Bellevue gazette. [volume] (Bellevue City, N.T. [i.e. Neb.]) 1856-1858, 1857-01-01
The She'll Fish Trade in South
nlptOn water.

The village of Handle, says the Lon
don Daily News, has for more than a
century been celebrated for supplying the
London market with the monster shell
fish, such as Holsters, crabs and crayfish,
which are caught near the channel Is
lands and along the French coast. They
are kept alive in sea water or board yes
sells, and by eating one another until they
reach Handle; for as soon as one be-
comes sickly and weak, it is overpowered
and eaten by its more healthy comrades.
As soon as the shell fish arrive at Ham
Bile they are placed in q tidal walled dock,
where they are revived and fattcned with
the ofial of butchers meat. Even here
the powerful make war upon the weak,
and devour them. Feeders and keepers
are employed at the dock, who, with long
poles hooked at the end, drag the fish
from their marine %menageric when they
are wanted for the market. The instant
the pole touches a fish, the latter grasps
it s~avagely with his claws, and does not
loose his hold until it is landed. When
large quantities are required, the pond is
drained.
These shell fish are enormous crea-
lures, the body with the claws being as
long as a mans arm. As the Holsters
and crayfsh climb nimbly up the sides of
their watery caravan, they look like a
collection Of purple-colored monkeys or
stunted balloons; and there is something
frightful in the appearance and noiseless-
ness of these chatterless creatures, climb
ing about their liquid den, and approach
ing the surface TO look at the spectator.
Close to Southampton quay, portions of
the flats are enclosed by banks, and are
called parks, into which shiploads of oys.
tiers are thrown in the course Of a year,
where they are raked into layers and fed
and fattened. Care is taken in packing
them to allow the sea water to flow over
each oyster, i~mpregnated with as few
muddy particles as possible, for if the lat
ter get inside the shells, when the fish
open them to drink or feed, the shells
cannot be Theoretically closed again, and
the fish sicken and die. When the parks
were first formed, the inhabitants of South
ampton' were alarmed, and the local papers
declared that the rotting carcases of the
dead oysters would cause a plague. The
alarm, however, was ~unfounded, as ex-
p%erience proved, and the fish vanished
instantly and mysteriously as they died,
and nothing but the harmless shells re-
manned. To account for this latter phe-
nomenon, it was rumored that the ghost
of Dando, the nee celebrated oyster-eatcr
visited Southampton in the dead of the
night, and supped on the departed biyalyes.
An old %amphibious creature however,
who was employed to park the fish, de-
clared that the young crabs eat the dead
'uns, for he iced 'em go in arter EN-
This turned out to be the fact. The shall
low water in the vicinity swarms with
miaute crabs. As soon as an oyster sick
ems or dies, its shells open, and these
small crabs attack and devour the invalids
or corpses. Sometimes, however, the
diminutive marauders are deceived, and
in their haste to invade the shell of a sick
oyster it closes upon and imprisons oil
brushes them.