Page:On the Pollution of the Rivers of the Kingdom.djvu/56

50 provisions for freeing the river between Staines and Cricklade, in Wilts, near its source, from sewage and noxious and offensive refuse; and in the same Session also another Act (29 and 30 Vic, cap. 319) was passed, intituled "An Act for the purification of the River Thames, by the diversion therefrom of the sewage of Oxford, Abingdon, Reading, Kingston, Richmond, Twickenham, Isleworth and Brentford, and for the collection and utilization of the sewage."

This latter Act empowered certain persons therein named, who were willing at their own expense to divert the sewage from the river, to incorporate themselves into a company for that purpose. No company, however, appears to have been formed nor anything done under the powers of this Act.

In 1867 an Act was passed conferring on the Conservators of the Thames the same powers for preventing the pollution of the river between Staines and the western boundary of the metropolis, as had been conferred on them by the Thames Navigation Act of the previous year, as regarded the portion of the river between Staines and Cricklade near its source; but it would seem from the subsequent statements made by Sir George Bowyer (on the motion of Mr. Cave for leave to bring in a Bill for the Conservancy of the River Lea—(Times Report, 21st February, 1868) that this Act and the previous Act of 1866 were quite inoperative as regarded the exclusion of sewage from the river, the towns on it. Sir George remarked, "having done nothing to exclude it, and they declared that they could not be compelled to exclude it."

On the 7th June of this year the great Salmon Fishery Congress assembled at the Horticultural Gardens, South Kensington. It was presided over by Earl Percy (now the Duke of Northumberland), and consisted of