Page:On the Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom.djvu/23

 "That a Committee of the Honourable the House of Commons inquired into this subject during the last Session of Parliament, and recommended in their report thereon 'that the important object of completely freeing the entire basins of rivers from pollution should be rendered possible by general legislative enactment.'

"That your memorialists fully concur in this recommendation, and see no reason why the penalty for discharging sewerage into rivers should not be made as simple and effective in application as the law now makes the penalty for injuries done to highways.

"Your memorialists therefore pray that you will introduce a Bill in the next Session of Parliament to carry out the recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee herein rehearsed, and effectually prohibit sewerage and any foul and offensive matter from being discharged into streams and rivers.

"All which is respectfully submitted.

"Given under the Corporate Common Seal of the said Borough of Sheffield, this 12th day of October 1864. "(Signed), Mayor."

At a meeting of the Sanitary Committee and other Public Bodies of Nottingham, it was (inter alia) resolved:

"That in the opinion of this meeting the time has arrived when provision should be made by the Legislature for enabling, and (when needful) requiring, the sewage of towns and villages to be applied for the benefit of adjacent districts of and, instead of polluting the waters of rivers and brooks, and also for enforcing, as far as practicable, that the noxious refuse arising from trade works be purified before it enters any stream of water, and the more solid parts of such refuse be separated and retained on the land."

"That the powers of the 'Public Health Act' and 'Local Government Act' do not completely meet the wants of the case, and they give no powers to restrain the pollution of streams, and cannot give that combined action over an extended area or watershed embracing several parishes, which is essential for providing an effectual remedy.

"That the neighbourhood of Nottingham shows the mischief resulting from the present state of things.

"That impure liquid matter from the manufactures and population of Old Lenton, near Nottingham, flows