Morning journal and courier., 1892-07-02

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lection of the town of ST. Ives and its
people, also wove fshes, saints and ara
besques into most generous and profuse
relationship.
If these wood carvings are curious
studies some of those in stone are eoual-
ly outlandish. There are stone grotesaues
whose equals in strange and meaningless
hideousness can hardly be found else
where in Europe. Seven represent mock
ing, leering faces of men and beasts. Two
are distending their mouths with their fin
gers and protruding their tongues. One
is most horrible figure of an ape; and
another wears a FOOLS cap of the period.
| The stranger will be impressed with the
| extraordinary elevation of the soil os the
| tiny churchyard. When the place was
first quite filled with the dead, the burial
place was covered over with several feet of
sand, and interment went on anew.
Three times this was done; when it was
finally found that to have repeated the
process would have been to bury the
church itself. when a cemetery was Sc
cured upon the heights.
History, tradition and legend have carved
some grim pictures upen the dim back
| ground of the past in this old Cornish
fisher town. One historical fact will be
| sufficiently illustrative. In the Cornish up
rising of 1649, its object being the resto-
| ration of the Catholic religion, to which
Cornubians remained greatly attached
| long after the Reformation, John Payne,
Portrieve of st. Ives, was one of the infe-
rior leaders. After the defeat of the Cor
nish, Sir Anthony Kingston, with q royal
| commission, was seeking ont and punish
| ing the rebels. He hung the mayor of
Bodmin before his own door St Ives
Portrieye received Sir Anthony humbly
and prepared a great dinner in his honor
at the venerable George and Dragon"
still standing in Market Square.
During the dinner the Portrieve heard
the sound of hammering outside and be-
ing disturbed was quieted by Sir Anthony
with the remark that they were only about
to hang a rebel. Dinner over, history re-
lates, the commissioner invited the Por-
trieve outside to inspect the galiows.
"What say you, Master Portrieyep
quoth Sir Anthony. "Is yon gibbet duly
furnished for the hanging of a traitorf''
"All seems ready, ant ph ase you," was
the prompt reply.
"Then," said the commissioner. turning
to a msn-st-arms, "secure Master Payne
and hang him straightwsy, for such is the
Protectors plessure."
Master Payne was hung strsightway;
but the Cornish, who are Celts, like the
Celtic Irish and Celtic Welsh, unpleasant
of English Protectors and kings.
Great was the olden fame of ST. Ives as
metropolis of f=h and fishermen. 1t is
still the most important of all Cornish
fishing ports. Five thousand folk live
here on what is harvested from the deep.
For thousand years or more, from father
to son, from mother to daughter, the line
has remained unbroksn, has steadily in
creased, and SO narrow is the life horizon
af III Gnha aud Ta,,a has
not a score of them, it is said, ever see
other English land than the hills and head
lands of ST. Ives bay, save when at sea in
their own boats.
These boats are all two-mssted, lug
sailed, with round sterns, and range in
tonnage from twenty to thirty tons. With
complete outfits they cost from three hun
dred to six hundred and fifty pounds. Be
tween six snd seven hundred men and
youths are employed the year round in
fishing. During the winter they engage
in line fishing for conger, whiting and
ling, also securing few cod. In March
the spring msckerel fishing begins: and
the st. Ives men are always found on their
own grounds, from thirty to fifty miles
northwest of st. Ives in the Irish sea
Here they remain until the last of June,
when they set out for the east-coast Scot
tish herring fisheries, usually selecting
grounds in the North sea, opposite the
Firth of Forth, or abreast of Coldingham
and Berwick.
During August they will be found along
the east coast in the neighborhood of
Whitby, Scarborough and the Yarmouth
of Dickens "Peggottys;" but are always
back to st Ives for the autumn ST. Ives
herring fishing, and a large number of
their fleet are home in time for possible
runs of pitchers" (pilchards) the ''Fair
i r ~. r a
seaport has been famous for half a thou
sand years.
AS nearly as can be described the pil-
chard is the sardine of the Mediterranean
waters. 1t makes its appearance at st.
Ives. when il comes at all. in tremendous
shoals, during the months of September
ard October. From daylight until sunset
of every day during these months watch
men call-d 'huers" are stationed at look
outs on Carringgladen and Porthminster
hills and Carn Crows Island. Their prsc-
ticed eyes never fail in discerning the sp-
proach of a shoal of these fish. They
come in such vast numbers that the sur
face of the bay changes its color and often
| Ia broken into ripples and foam from the
movements of the dense masses of fish.
On sighting n school of pilchards the
''hGer" first blows a terrific blast upon his
| speaking-trumpet. One blast is sufficient.
| All St. Ives fix tumble from their homes
and rush wildly shouting "Hsva.-hevAl"
to the shore. Meantime the great seine
boats, resdy-manned, have put out and
are guided wholly in surrounding the
shosl by the signaling of the "huer, l"
which is done with hoop on which white
muslin is stretched, 10 which long. light
| handle ia attached. 1t is called "the
bush, for in olden times bush was used
instead.
Shooting the seines is SO rapidly done at
st. Ives that often the entire shoal of pi.-
thards will be literally impOunded within
ten minutes time from the "huer's" trum-
pet signal. Single catches of pilchsrds
have exceeded six Thousand hogsheads of
salted and cured fish. OF late years the
st. Ives pilchard fishery has been unceI-
tain; but in 1889 there Wer., eight thou
sand half-casks of two hundred and four
teen pounds each taken. They are shipped
to various Mediterranean ports for use In
the Lenten season, Italy being the largest
customer.
The st. Ives fisher folk are noted for
their simplicity and pieiy. They are near
ly all fervsnt Methodists. honest. supersti-
tious, humble and good. They live In as
great comfort as the isher-fOlk of Newha-
ven In Scotland; and the man Is more the
master of his home and belongings. They
are the most scrupulously clean and thrift
ty folk of this sort have ever met. The
women, though strong and brAwny, have
few of the Billingsgate characteristics of
the fshwives OF the English east coast, of
Scotland and of Galway aud tho Irish west
coast. They mend the nets, and bulk
or pack the pilchards. They are very do
mestic. and their prayer-meetings and
strict Sabbath keeping, though they are
wofully ignorant, have done these ST. Ives
fisher folk no hurt or harm.