Star.
London, England, 1824-08-28 00:00:00

TRIM ASSIZES.

There occurred before the Baron a case of some no-
velty. The charge was robbery ; the prosecutor could
hear, but either was, or pretended to be dumb. lle
gave his evidence by signs, interpreted by a serjeant of
police, who had become expert in interpreting such
signs by one of, his own family being dumb. One part
of the interpretation was productive of some amuse-
ment, and excited a smile, in which the Bench partook.
The prosecutor being asked to describe the circum-
stances of the robbery, made half a dozen signs, which
did not occupy more than as many seconds, and which
the policeman (who seemed a fair and intelligent per-
son), surpt ised the Court, by interpreting nearly as fol-
lows The witness says, that he went into a dry
ditch, under a hedge, to take shelter from a shower,
and while he was putting an oil-cloth cover on his hat,
laid a bundle on the road side of the ditch, in which
there was a silk handkerchief and a pound note. The
prisoner, just then passing by barefoot, and with one of
.his knees through his trowsers, snatched the bundle up,
and ran away."

Some witnesses were examined, who proved that the
prm.ecutor was 41 quack, who trafficked on the igno-
ratite and credulity of the common people ; and, as they
supposed, was an inirostor, and only atiectei to be dumb.
Whit between this evidence, and the difficulty of
knowing whether his signs were accurately understood
and interpreted, there was an acquittal ; and the Learned
Judge had charged the Jury that at any rate no more
than a case of larceny was made out.

A trial for rape terminated by the sudden marriage
of the prosecutrir, during a shot'. interval for which she
had retired from the table, to be brought into the open
air, and get aglass of rater, by pet mission of the Court.
6:iottly alter her return, there was an acquittal.
Ttao peretins being found guilty of a highway rob-
11.ety, the unhappy (vile of one, and mother of five chil-
dror, the youngest but live weeks ohf, shewed sy rnp-
to:tit of the most genuine and: affecting desperation.—
She would have thrown her infaht over the bridge but
fur the humane interference of tome persons near her,
who took the babe from her, and took charge of it. The
poor woman tore her hair in handfuls from her head.

Ned Painter, of pugilistic notoriety, was thrown from his chaise
en Yarmouth Race coarse on 'thuceday, and a good deal bruisrd.

Siff HUMPHRY DA vr,s ACCOUNT OF THE
SALMON: ' - - •

1. There are two species of the genus salmo, caught
in the Salmon Fisheries of Great Britain'and Irelent!.
The first, Salmo Salar, is by far the most important;
as an article of food and commerce. It is distinguished
from the second, Salmo Eriox, by its greater size-when
of the same age, by possessing a smaller and more
pointed head, a more slender tail, a greater diameter in
proportion m its length, fewer and smaller spots, and
other characteristics which it would be useless in this
place to describe, The salmo salar is the common sal-
mon; the salmo eriox is known by different names in,
different districts, such as salmon peal, sewen, bull
trout, but its most correct appellation is sea trout.
These two species, when of the same size, are some-
times confounded by ignorant persons; but, without
minute examination, they are easily distinguished by an
experienced eye. There is a very remarkable difference
in their habits ; the stomach of the sea trout is gene-
rally found full at the time of its migration from the
sea, whilst that of the salmon is as generally empty.
2. Fishes in general multiply their species by eggs,
which are impregnated out of the body, and which re•
quire the contact of water saturated with air to render
them productive.
Fishes that spawn either in the sea or lakes, almost
always come to the shallows, and deposit their eggs
upon vegetables, which by their agency keep the water
saturated with air, and their season of breeding is in
general that of most animals, in the spring; but the
salmo genus (I speak of those individuals belonging to
it, the habits of which are well known, and which are
the subjects of this evidence) multiply their species in
winter; and they require t unning water for this purpose,
water saturated with air. It has been proved by the
experiments of M. Jacobi, that the egg of a salmon or
trout impregnated, will not produce a fish in still, un-
changed water; and that for this purpose it must be
constantly washed by fresh portions of water, in a rapid
stream, or under a fall.
3. These circumstances chew the necessity for that
wonderful instinct of the salmon, which, preparatory to
the breeding season, quit the sea and make their way
through rapids, over falls, and through great lakes to
the upper parts of rivers, where their eggs may be de-
posited in a pure and aerated water.
The salmon requiring much food, and depositing a
large quantity of spawn, generally occupies large rivers,
having a number of tributary streams. The sea trout,
on the contrary, though found in large rivers, is more
common in small ones, and scarcely ever penetrates so
far into the interior as salmon. Sometimes, indeed, in
very small streams, it deposits its spawn almost close to
the sea, in gravel, where the stream meets the waves at
high water mark.
The different habits of the salmon and sea trout are
well demonstrated in the Moy, near Ballina, in Ireland.
There is a large pile in this river close to the town, and
below the fall a considerable stream joins the Moy. The
salmon leap this fall; the sea trout almost all spawn in
the smaller stream, a few miles from the sea.
Salmon begin to run up rivers generally in March,
and continue migrating from the sea till October or
November; but in the early spring, there are few in
motion. In June and July they migrate in great num-
bers, and so in August and September, but this depends
upon the seasons, and particularly the quantity of
water in the river; the large fish seldom leave, except
in floods, unless late in the year, and the one year old
fish are almost always most abundant in large rivers
in July. The sea trout, in respect to their breeding season,
agree with salmon ; but the period of their migration
is usually later, particularly in small rivers.
-The fish that come soonest into the water breed first ;
salmon have been known to spawn in the end of Octo-
ber, and I have seen them full of ova, even in March.
It is stated that the eggs produce young ones in about six
weeks: and the young fish, when they have reached the
size of smelts, take the opportunity of the first flood to go
to the sea or brackish water. Their great migration down-
wards is in March, April, and the beginning of May.
There is much reason for believing that the young
salmon do not immediately go far from the river into
the sea ; for in August and September a fish exactly
resembling them in form, and from ten to fourteen
inches long (called whitlings and whitings) without
visible ova or spermatic secretion, are found in salmon
rivers, a mile or two from the sea, and which return to
the sea, without attempting a further migration. This
seems to be a sort of glimmering of that instinct which,
the next year, when they are fit for propagation, carries
them, with an irresistible impulse, into fresh water, and
to the most remote sources of it. The salmon of fif-
teen or eighteen months old, is called, in Scotland,
Grilses. Grilses differ in size, probably from their dif-
ferent ages ; those spawned first, under common cir-
cumstances, being of largest size. The female fish, in
spawning, deposits her eggs slowly on gravg; the
male sheds a white seminal liquid upon them, an both
fish cover the eggs with gravel. The male is most ac-
tive in this operation, which hardens the extremity of
the mouth, and bends it into the form of a hook.
As soon as the fish have spawned, they begin to move
towards the sea, and take advantage, after they have
somewhat recovered their weakness, to escape by the
first floods in February or March. The grilse that has
spawned, after returniag.from the sea, is called salmon.
The growth of salmon, in the sea, is not accurately
known, but they seem to double their weight in a season.
5. There is a general complaint of the diminution of the salmon
in fisheries. to the Thames, it can scarcely be said to exist ; and
even in the .tvon, the Severn, and the Trent, it is becoming com-
paratively a scarce fish. The great northern fisheries, and the Irish'
fisheries, are much less productive than formerly.
The simple remedies for this national evil are—
r. To suffer more fish to spawn, and fish of all ages and sizes.

To prevent any fish from being !Mediu rivers after spawning.
7.. To prevent the young salmon, or salmon fry, from being killed.
salmon and salmon trout belong, in fact, to the river in which
die) were spawned; and as each variety of salmon, or salmon-
trout, allects a particular river, and always returns to it; and as
the old law of the country was framed upon this principle, salmon
fi,lorries never having been considered as belonging to the coast, all
stake fishing should be abolished, as they enable persons baying no
interest in the river to cut off almost entirely the supply of fish ;1
fur salmon du not go nut far into the sea, and always return along
the coast, scenting out, as it were, their own river : and a strong
net put across an estuary, might destroy in one year the whole
fishery of a river.
No cruives or wears preventing the running up of fish should be
allowed; that is to say, no close ones, but there should be always a
free passage for fish, se that early fish may, go up as well as late fish.
No burning should be allowed in a river, by which all spawning
fish may be killed.
_ _ _

Nets should be limited to a certain size, so as to render it im-
possible to sweep a river.
No angling should be allowed in salmon rivers till May, and not
after October.—The period of close time shcrild be extended.
May 8, 1824. (Signed) H. DAVI'.

THE LATE Mn. NOLLEKEDUL —The executors and
legatees of this Gentleman received their bequests at the Bank on
51nrday lag. The foim,r, three in number, received £40,000
each, •.;.d the smaller leg aces were paid at the sane titre.

THREE PERSONS POISONED.

• •

Thursday, the 19th instant, a man and his wife,
named Jos6plf and Margaretta %Loa, attired at
March, in the Isle of Ely, from St. Ives, and applied to
the overseer of the poor for money to pay their lodgings,
who gave them.sivence for that purpose. They went
to a lodging-house, kept by a person named William
Gistrr, and asked fora saucepan, to stew some mush-,
rooms for their supper. Whilst in the act of preparing,
them, the woman of the house said " that they were not
mushrooms, but what she and her neighbours called
toad-stools." *The female, who was a French woman,
said, " they were champignons, and what were com-
monly eaten in her country ;" and prepared them foi
supper accordingly. After stewing, they were put into
a dish, and Wilson and his wife began to at of them.
The poor creatures ate nearly two quarts of the stew, and
went to bed about nine o'clock. After being in bed
about three hours, they were seized with a violent
retching, which continued until seven o'clock the next
morning, when they were first seen by Mrs. Ginby, in
excruciating agony, and dreadfully exhausted. A sur-
geon was sent tar, who, upon learning what they had
eaten the night before, requested to see the remainder,
and then had no doubt they were suffering under the
effects produced by their eating poisonous fungi. All
necessary means were used for their recovery, but they
languished until Saturday afternoon, when both expired
within two hours of each other. The same day, Inqui-
sitions were taken on view of the bodies, when the Jury
returned a verdict that the deceased " Died of cholera
morbus, occasioned by eating poisonous fungi, which
they mistook for mushrooms." Upon the Coroner and
Jury, attended by the surgeon, going to view the bodies
of the deceased persons, their attention was drawn to
Rebecca Ginby,l the lodging-house-keeper's daughter,
who lay upon a bed in an alarming and diAtessed
situation. She also had partaken of the stew, but did
not shew any dangerous symptoms of disease until Sa-
turday, and the next morning she expired in great
agony. An Inquest was held on the body the same day,
and a verdict returned similar to the above.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

---ras.
M A NSiON-HOUSE.

Two French silk-vvea;;;;;Lre summoned by a French mann=
facturer of silk goods, who has recently bet up business in the me-
tropolis, to answer for non-performance of contract. It appeared
that the defendants were brought over to this country for the pur-
pose of introducing the French mode of weaving ornamental silks ;
their expenses were paid from Brussels to this country, when They
abandoned the complainant's service for a competitor. An agree-
ment was prepared abroad, but not signed, and they now refused
to execute it, considering the contract not sufficiently profitable.—
They also made the very extraordinary declaration that they had
abandoned the complainant out of mere tenderness, as they were
sure he could never succeed in the contract. /lit Lordship et-
plained to them the Act of Parliament, which iniptised the punish-
ment of the tread-mill upon workmen who refused to perform
either their written or parole agreement, and informed them,- that
unless they returned to their work they would have to practise on
, that new British manufactory. A person, however, said that the
complainant's factory was out of his Lordship's jurisdiction, and
thus was the tame out of his hands; but his Lordship advised them
to complete their contract, and it is supposed that the terror inspired
by the mention of the new British machinery induced them to re-
turn to their employment and ratify their compact.
A seaman, who said he had been in his Majesty's service nearly
14 years, was brought before the Loan Mayon, by Mr. Murray,
the Secretary to the Society of the Friends of Foreigners in Distress,
charged with having called at their office, and, without offering any
sufficient claim upon the funds of the charity, been guilty of using
the grossest abuse because he was not relieved.
The seaman now spoke as if he had a legal claim upon the So-
ciety, and said he was in the deepest distress. He had been wounded
in the service of his Britannic Majesty, whom he had folight for 1
fourteen years, with the exception of one fortnight, and he bad been
dismissed a fortnight before the expiration of the term which would
have entitled him to a pension, in order that he might lose his claim.
Under such circumstances, and with a constitution broken down by
subsequent service in India, he was now in England, fat frorri his
native country, without a halfpenny or a friend.
The Loan Mayon asked the seaman if he had petitioned the
Beard? to which he replied in the negative, alleging that others
who had petitioned in the same circumstances with himself, had
done so in vain.

The Secretary, upon this, observed, that this seaman having been
at home since he served in the British service, was disqualified
front receiving any of the charity of the Society of the Friends of
Foreigners in Distress.
The LORD MAYOR was of opinion that the seaman should peti-
tion the Board of Admiralty, and not etitleavour to effect his oh-
ject of obtaining charity by threats or menaces.
The Secretary said, he was aware of the inadequacy of public in-
stitutions to meet every case of public distress, but on this occasion
the Legislature, and not the Society, were chargeable with the defect.