Chapter I: Part 1

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 740. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._]

THE GAELIC NUISANCE.

SECOND ARTICLE.

A few months ago, in an article entitled ‘The Gaelic Nuisance,’ we endeavoured to point out the impolicy of fostering Gaelic as the vernacular tongue in the Highlands and Islands. Our observations were variously received. Many approved of the article; by some it was apparently misunderstood. On this latter account, we return to the subject, in the hope of removing such misapprehensions as may happen to exist. This time, at anyrate, we shall take care to be perfectly explicit as to our meaning.

In the article referred to, we offered no objection to the use of Gaelic, provided the young were brought up with a knowledge of English. That was distinctly our contention, and we believe that such is the opinion of all who think seriously on this important question. We therefore repeat in terms on which nothing but perversity can put a wrong construction, that the fostering of Gaelic to the exclusion of English—for it practically comes to that—is a grave error; it is a cruelty which merits exposure and reprobation. Why it is a cruelty is very clear. As previously stated, the use of Gaelic as the only known vernacular, keeps large numbers of poor people ignorant, it usually fixes them to their place of birth, and accordingly excludes them from earning their bread in the general competition of the world. It is very easy for enthusiasts living at a respectful distance to write in glowing terms about the antiquity of Gaelic, about the wonderful beauty of Gaelic poetry, about the philological value of Gaelic phraseology, about the satisfaction of being able to speak Gaelic as well as English. These are not the points in dispute. Let people, if they will, and if they can afford the expense, learn to speak and read Gaelic supplementary to English, just as many of us learn to speak and read French or German. The more languages that can be acquired the better. About that there is no contention. What we deem to be a scandal and a cruelty is the practice of rearing, or allowing to grow up, groups of children with a knowledge of no other language than Gaelic; the consequence being that they are for the most part condemned to life-long poverty and ignorance. And that is what is done through the mistaken policy of it may be well-meaning sentimentalists and philanthropists, who are seemingly unaware of the misery they are helping to perpetuate. The English language, like the laws and constitution of the country, is a common heritage, in which every child has a claim to be instructed, so that all may be qualified to perform such duties as fall to their lot. Is it not, then, shocking to find groups of old and young scattered about the Highlands and Islands who cannot speak a word of English, and who cannot so much as sign their names? We might almost say they have no more knowledge of newspapers, or of English literature generally, than the lower animals, amidst which in dreary solitudes they hopelessly pass their existence.

The Highlanders have scarcely had justice done to them. They possess characteristics of a noble race. Faithful, honest, and steady in civil life. Valorous as soldiers. Peaceful and law-abiding in a very extraordinary degree. Those among them who by some good fortune quit their native glens and mix with the Lowland population, speedily learn English, and are able to converse as fluently in that language as in their native Gaelic. In fact, wherever they are brought in contact with English-speaking neighbours, they manifest no mental deficiency. In many instances they have attained to eminence. Only where they are habitually neglected, and left in untoward circumstances to vegetate in primitive ignorance, do they shew anything like laziness, and an indifference to improvement. From all we happen to know of the Highlanders, they only need to be put in the way of being cultivated by education and contact with the outer world.

In hinting at educational deficiencies we tread on tender ground. There is an Educational Act applicable to the whole of Scotland, whether the mainland or islands. No spot is exempted from the operation of a school-board. Although the Act was passed in 1872, it appears from one cause or other that there are districts where no schooling is available, and children are suffered to run about wild. In an article in the _Scotsman_ newspaper of January 5, 1878, a correspondent writing on the wretched condition of the Highland ‘crofters,’ or occupants of small patches of land, refers to the educational deficiencies in the parish of Barvas, on the west coast of Lewis. Here is what he says: ‘At present, the children know not a syllable of English; the women and thirty per cent. of the men are as ignorant; and twenty per cent. of the people married cannot sign their marriage papers. One thing certain is that the people are themselves totally unprepared for the good that the Act is expected to do them; and that it will be only by means of vigilant compulsory officers that its full operation will be secured. In the meantime the schools in the parish have not been opened; and ragged boys and girls hang about on the moor all day long herding cattle, or idle near the wayside in companies of threes and fours, holding fast by tethers, at the ends of which small melancholy lambs are grazing.’ What a picture of primitive rural life! Education practically non-existent. The compulsory provisions of the School Act in a state of abeyance!

The island of St Kilda, to which we called attention, exhibits a small population with no means of learning English, and who for religious instruction in Gaelic are wholly dependent on the Rev. John M’Kay, a minister appointed by the Free Church. This worthy individual, who is a bachelor of advanced age, and whom, by mistake, we spoke of as being married, can speak and read English; but with the exception of the imported wife of one of the natives, he is the only individual on the island who can do so, and acts as a general interpreter on the occasion of visits from strangers. There is no school in the island, nor is there any attempt to teach English. Is this a condition of things which commends itself to philanthropists?

In a handsomely printed and illustrated work, _St Kilda Past and Present_, by George Seton, Advocate (Blackwood and Sons), 1878, there is an effective reference to the want of education in the island of St Kilda. ‘Probably,’ says this observant writer, ‘the most beneficial influence that could be brought to bear upon the St Kildans would be of an educational kind. Through the instrumentality of the Harris school-board or otherwise, an energetic effort ought to be made to introduce a systematic course of instruction in English, with the view of the inhabitants enjoying the vast benefits which would inevitably ensue. At present, they are not only cut off from regular communication with the mainland, but in consequence of their ignorance of the language of the United Kingdom, they are debarred from the means of enlarging their minds, and subverting their prejudices, by the perusal of English literature. A recent number of _Chambers’s Journal_—to which every English-speaking section of the globe owes such deep obligations—contains an admirable article, from the pen of the veteran senior editor, on the subject of “The Gaelic Nuisance,” to which I venture to call the attention of all who are interested in the future welfare of the inhabitants of St Kilda. The writer points to Galloway on the one hand, and to the Orkney and Shetland Islands on the other, as illustrative examples of the blessings which have flowed from the substitution of English for Gaelic and Norse respectively; and in the course of his remarks he makes special allusion to St Kilda.’

Thanking Mr Seton for this acknowledgment of the correctness of our views, we pass on to a note lately received from a sheriff-substitute in a Highland county. He says: ‘Allow me to thank you for your article in the last part of _Chambers’s_ entitled “The Gaelic Nuisance.” I have resided here for several years, and am convinced that the civilisation of the Highlands is impossible so long as Gaelic continues to be the language of the common people. I hope your article will open the eyes of common-sense people to the necessity of abolishing Gaelic as a spoken language, by the substitution of English.’

A gentleman connected by heritage with one of the outer Hebrides, sends us a note, in which, after commenting on the grotesque objections that had been made to our article, he observes: ‘We all understand now—though a few may deceive themselves and others—that man is not made for language, but language for man. We Highlanders are determined to adopt the current language, just as we have adopted the current coin of the realm.’ This is plain speaking; and we hope that the writer, using the power which his position gives him, will in his own locality see that the children are taught to read and understand English; such, in our opinion, whatever others may think, being only a simple act of justice.

In our former article we alluded to the case of Wales, in which large numbers are as unhappily excluded from a knowledge of the English language as are many of the Gaelic-speaking population of the Highlands. We are glad to see that this deficiency is beginning to attract attention, for reasons similar to those we employ. Recently at a large meeting in connection with the Welsh Church in Chester, presided over by the Bishop of Chester, as reported in _The Times_, Jan. 10, the Dean of Bangor, in speaking of Wales, remarked: ‘Wales was in a certain extent backward. In the power of influencing those outside their own country, they were behind England, Scotland, and Ireland, simply because their language excluded them from making their thoughts and views known to those of different nationality.... He ventured to hope that the day was rapidly approaching when every Welshman would be able to use the English language.’ Such a public acknowledgment as this is eminently satisfactory. It shews moral courage in combating popular prejudice. We should like to see Highland proprietors quite as openly avowing that it was time every Gaelic-speaking child ‘was able to use the English language.’

The most conclusive evidence that could be advanced respecting the serious disadvantage of maintaining Gaelic as an exclusively common language is that offered by Mr Simon S. Laurie, the accomplished Professor of Education in the University of Edinburgh, who lately delivered an Address on the subject of Education in the Highlands. According to a newspaper report of his address, he said in reference to the Highlanders: ‘One thing needful was to secure for them freedom of locomotion; so that when the pressure on one district became too great, the people might move to another. Without a knowledge of the English language, the country of the Highlander was bound round him as with a brazen wall. He need not try to get out of it, because his native language put him at such a disadvantage with other men that he had no chance against them.... There was no doubt that the teaching of Gaelic should be subordinate to the teaching of English. If they trained a boy in a Highland school to read, write, and speak Gaelic, what were they to do with him? How would we like to be in that position ourselves? Fancy a boy at the age of fifteen or sixteen able only to point out in Gaelic to a stranger the way he should take; would they not find that he had been miseducated—in fact cut off from being a member of the British Empire altogether? At the same time, while he held that, he was of opinion that they could not teach English to the Highlanders well except through the Gaelic. The Highland children learned very quickly—more quickly than the Lowland children—they could soon read with perfect fluency such a book as M’Culloch’s _Course of Reading_, and yet not understand a single word; shewing that they would not learn English well except through Gaelic. The aim of the whole teaching should be to make the pupils thoroughly acquainted with English.’

With such a concurrence of evidence, and with the knowledge that there is a School Act of six years’ standing, why, it will be asked, are children in the Highlands and Islands still left to remain untaught in the elements of education? That is a question that could perhaps best be answered by the Education Board for Scotland. We can only conjecture that the educational deficiency in various quarters is due to the difficulty, for pecuniary reasons, in establishing and maintaining schools on a proper footing consistently with the obligations of the statute. Mr Laurie mentions that the school-rates press with a severity which in some places is perfectly paralysing. ‘In Shetland, for example, the School Boards were brought to a stand-still. They could not face a rate of four shillings a pound; the same proprietors having to pay not less than four shillings a pound for poor-rate and other burdens besides.’ This agrees with what we have privately heard of Shetland, where the rates of one kind or other very nearly swallow up the whole rental drawn by proprietors. Mr Laurie states emphatically as to this difficulty of school-rates, that ‘unless the government paid what was necessary above fifteen-pence per pound, the Highlands and Islands would not have the full benefit of the Act of 1872.’

Evidently, the School Boards, notwithstanding their comprehensive and compulsory powers, are unable to plant and sustain schools in all quarters where required. The difficulty, it is observed, is financial. Let us instance the island of St Kilda. Its inhabitants are said to be seventy-six in number, while the annual rent exigible by the proprietor is somewhere about a hundred pounds, payable in kind. How can the School Board of Harris, with which the island is connected parochially, be expected to build a school and sustain a schoolmaster for the benefit of so small a population, in which there are perhaps only a very few children of school age? To build a school of the ordinary authorised type would cost at least six hundred pounds. And the payment of a teacher with other expenses would amount to one hundred pounds a year. The organisation of a school on this footing would go far beyond what is desirable or what could be asked for from either the state or the ratepayers.

A consideration of the financial difficulty leads to the conviction that something very much less costly than the present school organisation must in many parts of the Highlands be attempted, if the children are to get any education at all. Mr Laurie very properly remarks that children ‘would not well learn English except through the Gaelic;’ meaning by this, we suppose, that the teacher would require through the agency of Gaelic to explain the meaning of English words. That surely would not be difficult to accomplish; nor would it be unreasonable to establish schools on a much more modest footing than those latterly sanctioned by School Boards. The Scotch were long accustomed to see a very humble class of schools in secluded rural districts. Often, these schools consisted of cottages of not more than two apartments, one of which constituted the dwelling of the teacher. These cottage schools were conducted at an exceedingly small expense, yet they answered their purpose. Neither dignified nor imposing, they were useful. They imparted to the few children in their respective neighbourhoods a knowledge of letters. We are inclined to think that a modification of this kind would solve some existing difficulties as concerns the establishing of schools among the sparse population of the Highlands and Islands. In short, it would be well to legalise a minor or sub-class of schools, to be conducted at a small cost, designed to effect a particular purpose, namely, that of communicating a knowledge of the English language to large numbers of poor children who are at present growing up in ignorance of any spoken tongue but their native Gaelic, and who, in many cases, as is seen, have no education whatever.

We hope the nature of our pleading is no longer misunderstood. It is, that all Gaelic-speaking children may in some shape or other be taught to read and understand the language common to the United Kingdom. There may be some statutory obstacles in the way. There should be none in the light of humanity and common-sense. Perhaps we may return to the subject. Considering that the welfare of successive generations of helpless beings is concerned, the subject is too momentous to be lightly treated, or to be swept aside by casual gusts of delirious opposition.

W. C.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

CHAPTER XIII.—FATHER AND SON.

Sir Sykes was a weak man, and there are few readier elements of mischief than that of a weak man in a strong place—meaning thereby a position where there is authority to be abused. Some of the world’s worst tyrants have been emphatically weak, mere spiteful capricious children grown to man’s estate, and indued respectively with all the powers of the purple, the royal jika, and the triple tiara. But then the mighty system which they, unworthy, swayed, resembled some gigantic engine put into motion by the idle touch of a truant urchin’s hand, and crushing all resistance by the resistless force of its swaying levers and grinding wheels.

A Devonshire baronet, in common with baronets elsewhere, does expect to be to a certain extent the petty autocrat of his own fields and hamlets, to find that there are those who court the great man’s smile and tremble at his frown, and to hold rule within strictly constitutional limits over the dwellers on his land and the inmates of his house. The melancholy which had become a part of Sir Sykes Denzil’s inner nature, and the indolence which had gradually incrusted him, had prevented the lord of Carbery from asserting in practice the prerogatives which he knew to belong to him in theory. Thus he did not really administer patriarchal justice on his estate, as some hale landlords do. His bailiff decided which labourers should be employed, which dismissed, and what wages should be allotted to crow-boys and weeding-girls. The steward arranged as to the barns to be rebuilt, the repairs to be granted or refused, the rent of whose cottage was to be forgiven, or which arrears were to be sternly exacted. Poachers whom the head-keeper did not like, found Sir Sykes’s vicarious wrath make the parish too hot to hold them, while luckier depredators wired hares unpunished.

The part of a _roi fainéant_ suited better with Sir Sykes Denzil’s languid habits than they did with his tolerably active mind. He was well aware that the lethargy of King Log is always supplemented by the not wholly disinterested activity of King Log’s zealous ministers, and had formed frequent resolutions as to taking into his own hands the reins of government and becoming in fact as well as in name the lord of the manor—of six manors indeed, of which Carbery was the chief. These resolutions had never been acted upon; but Sir Sykes had always been able to lay to his soul the flattering unction that it rested with him alone to choose the time for realising them.

The events of the last few weeks had given some rude shocks to the baronet’s indolent self-complacency. He had been threatened with consequences of which he, and he alone, could thoroughly comprehend the direful nature, and he had been forced to a series of compliances, each of which had degraded him in his own eyes. He had borne with the cynic effrontery of the sailor Hold. He had beneath his roof, seated at his table, in constant association with him and his, an unbidden guest. Mr Wilkins he had, through an unlucky chance, encountered, and instantly the fetters of a new vassalage appeared to be fastened on his reluctant limbs. And he owed this fresh humiliation to the misconduct of his own son!

Sir Sykes was very angry as he quitted No. 11 to seek out the chamber in which Jasper lay, so angry that his temper overmastered for the moment both the pleadings of natural affection and the instinct of caution. He laid his hand brusquely on the door of the room which had been pointed out to him as that to which Jasper had been conveyed, and was about to enter, with small regard to the nerves of the invalid within, when he felt a grasp upon his sleeve, and turned to be confronted by the wiry figure, anxious face, and bead-like black eyes of little Dr Aulfus.

‘Excuse me. Sir Sykes Denzil, unless I am very much mistaken?’ said the doctor, taking off his hat with such an air, that Sir Sykes, irritable as he was, felt compelled to acknowledge the bow. ‘Allow me to introduce myself: Dr Aulfus, Benjamin Aulfus, Ph.D., M.D., M.R.C.S. of Heidelberg, Edinburgh, and London respectively. We never chanced, before to-day, Sir Sykes, to come personally into contact, and I regret that the occasion of our first interview should be so sad a one.’

During this speech, the doctor’s eyes had taken stock as it were of Sir Sykes’s aspect, and had read the signs of anger in his knitted brows and quivering mouth as accurately as a mountain shepherd discerns the portents of the coming storm. Nor was the reason far to seek. Gossip had been busy, of course, with the private affairs of so exalted a family as that which dwelt at Carbery Chase; and Sir Sykes would have been astonished to hear at how many minor tea-tables the surgeon—for, his medical diplomas notwithstanding, Dr Aulfus was consulted nineteen times out of twenty as a general practitioner—had listened while Captain Denzil’s debts and his father’s displeasure were freely canvassed.

Of the arrival of Mr Wilkins and of the acceptances which the lawyer held, the little man of healing could of course know nothing. But he shrewdly surmised that Jasper had staked all that he could scrape together, and probably more, on the event of the desperate race which he had ridden on that day, and that his pecuniary losses had provoked the indignation of Sir Sykes, already smarting under recent sacrifices.

‘You are very good, sir; I shall see my son, and then’——

Sir Sykes had got thus far in his speech, attempting the while to brush past the doctor, when he found himself gently but resolutely repulsed.

‘Now, Sir Sykes,’ said the little man, interposing his diminutive person between the tall baronet and the door, as some faithful dog might have done, ‘pray have patience with me. Captain Denzil is my patient. He has sustained severe injury, the precise extent of which it is impossible yet for science to determine, and I am responsible for his safety, humanly speaking—the pilot, in fact, with whom it rests to bring him into port. We have just succeeded, by the help of an opiate, in inducing sleep. It will not last long, on account of the smallness of the dose. But it is of the utmost consequence that it should not be broken; and in fact, Sir Sykes, my patient is my patient, and I must protect him even against his own father.’

These last words were uttered in consequence of a renewed attempt on the baronet’s part to force a passage, and the persuasive tone in which they were spoken contrasted oddly with the firmness of the doctor’s attitude.

‘Really, Mr Aulfus,’ said Sir Sykes, half apologetically, half in dudgeon; but the other cut him short with: ‘Excuse me, Sir Sykes. _Dr_ Aulfus, if you please. It is perhaps the weakness of a professional purist, but I do like to be dubbed a doctor; as your noble neighbour and connection, the Earl, no doubt has a preference for the title of “My Lord.” It has cost me dear enough, sir, that handle to my name; kept me, I may safely say, out of a good four hundred a year of practice I might have had, since old women and heads of families are shy of sending for a regular physician; and that’s why such fellows as Lancetter at High Tor, and Druggett the apothecary in Pebworth High Street, rattle about the county, feeling pulses and sending out physic, when a man who has more learning in his little finger than—— You smile, sir; and indeed I was unduly warm. No selfish love of lucre, believe me, prompted my remarks, but a sincere scorn for the prejudices and gullibility, if the word be not too strong, of our Devonshire Bœotians.’

By this time the doctor had succeeded in getting Sir Sykes into a neighbouring room, the door of which stood invitingly open, and thus securing the sleeper against the chance of being rudely awakened from his slumber. The baronet too had employed a minute or two in reflections which shewed him how unseemly was the part which he had been about to play, while some dim consciousness that it was unfair to visit on Jasper the unwelcome recognition and jocular impertinence of Mr Wilkins, began to creep into his perturbed mind.

‘You forget, Dr Aulfus,’ he said mildly enough, ‘that I have as yet heard no details as to the injuries which my son has sustained. They are not, I apprehend, of a very serious or indeed dangerous character?’

‘Umph! Dislocation of right shoulder, now reduced, but attended with much pain; severe contusion on temple; some bad bruises, and complete prostration of nervous system from the stunning blow and violent concussion of spinal cord,’ dryly rejoined the doctor, summing up the facts as though he had been a judge putting the pith of some case before a jury. ‘These are all the results that I know of’—— And he paused, hesitating, so that Sir Sykes for the first time felt a genuine twinge of alarm.

‘Have you any suspicion, doctor, that there is something worse than this?’ he asked, drawing his breath more quickly.

‘I don’t know. I hope not,’ returned Dr Aulfus thoughtfully. ‘Our knowledge after all is but cramped and bounded. I remember once at sea (I was assistant-surgeon in the navy and also on board Green’s Indiamen, before I graduated in medicine) seeing a look in the face of a young sailor who had fallen from the mizzen shrouds to the deck, very like what I saw, or fancied I saw, in Captain Denzil’s face to-day. But that was a fall, compared with which even the accidents of a steeplechase are trifles,’ added the doctor more cheerfully, and with an evident wish to change the subject.

‘It is a mad sport, taken as a form of excitement,’ said Sir Sykes, his resentment beginning to turn itself towards the institution of steeplechasing; ‘worse still, when mere greed actuates the performers, brutal curiosity the spectators.’

‘I quite agree with you, Sir Sykes, quite,’ chimed in the doctor, with a bird-like chirrup of acquiescence. ‘The mob, my dear sir, whether in decent coats or in torn fustian, is animated by much the same spirit which caused the Roman amphitheatre to ring with applause as wild beasts and gladiators, pitted against one another in the arena, stained the sand with’——

Here Captain Prodgers came in on tiptoe to say that Jasper was awake and sensible; that he had twice asked if his father had not yet arrived; and that he, Prodgers, had volunteered to make inquiries, and hearing the sound of voices as he passed the half-closed door, had entered. ‘You, Sir Sykes, I have had the pleasure of meeting once before—at Lord Bivalve’s, in Grosvenor Place,’ he said with a bow. ‘Captain Prodgers of the Lancers,’ he added, by way of an introduction. The baronet returned the bow stiffly. He had some recollection of Captain Jack’s jolly face beaming across the Bivalve mahogany; but he felt anything but well disposed towards the owner of Norah Creina and the man who had led his son into the present scrape.

‘A friend of my son’s, I am aware,’ said Sir Sykes half bitterly.

‘And I am afraid, “Save me from my friends,” is the saying just now uppermost in your mind, Sir Sykes,’ returned Captain Prodgers. ‘But I do assure you that, hard hit in the pocket as I have been in this precious business, I’d sooner have lost the double of my bets, than have seen that poor fellow knocked about as he has been. I’m no chicken, and sentiment don’t come natural to me, but I give you my word that had the tumble turned out as bad as I feared it would when first I saw it, I should—never have forgiven, myself, that’s all.’ Having said which, Jack Prodgers mentioned to the doctor that he should be found when required in the coffee-room, and with another bow to Sir Sykes, withdrew. The baronet, guided by Dr Aulfus, entered the darkened room where Jasper lay.

‘Is that you, sir? I thought you would come,’ said the hurt man from the bed, stretching out his feeble hand, and as Sir Sykes took the thin fingers within his own grasp, his anger, smouldering yet, seemed for the moment to die away, chased by the crowd of early recollections that beset his memory. He could remember Jasper as a lisping child, a quick intelligent boy, unduly indulged and pampered it is true, but bold-faced and free-spoken at an age when many a youngster, far nobler in every quality of heart and head, is sheepish and tongue-tied. In those days father and mother had been proud and fond of the boy, and Jasper’s future prosperity had been no unimportant element in Sir Sykes’s schemes and day-dreams.

‘You do not feel much pain now?’ asked the baronet gently.

‘In my arm and head I do,’ said the patient, stirring uneasily.

The doctor, as he adjusted the pillows, smiled hopefully. ‘A very good sign that,’ he whispered to Sir Sykes; ‘better than I had hoped for, after the draught. I think we may pronounce all immediate cause for anxiety to be over.’

‘When can he be moved?’ asked Sir Sykes, in the same cautious tone.

‘To Carbery? I should say, if he goes on as well as he is doing now, to-morrow,’ replied Dr Aulfus. ‘I will write down some instructions, with which it will be well to comply, for it will be some few days at least before he can resume his former habits of life.’

‘What are you two conspiring about?’ demanded Jasper, with an invalid’s customary peevishness, from the bed. And then Sir Sykes had to resume his seat and to say a few soothing words.

‘You’ll soon be well, my boy,’ he said kindly; ‘and sooner back with us at Carbery, under your sisters’ good nursing. Dr Aulfus here will, I hope, contrive to come over and give us a call every day till you get your strength again.’

Dr Aulfus said that he should be delighted to attend his patient at Carbery Chase, and indeed he looked radiant as he said it. A physician is, after all, a man, and probably a parent, and little Dr Aulfus had a wife and was the happy donor of six hostages to fortune. He valued the privilege of professional admittance at Carbery very highly, less on account of the emoluments directly derived therefrom, than of the many small people who would augur well of his skill, since beneath a baronet’s roof he should prescribe for a baronet’s heir.

The brief conversation between Sir Sykes and his son was rendered the less marked because of Jasper’s habitual reticence, and of his father’s unwillingness to touch on any topic that might prove painful. Thus the lawyer and his bills met with no mention, and the steeplechase would also have been passed over, had not Jasper himself said: ‘I told Jack Prodgers I shouldn’t go in for cross-country work again, except with the hounds in winter. No fear, sir, of my donning the silk jacket any more, after this sharp lesson of aching bones and empty pockets. Don’t be angry, please, though, with poor old Jack. He meant all for the best, he did.’

Sir Sykes replied that he had already had the pleasure of shaking hands with Captain Prodgers, whom he had formerly met, it appeared, in London society. And soon afterwards, in compliance with an almost imperceptible motion of the doctor’s head, he withdrew; and Captain Jack was recalled to keep watch, uncomplainingly, beside his friend’s couch, while the patient dozed or talked in snatches.

‘Smoke away, old man; it rather does me good than not,’ Jasper had said, and the captain’s cigar was seldom extinguished during his vigil.

‘He’ll do!’ was the little doctor’s cheery whisper as he paid his early morning visit to his charge. And soon after noon, Jasper, pale and tottering, and with his bruised arm in a sling, was helped into one of the Carbery carriages and propped with cushions; and under the tender escort of his two sisters, Lucy and Blanche Denzil, was slowly and heedfully conveyed home to Carbery Chase.

OUR SEA AND SALMON FISHERIES.

In the department of fishing-industries the march of scientific inquiry has already borne good fruit. The influence of the weather, or more properly speaking of the variations of temperature, on the plentifulness or scarcity of our food-fishes, has grown in importance as an element in determining the success or failure of the herring-fishery, for example; and at more than one fishing-station thermometrical observations are daily made by the fishermen, and reported to the meteorological authorities, who in their turn deduce generalisations and laws from the observations thus recorded. Thus the teachings of the formerly despised ‘science’ are beginning to bear fruit, and to be openly and fully recognised; and in the future, the fisherman, as a result of the generalisations just alluded to, may be able to determine with tolerable accuracy, before setting sail for the fishing-grounds, the chances of a successful or unsuccessful day’s labour. Add to this, that, with increased knowledge of the conditions of life, development, and general history of our food-fishes, wise legislation may provide for the protection of these fishes and for the determination of the proper periods for the exercise of the fisher’s art, and it will be owned that the gains from a scientific investigation of the fishing-industries are simply incalculable.

For these reasons we have peculiar pleasure in noting the appearance of a small volume, under the title of _Sea Fisheries_, by E. W. H. Holdsworth, and _Salmon Fisheries_, by Archibald Young, Commissioner of Scotch Salmon Fisheries (London: E. Stanford. 1877). The work is produced under the joint authorship of two gentlemen long connected with this important branch of British industry. To Mr E. W. H. Holdsworth has been allotted the task of giving an account of the sea fisheries of Britain; whilst Mr Archibald Young, one of the Commissioners of Scotch Salmon Fisheries, has undertaken the task of giving an account of the interests connected with the capture of the king of fishes. Mr Holdsworth has to do with the salt water, Mr Young chiefly with the fresh.

Within the last sixty or seventy years, the herring fisheries of Scotland, chiefly prosecuted on the north-east coast, have risen to be a most important national industry and source of wealth, the value of the catch in a good year amounting to between two and three millions sterling. Needing no cultivation, the sea yields an annual harvest almost incredible in amount. Of course much capital is embarked; but without the hardihood, the enterprise, and the daring risks encountered by the fishermen, all would be unavailing. It is seen by a late Report, that in the united fisheries of herrings, cod, and ling, in 1876, nearly fifteen thousand boats, decked and undecked, were engaged, the total value of which amounted to upwards of a million sterling. Ever on the outlook for what will advance the interests of the herring fishery, the capitalists engaged in the business have latterly added a fast-sailing steamer to the fleets of boats; by which means herrings caught at a considerable distance are transferred from the boats to the steamer, rapidly brought into port, and being there properly prepared, are despatched by railway to various parts of the United Kingdom.

Railways, by facilitating transit, have been immensely advantageous to all kinds of fisheries. It might now be said that by this ready means of transit the most inland towns in the country are now as well supplied with fresh fish as towns on the coast; in many cases better. Ice has also played an important part in the transmission of fish to distant places. Salmon being thus preserved till it reaches the market, arrives in the best condition, and is sent to table fresh as when caught. One has only to look at the quantities of beautiful salmon and other fish spread out on marble benches of the fishmongers in any of our larger towns, to see what railways and ice have done for this branch of industry.

Mr Holdsworth expresses strong regret that the prospects of the Irish fisheries are not by any means of a promising kind, as far as the cultivation of the art or industry is concerned. All authorities agree in regarding the coasts of Ireland in most instances as representing fishing-grounds in which stores of wealth lie unheeded and uncared for. This is a state of matters much to be deplored, for the sake of all parties concerned—fishermen, consumers, and the nation at large. Some years ago, when we were in Ireland, we heard it mentioned that much of the fish sold in Dublin was supplied by fishermen from the coast of Wales; and we likewise heard that large quantities of dried white-fish were introduced to Portrush by fishermen from Islay and other western isles of Scotland. Though it is stated that the famine of thirty years ago has had much to do with the depressed state of the Irish fisheries, and that emigration has also affected them, we yet fail to see why, by a little enterprise, the still resident natives should not be able to beat both the Welsh and Scotch out of their own market.

As regards the salmon fisheries, Mr Young leads us into a region which is still in some particulars a field of debate and controversy. There are very few readers, it may be presumed, who are ignorant of the controversies, for instance, which have been carried on concerning the correct answer to the question, ‘Are parr the young of salmon?’—a query which Mr Young, along with the great majority of naturalists, answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative. The natural history of the salmon forms the starting-point of all knowledge of the fish, and of the information necessary for determining the conditions under which it may be properly and successfully caught—the terms ‘properly’ and ‘successfully’ in this case being taken as including the best interests of the fish and its race, as well as the interests of its human captors. Briefly detailed, the life-history of a salmon may be said to begin with the ascent of the parent-fishes in autumn and early winter to the upper reaches of our rivers for the purpose of depositing their eggs. In each salmon-mother it has been calculated about nine hundred eggs exist for every pound of her weight, and these eggs she deposits in a trench, excavated by aid of the jaw, in the gravelly bed of the stream. Fertilised after being deposited, by the milt of the male parent, the latter covers the eggs with gravel by means of his fins—the tail-fin being, as far as can be ascertained, the chief agent and means in effecting this necessary action. Such eggs as escape the attack of enemies—and of these, in the shape of aquatic birds and of other fishes, the salmon-ova have more than enough—undergo development, and are hatched in from ninety to one hundred and thirty days.

It would be an interesting study were we to trace the stages through which the young fish becomes evolved from its simple germ, and the wondrous formation of tissues and organs out of the soft jelly-like matter of which the egg is primarily composed. But want of space forbids; and our readers must therefore fancy for themselves the process whereby the hidden artist Nature works through development, and at length shapes out the young salmon, or ‘parr.’ It may be mentioned in proof of the small proportion borne by the salmon-eggs actually deposited, to those developed, that authorities agree in stating that out of three thousand eggs deposited, scarcely _one_ egg may survive—so terrible is the destruction of young salmon. This fact alone, as Mr Young argues, should tell powerfully as an argument in favour of _artificial_ propagation; since out of three thousand eggs which are thus hatched, at least one thousand young fishes may be successfully reared.

The curious fact is noticed that in most if not all broods of salmon, half of the parrs will become ‘smolts’—as they are called in their next stage—at the end of a year or so, whilst the other half will not become smolts _until after the lapse of two years and more_. This incongruity, if we may so term it, has led to the questions, ‘Do the parrs become smolts between thirteen and fifteen months after they have left the egg, or at the age of two years and two months?’ Both questions may apparently be answered in the affirmative, since each brood exhibits this peculiar feature of some of its members coming to the smolt-stage long before the others. Mr Young remarks on the authority of a salmon-breeder in the north, that about eight per cent. of the salmon hatched by this gentleman became smolts at the end of the first year; about sixty per cent. at the end of the second year; and about thirty-two per cent. at the end of the third year. These facts would seem to indicate that the end of the second year is the most natural period for the assumption of the smolt-guise, which, as distinguished from that of the parr, exhibits a beautiful coat of silvery mail.

The parr, it may be remarked, dies if placed in sea-water, whereas the smolt thrives in the latter element. On reaching the sea, the young smolt may measure from four to five inches. After a residence in the sea of some six or eight weeks, the smolt returns to its river as a ‘grilse,’ which varies from five to eight or nine pounds in weight, according to the time it has remained in the sea. After returning to its river the grilse spawns, and then returns to the sea. The features of the mature salmon are now apparent, and the fish increases in size after each such annual migration to the sea. Indeed nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the salmon than its rapid increase and growth after these periodical migrations to salt water. Three salmon which weighed ten, eleven and a half, and twelve and a half pounds as they were migrating seawards, were duly marked; and on being caught six months afterwards when returning to the fresh water, were found to have increased in weight to the extent of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen pounds respectively. Although salmon usually return to the rivers in which they first saw the light, yet it has been ascertained that the practice is not an invariable one. There is no good reason why one river should not suit a salmon as well as another, and in their wide migrations these fishes are exceedingly likely to enter rivers other than their native streams.

One of the most interesting topics touched upon by Mr Young in his observations, is that regarding the relative late or early development of salmon in different Scotch rivers. Prefacing, that a ‘clean’ salmon is a fish that has been for some time in the sea, it has been generally believed that rivers which issue from a lake are ‘early’ rivers—or in other words that they are streams which clean salmon will ascend in the early spring. But this idea receives little or no support from facts as they stand. Many early Scotch rivers have no lake heads; whilst many Scotch rivers which run out of or through lakes are late rivers. Mr Frank Buckland thinks a river’s ‘earliness’ in the matter of salmon depends on its proportion of mileage in length to its square mileage of ‘catchment’—that is of the land-area from which the river is fed. This, however, seems to us a whimsical theory, and might be disproved by facts. As regards the ‘earliness’ of rivers, Mr Young’s theory is that much depends on temperature; in fact, temperature is known to be the chief cause which regulates the distribution of life in the sea, and there is no one fact, so far as we are aware, which can be said to militate against his views. His theory is, however, being tested by the Scottish Meteorological Society at Inverugie; by the Duke of Richmond, on the Spey; by the Duke of Sutherland, on two early and two late rivers in Sutherlandshire; and by the Tweed Commissioners—the method of testing being by thermometers applied to the fresh water of the rivers, and to the sea near their mouths.

The latter part of the volume under notice is occupied with statements relative to salmon fishery laws and legislation, a subject in which the author is naturally deeply interested, and in which our knowledge of the salmon naturally culminates when the fish is regarded from an economic standpoint. In Scotland, it seems we are far behind England and Ireland in respect that there are no Inspectors of salmon fisheries empowered to make annual inspections and reports on the Scotch salmon fisheries! And this fact becomes the more inexplicable, and the more urgently demands remedy, when we consider that the Scotch fisheries are many times as valuable as those of our English neighbours. Then also, Mr Young has a most justifiable grumble at the fact that, in our statutes, there are very inadequate provisions made for the removal of artificial and natural obstructions in salmon rivers, and for the prevention of pollutions; and no close-time for trout or char. The importance of clearing away natural obstructions to the ascent of the salmon in rivers is well exemplified when it is found that in Scotland no less than 478 miles of river and loch are thus closed against these fishes. No less forcibly shewn is the vexatious fact that rivers are polluted and rendered unfitted for breeding-streams by means and methods which the River Pollution Commissioners in their Reports declare to be preventable at a moderate cost, without injury to the manufactures with which they are connected.

Besides pollution, two things are especially detrimental to the Scottish salmon fisheries. The first to be mentioned, is the abominable practice of building weirs across rivers in order to send water into mill-lades, and the ignoring of the law that requires that the water shall be periodically diverted into the river again. Certain proprietors, to make the most of their lands, give perpetual leases of ground to manufacturers of one kind or other, with liberty to build a weir and take water to turn their machinery. There may be provisions in the lease as there is in law to the effect that the withdrawal of water shall cease during the night and on Sundays. Such provisions are, however, in many instances neglected, as giving too much trouble. The result is, that the whole river, or very nearly the whole, except in times of flood, is diverted into the mill-lade, whereby trout and salmon are unable to surmount the weir, and are effectually barred from getting to the upper part of the stream. In plain terms, by the selfishness of a proprietor (or a pair of them, one on each side), all who dwell on the river above the weir are deprived of the fish which nature had bountifully assigned to them. Already in these pages we have alluded to a scandalous case of this kind on the Tweed.

The second of the two things which act detrimentally on the Scottish salmon fisheries is the circumstance that certain landed proprietors near the mouths of some rivers possess a right to establish nets for the purpose of catching all the salmon that attempt to go up the stream. We do not contest the legality of their arrangements. We only speak of the cruel way it acts on the rights of all who live in the upper parts of the river, and on whose waters the salmon have bred. While the lower proprietors catch the great bulk of the fish, those higher up get but a miserable remnant. During the whole of the time that the nets are on, the lower proprietors have a practical monopoly of the fishings. Is that at all reasonable? As a consequence, first of the weirs, and second of the netting system of the lower proprietors, there is evoked throughout the upper part of rivers in Scotland, a gloomy and almost vengeful hatred of the existing salmon-fishing system. Of course the higher and middle classes take no part in demonstrating their sense of the injustice that is committed. The lower classes, less scrupulous, and indignant at the rapacity of the weir-owners and lower proprietors, take such salmon as they can get hold of in spawning-time, thus destroying by myriads in embryo what should have been a vast national advantage. Detesting as we do all sorts of poaching and irregularities, we are glad that the Commissioners appointed to investigate the condition of the Scottish salmon fisheries, have laid stress upon the miserable imperfections to which we have ventured to draw attention.

Mr Young informs us that in 1874, as many as 32,180 boxes of Scotch salmon were sent to the London market alone, the estimated value of which might possibly be L.321,800. It seems to us, however, a hard case that the great bulk of such valuable property should be secured by proprietors at or near the mouths of the several rivers, to the exclusion of those in the upper reaches of the streams, who ought to have an equal right to participate in the annual fish-harvest. Free-trade in salmon-fishing, so much as lies within the limits of strict justice, is still in expectation. We commend the subject to the further consideration of Frank Buckland, Mr Young, and brother-anglers.

RACHEL LINDSAY.

A SOUTH-AUSTRALIAN STORY.

Towards the end of November, about two years ago, I received the following curt note from my brother Donald, who like myself is a sheep-farmer in South Australia. ‘MY DEAR JERRY, Lizzie sends her love, and hopes to see you when your shearing is over, as usual. If you’ll say what day, I’ll fetch you from Ballarat.—Yours affectionately,

DON GARDINER.’

‘_N.B._—Just begun to wash the wool. Lizzie’s sister says she has seen my apparatus at Conolly’s, but I don’t think it. Ask Conolly.’

Conolly was a neighbour of mine, and he chanced to have brought me Don’s letter, and to be lighting his pipe at my elbow while I read it.

‘Conolly,’ said I, ‘do you know any of Mrs Gardiner’s sisters? She has an unlimited number, I believe, for I have met a fresh one—sometimes two fresh ones—every Christmas for about half-a-dozen years, and here is still another I never heard of. She appears to be acquainted with you and this neighbourhood’——

‘O yes; that’s Cinderella,’ interrupted Conolly, as he abstracted a bundle of newspapers from our joint post-bag and began to rip the wrapping from them. ‘Haven’t you seen Cinderella? She was never out of Tasmania, I suppose, until last spring, when she was staying up here with the Macdonalds. The Macdonald girls called her Cinderella because she had always been the one to stay at home and keep house while the others went about. Her proper name is Rachel. O Jerry, Jerry!’ he broke out suddenly, laughing in what seemed to me a very offensive manner (my proper name I may mention being Gerald), ‘your sister-in-law Lizzie will be too many for you. She won’t let you escape this time. She has kept Rachel as her last card.’

‘If ever I marry a woman with such a name as that, I hope I shall be a henpecked husband for the rest of my life!’ I retorted angrily, seizing a paper-knife and beginning to tear away at the _Australasian_, so as to drown further conversation upon what was a very sore subject.