Sir,—For some time past the destruction of tons of young fry—viz.,
salmon, turbot, trout, soles, cod, whiting, etc.,—in fact, every
fish that is to be found in the Thames,—has been enormous. I beg
leave to say that it is now worse than ever, inasmuch as larger
nets, and an increased number of them, are used, and the trade has
commenced a month earlier than usual, from the peculiarity of the
season.
At this time there are, at one part of the river, four or five
vessels at work, which in one tide catch three tons of fry; this is
sifted and picked over by hand, and about three per cent. of fry is
all that can be picked out small enough for the London market. The
remainder of course dies during the process, and is thrown
overboard! Does the London consumer realize the fact that at least
thirty tons a week of young fry are thus sacrificed? Do Londoners
know that under the name of “whitebait” they eat a mixture largely
composed of sprat fry, a fish which at Christmas cost 9d. a bushel,
but which now fetches 2s. a quart, which is £3 4s. a bushel? (Price
regulated by Demand and Supply, you observe!—J. R.) It is bad
enough that so many young salmon and trout are trapped and utterly
wasted in these nets; but is it fair towards the public thus to
diminish their supply of useful and cheap food?
Mr. Frank Buckland would faint, were he to see the wholesale
destruction of young fry off Southend (on one fishing-ground only).
I may truly say that the fishermen themselves are ashamed of the
havoc they are making—well they may be; but who is to blame?
I have the honour to be, etc.,
Pisciculus.
Feb. 23.
The following note, written long before the last Fors on fish, bears on
some of the same matters, and may as well find place now. Of the Bishop
to whom it alludes, I have also something to say in next, or next,
Fors. The note itself refers to what I said about the defence of Pope,
who, like all other gracious men, had grave faults; and who, like all
other wise men, is intensely obnoxious to evangelical divines. I don’t
know what school of divines Mr. Elwyn belongs to; nor did I know his
name when I wrote the note: I have been surprised, since, to see how
good his work is; he writes with the precise pomposity of Macaulay, and
in those worst and fatallest forms of fallacy which are true as far as
they reach.
“There is an unhappy wretch of a clergyman I read of in the
papers—spending his life industriously in showing the meanness of
Alexander Pope—and how Alexander Pope cringed, and lied. He
cringed—yes—to his friends;—nor is any man good for much who will
not play spaniel to his friend, or his mistress, on occasion;—to
how many more than their friends do average clergymen cringe? I
have had a Bishop go round the Royal Academy even with
me,—pretending he liked painting, when he was eternally incapable
of knowing anything whatever about it. Pope lied also—alas, yes,
for his vanity’s sake. Very woful. But he did not pass the whole of
his life in trying to anticipate, or appropriate, or efface, other
people’s discoveries, as your modern men of science do so often;
and for lying—any average partizan of religious dogma tells more
lies in his pulpit in defence of what in his heart he knows to be
indefensible, on any given Sunday, than Pope did in his whole life.
Nay, how often is your clergyman himself nothing but a lie
rampant—in the true old sense of the word,—creeping up into his
pulpit pretending that he is there as a messenger of God, when he
really took the place that he might be able to marry a pretty girl,
and live like a ‘gentleman’ as he thinks. Alas! how infinitely more
of a gentleman if he would but hold his foolish tongue, and get a
living honestly—by street-sweeping, or any other useful
occupation—instead of sweeping the dust of his own thoughts into
people’s eyes—as this ‘biographer.’”
I shall have a good deal to say about human madness, in the course of
Fors; the following letter, concerning the much less mischievous rabies
of Dogs, is, however, also valuable. Note especially its closing
paragraph. I omit a sentence here and there which seems to me
unnecessary.
“On the 7th June last there appeared in the ‘Macclesfield Guardian’
newspaper a letter on Rabies and the muzzling and confining of
Dogs, signed ‘Beth-Gêlert.’ That communication contained several
facts and opinions relating to the disease; the possible causes of
the same; and the uselessness and cruelty of muzzling and
confinement as a preventive to it. The first-named unnatural
practice has been condemned (as was there shown) by no less
authority than the leading medical journal of England,—which has
termed muzzling ‘a great practical mistake, and one which cannot
fail to have an injurious effect both upon the health and temper of
dogs; for, although rabies is a dreadful thing, dogs ought not, any
more than men, to be constantly treated as creatures likely to go
mad.’
“This information and judgment, however, seem insufficient to
convince some minds, even although they have no observations or
arguments to urge in opposition. It may be useful to the public to
bring forward an opinion on the merits of that letter expressed by
the late Thomas Turner, of Manchester, who was not only a member of
the Council, but one of the ablest and most experienced surgeons in
Europe. The words of so eminent a professional man cannot but be
considered valuable, and must have weight with the sensible and
sincere; though on men of an opposite character all evidence, all
reason, is too often utterly cast away.
“Mosley Street, June 8, 1873.
“‘Dear ——,—Thanks for your sensible letter. It contains great and
kind truths, and such as humanity should applaud. On the subject
you write about there is a large amount of ignorance both in and
out of the profession.
“Ever yours,
“Thomas Turner.’
“In addition to the foregoing statement of the founder of the
Manchester Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, the opinion shall
now be given of one of the best veterinarians in London, who,
writing on the above letter in the ‘Macclesfield Guardian,’
observed,—‘With regard to your paper on muzzling dogs, I feel
certain from observation that the restraint put upon them by the
muzzle is productive of evil, and has a tendency to cause fits,
etc.’
“Rabies, originally spontaneous, was probably created, like many
other evils which afflict humanity, by the viciousness, ignorance,
and selfishness of man himself. ‘Man’s inhumanity to man makes
countless thousands mourn,’—wrote the great peasant and national
poet of Scotland. He would have uttered even a wider and more
embracing truth had he said, man’s inhumanity to his
fellow-creatures makes countless millions mourn. Rabies is most
prevalent amongst the breeds of dogs bred and maintained for the
atrocious sports of ‘the pit;’ they are likewise the most dangerous
when victims to that dreadful malady. Moreover, dogs kept to worry
other animals are also among those most liable to the disease, and
the most to be feared when mad. But, on the other hand, dogs who
live as the friends and companions of men of true humanity, and
never exposed to annoyance or ill-treatment, remain gentle and
affectionate even under the excruciating agonies of this dire
disease. Delabere Blaine, first an army surgeon and subsequently
the greatest veterinarian of this or probably of any other nation,
tells us in his ‘Canine Pathology,’—
“‘It will sensibly affect any one to witness the earnest, imploring
look I have often seen from the unhappy sufferers under this
dreadful malady. The strongest attachment has been manifested to
those around during their utmost sufferings; and the parched tongue
has been carried over the hands and feet of those who noticed them,
with more than usual fondness. This disposition has continued to
the last moment of life,—in many cases, without one manifestation
of any inclination to bite, or to do the smallest harm.’
“Here is another instance of ‘with whatsoever measure ye mete, it
shall be measured to you again.’ The cruelty of man, as it ever
does, recoils, like a viper, ultimately on man. He who invests in
the Bank of Vice receives back his capital with compound interest
at a high rate and to the uttermost farthing.
“When a mad dog bites many people, he sometimes quits scores for a
long, long arrear of brutalities, insults, and oppression inflicted
upon him by the baser portion of mankind:—the hard blow, the savage
kick, the loud curse, the vile annoyance, the insulting word, the
starving meal, the carrion food, the shortened chain, the rotten
straw, the dirty kennel (appropriate name), the bitter winter’s
night, the parching heat of summer, the dull and dreary years of
hopeless imprisonment, the thousand aches which patient merit of
the unworthy takes, are represented, culminate there; and the cup
man has poisoned, man is forced to drink.
“All these miseries are often, too often, the lot of this most
affectionate creature, who has truly been called ‘our faithful
friend, gallant protector, and useful servant.’
“No muzzling, murder, or incarceration tyrannically inflicted on
this much-enduring, much-insulted slave by his master, will ever
extirpate rabies. No abuse of the wondrous creature beneficently
bestowed by the Omniscient and Almighty on ungrateful man, to be
the friend of the poor and the guardian of the rich, will ever
extirpate rabies. Mercy and justice would help us much more.
“In many lands the disease is utterly unknown,—in the land of
Egypt, for example, where dogs swarm in all the towns and villages.
Yet the follower of Mohammed, more humane than the follower of
Christ,—to our shame be it spoken,—neither imprisons, muzzles, nor
murders them. England, it is believed, never passed such an Act of
Parliament as this before the present century. There is, certainly,
in the laws of Canute a punishment awarded to the man whose dog
went mad, and by his negligence wandered up and down the country. A
far more sensible measure than our own. Canute punished the man,
not the dog. Also, in Edward the Third’s reign, all owners of
fighting dogs whose dogs were found wandering about the streets of
London were fined. Very different species of legislation from the
brainless or brutal Dog’s Act of 1871, passed by a number of men,
not one of whom it is probable either knew or cared to know
anything of the nature of the creature they legislated about; not
even that he perspires, not by means of his skin, but performs this
vital function by means of his tongue, and that to muzzle him is
tantamount to coating the skin of a man all over with paint or
gutta-percha. Such selfishness and cruelty in this age appears to
give evidence towards proof of the assertion made by our greatest
writer on Art,—that ‘we are now getting cruel in our avarice,’—‘our
hearts, of iron and clay, have hurled the Bible in the face of our
God, and fallen down to grovel before Mammon.’—If not, how is it
that we can so abuse one of the Supreme’s most choicest works,—a
creature sent to be man’s friend, and whose devotion so often ‘puts
to shame all human attachments’?
“We are reaping what we have sown: Rabies certainly seems on the
increase in this district,—in whose neighbourhood, it is stated,
muzzling was first practised. It may spread more widely if we force
a crop. The best way to check it, is to do our duty to the noble
creature the Almighty has entrusted to us, and treat him with the
humanity and affection he so eminently deserves. To deprive him of
liberty and exercise; to chain him like a felon; to debar him from
access to his natural medicine; to prevent him from following the
overpowering instincts of his being and the laws of Nature, is
conduct revolting to reason and religion.
“The disease of rabies comes on by degrees, not suddenly. Its
symptoms can easily be read. Were knowledge more diffused, people
would know the approach of the malady, and take timely precautions.
To do as we now do,—namely, drive the unhappy creatures insane,
into an agonizing sickness by sheer ignorance or inhumanity, and
then, because one is ill, tie up the mouths of the healthy, and
unnaturally restrain all the rest, is it not the conduct of idiots
rather than of reasonable beings?
“Why all this hubbub about a disease which causes less loss of life
than almost any other complaint known, and whose fatal effects can,
in almost every case, be surely and certainly prevented by a
surgeon? If our lawgivers and lawmakers (who, by the way, although
the House of Commons is crowded with lawyers, do not in these times
draw Acts of Parliament so that they can be comprehended, without
the heavy cost of going to a superior court,) wish to save human
life, let them educate the hearts as well as heads of Englishmen,
and give more attention to boiler and colliery explosions, railway
smashes, and rotten ships; to the overcrowding and misery of the
poor; to the adulteration of food and medicines. Also, to dirt,
municipal stupidity, and neglect; by which one city alone,
Manchester, loses annually above three thousand lives.
“I am, your humble servant,
“Beth-Gelert.”