The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-11-22 00:00:00

IL COMMISSION ON TRAWLING.

- -
On Monday the 15th meeting of tte Royal' Com-
mission on Trawling was held in London, the Earl of
Dalhousie, the chairman, presiding. Professor W.
C. M'lntosh, Professor of Natural History at the
University of St. Andrews, submitted a report, giving
an account of the investigations he had conducted on
behalf of the Commission at various points of the
British coast during the last eight months. The
trawling experiments showed that a large 'number of
very valuable foot fishes were obtaine4 by this
method of fishing. The species occurring in largest
numbers were the haddock, and next the whiting, the
cod appearing in very moderate numbers. With
regard to the proportion of the living and the dead,
as !srought up on board the trawler, it was fouad that
a very large number were brought on board alive;
only in the few cases where mud had been intro-
duced into the net was the mortality great. The
condition of the fishes on the whole was excellent.
No noteworthy destruction of edible crabs °cern:Ted.
Immature fishes were found for the most part to con-
sist chiefly of two species, and as neither of these was
a fish of importance, the loss on this head was
not serious. As to the alleged destruction of
the spawn of food fishes, that was ascertained
to be almost nil. In the first place, the spawn
of almost all our saleable or food fishes floated at the
surface of the sea, and herring spawn, which was
deposited on the bottom, was only got in small quan-
tity on one occasion. Certain difficulties in regard to
the kinds of fish were found between the various
trawling grounds; but on the whole there was a
general uniformity with respect to the distribution of
food fishes on the great banks; for instance, the
chief difficulties between Soarborough and the region
of the Forth consisted in the abundance of soles in
the former, and their comparative rarity in the latter.
On the other hand, almost all the Scotch fishing
grounds showed a tolerably uniform fish fauna. The
foul of the saleable fishes consisted very much of
what occurred in their neighbourhood; thus, during
the spawning of the herring, the stomachs of had-
docks were distended with their eggs; the cod, on the
other hand, for the most part, fed on the herrings
themselves. When any bay was kncwn to contain
a large proportion of immature fish or fishes not fully,
grown, time should be given for their due develop-
ment, and he suggested that the Commissioners
should make a recommendation to that effect.
The learned professor was of opinion that the
inshore saleable fishes had, as a whole, diminished
within comparatively recent years, and that this was
to be attributed not to trawling only, but to the
combined action of trawlers and liners. The state-
ments made as to the unsaleable condition of the fish
when brought on board by the trawl were not borne
out by the experiments_ which were conducted in the
ordinary way in which trawling was carrir? on in
Scotch and English waters. He :;id not braeve that
in these experiments there was any departure from
the ordinary practice in taking fish by the trawl for
the market. The onus of catching immature fish
could not be placed altogether on the shoulders of
the trawlers, as the liners towards the end of the
autumn caught a great many immature round fish.
He spoke of the desirability of having a permanent
scientific supervision established with regard to our
marine fisheries, and urged the importance and value
of a regular series of statistics as to the takes, the
grounds, and the kinds of fish captured both by liners
and trawlers.

Professor Ray Lankester gave evidence with regard
to the desirability of establishing a great central bio-
logical laboratory at Plymouth, in which researches
upon the habits and structure of marine animals of
all kinds, but especially of fishes, could be carried on.
Such an establishment could not be carried on with-
out Government support, and would require from
£lO,OOO to £15,000 a year, which he proposed to
,•aise by a tax on fishing-boats.
The Commission then adjourned.

ALTHoroa more than a million copies of
" Cassell's Popular Educator" have been sold, this re-
markable work is still as largely in demand as ever, and
the publishers have made arrangements for re-issuing it
in serial form during the present month. The secret
of its ever-growing popularity seems to be that it is so
framed as to need the requirements of every class of
learners. Testimonials from farm labourers, school-
masters, mechanics, artisans, clergymen, and persons in
every position of life, speaking of what this unique work
has done, are continually reaching the publishers. Mr.
Thomas Burt, M.P., does not hesitate to acknowledge
how ranch he owes to the "Popular Educator," which
has been recently characterised by a leading educational
journal as "a school, an academy, and a university le
one." Part I. will be published on the 25th inst.-
" My brethren,' said Swift in a sermon, "there are
three kinds of pride—of birth, of riches, and of
talents. I shall not speak of the latter, none of you
being liable to that abominable vice."
In Arabia the girls have little to do with selecting
their husbands. When a bold warrior sees a girl
whom he loves in another tribe, he rides up at night,
dashes up to her tent, snatches her up in his armsi
puts her before him on his horse, and sweeps. away
like the wind. If he happens to be caught, he is shot
—and a year later when he is skirmishing around at
midnight after the paregoric bottle, he regrets exceed-
ingly that he was not caught.

GOSSIP ON DRESS.
Tws Queen contains ths following items upon the
fashions of the day: Among the many new designs
for decorative use, brought out by ingenious minds, is
the poodle. As this sagacious, companionable dog is
still the pet of fashion, to be seen walking out in
crowded thoroughfares with its master or mistress,
often decorated with a gold or single bangle on one
front paw, or a bow of ribbon, corresponding with the
colour of its mistress's costume, tied among its locks,
so its reproduction in gold and paste is worn among
lace and ribbon as a fashion of the day. As a letter
weight the poodle also figures in carved ebony, and is
to be seen painted on fans, and the covers of blotting
books. Paste aibrooches and pins are as popular as
ever, and a flight of swallows, a frog, or a bat seem to
be the favourities. Elongated initial letters, with a
long pin thruet through slantwise, composed of
garnets, are novel, and look warm and rich among
lace in jabots, bows, bonnets, or for fastening a floral
buttonhole. There is the old English initial letter
without the pin, and also the modern capital one, with
it, and the latter is about two inches long, and the
favourite. Garnets are coming into vogue very much,
and go well with the rich ruby and brown shades
that find such favour at present. Garnet beads,
strung on wire in the form of a comb, are to be seen
on some of the new ruby bonnets, where they fit into
the carved back, cut up to admit of the present style
of hairdressing. They also edge bonnets, and are
lightly strung and secured to the stems of aigrettes.
With a bonnet ornamented thus, it is needless to say
that the earrings and bonnet pins or brooch are en
suite. Boxes containing six to twelve of the imitation
tortoiseshell hairpins are now sold. They are in the
light and dark shade, between three and four inches
in length, and are more used for the loosely coiled
and turned-up hair than the ordinary wire hairpins.
Longer ones are used for running through the hair
and supporting the bonnet, and some of these are
ornamented with steel or paste. If double pins are
used, one is put in higher than the other. and if there
is a chain attached it rests on the hair. For mourn-
ing, jet beads of good size, mounted on hairpins, are
dotted about the coils or plaits at the back of the
head. Very long, thin gilt pins, with small onyx
heads, are also run through the bonnet or hat.

THE "Tam o' Shanter " cap, in black velvet or
coloured plush, may be considered the favoured
headgear of the day for youthful faces. There are
several varieties, some being made with the piece
forming the crown coming in plaits from the left side,
drawn rather plainly at the back, with most of the
fulness in front. Others are full all round, and have
a flat lozenge in the centre of the crown. Some are
finished off with marabout trimming twisted into a
rosette, placed underneath the fulness at the side,
pushing up the velvet; others have feather pompons
on the top; and some, again, have a narrow band of
cocks' feathers, and a small wing or aigrette rather
to the front. A becoming style is the full puffed
velvet crown, with the narrow sailor hat brim in
straw, liined with the' velvet. Scarlet or ruby velvet,
with a black straw brim, is fashionable; sometimes
a jet wing, or a little tuft of jet oats, is added at one
side. Cloth bonnets to match the costume, trimmed
with velvet, look well, and also those with puffed
velvet crown and full pouf of cut velvet. The
bonnets with the upward pointing brims are filled in
with marabout or velvet, and have loops of ribbon
falling to one side in front of the crown. Ribbons
lined with colour or with coloured spots are both
used for bows and strings. A satin and plush bat is
one of the new bonnet ornaments. Bonnets com-
posed of the skin of a bird, with a group of wings to
one side, are being made. Black and coloured twine
bonnets, with ridges of chenille running from the
brim to the back, are much worn in the morning,
with velvet bows and strings. They are inexpensive,
and can be easily trimmed at home.

FANCY pocket handkerchiefs are as much considered
as ever. The newest are perhaps those in navy or
china blue, with wafers of red or white scattered over
them, and plain coloured borders; or those composed
of stripes of small checks in black and colour, with
broad borders. The navy blue, red, or pink muslin
ones with vandyked borders are pretty, and so are the
white with various coloured borders, some plain and
some embroidered. Worked initials and monograms
are often placed in the centre instead of in one corner.
The spotted linen cuffs and collars are more to be
seen than the white, and very often the collar is in
reality a plaited border of a coloured pocket handker-
chief, cut and put inside, with the rest of it converted
into plain cuffs, turn backwards over the dress sleeve.
Bands of folded plain or terry velvet are constantly
worn at throat and wrists; the velvet is folded in
three. Cream canvas, with coloured chenille spots or
plain, is another substitute for linen; it is soft, but
does not last clean long. The lisse frilling is now
backed by a straight band of sateen, which renders it
less liable to crush. Coloured frilling and black lace,
also coloured lace, keep longer and cleaner for winter
wear, and look well. The bright-coloured Egyptian
beads are bright on a dark winter dress, and the
pretty fashion of putting black lace over a very bright-
coloured silk handkerchief down the front of a dress,
still holds favour.


THE fashionable real flower of the day for button-
holes is the Neapolitan violet for gentlemen, and the
yellow or crimson chrysanthemum, backed by tinted
autumn leaves, for ladies. These latter are mounted
most artistically, and still worn nestling near the left
ear; they are sometimes to be seen pinned on to the
bow of the short bonnet strings, with the stalks
upwards agraffed by a fancy brooch.

DESCRIBING the dresses worn in the reproduc-
tion of "Diplomacy" at the Haymarket The4tre,
a writer in the same journal says: Some small
part of the interest with which the feminine
part of the audience greeted the appearance of
the good and bad heroines of the play might have
been traced to the curiosity excited as to their
toilettes. Zicka's trailing robe of pale olive-green
plush, stamped in a large pattern, and opening over a
draped skirt and stomacher of amber silk, was noted;
as was Lady Heru7 Fairfax's wonderful gown of ruby
velvet, with its side panels and stomacher of white
satin, overlaid by a network of golden bugles. In
contrast to the various richness of these dresses (both
more remarkable than beautiful) was the quaint-
ness of Dora's flowing peignoir of white serge, opening
over and faced with quilted pale blue satin; and re-
minding one prettily in its loose make, its huge
cords carelessly confining waist and neck, and its
dainty azure-lined pointed hood, of the habit of a Do-
minican monk. This delicate mockery of asceticism
Mlle. de Rio Zares presently lays aside in favour of a
ball gown, to which the long train and low-cut bodice
of white satin, with enormously wide stripes of pink
velvet, give a certain cachet of originality; the sleeves
and sach and tablier, draped over white satin, are of
pink tulle, powdered with chenille drops of the same
colour.

IN the next act Zicka, entering from Julian and
Dora's wedding, wears a large mantle of peacock-blue
plush and sable, which she flings aside to discover a
really magnificent costume of pale blue, touched
with a tint of green, and brocaded with enormous
branches of white virgin or Annunciation lilies. The
bodice is made with a peasant waist of the same con-
fining its folds; and the rich, heavily draped skirt is
looped up on one side, over a skirt of blue Duchesse
satin of the same shade, thickly embroidered with
leaves in pale glistening bugles of blue, with pendant
drops of the same iridescent beads. Wonderful also
is Lady Henry's costume of walnut brown plush, with
a subtle tint, between salmon and rose, lining loose
open jacket and short train, but only showing here
and there; wonderful its cream front, its gold-
broidered waistcoat, its heavy ornaments of gold
passementerie ; and " wonderful, out of all whooping,"
its tall brown gold-adorned halberdier headdress.
But, quaint and exaggerated as it may be, the effect
of the whole is charming and piquante.

IN admirable harmony with the last-mentioned
costume shows Dora's travelling dress of pale cash-
mere, of a tint somewhere between fawn sad flesh.-
colour, and made with a long Louis XVI. redingote
over a wide, deep kilted skirt, and a close steel-
embroidered waistcoat. The redingote has wide revers
all its length of bronze brown velvet, fastened back
with very large steel buttons, and the back is trimmed
after the same fashion, with large ornaments of steel
beads on the hips. In the next act Dora wears s
pretty dinner costume of Watteau silk with a white
ground, and thickly draped with lace, the very short
sleeves being cut in a pretty and novel fashion. This
dainty dress gives way in its turn to a marvellous tea
gown of pale yellow silk, mingled with draperies of
ecru lace; the tight-clinging Princesse robe of silk
has a long full draping of lace in front, falling to the
feet, and caught back to the side, where the waves of
lace descend and mingle with the glisten of the train,
and from the tight, half-long silken sleeves fall ruffles
or under sleeves of the lace, about a yard long.

BUT the most splendid toilette remains and deserves
to be chronicled last, the gown worn by Countess
Zicka in the last act. It may be questioned, certainly,
whether any woman would attire herself as magni-
ficently in the forenoon; but, considering the dress on
its own abstract merits, the colour is singulatly beauti-
ful, as the fabrics are rich. The trains and bodies
are of a pearl-coloured brocade, adorned with large
bunches of lilies of the valley, the dull pale gray-
green of whose leaves is repeated in the wide velvet
fronts, which, falling over the breast, gives the bodice
the semblance of an open jacket. The front of the
skirt is veiled by a wonderful drapery, embroidered
in large flowers in olive and dull gold and silver thread,
and thickly weighted by a clustering fringe of silver
balls the size of a cherry, which also adorn the dress
at other places. The fraise beneath is cunningly
touched here and there by the darker toned velvet;
and the high white felt hat has a huge soft-toned
bunch of feathers at the side. The very long Moue-
quetaire Suede gloves are of the palest grey-green.

"Well, that debt is settled, thank goodness I" ex-
claimed a youth, as he came out of his tailor's shop.
"Why, did you pay him already for that suit you
bought last week ?" inquired his friend. "No; but
it amounts to the same thing." "How so ?" "]j
offered to pay him, but he told me not to mention it.
and you can just bet I never will:.