THE TROUT STREAM 19 



offence against man ; but there are degrees of 

 guilt, perhaps, in those who commit the sin. The 

 blackened rivulets that one so often sees in the 

 north and midlands are piteous spectacles ; but, at 

 any rate, they are the result of great works and 

 mills and manufactories which keep thousands of 

 hands busy and add to the wealth and prosperity 

 of the country. On the other hand the vandalism 

 of those slovens — be they private individuals or 

 public bodies — who shoot their semi-crude sewage 

 and rubbish into the running stream seems to have 

 not a redeeming feature ; I doubt if even Mr. 

 Ruskin could exaggerate the heinous character of 

 their misdeed. It might well be said, " Oh, their 

 offence is rank, it smells to Heaven." 



To turn to the second of the serious evils that 

 threaten many of our pleasant fisheries in the 

 south of England. Shortness of water, in the case 

 both of the chalk and gravel streams, and of the 

 streams of the three western counties, Somerset, 

 Devon and Cornwall, which flow through land with 

 a sub-soil of rock and hard stone, is, of course, 

 frequently due to natural causes. The small 

 streams of Exmoor and Dartmoor always dwindle 

 down towards the latter part of summer, and the 

 volume of water in many of the lesser non-moor- 

 land streams is nearly always sadly diminished from 

 the same cause — want of rain — long before the 

 angling season is over. This failing in the supply 

 of water is, as we all know, not peculiar to the 

 streams of the south, but is common to rapid trout 

 streams in all parts of the world. The chalk 

 streams, depending entirely on springs, are not 

 affected by hot dry weather nearly so much as are 

 the more rapid waters referred to, though 



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