Abstract
THE last Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Pollution of Rivers has excited a considerable amount of public attention, and the press, in addition to giving its own views on the matters reported on, has printed a considerable number of letters from private persons interested in the question. We have, of course, had the usual remarks about the conflicting statements of scientific witnesses, and a large quantity of ingenuity has been expended in attempts to prove that this conflicting evidence is an indication of the witnesses being so wedded to pet theories that they are unable or unwilling to see facts in their true light, and hence that the best way is to let matters take their course and trust that everything will come right in the end. To a very large portion of the world this conclusion is a most comfortable one to arrive at, as it spares the atepayer and offers no offence to the dreaded “vested interest.” On the other hand, there is a considerable section of the public which cannot hear that any part of our institutions is not absolutely perfect without being thrown into a state of nervousness and dread, a section well exemplified on the occasion of a former report by a paper which stated that—“We must face the dreadful fact that no amount of filtration can free our water from the nitrates and nitrites which are amongst the most deadly of poisons!”
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Our Water Supply . Nature 13, 201–202 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/013201a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/013201a0