Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1906-11-21
NEPTUNE'S SALT SPRAY
A Few Comments Both Humorous
and Serious, Condensed
for Your Reading
III

A resident of Holly Beach was driv-
ing home from cunning trip off shore
one dark night last week, when the
way seeming long, he became uncertain
whether or not he was on the right
road. He stopped his mare at cross
road, clambered out of the buggy,
crawled up on fence, and struck a
match to read the sign-board, which
he could see dimly outlined against
the black sky.
At the peril of his neck he deciphered
the sign by the glare of the birthstone
and nearly toppled off the fence when
he saw these words:
"When in doubt use Scott's Emulsion
of Cod Liver Oil w
sss
Why the trousers of the sailor man
flare SO at the bottom is doubtless a
problem that has puzzled many a
student of the idiosyncrasies of dress,
and it has generally been put down as
the survival of a fashion too remote to
unearth. 1t was all explained by an
old seasalt, however, at recent conflab
in an Anglesea hotel. He said 1t was
simply to allow Jack to roll up his
trousers to the knees when he sets
about swabbing the decks. "This is a
daily duty on board ship" said the
elucidator, land anyone who has tried
to roll up an ordinary pair of trousers
will understand what convenience
the kind worn by the sailor would be-.
The flaring leg is real utility and not
a mere fashion, as is shown by the fact
that the trousers of officers do not have
it,
Editorially the Newark Advertiser
made the following pithy comment on
the voting machine. 1t speaks with
the voice ofexperience:
"They are not blessing the voting
machine in South Jersey either. The
novelty has worn off and the defects
are glaring."
During the season just past there
was an ominous scarcity of fish in the
coast waters of New Jersey largely due
1t is said, to the manner in which
pound nets, purse nets, selves, fykes
and similar devices for the wholesale
capture of fish of all sizes are used in
most of the waters of the state. In
such ways thousands of small food fish
are caught much below the legal limit
of size and are sent to markets outside
the state. The result is that the fish
ing grounds are being ruined and some
of the food fish are being exterminated.
On the other hand the demand for
fish in the large city markets is steadily
increasing until what should be one of
the cheapest of foods is becoming a
costly luxury. The men who sweep
the waters with their huge nets have a
sort of monopoly of affairs, says the
New York Tribune, for they can
destroy competition and extort what
ever prices please them. When they
have secured all the fish for themselves
and if they cannot get exhorbitant
prices, rather than sell at reasonable
figure they grind food fish up into
fertilizer
The effect of this practice will ulti-
mately destroy the States valuable
fisheries. The seaside resorts are also
robbed of principal charm, and
thousands of people are deprived of
their right to fish with hand lines in
the salt waters of the State. Under
proper legislation and enforcement of
laws the fisheries of the coast should
be profitable to the fishermen of the
State and should also afford foreign
markets an ample supply of sea food
at half the present prices. Lovers of
the rod will combine again with the
representatives of the seaside resorts at
the next legislative session to get a
law passed regulating the wholesale
capture of fish.