The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-20 00:00:00

7IIR ILLICIT TRADE IN SALMON.

On Tuesday, at two o'clock, a deputation from
the Fisheries Preservation Association had an in-
terview, by appointment, with Sir George Grey, at
the Home -office, to press upon him the necessity of
prohibiting the exportation of salmon at the close
season. The Earl of Mount-Charles, Lord Garvagh,
Mr. Martin T. Smith, M.P., Lieutenant-Colonel
Fane Keane, R.E., Capt. Hawkins, RN., Mr.
Francis Travers, Mr. George Stevenson, and Mr. E.
Chitty composed the deputation. Their object, as
explained by Mr. Martin Smith, M.P., was especi-
ally to suggest the publication of an Order in
Council as a means of putting a stop to the expor-
tation during the close season, having regard to
the ready market which poachers found in France
for out-of-season fish.

Sir GEORGE GREY, interposing, said he did not
see how an Order in Council could be issued for such
a purpose, as one of the main objects of such a pro-
ceeding was to prohibit the export of articles con-
traband of war, and it could not be pretended that
unseasonable fish came within that designation, to
whatever use our ingenious French neighbours
might put ii. He might state at the outset that he
was assured, by communications from inspectors of
fisheries, that there had never been such a fishing
season in the Tweed, or so many fish caught with
the rod as during the present summer, and that the
very people who had at first opposed the passing of
the Act were now so convinced of its advantages
that they were combining together to carry it into
effect. In the Coquet, a fine fishing stream in
Northumberland, the resistance which poaching
met there recently had led to a serious riot, in which
one man was drowned, and since that the Newcastle
and Berwick Railway Company were understood to
have refused to carry packages suspected to contain
fish out of season on their way to London.
Mr. G. STEVENSON, fish-factor in Billingsgate,
speaking for the trade there, assured the Home Se-
cretary that the Tweed was the most poached river
in all England, and that, eo far from the railways
refusing to carry unseasonable fish, they were only
too glad of the chance of conveying goods of any
kind.

Sir GEORGE GREY asked if the deputation
could adduce any evidence that the Tweed was
so poached as had just been represented, for, if
so, he would cause an investigation into the
circumstances, if they were put in writing. He
had certainly been told that of late there had been
no poaching in the Tweed of any moment.
A. member of the deputation said from 1,200 to
1,500 cwt. of out-of-season salmon a-day was sold
in the Paris market.

Sir G. GREY said, if that could be proved to have
gone from the Tweed to London, and thence to
Paris, he should be able to stop such a trade so far
as that river was concerned.

Mr. STEVENSON said what he wanted was a pro-
hibition against exportation to France extending
from October the 4th to January the 3d in each
year, or during the usual close season. The result
would be at least to double our supply of fish in sea-
son for the home market. He understood the
weekly supply of out-of-season fish which went from
this country to the French markets amounted to
from four to five tons, and the enormous price it
brought operated as a direct stimulus on the trade.
In the spring of the year he could bring salmon
from Paris, with all its attendant expenses, the
octroi included, and sell it in the London market at
a great profit. Not only were the French doing
all they could to develope their salmon fishings,
but also to extend the North Sea fishing, and at
present they were having well-vessels built at Bark-
ing for the purpose. The only effectual way to
check poaching, and restore our rivers to their for-
mer productiveness, was by a prohibition against
the export of salmon during the time it was illegal
to sell it in this country. Much might be done to
stop the illict traffic by giving orders to the Cus-
tom-house officers at Newhaven, Folkestone, and
Dover to seize all salmon consigned to French
houses during the close season. He was selling
good salmon in Billingsgate at 6d. and Bd. per lb.
12 years ago, since which the price had not been
less than from 10d. to 2s. 3d. Besides, such a pro-
hibition, while increasing the productiveness of the
rivers, would do much to lessen the demoralization
which prevailed in fishing districts, and the present
expenditure incurred in watching the rivers
during the close season.
Some more conversation ensued on collateral sub-
jects, mooted either by the Home Secretary or mem-
bers of the deputation, and at length
Sir G. GREY said, whatever might be said about
a prohibition, he wanted to see whether some other
mode might not be adopted for checking the trade
in question. Let the deputation give him the facts
as to alleged poaching, and he would find a remedy.
They said fish was caught in the Tweed, and sent
first to London and then to Paris. If the deputa-
tion would put the circumstances down in writing
he would communicate with the inspectors and the
railway company. He would also consult the law
offices of the Crown on a point raised during the
conversation.

With that the deputation took their leave.

LIGHT LINKS OF RHYME.

(From Fun)
FOR A FOGGIY NOVEMBER DAY.
In a fog, in a fog,
In a wretched state of fog
What to do, what t 9 think,
What to eat, what to drink;
For everything is stated,
To be so adulterated,
That if you wish to live,
You from eating must forbear,
And the best advice to give,
Is to live upon the air :
Only that is full of blacks,
And so very far from pure,
That salubrity it lacks,
And so what to do I'm sure,
That through his brief existence man may comfortably jog,
Would the greatest of philosophers envelope in a fog.

In a fog, in a fog,
In a wretched state of fog !
Are the makers of our laws,
For effect to find a cause,
When they try to give attention,
To the subject of Prevention,
Which is better than a Cure,
If they can but find the way,
But though every one is sure
Ile can something on it say,
Still, when Parliament we seek,
To help us, shall we not
Find the orators who speak
All collectively have got
Through the hazy, mazy blue-books, that the clearest head
would clog,
Into what we may denominate a legislative fog ?

In a fog, in a fog,
In a frightful state of fog!
Is the man who wants to know,
Whilst year after year we go
On boasting that the latest
Stage of progress is the greatest,
That there never was a race,
That made commerce stand so high,
With integrity its base;
When he asks the reason why
So constantly we read,
Strange accounts of money made,
By a process which, indeed,
Seems the thimble-rig of trade P
With the Bankrupt-list appearing, like
Of those who from the right path f an awful catalogue,
a fog. far, have wandered in

In a fog, in a fog,
Ina dreadful state of fog!
With those vagabonds about,
For our Watches looking out,
From the prison liberated,
With their servitude abated,
'Who our neck„ are nightly twisting,
As we home are walking fast,
Puzzled whether we're existing,
In this century or the last.
In a fog about the meaning
Of the talk of better dealing,
With our criminals, when leaning
To false mercy, they go stealing
More than ever, twice as clever, when for burglary agog
They shroud the prison chaplain in hypocrisy's dense fog.

At a meeting of Venezuela bondholders yester-
day Mr. J. D. Powles in the chair, a resolution, moved
in complimentary terms to the old committee and:to Messrs.
James Clay, M.P., E. Redman, H. J. Meadows, N. Henry,
and J. Alexander, the private committee, that a commis-
sion of 2i per cent. on the arrears to be capitalised be paid
to the combined committees, was carried unanimously.

THE WAR IN AMERICA.

(Per Edinburgh.)

NEW YORK, Nov. 7, EVENING,
General M'Clellan's army has occupied Ahhby's
Gap.

No Confederates could be seen from the heights
commanding Shenandoah Valley.
Another portion of General Nl‘Clellan's army,
after a successful skirmish with General Stuart's
cavalry, has occupied Barbour, near the mouth of
Chester Gap, where General Stonewall Jackson has
taken up a position.

All the approaches to Manassas on the left of the
Blue Ridge are in possession of the Federals. They
also occupy Warrenton.
No information has been received of the position
.or movements of General Lee's army.
NEWT YORK, Nov. 8, MORNING.
It is semi-officially announced that the report of
a protest from the French Minister against the acts
of General Butler is apochryphal.
The drafts will take place in the city of New
York on the luth inst. There will be no draft in
Boston.

The Richmond Whig says the order of the Secre-
tary of War, to enrol conscripts between 18 and 45
years of age, is unpopular, if not odious, among a
large class of Southern people.
A letter from the captain of the Federal steamer
Huntsville has been published, stating that tho
Blanche was burnt by her own crew when run
ashore near Havanna.

Horatio Seymour was elected Governor of New
York by a majority of 10,000 votes.
The Democrats have carried the elections in
Illinois by a majority of 15,000.
It is reported that. General Hunter will replace
General Mitchell in South Carolina.

The Philadelphia Inquirer contains a letter,
stating that 3,000 Confederates had surrendered un-
conditionally to General Foster's expedition, at
Pl 3 mouth, North Carolina.

It is officially announced that Canadian duties on.
American goods will be calculated according to the
depreciation of American paper currency as com-
pared with gold on the date of the invoice of the
goods.

Several suggestions are being put forward to :send
from New York voluntary contributions in cargoes
of grain for the relief' of the distress in Lancashire.
COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
NEW YORK, Nov. 7, EVENING.
Money easy. Gold 31 to 32 per cent. premiurd.
Exchange on London—Bankers' bills, 106. Stocks
dull. New York Central, 104. Illinois, i 9 Erie,
631. Cotton very firm. Middling UplP..nd, 61t to
62c. Flour improving, and 10e. higher. Wheat
improving., and lic. higher. Corn quiet. Provi-
sions good inquiry. Coffee and sugar very firm.
Molasses quiet.

" HISTORIC DOUBTS" AS TO THE
AMERICAN WAR.

-
After very careful consideration of the subject,
we have come to the conclusion that all the reports
that reach us from the other side of the Atlantic
are fictitious. There is, in fact, no American civil
war. It is from first to last a " weak invention" of
the newspapers, got up to stimulate their circula-
tion and enlarge their casual sale. Let us ex mine
the facts, fairly testing them by intrinsic evidence
as to their credibility, and by comparison with past
records known to be true. Let us apply to them
the test that all historians apply to the records of
alleged facts, bringing to the case if possible the
energy of a Niebuhr dissolving the mists of Roman
legends, and the acumen of a Froude discovering
that Henry VIII. was a model spouse. The gigantic
improbabilities that stare us in the face are almost
innumerable. In the first place, we find it recorded
that, after passing unharmed through periods of in-
tense disturbance, the American Union was first
broken up because an Illinois attorney was elected
President. We are told that the South so wished
to keep negroes in slavery, and so hated the North
for not restoring their fugitives, that it resolved to
separate, and thus constitute the North a foreign
country, like Canada, bound by no law to restore
escaped slaves. We are told that the North, hating
negroes—oxpelling them, for instance, from Illinois
and othe r States—still so loved them that
rather than allow the South to enslave more
of them, it determined to run the risk of
breaking up the Union. Do not these things
bear the very mark of badly-invented fiction ?
Do they not give rise, even at the outset of
our inquiry, to the suspicion that the whole thing
is a mere myth, got up by newspaper editora, spe-
culators in the funds, and dealers in cotton? We read
further on, in the pretended record of facts, that
the North offered to guarantee protection to slavery,
but that the South refused it, although the only
cause of separation was the very fear that slavery
would not be protected! Another unmistakable
myth. We also read that the North declared —" We
will protect the slavery of 4,000,000 slave', we will
restore to their chains any who escape, but we can-
not in conscience allow slaves to wander over New
Mexico (where there are about two dozen negroes),
and we will die rather than allow any in Arizona
(where none ever went, nor are likely to go)." Is
it credible, we ask, that such a:declaration was ever
made—that a nation should openly profess a territo-
rial conscience, should wink in Washington City at
what it could not bear in the untrodden deserts of
the West ? Would we believe, if we read it iu
some French History of England, that in 1820 the
English people sanctioned slavery in London, but
proclaimed that they would not tolerate it in the
West Indies ? Yet we are asked to believe that the
American people in 1861 made a similar declara-
tion. Any historian of the present day deciphering
such a story in any old records of Assyria, or
Egypt, or Greece, would at ot.ce reject the legend
as unfitted for historical reproduction. And are we
to believe it now ? .• We think we have shown
enough to prove that the whole story—as told to
us in the newspapers—is too wild and contradic-
tory for the belief of the most credulous ; and that
it is a badly-got-up fiction, invented by unscrupu-
lous editors for their own profit and advantage. .rn
fact, all honest men must come to the conclusion
that there is no American Civil War, and that Air.
Lincoln—if indeed there be any such man—is still
ruling over a peaceful and united people.—Arts's
Birmingham Gazette.

SERIOUS AND FATAL ACCIDENT A 7
MESSRS. MARE'S IRON WORKS.

An accident of an unusual character has recently
occurred at the iron ship-building works of Messrs.
Mare, at Millwall. It appears that a ponderous fly-
wheel, 45ft. in circumference, attached to a powerful
engine, used to drive immense machinery for the
"'fling of iron plates, while revolving rapidly on
last Friday afternoon, suddenly burst asunder, the
huge fragments being scattered with frightful force
in all directions. The place was suddenly enveloped
in steam, and the utmost confusion and alarm pre-
` veiled. The manager of the works was standing
within a few yards of the fly-wheel, but escaped
unhurt, as did also a workman named Naylor, who
miraculously escaped being crushed. When the
steam and dust subsided, however, the lad Doring-
ton, who had been seen just previous to the acci-
dent raking a furnace fire twenty yards off, was
found covered with blood, and.his thighs shockingly
mangled. He was instantly removed to the London
Hospital, where he died c n Monday.
These facts appeared at the inquest held by Mr.
Walthew on Tuesday night, at which, however, no
account could be given of the cause of the accident.
The wheel, 45 feet in circumference, with a rim 14
inches wide, had not given way at the bolts, and a
careful examination had been made without finding
any flaw in the iron. Such an accident was uncom-
mon, but there was no guarantee against its taking
place with cast-iron wheels of such magnitude.
Mr. Hughes, superintendent, said that the ma-
chine was made of the very best iron. The frost
had not got at the wheel, as it was surrounded by
furnaces. Every precaution was taken to guard
against an accident which might cause £2,000 worth
of damage.

The Coroner summed up, and the jury returned
a verdict " Accidental death."_4/