such a step; and if it be true (and there can be little doubt that it is true) that the animals are diminishing in pumber at an alarming rate, it would be an obvious folly on the part of Great Britain, which alone stands in the way, to insist upon the observance of the letter of the award and wait until there are no seals left before taking action. All that is wanting now, before we decide upon some course, is the report of the commissioners, which should have beer out long ago. Failing any mutually satisfactory basis of agreement, there is reason to fear that the extreme party in America-which country, be it noted, has never been at the pains to conceal its dissatisfaction with the award, for reasons which are essentially selfishmay have its way, and that a bill may be passed to empower the secretary of the treasury to slaughter every fur seal found on the Pribyloff Islands (which are the American islands) and to sell the skins to the best advantage for the benefit of the treasury at Washington. This proposal to kill the goose that lays the golden egg in a fit of pique does not commend itself as reasonable; but it is significant that the secretary of the treasury last year gave the lessors of the fishery, the North American Commercial Company, permission to take twice as many male skins during that season as they were allowed to take in the previous year; his reason being that the seals after leaving the rookeries are killed in any case. If the mat ter is not settled early, we are threatened with another jingo outburst against England. We will no doubt survive it, but for the protection of our own interests it seems desirable that a modus vivendi should not be put off any longer. Mr. Smalley tells us that Professor Thompson's report will "contain facts showing that much damage is caused by pelagic sealing and the indiscriminate killing of females." In that case something must be done at once. That the seals are diminishing in numbers, and that they have gone ou diminishing in spite of the Paris regulations, are facts which unfortunately really admit of little question, in spite of Sir Charles Tupper's airy denial. Less than ten years ago an approximate estimate of the animals found on the islands of St. Paul and St. George-that is, the two islands of the Pribyloff group frequented by the seals-gave a total of 3,000,000. Certainly the rookeries and the hauling grounds were packed so closely that there was literally not room enough for all the seals to live comfortably. A careful count made two years ago resulted in the enumeration of a little over 200,000. Under the terms of the original lease, the company in possession of the islands was permitted to kill 100,000 bachelor males every season, and, high as that limit appears, it was small by comparison with the number of the whole herd. Down to the time when pelagic sealing began to be prosecuted in the Behring Sea as well as in the open waters of the North Pacific, there was, by the admission of Sir George Baden-Powell himself, little apparent falling off. In 1890, the last year of the old lease, the Alaska Commercial Company found it impossible to take the number of bachelors or "see-katchies" permitted by law, simply because there were not 100,000 to take. Under the new lease to the North American Commercial Company, it was stipulated that the secretary of the treasury should fix the annual catch at his discretion. In 1895 Mr. Carlisle found it necessary to restrict the land catch to 15,000 male skins. In that same year the vessels engaged in the pelagic branch of the industry numbered ninety-seven, of which eighty-seven were employed in the award area. Between them they killed and recovered 56,291 seals, or a de crease, as compared with the corrected figures of 1894, of 5,547. That this decrease was caused by the falling off in the spring catch along the shores of the United States and British Colum bia will be obvious when we state that the catch in the Behring Sea alone, after the close season, was 44,169, or 12,584 more than in 1894. All this is quite independent of the Asiatic catch. season. which did not exceed 39,003 skins, as far as two hundred miles from the compared with 79,305 skins taken in breeding grounds. She swims with those waters-that is, off the Japanese marvellous celerity, and thinks nothing and Russian coasts-in the previous of a hundred-mile trip. The bulls do not eat on the islands, and rarely go into the water until they quit the place for the season in September or October; and superfluous males-the bachelorshave no such incentive as the females to go far away from the summer home. Thus it happens that last year seventythree per cent. of the American and fifty-six per cent of the Canadian catch outside of the sixty-mile radius consisted of females. More than this. A seal pup deprived of its mother dies of starvation, for no other female will adopt it. Last year more than 28,000 pups were found starved to death on Pribyloff Islands, because their mothers had been killed whilst in search of food beyond the radius. It would be an insult to the reader's intelligence to point out to him the radical defect and the ultimate outcome of a system under which this kind of thing can flourish. But the difficulty in the way of an easy and satisfactory solution is that in the water it is almost impossible to distinguish between a female and a bachelor seal. It must not be supposed, however, that the men whom the American people are fond of describing as poachers on their seal preserves are Canadians only. About one-half of them are Americans, who "steal that way year by year" from California and Oregon. And in the matter of the illicit use of firearms the Behring Sea, these Americans are notoriously the most unscrupulous. It is satisfactory to know that such repressive measures as may be adopted will operate to the disadvantage of American as well as Canadian pelagic sealers. The Paris regulations, it may be remembered, established a close season during the months of May, June, and July, and (among other things) made it illegal to use firearms or explosives in the Behring Sea, or to "kill, capture, or pursue" the seal within a radius of sixty miles of Pribyloff Islands. The American government has all along maintained that these regulations would fail to protect the herd from undue destruction. But the contention that the only remedy was the total prohibition of pelagic fishing north of 35° N. was not reasonable; for, apart from the monopoly that the Americans would thereby have gained, there was no adequate ground for depriving the men engaged in this important branch of the trade of their regular occupation. It has become apparent, however, that the regulations were not sufficiently stringent. During the winter months the seals take their long swims into the Pacific. The Russian herd, which breeds on the Commander Islands, heads past the Kurile Islands for the Japanese coast, and in the spring returns by the way it went. The American herd makes right across from the Aleutian Islands to the British Columbian waters, and returns along the shores of Alaska, entering the Behring Sea again by the way of Unalaska. The pelagic sealers and the Alaskan Indians meet them, kill as many as they possibly can with spears and Winchesters, register their catch at Unalaska or at Victoria, and take care to be in the Behring Sea by August 1. The number of females is in excess of the number of males, bull or bachelor, and it happens that between sixty and seventy per cent. of the skins taken in the spring are those of the gravid females. After giving birth to her pup on one or other of the islands, the mother finds it necessary to make expeditions into the water in search of food. She is sometimes found-and killed, of course-as From Chambers's Journal. THE WIT OF COMPOSERS. Never, surely, was composer more witty than the master who gave us an immortal setting of "William Tell." Rossini's whimsicality extended even to his birthday. Having been born in leap-year, on February 29, he had of course a birthday only once in four years; and when he was seventy-two he facetiously invited his friends to celebrate his eighteenth birthday. Some of the best specimens of his wit were shown in connection with brother composers. "You know," he said one day, speaking to a friend, "you know what pretty dance tunes Auber has always written"-Auber being as likely to write dance tunes as Rossini was to write a sermon. The maestro seldom went to the opera or to any place of amusement, but he could not resist the temptation of hearing one of Wagner's works. It was “Tannhäuser." Afterwards, when asked to give his opinion of the opera, he said: "It is too important and too elaborate a work to be judged after a single hearing, but so far as I am concerned, I shall not give it a second." Upon amateurs he was especially severe. A few days after Meyerbeer's death a young admirer of his called upon the composer of "William Tell" with an elegy which he had written in honor of his idol. "Well," said Rossini, after hearing the composition played over, "if you really want my honest opinion, I think it would have been better if you had died and Meyerbeer had written an elegy." Rossini's witticisms indeed bubbled forth at all times and under all circumstances. On one occasion a gentleman called upon him to enlist his aid in procuring for him an engagement at the opera. He was a drummer, and had taken the precaution to bring his instrument. Rossini said he would hear him "play" and it was decided that he should show off in the overture to "Semiramide." The very first bar of the overture contains a tremolo for the drum, and when this had been performed, the player remarked: "Now I have a rest of seventy-eight bars; these of course I will skip." This was too good a chance to be lost. "Oh, no," said the composer; "by all means count the seventy-eight bars. I particularly wish to hear those." Some of these anecdotes of Rossini remind us that composers, as a rule, have not figured amiably as crities of each other. Handel swore that Gluck knew no more about counterpoint than his cook; Weber pronounced Beetho ven a madman; and Haydn said of a brother musician that "he played the fiddle like a hog." Liszt was particularly severe upon fellow-artistes. Some one was once playing to him a compo sition he evidently did not care for. "What is that?" he asked. "It is Beunett's 'Maid of Orleans' sonata," was the reply. "Ah," said the virtuoso, "what a pity that the original manuscript did not meet with the same fate as Joan." In this connection a good story is told of the late Victor Masse. He was informed one day that a rival composer took every opportunity of declaring that his (Masse's) music was execrable. "He maintains I have no talent," said Masse; "I always declare he has plenty. We both know we lie." But perhaps better than this was the opinion of Wagner expressed by Offenbach. Wagner had just published his "Rienzi,” and off went a copy to Offenbach, with a request that he would say what he thought of it. Now Offenbach had previously read some of Wagner's poems, and had made fun of them, a circumstance well known to Wagner. After some three weeks the score of "Rienzi" was returned to its composer, with a slip on which was written: "Dear Wagner, your music is trash; stick to poetry." This of course enraged Wagner greatly, and some months later he was out with one of his celebrated brochures denouncing the Jews. It was a fine opportunity for revenge-Offenbach being an Israelite-and the brochure was in the hands of Offenbach in no time. Two days elapsed, and Wagner had the pamphlet back. When he opened it, this is what he found written on the front page: "Dear Wagner, your brochure is rot; stick to music." I. "THE INTEGRITY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE" AS A DIPLOMATIC FORMULA. By Wemyss Reid and J. Guinness Rogers, Nineteenth Century, II. IN KEDAR'S TENTS. By Henry Seton III. THE STORY OF SCOTT'S RUIN. By Leslie Stephen, IV. A STRANGER AT THE DOLPHIN, Cornhill Magazine, 577 V. RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IRISH HOME, Blackwood's Magazine, POETRY. 562 PHILLIDA AND CORYDON, PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY THE LIVING AGE COMPANY, BOSTON. FOR SIX DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of THE LIVING AGE Co. Single copies of THE LIVING AGE, 15 cents. TO A TOWN POET. What if your heritage be The huddled trees along the smoky ways; At a street's end the stretch of lilac sea; The vender, swart but free, And I long for the choir of skylarks, for the coo of the mating dove, For the liquid note of the throstle's throat, or the songs of the land I love; Crying his yellow wares across the haze? For the hum of the mighty cities, for the Your verse awaits you there; For Love is Love though Latin swords be rust; The keen Greek driven from gossiping mall and square; And Care is still but Care Though Homer and his seven towns are dust. 1nus Beauty lasts, and, lo! Now Proserpine is barred from Enna's hills, faces which come and pass, For the voice of Spring when streamlets sing, and the murmur of life in the grass; For the sweet, sweet breath of the beanfields, the scent of the fresh-turned sod, For arms which wait by my cottage gate. and the bells which cry to God. I am man, and the world is mighty. Should I die thus alone outcast, The flower she plucked yet makes an April Would my soul in the end find the soul of show, Sets some town sill a-glow, And yours the Vision of the Danfodils. The Old-World folk knew not More surge-like sounds than urban win ters bring Up from the wharves at dusk to every spot; And no Sicilian plot, More fire than heaps our tulips in the spring. LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE. IN THE NORTH-WEST. Green-grey is the sea of sage-brush, greygreen as a winter sea, Grey-green are the hemlock and cedar, and grey is the heart in me, The forests are armies of giants, dumb giants. Here no birds sing, Here dance no lights with the shadows; no ivies or clematis cling. The mountains are haunted, silent. I crawl towards the far horizon: an atom drifting through space, Past the bones and the buffalo wallows, by the trails of a vanished race. a friend, and win to its love at last? CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY. Pall Mall Magazine. Victoria, B. C. PHILLIDA AND CORYDON. In the merry month of May, Forth I walked by the wood-side, Much ado, there was, God wot, NICHOLAS BRETON. |