The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-31


Herrings are not alone the arms; they are
the very legs of Yarmouth The town lives
on them, and stands by them. In 1898 Var
mouth had only sixteen fishing boats, Lowe
stoft twenty-four, and the Yorkshire men
forty. In 1888 there we're one hundred Nor
folk boats (chiely Yarmouth to the forty or
fifty of Yorkshire, the whole employing
capital of two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. In these present times, recent able
writer says, there are two hundred Yarmouth
boats and forty Yorkshire and Sussex cobles,
catching every season six or seven score mil
lion herrines, of the value of two hundred
thousand pounds. The mackerel fishing en-
ploys one hundred boats and fourteen hun
dred men and women. Every mackerel lug
ger costs seven or eight hundred pounds,
and carries eighty or hundred nets,
each twenty yards long by eight
and a half broad. Every herring boat is worth
from six hundred to q thousand pounds. 1t
is calculated that half million of money IS,
one way or other, invested at Yarmouth in
reaping the fish harvest. The herring har-
vest commences at the end of September,
and the glittering millions of over-populatlon
with which the North Sea then teens are drag
ged out for ten consecutive weeks recent
Typographical traveller has collected with pa
tient care and skill some curious close-pressed
facts on the subject of Yarmouth's ceaseless
"
when the sands froth and boil crimson in the
slant light of the red beacon, these Norfolk
seas are literally coagulated with herrings,
and the nets bring them up in tumbllng heaps
of loose and spangled silver. \ single Yar-
mouth boat has been known to bring in from
twelve to sixteen lasts, each last being ten
barrels, or ten thousand heTings!
Oak-logs, the crow is informed, are used to
smoke the best herrings but the Birmingham
| L e nod hx
hazel wood and fir loppings smoke house,
half malt-kiln, half ''oast' house, is large
oblong tower, forty or hity feet high, without
| floors Above are transverse compartments
divided by partitions of horizontal rails. In
| these open racks or cloves lie the laths or
| ''speets.' The herring arriving by cart from
the beach to fulfil his destiny for the good of
| a higher species. is first thrown with his fell
lows into brick recess, sprinkled with salt,
and left for several days. The duration of the
| Vaporous purgatory depends on the destina-
| ton of the fish. If he be a Belgavian
| bloater, bloated aristocrat he merely hangs
! twenty-four hours until he begins to swell
with self-importance, and is prepared for
| packing: if ''Straits man" for the
Mediterranean ports, he fingers longer
! if he be a mere black herring for the
! chand' 'rs, or the tally shop, he serves
his fun ten days, and energies hard, dark and
|
rings are run through the gills by gangs of
skilful women called 'ryvers,' who ''speet'
them on long sticks; eight women speeting
| eight lasts Of hernngs (thirteen thousand two
hundred herrings to "a last) in day. For each
| last the women get three shlllings and nine
pence The speets are then placed by climb
| ing men on the loves, tier by tier, until the
smoke house is full. The fire is then lighted,
the oil begins to distil, and the herrings slowly
f1ttst, vail l1,u1y a1
| black, according to the duration of the
smoking. Last :cene of all that ends this
strange eventful history, comes the packer,
| who removes the speets, and strips the fish
into the barrels in the radiating order in
which they are to lie, until each barrel has its
regulated seven hundred and fifty (thrteen
dozen to the hundred)
The scenes on the old jetty when the mack
erel boats are coming in and the fish auctions
are beginning, are very picturesque. This
moment there is nothing visible but a few
bald tiag-staves marking the auction stand,
tangles of straw, piles of madder-coored nets,
heaps of baskets and empty oily tubs, some
old mermaids i'll blue aprons, and some old
fishermen in oilsllin dreadnaughts and long
boots. Some tan-colored sails lop round in
sight. Instantly the jetty comes to life. The
ferry boatsmounted with iron skates are showed
down to the water and warped out; the tubs
are also rolled down and got ready. The boats
come in, crowded with mackerel baskets The
nautical women gather round the auctioneer,
who stands with Il red book in one hand, and
bell in the other He rings the bell, and
announces, with true Saxon brevity, Here [
have so many hundred and so many quarters
at so much hundred" The baskets are in
stantly emptied into tubs half full of water,
and the women wash and pack the perishable
fish in layers (sixty mackerel to a basket, six
score to the hundred, the largest fish on the
top. Straw is spread over the fish, down go
the lids Of the baskets, scaly hands tie the
reddened strings, scaly hands lift the loads
into quick railway carts, and off they fly to
expectant London and hungry Birmingham.
FURNITURE, ETC.