30 



both by Imperial and local authorities, to enforce already- 

 existing Acts, and, if necessary, to amend them." It had 

 been suggested that there should be additional legislation, 

 but he thought there had been too much already, and too 

 little application of it ; one gentleman asked the question 

 how it was their municipalities had power to put sewage 

 into the rivers. It had been by the powers of legislation. 

 He had been engaged in sanitary matters for more than 

 30 years, and had visited various sewage works, and 

 a considerable time ago formed his own opinion, which 

 was confirmed by the steps the Thames Valley Board 

 had taken, that the only way of dealing successfully 

 with it was by chemical treatment. The three points 

 obtained by the Aylesbury Company were an innocuous 

 process, a pure effluent, and the disposition of the 

 process. Those, were the three important points to be 

 ascertained in all sewage works. At the time of the first 

 outbreak of cholera all the learned men and medical autho- 

 rities cried out there was death in the cesspool, and legisla- 

 tion followed, compelling all the towns within ten or fifteen 

 miles of London to close up their cesspools, and they were 

 all compelled to carry out a system of drainage conveying 

 the sewage into the Thames. This was done under the 

 heavy penalty that if the local authority did not carry out 

 the works, the central authority had power to come and do 

 it for them at an enormous cost. That was done at King- 

 ston-on-Thames at very great cost, and so matters went on, 

 all the towns pouring their sewage into the Thames, until 

 the next outbreak came, and then it was said that death 

 was in the rivers, and then came legislation to compel 

 those towns to remove from the river the sewage which 

 they had been compelled to pour into it, and they had 

 ever since been trying in the most thorough bona fides. 



