Portland Guardian (Vic. : 1876 - 1953), Saturday 4 February 1882, page 2


To Protest our Rights-Not Impinge Upon Those of Others. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1882. Our esteemed contemporary the Argus, --has lately been, with the liberality for which it is distinguished, devoting a good deal of its valuable space to the herring. Now, this fish is one that we love, being quite distinctly good eating, and in a peculiar manner the piscatorial food of the working man and his family, whose interests, as being by far the more numerous class in all communities, claims and obtains our first and chief regard. The herring is in a certain sense like rice-it feeds a larger number of the human race than any other comestible properly coming within the same category. And herrings, again like rice, multiply with great rapidity. On the northeastern coast of Scotland herrings are caught every spring and summer in millions, and distributed over the whole habitable globe as fast as steam ships can carry them, and are anxiously awaited year by year in the countries of continental Europe, particularly in Spain and Por-tugal and Italy. There can be no doubt about the value of the herring. Alto-gether outside its religious signify-cance, it is important as a means of alimentation, and a cause of profitable employment, and if it were acclima-tised in Australian waters not only the general Australian table would profit by it, but also every industrial art practised in the colony. For what is sometimes called 'the harvest of the sea" is fog the greater part clear gain to the community that garners it. There is neither ploughing nor harrowing, nor the sowing of seed, necessary to pre-cede the sickle, but simply a crop to be gathered when ripe by anyone enter-prising enough to go and bring it in. And this brings us back to the point from which we started. Correspon-

dents of our contemporary above named have been showing that herring spawn could be brought out here, and hatched, and the waters of Australasia stocked with a most delicious fish now a stranger to them. We believe this to be quite true. By means of ice cham-bers and other apparatus of refrigera-tion, the vivication of fish ova can be retarded or otherwise regulated accord-ing to our requirements or desires, and herring spawn could be brought to our shores at whatever stage of develop-ment we might happen to require. Then would come the bringing to is life of the germs under conditions fa-vourable to their continuance and growth. There is also the question of expense to consider. Some reasonably well-informed correspondents of the Melbourne papers think the herring could be introduced to these waters for a hundred pounds or so. The Argus thinks the job would cost something is more like five thousand, add that the expenditure should be distributed among at least three of the colonies, inasmuch as the herring would be more likely to form a permanent home for itself, if brought hither, on the coasts of Tasmania or New Zealand than on the coast of Victoria, which last-named of coast, however, it might visit occasion-ally and get itself caught in nets. We quite concur in the conclusion of our contemporary, but must demur to his course of argument. That it may cost £5,000 to establish the herring as a permanent resident of Victorian seas is quite true; but is not necessarily true. A hundred pounds, or perhaps a half or a fourth of that sum, or a tenth of it, would suffice to bring out herring roe enough to make an experiment with. In fact a full-roed herring is to be bought for a penny in either the Wick or the Billingsgate market, and this would comprise the pos-sibilities (if our recollection does not play us false) of 37,000 future herrings, and could be brought out in the iced chamber of the Orient or Garonne for twopence. But the cost will arise through suc-cessive and many tentative shipments of herring roe turning out failures. The experiment must be made over and over again until it succeeds, and about its best chance of success, we think, would lie in the imported ova being landed here (by the Cuzco, Kiedive, or such vessel as may be chosen to bring it it out) to be hatched at the mouth of Wattle Creek, and the young fry left to spend their youth in the shallow waters of Portland Bay, where their natural enemies, whether winged or finned, would find it hard to reach them to their injury. We commend this suggestion to the best consideration of the Argus, the Government, and the Legislature. We have had to re-arrange our advertising column in our present issue, to create space for the Shire Council's advertised list of ratepayers in the South Riding. Our readers will please find on the fourth page certain business announcements that usually appear in the third. THE s. Dawe arrived between eight and nine o'clock last evening, and landed a large number of passengers, in the presence of a numerous assemblage which the fineness of the night and the expected arrival had brought to the end of the steamboat pier. A DOZEN or so of Portland citizens had a pleasant excursion on the bay on Thursday afternoon. When the barque Vivid was about to get under weigh, with her cargo of bark, Mr W. T. Pile took his friends on board of her by means of the passenger boat Pilot and the yacht Ethel Mary. Captain George Tul-loh. Immediately the party got on board the anchor was got up and sails set, and the ship stood across into the Narrawong Bight, the wind being from the south east. She then went about, and made a board on the port tack towards the Lawrence Rocks. At this time the Portland visi-tors were still on board, the Ethel Mary being in attendance. The barque had three tacks to make before she cleared the bay, and it was about five o'clock when she put her main topsail to the mast to permit boats to come alongside and take her visitors away. We understand that a pleasant after-noon was spent by the merchants, bankers, reporters and others who were Captain Peterson's guests on the occasion. This handsome little ship boating to windward out of the bay, with all sails set, made quite a pretty picture. IT is only lately we found out that the gods, Cupid and Hymen have been busily engaged in the performance of the duties of their office amongst the Roman Catholic young ladies of the town and district of Port-land. A few months ago the daughter of Mr John Smith, of Mount Richmond, the daughter of Mr John Daffy, of Wattle Hill, and the daughter of Mrs Grey, of Percy street, were united in the holy bonds to the lords of their hearts and affections, and are now living happily and contentedly. Within the last month no less than four more wed-dings have taken place, but in such a quiet manner that no one but their own im-mediate friends and acquaintances seem to have known anything about them. Father O'Donoghue's housekeeper, Miss Lavery, was married at Heywood to our respected young townsman, Mr John Quinlivan, who baked his own wedding cake, and who can now recommend, from practical experience, wed-ding cakes and matrimony to all his young friends. A day or two afterwards a Miss Devlin, of Ettrick, got married to Mr Fahey, of the same place. Last week, Miss Cunning, daughter of Mr Warder Cunning, of this town, committed matrimony with Mr Hollowood, of this town, and are now living at Hamilton. And on Wednesday last Miss Minogue, daughter of the late Mr Simon Minogue, of Wattle Hill, changed her name to that of Mrs George Jennings. There are two or three young ladies of this town on the eve of taking this impor-tant step, but we are forbidden to mention names until the proper time arrives. We congratulate Father O'Donoghue on the great increase of business which has taken place in his church, and we trust that the good example given by the Catholic young ladies will be followed by those of other denominations. (We have received the above from an esteemed occasional contributor.) ATTENTION is requested to tenders from the Benevolent Asylum. Particulars will be found in our advertising columns.

THE second annual meeting of the share holders of the United Australian Mutual Fire and Marine Insurance Company was held at the company's offices in Melbourne. The Hon. Dr. Hearn, M.L C., presiding. The manager, Mr Weister, read the report, and the accounts for the year were presented. The chairman, in moving the adoption of the report and financial statement, congratu-lated the shareholders on the satisfactory nature of the business done during the past year, as the accounts showed a balance of over £1500 to be carried forward to the next year, after writing off £3000 for preliminary expenses, and paying the usual dividend of 8 per cent. per annum. Also, he had much pleasure in recommending a bonus of 10 per cent to the employees in the company's office on the amount of their salaries, in conse-quence of the success which has attended the operations of the company during the past year. The motion was seconded by Mr Joseph Ellis, and carried. Messrs Wilson and Lumsden were re-elected directors, and Messrs Galt and Wilkinson were appointed auditors, the proceedings terminated with a vote of thanks to the directors and offcials of the company. THE Argus has the following --The deci-sion of the Steam Navigation Board with re-ference to the collision which occurred be-tween the steamers Nelson and Julia Percy on the 25th December last, came under re-view before His Honour Mr Justice Wil-liams, sitting in chambers on Thursday morning. The board had suspended the cer-tificate of Mr T. W. Seith the master of the Nelson, for six months and an application was made to his Honour for a prohibition to restrain the board from enforcing their de-cision. Mr Hodges appeared for Mr Smith. and Mr Webb. Q.C. for the board. The grounds on which the application was based were that two members of the board, who had not heard the whole of the evidence, took part in the adjudication, and that the board had no jurisdiction, as the collision occurred outside the limits of the Victorian territory. His Honour, after hearing argu-ments, overruled the objections and dis-missed the application, but without costs. The Argus states that a petition from resi-dents in the district of Merino, praying that the site for the local railway station adopted by the department be not adhered to, was on Thursday presented to Mr Bent by Mr Gardiner. M.L.A.. in the absence of Mr Shiels, M.LA. The objection to the site was that it was placed on land reserved for recreation purposes. Mr Bent promised to take the petition into consideration. The ship Parthenope loaded for the Feb-ruary wool sales, which left Melbourne on the 13th November, has arrived in London, and consequently made the passage in about 75 days. She is the first sailing ship to arrive from Victoria with the new season's wool for the above sales. The Victoria Yacht Club have in contem-plation to set up a regatta during the stay of the Russian squadron in Hobson's Bay. It is proposed (says the Argus) to arrange matches between the Naval Brigade and the men-of-wars men, and also contests to be confined to the members of the brigade. The date has not yet been decided on, but it will probably be about the 18th inst. From the sanitary station, Dr Bulmer reports that everything is progressing favour-ably. There have been no additional cases of sickness, and there has been no further de-velopment upon the steward Harris, of the Mirzapore, who was suspected of having been attacked with small-pox. Mn. MURRAY SMITH, has accepted the Agent-Generalship, but will not leave Mel-bourne before the 30th March next. The present state of the London money market (the Argus says) not being favourable to the floating of a four per cent loan, there is no occasion for gazetting the appointment imme-diately. The prospect of a vacancy being shortly created in the representation of Bo-roondora has already induced a considerable number of gentlemen to make known their willingness to become candidates. Mr Henry Lawes, Mr Edward Langton, Mr W. P. Walker, and Mr Robert Harper, all of whom contested seats in the Constitu-tional interest at the elections in 1880, are to be severally regarded as probable candi-dates, and two or more of them have even announced that they intend to stand. Mr Langton has issued his address to the electors of Boroondara. He intimates that his views on the principal political ques-tions have undergone no change, save in so far as they have been affected by time and experience. As to the existing Ministry, Mr Langton says, " In the present state of politics it appears to me that it is the duty of all well-wishers to the colony to support the present Government. We are indebted to them for relief from that wretched thing called Berryism, which not only injured us materially, and morally, but which made us a by-word and reproach throughout the world. So long as the Government adhere to their programme of ' Peace, Progress and Prosperity," they should, in my judgment, receive generous and hearty support." The Orient Steam Navigation Company's steamship Orient, which left Melbourne on January 5 arrived at Suez on Thursday.