Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1882-05-24
Yarmouth Fisheries.
nv. H. Rideing, in Harper's Magazine.]

Inc 1Shef1eS nave Oeen Cle TU2SOV
d'etre of Yarmouth from the beginning,
and Goals are not more evident staple
in Newcastle than the produce of the sea
is in this old Norfolk town. The dark
blue guernsey shirt is uniform among
large number of the inhabitants, and
colors every gathering. The oil-skin
suit, spread out like a scarecrow,
bangles in the windows and in the doors
OF many shops, in which jack-knives, tin
plates, high boots, very small mirrors
and the miscellaneous articles of sea-
mems wardrobes are also displayed. The
scant vegetation of the dunes outside the
town is darkened by the nets spread out
to dry, and it impossible to go far with
out seeing black coil sluggishly issuing
from loft into cart, which receives it
on the street below, this also being
net. Within the loft are many tarry-
fingered Penelopes mending old nets and
meshing new ones, and men in canvas at
tire who were soaking their nets in oil
and pitch to make them stronger. The
nets are hung over fences, hauled up on
poles and drawn out in neat squares
wherever there is an unincumbered and
convenient place. The odor of them is
pungent in the air. The fsh-carts, of q
light two-wheeled pattern, rattle along
the street with impressive speed and
urgency; and one of the features of the
features of the beach and the harbor
mouth is the number of lookout boxes
perched on the roofs of houses and on
props of their own, in which blue-jacket
and oracular men with copper -bronzed
faces are constantly aiming telescopes at
shadowy specks against the horizon.
Yarmouth is piscatory beyond COM
pa1ieon and beyond description. The
conversation on the quays has fish for it's
burden. A shy-looking man with a
brown face, far-looking eyes, and
guernsey is accosted by another person
my boy! hello, old shipmet! how many
fish" cries the latter, and the person
addressed shrugs his shoulders and looks
at the sky as he gives the inquirer the
particulars of his last catch. Then we
met a young fisherman coming home,
with a soft, yellow beard, grown during
his absence, and his canvas bag thrown
over his shoulder-aD open-faced young
Saxon, marching happily between two
friends who are welcoming him; and
there are few places in the world where
there are more such fair, winsome Saxon
faces as his than in Yarmouth-honest
brown faces, with flaxen boards and
glistening blue and gray eyes-or where
the speech is more courteous or less ser
vile. and the manners so independently
bluff without touch OF incivility. On
the borders of the town the red brick
curing-houses, which look like arsenal
stores. are conspicuous; and though the
old boat in which the Peggottys lived
has disappeared from the spot on the
south dunes where it stood up to year
ago, the obsolete vessels of the fishing
feet are utilized in many ways for which
they we're never intended, and sections
of their bulwarks may be seen filing up
the gaps in the fences on the western
meadows. Some of these veterans are
laid up in ordinary on the Suffolk side of
the Yare, dismasted and altogether un-
equipped, but more beautiful than ever
they were when prepared for sea, and
their successive co ats ofpaint have melt
ed into one another, and the sea and the
sun have refined them into the softest
tints. Even the parish church is dedi-
Gated to Nicholas, patron saint OF fisher
men. and the municipal arms are three
demi-ions impaling three herrings' tails.
! Anciently there were three behring's
argent on field azure, but Edward the
Third, in acknowledgment Of the ser
vices done for him by the town in his
wars with France, "demidiated" them
with his own, and the herrings are now
anomalous beasts, half appetizing bloater
and half royal lion.