Dealers in Norwegian preserved fish not only falsely call small sprats by the name "Anchovy" in order to sell them, but they have recently prepared sprats in the manner invented by French fish-curers for the preparation of the young Pilchard. The French name for young Pilchard is "Sardines," and their Italian name even in Sir Thomas Browne's time (1646) was "Sardinos." The natural fine quality of the sardine and the skilful "tinning" and flavouring of it by the French "curers" of Concarneau in Brittany, have made it celebrated throughout the world as a delicacy. The dealers in Norway sprats--for the purpose of passing off on the public a cheap, inferior kind of fish as something much better--have recently stolen the French curers' name of "Sardine," and coolly call their sprats "Sardines." The sprats thus cured are soft and inferior in quality to the true sardines, which are a less abundant and therefore more costly species of fish. The fraudulent use in this way of the name "Sardine" has been condemned by the law courts in London, but the punishment for such fraud is so small and the profit to the fraudulent dealers is so great that our French friends have to submit to the iniquity. CHAPTER XXXVI SCIENCE AND THE UNKNOWN IT is a remarkable fact that although the first efforts of the founders of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, two hundred and fifty years ago, in this country, and of other such associations on the Continent, had the immediate effect of destroying a large amount of that fantastic superstition and credulity which had until then prevailed in all classes of society, and although that period marks the transition from the astounding and terrible nightmares of the Middle Ages to a happier condition when witchcraft, sorcery, and baseless imaginings concerning natural things gave place to knowledge founded on careful observation and experiment--yet the ugly baleful relic of savagery died hard, even in the most civilized communities.