The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-06-30 00:00:00

POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS IN FRANCE.

The French Journ,al Officiel publishes a report on
the working of the new Post Office Savings Banks
during 1882, thus giving the first year's experience.
Four hundred and seventy-three thousand deposits
were paid in, making a total sum of 64,634 000 francs,
The withdrawals amounted to 17,811,000 francs, so
that there was an overplus for the year of 46,823,000
francs left deposited. The deposits average 136 francs
each; the withdrawals 312 francs.
Of the bank books taken out, 23,000 represented
traneftrs from the private savings banks. The sum
thus transferred amounted to 3,406,000 francs.

A CHINESE SEPERsTmort.—Crackers play a large
part in the superstitious observances of the ordinary
Chinese (says Nature). It is a popular b4ief that the
evil et irits everywhere inhabiting the air are dispersed
by ernckling noises, attended by fire and smoke. Ac-
cordinOy crackers are used on all special occasions to
frighten away the demons who are torinCnting a
sick person, or who crowd around the people at the
beginning of the New Year. Band)°, which when
burning emits a crackling sound, is also used for the
same purpose.

THE FISHERIES CONGRESS.

On Monday at the Conference held at the Inter-
national Fisheries Exhibition, a paper was read by
Professor G. Browne Goode, M.A., Assistant Director
of the United States National Museum and Commis-
sioner to the present Exhibition.

His Excellency the American Minister presided, and
in opening the proceedings spoke of the high reput
tion of the learned Professor, to whom, he said, was
largely due the success of the American section of the
Exhibition.

The learned Professor began with an interesting
account of the growth of the fishing industries of
the United States. The first American colony planted
at Jamestown in 1609 owed its permanence chiefly to
the abundance of fish and oysters in the adjacent
rivers. Little substantial progress was made, how.
ever, until after the war of the rebellion. Since 1865,
and especially within the past decade, the fisheries,
as the Professor showed, have increased in extent
and seine te a degree without parallel in their pre-
vious history. The present position of the industries is
remarkable. Great freezing houses have been built
on the Great Lakes, on the Pacific coast, and in the
cities of the East, and refrigerator cars are running
upon all the trunk lines of railway. Columbia salmon,
late whitefish, cod, bass, Spanish mackerel, and other
choice fishes are frozen stiff and packed up in heaps
like cordwood, and can be had at any season of the
year. Refrigerator cars carry unfrozen fish from sea
and lake inland, Smelts and trout, packed in snow
in the north, are received in New York by the
car-load daily throughout the winter. Halibut
are brought from the distant oceanic banks in
refrigerators built in the holds of the vessels,
and 12,000,000 to 14,000,000 pounds are distributed,
packed in ice, to the cities of the interior. Tinned
fish, especially salmon, lobsters, and sardines, and
mackerel, are extensively consumed, and value to at
least 3,000,000 dole, is annually exported. In 1880,
2,253,000 salmon were received by the establishments
of the Pacific slope, and were packed in 31,453,000 one-
pound cans, worth at the factories 3,255,000 dolts.
Sardines" to the value of 825,000 dols, were packed
in Maine, these being simply young herrings, mostly
in cotton-seed oil of domestic manufacture. 4,178,000
pound cans of lobsters were also packed in the fac-
tories owned by Maine and Massachusetts. The
ingenious devices for sea, river, and lake fishing
as exhibited in the American Court, were described,
showing that a remarkable degree of perfection has
been attained in every branch of the industry, espe-
cially in the propagation and acclimatisation of useful
fishes. In the last-mentioned undertaking, the fish
culturists have been assisted by grants of public
money. Professor Goode estimates the different
fishes of the United States waters at 1,400; of
these 300 have a recognised economic value. He
divides the 47 recognised fishing industries of his
country into four divistonis-1. Ocean fisheries, con-
ducted by sea-going vessels; 2. Coast fisheries,
conducted chiefly from small boats; 3. River
and lake fisheries, which produce shad, alewife,
salmon, whitefish, smelt, and sturgeon; 4. Strand
fisheries and shore industries, including seal, turtle,
terrapin, clam, quahog, abalone, moss, salt, and sea-
weed trades. The whale fishery has decreased in
value of late years owing to the introduction of mineral
oils and over-fishing. The aims, methods, and
achievements of the United States Fish Commission
were explained towards the close of the paper, which
was supplemented by an explanation by Mr. Earle of
a series of diagrams of the excellent hatching and re-
frigerating apparatus in use in America.
The Marquis of Exeter moved a vote of thanks to
the Professor for his paper, taking the opportunity of
thanking the Government of the United States for the
aid they had given him in information and in ova' in
successfully carrying out his own small experiments in
pisciculture.
Professor Huxley, who seconded the resolution, held
by the Government of the United States as an example
.of what must be done in pisciculture if it was to be of
any value.
His Excellency the American Minister, in replying
to a vote of thanks for presiding, said, without any
national vanity, which was far from his feeling,he might
say that it was the wise and generous appropriation
of £7,000 by the American Congress which had greatly
encouraged the Fisheries Exhibition at its outset (hear,
hear), and he had been greatly gratified by hearing
from the very highest authority that the American
section of the Exhibition was distinguished for its
scientific arrangements, and therefore for its prac-
tical utility to the lessons which might be
learned from it. He had been struck by several
points in Professor Goode's discourse. The figures (as
to ova) were of such a nature that the mind lost itself
as in the vast distances of astronomy ; but it was
gratifying to hear that the protection of fish in the
United States was now due rather to individual effort,
If he might so denominate societies of anglers and
fishermen, than to the protection of the State. That
was rather• a curious and interesting illustration of
one of the results of the progress cf Democracy,
of which many people stood so much in terror.
It recalled to him the fact that the riots in
Pittsburg ten years ago had not been put down
' by the militia, as was supposed—on the con-
trary, the rioters put down the militia but
I by public opinion. On the strike of the working men
beginning they had public opinion with them, people
thinking the reduction unwise and teacalled for; but
the moment they proceeded to violence public opinion
went round to the other side, and the workmen were
left, as it were, in a vacuum in which they could not
breathe. The difficulty of protecting anything in a
country so wide as the United States he illustrated
by the case of the repudiation of an attempt on the
part of the State of Maine to protect the moose
"Y w yaw,.
of
of the forest, beyond any habitation, where, of
course nc "moose warden" could follow him ; but
public opiTion, be believed, would be able to protect
even the moose in Maine. That sort of independence
of the American was typified even in the American
oyster. (Laughter.) The young of the European
oyster remained within its shell for a certain appre-
ciable period, but the young of the American oyster,
far more adventurous were turned loose into the wide
world of the ocean to look out and provide for them-
selves. (Laughter.) rrofeesor Goode had spoken of
the importance of the New England fisheries in early
times, and it would be difioult to exaggerate that
importance. The fisheries had been what the mines
of California had afterwards become; and per-
hare it would turn out that the fisheries would
be more durable than the mines. They certainly, in
one point, had been of vary great importance, the
point to whieh Edmund Burke had alluded in his speech
to the electors of Bristol when he spoke of "those hardy
fishermen who had whitened every ocean with their
sails." Their great value, as estimated not only in New
England but throughout the Untted States, was as
nuosesies for seamen. (Cheers.) One of the things which
had impressed him in that exhibition more agreeably
than almost any other was the hint which it gave
them of callings which summoned forth all those
many qualities of enduranee, self-reliance, and self-
sacrifice in peaceful occupations which they had been
too usually led to think found only scope in war.
(Cheers.) It was very agreeable to think that on their
Bids of the water, the men who carried on these
fisheries had always been encouraged, and encouraged,
sometimes, he believed, by special bounties. So im-
portant had they always been considered that in the
State House of Massachusetts, over the Speaker's
chair, a model of a cod fish hangs, as an emblem of
what at one time was the most important industry of
the State.