41 



riparian owners of the neighbourhood and many other 

 gentlemen. 



" Mr. Millar, a fishery lessee, Newport, reported that there 

 was no sign of the salmon disease in his district, in fact the 

 fish were in excellent condition, not having been fed on 

 Hereford grounds. (Laughter.) 



" Sir Henry Scudamore Stanhope said that a gentleman 

 who was fishing on his estate had told him that the water 

 was so offensive that it took him a week to get his waders 

 sweet again ; " and then Sir Henry made use of this very 

 wise remark : that " water ought to be kept pure for the use 

 of mankind." I only wish his desire could be accomplished 

 more rapidly than it is likely to be. 



A gentleman named Stephens then related " the experi- 

 ence of his workmen, who had seen hundreds of large trout 

 and grayling dead in the river below Hereford, and they 

 reported that the stench on the banks of the river was 

 abominable." He also added a sentence that, I trust, the 

 authorities of towns will take home to themselves ; he said, 

 " If fish were killed in their natural element, the water was 

 certainly not healthy for people and stock to drink." 



A Mr. Lloyd said "they could not ignore the fact that 

 the sewage of Hereford and other towns" (I will add, of 

 every town allowing its sewage to flow untreated, or, what 

 is even worse for the fish, badly treated by the use of lime, 

 or badly worked sewage farms) "was doing immense injury 

 to the river ; and he thought the time had arrived when the 

 Board ought to tackle this great evil, or say that they were 

 not prepared to do so ; or if they were, let them put the 

 existing law in force." 



Many other speakers bore testimony to the polluted state 

 of the river, and the following resolution was passed : " That 



