POLLUTION OF A STREAM. 181 



Principally on the .authority of Wright v. Williams it was held in 

 Carhjon v. Lovering, where the declaration was for ivrongfuUy throwing 

 sand, stons, ruhhle, and other stuff (which became dislodged or severed 

 by the defendant's workmen in the course of working his tin mine, and 

 using the tin and tin ore) into a natural stream of water, flowing 

 through the plaintiff's lands, whereby the channel was obstructed, and 

 the water flowed over and upon the lands and destroyed their produce, 

 that there was no reason why such privilege, although injurious to the 

 plaintiff to a great extent, might not be tJie subject matter of a grant. 

 " The plaintiff," said Watson B., '' as a riparian proprietor, has a right 

 to have the waters of this natural stream run through his land in its 

 accustomed purity, without being polluted by any riparian proprietors 

 or others higher up the stream ; but that right he may abandon, by 

 allowing an user to have continued for twenty or forty years ; or he 

 may grant the privilege to an owner higher up the stream, for his ad- 

 vantage, of invading that right to the detriment of the water flowing 

 through the plaintiff's lands. We can see no reason why such a 

 privilege although injurious to the plaintiff to a great extent, might 

 not be granted" (1 H. & N. 784 ; 32 L. J. Q. B. 231). 



Jloore V. Webb was an action for imtluting a stream and impregnating 

 it with noxious substances, whereby the plaintiff's cattle were unable to 

 drink of the water, and had to be di-iven to a distance. The defendant 

 pleaded an immemorial right to use the water of the stream for the 

 purposes of his trade as a tanner and fellmonger, and returning it pol- 

 luted to the stream when so used, and also prescriptive rights for twenty 

 and forty years respectively. The plaintiff new-assigned " that he sued 

 not only for the grievances in the pleas admitted and attempted to be 

 justified, but for that the defendant committed the grievances over and 

 above what the defences justified." At the trial the presiding judge 

 directed a verdict to be entered for the defendant on all the issues 

 except the first and second (viz., " Not guilty ") ; but the Court of 

 Common Pleas held, that whether the pleas were to be understood as 

 claiming an immemorial or a prescriptive right not limited to the pur- 

 poses of the tannery, or the more limited right to use the water for the 

 purposes of the business as carried on more than twenty years ago, the 

 verdict was not warranted by the evidence, and also that the new assign- 

 ment was well pleaded. The rule was made absolute for a new trial. 



The declaration in Whaleg v. Laing, stated that plaintiffs were pos- 

 sessed of coal mines, and steam-engines and boilers for working the 

 same, and enjoyed the benefit of the waters of a certain canal near the 

 said engines, &c., to supply the same with water for working the same, 

 &c., and which said waters then ought to have flowed and been without 



