Note 46b — Chapter IV · DENIZENS OF THE WOODS, &c.—BIPEDS.

The term “sewer” does not at all imply that this stream was ever used for sewerage purposes. It is a survival from old times, once meaning a drain or water course. Commissioners of sewers were appointed by Henry VIII. under the “Statute of Sewers.” But the same bucolic mind which can see in the most graceful church tower in the kingdom “Boston Stump,” gives the name of “Sewer” to a stream pellucid enough to be a fount of Castaly.