ever may interfere with local profits. The curers
like it because it "clears their market." During
the close time they have no fresh fish to
compete with, except that of the east coast, and
they sell their stock out, at good prices.

Now, the commission of inquiry tells us that,
whatever it may be to the curer, close time is no
protection to the herring, for whose good alone
it is professedly established. It allows the natural
enemies of the herring to multiply, and over
fishes of the sea it is clear that man's destructive
power is very slight indeed, compared with
all tlie natural destructive agencies at work.
The cod and ling caught annually on the coast
of Scotland, would, if left in the sea, have
destroyed more herring than could have been caught
by all the fishermen. A codfish is frequently
found with six or seven undigested herrings
in his stomach. The take of codfish on the
Scotch coast in the single year 'sixty-one was,
at a fair average of weight to each, twenty-four
hundred thousand: who would have eaten, had
they lived, as much herring as could have been
caught by forty-eight thousand fishermen, which
is eight thousand more than all Scotland contains.
The conger and dogfish are as destructive; the
gulls and gannets slay their millions; the
porpoises and grampuses destroy uncounted multitudes;
sea trout and innumerable other fish prey
on the herring fry; flat fish of all kinds resort
to the herring spawning-ground to feed on the
fresh ova. The influence, therefore, of man,
whether for conservation or destruction of the
herring, becomes almost or absolutely inappreciable.
Over the spawning-banks of Ballantrae, which
are only about three miles long, upwards of a
hundred boats fished during the twenty years
preceding the year 'fifty-four in an especially
destructive manner. Beyond the common annual
variation there never was any diminution in the
yield, until the herrings suddenly quitted the
banks. This they did, by one of those unaccount-
able movements for which the fishermen always
find some people ashore to blame, but which have
nothing whatever to do with land politics. Thus,
for example, before the, middle of the last
century, Loch Roag in Lewis was a famous herring
ground. Suddenly the herrings left it, and
remained away for forty years; then they came
back, and paid regular visits for nine years;
then they disappeared for thirty-two years, after
which they again returned in force.

Again, nobody likes to catch herring fry, and
yet government encourages the capture of
herring in spawn, and gives the "full crown
brand" to one hundred and eighty thousand crans
of cured full herrings in a year, besides which are
to be reckoned the cured herrings sold without
brand and the fresh herrings. Now, each full
herring contains fifty thousand ova, and if only
a tenth part of them are vivified, then all the
herring fry caught in a year in the most reckless
and unprotected time would only represent as
much loss as is represented by two crans out of
the one hundred and eighty thousand. Such
being the facts, we cannot wonder that her
Majesty's commissioners recommend that the
west of Scotland herring fishery should no longer
be trammelled with repressive acts "calculated
only to protect class interests, and to disturb in
an unknown and possibly injurious manner the
balance existing between the conservative and
destructive agencies at work upon the herring.
If legislation could regulate the appetites of cod,
conger, and porpoise, it might be useful to pass
laws regarding them; but to prevent fishermen
from catching their poor one or two per cent
of herring in any way they please, when the
other ninety-eight per cent, subject to destructive
agencies, are poached in all sorts of
unrecognised piscine methods, seems a wasteful
employment of the force of law."

And so they conclude by expressing their
strong conviction "that the recent legislation
on the subject of the herring fishery has
unnecessarily restricted the operations of fishermen
—has repressed invention, by prohibiting new
and more productive forms of labour—is
calculated to be destructive, rather than conservative,
in relation to the future supply of herring—and
although it may be beneficial to certain class
interests, is unjust to the consumer of fish, and
to the public generally."

FRANCE ON AMERICA.

THE journals tell us that Prince Napoleon
has started in his yacht for Egypt and Palestine
—news which recals to our recollection his recent
trip to America, and from which trip we have
already culled a few striking passages.* But
the American drama is still so far from approaching
its catastrophe, and Western Europe is
growing so uneasy about the character of the
denoviment, that we recur once more to Colonel
Pisani's narrative as a faithful picture of
Transatlantic ways and doings.

*See volume viii, page 174

On that occasion the prince did not, allow the
grass to grow under his feet. On the 26th of
July, 1861, he arrived in the United States;
he left them on the 26th of September following.
During those two months, his imperial highness
visited the greater part of the Northern and
Western States; went South as far as the
Secessional Army; traversed Lakes Erie, Ontario,
Michigan, and Superior; and finally devoted a
week to Canada. The sum total of the distances
performed may be estimated, as the crow flies,
at four thousand five hundred miles, which gives
an average of seventy miles per day, including
Sundays.

The prince is a great traveller, as everybody
knows, and maintains, for marine excursions, a
permanent establishment which is always available
at the shortest notice. The emperor has
placed at his cousin's service the steam yacht
Jerome-Napoleon, with a crew of one hundred
and twenty men, and an engine of seven hundred
and fifty horse power. This vessel, besides her
naval merits, is a model of nautical comfort and
taste. On her deck she carries a building which