The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIBA N EVENING; JANUARY 25, 1861.

.amm.....-...d.0......aft,w.--.........
up until a late hour in' the morning.' After the
t
slag ing- VTa.S over the choral members of the corps
san the National . Anthem in parts, accompanied
by the band. _
The alinkial meeting of the 2aTower Hamlets Rifles
was hula last evening at the Beaumont Institution,
\
Mile-end-road, Lieut.- Col. Walker in the chair. The
report stated that a meeting was held on Dec. 22,
1859, when resolutions were passed determining to
raise a Volunteer Corps in the Tower Hamlets. A
committee of gentlemen were nominated to carry
the proposed scheme into effect. This committee
met very frequently, and organised a plan upon
which a regiment should be constituted, Many
\
came forward from time to time and gave in their
names as volunteers. The greatest difficulty which
ilAe committee had to contend with was the choice
others, by her m'4t
The regiment was reviewed, with
of uniforms:
June last, ' and acquitted themselves
il/4.,. 4to continuedinlrYde- --ntuittee before re-
topg:o7:aunsaglieldtehsety
aottnih: 23d of
the satisfaction of all. The cu—
,,,, —.- of the
regiment, 'ad framed a code of rules which was
unanimously adopted by the corps. A fresh com-
pany had been lately raised in Upper Clapton, and
the Bth Tower Hamlets Rifles had been joined with
this regiment for administrative purposes, and the
two now constituted the Ist Administrative Batta-
lion in the Tower namlets. The strength of the
regiment was. 520, whift with the Bth Tower
Nmlets, who number 100 effsetives, makes a total
or 620 rank and file. The total receipts of the corps
i for the year amounted to £1,508, and a balance of
5492 was left in hand after the payment of all ex-
peoses. In conclusion the council express a hope
that they may continue to deserve the confidence
hitherto reposed in them, and that the regiment
may bed pi-We and crOdit to the Tower Hamlets.
The report .11aCing been adopted the meeting sepa-
rated with a cOrciLal vote of thanks to the chairman.
............ JO

SALIIION BBEIZOING oy 711 E RIVER

liccess which had °t:
operations carried
Incited, no doubt, by the b
the proprietors
tended the artificial fish-breeding;
on so extensively on the Continent;
of the salmon fisheries on the River Tay resolved
to construct near Perth, on the property of Lord
Mansfield, who kindly granted a site for that pur-
pose, a devat for the cultivation of pisciculture.
The more immediate inducements to attempt ope-
rations in artificial fish-breeding were undoubtedly
the increasing scarcity of fish and a filling rental,
caused in some degree, we are led to believe, by
over•fishing and the unprotected state of the water.
It was well known that the rivers of France, the
whole of which had become of less value than theme
Tay, had been re-peopled, and rendered of great
value to the nation by the artificial system, and also
that a grand central piscicultural establishment or
laboratory, covering about 70 acres of ground, had
been erected and carried on with great success at
Huningue, near Basle, to serve as a depot for the dis-
tribution of ova to exhausted rivers. In Ireland,
too, pisciculture had been successfully established
at Oughterard, by Mr. Ashworth, of Egerton-hall,
Bolton, who purchased the salmon fisheries of
Lough Corrib from the Encumbered Estates Court.
He and his brother began the system in December,
1852. At the National Exhibition, in Dublin, the
Messrs. Ashworth exhibited salmon (artificially
hatched) three months old. Some one or two
experiments have also been tried at other places,
but more from fancy than with a view to commer-
cial parpOses-
One prine;pal cause for the practice of piscicul-
ture is the certai.:.,ty of affording efficient protection
to the spawn during the period of hatching, and
also of allowing the shoal of young fry to attain to
something like "months of discretion" before it
proceeds on its first grand tout'. The ova, or
roe of the salmon, affords food to a great many
of the smaller fishes of our large rivers—
it is eaten with avidity by the pike find
trout, and gobbled up in large quantities by
ducks and other waterfowl. A whiffing of about
three-quarters of a pound in weight, has been taken
—with 30 impregnated salmon ova in his stomach !
If this fish had been allowed to dine and breakfast
at this rate deing the whole of the spawning sea-
son it would have been difficult to estimate the loss
to our fisheries sus:.`tined by his voracity. The
alluvia? matter deposit in times of flood often
smothers the ova, even w:.'n it is hatched under
such circumstAnce3, and freqi:ent " spates" sweep
away whole spawning beds, 1,-* the certain de-
struction of the great mass of the roe'.
The young
fry suffer also. Thousands are killed ai'llll,2 11Y as
well by the larger fishes of their own sp.'cieo
by the juvenile angler who, with a short stick 'lnt,
a crooked pin, does rapid execution. A very snia.ll
per tentage of the ova, therefore (considering how
prolific all fishes are), when left in its natural state,
ever comes the length of being hatched, 'and few
out of those which struggle into existence ever
reach our tables in the marketable state of grilse or
salmon. Out of the myriads of eggs deposited by
the female fish-1,000 to each pound she weighs—
it is thought by some naturalists that about five of
the eggs in every thousand will, on the average,
attain it grilsehood, and two out of the five may
become a full-grown salmon. At the period of the
migration of the smolt to the sea, shoals of them
are devoured by the hordes of marine creatures who,
with unerring instinct, are laying in wait for them.
The Tay breeding' ponds are situated at Colin-
haugh, better known, however, as Stormontfield,
distant about five miles from Perth, and of easy
access by the public road, and also by railway; but
this latter route involves a journey of about a mile
and a half over byeways and through fields, as well
as the trouble of crossing the river Shoehey, and,
after all, the traveller arrives on the wrong side of
the Tay, and requires to hail Peter Marshall, the
guardian of the place, in order to be ferried
over. The breeding ponds were constructed
from designs 'by Mr. Peter Brown, Perth,
and are said to answer admirably all the
purposes connected with the artificial sys-
tem of salmon breeding. They are not
of very great extent, accommodation for
300 breeding boxes having only as yet been
provided, but they are situated on a well-selected
spot, protected by a sheltering plantation of well-
grown
trees. The water supply is derived from a
rapid mill stream which runs parallel with the Tay.
A large reservoir is kept filled with water from this
stream, which is ultimately filtered into a kind of
ditch, or canal, at the head of the bed containing
the range of boxes filled with gravel, on which is
placed the impregnated salmon roe. From this
ditch the water is laid on to the boxes, and grad-
ually makes its way from one to the other down the
gentle slope on which they are placed, flowing on
in a constant, unvarying stream into a receiving
nanal, or dam, from whence it is conducted into
another reservoir, about a quarter of an acre in ex-
tent, which acts likewise as a receiving pond for the
young .rash. The superfluous water is let into the Tay
by means of a narrow canal, which also in its turn
serves as a roadway for the smelts when the time
comes for theft* departure from the ponds: The 300
boxes at this establishment, when filled with gravel,
afford room for the hatching of about half a million
of salmon, but only 300,000 were experimented on
in the first season, commencing in November, 1853.
The operation of obtaining and' preparing the
ova for the first experiment was intruted to Mr.
Ramsbottom, who is an adept in the art of pisci-
tultnre, and his own description of the mode of
shedding the spawn and the manner of impreg-
nating it is as follows:-
4; So soon as a pair a suitable fish were captured the ova
of the female were immediately discharged into a tub one-
fourth full of water, by a gentle pressure of the hands
from the thorJx. downwards. The milt of the male wes
ejected in a similar manner, and the eontents of the tub '
stirred with the hand. After the lapse of a minute
the water was poured off, with the exception of
sufficient to keep the ova submerged, and fresh water
supplied in its place. This also was pouted off, and
fresh substituted, previous to removing the impregnated
spawn to the boxes prepared for its reception. The ova
was placed in the boxes as nearly similar to what they would
be under the ordinary course of natural deposition as possi-
ble, with however, this advantage ; in the bed of the river
the ova are liable to injury and destruction in a variety of
ways, while, deposited in boxes, they are shielded from in-
jury, and their vivification in large numbers is thus ren-
dered a matter of certainty, and the young fish reared in
safety.
Mr. Ramsbottoni expressed W.s opinion that the
Tay was one of the finest breeding streams in the
world, and that it would be presumptive to limit
the number of salmon that might be raised there
were the river cultivated up to its capabilities. The
ova required for the boxes was all got from fish
taken from one little spawning bed just below
Scone Palace.

After the deposition of the ova at the Stor-1
montfield ponds, mUch anxiety was, of course
evinced during the winter as to the likelihood
of a favourable result. All doubts on this point
were set at rest in the ensuing spring, for on the
31st of March, 1854, the first egg or ovum was
observed to be hatched, and all the other eggs came
safely to Jife in the course of April or May. In the
month of June, the fry were transferred from the
boxes to the pond, and at that date their average
size was about an inch and alall in length, with
a corresponding degree of breadth. After being
placed in the reception pond, the young fry were
fed every day with grated liver. They grew apace,
remaining in a healthy state throughout:tile winter,
which was a very severe one; and, in the, course of
the first year they attained to a !atilt of for

inches, and on May IF/, 1855, it was found that por-
tions of the fry we aria rapidly assuming the smolt
dress, and were rea sass to depart from the ponds. The
sluice leading to ':he Tay was opened, in order to
afford egress, but, none of the fish moved away till a
'few days afterwards when one little shoal that had
detached itself from the general body took
its departure. A rapid series of similar emigra-
tions took place, till it was found that fully one
half of the fish had left the pond. The other
half, it is curious to know, remained in the parr
state till about the same period next year, when
they also entered the river. Sir William Jardine,
in reporting on these breeding ponds to the British
Association, said of the first year's experiment that
he loo;,„1. :iron it as having been highly successful,
showing the practicability of hatching, rearing,
and maintaining in healtli a very large number of
young fish for a period of two years, and, not
reckoning the original outlay for the ponds, at a
really trifling cost.
The breeding experiments at Stormontfield, as
well as being a commercial success, so far as they
have been prosecuted, have also served to throw some
additional light on the natural history of the
salmon, and have definitively settled the question
-a to the parr being the young of that fish, which
-- --ss a disputed point with naturalists.
has long La,—
o yt
which orioinall
lon.. before the It was the art
were thought off, brouglit 00 ;4;4 tact of the
of
1317t.e.o.urmli:tionreifield experiments
parr being really the young of the salmon, and not
as was always supposed by many people, a distinct
fish. Various controversies had raged on this point
in the scientific world for a great number of years,
both sides, as is usual in such disputes, considering
themselves in the right. The Ethic's Shepherd Was
among the stoutest of the disputants, and Isserid
with might and main that a pave was a young sal-
mon ; but it was reserved to Mr. Shaw,'forester to
the Duke of tsuealeuch at I)rumlanrig, to demon-
strate the fact, which he did in a series of experi-
ments, carried out during a period of five yea.rs,-as
. viz., from 1833 to 1838. Mr. Young, of Invershin,
ni,nager of the puke of Sutherland's fisheries, also
and the
became oigaged in similar Piperiments,
aimed at by that gentleman was
e p-
t:rf r
salmon, and that it certainly changed to tin
conclusiontlia that tl. was unJoubtedly the young of the
smolt state as Mr. Shaw said—with' this differ-
ence, that Mr. Young asserted that the change took
i place in one year, while Mr, Shaw maintained that
t the parr was two years of age when it became a
' smolt, The Stormontfield operations have now
pro- both gentlemen to be right and also, in a
ed
sense, bo
-.*lx to be wrong, as it has been shown that
one-half of the' narr leaves the pond the first year,
the other half tolio-7,ing in a period of 12 months;
he said to be still carried
and the disputation may -
on, for we are in ignorance Of Any regulating
principle by which the change from parr to smelts
is produced, or to account for the ph-171w which
impels the fish to proceed to sea the moment thej
have assumed the smolt dress.
With the view of determining some of these ano-
malies in the natural history of the salmon which
are still in abeyance, further experiments of a more
elaborate kind than those originally determined on
were instituted at the breeding-ponds. Thus, in
November and December, 1857, provision was made
for hatching in separate compartments the artifi-
cially impregnated ova of-1, parr and salmon ;2,
grilse and salmon ; 3, grilse pure ; 4, salmon pure. It
was found,when the young of these different matches
came to be examined early in April, 1859, that the
sizes of each kind varied a little. Mr. Buist, the
superintendent of fisheries, informing us that," Ist,
the produce of the salmon with salmon are 4 inches
in length ; 2d, grilse with salnion, 3 inches ; 3d,
grilse with grilse, 3 inches ' • 4th, parr with grilse,
3 inches; sth, smolt from large pond, 5 inches."
These results of a varied manipulation never got a
fair chance of Being of use as a proof in the dispu-
tation, for owing to the limited extent of the ponds,
the experiments had to be matured in such small
boxes or ponds as evidently tended to stunt the
growth of the fish. Up to the present time we have
not solved the riddle which has so long puzzled our
naturalists in conncctiou with the growth of the
salmon. Another idea has also been tested at Stor-
montfield by Mr. Buist. Some theorists supposing
that the salmon ova might be impregnated before it
left the female fish, it was determined to test this.
A box or two were set aside and stocked with ripe
pva direct from the female fish. The result was
foreseen by all concerned—the whole of these eggs
rotted away.
In connuence of the limited extent of the esta-
blishment at Stormontfield, it is found to be incon-
venient to stock the boxes annually, as the two-
year-old brood in waiting for the period of exodus
would certainly devour the new-born fry as they
emerged from the egg and were admitted to the
pond. The whole of the experiments conducted on
the Tay have been entirely successful, with the
exception of season 1855, which partially failed, it
is supposed, froth' unskilful management in the
manipulation of the grt:ed fish and the severity
of the season. The next liatrings were more
;:artunate, and helped to swell the stock Of the river.
Kr. Buist, under his piscicultural cognomen of
Peter of the Pools," gives us the following statis-
tics ;•—" In one of our lines of boxes we deposited
11,000 eggs of a female salmon, impregnated with
the milt 6f a male grilse, each of the boxes contain-
taing upwards of 1,000 eggs. Of these 11,000 only
about 30 eggs were addled ; the remainder all pro-
duced living fish, that are now (May 29, 1858) swim-
ming abottt among the thousands from other boxes.
This certainly is a very gratifying result, as not
one in a hundred of ova deposited in the river by
the salmon themselves comes to life, owing to perils
of floods and droughts and risks of being devoured
by fishes and waterfowls. rlere an artificial breed-
ing protects 11,000 of the eggs from one pair of fish
till they become living fry. These will be protected
from the devouring pike and puddock warriors
until ready to go to sea next year and the year
following, while their contemporaries in the river
are all that time subjected to the attacks of the
marauders." In 1857 the total number of eggs
which were laid down was 160,000, nearly all of
which came duly to life, and were in good time
launched on their journey oceanward ; and it is
worthy of remark in connexion with this batch
that the eggs were from 14 grilses and the milt
from 15 salmon.
In order to ascertain at what period the smolts
become grilse, and what percentage of the smolts
come back from their first trip to the salt water, a
system of marking was adopted for the purpose of
arriving at some correct data on these points. The
results, however, have not been quite so satisfactory
as could be wished, some of the plans of marking
adopted having failed. The young fish thrives so
rapidly that in two months it may grow from a
smolt the size of a man's finger to a fish of 51b or
61b weight. It is obvious therefore that those
marked by the insertion of rings or the cutting off
of any of their fins will soon outgrow all such
marks; when holes are punched in their gill covers
nature soon fills them up ; when the dead fin is cat
the place heals over and leaves no trace of the
mark • but, in spite of these drawbacks, some
marked smolts have returned to the Tay grown in
the space of a year into the proportions of hand-
some grilses a few pounds in weight. For instance,
of 1,300 smelts marked in 1855 by cutting off the
second dorsal fin 22 were caught and seen by the
superintendent as grilses.
The latest breed (at Stormontfield, the result of
which is not yet determined), is entirely for full
grown salmon, and the backward season has very
greatly retarded their growth. It is pleasant
to know that the hundreds of thousands of
fish bred in these ponds are already felt as a
makeweight in the revenue derived from the Tay
fisheries. Rents are again on the rise, so that the
proprietors will in due time be amply compensated
for the small assessment necessary for the piseicul-
tural operations which have of late years attracted
so much attention at Stormontfield.

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LA If INTELLIGENCE.—JaIa. 2t

DIVORCE COURT.

BEVAN FALSELY CALLED ➢InIAIION V, At:MAHON.—

EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

This was a suit instituted by Margaret Lee Bevan,
the pet itiouer, to set aside her marriage with James
M‘Malion, the respondent, on the ground that the
said marriage had been effected by fraud, and was
therefore null and void.

Mr. Collier, Q.C., and Mr. Brand were counsel
for the petitioner; and the suit was undefended.
Mr. Collier opened the case, and from the learned
gentleman's statement it appeared the petitioner
was the daughter of a wealthy and respectable sur-
geon, who had been in extensive practice, and re-
sided at Clayton Lodge, near Liverpool, at the time
of the marriage, but was since deceased. The re-
spondent was an omnibus conductor at Liverpool,
and ',the petitioner was in the habit of using his
conveyance, and the alleged marriage took place on
July 23, 1858, the young lady at the time being of
full age. Previous to the performance of the cere-
mony the petitioner had only a few interviews with
the respondent, and it did not appear that she had
any affection for him, or contemplated cohabiting
with him. It was agreed between the parties that
the marriage should be clandestine, that the respon-
dent was not to claim the petitioner as his wife for
two years, and the lady also states that she posi-
tively never intended to live with him. The learned
counsel said that he was quite unable to explain the
lady's ruotiVea for the strange conduct she had
adopted, but that she was at the time in a morbid
state of mind, labouring under the impression that
somebody had grievously wronged her, and in that
mood when the most desperate and unaccountable
acts have been committed. The partiea knew that
they pilld pcit be seeretly married at Clayton
Lodge, and they resolved that the ceremony should
be solemnised in a parish some miles distant,
vii,, St, Cieorffe'q, Everton, "Walton-on-the-Hill. It
was also arranged, in order to ensure secresy, that
he should obtain the license without giving her full
name, as well as a different de4cript4ou as to resi-
(Tepee. ri„lip lady's mother's maiden name was Lee,
and her family, who lived at Chester, were highly
respectable, so that if the name of Lee had been
used, it would have led to the deteetion of the
parties, so that that portion of her name was sup-
pressed in the licence obtained from the surrogate.
he and the respondent were
_also degerlbed as re-
siding at Toxteth Park, near Liverpool, instead of
Clayton Lodge, and the respondent further misdi-
rected himself as a bookkeeper. The omission of
the name and the misdeseription constituted the
fraud upon which the petitioner applied to the
Ceart. After the solemnisation of the marriage the
parties left the church in a cab and separated, the
respondent going to his employment, and the pe-
titioner returned to her home, where she had since
resided. The marriage was not consummated, and
no iptereourse took place after the performance of
the ceremony. The marriage was discovered by the
onth after the eere-
petitioner's parent about a PI
mony, and she told the respondent, to whom she
appeared to have conceived considerable aversion,
that she would never live with him, and ho had trot
claimed her as his wife. Immediately on the ,isco_
very of the marriage the lady's father commenced
but died befere they could
proceedings for a divorce;
be prosecuted,and there was reason to believe that
, his death was hastened by the indiscreet conduct of
the petitioner, who instituted the present suit her-
, self.

Witnesses were called, who fully established that
the parties had been married under the misdescrip-
tions in question.
Miss Bevan, the petitioner, a young lady of con-
siderable personal attractions, was then examined.
—She stated that in 1858, while living at her father's,
she was introduced to the respondent by a cook in
the family. She saw him from time to time when
she travelled in his omnibus, and she had also some
interviews with him at her father's house. He
wanted her to marry him, and she at first refused.
He asked her several times, and she at last consented
and it was agreed that in obtaining the licence
he should suppress her name of Lee and state a false
residence in order to deceive her parents. It was also
agreed that he was not to claim her as his wife for
two years. After her parents discovered the mar-
riage she told him she would not live with him, or
be obliged to do so, and he endeavoured to persuade
her to the contrary. She only saw him once after-
wards in Devonshire, and there had never been any
familiarity between them.
A witness was also called to prove the falsification
of the description in the licence, which closed the
pctitionee'z case as related to the facts.
Mr. Collier then addressed the Court, and con-
tended that as the marriage under the circumstances
would by illegal if published by banns, it was also
invalid though solemnised by licence, though he
could not cite any precedent.
Sir C. Cresswell considered that from the novelty
and great importance of the case it was advisable
that it should he argued on the other side, and
before deciding he would desire the Queen's Proctor
to instruct c01...."5el for that purpose.
,-.11.1 on the legal points in sup-
am;n LI:, case was adjourned.
por'!tiro.t'lt3ftAenpdetwitaisotc;

HANSON V. HANSON.
In this case the wife petitioned the Court foe ft
dissolution of marriage, on the ground of her hug-
band's adultery and desertion, and the respondent
entered no appearance.
Dr. Twiss, Q C., and Dr. Tristram were counsel
for the petitioner.
It appeared that the parties were married in
1856, and shortly after the respondent, who is a
medical man, left his wife, and had not since
cohabited with her, or contributed anything to her
support ; but she had received letters from him,
assigning as a cause of his conduct that he was des-
titute of means. It appeared, further, that in 1858
he was living in Paris with another female, and the
facts of the case were fully proved.
Sir C. Cresswoll having commented on the heart-
less conduct of the respondent, granted the decree
nisi with COSLS.