Read Ebook: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature Science and Art No. 740 March 2 1878 by Various Chambers Robert Editor Chambers William Editor

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 138 lines and 20723 words, and 3 pages

Editor: William Chambers Robert Chambers

THE GAELIC NUISANCE.

SECOND ARTICLE.

A few months ago, in an article entitled 'The Gaelic Nuisance,' we endeavoured to point out the impolicy of fostering Gaelic as the vernacular tongue in the Highlands and Islands. Our observations were variously received. Many approved of the article; by some it was apparently misunderstood. On this latter account, we return to the subject, in the hope of removing such misapprehensions as may happen to exist. This time, at anyrate, we shall take care to be perfectly explicit as to our meaning.

In the article referred to, we offered no objection to the use of Gaelic, provided the young were brought up with a knowledge of English. That was distinctly our contention, and we believe that such is the opinion of all who think seriously on this important question. We therefore repeat in terms on which nothing but perversity can put a wrong construction, that the fostering of Gaelic to the exclusion of English--for it practically comes to that--is a grave error; it is a cruelty which merits exposure and reprobation. Why it is a cruelty is very clear. As previously stated, the use of Gaelic as the only known vernacular, keeps large numbers of poor people ignorant, it usually fixes them to their place of birth, and accordingly excludes them from earning their bread in the general competition of the world. It is very easy for enthusiasts living at a respectful distance to write in glowing terms about the antiquity of Gaelic, about the wonderful beauty of Gaelic poetry, about the philological value of Gaelic phraseology, about the satisfaction of being able to speak Gaelic as well as English. These are not the points in dispute. Let people, if they will, and if they can afford the expense, learn to speak and read Gaelic supplementary to English, just as many of us learn to speak and read French or German. The more languages that can be acquired the better. About that there is no contention. What we deem to be a scandal and a cruelty is the practice of rearing, or allowing to grow up, groups of children with a knowledge of no other language than Gaelic; the consequence being that they are for the most part condemned to life-long poverty and ignorance. And that is what is done through the mistaken policy of it may be well-meaning sentimentalists and philanthropists, who are seemingly unaware of the misery they are helping to perpetuate. The English language, like the laws and constitution of the country, is a common heritage, in which every child has a claim to be instructed, so that all may be qualified to perform such duties as fall to their lot. Is it not, then, shocking to find groups of old and young scattered about the Highlands and Islands who cannot speak a word of English, and who cannot so much as sign their names? We might almost say they have no more knowledge of newspapers, or of English literature generally, than the lower animals, amidst which in dreary solitudes they hopelessly pass their existence.

The Highlanders have scarcely had justice done to them. They possess characteristics of a noble race. Faithful, honest, and steady in civil life. Valorous as soldiers. Peaceful and law-abiding in a very extraordinary degree. Those among them who by some good fortune quit their native glens and mix with the Lowland population, speedily learn English, and are able to converse as fluently in that language as in their native Gaelic. In fact, wherever they are brought in contact with English-speaking neighbours, they manifest no mental deficiency. In many instances they have attained to eminence. Only where they are habitually neglected, and left in untoward circumstances to vegetate in primitive ignorance, do they shew anything like laziness, and an indifference to improvement. From all we happen to know of the Highlanders, they only need to be put in the way of being cultivated by education and contact with the outer world.

The island of St Kilda, to which we called attention, exhibits a small population with no means of learning English, and who for religious instruction in Gaelic are wholly dependent on the Rev. John M'Kay, a minister appointed by the Free Church. This worthy individual, who is a bachelor of advanced age, and whom, by mistake, we spoke of as being married, can speak and read English; but with the exception of the imported wife of one of the natives, he is the only individual on the island who can do so, and acts as a general interpreter on the occasion of visits from strangers. There is no school in the island, nor is there any attempt to teach English. Is this a condition of things which commends itself to philanthropists?

A gentleman connected by heritage with one of the outer Hebrides, sends us a note, in which, after commenting on the grotesque objections that had been made to our article, he observes: 'We all understand now--though a few may deceive themselves and others--that man is not made for language, but language for man. We Highlanders are determined to adopt the current language, just as we have adopted the current coin of the realm.' This is plain speaking; and we hope that the writer, using the power which his position gives him, will in his own locality see that the children are taught to read and understand English; such, in our opinion, whatever others may think, being only a simple act of justice.

With such a concurrence of evidence, and with the knowledge that there is a School Act of six years' standing, why, it will be asked, are children in the Highlands and Islands still left to remain untaught in the elements of education? That is a question that could perhaps best be answered by the Education Board for Scotland. We can only conjecture that the educational deficiency in various quarters is due to the difficulty, for pecuniary reasons, in establishing and maintaining schools on a proper footing consistently with the obligations of the statute. Mr Laurie mentions that the school-rates press with a severity which in some places is perfectly paralysing. 'In Shetland, for example, the School Boards were brought to a stand-still. They could not face a rate of four shillings a pound; the same proprietors having to pay not less than four shillings a pound for poor-rate and other burdens besides.' This agrees with what we have privately heard of Shetland, where the rates of one kind or other very nearly swallow up the whole rental drawn by proprietors. Mr Laurie states emphatically as to this difficulty of school-rates, that 'unless the government paid what was necessary above fifteen-pence per pound, the Highlands and Islands would not have the full benefit of the Act of 1872.'

Evidently, the School Boards, notwithstanding their comprehensive and compulsory powers, are unable to plant and sustain schools in all quarters where required. The difficulty, it is observed, is financial. Let us instance the island of St Kilda. Its inhabitants are said to be seventy-six in number, while the annual rent exigible by the proprietor is somewhere about a hundred pounds, payable in kind. How can the School Board of Harris, with which the island is connected parochially, be expected to build a school and sustain a schoolmaster for the benefit of so small a population, in which there are perhaps only a very few children of school age? To build a school of the ordinary authorised type would cost at least six hundred pounds. And the payment of a teacher with other expenses would amount to one hundred pounds a year. The organisation of a school on this footing would go far beyond what is desirable or what could be asked for from either the state or the ratepayers.

A consideration of the financial difficulty leads to the conviction that something very much less costly than the present school organisation must in many parts of the Highlands be attempted, if the children are to get any education at all. Mr Laurie very properly remarks that children 'would not well learn English except through the Gaelic;' meaning by this, we suppose, that the teacher would require through the agency of Gaelic to explain the meaning of English words. That surely would not be difficult to accomplish; nor would it be unreasonable to establish schools on a much more modest footing than those latterly sanctioned by School Boards. The Scotch were long accustomed to see a very humble class of schools in secluded rural districts. Often, these schools consisted of cottages of not more than two apartments, one of which constituted the dwelling of the teacher. These cottage schools were conducted at an exceedingly small expense, yet they answered their purpose. Neither dignified nor imposing, they were useful. They imparted to the few children in their respective neighbourhoods a knowledge of letters. We are inclined to think that a modification of this kind would solve some existing difficulties as concerns the establishing of schools among the sparse population of the Highlands and Islands. In short, it would be well to legalise a minor or sub-class of schools, to be conducted at a small cost, designed to effect a particular purpose, namely, that of communicating a knowledge of the English language to large numbers of poor children who are at present growing up in ignorance of any spoken tongue but their native Gaelic, and who, in many cases, as is seen, have no education whatever.

We hope the nature of our pleading is no longer misunderstood. It is, that all Gaelic-speaking children may in some shape or other be taught to read and understand the language common to the United Kingdom. There may be some statutory obstacles in the way. There should be none in the light of humanity and common-sense. Perhaps we may return to the subject. Considering that the welfare of successive generations of helpless beings is concerned, the subject is too momentous to be lightly treated, or to be swept aside by casual gusts of delirious opposition.

W. C.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

Sir Sykes was a weak man, and there are few readier elements of mischief than that of a weak man in a strong place--meaning thereby a position where there is authority to be abused. Some of the world's worst tyrants have been emphatically weak, mere spiteful capricious children grown to man's estate, and indued respectively with all the powers of the purple, the royal jika, and the triple tiara. But then the mighty system which they, unworthy, swayed, resembled some gigantic engine put into motion by the idle touch of a truant urchin's hand, and crushing all resistance by the resistless force of its swaying levers and grinding wheels.

A Devonshire baronet, in common with baronets elsewhere, does expect to be to a certain extent the petty autocrat of his own fields and hamlets, to find that there are those who court the great man's smile and tremble at his frown, and to hold rule within strictly constitutional limits over the dwellers on his land and the inmates of his house. The melancholy which had become a part of Sir Sykes Denzil's inner nature, and the indolence which had gradually incrusted him, had prevented the lord of Carbery from asserting in practice the prerogatives which he knew to belong to him in theory. Thus he did not really administer patriarchal justice on his estate, as some hale landlords do. His bailiff decided which labourers should be employed, which dismissed, and what wages should be allotted to crow-boys and weeding-girls. The steward arranged as to the barns to be rebuilt, the repairs to be granted or refused, the rent of whose cottage was to be forgiven, or which arrears were to be sternly exacted. Poachers whom the head-keeper did not like, found Sir Sykes's vicarious wrath make the parish too hot to hold them, while luckier depredators wired hares unpunished.

The events of the last few weeks had given some rude shocks to the baronet's indolent self-complacency. He had been threatened with consequences of which he, and he alone, could thoroughly comprehend the direful nature, and he had been forced to a series of compliances, each of which had degraded him in his own eyes. He had borne with the cynic effrontery of the sailor Hold. He had beneath his roof, seated at his table, in constant association with him and his, an unbidden guest. Mr Wilkins he had, through an unlucky chance, encountered, and instantly the fetters of a new vassalage appeared to be fastened on his reluctant limbs. And he owed this fresh humiliation to the misconduct of his own son!

Sir Sykes was very angry as he quitted No. 11 to seek out the chamber in which Jasper lay, so angry that his temper overmastered for the moment both the pleadings of natural affection and the instinct of caution. He laid his hand brusquely on the door of the room which had been pointed out to him as that to which Jasper had been conveyed, and was about to enter, with small regard to the nerves of the invalid within, when he felt a grasp upon his sleeve, and turned to be confronted by the wiry figure, anxious face, and bead-like black eyes of little Dr Aulfus.

'Excuse me. Sir Sykes Denzil, unless I am very much mistaken?' said the doctor, taking off his hat with such an air, that Sir Sykes, irritable as he was, felt compelled to acknowledge the bow. 'Allow me to introduce myself: Dr Aulfus, Benjamin Aulfus, Ph.D., M.D., M.R.C.S. of Heidelberg, Edinburgh, and London respectively. We never chanced, before to-day, Sir Sykes, to come personally into contact, and I regret that the occasion of our first interview should be so sad a one.'

During this speech, the doctor's eyes had taken stock as it were of Sir Sykes's aspect, and had read the signs of anger in his knitted brows and quivering mouth as accurately as a mountain shepherd discerns the portents of the coming storm. Nor was the reason far to seek. Gossip had been busy, of course, with the private affairs of so exalted a family as that which dwelt at Carbery Chase; and Sir Sykes would have been astonished to hear at how many minor tea-tables the surgeon--for, his medical diplomas notwithstanding, Dr Aulfus was consulted nineteen times out of twenty as a general practitioner--had listened while Captain Denzil's debts and his father's displeasure were freely canvassed.

Of the arrival of Mr Wilkins and of the acceptances which the lawyer held, the little man of healing could of course know nothing. But he shrewdly surmised that Jasper had staked all that he could scrape together, and probably more, on the event of the desperate race which he had ridden on that day, and that his pecuniary losses had provoked the indignation of Sir Sykes, already smarting under recent sacrifices.

Sir Sykes had got thus far in his speech, attempting the while to brush past the doctor, when he found himself gently but resolutely repulsed.

'Now, Sir Sykes,' said the little man, interposing his diminutive person between the tall baronet and the door, as some faithful dog might have done, 'pray have patience with me. Captain Denzil is my patient. He has sustained severe injury, the precise extent of which it is impossible yet for science to determine, and I am responsible for his safety, humanly speaking--the pilot, in fact, with whom it rests to bring him into port. We have just succeeded, by the help of an opiate, in inducing sleep. It will not last long, on account of the smallness of the dose. But it is of the utmost consequence that it should not be broken; and in fact, Sir Sykes, my patient is my patient, and I must protect him even against his own father.'

These last words were uttered in consequence of a renewed attempt on the baronet's part to force a passage, and the persuasive tone in which they were spoken contrasted oddly with the firmness of the doctor's attitude.

'You forget, Dr Aulfus,' he said mildly enough, 'that I have as yet heard no details as to the injuries which my son has sustained. They are not, I apprehend, of a very serious or indeed dangerous character?'

'Have you any suspicion, doctor, that there is something worse than this?' he asked, drawing his breath more quickly.

'I don't know. I hope not,' returned Dr Aulfus thoughtfully. 'Our knowledge after all is but cramped and bounded. I remember once at sea seeing a look in the face of a young sailor who had fallen from the mizzen shrouds to the deck, very like what I saw, or fancied I saw, in Captain Denzil's face to-day. But that was a fall, compared with which even the accidents of a steeplechase are trifles,' added the doctor more cheerfully, and with an evident wish to change the subject.

'It is a mad sport, taken as a form of excitement,' said Sir Sykes, his resentment beginning to turn itself towards the institution of steeplechasing; 'worse still, when mere greed actuates the performers, brutal curiosity the spectators.'

Here Captain Prodgers came in on tiptoe to say that Jasper was awake and sensible; that he had twice asked if his father had not yet arrived; and that he, Prodgers, had volunteered to make inquiries, and hearing the sound of voices as he passed the half-closed door, had entered. 'You, Sir Sykes, I have had the pleasure of meeting once before--at Lord Bivalve's, in Grosvenor Place,' he said with a bow. 'Captain Prodgers of the Lancers,' he added, by way of an introduction. The baronet returned the bow stiffly. He had some recollection of Captain Jack's jolly face beaming across the Bivalve mahogany; but he felt anything but well disposed towards the owner of Norah Creina and the man who had led his son into the present scrape.

'A friend of my son's, I am aware,' said Sir Sykes half bitterly.

'And I am afraid, "Save me from my friends," is the saying just now uppermost in your mind, Sir Sykes,' returned Captain Prodgers. 'But I do assure you that, hard hit in the pocket as I have been in this precious business, I'd sooner have lost the double of my bets, than have seen that poor fellow knocked about as he has been. I'm no chicken, and sentiment don't come natural to me, but I give you my word that had the tumble turned out as bad as I feared it would when first I saw it, I should--never have forgiven, myself, that's all.' Having said which, Jack Prodgers mentioned to the doctor that he should be found when required in the coffee-room, and with another bow to Sir Sykes, withdrew. The baronet, guided by Dr Aulfus, entered the darkened room where Jasper lay.

'Is that you, sir? I thought you would come,' said the hurt man from the bed, stretching out his feeble hand, and as Sir Sykes took the thin fingers within his own grasp, his anger, smouldering yet, seemed for the moment to die away, chased by the crowd of early recollections that beset his memory. He could remember Jasper as a lisping child, a quick intelligent boy, unduly indulged and pampered it is true, but bold-faced and free-spoken at an age when many a youngster, far nobler in every quality of heart and head, is sheepish and tongue-tied. In those days father and mother had been proud and fond of the boy, and Jasper's future prosperity had been no unimportant element in Sir Sykes's schemes and day-dreams.

'You do not feel much pain now?' asked the baronet gently.

'In my arm and head I do,' said the patient, stirring uneasily.

The doctor, as he adjusted the pillows, smiled hopefully. 'A very good sign that,' he whispered to Sir Sykes; 'better than I had hoped for, after the draught. I think we may pronounce all immediate cause for anxiety to be over.'

'When can he be moved?' asked Sir Sykes, in the same cautious tone.

'To Carbery? I should say, if he goes on as well as he is doing now, to-morrow,' replied Dr Aulfus. 'I will write down some instructions, with which it will be well to comply, for it will be some few days at least before he can resume his former habits of life.'

'What are you two conspiring about?' demanded Jasper, with an invalid's customary peevishness, from the bed. And then Sir Sykes had to resume his seat and to say a few soothing words.

'You'll soon be well, my boy,' he said kindly; 'and sooner back with us at Carbery, under your sisters' good nursing. Dr Aulfus here will, I hope, contrive to come over and give us a call every day till you get your strength again.'

Dr Aulfus said that he should be delighted to attend his patient at Carbery Chase, and indeed he looked radiant as he said it. A physician is, after all, a man, and probably a parent, and little Dr Aulfus had a wife and was the happy donor of six hostages to fortune. He valued the privilege of professional admittance at Carbery very highly, less on account of the emoluments directly derived therefrom, than of the many small people who would augur well of his skill, since beneath a baronet's roof he should prescribe for a baronet's heir.

The brief conversation between Sir Sykes and his son was rendered the less marked because of Jasper's habitual reticence, and of his father's unwillingness to touch on any topic that might prove painful. Thus the lawyer and his bills met with no mention, and the steeplechase would also have been passed over, had not Jasper himself said: 'I told Jack Prodgers I shouldn't go in for cross-country work again, except with the hounds in winter. No fear, sir, of my donning the silk jacket any more, after this sharp lesson of aching bones and empty pockets. Don't be angry, please, though, with poor old Jack. He meant all for the best, he did.'

Sir Sykes replied that he had already had the pleasure of shaking hands with Captain Prodgers, whom he had formerly met, it appeared, in London society. And soon afterwards, in compliance with an almost imperceptible motion of the doctor's head, he withdrew; and Captain Jack was recalled to keep watch, uncomplainingly, beside his friend's couch, while the patient dozed or talked in snatches.

'Smoke away, old man; it rather does me good than not,' Jasper had said, and the captain's cigar was seldom extinguished during his vigil.

'He'll do!' was the little doctor's cheery whisper as he paid his early morning visit to his charge. And soon after noon, Jasper, pale and tottering, and with his bruised arm in a sling, was helped into one of the Carbery carriages and propped with cushions; and under the tender escort of his two sisters, Lucy and Blanche Denzil, was slowly and heedfully conveyed home to Carbery Chase.

OUR SEA AND SALMON FISHERIES.

In the department of fishing-industries the march of scientific inquiry has already borne good fruit. The influence of the weather, or more properly speaking of the variations of temperature, on the plentifulness or scarcity of our food-fishes, has grown in importance as an element in determining the success or failure of the herring-fishery, for example; and at more than one fishing-station thermometrical observations are daily made by the fishermen, and reported to the meteorological authorities, who in their turn deduce generalisations and laws from the observations thus recorded. Thus the teachings of the formerly despised 'science' are beginning to bear fruit, and to be openly and fully recognised; and in the future, the fisherman, as a result of the generalisations just alluded to, may be able to determine with tolerable accuracy, before setting sail for the fishing-grounds, the chances of a successful or unsuccessful day's labour. Add to this, that, with increased knowledge of the conditions of life, development, and general history of our food-fishes, wise legislation may provide for the protection of these fishes and for the determination of the proper periods for the exercise of the fisher's art, and it will be owned that the gains from a scientific investigation of the fishing-industries are simply incalculable.

Within the last sixty or seventy years, the herring fisheries of Scotland, chiefly prosecuted on the north-east coast, have risen to be a most important national industry and source of wealth, the value of the catch in a good year amounting to between two and three millions sterling. Needing no cultivation, the sea yields an annual harvest almost incredible in amount. Of course much capital is embarked; but without the hardihood, the enterprise, and the daring risks encountered by the fishermen, all would be unavailing. It is seen by a late Report, that in the united fisheries of herrings, cod, and ling, in 1876, nearly fifteen thousand boats, decked and undecked, were engaged, the total value of which amounted to upwards of a million sterling. Ever on the outlook for what will advance the interests of the herring fishery, the capitalists engaged in the business have latterly added a fast-sailing steamer to the fleets of boats; by which means herrings caught at a considerable distance are transferred from the boats to the steamer, rapidly brought into port, and being there properly prepared, are despatched by railway to various parts of the United Kingdom.

Railways, by facilitating transit, have been immensely advantageous to all kinds of fisheries. It might now be said that by this ready means of transit the most inland towns in the country are now as well supplied with fresh fish as towns on the coast; in many cases better. Ice has also played an important part in the transmission of fish to distant places. Salmon being thus preserved till it reaches the market, arrives in the best condition, and is sent to table fresh as when caught. One has only to look at the quantities of beautiful salmon and other fish spread out on marble benches of the fishmongers in any of our larger towns, to see what railways and ice have done for this branch of industry.

Mr Holdsworth expresses strong regret that the prospects of the Irish fisheries are not by any means of a promising kind, as far as the cultivation of the art or industry is concerned. All authorities agree in regarding the coasts of Ireland in most instances as representing fishing-grounds in which stores of wealth lie unheeded and uncared for. This is a state of matters much to be deplored, for the sake of all parties concerned--fishermen, consumers, and the nation at large. Some years ago, when we were in Ireland, we heard it mentioned that much of the fish sold in Dublin was supplied by fishermen from the coast of Wales; and we likewise heard that large quantities of dried white-fish were introduced to Portrush by fishermen from Islay and other western isles of Scotland. Though it is stated that the famine of thirty years ago has had much to do with the depressed state of the Irish fisheries, and that emigration has also affected them, we yet fail to see why, by a little enterprise, the still resident natives should not be able to beat both the Welsh and Scotch out of their own market.

As regards the salmon fisheries, Mr Young leads us into a region which is still in some particulars a field of debate and controversy. There are very few readers, it may be presumed, who are ignorant of the controversies, for instance, which have been carried on concerning the correct answer to the question, 'Are parr the young of salmon?'--a query which Mr Young, along with the great majority of naturalists, answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative. The natural history of the salmon forms the starting-point of all knowledge of the fish, and of the information necessary for determining the conditions under which it may be properly and successfully caught--the terms 'properly' and 'successfully' in this case being taken as including the best interests of the fish and its race, as well as the interests of its human captors. Briefly detailed, the life-history of a salmon may be said to begin with the ascent of the parent-fishes in autumn and early winter to the upper reaches of our rivers for the purpose of depositing their eggs. In each salmon-mother it has been calculated about nine hundred eggs exist for every pound of her weight, and these eggs she deposits in a trench, excavated by aid of the jaw, in the gravelly bed of the stream. Fertilised after being deposited, by the milt of the male parent, the latter covers the eggs with gravel by means of his fins--the tail-fin being, as far as can be ascertained, the chief agent and means in effecting this necessary action. Such eggs as escape the attack of enemies--and of these, in the shape of aquatic birds and of other fishes, the salmon-ova have more than enough--undergo development, and are hatched in from ninety to one hundred and thirty days.

The parr, it may be remarked, dies if placed in sea-water, whereas the smolt thrives in the latter element. On reaching the sea, the young smolt may measure from four to five inches. After a residence in the sea of some six or eight weeks, the smolt returns to its river as a 'grilse,' which varies from five to eight or nine pounds in weight, according to the time it has remained in the sea. After returning to its river the grilse spawns, and then returns to the sea. The features of the mature salmon are now apparent, and the fish increases in size after each such annual migration to the sea. Indeed nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the salmon than its rapid increase and growth after these periodical migrations to salt water. Three salmon which weighed ten, eleven and a half, and twelve and a half pounds as they were migrating seawards, were duly marked; and on being caught six months afterwards when returning to the fresh water, were found to have increased in weight to the extent of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen pounds respectively. Although salmon usually return to the rivers in which they first saw the light, yet it has been ascertained that the practice is not an invariable one. There is no good reason why one river should not suit a salmon as well as another, and in their wide migrations these fishes are exceedingly likely to enter rivers other than their native streams.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet