The Republican journal., 1885-05-07
Mackerei IN Millions.
GREAT CATCH OF THE PORTLAND AND GLOU-
CESTER FLEETS. SKIPPER MCKOWN AND
MS CRACK BOOTHBAY BOAT.

GREAT CATCH OF THE PORTLAND AND GLOU-
CEsTER FLEETS. SKIPPER MCKowN AND
HIS CRACK BOOTHBAY BOAT.
Boats Of the Portland and Gloucester
mackerel fleets, which have been arriv-
ing in punches of ten or twelve for two
OF three days past have filled up the old
fruit ship dock next to Fulton Market
When green young man who wanted
to learn about fishermen and how they
live went aboard one Of the boats and
down into the cabin, everything was as
cheerful there as the day was dTeary
A dozen big men, mostly with brown
boards, blue eyes and big chests, sat
around d comfortable stove, looking
warm and contented. One yelled,
'Wake up, Cap and man with
browner beard, bluer eyes, and a much
bigger chest than the others struggled
out of little berth, rubbing the sleep
from his eyes with one hand and extend
ing the other to shake with any one who
had come to see him. That was Henry
Mchown of Boothbay, skipper OF the
schooner Henry Morganthau, and his
grasp was very much like that Of a door
crack. He nodded at his own men,
called by their first names men who had
dropped in from other schooners to chat,
and then said that all that could be
learned about good boats could be
learned right aboard the Henry Morgan
thau. She was a fair specimen of fish
Ing schooners, except that she was
handsomer, faster and in all ways better
than any other. Said he:
You've always thought that fisher
men and their boats were not very clean,
haven't you? Look 1T this boat, or any
of these around here, and you'll change
your mind"
The Henry Morganthau was as clean
as any yacht, and cleaner than some
Every bit of woodwood was scrubbed like
the floor of Dutch kitchen the cabin
where the captain and five men sleep
was fixed up with fancifully stained
woods, which in turn were covered with
highly colored pictures of young and
charming maidens, all with eyes very
wide open and features very prominent
and amiable. OF the eighteen men who
form the schooner's crew twelve sleep
forward in the fo'c's'le, and that apart
ment, which was as scrupulonsly neat as
The cabin, was rendered even more cheer
tul and homelike by the presence of big
cooking stove, a cook, and many fresh
baked custard pies, which were scattered
around on potato barrels and berths to
cool off. All the men eat down there to-
gether, and the cook "a fisherman six
feet tally was hard at work modelling
ant of n rf, nj,
with the help of cover from a tin spice
box. Barrels of fresh water divided the
available space with barrels of things to
eat, and the presence of 100000 fresh
mackerel packed in ice only a few feet
away was revealed by the faintest of tishy
odors, just enough to give things touch
of reality.
But this odor furnishes the fisherman
with as much fish as they want, and they
rarely think of taking mackerel or any
other fish except through the nose All
agreed that just at present even the
name OF mackerel was enough to disgust
them. The catch had been enormous,
and such an unusual number of boats
coming in at once had sent the price of
mackerel down to $3.50 a thousand,
barely enough to pay for coming into
port. About the highest price ever paid
was 10 cents apiece or 800 a thousand,
and each crew had come flying home
with every stitch Of sail lugged on, fond
ly hoping to be first and find the prices
up. All had got in together, and thus
they had spoiled everything. Even the
shad fishermen were bemoaning their lot,
for they said that with mackerel so cheap
every one would be buying it, and shad
would drop fifty per cent. to-day. The
fifty boats Of the mackerel fleet have g.