170 SEWAGE AND ITS PURIFICATION 



Much sewage is still, however, locally discharged without 

 any treatment, or with only screening or a rough sedimenta- 

 tion. The Rivers Pollution Act, 1876, restrains such a practice 

 as regards " rivers, streams, canals, lakes, and watercourses, 

 other than watercourses at the passing of the Act mainly used 

 as sewers and emptying direct into the sea or tidal waters" 

 (section 20). Under the provisions of this Act, and the supple- 

 mentary one of 1893, damages have been obtained and injunc- 

 tions granted. But the working, on the whole, has not been 

 satisfactory, and the Royal Commission on Sewage observes '} 

 "At an early stage of our investigation we were struck by the 

 fact that in many parts of England the pollution of rivers goes 

 on unchecked, notwithstanding the fact that the Rivers Pollu- 

 tion Prevention Act has been on the statute book for over a 

 quarter of a century, and in our Interim Report we deemed it 

 necessary to state that the protection of our rivers is a matter 

 of such grave concern as to demand the creation of a supreme 

 rivers authority." They give, further, an outline of the powers 

 and duties of such a central authority and of proposed River 

 Boards. 



In certain estuaries the polluted water is carried up and 

 down by the tide, and is only slowly cleared out to sea ; and 

 yet tidal waters, as will be seen by the quotation we have given 

 from the Rivers Pollution Act, are exempted from its operation ; 

 as a consequence raw sewage continues to be discharged from 

 a large number of sea-coast towns. Recent cases at Ems- 

 worth and Southend have, however, shown that pollution of 

 oyster beds, if proved to be due to such discharge, is actionable 

 at common law. 



The risks to health, especially from the contamination of 

 fisheries and shell-fish layings, claimed early scientific attention. 

 In India it has been held from ancient times that uncooked 

 shell-fish are a cause of bowel affections and even of cholera. 

 In 1880 Sir C. Cameron pointed to the possible relation of 

 typhoid in Dublin to the consumption of specifically polluted 

 oysters. Sir R. Thorne Thorne, in the Local Government 

 Board Report for 1894, expressed his conviction that the dis- 

 tribution of shell-fish from certain centres had been concerned 

 in the diffusion of cholera over a somewhat wide area in Eng- 

 land. In the same year Dr. Newsholme commenced his 

 investigations as to the connection of typhoid at Brighton with 

 1 Third Report, 1903, p. 26. 



