The great question of the purification — or rather of the non-pollution — of the Thames is the newest and most flagrant example of this ancient truth. Error has been permitted to accumulate upon error, neglect upon neglect, and wrong upon wrong, until the evil consequences, strengthened and complicated by the lapse of time, have become so unmanageable that action or inaction is equally dangerous. The Thames, which, fifty years ago, ran through London in a clear and limpid stream, over whose current it was a pleasure to be rowed, in whose waves it was delightful to bathe, and of whose pure waters it was wholesome to drink, has, by sheer neglect on the part both of the people and the Government, become a foul sewer, a river of pollution, a Stream of Death, festering and reeking with all abominable smells, and threatening three millions of people with pestilence as the penalty of their ignorance and apathy. It was the duty as well as the interest of London to keep its noble river, the source of all its wealth and much of its beauty, as clear as Nature gave it. But the initial difficulty in the case was that there was no London that could undertake the work. There was an old and small city, with rights and powers of self-government, surrounded by a congeries of towns, boroughs, and villages, larger than itself, and growing larger every day, all of which were equally interested in this great achievement, but none of which had the means of taking a step for the furtherance of the common design. The city or municipality of London — the mere nucleus of that mightier conglomeration of cities which form the actual metropolis of the British Empire — was not likely to tax the dwellers within its own narrow and defined area with the cost of the sewerage of the whole metropolis; and it had no power to levy a shilling for the purpose on the people of Westminster, Finsbury, Marylebone, or any other outlying borough.
Explanation:
