Mr. Blake, M.P., told a good story to some Irish
fishermen with wham he made an appointment at Billingsgate Market on Tuesday morning, for the purpose of expounding to them some of the secrets of the fish market. The supply of lobsters at Dunmore, in the county of Waterford, had, be said, some years ago begun to fall off, and it was supposed that the introduction of male lobsters from Northern Europe would improve the breed. Scandinavian lobsters were brought, but the Irish lobsters re- sented the advent of these Scandinavian males so furiously that their corpses were found strewn,—claws, legs, and bodies all dis. membered,—on every shore in the neighbourhood of Dunmore. An old lobster fisherman from Connemara listened to Mr. Blake's tale with glistening eyes, and then ejaculated, " Begor ! after that I'll have a veneration for the lobster I never had afore !" Probably the good man regarded the invading lob- sters as Britons, and the Irish lobsters who resented their in- tervention as good Fenians. But " veneration " for a lobster in a delightfully new form of enthusiasm.
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