Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1882-09-23

Correspondence Of the Evening Post
If the natives of Newfoundland are
ever perverted to heathenism, their chief
god will surely be the Goldfish. Already
the cod almost touches divinity, or at
| least is the emblem of all things ma
terial. The Newfoundlanders recognize
the dignity of their fsh-god by stamp
ing him on their local currency, and
butfor the manifest Inconvenience would
no doubt make him legal tender for the
payment of debts. So ubiquitous is the
fish, and so familiar does he become.
that when one passes a tifty-cent piece
here he half expects to find q ten-pound
Goldfish among the small change. On
official documents, on postage stamps,
on bank notes, the cod and his familiar
dewlap meet the eye. Spread on plat
forms and broiling in the sun. he forms
a fishy fringe around the island-a wall
of defense, if not against invading
armies, at least against the fercer foes,
poverty and starvation. The allegor-
ical Importance of the Goldfish is sus-
! tanned by facts and figures. The island
ers catch probably not less than seven
million dollars worth year, and more
than half their annual exports of eight
million dollars are made mp of their
staple fishy commodity. Every part of
! the cod is useful; the head fried is an
esculent dainty-a kind of compound of
sweetbread and calves foot Jelly; the
tongue cut out and nicely Drowned in
the frying-pan is an improved imitation
of the fried oyster; the skin is used for
fine glue; the sounds are eaten or made
into the isinglass Of the cookbook, tine
Norwegians grind up the bones for
cattle-feed, and the French bay the
spawn for batting their sardine fishing
grounds.
THE HOMES OF THE COD.
| Stretching for hundreds of miles
southwark and southeastward Of this
| island, and sixty miles from shore at the
nearest point, is the Grand Bank of
Newfoundland, that mystic table-land
of the sea, whose limits and nature are
still underlined. little way oceanward
! from its slopes the sea reaches some of
/ its greatest depths, and within its
boundaries are depresslons where the
| fishermans anchor never touches
bottom. Old codfishers say that the
Grand Bank is steadily rising, and that
a few centuries will find it jutting above
the surface. The Grand Bank, with its
/ adjuncts, is some six hundred miles
long and from two to three hundred
miles wide. The shadows over it vary
from ninety to four hundred feet in
depth. The Grand Bank is, beyond
! comparison, the finest fishing ground
I in the world. For centuries the fisher
men have visited it, and millions on
millions of tons of Goldfish have been
taken there, but still the yield is undi-
minished. Sometimes for two or three
years the fish will be scarce, and the
report will spread that the bank is
"fished out, when suddenly a year of
unprecedented catches will give the lie
4 to the notion. For about six months in
the year, beginning with May, the cod
fish swarm, not only over the Grand
Bank, but, in lesser size and numbers.
along the whole North American shore
from the latitude of New York to an
unknown distance northward. They
are found from the eastern waters of
| Long Island to the furthest extremes of
Labrador, and even up to the regions of
eternal ice. What lures the cod from
/ the ocean depths to which he goes in
hinAGA - NV hi4bNll. t'ut ~ lS
snrmised that he either follows mp the
small shore fish or seeks the sea- cherry
a small red berry that often grows on
the weedy bottoms where the cod is
found. 1t is also pretty well established
that during the summer visit shoreward
the female fish spawns. Tie immense
race of cod, far outnumbering all the
other large fish of the sea, is accounted
for by its fecundity. Nine millions of
eggs have been computed as the roe of
/ a large specimen, and all the Goldfish
caught by man are mere cipher com
pared with the billions, large and small.
swallowed by sharks and other fish of
prey.
soUID AND sQUID JOGGING.
One Of the greatest curiosities among
the inhabitants OF the deep is the squid,
just now the orthodox bait for killing
the Goldfish. The squid is a smaller
edition of the huge devilfisb, or octopus,
wonderful specimens of which have of
late years been found on the Newfound-
land coast. The squid. take him con-
creteIy, Is a revolving looking creature.
Cut section, say ten inches long, from
common eel, transform its flesh into a
tough jelly, give it cruciform tail at
one end and eight short sucker armed
feelers at the other; conceive the
suckers, each armed with circle of