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was done, and the unfortunate riparian proprietors whose 

 fish were killed for miles below Hereford, were told 

 by the local lawyers that they must put the Rivers 

 Pollution Act in force themselves ; they accordingly filed a 

 plaint in the County Court against the town, and the result 

 was, the town was convicted and a serious penalty imposed. 

 Mercy intervened, as it always did, and an opportunity of 

 repentance was given to the city, which was allowed a 

 certain time during which it might kill all the fish in the 

 river, and at the same time take the measures it ought to 

 have taken 10 years ago. Perhaps in 6 months' time a 

 renewed action would take place. That was a case within 

 his own knowledge in 20 or 30 important cities in 

 England. He believed the reading of this paper and this 

 resolution as the unanimous expression of opinion of such 

 a meeting would do something towards the formation of a 

 wholesome public opinion, and unless public opinion was as 

 wholesome as the water ought to be, nothing valuable would 

 ever be effected. If any epidemic were to break out the 

 public would move in greater alacrity, and he had been 

 much struck with the conclusion of his friend's paper in which 

 he alluded to a little black cloud on the horizon and gave 

 an emphatic warning to the public. He saw by the 

 evening paper, that the cholera, instead of diminishing, was 

 spreading rapidly in the East, so as to give occasion for the 

 greatest misgivings. It seemed a terrible thing to look 

 forward with any degree of pleasure to such a calamity, but 

 still he thought it was quite right to use an expression 

 which had become proverbial, and was often supposed to 

 be Scriptural, thought it was not, viz. : that God tempered 

 the wind to the shorn lamb, and if they did have an 

 epidemic he was perfectly certain that would be a magni- 



