202 THE SALMON. 



shall be rivers or sewers, beauties or deformities, pleasures 

 or plagues. 



There is, however, a possibility worth guarding 

 against, that a separation may be made in legislation 

 and in popular discussion — as indeed it has to some ex- 

 tent been made already — between that kind or degree of 

 pollution which destroys fish, and that kind or degree 

 which destroys rivers in other respects. In this case, 

 rather unluckily, the general question of the purification 

 of rivers does not quite necessarily include the perhaps 

 smaller question of the preservation of fish, nor does the 

 preservation of the fish quite necessarily include the puri- 

 fication of the rivers. The fish, or at least the salmon, 

 in a river may be to a great extent preserved, and yet 

 that river be a public nuisance ; and on the other hand, 

 the public nuisance may be greatly abated by means 

 destructive of the fish. The existing fishery laws have 

 clauses prohibiting the putting into rivers of any liquid 

 or solid matter destructive of fish, but interfering no 

 further ; whilst there is at present a visible danger that 

 those interested in the purification of rivers on other 

 grounds than those relating to fisheries may seek, as 

 in some quarters they are already seeking, to attain their 

 ends by means which, saving the noses and in some 

 degree the health of the public, would bring the fish to 

 sacrifice. 



The English Fisheries Act imposes penalties upon 

 " every person who causes or knowingly permits to flow, 

 or puts or knowingly permits to be put, into any waters 

 containing salmon, or into any tributaries thereof, any 

 liquid or solid matter, to such an extent as to cause the 



