The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-01 00:00:00

Income received in the Quarter ended Dec. 31, 1863, as shown in... Account 18,31P,166

,; ,

Amount received in the Quarter ended Dem 31, 1863, in repayment of Advances
for Public Works, &o.
428,052

£19,203,798

Balance, being the Deficiency on Dec. 31, 1863, upon the charge of the Consoli.
dated Fund in Great Britain, to meet the Dividends, and other charges,
payable in the Quarter to March 31, 1861, and for which Exchequer Bins' •
(Delicieuep will be issued in that quarter
F••.• 199,054

420,102,852

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—Political economists tell us that the num-
bers of the inhabitants of a country must, under the
ordinary conditions belonging to human life, de-
pend mainly on the quantities of food within their
reach. The consequences of population pressing on
the means of subsistence have often been pointed out
and acutely felt during the Irish famine, and now
also in the cotton districts. Yet this theory of food
determining the number of human beings which
may be supported within a given area would only
partly account for that stream of emigration of the
Anglo-Saxon race which since the time of Raleigh
to the present day has continued to flow to other
lands where great communities now live and flourish
in every quarter of the globe attached to tie British
Crown, displaying the peculiar characteristics of
their ancestors. In spite, however, of exhausting
wars, bad seasons, emigration, and other circum-
stances, the people of these realms have significantly
increased during the last century; and although
the land has retained its ancient boundaries, it has
been better cultivated than formerly ; its prodace
in some degree has kept pace with the public re-
quirementseand the industrial energies of the people
have enabled' thine-TO commind the' superabundant
supplies to be had in other quarters. Immense
progress undoubtedly has been made in the cultiva-
tion of the soil, and in the development of the best
breeds of our domestic animals. Can the same as-
sertion be made respecting the mode in which wa
have managed our sea and river fisheries, which, if
properly regulated, might furnish almost inexhaus-
tible supplies of good, wholesome food to every class
of the community ? We fear not. Interested parties
persisted in thinking that there were as good fish
in the sea, and as many of them, too, as ever were
caught ; proprietors of salmon rivers—either forget-
ful or ignorant of the habits of the king of fresh
waters—pursued what they termed an " economic
cal," but, in reality, an exhaustive plan of
taking fish, and what aro celled free waters
were infested night and day with the nets and
other engines of destruction .of the poacher.
These facts became so evident of late years that
everybody acquainted with them declared that
something must be done, and accordingly Parlia•
ment facilitated the adoption by Scotch proprietors
of arrangements about gaps, close time, nets, weirs,
and the rights of the owners of upper waters, which
have resulted in a steady increase in the supply of
salmon ; and on the west coast of Scotland the great
herring fishery there has had all the advantages
which the visits of Commissioners and gunboats
could give it in the maintenance of close time and
the prohibition of trawl nets, even those that sweep
inshore. Two years ago the Inspectors of Salmon
Fisheries in England and Wales began their exami-
nation of the chief rivers to which salmon resort,
and their annual reports are replete with va'uable
information, and contain useful hints about the
management of salmon property, which, if adopted
by those chiefly interested, cannot fail to produce
some improvement in the condition of our rivers.
Commissioners appointed by Parliament are now
busily engaged in taking the evidence of the fisher-
men residing at the principal stations along the
English coast, in order to attempt a solution of the
difficult problem whether the use of trawl-nets is
injurious or otherwise to our sea fisheries, and dur-
ing the last session Sir Robert Peel's Salmon Act
for Ireland was passed, which, by means of a com-
promise, proposed to reconciie conflicting interests;
and commissioners are now at work in that country
inspecting the obstructions that had gradually am-
mulcted in tidal waters, and ordering the demoli-
tion of many of them, on the ground of their being
impediments to navigation. In reviewing, then,
the efforts of Parliament to increase the supplies of
food to belfound in British seas and rivers, it cannot
be justly said that it has been inattentive to the
wishes of the public when it complained of the
errors that were being committed in the suicidal
methods which were adopted in the management of
those streams especially frequented by the sal-
monidee ; and, strange to say, most of the late im-
provements effected therein have been simply returns
to the rules and traditions of our ancestors, as
practised centuries ago. It is satisfactory
to know that we shall, in all human
probability, have for the future continually
increasing quantities of this magnificent fish and
it may not be out of place to re-
mind owners of rivers that they should cultivate
its congeners, and
to all other species of the finny
in preference salmon
extent of the breeding grounds to which it has ac-
numbers can be limited only by the
ac-
cess.
a
tribes,
last
invariably returns, after certain time, to the same
either for its own pleasure
or for other natural purposes. With reference to
that much dif-
ference of opinion prevails as to their present condi-
tion, The fact, however, is certain
l that the supply
.
r bot, soles, cod, and
is not equal to the demand, u
all the commoner sorts and shell-fieh, oysters
espe-
cially, are both dearer and scarcer than they used
,
to be. Probably an increased consumption
for this
article of food, stimulated by railways,
may partly
account for the diminution in this supply,destructive
enhanced price of sea fish may lead to
methods of capture. From ascertained facts con
especially salmon, trout, and and the
nected with the natural history of our river fish,
found
that they deposit their ova on shallow gravelly beds,
and heir
fecundation cis pends mainly on their re-
cciving the i ' and heat of the
influences of the light
Vial and those grayling, it is
of a running stream. Arguing then
from .
dingy, it seems reasonable to suppose that
the
,nsi, the
evidence to
bays
vvvich e sea deposit their spawn in those sandy
this suppositio
conceal the abound off every coast where they can
and
at
suctirn from the depredations of their enemies,
on fact, it ma
Bun can
reach
moderate depth that the heat of the
which certain]
tend to
be
vivify them: There is abundant
ad in favour of the probability of
ulti-
tance
of
the
shhboirte their
n, and should it turn out to be founded
rake the bottom, and perhaps modify the use of trawl-nets,
for obvious
habits of the denizues' working with a certain dim-
tease . Unfortunately it is diffieult,
mutely to pro
enough is to ascertain accurately the
known
°f them
of the salt water, but surely
them to discontinue the practice
of catching sprats (whicb lime, be 1.1
ring) in
e.or
that b st' ° Ycn"
c the tetabii-
-

4 tr '
meat of railways tons of them were often employed
in manuring the land. Fishermen are sometimes
not alive to their own interests when they thought-
lessly permit fry to perish on the beach after hauling
in their nets, and it is to be feared that most of the
oyster beds off our coasts are now suffering from
over-fishing, and want of attention to their renova-
tion. Yet it is just as easy to cultivate a bed of
oysters as to grow a crop of turnips, and there are
hundreds of bays along our coasts admirably adapted
to their habits which now lie fallow, but which in
time we hope may be utilised. Various reasons have
of late years directed public attention to this inte-
resting subject of the increase and preservation of
fish, both for sport and the table, and the results
have been a better acquaintance with their modes of
life and a gradual improvement in the condition of
our rivers. Much, however, remains yet to be done.
It may be safely asserted that ten times the number
of our best sorts of fish no to be found within the
limits of these islands, including salmon, trout,
grayling, and perch, might with ordinary care be
produced in our fresh waters. Some rivers require
stocking with a proper selection of our most approved
species; trees and weeds might be judiciously
planted. on the banks laf kl.k.e-svlotreterror whele
required, for the puipose btee ing inser=ts ; and
we are persuaded that when owners of property in
fish shall have become thoroughly alive to their own
interests they will pay more attention than they
have hitherto done to their preservation and increase,
thereby benefiting themselves as well as the general
public. The immense resources of our fresh waters
have been sadly neglected in times past. Let us
hope that a better time is coming, and that, with
the help of the improved modern methods of stock-
ing waters, they may, in the course of years, become
as productive of food and sport as they were in the
olden time.

TimEs.—Not withetanding the great dispropor-
tion between the numbers of the free population of
the Confederate States of America and of the Fede-
ral States, there can be little doubt that, bad the
struggle been fought out with the resources of the
American continent alone, the North would have
been defeated for lack of men with whom to continue
the struggle. The Southerners made war like one
of the States of antiquity, in which the names of
freeman and soldier were almost synonymous, leav-
ing the cultivation of the land and the management
of the ordinary business of life to their wives, their
children, and their slaves, The time that was spent
in amusement, in the sports of the field, or in the
listless enjoyment of life in a half tropical climate,
was devoted to war, and the motives to exertion
being extremely passing, and opinion vigorously
supporting the conscription, it has been found pos-
sible to maintain under arms a number of men ex-
tremely, we might say unprecedentedly, large as
compared with the gross amount of the population.
To be sure such an army cannot be efficiently re-
cruited. It pays
the penalties of all aristocracies
which dare not put arms in the hands of the labour-
ing classes. Sparta, from the smallness of the num-
bers of her privileged class, could not recover from
the single defeat of Leuctra, and there is something
touching in the calculation of the Southern news•
papers that every year a number of youths grow up
to an age at which they can bear arms, and so sup-
ply the otherwise irreparable gaps which every
conflict leaves in the ranks of the Southern armies.
Still this resource, feeble as it seems, has not yet
been exhausted. The Southern armies have been
less numerous than the Northern, bat they have been
almost uniformly victorious, and there is no reason
to suppose that the resources of the South would,
even if the men had been forthcoming, have enabled
them to support and bring into the field armies much
larger than those which have hitherto offered so
stubborn and so successful a resistance to invasion.
In the North, on the other hand, the case is very
different. There is in every free community a cer-
tain number of men who, :from idleness, from the
love of adventure and excitement, from the want of
regular means of subsistence or of settled habits, are
always ready to swell the ranks of an army. With
this kind of material America was particularly well
supplied, as having been so long the city of refuge
for all the unquiet spirits of the times. But when
that material began to be exhausted it was found
exceedingly difficult, even by the most extravagant
inducements which could be devised, to supply its
place. The very causes which have made the great-
ness and prosperity of America fought, and continue
to fight, powerfully against the maintenance of a
regular army. The dream of the nation is conquest
and foreign war, and yet this is, perhaps, the only
phase of national life for which its splendid destiny
does not fit it. Tho causes of its prosperity—the
abundance of land and the high appreciation of
labour—are the most powerful connteractors that
could be devised to the maintenance and replenish-
ment of the waste of a great standing army. These
things, for ever bidding against the Government,
and exposing it to a ruinous competition with its
own citizens for the soldiers that it requires, are the
most serious impediments to long and destructive
ware. Even now the resources of the North in men
would have been utterly exhausted had not the
high wages of labour, and the enormous amount of
bounty on enlistment which the Government has
been forced to pay in order to compete successfully
with the native capitalist, drawn over from the
poorer countries of Europe a supply of men suffi-
cient hitherto in some degree to fill up, though not
completely, the tear and wear of war, of disease,
and of intemperance. In the first year of the
war the South confronted the resident population
of the United Statea. Those levies are now replaced
by men of whom America is the stepmother—the
children of other lands, whom she tempts into
quarrels not their own—mercenaries who go to
shed their blood for no other consideration than
their bounty, their pay, and their allowances.
Having mortgaged the labour of generations yet
unborn to pay for the war, and secured the souls
and bodies of people whose lives they consider as
so much dross to fight and bleed for them, no
wonder that the Americans at the present moment
feel entirely at their ease, and believe that to
morrow shall be as to-day and much more abun-
dant. Surely with such advttntages as these they
companies have' been long engaged
-Atl who
might rreaaislowuaayb y rest satisfied ? Agents for ima-
ginaryin Retold, eenain? P2f q am .antic ,
find oo tbeir arrival the laueket put into weir hands