Fetid Streets and Fouled Rivers

OUTSIDE the glittering show windows of Mayfair clothing shops, garbage was stacked in six foot piles. London's loverly squares and parks were turned into unofficial dumps. Grenadier Guards were summoned from their duties at Buckingham Palace to join Royal Engineers troops in clearing away heaps of rotting fruit and putrefying chicken carcasses that had lain uncollected for weeks in London's picturesque Petticoat Lane Market.

As a result of a four-week-old nationwide strike of some 70,000 local government employees, mostly garbagemen and sewage workers, large parts of Britain were mired in trash. Because many sewage process plants were closed down, millions of tons of raw sewage were being dumped into Britain's rivers. The

Avon, the Thames and other waterways were so befouled that fish were dying by the thousands, their white bellies dotting the river banks. Public health officials were worried that seepage from the polluted rivers would contaminate drinking water, possibly causing an outbreak of the cholera epidemic that has already affected the Middle East, Russia and parts of Europe.

The workers, who earn $33 to $42 weekly, demand a flat $6.60 raise. But municipal councils, backed up by Ted Heath's Tory government, have refused to give in to what would amount on the average to a 20% yearly increase. Such a settlement, which would be the highest in the present round of wage negotiations, would spur other unions to demand a similar increase.

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