AND TIIE RIVER.
Contrast with this chance, but admirable, example from Hampshire what has happened and is happening elsewhere, along other streams. The Test is pure. What of the Ver ? Or, on a bigger scale than either, what of those adorable western rivers that rise above the Devil's Bridge, inland of Aberystwyth ? Scores of streams have lost their trout and half as many their salmon. Some of the Welsh streams have been ruined by mechanical pollution of a peculiarly unnecessary sort : the dumped grit has destroyed the spawning beds. Apart from my own knowledge of those rivers, correspondents of the Spectator have sent ardent and well-informed protests from Westmorland and Merioneth. Most of our Eastern rivers have been ruined by chemical pollution. The other day our people, at the formal abandonment of Wei-hai-Wei, were presented in the charming symbolic manner of the Chinese with a howl of pure water as a recognition of their pure administration. At home our rural administration, and, indeed, seaside administration, has been too often signalized by the impurity of the water.
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