42
THE THREATENED DESTRUCTION OF
the Thames, but by a tunnel from Crossness to Barking, with engine-power, lift
the combined volume to the new canal or conduit. 1 say also that the crude
sewage may freely and easily flow along the new conduit, to be used in irrigation,
and so much as may not be so required in winter or in wet seasons can be passed
on to the North Sea, in like manner as it now flows along the London intercept-
ing sewers to the present outlets, so that it will not be necessary to remove by
precipitation one pound weight of sediment or use any chemicals, as the whole
will flow in one continuous stream, at a rate of not less than two miles per hour.
Properly constructed apparatus can be adapted to float along the conduit, sweep-
ing onward any deposit there may be."
A number of meetings have been held and committees formed
by the inhabitants of the districts likely to be affected by the sewage
should the scheme be carried out. The matter is one of the greatest
moment to all interested in Essex ; it is asserted that should the
proposal be adopted the valuable oyster fisheries would be totally
destroyed, and the health of the inhabitants of the towns on or near
the Essex coast, such as Southend, Burnham, Southminster, &c.,
most seriously jeopardized. Mr. Frank Candy thus writes :—
" Imagine for one moment a 'new river' of London sewage starting for the
sea at a considerable elevation, flowing sluggishly and in a putrescible condition
through Essex for 46 miles. Will not such a river of sewage give rise to com-
plaints ? Will no injury be done to towns and villages near the coast, including
such places as Southend, the Isle of Sheppey (Sheerness), Whitstable, Herne Bay,
and Shoeburyness ? And will the inhabitants of such places have nothing to
say about emptying the London filth, so to speak, at their very doors ? As to the
question of getting the sewage taken in its course through the Essex marshes for
purposes of agriculture, I would point to the miserable failure of the Essex
Reclamation Company, who attempted on a small scale the gigantic scheme now
propounded by Sir Robert Rawlinson. I would also recall to mind a somewhat
similar scheme started many years ago at Liverpool, and carried out by an
eminent engineer (the late Mr. Bateman), which also ignominiously failed,
although the company, finding the farmers would not purchase the sewage,
offered to give it to them, when even then the agriculturists refused it, and so this
scheme had to be abandoned. With such evidence before us, I do not think too
much reliance should be placed on the expectation that farmers will take the
sewage, except in small quantities, and in time of drought, and there can be no
guarantee that what the farmers may take will be purified, and that some of it
will not be allowed to go crude into streams and watercourses. . . . Dr. Arthur
Angell refers to the error of Sir R. Rawlinson, who stated in his paper that the
sewage of Liverpool passed harmlessly into the sea, whereas the shores of the
Mersey and the Dee are now mud-banks, where formerly they were clear sand.
If this is so with the sewage of a population of less than half a million, how
much more have we to dread the result of pouring out at Fowlness the sewage of
a population of five millions, and which, within 30 years, is likely to increase to
seven millions."
The arguments against the scheme are forcibly put by Major F.
C. Rasch, M.P., in a letter to the "Standard" :—
" Some twenty years ago it occurred to the Board of Works that the best way
of dealing with Metropolitan Sewage was to discharge it into the Thames
eighteen miles below London; and had every riparian town adopted this
principle, the state of the river would have been intolerable. Struck by this
somewhat self-evident fact, eminent engineers and scientists, such as Sir H.
Roscoe, Sir R. Rawlinson, and others—assembled at the Society of Arts—
suggested a scheme for dealing with the daily one hundred and fifty million
gallons of sewage.
There are three courses—(1) To discharge in a crude state at Hole Haven ;