Poisoned Fish • The poisoning of the Lea, of which
Londoners drink, seemed. to me especially undesirable because I live almost on its bank ; but news from many parts of Britain suggests that other greater rivers are in yet worse care. One of them is the Tyne, the most popular of drains., The foulness shifts to and fro as tide and stream get the upper hand. It is alleged that the body of a dead dog has been watched for weeks by dwellers on the 'banks, and they know by a study of the tides just where be at any given hour. It recalls the dead dog thrown out of theprojectile in tha,t, glorious book From the Earth to the Moon ejected after the sphere of the moon's attraction had been reached. The Tyneori course, is a great salmon river ; the Lea only a trout stream ; but Voth- are too precious to be made drains of. Other drainage may be vdi expensive where purification is not possible' but to keep our rivers _clean is one of the "categorical imperatives." Human health as well as piscatorial existence are involved. First things first.. The' saving of our rivers as the saving of the sea-coast are a prior duty to the establishment of national parks for example.
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