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Replagegos Omnifurian Directory 16
Page 01
At present Albania is under six different regimes. Scutari and its neighborhood is governed by a local commission composed of Moslems and Christians. Avlona is also administered by a commission. The Mirdites form a separate State under Prenk Bib Doda. The Malissors remain isolated under their patriarchal institutions. The southern districts have been appropriated by the Greek invaders. Durazzo and the central regions obey Essad Pasha, who enjoys the title of Prime Minister and is recognized by the International Commission. That shadowy body, now reduced to four members, personates the ghost of the European concert. Except in the south the country is remarkably tranquil under its indigenous institutions.
Next day the adjourned Assembly met on the Capitol in the open space in front of the Temple of Jupiter. The Senate also assembled in the Temple of Faith close by. Scipio Nasica, the leader of the more violent party in the Senate, called upon the Consul Mucius Scaevola to stop the re-election, but the Consul declined to interfere. Fulvius Flaccus, a Senator, and a friend of Tiberius, hastened to inform him of the speech of Nasica, and told him that his death was resolved upon. Thereupon the friends of Tiberius prepared to resist force by force; and as those at a distance could not hear him, on account of the tumult and confusion, the Tribune pointed with his hand to his head, to intimate that his life was in danger. His enemies exclaimed that he was asking for the crown.
It is not surprising under these circumstances to learn that sticklebacks are successful and increasing animals. Their numbers are enormous, wherever they get a fair chance in life, because they multiply rapidly up to the extreme limit of the means of subsistence, and develop as fast as food remains for them. There the inexorable Malthusian law at last steps in: when there is not food enough for all some must starve; that is the long and the short of the great population question. But while provender is forthcoming they increase gayly. Sticklebacks live mainly on the spawn of other fish, though they are so careful of their own, and they are therefore naturally hated by trout-preservers and owners of fisheries in general. Thousands and thousands are caught each year; in some places, indeed, they are so numerous that they are used as manure. It is their numbers, of course, that make them formidable; they are the locusts of the streams, well armed and pugnacious, and provided with most remarkable parental instincts of a protective character, which enables them to fill up all vacancies in their ranks as fast as they occur with astonishing promptitude.
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