Lea and Gade The most famous trout-streams belong to the
West and some South and Midland shires ; but the fisherman's case is being fought out most saliently and definitely in Hertfordshire. The best known of its streams, thanks in part to Isaac Walton's preference, is the Lea or Lee. (Which is the right spelling ?) A year or two after it lost all its live creatures, from crayfish and sticklebacks to trout, owing to the decanting of poison refuse from Luton, Lord Brocket obtained an injunction against the offenders, and presently we dwellers near its banks hope to see life return to its pleasant dawdling waters, which still turn the wheel of a Domesday mill. Now a similar battle is to be fought on behalf of the Gade. I used to visit a house on its banks owned by a famous fisherman and sportsman. We would look at some rare and beautiful trees, planted there by the famous Hooker, and so walk to the edge of the stream, whose rippling current was eloquent of fish, but never was a circlet seen to break the surface. The lifelessness was a daily grief to the owner of the bdnks, but he could get no redress, and was never sure of the source of the trouble. A struggle for purity has now began, and may make fishing history and help, as the Lea injunction has helped, to advance the campaign—which is much more than a mere fishers'. campaign— against river pollution.
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