THE FISHERY QUESTION.
| Some trouble with regard to the Gulf fisheries appears to be anticipated, and loud calls are being made upon Government by the fishermen, who demand that immediate steps be taken for securing their rights. The unmasterly inactivity of President GRANT, in the matter, is considered by the fishermen as indicating a want of Porpus. They are also very much chagrined with the Government for sending out to the fishing-banks a dispatch boat bearing the inappropriate name of "Frolic." There is a levity about this quite out of keeping with the serious character of the question, and it is doubtful whether the fishermen would not prefer a fight on the banks to a Frolic. Although the Government appears to Flounder sadly in the mud-banks of this fishery question, still there is some hope that coercive measures may yet be taken for restraining the Dominion fishermen from having every thing on their own hook. Rumor has it that the monitor Miantonomah, Captain SCHUFELDT, is awaiting orders for a cruise to the troubled waters. This will doubtless prove to be a very summary and complete way of settling the difficulty, inasmuch as a few broadsides from the huge thunderer referred to would kill every fish upon the banks, and blacken each particular fisherman into an OTHELLO with an "occupation gone." The Canadian fishermen, of course, would suffer equally with those of our own shores. They are a light-hearted people, though, are these Canadians, fond of music and dancing, and they would doubtless find consolation for their troubles by addressing the skipper of the Miantonomah in a grand MASANIELLO strain, chorussed with "SCHUFELDT don't bother us!" |
OF MYTHOLOGY.
Mythology is the term by which the ancient Greek or Roman used to distinguish hiss religion from the rival religions of other and heretical pagans. Just as Orthodoxy, according to DEAN SWIFT, means "my doxy," and Heterodoxy, the doxy of other people; so the pious Roman used to speak of "my thology" as the only genuine religion; the "thologies" of other men being cheap and worthless counterfeits of the real article. The classic mythology had a large and varied assortment of deities, from which every man could select a supply to suit himself. Thus the lawyer could place a bust of Mercury, the god of chicanery, in his office, and so secure the patronage of the god and save the expense of a tin sign announcing his profession. The editor could dedicate his paper to the service of Janus, the two-faced deity, and thus pursue his business without perilling his reputation for religious consistency. The advantages of this sort of thing need hardly be enlarged upon.
We propose to give easy and familiar descriptions of the more important gods of classic mythology, for the benefit of our younger readers. We therefore begin without further delay, with the chief deities of Olympus, the celestial Tammany Hall of the period. The Olympians formed a sort of Ring which governed the entire celestial and infernal world, and as they were the only judges of elections, they retained the power undisturbed.
JUPITER. This individual was a jolly, good-tempered, old Olympian who lived in great terror of his wife, JUNO, and was sadly addicted to surreptitious beer, and undignified flirtations with the female servants. He was fond of disguising himself, and staying out late at night in search of adventures. It is difficult, however, to believe that he really disguised himself as a swan, in order to present his bill to LEDA. The story, doubtless, originated in the fact that JUNO called him "an old goose," to which he very probably replied that "other woman appreciated him better, and that LEDA, for example, would be more apt to call him a duck or a swan, than a degraded and abject goose." So, too, in regard to the story that he disguised himself as a bull, and in that eccentric costume made love to EUROPA. One legend expressly states that he pretended to be an Irish bull. This is, of course, a figurative way of saying that he proclaimed himself an Irish gentleman, a descendant of BRIEN BORU and a graduate of Trinity College. EUROPA was probably a child's nurse, and the fascinating Irish gentleman was accustomed to meet her in the Park, and enliven her with his national witticisms. One can easily believe that he made love to DANAE by throwing a shower of gold in her lap--a story which shows that women were much the same in ancient times as they are to day. There is no denying that JUPITER was a sad old dog, and that he would have been killed a dozen times by insane husbands had he not been immortal. However, he was pretty severely punished by JUNO, who was the leader of the Olympian Sorosis, and who used to hear of all his disreputable flirtations from the respectable spinsters of that Wild Goddess Association, and would keep him awake night after night, with curtain lectures on the subject. JUPITER was, ex-officio, the chairman of the Olympian Society, and he once crushed a rebellion of the Titans, who were the Roughs of the period, by locking them out of the Olympian Hall, and shying all sorts of heavy missiles, such as charters--a Greek word signifying a mountainous burden--out of the upper chamber at them. He had a large number of relatives whom he placed in all the fat offices, and though there was some dissatisfaction with his government, it was generally agreed that he was better fitted for his position than anyone of the Titans would have been. No one knows what was the ultimate fate of JUPITER. He was, however, dethroned by the Emperor CONSTANTINE, and was never afterwards heard of; though it is well known that the inhabitants of certain inland counties of New Jersey still believe in his existence, and have not yet heard of CONSTANTINE'S reformation.