Chapter 405
An Act to define and prevent certain nuisances.
SECTION I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met, That hereafter, no person or persons, shall cast, put, place, discharge in or permit or suffer to be cast, put, placed, discharged in, or to escape into any running stream of water within the limits of this State, from which stream the inhabitants of any borough, town or city within this State are supplied wholly or in part with water for and as a drink or beverage, any dye-stuffs, drugs, chemicals or other substance or matter of any kind whatsoever, whereby, and by means whereof, the said water so supplied as and for a drink, or beverage as aforesaid, shall be made and become noxious to the health, or disagreeable to the senses of smell or taste.
SECTION 2. Every person offending against the provisions of the preceding section of this Act, shall be deemed guilty Of committing a common nuisance, and upon conviction thereof by indictment in the Court of General Sessions of the Peace and Jail Delivery, shall be fined from one thousand to five thousand dollars at the discretion of the Court and addition to the fine aforesaid, the Court shall issue an order for the abatement of the nuisance twenty days after the verdict of the Jury upon the indictment aforesaid; and the Sheriff of either of the Counties of this State in which said conviction shall take place, shall, under the order aforesaid, unless the said nuisance shall before the expiration of the time allowed for the abatement of the said nuisance, have been abated, have full power to abate the same, and to this end shall enter on the premises from which the said nuisance proceeded and arrest, stop and put an end to the business from the carrying on of which or in the process of which the said nuisance was created or carried on, or premises from which the said nuisance proceeded and issued.
SECTION 3. And be it further enacted, That no person hereafter, shall put or place, or permit to be put, placed or used any privy, hog-pen or slaughter-house over or so hear that the excrement or offal therefrom shall escape or run into any stream of running water within the limits of this State from which the inhabitants of any town, borough, or city within the limits aforesaid, are wholly or in part furnished with water as a drink or beverage, and any one offending against the provisions of this section shall be deemed to be guilty of committing a common nuisance, and upon conviction thereof in the Court Penalty aforesaid, shall be lined the sum of one hundred dollars, and Abatement the Court shall order the nuisance to be abated immediately.
Passed at Dover, February 4, 1864.