It was a relief to resume my programme by entering that abode of the
dumb and detached--the aquarium in Battery Park. For the kerb uproar
"the uncommunicating muteness of fishes" was the only panacea. The Bronx
Zoo is not, I think, except in the matter of buffalo and deer paddocks,
so good as ours in London, but it has this shining advantage--it is
free. So also is the Aquarium in Battery Park, and it was pleasing to
see how crowded the place can be. In England all interest in living
fish, except as creatures to be coaxed towards hooks and occasionally
retained there, has vanished; on the site of old Westminster Aquarium
the Wesleyans now manage their finances and determine their circuits,
while the Brighton Aquarium, once famous all the world over, is a
variety hall with barely a fin to its name.
After seeing the aquarium in Honolulu, which is like a pelagic rainbow
factory, and the aquarium in New York with all its strange and beautiful
denizens, I am a little ashamed of our English apathy. To maintain
picture galleries, where, however beautiful and chromatic, all is dead,
and be insensitive to the loveliness of fish, in hue, in shape and in
movement, is not quite pardonable.