The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-08-27


 ordinarily lucky, but that the best catches of today would have been considered but slim fares in the brave days of old. For naturally in such a town there is always more or less signing for the glories that have departed and contrasting of the fig ures of the sos with those of the pres ent time. It's pessimist against optimist, doubting Thomas against enthusiastic Peter Those who are hopeful hold that the Jonah has been lifted from the whale business; the others continue to croak their Jeremiads.
 Something Going On.
 What is apparent, however. to the | landlubber Is that something is doing in the whaling fisheries just now. One stands to see sights on the harbor front that recall even if faintly, tales of the intrepid mariners whose exploits Burke immortalized. Tourists passing through New Bedford in the summer season-and there are thousands of them brought in | by the New Haven trains or by the Old Colony companys steamboats, which now make New Bedford the eastward terminus of one of the popular Long Is land Sound services between New York and Boston-go always with intense in terest to the two wharves at which what ever vessels are left of the Atlantic fleet | discharge their cargoes and repair for | the next voyage into seas full of won der and peril. It Is one of the picturesque sights of America, the removal of thou sands of barrels of oil and great stacks of whalebone from the black holds, and | tl.xw voyage of two or three years. Since the barque Morning Star arrived at the Gen. l tral wharf the other day filled up with 1250 barrels of sperm oil and considera- ble quantity of whalebone, the crowd of sightseers has been greater than ever, l especially as the barque Josephine, an- other of the feet has not finished un- ! loading While waiting to go over to Fairhaven and take train for the Cape resorts they look over the gaunt whalers, rubbing up against the greasy barrels, | peering with shudders into gloomy fore castles and asking the fool questions that | only the very wise can answer. And often there are elicited from grizzled | authorities who have wintered in Hud- son Bay and in the Falkland Islands the stock but thrilling tales of the exploits of other days, together with the usual criticisms of the writers of whaling stories such as the author, who as one veteran mariner expressed 1t, ''tells a pootty good story but there want no whale ever built that leapt clean out O the water.'
 Only a Small Item.
 | To many visitor from west or south ] it comes as a greater surprise that so much of the whaling industry has been | left in face of the competition of petro- l leum than that so much of It has dis | l. 1tzpN | in the industrial activity of large man. ufacturing city Actually only 43 Amer can vessels, with a tonnage of 937S are | now engaging in whaling as against 655 vessels with a tonnage of 204,209, in 1S57; ! and of these New Bedford's fleet num- bers only 25, with a tonnage of 52O5. Ev- [ cry one of the Atlantic vessels, further more with the exception of the schooner John R. Manto, or Provincetown, now four months at sea on her maiden voy- age, is at least 22 years old It is, indeed, venerable squadron, explained by the 1 staunch barque Canton, which made it's bow to Father Neptune 69 years ago. Yet this very antiquity of the ships and their 1 appliances lends charms to the sights, sounds and smells of the whaling port. | If whale fishing were done in seven- masted steel schooners equipped with brass cannon for shooting the leyiathans | 1t wouldn't be half so interesting to the average man.
 l Diminished though it's fleet of whalers ] is, New Bedford has never lost it's vir- tual monopoly of the business. Province 1 town now has four ships. Nantucket, l once a jealous rival has none at all. New Bedford has in fact been the center | of the industry since about 1760. From l 1S43 down all the statistics have been | carefully kept by the Whalemen's Ship ping List and Merchants Transcript, a 1 little trade weekly which is still pub lshed with unfailng regularity by George | R. Phillips. Before that time they were less accurately compiled. but 1t is known that very great number of vessels and men were engaged in the whaling indus l try before the revolution, and. after the disturbances of the war with the mother country were settled. during all the early years of the nineteenth century. The banner years were 1S56-9. Then began a | decline in tonnage extending down to 1902, since when there has been slight increase. The destruction wrought by the Confederate privateers did much to spoil the industry. A particularly great dis l aster befell when in June, 1865, the Shen- andoah, entering Behring Strait. cap tured and burned twenty-five vessels Other misfortunes followed after the war was over, as when in September, 1871, a fleet of thirty-three vessels had to be | lessly crushed in the ice, the 1200 men on board making their escape after peril ous Journey over the ice foes. Again in 1876, twelve vessels were left in the Arctic and in 1888 five went down in a terrific gale off Point Barrow. Above all,
 however, the competition of the petro-
 leum industries and the gradual disap-
 pearance of leviathans from waters In
 which they were formerly numerous have
 reduced whaling to the present low
 estate. The great business built up under l the management of a man from the
 neighborlng village of Fairhaven has ef- iectually removed the likelihood that there Will ever again be a great demand for the oils that once made New Bed- 1ora famous. It is generally complained | that, although the catches of late years nave been somewhat more satisfactory than formerly the price of oil has ruled
 at so low figure, namely. from 50 to 5S cents per gallon, that results have been
 Tar rom satisfactory. Whalebone, on
 the other hand, has continued in good de- mana since no effectual substitute for 1t
 mas ever been discovered by the corset
 makers. One man now controls most of
 the whalebone output and he keeps the prices well up
 | ts of