Country Life
VILLAGE VISITORS.
" Our village " has received this week visits from two official persons, neither of whom was expected or altogether understood. Both were sign and symptom of new legislation, intimately affecting the future of country places. One of them offered, most kindly, to relieve this resident and that of his " obligations " in regard to the river. Now the river, or rather brookside, owners had never heard of any obligations. They knew the miller had rights (exercised sometimes in a very high-handed manner), though quite what his rights are is a thing that even the best local lawyers boggle at. And now that most local mills, once rich in themselves and a cause of wealth to their neighbours, are out of commission, the rights matter
very little to anyone. The visitor returned without much " business done," as Punch says ; and, truth to tell, his know-
ledge of the constitution of rural life did not seem exhaustive ; but he is a new phenomenon representing a real reform in the drainage and regulation at least of those streams that are connected with the water supply. We need much wider and more effective changes, for pollution is rampant—and it
depends on the free flow of the water as well as on adventitious chemicals. A good stream will heal itself. The salmon of Aberystwyth, as the even robustious pike of Norfolk, have quite disappeared from their proper haunts. Contrast this with the wise action of the government of Nova Scotia, over
the way, who keep their own hatcheries for trout, and restock the many streams at frequent intervals. That is a socialistic work that the strongest Tory supports.
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