CHAP. VIII.] CROYDON LOCAL BOARD. 73 



leading characters of his chemical brothers, my father is hit off 

 in these few witty lines : 



" Smee, the vivacious, who, as chance may wish, 

 Invents a battery, or hooks a fish, 

 Famous in both exploits as well can be 

 (An old inhabitant of Finsbury) 

 The welkin rings with his ecstatic shout 

 When from the stream he lands the spotted trout ; 

 Now wrapt in science, then a thought will strike 

 His varied mind, and straight he trolls for pike ; 

 Or, at that pleasant spot in Surrey, shares 

 A market-gardener's spoils without his cares 

 Grapes, nectarines, peaches, figs, bright apples, plums, and pears." 



But my father was not long destined to enjoy his fishery and 

 his garden without molestation, for the Croydon Board of Health 

 carried all the sewage into the river which passed through 

 Beddington Park to his garden, and as he said, " the effluvium 

 was noxious ; the fish died, and foul mud was deposited at the 

 bottom of the river." It became a question whether he should 

 abandon the fishery and the garden. Fortunately he determined 

 otherwise, and commenced instead an agitation, which, with 

 intervals, lasted two years, to stop the pollution of rivers.* 

 "Communications were made to the Privy Council; a series of 

 bills in Chancery were filed nearly simultaneously by three 

 separate landowners ; and injunctions were obtained restraining 

 the Board of Health from polluting the stream. The Croydon 

 Board resisted the law till a committal was signed to commit the 

 members of the Board to prison." Indeed, the members of the 

 Croydon Local Board were very near being incarcerated on one 

 Christmas Day ; and if I remember rightly they have to thank my 

 father that such a misfortune did not overtake them, though I 

 must admit that I thought at the time, and think so now, that 

 they would have richly deserved the punishment for the unfair 

 manner of their proceedings. Through them the ratepayers were 

 involved in great costs ; but in the end the law proved too strong 

 even for a Board of Health, and so my father was again permitted 

 to enjoy his garden in peace. The correspondence between the Local 

 Board of Health of Croydon and my father is curious and highly 

 instructive, especially to those interested in the manner in which 

 Local Boards of Health sometimes conduct their proceedings. 



The cholera which devastated the East of London in 1866 

 resulted in many warm discussions on the quality of water 



* See ' My Garden,' p. 32. 



