POLLUTION OF KIVEKS. 



Extracts from the Reports of Royal Commissions, 

 Parliamentary Committees, Inspectors of Salmon 

 Fisheries, Medical Officers of the Privy Council, Re- 

 gistrar General, &c. &c., presented or returned to 

 Parliament between 1855 and 1868. 



" Ten years ago," said Lord Robert Montagu, in his 

 masterly speech when moving, on the 8th March, 1865, 

 the second reading of the " River Waters Protection 

 " Bill," '' the Committee on the Nuisances Removal Bill 

 " of 1855 had inquhed into this subject, and had ascer- 

 " tained that our Rivers had become ahsolutely pestilen- 

 " tial, and were, in fact, nothing hut main seivers, and had 

 " urged the Government to take steps for the removal of 

 " such disastrous influences." 



[^Hansard, Srcl Series, vol. Ill, p. 1309.] 



In 1858 a Royal Commission on the sewage of towns 

 reported (page 27) that — 



" From the whole of our inquiry w^e have arrived at the 

 " following conclusions," one of them being : — 



" That the increasing pollution of the rivers and streams 

 " of the country is an evil of tiatiofial importance which 

 " urgently demands the application of remedial measures ; 

 " that the discharge of sewage and the noxious refuse of 

 " factories into them is a source of nuisance and danger 

 " to health ; that it acts injuriously not only on the locality 

 " where it occurs, but on the populations of the districts 

 " through which the polluted waters flow ; that it poisons 

 " the water which in many cases forms the sole supplij of 

 " the populations for all purposes, including drinking ; 

 " and that it destroys the fish." 



1855. 

 llivers ascer- 

 tained by 

 House of 

 Commons' 

 Committee of 

 this year to 

 have become 

 pestilential. 



26 March, 

 1858. First or 

 Preliminary 

 Report of the 

 Commission- 

 ers on the 

 Sewage of 

 Towns. 



