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26
the Board, taking a leal out of the Lea trustees' book, applied for an
injunction against its neighbours; but since by this date it was so patently
contaminating the Moselle on its own account Tottenhams case failed.
This "Moselle Nuisance" was destined to become one of the most intractable
causes of friction between the inhabitants and the Board. Poor
Tottenham- the epithet was beginning to be regularly applied to it - was
doomed, it was said, to tolerate "both its own and its neighbours' sewage.
" The underlying community of interests between the various authorities
in the Lea Valley drainage area was so obvious that in 1867 Tottenham's
Local Board, to its credit, called a meeting of representatives
from neighbouring authoritues to discuss proposals for a joint drainage
scheme which would end "the tedious round of litigation". It was admitted
that "Tottenham was at a deadlock," and a rider added "that what had
been its experiences would be the experience of other parishes presently."
There were three alternatives to be considered, the first of which clearly
sprang from the old chimera of science working miracles; "Could science
provide a deodorised sewage? Could the area by combined representation
secure a link with the Metropolitan Board of Works' North London main
sewer? Could the district find a combined outfall of their own ?"
This momentary statesmanship on Tottenham's part was premature; the issues
were so confused and so potentially costly that most of the representatives
took fright and withdrew after two meetings, although the great
civil engineer, Mr. Bazalgette, had been consulted and had reported that
a link up with the Board of Works' main was feasible. Tottenham was too
easily rebuffed: it should have tried again and again to persuade its
neighbours to reconsider Mr. Bazalgette's scheme for the only possible
solution to its own problems lay in joint action along these lines.
A word ought also to be said about the Board's finances but the surviving
information on the point is scanty. Financial statements, which
sometimes appeared as advertisements in the press, dealt only with the
annual income and expenditure. Accountancy, in the strict sense, was
avoided by the Board until 1868, when under the threatening pressure of
Mr. Fowler Newsam, one of the resident magistrates, it was constrained to
engage an accountant "to ascertain what money the Board had borrowed,
what they had done with it and what they now owed." Borrowings, he decided
had amounted to £69,097 - 10 - 7, and it ought all to have been
spent on public works; but the various accounts had become too interlocked
for verification of past expenditure. The loans outstanding
amounted to £53,287. He observed (with unconscious humour considering
the defects in the Board's public services), "that in twenty years the
water works and sewage works would be free of indebtedness and a free
gift to the descendants of the present ratepayers." The rates, he thought
"were set too low to meet the real demands for income." In regard to
the rate collectors' accounts - a point on which Mr. Newsam had asked
specifically for information - the deficiency, he believed, "amounted to
only £889." The Board's reaction to the report was to make its Clerk,
Mr. Heath, who had held the post during the whole of the Board's existence,
a scapegoat for the confused state of the accounts and for some