Trunk Drainage. 
21 
any person who may sufrjest a universal issuing of Sewers Com- 
missions under the Great Seal, as a promising system of organi- 
zation for removing abuses from our waters, that the conflicting 
rights and interests involved are far too multiform and powerful 
for any local commission. Thev could not touch half the small 
drains wliicli vmneighbourly neiijhbours will not cleanse for us ; 
still less provide the additional waterway that we ought to possess 
down the rivers for our annually augmenting delivery of drainage; 
still less could they deal with mill-dams or useless canals. Besides 
we must remember that agricultural drainage cannot always go 
foremost ; and where, as is often the case, the value of a naviga- 
tion, or of a chain of water-mills, outweighs the means at the 
disposal of the damaged land,, what can Commissioners of Sewers 
do to combine these interests in a plan for accommodating all ? 
In ancient times they made orders against " reeds, hafTs, fish- 
garths," and other nuisances in streams ; they enforced penalties 
for letting hogs root holes in embankments, and for plucking the 
sand-sedge from its growth on the sea-shore ; but the first em- 
banking of marshes, their subsequent drainage, and nearly all larger 
drainage works, cither of banks, cuts, or machinery, have been 
accomplished by other agencies. We may also include in this 
category of mere conservators of details, the officers found in 
certain of our lowlands under the title of marsh-reeves, appointed 
by parish freehold juries to superintend the drainage of the 
inclosed commons. 
Centuries ago trunk drainage found the fruitlessness of ex- 
pecting essential aid from such quarters ; summoning and dis- 
training gave way to " undertaking." 
In the 29th of Elizabeth some gentlemen "undertook" the 
recovery of the Eritli and Plumstead marslies in Kent (marshes 
which have nevertheless poisoned the atmosphere of the metro- 
polis up to this day), and for their encouragement a law was 
passed that they should have " a moiety of all such gained lands, 
and an eighth part of the other moiety," as their recompense. 
This act of parliament attracted various persons to engage in the 
work of draining several plots or districts in the Great Level of 
the Fens, though the work failed, because performed Avitliout refer- 
ence to the system of drains and rivers there as a whole. Public 
attention having been thus called to the new method of draining 
by contract for a part of the lands, a General Drainage Act was 
passed in the 43rd of Elizabeth, inc luding all the low inundated 
grounds in England. The preamble states that the chief hind- 
rance to their drainage was, that they were mostly wastes and 
commons, in which many persons had common-right by prescrip- 
tion, " by reason of their residence or inhabitancy, which kind of 
commons, or their interest therein, could not be extinguished 
