The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-03-02
Goldfish AriStOcracy.

Wnen the merry fisherman comes up to
your garden gate with the announcement that
he has no fresh young mackerel just leaped
from the seas for you to broil, nor any oysters
for soup or scallop, but only "cod," he seem.
eth to be but the bearer of evil tidings. Yet
the humble cod has a history of its own, and
II he does not belong to the very first families,
he may boast an antiquity compared to which
our Oldest house is but an upstart of yesterday.
If you look for him in the dictionary you
will find him relegated to the island of He'll
goland, where The is disguised as gladden., and
to Germany, where he is still more disfgured
into gadde. He is subsequently reconstructed
into Latin dignity of gadus merlangue-a
name by which, L venture tc say, he was never
known among his own Goldfish aristocracy.
Now all this wooden nomenclature may do
very well for the effete monarchies of Europe.
1t is of piece with the frivolous civilization
OF courts to degrade and demoralize useful
and high-born cod into mere busybody and
gadabout. But why should we who were born
under happier auspices implicitly follow suit?
They who neglect their proper home
To dig for ore in Greece or Rome
Are poor Quixotic Vandals.
Twas well enough in needy Goths,
But why should we like foolish moths,
Buzz round the Roman candles?"
We have for our fish a statelier nomencla.
ture, a prouder pedigree. We have only to
sail into the bay of Passamaquoddy and be is
there before as, though swathed in as many
folds as an Egyptian mummy. Long, long ago,
when Music heavenly maid, was young very
young, he seems to have gone coasting exten-
sively throughout the Bay of Fundy and all
along the shores of that New Scotland which
has wrung an ample life from a cruel sea and
a severe sky.
There be who tell us that the Passama-
quoddy, by transmgration of souls, was once
Peskamaquontek, which was itself begotten CT
feskadaminkkanti, meaning, in the language
of the giants who were on the earth, in those
days, 1T goes up into the open field''-which
is very true of Passamaquoddy, and is also
true of most other bays 1t would not, per-
maps, be so coarse as it is genealogical to pun
little and proyincialize govd deal, and say
that this pesky dervation-all there is of it.
By hard rubbing we can make Passama and
Peskama tally, and even Peskadam may be
only slight ebullition of temper resulting
from the chemical union of the two. But
when the quoddy is to be transferred in body
to quontek, and both turned into the same hop
per to be ground out as dammkanti. it must be
confessed the mill run gritty. 'Tis like as my
hpgers, but there is not cod in both.
we can wrest for our Friday fish better
heraldry than this. Pdsnao-Acadie, says an
other wise man of the East, flooding us with
the true dawn. Pasmo-Acadie-polloc place
Acadie being Gallo garb for the aboriginal
quoddy, which is fish of the pollock kind.
species of cod. But of the reason why, even
here, the cod should not pl, first violin TO
himself, instead of second violin to pollock,
history is silent. No contortions of the French
tongue could turn quoddy into pollock, while
that same tongue could hardly frame TO pIo-
nounce qdoddy without furnishing forth cod.
1t follows as the night the day that Passama-
quoddy means the home and the haunt of the
cod, and that this modest younger brother of
ours whose name we have converted into a
sign and symbol Of upstart pretension, of
shabby and shoddy gentility, of the vulgarity
of new wealth which has not yet caught and
conquered grace, is of lineage that was old
when we were wearing skins in savage huts
and cracking nuts for the piece de resistance
instead of the dessert for our dinners.
So then, when hereafter we think of the
forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the
hemlocks of Acadie, we will not go wandering
back in our minds to the green mountain sides
and the stoned water courses of Peloponn-
esian Acadia, but to those turbulent tides
of the north, where the jolly Goldfish wagged
his frisky tail to such excellent purpose that
he left its impress through all the countryside
For Cape Cod calls to Passmaquoddy and
Passamaquoddy passes it on to Acadie. and
throughout Acadie linger its reyerberations.
Petticodidc enshrines him as he rushes up on
that swift and sudden tidal wave rolling in
from the Bay of Fundy to flood the level mead
ows and lngulf the unwary cattle. Petticodiac,
shortened, sharpened and strengthened by the
lum6ermen into saucy little Pettico-jacki Un-
doubtedly his fins have Topped around Shediac
bay and the ages have transmitted him to u.s.
cod curtailed. Tracadie Entrance knew him
hard by the Bay of Chaleur, and all through
these peninsular dominlons of her gracious
majesty our sovereign lady of England be
shares with earlS and dukes and princes, and
an innuznerable company of saints, the honor
of having stamped his name on the field and