Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-24

Written for The Evening Star.
A paragraph in a municipal report the
other day referring to the citizens of New
York who fish for market within it's boun-
DIARIES probably was the first intimation
that the majority of the population had
that such an uncitylike occupation was be-
ing followed in the metropolis.
Yet there are so many professional fish
ermen and baymen in New York that their
vote Is an important consideration In sew
eral wards and political divisions, and in
few districts they are in absolute control.
They are urban Captains Coura geous.
A large proportion of their number rarely
fishes outside of the city limits. In the
sight of the skyscrapers and the thousands
Of steam-heated offices they pass through
sea adventure daily. Their battles with sea
and wind are as hard and often as deadly
as the fights of their brother fishermen on
the Georges and Grand Banks.
When the gale whips over bay and r1V-
ers and sound. and the ferryboats and tugs
drive along. sheeted with snow and ice,
the fishermen of New York ply with sail
and oar to look after nets and eel pots. Oys-
ter boats await cargoes and must be salts
fled. The market is calling for clans ana
musSels.
A blizzar I'd may force these city workers
to hug their fires in houses and boat ca bins
temporarily. But 1t must be real biz
zard. Mere wintry weather that makes
other city folk shiver and huddle them
selves up does not affect the capnS any
more than a spring zephyr would.
Clustering is the leading branch of New
York's fishing business. Whole oystering
villages form part of the city, and figure
in the directory like any other section.
Every day through the winter, with the ex-
ception only of days when the bays are
hopelessly frozen over, the oyStermen are
out soon as the tide has well begun to
ebb
Scattered along the Kill Won Kull, Staten
Island sound and Arthur Kills are half
dozen primitive little settlements in the
borough of Richmond. where almost the
entire population goes out as regularly to
tong for oysters the jewellers in other
parts of New York go out to tong for
money.
On the shores of Jamaica bay are thriving
towns made up almost entirely of fisher
men. oystermen and clammers, all citizens
OF New York.
Fleets of dredgers can be seen in the up
per bay any day from the skyscrapers and
from the ferryboats. Up and down they
move in squadron formation, each under
mainsail alone, dragging the iron dredge
astern.
Well inside Of the extreme seaward limit
of the city, men lie every day in anchored
sloops and schooners, through thick and
thin Of weather, fishing for Goldfish, ling,
hake and whiting with hand line and trawl.
Most of them run for home every evening
and carry their catch in to be shipped to
the market by express. But it happens
often that wintry storm overwhelms them
and drives them far out to sea or forces
them to lie at anchor, swept by icy water
for hours. and sometimes days, before they
may dare to show a rag and beat in at
last.
Nets Everywhere.
The market fishermen's nets are set In
the very middle of the busiest harbor traffic
They stretch from the rocks of Governors
Island into channels that bear the biggest
tonnage in the world. Their stakes and
hedges stand for miles in the western part
of the upper harbor, like fences marking
the boundaries of watery farms.
Almost under Grants tomb are other
fishermen. From that point north they set
nets in the winter for striped bass Fish
Ing huts with their boats and gear pictur-
esQuely draped with fish nets like the cozy
corners of flats, are planted along shore as
Tar as one may go northward along the
Hudson river
In the whirling tides of He'll Gate is an
other New York fishing ground where men
work for market. On little rocks and reefs
barely visible above the wrinkled water,
stand implanted shanties with great reels
and racks full of tangled netting and lines.
Stuck away in the coves and along the
pretty Dutch shores of the borough of
Queens are groups of houses whose own