This is exactly right.

Sir, I traverse this day by Steamboat, the space between London and Hungerford Bridges, between half-past one and two o'clock.

It was low water, and I think the tide must have been near the turn.

The appearance and the smell of the water forced themselves

at once upon my attention. The whole of the river was an opaque, pale brown fluid. In order to test

the degree of opacity, I tore up some white card into pieces, moistened them so as to make them

sink easily below the surface, and then

dropped some of these pieces into the water at every pier the boat came to. Before they had sunk

an inch below the surface, they were indistinguishable, though the sun shone brightly at the time,

and when the pieces fell edgeways, the lower part was hidden from sight

before the upper was underwater. Near the bridges, the feculence rolled up in clouds so dense

that they were visible at the surface, even in water of this kind. The smell was very bad,

and common to the whole of the water. It was the same as that which now

comes up from the gully holes in the streets. The whole river was for the time a real sewer.

Having just returned from out of the country air, I was perhaps more affected by it than others,

but I do not think I could have gone on to Lambeth or Chelsea, and I was glad to enter

the streets for an atmosphere, which, except near the sinkholes, I found much sweeter than

that on the river.

I have thought it a duty to record these facts that they may be brought to the attention

of those who exercise power or have

responsibility in relation to the condition of our river. There is nothing figurative in the words

I have employed, or any approach to exaggeration. They are the simple truth. If there be sufficient

...