and the aquaria at Agricultural Hall, containing twelve or fifteen
thousand gallons of salt and fresh water, present a congress of the
leaders, gastronomically speaking, of the finny people. The shad remains
not only to be naturalized in Europe, but to be reintroduced to the
water-side dwellers above tide, who once met him regularly at table. He
is joined by delegates from the mountain, the great lakes and the
Pacific coast in the trout, the salmon and the whitefish, and by that
quiet, silent and slow-going cousin of the fraternity, the oyster, most
valuable of all, as possessors of those qualities not unfrequently are.
Europe does not dream, and we ourselves do not realize until we come
carefully to think of it, what the oyster does for us. He sustains the
hardiest part of our coasting marine, paves our best roads, fertilizes
our sands, enlivens all our festivities, and supports an army of
packers, can-makers, etc., cased in whose panoply of tin he traverses
the globe like a mail-clad knight-errant in the cause of commerce and
good eating. Yet he needs protection. All this burden is greater than he
can bear, and it is growing. System and science are invoked to his
rescue ere he go the way of the inland shad and the salmon that became a
drug to the Pilgrim Fathers. It is not easy to frame a medal or diploma
for the fostering of the oyster. More effective is a consideration of
the impending penalty for neglecting to do so. _Ostrea edulis_ is one of
the grand things before which prizes sink into nothingness.

Another of them is that triumph of pure reason, chess, an unadulterated
product of the brain--i.e., of phosphorus--i.e., of fish. Nobody stakes
money on chess or offers a prize to the best player. Honor at that board
is its own reward. So when we are told of the Centennial Chess
Tournament we recognize at once the fitness of the word borrowed from
the chivalric joust. It is the culmination of human strife. The thought,
labor and ardor spread over three hundred and fifty acres sums itself in