212 THE SALMON. 



drainage, so far as it is personal or domestic. It is natural 

 for the efflux from a dwelling-house to go down the 

 slope ; but if that slope happens to lead through the 

 householder's grounds or garden, or past his windows, he 

 is careful to cover up the stream from sight and smell, 

 till, and only till, it reaches a spot where he can dis- 

 tribute the nuisance among his neighbours. Whenever 

 the filth reaches the river or natural water-course, some 

 people seem to think it becomes innocuous or almost 

 sacred, though in truth it has only become an injustice 

 as well as an evil, and has acquired a thousandfold 

 greater power of mischief. Why do people thus refuse 

 to let " Nature " have her way with their own noses, and 

 then argue that it is right and necessary that she should 

 be left free to take her will of the public nose ? Just 

 because " what is everybody's business is nobody's busi- 

 ness" — because everybody has been looking after him- 

 self, and nobody after the public. The importance of 

 the neglect is now, however, beginning to be discovered, 

 and both communities and the Legislature seem more 

 than formerly inclined to attend to a business much 

 more important than many things regarding which there 

 is much making of speeches and of laws. 



The past neglect as to the polluting and poisoning of 

 rivers is the more remarkable that there is no want of 

 precedents for legislative protection and restriction in 

 matters of the same class. Take the case of the poison- 

 ing of the atmosphere. It is at least as natural for 

 smoke or fumes to rise into the air as for poisonous and 

 stinking substances to fall into the waters. Yet the law 

 compels all manufacturers, or others who send forth 



