The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-07 00:00:00

SEWAGE OF TOWNS.

The commission "appointed to inquire into the
best mode of distributing the sewage of towns and
applying it to beneficial and profitable uses," have
made their second report to the Lords Commissioners
of the Treasury. In their first or preliminary re-
port, on 26th March, 1858, they stated some gene-
ral conclusions, which from visiting and personally
examining several localities where sewage was
treated and used in agriculture, they s ere enabled
to make; but they felt it necessary to undertake a
series of experiments which would extend over a
considerable period. The report now submitted con-
tains conclusions derived from such experiments,
but "in order to produce satisfactory and definite
conclusions for general guidance" a further period
is necessary; and such conclusions they intend to
present in a further report. The most important
conclusion arrived at by the commission is a pro-
posal that the rivers and waters of the country
should be strictly conserved. All the examinations
of the commission have led to the conclusion that if
the discharge of solid matter of sewage and other
refuse into the rivers is prevented, the chief part of
the inconvenience, reaching the proportions of a na-

tional evil, would be at once arrested. That this
can be accomplished within reasonable limits of ex-
penditure has been proved by the experiments above
referred to, and the experience of towns that have .
alreadyadopted the system. But the commission urge
as the first and all-important step, that a general
local jurisdiction and conservancy be created
throughout the kingdom with adequate powers and
proper guarantees for due administration. They
urge it as an anomaly that, in a country in which
every road and bridge is under special care and
supervision, so important an object as the preserva-
tion of its waters should be without general govern-
ment and control. Ownerships in streams have
been recognised. Private water rights exist. The
23d Henry VIII. makes provision for the clearing
of passages, of streams, building of walls, &c., and
important commissions from time to time established
have administered the draining of low lying and.
marshy districts. Further, till recent times the
necessity of a general jurisdiction over the river ap-
pears to have been unnecessary ; but " the .buses
and nuisances which have now grown up with the
growth of towns and manufactures urgently demand
some available law for the conservancy of rivers
from their sources to their outfalls." Great and
varied interests now suffer, and the only check
hitherto has been by action of private individuals
who have so suffered, but the imperfect results ob-
tained show that the evil admits of remedy. That
remedy can only be given by a general jurisdiction,
for though individuals may sometimes, at great cost,
protect themselves, even large communities are
helpless to secure themselves against evils caused
by the various populations above them. Reference
is made to the report of the select committee of the
House of Lords on the Scotch salmon fisheries, and
their recommendation that penalties should be im-
posed for allowing refuse matters of mills or manu-
factories to go into any river. The commission,
however, leave the subject with these general re-
commendations and remarks, and do not suggest
anything definite as to the constitution of the juris-
diction proposed to be established.