KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



293 



It may be said that estimates like the 

 above are too loose to be of any value, and 

 of course I can say nothing of the destruc 

 tion of salmon in the sea ; but, judging from 

 what I can learn of the number of salmon 

 spawning in the upper streams of the Rib- 

 ble, and of the quantity of smelts, &c, 

 which make their appearance in the pools of 

 the river in droughty May, I think that a 

 considerably larger proportion than one in 

 100 goes down to the sea as salmon fry. 



I have spoken above of the abundance of 

 salmon, provided the fish could be efficiently 

 protected whilst spawning ; but this is more 

 easily said than done. In a paragraph I saw 

 a few days ago, copied from the Scotsman, it 

 was stated that the destruction of salmon in 

 the Tweed, in the neighborhood of Peebles, 

 was going on to an extent that threatened to 

 annihilate the breed; that large bands of 

 men were out every night, in defiance of 

 watchers and water-bailiffs, and that the 

 threats and intimidation resorted to by these 

 black fishers (poachers) had produced such 

 an effect that the gentlemen in the neighbor- 

 hood refused to give the bailiffs any assist- 

 ance, and that a nobleman had even 

 warned them off his land. This bodes no 

 good to the breed of salmon, but I will 

 repeat a question which I have asked before 

 — How can the proprietors of the fisheries 

 expect that the heritors and tenants in the 

 upper waters of the Tweed, and its tribu- 

 taries, will lend any cordial assistance in 

 protecting the spawning fish, when they are 

 seldom allowed* to see them when in 

 season ? Are they to furnish gamekeepers 

 and helpers, at great expense and persunal 

 risk, for the sake of improving the revenues 

 of the owners of the fisheries at the mouth 

 of the river, or their tacksmen ? These 

 latter may expect that this will be done : 

 but, in my opinion, it is absurd to think so. 

 What is the inducement ? Certainly not 

 the profit, for they are expected (at least in 

 this neighborhood), to take all the trouble 

 and be at all the expense of protection, and 

 receive no return for it ! It is not the plea- 

 sure, for they are annoyed by threats and 

 injuries to deter them from interfering with 

 the poachers ; it may be the honor ! the 

 honor which Mr. A. B., at Peebles, or Mr. 

 C. D., at Whitewell, or Mr. E. F., in the 

 Welsh mountains, or Mr. T. Gr., at Clitheroe, 

 will derive from protecting the salmon whilst 

 spawning in the Tweed, the Hodder, the 

 Severn, or the Ribble, that the owners of 

 the fisheries at the mouths of these rivers 



* The law at present, according to an apt 

 quotation I have just met with on the subject 

 makes the upper heritors a sort of clucking hens, 

 to hatch the fish that the people below them are 

 to catch and eat. 



(except the Hodder), may let them at an in- 

 creased rent. I repeat, as earnestly as I 

 know how, that until the upper proprietors 

 have an interest in the preservation of the 

 fish, it will be unreasonable to expect that 

 they should take great pains to preserve 

 them. 



Now the only way to give them an interest 

 in the preservation of the fish, is to allow 

 them to have some when they are worth 

 catching ; and this can only be accomplished 

 by a change of the law. It is not probable 

 that the owners of fisheries will voluntarily 

 abandon their rights of fishing night and 

 day for the sake of the future improvement 

 of the fishery. The right to fish through 

 the night, ought to be abolished ; and the 

 fish ought to have a free run from six o'clock 

 at night to six o'clock in the morning. The 

 fisheries at the mouths of rivers would 

 derive more benefit from this than any 

 other parties ; for if the quantity of salmon 

 increased, they would have the first chance 

 of catching them ; and that this increase 

 would take place is probable, because it 

 would then be the interest of all the upper 

 proprietors to protect them. All this I have 

 said before, but I think the matter is suffi- 

 ciently important to deserve a repetition ; 

 certain I am, that a continuance of the pre- 

 sent apathy on the subject, will insure the 

 destruction of the fish at least in this neigh- 

 borhood. — T. Gr., Clitheroe, April 26. 

 (To be Continued.) 



PHRENOLOGY FOR THE MILLION. 



"He who opposes his own judgment against the con- 

 sent of the times, ought to be backed with unanswerable 

 Truths; and he who has Truth on his side is a fool, 

 as well as a Coward, if he is afraid to own it because of 

 the currency or multitude of other men's opinions."— 

 Defoe. 



No. 1X.—THE LIFE OF DR. GALL. 



To that other form of human intelligence, viz. 

 the metaphysical, Gall was strongly opposed, 

 when it soars into the spiritual world, and pushes 

 its inquiries into general principles and general 

 truths, slighting, however, the material world 

 and the relations of cause and effect. This way 

 of thinking, and directing one's efforts in the 

 search after truth, was none of his; he was for 

 the positive, not the abstract. 



Another remarkable manifestation of mind, 

 Wit, which gives a kind of relief to its possessor, 

 Gall was endowed with in no small degree. 

 Although he never engaged in the polemics of 

 the Journals, yet in his works he replied to his 

 opponents with a keenness of satire truly asto- 

 nishing. To be convinced of this, one has only 

 to read the sixth volume of his work. Observe 

 his piquant observations on the Editors of the 

 Dictionary of Medical Sciences, in answer to the 

 wish expressed by them, that somebody would, 

 at last, devote himself to the physiology of the 

 brain. He exclaims, — " Behold, an instance of 

 lethargy, in MM. Fournier and Begin, which 



