thirty-five years of age, and young women fit for domestic service; and all that remains to be done here is to raise enough for their outfit. For this purpose the Mansion House Committee has set apart 5000l., of which 1000l. was granted to this Victoria enterprise.
New Zealand was early in the field. Auckland has sent 5000l.; and the second moiety of 10,000l. has been received from the province of Canterbury.
All this is well, as far as it goes: but there are many more colonies where immigrants might perhaps prosper as well, without the transit costing so much. I am not convinced that the hill-country of Jamaica, and some other West India colonies, are at all more unhealthy than the hill-country in India, where Englishmen can live as healthily as at home: and in Jamaica, fortunes may be made rapidly by cotton-growing. The labour is not severe: the Germans in Texas and other cotton States of America make no difficulty about it. No doubt the negro peasantry in Jamaica will grow more and more cotton: but we need an immediate and large supply of the excellent staple which the West Indies yield; and it is almost unaccountable that we have not got it yet. It seems to be a most promising field.
Then there are our North American provinces—at present flourishing in proportion to the disasters which are afflicting the neighbouring Republic. Some day I may speak of the new prospects opened by events on the great subject of food-production, home and colonial. At present I can only say that there is plenty of scope for strong, industrious, and sensible settlers in Canada and the neighbouring provinces. British Columbia is as fair a field as can be sought by men and women of energy and self-respect: but it is—like Australia—very far off.
On closing this review, what can be clearer than the duty of good citizens in regard to both ways of leaving one’s country for the country’s good? The old way we cannot but see is practically over and done with, and we must discourage any tendencies of the uninformed, the timid, and the indolent, to treat Transportation as an existing question. On the other hand, we must encourage Emigration, in any emergency like the present, to the utmost extent that prudence and experience allow. That utmost extent will not relieve us of Lancashire distress: but it will rescue some thousands of families from it. It will somewhat lighten the burden now; and it will more than repay its present expense in the produce it will send us,—whether of cotton or other commodities,—and in the new markets it will create for the products of industry at home.
It should, therefore, be our duty and our pleasure to help, as each one of us may be able, in bringing together the Colonies and the right sort of people to enjoy them and make the most of them. Any one of us who can dispatch a family, a young couple, or a servant girl, or farm labourer, is privileged to do a great and certain social and individual service. Any one who is not so privileged may contribute more or less to the several funds now being raised, and administered by experienced agents, for providing the outfit and passage of carefully-selected emigrants. Long after the cotton-famine shall have passed away, this choice seed sown on colonial soil will be bearing plentiful fruit for the enrichment of Old England, and of all the Young Englands which are growing up around her.
SOMETHING ABOUT MACKEREL.
The mackerel fishery commences at the latter end of February, and lasts until the end of June, but it is at its best in the months of April and May. The fishery is always pursued by night, and for this reason, that the mackerel—like the herring—swimming in mid-water, would otherwise see the net, and pass under it. To make this clear, I should remark that the nets in mackerel-fishing are not “trawled” or dragged on the ground, as for flat-fish, but are so “shot”—that is, put out from the boat—as to hang down curtainwise; thus each mackerel becomes entangled in endeavouring to pass through the meshes of the net, for mackerel, like herrings, will push straight on. Each mesh is made wide enough to admit the head of the fish, but not the thickest part of its body; consequently, when the head is once through, it can neither advance nor recede. The mesh will not allow it to advance, and should it attempt to draw back, the reversed gill catches in the mesh. The reader will understand from this, that each fish is caught in a separate mesh, whereas in other net-fishing the captives are all ignominiously shuffled together in one struggling mass. It will be seen, then, that the fishermen, by calculating the depth at which the mackerel swim, and so adjusting their nets as to sink that distance, intercept the fish in mid-water, and take them in the manner described. It is easy to imagine that, unless the fishery is pursued at dark, the mackerel—always a wary fish—will pass beneath the net and swim on.
The mackerel-fishery is carried on after a fashion very similar to that adopted for taking herrings, excepting only that the mesh of the mackerel-net is broader than that of the herring-net, the former being, as everybody knows, the thicker fish.
The mackerel taken in autumn with the herrings are never very large, on account of the smallness of the herring-mesh, but they are far sweeter and firmer than the spring mackerel, and of course are roeless, the spawning season for mackerel having passed. These mackerel are known in the market as “Michaelmas mackerel,” and fetch good prices.
In mackerel-fishing, when the nets are down—a feat which is performed at dusk, and some miles from shore—the boat is allowed to drift (as in herring-fishing), with her sails down, or at least with only one small sail set. The track of the nets is shown on the surface of the water by long lines of corks and floating barrels, and the nets extend a vast distance. The fishermen often know where the fish are, from the fact of a shoal of mackerel leaving an oily mark on the water, which at dark has a luminous and phosphoric appearance, and on a fine sunny day resembles a broad deep band of blue ribbon floating on the