20 
Trunk Drainage. 
established the Commissioners of Seioers upon a g-encral basis, 
and another of the 3id of Edward VI. perpetuated them for ever 
for the conservation of low grounds in the whole realm. Their 
powers are founded on the ancient customs of Romney Marsh, in 
Kent, by which the supervision of drainage works was intrusted 
to twenty-four jurats, chosen by the commonalty of the Marsh, 
whose office was to view defects and levy sums upon neglecters, 
these points having been embodied in six ordinances or standard 
regulations in the year 1250. It must not be supposed that, 
because of the general nature of the act, the whole surface of the 
kingdom was apportioned out to different commissions ; the act 
was permissive, and applied particularly to marshes and low 
grounds. I am not sure how many counties have ever had such 
conservators to look after their streams and banks, but Dugdale, 
in his History of Imhanking and Drayning, records the fact only 
of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, Sussex, Somerset, Gloucester, 
Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and the Great Level 
of the Fens ; excepting Derbyshire, which is little more than 
named, these counties much required the oversight of the com- 
missioners, because of their marsh grounds, low shores, or tidal 
rivers. Commissioners of Sewers are now to be found princi- 
pally in our lowland districts, and even there only a certain 
number and description of drainage works are under their super- 
vision. In some districts their sewers, and banks, and tunnels, 
&c., are preserved in good order, and certain new works of im- 
provement are now and then indulged in ; Jjut as they are irre- 
sponsible and arbitrary — receiving rates without suffering ques- 
tion or demur, and scouring what ditches they please — frequent 
altercations arise with owners and farmers, who can neither 
fathom nor relish their mysterious authority. In Somersetshire, 
for instance, their proceedings would be ludicrous did they not 
leave the moors and marsh-lands miserably clogged with water. 
A law regulating Courts of Sewers (3rd and 4th of William IV., 
cap. 22), passed in 1833, remedied certain defects in the prior 
law of sewers, enabling them to improve, as well as simply con- 
serve and restore works to their ancient condition ; and in a still 
more recent act (12th and 13th of Victoria, cap. 50) there are 
some useful provisions tending to give something like order and 
legality to the execution of their laws : but, looking at the fruits 
of these powers, we find it still true as ever that all works of 
magnitude remain to be carried out under private or local acts of 
parliament, by the agency of companies or otherwise, that navi- 
gations still pen up our streams to float barges over shoals, 
bridges contract their channels, and mills dam back our drain- 
water in spite of sewers " presentments " of the evils, or of their 
decrees fixing the legal "heads" and falls. We can only say to 
