one reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. do you suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the whale-line off the coast of new guinea, is being carried down to the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan—do you suppose that that poor fellow’s name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read to-morrow at your breakfast? no: because the mails are very irregular between here and new guinea. in fact, did you ever hear what might be called regular news direct or indirect from new guinea? yet i tell you that upon one particular voyage which i made to the pacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat’s crew. for god’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.