CHAP, xi.] EXAGGERATION AS TO SUPPLIES. 481 



Where are the miraculous hauls of mackerel that used to 

 gladden the eyes of the fishermen ? Where are now the wag- 

 gon-loads of herring to use as manure, as in the golden age of 

 the fisheries ? I do not require to pause for the reply echo 

 would only mock my question by repeating it. Exhausted 

 shoals and inferior fish tell us but too plainly that there is 

 reason for alarm, and that we have in all probability broken 

 at last upon our capital stock ! 



What then, if this be so, will be the future of the British 

 fisheries ? I have already, and more than once, in preceding 

 pages, hinted my doubts of the existence of the enormous 

 fish-supplies of former days ; in my opinion the supposed 

 plentifulness of all kinds of fish must in a large degree have 

 been a myth, or at least but relative, founded in all pro- 

 bability on the fluctuating demand and the irregular supply. 

 Were there not an active but unseen demolition of the fish- 

 shoals, and were these shoals as gigantic as people imagine 

 them to be, the sea would speedily become like stirabout, so 

 that in time ships would not be able to sail from port to port. 

 Imagine a few billions of herrings, each pair multiplying at 

 the rate of thirty thousand per annum ! picture the codfish, 

 with, its million ratio of increase ; and then add, by way of 

 enhancing the bargain, a million or two of the flat fish family 

 throwing in their annual quota to the total, and figures would 

 be arrived at far too vast for human comprehension. In fact, 

 without some compensating balance, the waters on the globe 

 would not contain a couple of years' increase ! If fish have 

 that tendency to multiply which is said, how comes it that in 

 former years, when there was not a tithe of the present demand, 

 when the population was but scant, and the means of inland 

 carriage to the larger seats of population rude and uncertain, 

 the ocean did not overflow and leave its inhabitants on its 

 shores ? 



It seems perfectly clear that we have hitherto seriously 



2 i 



