INTRODUCTION.
The Council of the Fisheries Preservation Association, in bringing under public notice the subject of the pollution of rivers, deem it unnecessary to use many words of their own in order to secure due attention to an evil which in its wide-spread extent and baneful effects has become one of the deepest national importance.
The facts adduced in these pages, taken from the most authentic sources, sufficiently prove its colossal and necessarily ever increasing proportions, and trumpet-tongued proclaim the necessity of some prompt and comprehensive remedial measure, to protect from further injury and destruction the health and lives of the people, and save from further annihilation what, but for these pollutions and other grievous injuries to the river fisheries, would form a very valuable addition to their food.
The Council therefore in the few observations they propose to make, need do little more than point out (but to the important fact they invite special attention), that while the Royal Commissioners and the other authorities quoted have all in the strongest terms denounced the pollution of our rivers by sewage, and mine, and manufacturing refuse, as a most intolerable and dangerous nuisance that must be abated, they one and all at the same time concur in declaring that it can be abated and in a manner satisfactory to all parties; that sewage can easily and profitably, and without danger to the public health be got rid of by application to the land, and that the noxious
