I I 14 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



phlegm to so much more a desirable pitch of interest, that 

 it is a pity its import did not proceed from a still higher 

 source of authority, whose wishes are looked upon and 

 fulfilled as commands. 



What the Marquis says is that : " The English and 

 Scotch oyster beds (and he might well, without fear of 

 contradiction, have included the Irish also) do not now 

 produce a sufficient number to supply even a fraction of 

 the consumption, and thus we are dependent on foreign 

 food supplies for these molluscs, of which our own shores 

 are probable capable, if properly used and fairly treated, 

 of affording an ample supply. (z>) 



The bitterest opponent of our Government could not 

 in this respect, give a more forcible, and at the same time, 

 humiliating proof of its defective application, and its 

 insulting persistency in continuing a crab-like-walking- 

 backward on the road to commercial ruin, instead of that 

 of prosperity, being guided thereon by the sign-posts of 

 common sense, duty, and legislative rectitude in the 

 people's welfare. 



Indiscriminate fishing, (continues the Marquis) the 

 full use of that "human agency' which we are so often 

 told cannot really influence for harm the illimitable har- 

 vest of the sea and of the shore, is responsible for this. 

 The poor with us cannot afford to buy oysters, nor are they 

 given encouragement to cultivate them. There is a lack, 



(u) At the " Practical Fishermen's Congress," held in connection 

 with the International Fisheries Exhibition, October 26, 1883. Mr. 

 Welfare, (Worthing), said : .... " In 1862 England exported 

 oysters to France, but later on, through the discretion of the Emperor 

 Napoleon in preserving oysters, the tables were turned, and we were 

 now almost depending on France for our supply." History repeats 

 itself even ostracultural history. 



