The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-07-05

ana mountains and rivers OF which
we are SO boaStful, in our geographical com
pacency. We have wasted our Incompatible
inheritance, as barbarians would not have done,
for we have exhausted the agencies OF CiviiEa-
ton in the widespread laoors of universal i'm
pOverlShme1t. The golden soil OF the Virginia
tobacco lands is gone. the corn and wheat
fields on the hills of the states between the Ale
gheny mountains and the Mississippi river yield
no more as in earlier days. The thousand
streams that once murmured all the year round
alternate between dry and scOrched channels
aud muddy torrents.
POLLUTED RIVERS.
Great rivers, once slvery clear and whole
some in their wanderings us the ocean, are
turbid and poisonous with pollution, and some
of our fish commissioners wonder, when supply
ing them with billions of young fish, that they
are not once more fail of life and beauty and
cheap and excellent food The woods have
been torn from the contains, and brooks have
departed because the springs have ceased to
flow; and when not dwindled almost to dust
beds the ancient millstreams are roaring floods,
for the slopes OF the rid are barred and the
rainfalls rush from them as over roofs of slate;
tae hihsldes are plowed up and down preparing
cutters to feed the freshets with the soil that Is
far more precious, IN the eyes Of those
who have been taught the art OF
seeing than the precious metals 1t is the pas
sion and pride o. the aYeraye American TO smlte
the trees and SlOot the birds and slaughter the
last OF our running game-and if there are law,
for the protection OF the trees in parks, or game
law to save the quail and squirrel or to pre-
vent occurring the rivers with seines out of sea
son, AMI to provide iish ladders and abolish fish
traps, they are regarded as tyrannoal, style
of oppression identified only with effete mon
arches and tae torterlnE dep tism OF wOr1
out worlds The buffalo have bsel eXtevmI-
nated-a mob q race murdered that there are
hardly enough to supply nuseums-andlf there
Is a moose left in Mai 3 he has been acCiden-
tally spared. and must be pursued by the
hunter with remorsutess fury to shed his
blood to the final massacre. 10 s a crime to
cut down the woods mountain q I
heedleSslY kindle fires to burn forests, but our
people have 10 realizing SENSE OF the sort, and
sheer at the Swiss aud Germans who required
three permits TO fell one tree. In New York
there is a struggle that seems hopeless to pre-
serve the remnants of the once majestic and
always romantic Adirondack wilderness. In our
new states the Statesmen dare not stand against
the timber thieves. Our splendid chains of
northern lakes onc5 conta ined all amazing sup
ply of white finh, one of the most nutritious aud
delicious OF food fishes, and so horribly wanton
nave been the methods OF taking them that they
are no longer abundant Oyster beds are main
tanned with difficulty, and on the Chesapeake,
once raved with oysters, they are growing
scarce. The terrapin that composed our national
dlsh, and win which we have sur
prised and gratifed the cultivated taste of
European visitors and entertained ourselves,
have been raked and scraped from the salt
marshes, until the question arises what substi-
tute is most Ike the suCculent diamond back
not wholly gone, but rapidly vanishing; and
1t is said that squirrels and calves liver well
seas ned and touched up with red pepper and
sherry will deceive all but experts, especially
when mixed with genuine terrapin bones,
which are sold by the pound In the cities where
the fragrant stew is fashionable and famous.
The utmost exertions are made to catch for
canning purposes all the salmon on the way up
the North Pacific rivers, not even giving them
the freedom Of their native streams on Sunday,
as they do in Iceland one day in seven being
enough to preserve them.
THE WATERFOWL.
nr,., & -,
waterfowl to defy the sPortsmen aud pot hunt
eTs and gluttons Of all the ages, and che NAL
lard, the redhead and the cauvasback and the
wild goose. aud the sandhil crane came in
mighty hooks to their feeding grounds by
reedy lakes and bays and swamps But
Bryant's lines to a waterfowl may be recited as
Thanatopsis, and If furtive canvasback Is
seen, we may with painful propriety ask with
the poet:
WHITTIER midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of
day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary wayf'
If we 20 on with the poem we find the fine
line,
He who guides from zone to zone thy certain
flight"
The water fowl Of our day is pursued from
zone to zone on his solitary way sure enough by
the fiery breath of the shotguo, and the flight
is very uncertain indeed.
1t is of the highest earthly consequence that
the people at large should teach themselves to
care for their own interests In these and related
matters. As We arc going, before the milennial
anniversary Of the discovery of this continent,
1t will contain a population numerous as the
Chinese, and it will be washed ike the faded
world from the Indus to the HelleSpont that
Alexander conquered. There is an iInmeasur-
able, and, until we famliarize ourselves with
the subject, an incredible squandering of the
patrimony of the people. The rivers are run
ming away to the oceans with the bread
! n Ia fgnfNF In hTaN
small spaces comparatively, is there
a thought of saving the fields from the
| floods, aud at each rain the streams are golden
| with the wealth that gold never can restore;
and this is not all and hardly the most deplora-
| bic aud dangerous of this conditions OF desola-
| ton. There is hardly town on this continent
| that does not regard 1t as an early duty, at
| whatever expense, to find drainage into the
nearest water, and thus faint ell the living
| streams vito fertilizer themselves Of value be-
| yond estimate, and under this system far worse
| than thrown away. To an extent wretched to
| have IN mind the moving waters are polluted,
! and we need only study the drainage Of towns
| in their relations to the water works-a com
| biration of modern, would could say
/ Of rare improvements provision is
made for the plague. 1t is not long since the
! popular idea that clear water was self-evl-
| deItly good-that water in motion, however
foul. speedily purified ITSELF that ice was purity
| solid and slistening. 1t TRUTH the most limpid
| fluid may be the rankest poison, the most beau
| tifui ice contain the germs of deadly disease
! and it is unwise to assume that contaminated
| water radically changes its character aud be-
! comes like dew after q few hours exposure to
| the air and sunshine. The loss to the races of
| men by these processes of progressive poverty
| is beyond computation, but it is within the
| grasp of rational conjecture that 1t exceeds
| that of the lost time of the mutitudes who are
| idle and the consuming curse Of intemperance,
| and that these evils of peace are equivalent in
destructiveness to the ravages Of warfare.
REFORM A NECESSITY.
| What is to be doneY Certainly we must re-
| form these things, and do it before poverty
| aud pestilence come hand In hand. The fevers
| that burn out lives are terrible teachers. Let
US not wait for that education Happy are
| they who are taught by the bitter experiences
| Of others. The whole horizon is not dark. The
| light breaks in here and there The Adirondack
| woods may not be saved, but public opinion is
! formed and we may believe in ultimate saliva
| ton. 1t is not long since there could have
| been no feeling any practical politician would
| have regarded as serious about the fall of the
| last of the pines. 1t is not just
| so now. There are rivers where the
| forbidden, and states in which the game laws
are no longer ridiculous. The fish hatcheres
| successfully supply many waters In which the
! life of the flnny tribe is still worth living for
the good of others, and there is growing inteli-
| CeucA abOuttae close seasons. We have after
! Great Britain to join us in saving the seals In
| the Boring sea from a1nihiation, and Mr..
| Noble the Secretary of this Interior has i'm
mortslIzed himself by ordering q company OF
| cavalry to protect majestic grove on public
| land from raid of destrOyers, and each lofty
! cone should be his lasting monument towering
over the beautiful laid low before q secre-
| tarv was found to protect the treasures
| OF nature. There are farmers who know
how TO pillow that the SOIL shal not be washed