8 



in the opinion of the board the pollution caused by the 

 sewage is most injurious to salmon and other fish in the 

 River Wye, and the board requests the executive com- 

 mittee to take immediate steps to enforce the provisions of 

 the Rivers' Pollution Act." 



I have troubled you with these lengthy quotations from 

 the above meeting as being the most recent press report 

 that I have been able to trace of a polluted river, and of the 

 efifect of sewage upon fish life, although I am well aware 

 that many other rivers have equal if not greater death rates 

 among the inhabitants of their waters. 



I shall be asked, I dare say, Why do you not tell us of 

 the condition of the rivers upon which our larger towns are 

 situated ? The answer to this query is self-evident to every 

 angler. In most of these, the glory of their names as 

 salmon and trout producing rivers, have parted from them 

 long ago, viz., when first the towns upon their banks grew to 

 such an extent that these delicate fish could no longer 

 withstand the volume of impurity that was entering their 

 confines. I need not prolong the enumeration of rivers 

 polluted more or less, and which must of necessity in- 

 crease each day in the extent of their pollution as the 

 population multiplies by leaps and bounds. Some rivers, 

 no doubt, are only in the first stages of pollution, and 

 others are, and have been for some time, in the most 

 dangerous stage, and can be justly said to deserve to have 

 the same words addressed to them as a poet has sung to 

 one of the noble rivers of Scotland — 



" My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore, 

 Where Nature's face is banished and estranged, 

 And heaven reflected in thy wave no more." 



Now we come to the next proposition, which is not so 



