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purpose to die on behalf of the people of London. Like a 

 noble martyr it had laid down its life for the benefit of 

 those who would have caught it alive and in health if they 

 could. It had been said that before proper means were 

 taken to prevent railway collisions, a bishop must be killed, 

 but in this case they came very near Royalty being killed, 

 for the sturgeon was a Royal fish ; and, therefore, now there 

 was a Royal witness in favour of moving sewage from the 

 Thames, it was high time for everyone else to follow such 

 an Imperial personage, and to insist on the filth being 

 taken out of the noble river, and not only out of the 

 Thames, but out of every other river into which sewage 

 and other pollutions were allowed to flow. 10,000 square 

 miles in England alone out of 60,000 were utterly 

 destroyed, as fish-bearing rivers, by pollutions of this kind. 

 It was essential that this should be prevented for the sake 

 of the many interests which have been referred to. As to 

 that question of cost, it was not a mere matter of £ s. d. 

 how much it would cost to do this, or how much to do 

 that ; the enormous advantage to the health of the 

 populations adjoining must be taken into account, besides 

 the gains the community would derive from having fisheries 

 restored which at present were destroyed, and the enormous 

 advantage of having valuable manure, which, if put on the 

 land, would produce enormous crops instead of being put 

 into the river where it dealt death and desolation wherever 

 it went. As to this particular company he had not the 

 slightest interest in it, but he had watched its career with 

 great interest and examined the works when first established 

 at Leamington. Comparing the nuisance, as it was called, of 

 the slight effluvium he occasionally perceived in the early 

 days, it was nothing in comparison to the stench which 

 arose from the irrigation farm which had replaced it. If, 



