ARTIFICIAL OYSTER CULTURE. I I 1 I 



One of the saddest spectacles on earth is the spectacle 

 of misdirected energies and wasted resources. Which is 

 also one of the commonest, the most provoking, and the 

 most disheartening. There is activity in abundance, there 

 is ability, there is zeal to overflowing, there is industry, 

 there are good intentions, philanthropy, and wealth adequate 

 to the extirpation of many of our social miseries, and the 

 mitigation of many more, if only they were rightly applied, 

 and worked with ordinary vigour and ordinary sense. But 

 what with w r ant of philosophy and want of thought, want 

 of patience and want of courage, prejudice which stops one 

 road, fear which bars another, and the defects of adminis- 

 trative capacity inherent in our clumsy and stupid way of 

 managing public business all these means and resources 

 of rectification are thrown away, and social miseries spread, 

 deepen, and gangrene as before. Simple and obvious 

 remedies are scouted and neglected, while the silliest and 

 wildest ones are propounded, and, amongst these, our 

 legislative system of Oyster Culture is one that clamours 

 for reform. In this, as in so many other matters, we endure 

 so much evil and do so little good, because we manage 

 so badly, and are so constantly sailing on the wrong tack. 



The great central truth which lies at the root of these 

 miseries, and the oyster question in particular, is that, with 

 few exceptions and slight qualification, the mischief under 

 which the people suffer, and which some of them call for 

 legislation to remove, lies at their own door, and are 

 remediable by and through themselves, and themselves 

 alone. It is this doctrine which it is essential to convince 

 them of, and to ingrain fixedly in their minds, and this 

 object once fulfilled, the rectification of the present evils 

 of the oyster question will speedily follow. 



