WHERE THE FLYING FISHES PLAY

Several years ago a Cleveland bank won undeserved fame by sponsoring a California Ranching Company, consisting of a cat and rat ranch--the cats to eat the rats, the rats the cats, and the cat skins to be had free. The bank was forced to remove the sign, because potential investors obstructed regular business. But former Mayor Thompson of Chicago is now desirous of carrying the virtue Faith back to her high estate.

"I have strong reasons to believe" says the former Mayor, "that in the South Sea Islands there are fish that come out of the water, can live on land will jump three feet to catch a grasshopper and actually climb trees, and I figure that pictures of fish climbing trees ought to be profitable." Accordingly, he has organized the South Sea Research Company.

Such pictures certainly ought to be profitable. But in these jaded times one ought perhaps to remember that the Mayor and other distinguished officials are not without distinguished precedents. One might recall the original nonesuch South Seas Company itself. This, it seems, was formed in the year 1711, for the highly laudable purpose, not of educating the public concerning fish, but of sending English manufactures to South America to be exchanged for shiploads of gold, und for taking over and miraculously disposing of the English national debt in sixteen years. Parliament was favorable and Mr. Walpole, the Cassandra of that generation, was deserted through his opposition to the scheme. "It seemed as if the whole nation had turned stock jobbers. Exchange Alley . . . was blocked by crowds. Every fool aspired to be a knave. . . . Innumerable joint-stock companies started up everywhere, soon receiving the name of bubbles", such as a project to carry on a whale fishing trade, by name the Grand Fishery of Great Britain; one for a perpetual motion machine, capital one million; and finally, "one for undertaking a great advantage, but nobody to know what it is".

No one wants to discourage Mr. Thompson in his scientific inquiries, but after Teapot Dome and Mr. Bok are through, perhaps the Senate will want to investigate the case of the fish that climbs trees in the South Sea Islands.