SEPTEMBER 359 



of rain only that has caused this severe water famine in Hertford- 

 shire, for, as Sir John Evans has pointed out in various letters to 

 the Times, the London companies are responsible for a great deal of 

 the trouble. I am told that by means of deep wells and in other 

 ways they are literally draining the district, and if the present state 

 of things is allowed to go on there is great risk that within a number 

 of years, which can be reckoned, Hertfordshire will only have 

 enough water for the barest necessities. Some people say, indeed, 

 that it must become a desert. At least this is certain, that streams 

 which used to run, run no longer, that ponds are drying up, and 

 that wells in which was plenty of water are now dry and must be 

 either deepened or abandoned. Indeed the process is going on 

 at the back of this house, where, as the water suddenly showed 

 symptoms of giving out, it has been found necessary to sink the 

 bore another eighty or a hundred feet. 



Undoubtedly the inhabitants of this part of Hertfordshire are 

 becoming seriously alarmed as day by day they see the water upon 

 which they depend being pumped away to London, but whether 

 they will succeed in persuading Parliament to listen to their 

 grievances is a matter about which I can express no opinion. 

 Unfortunately, whenever one set of experts declare that a public 

 catastrophe of the sort is owing to certain causes, another set of 

 experts arise who explain in the largest possible print that the 

 first set are donkeys, if not evilly disposed lunatics. Of this state 

 of affairs the central authority, which does not want to be 

 bothered, not unnaturally hastens to avail itself. ' If you gentle- 

 men can't agree,' it says, 'you can hardly expect me to interfere,' 

 and so the thing goes on till something happens, which, in the 

 case of the Hertfordshire water supply, will not, I understand, be 

 for very long. 



From time to time there is much controversy in the Press and 

 elsewhere as to the genuineness of the claims of the Dowsers, who 

 assert that they are able to discover the whereabouts of water by 

 means of a divining rod, that is a twig which they hold in the hand. 

 This twig, under the influence of their magic or magnetic power, 



