The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-27

During this interval the herring are al- lowed to move up the river in perfect safety to deposit their eggs. The Will Hams firm divides it's men, about twelve in number, into two hifts, one for the day, the other for the night. A seine long enough to reach from
 shore to shore is arranged on a wide stern board upon a big fiat-bottom
 boat; three or four men get into the
 craft, one in the tern to direct her by sculling, and another man, who re- mains on the bank, holds on to a rope
 which is attached to the seine. The
 boat is sculled up stream beyond the fish hut about a hundred yards and
 then sent into the shore, where the man with the line, who has followed abreast, is now standing. Puhing off again, one Of the boatmen begins to throw off the seine, leaded at the top. Upon almost reaching the opposite
 shore the boat turns down stream.
 The fisherman on the shore stands on his rope to keep the seine moving down the river too fast, but despite all he
 can do it will carry him along with it should he persist in trying to stop it. After the wide net has drifted for
 twenty or thirty yards the sculler in the boat opposite begins to send his craft along at a faster rate than it has been moving before. As he goes he gradually works round in a semi-circle,
 so as to reach the shore close to the fish hut he started from short time hof Ae, bn ;e. off aha1 tn 10
 boat still, the move is making pock- ct, in which will be secured all the fish that at this place have been coming up stream while the net has been floating | down. When the boat reaches the
 shore the fisherman there takes the end of the seine rope and attaches it to capstan. His fellows there help him draw the seine in to shore by manning this contrivance. Tn the last of the
 meshes will be found, at lucky times, several barrels of herring and many pounds of shad, but recently the men l have seined for times together and not
 caught anything
 | Many people in and near Taunton | will tell you that herring are giving
 out, but Mr. Edwin Williams says that l he believes there is no accuracy in this | statement. It is true, he admits, that
 during the last four years the fish have
 not been running so well as in some previous seasons, but that fact he ex- plains as due to the weather. Recent I ly the brings have been cold and stor-
 my, conditions that are not suitable for l herring runs. He expects though, that \ there will soon be year of great plen- l ty in his business. What worries him
 most is not the lack of fish, but their ] low price. Taunton herring used to i have monopoly of the New England
 market, though some inferior fish from the Vineyard was sold here and there among people who could not afford the best. Of late years, however, herring have been caught at the Cape, The kind has been excellent, the quantity large, and railroads direct to Brockton and Boston allow the Cape Cod fisher
 men to command the market at these | important points, which once, in the
 days of ox-teams, were altogether l Taunton's.
 More than all this, the low price of
 
 that the New Englander does not eat so many of them as he used to. He
 has grown somewhat fastidious in his l diet and wants something better than
 dried fish. MT. Williams firm, and
 most every fisherman in the business,
 sell most of their catch to Hayti. 'There are so many rebellions down
 there," MT Williams says, 'that the people are kept poor, and that's what
 saves the business. You see it's a mighty good thing for us Taunton and Cape Cod people that there are plenty of wars down there. If there weren't the Haytians would soon get so well off they would turn up their noses at
 our fish. Recently, though, they have | had too many rebellions there, and the
 people have not been able to buy many
 herring even. but it only takes them a year to recover from civil strife down
 there, and after that they go back to ] the Yankee food. I have to think what
 would happen to the industry if they should give up fighting down there.- | Providence Journal.
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