New-York tribune., 1909-11-02
TONS OF FROSTFISH
ROLL IN FOR NILES
Along ROCKAW4Y.
Seaside Politicians Forsake
Cam pn,gn Orators in Rush
for Oceans Gift.

When the RockawaXs are sizzling
white hot in the wrath of blast fur
mace campaign and the detected looking
trains they ride in out there come in
streaming with the November mist it
Is not the time a stranger would look To
find the citizens holding an illumination
Of their nine miles of sea beach, but
these three nights past the sands have
been streWn with lights for miles along
the coast. lights running. swinging and
dancing. a hundred of them together in
some places. a faint ring of fog about
each one as far as the eye could follow
them through the watery weather.
Still. they could hardly help coming
out The stanchest Cassidy man that
ever lived could hardly be expected to
stay inshore when his neiGhbors had
been bringing home loads-not sacks. but
cartloa ds-of fresh fish that were to be
had for the picking up on the beach
Nobody seriously thinks that when the
fish began to come ashore in windrows
they had live political Goals in their
heads; but once their invasion had taken
a place of Importance in the Queens
campaign the local leaders were inclined
to think there was a touch OF malice in
it all.
IT was Saturday night. when the last
of the outward liners had laid her smoke
along the skyline and the tide was push
ing in upon the beach, that the first of
the silver bellied campaigners rolled in
with the swash of the waves and danced
with their tails on the sand. Joe"
Doyle secuted down to Roche's Beach
with a few other fellows from the
Gotham Inn and looked them over. They
picked up dozen or so each of fish
weighing from A pound and a half to
three pounds. and, trying them a sup
per time. they found that they were
good. Still the news did not spread far
till long after dark.
There was campaign meeting Sat
urday night in Aricn Hall, at Rockaway
Beach, a redhot meeting got up to
persuade the electorate that Honest
Larry" Gresser was the only man whom
decent and law abiding citizens would
want for Borough President of Queens
There the flower of Gresser oratory
held them all spellbound for three quar-
ters of an hour with power and persua
sion. Gresser stock was soaring when
a voice. said by his friends to have been
the voice of Billy" McVays and not dis
owned by him, cried in the offing:
'Frostfish on the beach They're
Authorities disagree as to whether it
was six or three voters who heard the
rest of the Gresser talk. The stamped
bore down all opposition and every man
laid hands upon the nearest lantern and
made for the shore The alarm was no
exaggerat ton More than one light
wagon went up from the beach last
night with the springs Dent fiat under
the load of fish Capn Bob Pearsall
picked up fifty big fellows within ten
feet of the pavilion at RoChe's in half
an hour and gave them away to every
body who came Cap'n Bob calculated
that not far from sixty tons of fish
were taken in all.
The political effect was not all on one
side. The Cassidy men sUore the fish
broke up the Gresser meeting. but the
Gresser faction say that it was last
nights Cassidy rally in Morrisons
Theatre that was hardest hit. They say
there were so many Democratic Ian
terms out that the beach looked like a
Bryan parade of 1896.
The frostfish-weakfish they cali them
in the markets-come up on the shore
every year. though not always so that
A man can pick them up with his hands
They have never come before in season
TO take a hand in the campaign. As
to just what brings them the authorities
differ Cap'n Bob Pearsal said they
came after sperrin-no living man. II is
said. knows how that word is spelled
otherwise called vhitebait little fish on
which the frostfish feed. 1t is only
within the last fifteen years or less that
they have been washed ashore. Cap'n
Bob ought 70 know. for he walked that
beach for twenty years with the life
saving crew, most of the time as its
captain and that was eighteen years
ago Nobody ever heard of finding FROST
fish then
A CLEVELAND HOPEFUL.