( 110 ) 
anxious crowd of villagers of all ranks and 
ages. He dived into the water and after a 
good deal of difSculty managed to lasso the 
alligator round the middle part of its body 
and' of its legs. The line he brought up to 
land and a large number of men began to 
pull out the monster from its element up on 
to the bank. This was done after no mean 
effort and struggle on thepart of the alligator. 
When brought to land it was found to 
measure six feet in length. Master Jitendra 
Nath received the thanks and congratulations 
of tbe whole village. The alligator was kept 
for show in the compound of Bose Babus' 
house for four days and then killed, for fear 
lest it managed to snap the rope which held 
it a prisoner and escape into the water again 
to prey on the fish. — Pioneer. 
: THE COLOIVIBO LAKE : 
TJP TO 1S79, "A THING OP BEAUTY 
AND A JOY FOREVER." 
HAS IT DEGENERATED IN 24 YEARS. 
FROM A PURE EXPANSE OF WATER 
'iO A CESS-POOL? 
Such is the conclusion airived at by Mr. 
Robert Skelton, Municipal Engineer, and 
b)S gradations are :— IS'iO— " a pure lake"; 
lg91_"a polluted lake'' ; iSOl (and more so 
in 18C3) "a cess-pool." He bases these 
condemnatory descriptions apparently on 
the infoimation furnished by Dr. Trimen 
in regard to a change in plant-life and on 
the reason given by Dr. Chalmers lor the 
recent great capacity of the lake for breed- 
ing flies, because- " there are plenty of 
algae for the voracious larvae to feed upon." 
But it seems tons that Mr. Skelton goes too 
far altogether in his inlercnces or deductions 
from the language of both the Botanist and 
the Medical Officer, and we should be much 
surprised if Dr, Trimen (or his successor 
Mr. Willis) and Dr, Chalmers were to 
agree in the description of the Colombo 
Lake at the present lime of clay, or in 1901, 
as " a cess-pool." This is a very serious 
lissertion and should not be lightly made ; 
and we think old residents round the 
holders of the lake will agree with us that 
the plague of flies from the Colombo Lake 
was often very bad long previous to 1879, 
and that the Lake in place of being always 
a pure sheet of water before that date, was 
often in a very dangerous and polluted state. 
We have never seen any part of the Lake 
so bad of recent years as we can recall 
c-ertain portions in the neighbourhood of 
Slave Island and the Fort in the early 
years of the Municipality or between 1867 
a.nd 1879. The improvement of the Lake was 
first energetically taken in hand by Sir Wm. 
Gregory and an immense deal was done 
by that Governor to stop sewage nuisances 
both on the Pettah, the Fort and Slave 
Inland shores and for the building of a revet- 
ment wall round: a considerable portion of 
the shore near the Galle Face; This was in 
the " seventies" and certainly the Lake was 
anything but " a pure sheet of water " in 
the early part of that decade. As for "flies," 
we must ask old Mr, Charles Shand (Major 
Symons might know) what his experience 
was during his long residence in Wavertree 
House ; and there was the tradition of Mr. 
George Christian of Messrs. J. M. Robertson 
& Co., resident in St. James's or the next 
bungalow, having, at certain seasons, 
to let down mosquito curtains round his 
dining table, to keep out the flies buzzing 
in from the lake. " The olden days were 
better than these ' is an assertion very com- 
mon in the mouths of many people ; but it 
seldom bears investigation with better result 
than Dr. Donald Eraser of Marylebone, found 
to be the case when he pressed the matter 
home on his old verger in Inverness, and 
found that all he could say, by way of 
corroboration or evidence, was:—' The 
Gaelic preaching is no what it wass, and the 
whiskey is no what it wass "! We can 
assure Mr. Skelton that the Colombo Lake 
was by no means an idyllic sheet of water 
previous to 1879,— that in many re.'^pects there 
is a great improvement now, to our unpro- 
fessional idea, on what the condition was 
a quarter of a century ago, and that we should 
consider the charge of " a cesspool," judging 
by ordinary appearances, much more appli- 
cable before Governor Gregory's day than at 
the present time. 
But, of course, the matter cannotr be 
allowed to jest as it is in .'Mr. 
Skelton's Report. Further and explicit 
investigation is imperatively called for. The 
foul charge is directed apparently against 
the whole Lake with its area of over 400 
acres ; while the only remedy seemingly 
proposed is to fill up and reclaim about 66 
acres. What guarantee is there that if 
matters are so bad as they are described, 
reclamatiom will do more than mitigate 
the evil ? We should be among the last to 
advocate the entire fllling-up of our 
Lake,— indeed we have always protested 
against any such thought ; but • the time 
has evidently arrived when a policy must 
be determined on, and we think the Governor 
ought to appoint, in the first place, a 
scientific Commission to report on the actual 
condition of the Lake :— Dr, Willey, f, r. s. 
Mr. "Willis, f. l, s., Dr. Chalmers, Mr: 
Kelway-Bamber, F. c. s,. and Dr. Marshall- 
Philip. Sanitary Expert, have the full 
confidence of the public and their investi- 
gation and report would at once show 
whether the Colombo Lake — " a pure sheet 
of water in 1879 "—has now been converted 
into a cess pool. 
Among others, oiu' correspondent " Old 
Colonist " will be inclined to crow over us 
at this juncture. Last year he advocated 
the complete abandonment of the Lake, — 
not so much its filling-up as its emptying 
of water, and its drainage, so that it might 
be planted up as a garden, and utilised as 
a park and public promenade. We 
then quoted the unanimous testimony borne 
to the healthfulness and ; beauty of our 
Lake for the past century. How Sfiss 
