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HERRINGS AND HERRING-FISHING. 
BY THE EDITOR. 
“ In 1861 there were in Scotland, and that part of England over which the 
Fishery Board have jurisdiction, 42,571 fishermen and boys engaged in the 
herring fishery. The total take of the year would give about 20,000 herrings 
for each of these persons, or near upon 900,000,000 for the whole.”* 
T HIS is our text, and we trust it is one calculated to impress 
tlie reader witli some idea of the vast importance of the 
subject upon which we write. The mere fact that in these 
countries alone, there are nearly as many hands employed in 
({ shooting ” nets, as the king of Denmark pays for the some- 
what less profitable labour of shooting men, is in this century 
of civilization, of more than ordinary significance. Assuredly, 
it speaks well for British industry, and bears out fully the 
remark of Lacepede, that <c le hareng est une de ces productions 
dont Pemploi decide de la destinee des empires.” In one 
year, and on the shores of one nation, there was a multitude 
of these finny representatives of ocean life destroyed exceeding 
numerically the entire population of the globe. It is not, 
however, by a consideration of the quantity of these beings 
captured, that a true estimate of the commercial bearings of 
the circumstance can be arrived at. This can alone be reached 
by calculating the value in money of the fish thus caught 
during a single year. Let us suppose that, as an average, 800 
herrings are equivalent to a barrel. Now, this number divided 
into 900,000,000 gives us the enormous quotient 1,125,000, 
as the total quantity of barrels produced ; but, since a barrel of 
herrings may be said to be worth about twenty shillings, 
we have here the annual pecuniary produce of a single fishery 
amounting to above a million sterling ! This is the fact to 
which we would especially direct attention, and which we 
apprehend deserves the grave consideration of those statesmen 
who are anxious to better the condition of our neighbours on 
the other side of the Irish Channel. When “antient writers” 
moralized upon the fable of the u Lion and the Mouse,” they 
did not believe that so very improbable a contingency as that 
alluded to in the story was ever likely to occur. For us, the 
* “ Report of the Royal Commission on the operation of the Acts relating 
to trawling for Herring on the Coasts of Scotland ” 1863. 
