The record-union., 1891-03-08
old YARMOUTH TOWN,
The Quaintest Of English West
Coast Cities.
Home of Dickens sPeggottys''-Head-
quarters of Herring Fishers and
Extraordinary in Legends, Ancient
Architecture and Sociological Pc
culiarftieS.
Especial Correspondence OF the SUNDAY
UNION. Copyright, 1911

Especial Correspondence Of the SUNDAY
UNION. Copyright. 1911
YARMOUTH, England, Feb. II, 1891.
every night" said Mr.. Peggotty, ''as
reg'lar as the night comes, the candle
must be stood in it's old pane of glass,
that if ever she should see it, it may seem
to say, Come back, my child, come
backr If ever there's a knock, Ham
(partic'lar soft knock, arter dark, at your
aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. Let it
be her-not you-that sees my fallen
child!'
Thus, said poor old broken-hearted Mr..
Peggotty, to Ham Peggotty and Mrs.
Gummidge, as he set forth on his weary
search for the wandering little Emily
after the pitiful episode of her departure
from the Yarmouth boat-house with
Steerforth. In the whole range of Eng
lish fiction there is nothing to compare
with the sweetness and pathos of the joys
and woes Of this one seafaring family,
which the master-hand of Dickens, in
David Copperfeld," enduringly placed,
as type of lowly loyalty and love, against
the perspective of humble toll; just as
Millet has fixed two peasant forms against
one Breton evening cleaning, for an
eternal suggestion of prayer.
Without Dickens David Copperfield"
and this one family-which we always as
sociate in our minds with long reaches Of
sand-dunes, bits of wreck, splatches of
ghostly spume and drift ofa rather dreary
and cruel shore, with Steely, measure
less waste beyond, and very dank and
ciammy fisher-town near at hand-Yar-
mouth would be unknown to-day, save
for the great plump smoked herrings it
sends all over the world under the name
of Yarmouth bloaters." In our youth
ful days, and with the heuncompromising ap-
petites of we who We're "brown-faced tu-
nicked country boys" how their subtle
aroma mingled with and overcame the
mysterious scents of the country grocery
store Mecca! With their accompaniment
of crackers they invariably won our last
coppers. Then came the royal feast on
the empty barrels and boxes In the rear
of the "store." We never got enough.
But we all registered VOWS that when we
"got big'' WE would go to YARMOUTH.
wherever that was, and just sit down and
eat one box of herrings without ever leav-
ing oil. All that dear grocery store time
have heard called very common and vul-
gar. But we lads were exactly correct
in our undirected but unerring tastes,
Grilled smoked herrings are the tid-bits
of the most refined cuisines to-day.
''If as mine thy boyhood's eyes
Rested first on country Skies"
and your first impulse to find Yarmouth
only had so vulgar an inception as in hun
ger for herring;
''Or If first thy childish feet
Pattered DER city street."
while you seldom got so good thing to
eat as herring, and you never wanted to
see Yarmouth save to come within the
framing of the picture Dickens has painted
in either case do not make the same blum
Ger committed some years ago when I
first set out to find the ancient city. For
England has two Yarmouths. In my
gulde-book l saw one named and set out
from London to see it. By rail came to
Lymington, thence across the Solent by
steamer to the lovely, almost tropical,
Isle of Wight. There was Yarmouth
surely; staid, prim, pretty place, with
the breath of the sea ever in its winsome
face, with the chalk cliffs of England lust
across the blue Solent, and serenely doz-
ing in It's little nook of beauty and COM
fort, because of the aristocratic facts that
DIR. Robert Hooke, inventor of the pen
dulum-spring for watches, was born here,
and that, upon time, when Sir Robert
Holmes was Governor of the Island a
house was built by him purposely for the
reception of Charles IL, for which loyal
act the good Sir Robert, after death,
gotThis figure cut in fine white marble.
with some nice Latin epitaphs on the pc
destal
But the real Yarmouth, the herringopo-
lis of England and the home of Dickens
Peggottys, is away around on the east
coast. 1t stands on a narrow strip of sand
between the mouth of the River Yare and
the German Ocean. The same river sep
arates the shires OF Suffolk and Norfolk,
to the latter of which Yarmouth belongs.
1t houses perhaps 10000 souls. Half of
these are in some way seafaring folk, or
exist froms some vocation revleant to sea-
faring, fishing or shipbuilding. The
int nj cit icf bo
gland and the first object in all England
touched by the morning sunlight is the
tower of its old parish church of ST. Mich
olas. Its harbor, a mass of fishing-smacks
and coasters, is the river-mouth itself:
and the Yarmouth Roads, always crested
with the foam of scuddirg, white-capped,
choppy waves, is the rendezvous Of the
North Sea British fleet. Steamers to and
from the Scottish and English east-coast
ports; coasters with salt and coal; and
the queer Dutch craft from Holland, di-
rectly opposite, ceaselessly lowering
about the English ports, or on their way
to the Shetland Isles, to the Faroes, to
Iceland, or to the Norway Coast, form in
terminable ghostly passing professions,
cut cameo-like against the dark eastern
horizon, by day, and in the moonlight of
peaceful nights. blended into the pale in
tagllos as OF mimic forests set in bed of
steel and stars.
But at best this is wild. wailinp. wo-
full coast; and Yarmouth, which has fur
nlShed men and mastS innumerable as
victims to the fury of all seas, has seemed
fated to be the scene of the oceans sad
dest tragedies. In 1892 in one night 200
sail and 1,000 souls were lost by tempest
in the Yarmouth Roads. In l5A between
90 and 100 sail and their crews were lost
in a single day. A still larger number
met the same fate in 1870. And only
within the decade a similar horror oc-
CURED. 1t is regarded by all seamen as
the most dangerous coast in Britain; and
there is only one other on the globe re-
Gaining so many and terrible ocean catas-
trophies. That one Is Sable Island, 100
miles south of Nova Scotia, known to
sailors the world over as ''the graveyard
of the sea-" Yarmouth never figured
greatly in history: though there are some
curious records of its early days. 1t orig
mated in the early part of the Anglo
Saxon dynasty. 1t was just little sand
bank then, where the Bure and Waveny
Rivers joined the Yare and together
pushed to the sea. Fishermen frequent
ing the coast built few rude huts on the
strip of sand between the mouths of the
rivers and the ocean. Then the Dutch
VINO scented trade everywhere began
coming with their nicknacks and wares
and exchanging them for fish. King
Henry LII. granted permission for envi-
roning the town with water and meat
and it was made impregnable to missile
engines then in use; but it was not de-
Tended by forts until during the Revolu-
ton, when our American privateers were
so lively in their menaces if not attacks
upon British ports. When the Cinque
Ports of Dover, Hastings, Heythe, Rom
ney and Sandwich, considered the KEYS
OF the kingdom from being nearest
France, We're instituted by William l., in
Io1S' and their jurisdiction vested in baron
-fi-ry-0 fsNtrc.