ver enclosing fresh victims in
their hideous maw, work other ills. They require much food, and they
need water. Water must be found and conveyed to them. This has been no
easy task for many corporations. For many years the city of Liverpool
drew its supply from Rivington, a range of hills near Bolton-le-Moors,
where there were lakes and where they could construct others. Little
harm was done there; but the city grew and the supply was
insufficient. Other sources had to be found and tapped. They found one
in Wales. Their eyes fell on the Lake Vyrnwy, and believed that they
found what they sought. But that, too, could not supply the millions
of gallons that Liverpool needed. They found that the whole vale of
Llanwddyn must be embraced. A gigantic dam must be made at the lower
end of the valley, and the whole vale converted into one great lake.
But there were villages in the vale, rural homes and habitations,
churches and chapels, and over five hundred people who lived therein
and must be turned out. And now the whole valley is a lake. Homes and
churches lie beneath the waves, and the graves of the "women that
sleep," of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, of bairns and dear
ones are overwhelmed by the pitiless waters. It is all very
deplorable.

And now it seems that the same thing must take place again: but this
time it is an English valley that is concerned, and the people are the
country folk of North Hampshire. There is a beautiful valley not far
from Kingsclere and Newbury, surrounded by lovely hills covered with
woodland. In this valley in a quiet little village appropriately
called Woodlands, formed about half a century ago out of the large
parish of Kingsclere, there is a little hamlet named Ashford Hill, the
modern church of St. Paul, Woodlands, pretty cottages with pleasant
gardens, a village inn, and a dissenting chapel. The churchyard is
full of graves, and a cemetery has been lately added. This pretty
valley with its homes and church and chapel is a doomed valley. In a
few years time if a former resident returns home from Australia or
America to his native village he will find his old cottage gone from
the light of the sun and buried beneath the still waters of a huge
lake. It is almost certain that such will be the case with this
secluded rural scene. The eyes of Londoners have turned upon the
doomed valley. They need water, and water must somehow be procured.
The great city has no pity. The church and the