Are YOU guilty?'](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-are-you-guilty-leaky-water-tap-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-are-you-guilty-leaky-water-tap-1939.jpg)

# Are You Guilty? Your Leaky Water Tap Wastes

A brass tap drips under the headline 'Are YOU guilty?' with the figures 1 drop per second, 7 pints per day, 6 gallons per week and 312 gallons per year, and the request to renew the washer and so save coal, gas, electricity and man-power. The sheet is a domestic water-saving notice. The closest fit is card-stacking: figures are scaled up from one drip with no total supply for comparison, and the headline addresses the reader directly.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Are YOU guilty ?
YOUR LEAKY WATER TAP WASTES
1 DROP PER SECOND,
7 PINTS PER DAY,
6 GALLONS PER WEEK
OR
312 GALLONS PER YEAR!
PLEASE RENEW THAT WASHER & STOP THAT LEAK TO-DAY
YOU WILL ALSO BE SAVING COAL, GAS, ELECTRICITY & MAN-POWER
METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD
[imprint:] McCorquodale & Co., Ltd., London.
```

[← Appareils de la R.A.F. Quelques modèles fameux - II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-appareils-de-la-raf-modeles-fameux-ii-french-1939/) [Arms for Russia: A Great Convoy of British Ships Escorted by Soviet Fighter Planes Sails into Murmansk Harbour →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-arms-for-russia-1939/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Fragments of the Abydos king list from Ramesses II's temple, in the British Museum: rows of royal cartouches](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/abydos-king-list-ramesses-ii-temple-british-museum/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer)
- [Behistun (Bisotun) rock relief and trilingual inscription of Darius I: the king, two attendants and the bound rebel leaders beneath the winged figure of Ahuramazda](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/behistun-relief-darius-and-rebels-521bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Name-calling, Testimonial). Content note: Shows bound captives before the king, and the inscription records the mutilation and public execution of rebel leaders, as the king's own account.
- [Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam: the king in relief beside his inscription DNa, c. 490 BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dna-inscription-darius-i-naqsh-e-rustam-490bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Testimonial, Card stacking)
- [Line drawing of the Great Kadesh battle relief on the walls of the Ramesseum, from Breasted's History of Egypt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kadesh-relief-ramesseum-breasted-drawing-1275bce/) (New Kingdom Egypt · 0000 · Card stacking, Transfer). Content note: A drawing of an Egyptian royal battle relief showing Hittite soldiers and horses killed and drowned, as the king's monument presented the battle; it is a one-sided image made by the winning side's own account.
- [Persepolis, Apadana staircase relief: a figure with an animal from a procession of delegations, early fifth century BCE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/persepolis-apadana-delegate-relief-500bce/) (Achaemenid Empire · 0000 · Card stacking, Manufactured consensus)
- [Alabaster relief, Assyrian troops storming a citadel, from Nineveh (reign of Sennacherib)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/relief-sennacherib-storming-citadel-nineveh-704bce/) (Neo Assyrian Empire · 0000 · Card stacking). Content note: An Assyrian palace relief of troops storming a fortified city, with a file of figures below; Assyrian royal reliefs and texts record killing, mutilation and deportation, shown as carved, with the historical context and scholarly dispute on the regime page.
- [Colour lithograph of the Latin text of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti on the wall of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, with the heading in large letters (Perrot, Guillaume and Delbet, 1872)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lithograph-res-gestae-ancyra-heading-0014/) (Roman Empire · 0014 · Card stacking, Glittering generalities)
- [Silver denarius of Vespasian, reverse IVDAEA with a trophy of arms and a seated mourning woman](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/denarius-vespasian-judaea-capta-0070/) (Roman Empire · 0070 · Card stacking). Content note: A Roman victory coin showing a mourning female figure as the personification of the conquered province of Judaea after the Roman suppression of the Jewish revolt; shown as struck, with the historical context on the regime page.