But although newspaper representatives could philosophize upon the matter-of-fact spirit in which the inhabitants of the salt towns faced existence in their tumble-down surroundings, and the salt proprietors desired that they should make the best of a condition of things from which they wished them to believe there was absolutely no amelioration or escape, a feeling of resentment was rapidly growing in the neighbourhood. The people of Northwich and Winsford were being pumped out of their houses and out of their lands, and the future held every promise of a continuation and extension of the damage. Lord Delamere, who, as an owner and letter of salt lands, benefited by the brine industry and suffered from the depredation it wrought, admitted the damage and the cause thereof. Indeed, nobody but the salt proprietors doubted that the pumpers were wholly responsible for the destruction, and most people recognized that their wrong-doing was twofold in character. Standing on the ancient assumption in law that everything beneath a man’s property belongs to the owner, the owners of property in the affected districts contended that they were not only being deprived of the rock-salt which legally belonged to them, but were further despoiled by having their land made worthless by the abstraction of the salt for which they received no payment. The justice of the protest was obvious, and it became a public question how far these operations, useful in themselves, but involving consequences of a disastrous nature, should be allowed to proceed. In December, 1880, the _Daily News_ asked who was to compensate the sufferers, who had neither caused nor contributed to the disaster.