718 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



importance that our Oyster Legislators should clearly 

 understand the true reason for their non-successful adminis- 

 tration. 



I state, then, speaking chiefly of England and Wales 

 (c) that in spite of the flourishing condition of the Whit- 

 stable (d) Company, and the second and third-rate Thames 

 and Medway, Colchester, Rochester, Faversham, and 

 Ipswich Companies, our Oyster Cultivation is in danger of 

 extinction, not so much on account of over-fishing, nor on 

 account of the demand having outgrown the supply, but 



BECAUSE OUR OYSTER LEGISLATION NEEDS REFORM. 



This is the only possible remedy, which, once obtained, 

 retained, and sustained, on the basis of the French or 

 American present legislation there will be no more ostra- 

 cultural sorrow ; no more vanishing of hard-earned cash 

 into the at-all-times rather risky and too rapidly sinking 

 fund of an English oyster-bed ; there will be heard no 

 more tales of bankruptcy and ruin ; and such an occurrence 

 (elsewhere stated) as that the expenditure of five hundred 

 pounds should produce no more than a single oyster, 

 . would, instead of being a nationally disgraceful fact, be 

 classed as a fabulous report of financial failure a Miin- 

 chausen fiasco not possible of actuality, unheard of and 

 unknown save in the fear-inspiring horrors of a drunken 

 dredger's delirium. 



I am using no figurative language in saying that I have 

 felt deeply hurt at the callous indifference of tone in which 

 I have heard read, or giggled over in quotation, the above 

 sad item from (what, perhaps, I may be allowed to term) 



(c) The fisheries of the two other countries being under the juris- 

 diction respectively of the Scotch Fisheiy Board and of the Inspectors 

 of Irish Fisheries. 



(d) The one bright pearl of England's Oyster Fisheries ! 



