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Commissioner, touching the decrease of the fish in the Mersey, 
and along the adjoining shores, when it was given in evidence by 
fishermen of over twenty years’ experience, that the sewage of the 
town was not deleterious to the fish, but that the chemical works 
adjoining, discharging their refuse into the river, proved a very 
destructive element. Of course, these remarks apply to fresh 
sewage only, which I consider is beneficial ; but at the same time, 
I have every reason to believe that fermented sewage is fatal to 
piscine life. 
My remarks will, I fear, have proved somewhat dry material 
for some of you; and to others they may have been wanting in 
that sweet flavour which ought to pervade a paper put before an 
assemblage of ladies and gentlemen in pursuit of scientific know- 
ledge. I can only say that the fault is not mine, as the subject 
was suggested when I was requested to read the paper. Something 
more congenial to the mind of a medical man I could have 
preferred, as the task of holding up the shortcomings of your 
neighbours to public criticism is by no means a pleasant one. 
What I have stated is given in unequivocal language, and in the 
words of a great sanitary authority, I may say, “I feel that if the 
new sanitary organization of the country is to fulfil its purpose, 
the administrators, local and central, must begin by fully recog- 
nizing the real state of the case, and with consciousness that, 
in many instances, they will have to introduce for the first time, as 
into savage life, the rudiments of sanitary civilization.” 
