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sewerage may be effectually prohibited from being discharged into rivers and streams.
From Memorial of the Mayor, Aldermen, &c., of Birmingham:— 1864.Memorial of the Mayor, Aldermen, &c., of Birmingham to the Home Secretary. [Parl. Paper, 6th March, 1865, No. 105, page 2.]
That your memorialists have been advised by the most eminent chemists and engineers on their difficulties in relation to sewage, and they have expended large sums of money and exhausted all their efforts in vain attempts to obviate the evils arising from it; and they are now convinced beyond a remaining doubt, that the time has arrived for the introduction, by Her Majesty's Government, of a practical and comprehensive measure, by means of which your memorialists may be enabled to carry the whole of their sewage, both liquid and solid, upon some adjacent lands, so that it may be applied, in accordance with natural laws, in adding to the fertility of the soil.
Your memorialists hardly think it necessary to point out to Her Majesty's Government the extreme importance of preserving the purity of the rivers and streams of this kingdom; but they would respectfully suggest that the great and increasing number of towns and populous places exercising the drainage powers of the 'Local Government Act,' and other Acts of Parliament, in all parts of the kingdom, will result in the intersection of the Island in all directions with a network of open and noxious sewers instead of the former pure and wholesome streams, unless the evils arising from the present method of disposing of sewage are immediately arrested.
That your memorialists would also respectfully draw your attention to the increasing difficulty now experienced in obtaining a supply of water for large populations from a pure and wholesome source; because the rivers and streams are all becoming more and more in-infected with the pollution of sewage. That your memorialists are surrounded by the very large populations inhabiting the manufacturing districts of South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire, immediately adjoining the borough boundaries, being only separated from them by small streams, some of which, by means of the sewage of such populations, have been long since converted into open sewers of the worst description, and others are rapidly becoming in a similar condition.
