substantial support and encouragement. The education and maintenance
of a hundred orphan children are provided for at another establishment;
nor is there any charitable institution worthy of support that is not
assisted with ungrudging liberality.

The conservancy of the Thames is another of the responsible duties of
the Corporation. For all purposes of navigation the river is admirably
adapted by nature, and improved by the thoughtful vigilance of its
conservators. As a navigable river the Thames is actually in a better
condition at the present day than at any period of its past history, a
remark that cannot be applied to any other tidal river in the world.
As for the filthy and polluted character of its waters, that at least
cannot be laid to the charge of the Corporation. So far back as the
year 1842 the City authorities issued a commission to survey and
report upon the state of the Thames, and in accordance with the report
of those gentlemen proceeded to take measures for embanking the river
so as to prevent the deposit of mud on the banks, to deepen the
channel, and to improve the wharfage. Strange to say, these spirited
proceedings in the interest of the entire metropolis drew down upon
the Corporation the wrath of the "Woods and Forests." The foul
fermenting accumulations of putrescent matter which send forth the
pestilential exhalations that engender so much disease, are declared
to be the property of the Crown, as "seised of the ground and soil of
the coasts and shores of the sea, and of all the navigable rivers
within the flux and reflux of the tide throughout the kingdom."
Thanks, therefore, to this precious prerogative of the Crown, her
Majesty's lieges have for the last fifteen years continued to be
poisoned "by virtue of the common law," while the Corporation have
been punished by the infliction of a suit in Chancery for seeking to
cleanse the river and purify the atmosphere, without first invoking