The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-14 00:00:00


THE FOOD FISHERIES OF FRANCE.

(From the Times.)
All kinds of fish are caught on the French coasts
with great assiduity, and the coast-line of that
country being enormous—in length, reaching from
Dunkirk to Bayonne, including sinuosities, it will
be considerably over 2,000 kilometres—there is a
great abundance of fish, the only regret in connexion
with the food fisheries being that at those places
where the yield could be best obtained the fishing is
but lazily prosecuted, in consequence of the want of
inland conveyance. From many of the fishing
villages there is no path to the populous inland cities,
and the fish is sold, as it used to be sold in Scotland
before the days of railways and other quick convey-
ances, by the wives of the fishermen, who hawk the
produce of the sea through the country. In such
towns as Boulogne, where there is a large resident
population, and a constant accession of English
visitors as well, the deMand for fish is constant and
considerable and well supplied. As an evidence of
this, there has just been erected that new fish market
in which, at present, an exposition of fisheries is being
held. In addition to the local demand, a large
quantity of the daily catch is sent inland to Amiens,
Rouen, and Paris. In the department of the Pas de
Calais there are over 500 fishing-boats. In Boulogne
harbour, which-is the chief port of the district, the
English visitors will see a large number of boats,
chiefly trawls, and all who visit. Boulogne have seen
the fishwives, if not dressed en fete, then in their
work-a-day habits, doing hard work for their hus-
bands or the tourists.
Sea fish is scarce and dear over most of inland
France; the prices in the market at Paris rule very
high for premier qualities, but in that gay capital
there is apparently no scarcity. Fish must be had,
and fish can always be obtained, whenever there is
money to pay the price demanded. In fact, a
glance at the fish department of the grand march
would lead one to suppose that, next to growing
fruit and vegetables, catching fish was the great
industry of the country.
The fish sold in the inland districts of France,
and more especially in Paris, is greatly increased in
price from the system that prevails of passing it
through a great many hands on its way from the
sea to the market. This system is very intricate,
and the result is that the price of the commodity
goes on constantly increasing from the moment it is
bought from the fisherman by the ecoreur, who bags
a percentage upon handing it to the maryeur, till it
arrives at its destination, when the facteurs a la
criee put it up to auction. Another item that goes
to "swell the cost is the carriage by railway, which is
very dear.

The misfortune of the inland parts of France—and
being a Catholic country, where fish is an absolute
necessity of the table, it has led to the absolute
spoliation of the fresh waters—is that there is com-
paratively little railway communication with the sea-
shore. The sea is only touched by the railways at
long intervals, and not always at the right places,
so far as the fishing interests of the country are con-
cerned. Wherever the railway affords an outlet for
the finny produce of the salt waters, there is sure to
be a considerable fishery; thus, at Dunkirk we find
about 60 trawlers, while there are over 100 at Bou-
logne, 90 at Calais, 20 or thereabout at Dieppe, over
60 at Treport, and more than 100 at Trouville, all
of them assisting in obtaining the necessary
supplies
for the Paris markets, having the great advantage
of speedy carriage by railway to the capital.
Tourists whoare fond of exploring the out-of-the-
way places of France, and who have visited some
of the obscure fishing villages of Normandy and
Brittany, must have been amazed at the poverty-
stricken appearance of many of the fishing folks,
which excels anything of the kind at home. There
is the old, rickety, tumble-down boat, with torn
sails and patched timbers—a family affair, and often
devoted to the support of a household of three gene-
rations. Then every kind of animal that inhabits
the sea is greedily seized upon, and sold or eaten ;
the very sea-dogs, which no Scottish fisherman would
look at as food, are greedily devoured. On many
parts of these coasts " crawls" have been erected
within the tidal boundaries to aid in the capture of
the fish, or at least to retain any of the fish kind
that are left by the receding tide, and all kinds of
movable nets are used as well. But there is no
commercial enterprise ; the waters in front of the
villages are teeming with their fish colonies in vain ;
a portion of the piscine wealth may be snapped up
by the passing trawlers, but it is of no use to the
fishermen of the locality ; they have no means of
getting the spoil of the sea carried to a profitable
market ; and as for themselves, they would as soon
dine on a dog-fish as banquet off a choice turbot.
But the fisher people are all alike, in all countries
they are the same, always taking it easy and seldom
turning their opportunities to half the account they
could be turned to, even when a great market is
near at hand. In some parts of France the women
penetrate into the interior by means of the steam-
boat or the railway carriage, in order to dispose of
their fish, much as the picturesque fisherwomen of
Newhaven, near Edinburgh, used to do in days
when fishmongers' shops were few and far between.
Bands of the French fisherwomen from the islands
of the Bay of Biscay—from Tremblade, Oleron, Re, ,
and Groix—may be encountered in many inland
places of the west of,France, selling oysters and sar-
dines. Some of them will take up their residence
for some time in a particular town, and have sup-
plies of fish and oysters forwarded to them by their
fathers and husbands ; those they readily sell, and,
after accumulating a little purse, they will depart at
the end of the season to their island homes, to re-
peat the same routine of labour next year. At
Bayonne there are bevies of beautiful sardine girls
running to and fro with their universal fish, for
which there is a constant and large demand.
By far the best place to study the economy of
the French fisheries is at the Basin of Arcachon, 34
miles from Bordeaux. There may be seen the
small boat as well as the trawl fishery, and, above
all, in the placid waters of the basin may be seen the
model oyster-beds of France—beds that never lan-
guish for lack of spat, which has never once been
known to fail ; beds which produce a nice,
fat,
tasteful oyster, placed in an inland sea that is pro-
lific of many of the best food fishes, and contains
the finest grey mullet in the world. To those who
are anxious thoroughly to study the French mode of
fishing. Arcachon has this advantage, that it has a
day as well as a night fishery, and is also one of the
most unique bathing-places in the whole of France.
From the balconies of one's hotel, or from the win-
dows of the houSes, the whole industry of the basin
may be observed daily and nightly ; but the best
plan to see a fishery is to take a part in it, to sail
out in the boats and handle the trawl or other nets.
The chief fishing quarter is at the extreme east end
of Arcachon, consisting of a cluster of wooden
houses, easily known as those of the fishermen,
from the various apparatus and articles of dress
which are depending about, and from the " ancient
and fish-like smell" which prevails in their neigh-
bourhood. No less than 1,300 sailors find employ-
ment in and about the basin, and there are close on
500 boats of
all kinds, a number of them being
steam trawlers. fishery of which
Arcachon is the
he value of the
head-quarters is estimated at over
I,soo,ooof.,exclusive of the revenue derived from
the oyster-beds. In the basin there are lots of fish of
all kinds, both round and fiat, capital soles in toler-
able abundance, and very excellent mullet, both red
and gray—there are also occasional takes of sar-
dines, which fish is locally known as the royan. The
steamboats referred to go out into the Bay of Biscay
to trawl, and carry also an immense net, which the
men call a trammel ; it is cumbrous and heavy, and
can only be drawn in by using the steam engine of
the ship. Great " takes" of mullet are Occasionally
got at Arcachon by watching and hemming inshoals
which get lost in the numerous creeks that indent
the shores of the basin. There is a ready market for
all the fish that can be taken in Bordeaux, Poiters,
Tours, and neighbourhood, and it is because of this
market that there has grown up at Arcachon such a
considerable fishing industry.
The fish rivers which abut on the top of the basin
of Arcachon were described in the exhibition chalet,
where there is a plan of some of them, to a knot of
interested listeners by Mr. Hanson, the fishery com-
missioner who represented Sweden at the opening
Congress in July last. Without a plan it would
not be easy to render the description of piactical