The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-11-07 00:00:00

MEAT TRAINS.

Among the night arrivals (says the Quarterly Review)
we find the trains are of an altogether different
character from those despatched outwards. The
principal are those which bring food of various kinds
for the London consumption. The most important are
the two express meat trains from Scotland—trains
which may be said to have revolutionized the cattle
trade of the Highlands. The first arrival is the daily
meat express from Inverness, Aberdeen, and all Scot-
land north of the Tay, consisting of about forty-four
waggons filled entirely with fresh beef and mutton.
It jserforms the journey in about thirty hours, and
arrives punctually at Camden at 1115 p.m. The
second Scotch meat express consists of fifty-five
waggons, usually drawn by two powerful engines as
far south as Rugby; it is principally filled with fresh
butchers' meat from the west of Scotland, and arrives
at Camden at 240 a.m. These valuable freights are
despatched with all celerity to Newgate and Leaden-
hall markets, whence they are distributed by noon all
over London; so that the bullock that was grazing under
the shadow of Ben Wyvis may within forty-eight hours
be figuring as the principal pieee tle rt'xietattre at a
\Vest-end dinner. There are numerous other foixl
trains which come in from the midland counties. The
Aylesbury meat, butter, and milk train, averaging
alsmt twenty waggons, arrives nightly at 1-10 Am. ;
the Bletchley train, similarly freighted, averaging
twenty-five waggons, arrives at 155 a.m. ; and the
Northampton and Peterborough train, also averaging
twenty-five waggons, at 35 a.m. About half an hour
latera train comes in from Chester, principally freighted
with cheese.

ONCE A CITY--NOW AN OYSTER RBI)!
The Irish Fishery Commissioners have concluded
their labours in France, after a tour of inspection ex-
tending over 2,000 miles, during which they visited
fourteen of the principal places in which ostrea-
culture is carried on. The failure of the "spatting*
season in the southern districts appears to have been
serious; and although there is a visible improvement
in the northern establishments, there is not much hope
of any decrease in the present high price of oysters for
two or three years to come. Unfortunately, the de-
struction of the great natural beds, which the Govern-
ment are now sedulously endeavouring to replace by a
system of production wherever they have the power,
has left the supply almost entirely in the hands of the
cultivstors of the foreshores ; and although the supply
from these sources is ordinarily large, yet, from the
exposed condition of the crop, it is far more liable
to damage from unfavourable weather than it would
have been in the natural beds. Among the
objects of interest visited by the Commissioners,
the pares of Chatelaillon deserve mention. One can
hardly conceive a city turned into an oyster bed, or a
population replaced by scallops and periwinkles, yet
such, it appears, has been the fate of Chatelaillon. On
the sea coast, some ten miles from La Rochelle, stood,
centuries ago, the important town of Chatelaillon
which preceded it. The encroachments of the sea
little by little carried away the earth on which it stood,
and submerged its ruins. Of these nothing now remains
but the shattered walls of what is mid to have been a
portion of an ancient castle, which stood upon a low
cliff immediately over the sea ; and as this cliff is still
falling into the sea piecemeal. the lust vestige of the
ancient city will doubtless soon dituppear altogether.
The eminence on which the town stood is visible at low
water, and though the eye traces a fanciful resemblance
to streets in the natural passages formed between the
parrs, and the porcit are no doubt formed of some of the
stones which belonged to the city itself, and continue
to bis called after the traditional designations of the
various streets, there really are no visible vestiges of
Chatelaillon beyond the ruin just mentioned. The
city, or rather its site, is, in fact, an oyster bed.
The Commissioners have left Paris after an inter-
view with M. de Champeaux, the representative of the
Minister of Marine in the Fisheries Department.
From what they have seen they have every reason to
hope that the cultivation of oysters can be considerably
extended in Ireland.