W*****
SH
211
A22
A 527967
}
Dien
Cloie
LONDON
1883 -
HORITY
Wet mon droit |
HANDBOOKS
Issued in connection with
The GREAT INTERNATIONAL
FISHERIES EXHIBITION
ju
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
OF ALL COUNTRIES
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
BY
• !'.
W. M. ADAMS, B.A.
alter
ravela,
TIET
$4174
FORMERLY FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD
AUTHOR OF 'ZENOBIA; A TRAGEDY,' AND INVENTOR OF THE CŒLOMETER
Dupatt
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED
INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION
AND 13 CHARING CROSS SW
ONE SHILLING
1


13
OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS.
Para que vanliga va v
The following Handbooks upon subjects cognate to the
International Fisheries Exhibition are already published,
or in active preparation :-
NOW READY.
Demy 8vo., in Illustrated Wrapper Is. each; or bound in cloth 2s. each.
THE FISHERY LAWS. By FREDERICK POLLOCK, Barrister-at-
Law, M.A. (Oxon.), Hon. LL.D. Edin.; Corpus Christi Professor of Juris-
prudence in the University of Oxford.
ZOOLOGY AND FOOD FISHES. By GEORGE B. HOWES,
Demonstrator of Biology, Normal School of Science, and Royal School of Mines,
South Kensington.
BRITISH MARINE AND FRESHWATER
FISHES.
(Illustrated.) By W. SAVILLE KENT, F. L.S., F.Z.S., Author of Official Guide-
books to the Brighton, Manchester, and Westminster Aquaria.
APPARATUS FOR FISHING. By E. W. H. HOLDSWORTH,
F.L.S., F.Z.S., Special Commissioner for Juries, International Fisheries
Exhibition; Author of "Deep Sea Fisheries and Fishing Boats," "British
Industries-Sea Fisheries," &c.
THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. By His Excellency SPENCER
WALPOLE, Lieut.-Governor of the Isle of Man.
THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. By JAMES G.
BERTRAM, Author of "The Harvest of the Sea."
•
THE SALMON FISHERIES. (Illustrated.) By C. E. FRYER.
Assistant Inspector of Salmon Fisheries, Home Office.
SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. (Illustrated.) By HENRY Lee,
F.L.S.
THE ANGLING CLUBS AND PRESERVATION SO-
CIETIES OF LONDON AND THE PROVINCES. By J. P. WHEELDON,
late Angling Editor of "Bell's Life."
INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. (Illustrated.) By FRANCIS
DAY, F.L.S., Commissioner for India to International Fisheries Exhibition.
A POPULAR HISTORY OF FISHERIES AND FISHER-
MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. By
W. M. ADAMS, B.A., formerly Fellow of New College, Oxford; Author of
"Zenobia a Tragedy,' and inventor of the Cœlometer.
IN THE PRESS.
FISH CULTURE. (Illustrated.) By FRANCIS DAY, F.L.S., Com-
missioner for India to International Fisheries Exhibition.
FISH AS DIET. By W. STEPHEN MITCHELL, M.A. (Cantab.)
ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. By WILLIAM SENIOR (“Red
Spinner").
EDIBLE CRUSTACEA. By W. SAVILLE KENT, F.L.S., F.Z.S.,
Author of Official Guidebooks to the Brighton, Manchester, and Westminster
Aquaria.
THE LITERATURE OF SEA AND RIVER FISHING.
By JOHN J. MANLEY, M.A. (Oxon.)
SEA FABLES DISCLOSED.
FOLK LORE OF FISHES: their Place in Fable, Fairy
By HENRY LEE, F.L.S.
Tale, Myth, and Poetry. By PHIL ROBINSON.
THE OUTCOME OF THE EXHIBITION. By A. J. R.
TRENDELL, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, Literary Superintendent for
the Fisheries Exhibition.

Of pa je
LONDON:
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION, & 13, CHARING CROSS,
•A!
↑
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
OF
ALL COUNTRIES.
A POPULAR HISTORY
OF
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
OF ALL COUNTRIES,
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.
BY
W. M. ADAMS, B. A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF NEW COLL: OXFORD;
AUTHOR OF ‘ZENOBIA: A TRAGEDY,' AND INVENTOR OF THE CŒLOMETER.
Are you a fisherman, father?
DECKER.
LONDON:
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION
AND 13 CHARING CROSS, S.W.
1883.
;
1
SH
211
A2Z
Echange
3-by-se
CHAPTER
CONTENTS.
1.—THE CONDITION OF FISHERMEN IN EVERY AGE
II.-EGYPT AND THE ICTHYOPHAGI
III. THE TIMES OF THE CLASSIC WRITERS
IV. THE FISHERIES OF MANY CENTURIES
V.-MODERN DEEP SEA FISHING
VI.-DIMINUTION AND REPRODUCTION
S
•
VII.-A GLANCE AT FOREIGN COUNTRIES
VIII.-A PRACTICAL CONCLUSION
•
•
PAGE
5
II
18
27
49
59
65
76
FISHERIES AND
AND FISHERMEN
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
THE CONDITION OF FISHERMEN IN EVERY AGE.
'Twas a fat oyster.
CHAPTER I.
Pope.
Poverty is the badge of all our tribe.
Merchant of Venice.
3RD FISHERMAN.—Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
IST FISHERMAN.-Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up
the little ones.
Pericles.
A KAKI or oyster of venerable appearance and high
reputation for wisdom, whose remarks have been preserved
by the learned Kiuo in his famous Japanese sermons, was
lying at ease one day amid the rocks beneath the Eastern
waters, and was watching the sunlight which played among
the reeds and grasses of that pleasant retreat. Now it
needed but a very slight glance down through the blue
limpid depths to see that this oyster, as we should call
him, with his well-developed beard and general expression
of cool tranquillity, was a highly distinguished member of
his order. A gentle murmur proceeded from his half-open
mouth as he addressed a youthful kurumayebi, or lobster,
standing respectfully near him; and any one acquainted
6
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
with the mollusc language might have perceived that he
was comparing the relative advantages of shell-fish and
their captors for the benefit of his friend. "I know quite
well," whispered the Kaki languidly, "that unfortunate
human race which cannot even breathe this delicious atmo-
sphere. They are all an unhappy lot, and have very little
idea of the pleasures of existence; but those who are the
particular enemies of us and of others who dwell in the
ocean, are worst off by far. Just look at the whole race of
fishermen—I don't care of what country or what age-I
defy you to mention a single man of wealth, or leisure, or
importance amongst them, unless it was Masaniello-and
how long did he keep his power. They are all as poor as a
periwinkle, and as unprotected as a jellyfish. As for their
houses, did any one ever hear of a fisherman living in a
cottage lined with mother-of-pearl? And then look at the
dangers which they are incessantly incurring. There comes
a little puff and over they go, while I lie here and watch
their bodies floating about upon the surface." Just at this
moment a strange shadow passed across the sunlight;
quick as thought the Kaki stopped his discourse and closed.
his shell with a snap. At last, when a long period had
elapsed and he felt that all danger was past, he opened his
eyes,—and found himself deposited upon the cool white
marble of a fishmonger's stall.
In the sensations experienced by the hero of this little
Eastern apologue, that of surprise would doubtless have pre-
dominated, but we question whether his astonishment would
not have been higher in degree, as well as pleasanter in kind,
if, instead of finding himself upon a stall in the Japanese mar-
ket, he had awoke amid the magnificence of the International
Fisheries Exhibition. For many of the remarks made by the
acute, though rather too self-confident, mollusc were perfectly
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
7
correct. As, standing in the midst of the great palace, we
look back upon the history of fishing and fishermen from
the earliest times, it seems as if the abundant wealth and
devices around us had risen from the ocean beneath the
wand of an enchanter. Rich and varied as are the products
here collected, there is no trade or occupation so peculiarly
distinguished through all times and all nations by the
poverty of its pursuers as that of fishing. From the boat-
less, netless, shiftless race of Ichthyophagi, described by
Arrian and Strabo, to the big-booted and oilskin-coated
individual who forms to the observant eye one of the most
picturesque and familiar objects of the seashore, poverty is
the badge which marks the fisherman.
Among primitive and unsettled communities the prin-
cipal pursuits of life consist of fishing and hunting; yet
even there the hunter claims the greater share of im-
portance, since before either agricultural and pastoral
pursuits have taken root, both food and clothing are alike
supplied from the produce of the chase, while fishing must
be content to confine itself to the former of these departments.
of the commissariat. As civilisation advances and the
growth of agriculture converts hunting from a benefit into
a detriment, rivers and streams no longer lie open to every
chance comer, but yield their wealth only to a privileged and
limited number. But though the waters which formerly
supplied an industry for the many may now afford only an
amusement for the few, yet little improvement has accrued
to those who still follow that calling for their livelihood, no
longer in the streams and rivers, but on the wild and
dangerous seas. In character, as in habits, the fisherman
seems little changed from the days of Oppian. Physically,
he is still well-made, active and athletic; morally, he must
needs be patient and enterprising. No calling indeed
8
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
30
demands so severe and constant a strain upon the moral
virtues of patience and fortitude. His labour is incessant,
his reward slight and uncertain. He must face the chance
of sudden and violent end far more habitually than either
soldier or sailor, yet must hope for no special glory or
memorial as his recompense. He must be content often
to leave wife and children with a smiling face, and know
that as likely as not he may come back to them within
twenty-four hours only as a corpse cast up by the
treacherous sea. Death in its most rapid and startling
form is his familiar companion, but he never can suffer his
hardihood or his cheerfulness to be dimmed for a moment
by that ghastly presence. A sudden gust, a bucket thrown
carelessly over the side, an awkward movement at an
inopportune moment, may in an instant snatch him away
beyond recall, with no further memorial than a simple
inscription of "Drowned at Sea." The church at which he
worships is full of such records; and from his own family
perhaps, a father, a brother and a son have all perished by
a sudden death. Yet nothing daunts his unconquerable
courage, or wearies out his inexhaustible patience. This it
is which makes the fisheries of a nation so valuable a
nursery for their national defences. England is not the only
country which owes her greatness upon the seas in no slight
measure to the qualities of her fishermen. The navies of
Athens and Greece in the olden time, as of Holland and
France in modern days, were largely recruited from the
same ranks. Upon their calling, too, was conferred the
most splendid destiny that has adorned the human race.
From amongst the fishermen of Galilee came forth the
spiritual princes of the earth, and the poverty and humility
in which they lived is the very type of the apostolic life.
Such a race of men, it is evident, must form not merely am
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
9
integral, but a most vital portion of a nation's strength ;
and no pains can be too great for the purpose of ascertaining
their customs and for developing their capabilities to the
utmost possible degree. No doubt it may not be easy to
obtain detailed information as to their customs in the earliest
ages, for the very simplicity of their habits and retirement
of their lives tends inevitably to create obscurity, though
when we descend to modern days the copiousness of the
treatment grows indeed apace. Fully to illustrate so vast
and intricate a theme would require a lifetime of research
and a volume-or rather a bookshelf-of no inconsiderable
dimensions. Yet even the brief and unpretending sketches
here presented can scarcely fail to catch some interest
from the scenes in which they are laid, and the incidents
by which they are diversified; and may serve at least to
indicate new fields or rather oceans for investigation to the
student of historical philosophy, no less than new tracks of
sympathy for the general public. Whether we stand by
the Indian, as, in the glare of his midnight torch, he spears
the leaping salmon in the reddened waters, or follow our
own hardy fishermen to their wild and dangerous haunts in
the northern sea; whether we note the similarity of thunny
catching in the heroic days of Greece with the mode pur-
sued even now in parts of Southern Europe; whether we
learn from the Chinese the endless subtleties of device born
of long observation and yet longer patience, or look back
upon the efforts of a mediæval monk as they develope
slowly through the centuries into a vast system of European
pisciculture; whether we descend with the learned Italian
into the tomb, or inhale the breezes of ocean as we pursue
the flying whale; through whatever age and whatever land
we stray, the same mingled sense of natural and moral
beauty greets us on every hand. To the fishes with their
10
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
marvellous forms, their glowing hues, their lovely homes,
belongs a world scarce penetrated yet by the eye of man.
To the fisherman has been assigned the nobler privilege of
offering an example of patient industry, of unrepining
poverty, of discipline and self-restraint at least during hist
labours at sea, and of utter insensibility to danger in the
pursuit of duty, which marks the followers of that craft in
every country, even, so far as we can trace, from the very
earliest times.
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
I I
CHAPTER II.
EGYPT AND THE ICHTHYOPHAGI.
She was used to take delight, with her fair hand
To angle in the Nile.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
EGYPT, the China of the Western world, was the cradle of
piscatorial as of other industrial arts and inventions. So
prominent a part was played by the fishermen in the
domestic economy of that country that the prophet Isaiah
alludes in special terms to their desolation. In the sepul-
chral monuments of that extraordinary land where the
living have the appearance of being already dead, and the
dead vociferously claim to be considered alive, we find
many allusions to the practice and illustrations of the
methods pursued. Drag-nets and clap-nets are constantly
represented full of fish, and bronze harpoons and fish-hooks
still remain to bear witness to their early ingenuity. The
tomb of Nevophth, built as early as the seventeenth dynasty,
contains a representation of two men angling, with the hiero-
glyph of fishing inscribed above them. Another picture of
about the same period shows five men engaged in net-casting:
one standing in the water, and the other standing in the
middle of the net. At Elethyia in a similar painting, ropes
are attached to each extremity. One of the hieroglyphs
collected and conjecturally translated by the learned and
12
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
ingenious Italian, Rosellini, yields a suggestion that the
device of using cormorants, or at least some kind of birds
as intermediaries between themselves and the inhabitants
of the waters, a kind of fish-hawking common enough in
China, was not unknown to the Egyptians. As, however,
the special point does not appear to have occurred to the
professor, it may be as well to quote his own words,
especially as they will illustrate the nature of the
records from which our knowledge of these most ancient
occupations is derived, and the amount of the skill required
for their interpretation. The author speaks of the hiero-
glyphic word representing a net, and then, says he, there
follows the figure of a bird with the signs of plurality.
Then comes another bird with beak and claws, and that
character expresses, as is evident from other places, a mode
of taking fish, and in general the idea of fishing. More
often one finds this symbol preceded by the phonetic word
which in the spoken language expresses the same idea with
the armed hand following the words indicating the action.
In fact, it is the figure of a fish with the note of plurality.
From these premises the learned and ingenious author
concludes that the inscription represents the inspector of
bird-snaring and fishing. "Si esprime dunque in questa
iscrizione: l'ispettore della caccia colle reti agli uccelli, e della,
pescagione dei pesci, che è l'uffizio dell' uomo in quella scena
figurato." But with the most sincere deference to so high
an authority, we cannot help thinking that the representa-
tion may have relation, not merely to birds and fish, but to
catching the latter by means of the former.
Snaring crocodiles was another favourite industry or
amusement with the people of ancient Egypt, as is shown
by the tomb of Sciumnes at Kum-el-Ahmer. Men in flat-
bottomed boats covered with palm or papyrus seduced the
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
13
unlucky reptile into shallow water where he could not dive,
and speared him then and there. This somewhat resembles
the process of cockatoo-shooting in Australia, which can
only be effected by the sportsmen dressing themselves up
in green boughs, and creeping along with the utmost caution
so as to elude the vigilance of the two sentinels always
on the look-out from the highest boughs of a gum-tree.
As one reads all the various designs for the entrapping and
destruction of these helpless creatures, one is visited some-
times with a qualm of compunction on thinking of the
tremendous catalogue of never-ending treacheries which
characterise the whole dealings of man with every other
portion of living creation. Nor was Egyptian ingenuity
confined merely to capture, but extended also to modes of
preservation. The art of drying and curing fish, not dis-
covered in Europe till the fourteenth century, that parent
period of so many modern employments, was known of old
in the land of the Pharaohs; and pictures are still extant
representing the different stages of the process, and showing
amongst other things how the big fish were cut in pieces
previous to being desiccated. In one respect, too, that of
the wholesale destruction of the fry, the fishermen of Egypt
seem to have been open to the same charge as the most reck-
less of modern caterers. Every year, after the inundation,
there were found in the receding waters numbers of small
fish from six to nine inches long, which Djewhari calls Sir,
and identifies with the paîvis; while Dioscorides considers
them to be the same as the Sahnat or Sihna, though Makrizi
distinguishes the two, as does also Avicenna according to
De Sacy. This may be true enough, and the species may
have been one incapable of attaining a larger growth;
but when we read of the immense quantities caught after
the closing of the sluices at high Nile, and find that
throughout the rest of the year the great river was but
14
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
scantily supplied with inhabitants, and those of very large
size; a remembrance of the Stormontfield experiments
naturally recurs to the mind, and one wonders whether, as
the parr were formerly distinguished from the salmon, so in
this instance the Sir may have been nothing else than
the young of some larger species, and their destruction have
given rise to the scarcity prevailing in the waters of the
Nile.
Holy wars seem to have been as much in fashion in
Ancient as in Modern Egypt; and the controversy assumed
the curious form of one tribe with the utmost irreverence
eating up the fishes which the inhabitants of the adjoining
territory held in divine adoration. This was a fertile source
of recrimination and dispute, and the quarrel between the
Ombitæ and their neighbours on this knotty point attained
the dimensions of a very respectable war. A very ancient
exercise of royal prerogative has been preserved for us by
Diodorus. Moris or Thothmes IV. made over to his queen
all rights in the lake which bears his name, for her to buy
ornaments with the produce; and if it be correct that
twenty-two different kinds of fish were found there in great
abundance, her Majesty had no reason to be dissatisfied
with the amount assigned for her pin-money. In more
recent times Ebn Modalbir, according to Abd Alatif, an
Arab physician of the fourteenth century, was the first to
lay a tax upon fishing, and for this purpose established
regular inspectors at Alexandria, Damietta, the Cataract
of Oswan, and other places.
Isis, under the form of a fish-tailed woman, the common
object of adoration to the Egyptians, was also worshipped by
the ancient Suevi as the discoverer of the sail. Doubtless
Horace had her image in mind when he penned his famous
comparison for an incoherent simile.
"Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne."
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
15
(
Which we may render-
A woman lends the lovely bust, a fish supplies the tail.
The following hymn in her honour, taken from the
Magic Papyrus, bears some resemblance to the style of
Hiawatha.
"Isis has struck
With her wing
And closed the mouth of the rain,
She caused the fishes to remain lying in the stream,
Not a jug of water could be drawn out of it.
Sinking of the water, rising of the water!
Her tears fell (like) water,
Her tears fell into
The water; a cubit of fishes at the mouth of the ape;
A cubit of wood at the mouth of the star.
By Isis was uttered the cry: No crocodile !
And was effected the act of salvation.
Come, act of salvation.
PAPALUKA! PAPARUKA!
PAPALURO."
These latter lines form an invocation of the fish-god.
Akin to this deity, in substance if not in name, was
Dagon, the fish-god of the neighbouring Phoenicians, whose
grand temple stood at Azotus. The origin of his apothe-
osis is attributed by Sanchoniathon to his having been the
inventor of the plough and the loaf; a noble title indeed,
which makes one half inclined to look with leniency upon the
idolatry, especially when it is compared with the heavy fine
which would now be imposed upon any one who conferred
such a benefit upon the world at large, unless indeed he con-
sented to be robbed of all his due. Dagon was probably
identical with the Kýrw worshipped at Joppa, and ▲еρкýτw
at Ascalon, all three towns being close together, and the
nature of the worship being identical; but a doubt may be
permitted whether the transformation of Dagon on the one
16
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
hand into Twv or Sidon, and on the other into Atergatis,
is a convolution possible to any except an etymologist of a
happily extinct period. The two deities however, Dagoda
(or Zephyr) of the ancient Suevi, and Dagoun, the beneficent
principle worshipped at Pegu, may indicate some trace of
earlier connection before historic times.
One or two points related by Elian of Egyptian fish
may here be cited as curiosities. He observes that the
Egyptian sea-tortoise hides its eggs in the sand and then
swims off to sea, and he points out the Darwinian adapta-
tion of the polypods to their environments in assuming
the colours of the rocks to which they cling. Egyptian
frogs also exhibit a remarkable intelligence in the art of
self-defence. When a frog, he says, sees a river serpent
coming, he snaps off a piece of reed or cane, and holding it
tight athwart him presents an impregnable defence against
his opponents. Sea-foxes in Egypt were, it appears, quite
equal in intelligence to their brethren on the land; and the
angler who was so unfortunate as to make a catch of one
of them found his line snapped like a flash of lightning
before ever he could draw bait or prize from the sea. To
the same author we are indebted for the information
that fly-fishing was familiar to the Macedonians, and
that tickling trout was a device by no means uncommon
amongst the fishermen of that time in general.
Hard by the eastern borders of Upper Egypt dwelt, in
ancient times, the tribe of Ichthyophagi, divided in Ptolemy's
map, which accords with the best classical authorities, into
two races, both exceedingly poor, one inhabiting the eastern
coast at the entrance of the Red Sea, and the other to the
east of the Persian Gulf, close to the land of the Gedrocians,
and between what is now Cape Malan and Cape Jask. Pliny
says this coast was thirty days' sail in length, but Pliny's
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
17
}
:
L
statistics are not always precise. To the former of these
tribes, as Herodotus informs us, Cambyses sent messengers
before going to war with their neighbours the Macrobians, in
order to obtain ambassadors who could speak the Macro-
bian language. From the account both of Diodorus as to
the Ichthyophagi on the western shores of the Red Sea,
and from that of Arrian as to the portion of the tribe settled
towards the east of the Persian Gulf, it is evident that the
greatest poverty prevailed amongst them. Though they
lived almost entirely on fish they had neither boats nor
nets, and their implements, after the very rudest stage of
industry, were made of stone.
T
с
18
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
..
CHAPTER III.
THE TIMES OF THE CLASSIC WRITERS.
All the old ones
He hath sent a fishing.
Massinger.
MANY allusions to topics connected with fishing are con-
tained in classical works, though they do not frequently occur
in the earlier writers. Homer, for instance, merely dedicates
a short epigram, of no great merit, to some fisherboys who
had pleased him; while Hesiod, so far as we remember,
except in a single line, is altogether silent. Thunnies, in
especial, afforded excellent sport with the people of ancient
Greece, and are a frequent subject of reference. Their
capture was effected by driving them in shoals into the
harbour, and then battering them to death with harpoons
and instruments of every kind, after the method still
practised in Sardinia, where lagoons seven miles in length
are divided by thick partitions of reeds, and the thunnies
are beaten to death within the enclosures. This barbarous
form of proceeding supplied Æschylus with a vivid image
of the destruction of the host of Xerxes, an image placed
with more poetic than dramatic aptness in the mouth of
the Persian messenger, who describes the scene to Atossa.
"But the Greeks kept striking," says the messenger,
"hacking us with the fragments of oars and splinters of
1
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
19
wrecks, as if we were thunnies or a draft of fish." What
a whirlwind of applause must have greeted that bold and
glowing picture, which combined in one line the popular
national pursuit and the most splendid victory ever achieved
since warfare began! Aristotle mentions the thunnies,
saying that they belong to a gregarious and carnivorous
class, and deriving their Greek name of hamiæ, or com-
panions, from their going always in shoals, a derivation
which may have been more justifiable than it would seem;
and Archestratus gives a poetical receipt for dressing them,
which has been translated into Italian verse by Signor
Domenico Scina. According to Pliny, in whose mouth a
story never grows less, they weighed as much as fifteen
tons, the tail alone being nearly four feet in width. Fried
slices of them made a capital dish for the Athenian poor,
like fried plaice with our own population. "Who do you
match with me, I'd ask?" says the Bobadil of Aristophanic
Comedy. "I'll just eat some hot thunny and drink a gallon
or so of wine, and then I'll blackguard you every general
in Pylos." In the Idylls of Theocritus, whose every line
breathes of pure air and summer skies, and compared with
whom the idylls of other writers are like plants in a con-
servatory, occurs more than one allusion to the habits of
fishermen, one eclogue in particular being especially assigned
to those characters. Ausonius, too, in his poem on the
Moselle, after describing the
"High-crested towns wrought from the hanging rocks,
Hills green with Bacchus' leaf, and pleasant flow
Of Mosel's silent stream that flows beneath,"
goes on to speak of "the grey crowd" of fishes swimming
in the pleasant waters. Nor must we here pass over the
interesting work entitled 'Geoponica,' drawn up, according
C 2
20
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
to the best authorities, by Cassianus Bassus at the com-
mand of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. This
curious treatise forms an admirable illustration of classic
science, containing excerpts from Aratus, Hippocrates,
Zoroaster, and numerous other writers on rural matters;
and together with information of all kinds, botanical,
agricultural, and piscatorial, it furnishes such items as
receipts for universal bait, and charms for driving away
mice from any particular field.* It is, in fact, an encyclo-
pædia of ancient rural lore.
Hook, rod, line, and net, every weapon in fact now used
by man in his finny warfare-except that potent instru-
ment the trawl-was apparently common to classic times.
When the enemy is so easily caught, there is little induce-
ment to waste ingenuity in devising new means of offence.
Still, the variety of methods, especially in relation to nets,
was considerable; and fishermen, to follow Julius Pollux
(or rather Polydeikes), might be divided into three classes
-the anglers, the employers of nets and torches for night
use with the spear, and the divers for sponges, or for the
purple-fish. The ordinary implements were as follows: the
nassa, or net, said to be made of twigs; baskets of various
kinds; the casting-net; the drag-net; the yayyaμov, or
sagena, the time-honoured seine; corks; bamboo fishing-
rods; poles or stakes to fix into the ground; fishing-lines;
flax and sewing-thread; hooks; leads and fishing-spears.
To this list the author adds the boat utensils; and observes
*I am indebted for a knowledge of the existence of this curious.
treatise, as well as for many other courtesies, to Mr. Garnet, the well-
known superintendent of the reading-room at the British Museum; and
I am glad to avail myself of this opportunity for expressing my thanks
.
to the numerous officials in that department who have aided me in
my researches.
i
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
21
that in the night fishing the fishermen propelled the boat
down the stream with poles, and had ropes for mooring on
land, machines for drawing the boat, connected with towing,
the boats being drawn up trenches; skins used to protect
their hulls from injuries; and props, or perforated stones, to
which they attached the mooring-ropes. Eels were caught
by letting down into their haunts from the top of a high
bank some cubits' length of sheep's intestines, the lower
end of which was seized by the eel. Thereupon the angler
placed the other end, to which was attached a small wooden
tube, in his mouth, and by means of inflation caused the
eel to swell until it was hopeless to attempt escape. At
Marseilles boats used to be shaped like swordfish, and then
circled round to drive home the catch. Pilots possessed a
large measure of influence, for to them was entrusted the
important duty of determining the omens.
It is to filial piety that we are indebted for the most
perfect and poetic description of this subject, whether of
ancient or of modern times. A learned citizen of Anabar-
sus, being aged and infirm, failed to present himself before
Severus when the emperor paid a visit to that town. For
this omission the old man was banished to the island of
Malta, and his son Oppian went with him into voluntary
exile. To win his father's freedom was the object of this
excellent youth; and the mode he took was as brilliant as it
was original. He wrote a poem descriptive of the whole
range of fish and fishing; and when Severus visited Malta
recited it before him in the theatre. The emperor, struck
with the beauty of the verses and the novelty of the idea,
offered him what would now be considered a very respectable
sum for a well-known writer in a first-class magazine, and
upon his declining the money, promised to grant the author
whatever boon he asked; whereupon Oppian interceded for
22
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
his father, and obtained a remission of the sentence for
both. The whole incident as it is recorded in history
illustrates in many points-if fresh illustration were needed
-the numerous anomalies inevitably attaching to such a
system of personal caprice as obtained under the heathen
emperors; but it must never be forgotten that even in
contemporary affairs, and at the present day, men ignorant
of the inner workings of political machinery constantly set
down to personal influence that which is strictly governed
by precedent, and that a more accurate knowledge of the
Roman organisation might reveal all kinds of subtle limi-
tations and modifications by which the imperial power was
bound and restricted.
Here is a list of fish from Draper's translation which might
entitle the author at once to take rank with ichthyologists-
“Fish have no common rule of life assign'd,
Not to one place, or to one choice confin'd.
The sev'ral kinds pursue their proper good,
Diff'rent their dwellings, and unlike their food.
Some near the shore in humble pleasures blest,
Approve the sands, and on their product feast.
The flouncing horse here restiff drives his way,
And soles on sands their softer bellies lay.
Sea-roach in ruddy shoals frequent the land,
And puny black-tails range the shelving strand.
The clouded mack'rels choose the sandy ground,
And with their speckled train the beach surround.
Flat folios here stretch on the shaded seas,
Here spiny scads and fruitful carps encrease.
The broad-tail here, and dainty mullet feed,
Frisk on the sands, or batten on the weed.
Close to the shore soft slender swaths reside,
And the gay mormyl shows his spotted pride.
But what these love the slimy offspring hate;
The cod and whiting kinds, the prickly skate,
The thornback-ray an arm'd and hardy race,
The pois'nous fire-flaire, and the smoother plaice,
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
23
Stretch on soft slime; in slime the sea-cow hides,
And on the yielding bed reclines her sides.
The cramp-fish rightly nam'd from numbing pain,
And wide-mouthed lizards sandy heaps disdain.
In grosser filth they pass their wanton days,
Search the rich mud and wreath thro' hidden ways."
Or again, to take the account of the diet affected by the
various kinds of fish given in the third book—-
"Sea-crows, the tunnie, shrimps, the wolf approves,
The bream's voracious gust the gaper moves.
Ox-eyes excite the sharp-teethed ruff's desire,
Horse-tails the various rainbow's paint admire.
The oerve surmullets tempt to certain fate,
For yellow-tails with bright-ey'd pearches bait.
Cackrels the gilt-heads glitt'ring race invite,
And tender prekes the lamprey's taste delight.
Thus larger kinds; the fair one of the seas,
Nam'd from his beauteous form, young tunnies please.
On the small cod the full-grown tunnie feeds,
When wolves attract the wounded anthie bleeds.
To crested horse-tails, hungry sword-fish haste,
And mullets please the shark's judicious taste."
Yet one more passage, in which we not only set the net,
but descend with it into the deep abyss, and watch it
gather in the frightened prey—
"Down thro' the gloomy regions of the bay
The leaded snare divides its silent way,
Impatient till it seize the destined prey.
The spikes impetuous reach the dark profound,
At once they reach, and dart the num'rous wound.
Th' inverted barbs confine in cruel chains
The captives writhing with the steely pains.
"The various tortures of the bleeding shoal
Command a pity from the stoutest soul.
Here gasping heads confess the killing smart,
There bleeds a tail, and quivers round the dart.
4
24
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
This in his sides receives the rushing wound,
Hung by the back another twirls around;
Another's breast the thirsty steel divides,
Breaks through the veins and drinks the vital tides.
But gentler arts ensnare the youthful train,
Entangled in the thready bosomed seine.
When gloomy night obscures the frowning deep,
In oozy beds the scaly nations sleep,
All but the tunny's brood; with wakeful care
Each sound they dread, and ev'ry motion fear,
Start from their caverns, and assist the snare.
"The silent fishers in the calm profound
With circling nets a spacious spot surround,
While others in the midst with flatted oars
The wavy surface lash, old Ocean roars;
Murm'ring with frothy rage beneath the blow,
And trembles to remotest deeps below.
The dreadful din alarms the tim'rous fry;
They fondly to the net's protection fly."
Some notice of an imperial edict published by Dio-
cletian may form an appropriate conclusion to this brief
review of classical fishing. It is remarkable, both because
it fixes the current price of fish at the time, and also
because from the form of the titles it favours the belief that
the empire was not recognised as a formally amalgamated
entity, but as a collection of separate kingdoms united under
a single head, like the crowns of Austria and Hungary, and
not those of England and of Scotland.
"[Imperator Cæsar Caius Aurelius Ualerius Diocletianus Pius Felix
Invictus Augustus Po]ntifex Maximus Germanicus Maximus VI
Sarmaticus Maximus III Persicus Maximus II Brittanicus Maximus
Carpicus Maximus Armenicus Maximus Medicus Maximus Adia-
benicus M Tribunicia potestate XVIII Consul VII Imperator XVIII
Pater Patriæ Proconsul. Et Imperator Cæsar Marcus Aurelius.
Ualerius Maximianus Pius Felix Invictus Augustus Pontifex Maximus
Germanicus Maximus v Sarm[aticus Maximus III Persicus Maximus
Brittanicus Maximus Carpicus Maximus Armenicus Maximus Medicus
Maximus Adiabenicus Maximus Tri]bunicia Potestate XVII Consul vi
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
25
Imperator XVII Pater Patriæ Proconsul. Et Flavius Ualerius Con-
stantius Germanicus Maximus II Sarmaticus Maximus II Persicus
Maximus II Brittanicus Maximus Carpicus Maximus Armenicus
Maximus Medicus Maximus Adiabenicus Maximus Tribunicia
Potestate VIII Consul III Nobilissimus Cæsar. Et Galerius Ualerius.
Maximianus Germanicus Maximus II Sarm[aticus Maximus II Persicus
Maximus II Brittanicus Maximus Carpicus Maximus Armenicus
Maximus Medicus Maximus Adia]benicus Maximus Tribuniciâ
potestate VIII Consul III Nobilissimus Cæsar. Dicunt.
Porcelli lactantis
Agnus
Hœdus
Sevi.
Buturi
Item pisces
Piscis aspratilis marini
Piscis secundi
Piscis fluvialis optimi.
Piscis secundi fluvialis.
Piscisalsi
Ostrea n centum
Echini n centum
Echini recentis purgati
Echini salsi .
Sphonduli marini
Sucking-pig
Lamb
Kid
Tallow
Butter
Item fish-
K
in po I
>"
""
99
ital po I
""
,,
"" ""
""
"" ""
po I
ital po I
ital po I
""
ital ƒunum
Sea-fish of the best quality, or from
com}
deep water
Second-rate fish.
Best river-fish
Second-rate river-fish
Salt fish
""
n centum
*
*
sedecim
duodecim
sex
sedecim
viginti quattuor
sedecim
duodecim
octo
sex
centum
quinquaginta
Mr. Leake, the editor of this interesting edict, gives a
translation from which we make the following extract:-
""
centum
quinquaginta "
""
by the pound
""
""
one Ital. pound
""
""
":
""
""
""
Den.
16
12
12
6
16
24
16
12
8
6
26
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
Oysters.
Sea-urchins.
Salted sea-urchins
Sea-cockles
•
•
a hundred
""
""
""
100
50
100
50
These latter prices, if we could fix the value of the
denarius at this epoch, would prove an interesting subject
for comparison with those now current at Billingsgate.
A.
1
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
27
CHAPTER IV.
FISHERIES OF MANY CENTURIES.
May't rain above all almanacks, till
The carriers sail and the king's fishmonger
Ride like Arion upon a trout to London.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
ALTHOUGH the records of fisheries and fishermen during
the earlier part of the Christian era are for the most part
buried in obscurity, yet indications are not wanting of
the importance attaching to them. For many centuries
mariners and fishermen continued to be governed by the
Rhodian Laws, a code originally promulgated by Tiberius,
and confirmed by the Emperors Hadrian, Antoninus,
Pertinax and Septimus Severus. Their origin is quaintly
recorded in the preamble. "When," says Tiberius, “all the
merchants and sailors petitioned me to furnish them with a
report upon the general laws affecting maritime matters,
Nero said to me: 'Most Illustrious Emperor, why not send
a Commission to Rhodes to find out all about them?""
And so the Commission was sent. Some of the regulations
thereby imposed were of a highly practical and ingenious
order; as, for instance, the rule ordaining that when
seamen quarrel they may fight it out as much as they
like in words, but are on no account to proceed to blows;
a regulation recalling the advice of Athene to the angry
28
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
Achilles. If, however, one hits another on the head he is
to defray the doctor's bill, and pay his victim's wages until
the date of recovery. Another proviso alludes to the practice
of fishing by means of torches, for it forbids fishermen to
display lights at sea lest they should deceive other vessels.
About the eleventh century, when respect for the laws of
Rhodes had in a measure worn out, and civilisation had
gravitated towards the West, another island supplied the
laws of mariners and fishermen to Europe; and no incon-
siderable tribute to the maritime influence of France.
during the Middle Ages is testified by the wide prevalence
of the laws forming the code of one of her islands. From
Oleron off Saintonge in Aquitain, between the Isle De Ré
and the river Charente, proceeded a code of laws recog-
nised by the wide circle of the Hanseatic towns, though
not published until the year 1536.
As for the credit of the work, the French, and espe-
cially those of Aquitain, assume it to themselves, alleging
that Queen Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitain (the wife of
Henry II. of England, and mother to Richard I.), having
returned from the Holy Land, made the first draft of
these laws, and called them Roole d'Oléron, by the name
of this her beloved island. To which laws, says she, her
son King Richard, having likewise returned from his expe-
dition to the Holy Land, made some additions still under
the same title. These assertions are backed by the argu-
ments, that the laws were written in the old French, after
the Gascon dialect, and not in English; that they were
made particularly for Bordeaux voyagers, for the landing
of wines, and other commodities in that place, and for trans-
port and unloading at St. Malo, Caen, and Rouen, seaport
towns of France; and lastly that there is not so much as
any mention made of the Thames, England or Ireland.
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
27
According to these laws, if any man happen to find in the
sea or sea-shore precious stones, fishes, or the like, of which
no man was ever a proprietor, it becomes his own; but as
to great (or Royal) fishes that are found on the sea-shore,
regard must be had to the customs of the country where
such fishes are found and taken. For the lord of the country
ought to have his share. So a master that has hired seamen
for voyage, is to keep the peace and to act the part of judge
at sea. If the master himself gives the lie he shall pay
8 deniers. If any of the mariners gives the master the lie,
8 deniers. If the master strike any of his mariners, he
ought to bear with the first stroke whether it be with the
fist or open hand. But if the master strike more than once,
the mariner may defend himself. If any of the hired
mariners strike the master first, he shall pay an hundred
sous or lose his hand.
And again, if two vessels go a fishing in partnership, as
for mackerel, herrings, or the like, and set nets and lay
their lines for the purpose, the one of the vessels ought to
employ as many fishing engines as the others, and so they
shall divide the profit equally according to the covenant
made between them. And if one perish, relations and
heirs may require to have their part of the gain, and like-
wise of fish and fishing instruments upon the oaths of those
escaped. But they are to have nothing of the vessel
if it survive. All these regulations seem to be dictated
by justice and common sense. Of a similar stamp were
the laws of Wisby in Gothland, in use with the Great
International Confederation of the Hanseatic League.
About the middle of the fourteenth century the right of
fishing upon our coasts was secured to the Spaniards by
special treaty, and two hundred years afterwards a like
privilege was granted as to the north coast of Ireland to
30
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
Philip II. at an annual rent of a thousand pounds. The
high estimation attaching to this pursuit is evidenced
more than once. When Richard III. summoned all the
shipping of England against an anticipated invasion of the
French, he nevertheless excepted the fishermen of Cromer
and the neighbouring ports, lest their absence should impair
the interests of the occupation in which they were engaged.
For the furtherance too of this vital industry a Statute of
Herrings was passed by Henry VII., directing that for every
60 acres of land fit for tillage one rood shall be sown with
flax or hemp to provide materials for the manufacture of
nets, as well as for linen; and a further measure passed in
the reign of Elizabeth gives the Queen power to revive
by proclamation the law for the better provision of nets
and for furtherance of fishing, though in this case the
manufacture of linen is not mentioned. The gradual dis-
regard of days of abstinence and fasting during this reign
much diminished the profits of the fishmongers; and com-
mercial probably rather than theological zeal dictated their
presentment against the butchers for selling flesh meat in
Lent, which is preserved in one of the Lansdowne manu-
scripts. Some little time afterwards the decay of the fish-
ing towns of the eastern coast aroused the alarm of the
House of Commons, which poured forth its indignation on
the inhabitants for their lazy and disgraceful practice of
going half seas over to buy fresh fish from Flemings,
Hollanders, Picardy men and Normans, instead of catch-
ing it for themselves, and ordained that any one guilty of
such a proceeding should forfeit ten pounds every time he
himself was caught. What a collection of curiosities in
political economy might be discovered in the efforts of
Parliament to "improve" the condition of trade!
With the general outburst of maritime enterprise which
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
31
followed upon the revelations made by Columbus at the
close of the fifteenth century, renewing in a more civilised
form the daring of the ancient Vikings, commenced also
a new and energetic era in the history of fisheries and
fishermen. Coast and river no longer sufficed for the
restless spirits of that adventurous age, and the Atlantic
and Arctic Oceans became the resort of the daring fisher-
man. As far back as the fifteenth century England enjoyed
piscatorial rights in the seas of Iceland, and we learn from
a reply, preserved in one of the Cotton MS., to a remon-
strance addressed a hundred years later by the Danish
Ambassador to the Government of England, that three
sorts of localities alone were excepted: those which were
reserved for the King, those which were private property,
and those which were the subject of special grant. During
a long period, however, the Flemings held pre-eminence
upon the seas, but the persecution of the Duke of Alva
gradually weakened the industries and drove citizens and
commerce alike into foreign countries, until the victory of
the Duke of Parma gave a finishing blow to their pros-
perity. Manufactures migrated to England, fish-curing
and navigation to Holland, and the traditional contest
between the Dutch broom and the British whip was the
result.
Two years before the close of the same century a British
vessel, with that spirit of mingled business and romance
specially characteristic of the time, though even yet not
wholly extinct, went sailing further and further from home
towards what is now known as the Greenland coast, in
search, like princes in a fairy tale, of whatever adventures
might happen to befall them, when they came suddenly
upon a veritable enchanted ground in the shape of a region
frequented by schools of whales. This was, indeed, an
32
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
episode which Sinbad himself might have envied. One
can hardly conceive an excitement more full of fascina-
tion than a whaling enterprise. As for fox-hunting, it
pales before it. What is a five-barred gate compared with
an iceberg, or the cry of "Gone away!" as against the
ecstatic shout "She blows! she blows!" All the sur-
roundings are full of spirit-stirring adventure. The wild
voyage over the stormy northern seas, the long-continued
watch for the sign of the first prize, the intense anxiety as
the harpooner poises his weapon, the shout which hails the
successful stroke, the mad gallop of the monster through the
deep, dragging behind him the boat to which he is irre-
vocably harnessed, the frantic struggles of the indignant
beast, the troubled sea lashed into foam on every side, the
imminent peril lest boat and crew should disappear at a
rush beneath the waves as the creature dives, or rises sud-
denly high in the air at a blow of his enormous tail,—such
incidents as these afford no common excitement, and are
not to be found in ordinary occupations. Equally attractive
to a different and larger class of minds is the value of the
take when captured. The Great or Greenland whale is a
magnificent creature, measuring sometimes some sixty
feet, but the well-known adventurer, Scoresby, says that
though he killed 322, he never saw one more than fifty-eight
feet long.
敷
​A whale of the South Seas, for they exist in both hemi-
spheres, will bring in from eighty to one hundred barrels of
oil, at £4 to £5 a barrel, besides whalebone to the value of
£140, and those of the North will fetch double the amount.
Every portion, too, of the huge fish, or rather beast, is `
available for the service of man. The flesh serves for
manure, containing 14 to 15 per cent. of azote, its bones for
charcoal, its intestinal linings give material for travelling
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
33
į
garments, and its very excrement is used as colouring
matter. The inhabitants of those savage and desolate
parts are greatly indebted to fishing for the support of
their existence. During the whole of the long summer
day they are engaged either in this pursuit or else in
hunting. Whales, seals, and dog-fish afford them food,
clothes, and even shelter, for their summer tents are made
of the skin of the latter; and their frocks, their boots, and
A
their stockings are manufactured from the entrails.
strange taste also leads them to prefer the blood of the
dog-fish to any other less horrible beverage. The canoes
of these tribes are of two kinds, and betray some ingenuity
in construction, for they consist of pieces of wood fastened
together in thongs, and being covered with sealskin are so
pliable and elastic that they can weather the roughest
sea. The larger, called the uniak, is flat-bottomed, and
serves to convey the families from one place to another.
The smaller canoe, or rajak, is used for the pursuit of the
fish. These latter boats have room for one man only, who
sits in a hole made in the middle of the upper surface,
which he covers with his frock so as to prevent any water
from entering. One oar, six or seven feet in length, is his
only instrument of progression, and yet a man will, in this
fashion, row sixty or seventy miles a day, about the same
distance as an Indian will walk in snow-shoes.
The external concomitants of whaling soon promised to
become as exciting as the incidents] connected with the
pursuit itself. For fourteen years the English managed to
keep this splendid gold mine, as they were wont with perfect
truth to describe it, all to themselves; but such a monopoly
could not in the nature of things be made to last for ever.
In 1612 the Dutch sent some vessels to work in the adja-
D
34
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
cent waters not yet occupied by British vessels. Highly
indignant at what they considered an invasion of their
rights, the commanders of the British ships attacked the
Dutch and carried off the contents of two vessels fully
loaded and valued at 130,000 guilders. Nothing daunted,
the Dutch returned to the charge in the following year, and
this time succeeded in capturing an English vessel. At
last the original monopolists were compelled to cede some-
thing of their pretensions and to confine themselves within
certain pretty broad limits, while the Dutch settled to the
North of them, the Danes coming afterwards between the
two, the Hamburgers to the West of the Danes and the
French to the North of the Hollanders. Many of the
names now borne by the bays and islands of that part
attest the international division of the respective whaling
grounds.
Other causes, more particularly the depopulation caused
by the Civil War, now arose to depress our Greenland
trade, and by far the greater portion of it fell into the
hands of the Dutch, who in 1670 sent out 148 ships and
captured 792 whales. Bad management on the part of the
principals tended still further to deteriorate the British
interests. An absurd system—or at least a system which
seems absurd now, though it may have had its origin in
some necessity of the moment—had grown up of allowing
the captains of vessels to hunt deer, and to have the horns
and skins for their perquisites; the result being that the
whales were left undisturbed, and the ships came home
laden with cargo for the benefit of the captain, and exceed-
ingly lightly burdened on behalf of the owners. One would
have thought that so great an abuse would have been
sufficient to correct itself. Yet this was not the case; and
1
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
35
when the number of vessels sent from Holland had risen
to 180, and those of Bremen and Hamburg to 52 and 24
respectively, the British trade had left little behind it
except incessant and well-merited lamentations on the part
of the British public.
Very shortly after the Restoration we find these same
industries occupying the anxious attention of Court and
Ministry. Before Charles II. had been seated two years
upon the throne of his father, Lord Sandwich took advantage
of a great assembly of naval officers at Jermyn Hall gathered
at the funeral of Sir R. Stayner, to announce that the King
had determined to give £200 to every man who would
undertake the equipment of a new-made English buss, or
fishing smack, by the middle of the following June. Two
years afterwards a Royal Fishery Company was formed, one
of its governors being Mr. Pepys, secretary to the Admi-
ralty, to whom we are indebted for many a glimpse into the
political and social life of that period, and whom we most
unjustly and ungratefully call a gossip in return. That Mr.
Pepys was no mere trifler but a very good man of business,
is shown not merely by such a suggestion as that the Com-
mittee should refrain from limiting the number of bankers'
assignments to the various ports until they had some idea
as to the number of persons desirous of responding to the
invitation, but by several of his observations in regard to
this matter. It seems that a proposal had been made to
raise money for the undertaking by the coining of farthings,
and to this measure he readily gave his consent; but he is
much displeased with another suggestion that lotteries
should be established for the same purpose.
"I was
ashamed to see it," he writes indignantly, "that a thing so
low and base should have anything to do with so noble an
undertaking." His quaint accounts are, as usual, so full of
D 2
36
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
matter and spiced with his usual simplicity and directness,
that it is impossible to refrain from quotation.
“10th March, 1664. At the Privy Seal I enquired, and
found the Bill come for the Corporation of the Royall
Fishery; whereof the Duke of York is made present
Governor, and several other very great persons, to the
number of thirty-two, made his assistants for their lives:
whereof, by my Lord Sandwich's favour, I am one; and
take it not only a matter of honour, but that it may
come to be of profit to me. 7th July, 1664. To White
Hall, and there found the Duke and twenty more reading
their commission (of which I am one, and was also sent to,
to come) for the Royall Fishery, which is very large, and
a very serious Charter it is; but the Company generally
so ill-fitted for so serious a work, that I do much fear it
will come to little. 13th September, 1664. To Fish-
mongers' Hall, where we met the first time upon the Fishery
Committee, and many good things discoursed of, concerning
making of farthings, which was proposed as a way of
raising money for this business, and then that of lotterys,
but with great confusion; but I hope we shall fall into
greater order.
10th October, 1664. Sat up till past twelve
at night, to look over the account of the collections for the
Fishery, and the loose and base manner that monies so
collected are disposed of in, would make a man never part
with a penny in that manner. 22nd December, 1664. To
the 'Change: and there, among the merchants, I hear fully
the news of our being beaten to dirt at Guinny, by De
Ruyter, with his fleet. The particulars, as much as by Sir
G. Carteret afterwards I heard, I have said in a letter to my
Lord Sandwich this day at Portsmouth; it being almost
wholly to the utter ruine of our Royall Company, and
reproach and shame to the whole nation."
}
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
37
These records are of the greater interest, because in the
very next year the Fire of London swept away all the
books and accounts of the Fishmongers' Company.
Herrings are another fertile source of wealth and dispute,
and they have left their traces through many hundreds of
years. The earliest written record which appears in relation
to them is a charter, dated 28th September, 1295, granting
to the Hollanders, Zealanders, and Frieslanders free liberty
of fishing on the coast about Yarmouth. Again, we find
them figuring as a staple in the commissariat of the British
Army, and the battle of the Herrings, fought in 1429, when
the Duc de Bourbon was defeated in an attempt to surprise
a convoy carrying herrings to the English camp at Orleans,
is by no means the least celebrated in our military annals.
A fame of a more lasting and peaceful character was
conferred upon them in the intervening century by a certain
Englishman named Will Belkinson, or Belkelzoon, as the
Hollanders are pleased to call him, who invented the mode for
pickling and curing the herrings, and who, probably finding
England as ferocious towards any of her sons possessed of
original genius in the fourteenth century as she is at the
present day, set an example still pursued by all wise English
inventors, and carried his discovery to a foreign land. To
this English stranger the Dutch are indebted for the
material foundation of their political celebrity and maritime
ascendency in after years, and the nation proved grateful to
their remunerative guest. His memory was honoured by a
public monument at Bieroleit in Flanders, where he died,
and no less a personage than the Emperor Charles V.
considered the tomb of that great benefactor of his adopted
country not unworthy of a visit.
With the lapse of time the value of the herring fishery
continued to increase, and in the days of Elizabeth it was
38
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
considered of such importance that a proposal was made
for the establishment of a fleet around England for its
protection. Some quaint Dutch plates still preserve for us
the full details of the occupation, and illustrate with a
minuteness worthy of a number of the Graphic each par-
ticular scene connected with this special industry, from the
seaside cottage of its pursuers, and the preparing and
victualling of the buss, up to the grand junketing festival
and congratulation banquet, with the proprietor and his
wife looking, like the immortal Mrs. Fezziwig, "one vast
substantial smile." In the succeeding reign the Dutch
fitted out in a single season 900 vessels and 1500 busses
for the benefit of cod and herring, and each of these 1500
busses employed three more vessels to supply them with
salt and empty barrels, and to transport the take, so that
the number of vessels engaged amounted to little short of
7000. At the zenith of their prosperity, the Dutch, it is
said, sold herrings in one year to the value of £4,795,000,
besides what they themselves consumed, 12,000 vessels
being engaged in this branch alone, employing about
200,000 men in their service. Well might they deck the
steeple of Vlaardingen and ring a merry peal upon the bells
when the first vessel came in sight of harbour. At this
time, as we learn from a manuscript account, our own port
of Barrow-in-Furness possessed a small fleet of five ships-
two of them, it is curious to remark, being the Vanguard
and the Swiftsure-maintaining together a crew of 660
men, whose pay and rations amounted to about £13,000
a year.
Sir Walter Raleigh, the Paladin of Elizabethan and
Jacobean adventure, did not allow so tempting an oppor.
tunity to escape his notice; and he pointed out to James
the immense number of foreign vessels and men who took
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
39
advantage of our coasts, adding significantly that twenty
busses of herrings were sufficient for the maintenance of
8000 souls, including women and children. M. d'Aitzana,
President of the Hanse Towns at the Hague and his-
toriographer of the United Provinces, as well as the
learned Du Moulin, testify to the Hollanders having
drawn 300,000 tons of herrings and other fish for salting
annually from the sea in these parts; and to the tripling of
the returns between the accessions of James I. and that of
Charles II. Under the latter monarch, Dr. Worsley, whose
position may best be described as that of Secretary of
State for the Department of Trade and Plantations, was
sent to Holland to enquire into all matters connected with
the question; and on his return reported to the King that
the Dutch herring fishery, at the lowest computation,
yielded an annual revenue of three millions sterling. In
support of this estimate he adduced the number of busses
employed, the quantity taken by each, the Custom House
accounts of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, and the prices
of each export market; and he affirmed that the value of
the herrings and cod yearly taken by the Dutch greatly
exceeded the produce of the manufactures either of France
or of England, and more than equalled the sum then drawn
by Spain from her rich colonies in America.
Herrings, in truth, were as profitable to the whole people
of Holland as the great goddess Diana to the silversmiths
of Ephesus. Portugal and Spain furnished them in return
for this prolific export with wine, oil, honey, wool, lemons,
and golden ingots, then familiar to the Spanish Empire.
Salt, too, was procured in the same way, itself no incon-
siderable item in the expenses of curing. From the
Mediterranean came in exchange for the same commodity,
raisins, oil, silk, velvet, satin, and all that brave apparel
"
40
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
which delighted the honest burghers no less than their
wives. Half the art and glory of the Flemish cities are
built upon no more substantial foundation than the herring.
Germany supplied them with iron, wine, and all sorts of
arms and munitions, while Nuremberg, having nothing
apparently very attractive in its markets, was forced to
send large sums in ready money, which is after all not the
least attractive of commodities. To such a height did this
industry attain that during the war of the Spanish Succes-
sion, its promoters were enabled to pay the States-General
a German crown for every ten barrels of herrings with a
view to maintaining a sufficient naval force to defend the
busses from privateers. Sober calculations made with
regard to the annual revenue derived from these sources
show that Holland took more by these fisheries annually
than Sweden could produce in twelve years from all her
iron mines put together. So much for the expatriated
Englishman.
During the eighteenth century the current still continued
to set in the same direction. By an Act of George the First
it was provided that £2000 a year should be applied to the
encouragement and protection of the fisheries of Scotland,
and about the middle of the century was founded the Free
Fisheries Company, which had the Royal Exchange for its
head-quarters, and transacted considerable business in the
seas off Yarmouth and the north of Scotland. The letter-
book of the Company gives a suggestive hint as to the
political condition of the, country, in the shape of a com-
munication under date July 1756, from the secretary to a
certain grocer and "considerable magistrate of the good town
of Salisbury," asking him whether, as there were so many
German troops quartered in the neighbourhood, he could
not get the commanding officer to order some of his fine
G
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
4
herrings just fresh from the Shetlands. At the present day
German troops quartered at Salisbury would raise some
very different considerations from that of turning an honest
penny by the sale of Shetland herrings. From the same
source we find that no slight care was taken for the comfort,
and even the caprices, of the crews, for the secretary, writing
to the contractor who supplied the biscuits, apologises for
the dissatisfaction which would probably be felt by the
crews on finding the biscuits to be made of rye. Not that
there was any fault to be found with the contractor, he
hastens to say, "but that our men like everything of the
best."
In France the laws affecting these matters entered into
very minute and exact details. By an ordinance of
Henri III., containing a hundred articles for the regulation
of maritime matters, all parcs or artificial fishing-grounds
constructed for forty years at the mouths of navigable
rivers were ordered to be destroyed. Nearly a hundred
years later a decree of Louis XIV. defined the foreshore
as belonging to the crown, and laid down rules as to the
permissibility of ravoirs, courtines, and vinets, or vonets,
which are different collections of nets or filets constructed
upon the foreshore so as to be hidden at high water and
uncovered when the tide is low. Under the same statute
amber, coral, whales, poissons-à-lait, and various miscel-
laneous productions of the ocean, belonged, if taken in the
deep sea, wholly to the captor; if on the strand, then one-
third went to the King, one-third to the admiral, and one
third only to the discoverer of the prize.
At Maremmes the government nets were placed on the
shifting sands, so that they had to be removed at every
tide, small boats being used for the purpose. The nets were
formed into angles, more or less obtuse, following the lay
42
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
of the shore, and exposed at will to the ebb or flow. In this
kind of fishery, when the net is stretched and the tide coming
in, the fishermen get into their boats and wait for the turn,
and as soon as the sea has gone sufficiently out, they pull
up the stakes and put the nets with their contents into their
boats. Courtines of this kind are appropriately called
vagabonds, because of their continual change of position.
They cannot be used in the winter, because the violence of
the gales frequently endangers the safety of the nets.
Another sort of courtine is called volant, or flying courtine.
A peculiar system of nets also prevailed at Nantes, called
rets traversants; and another on the coasts of Guienne,
which bore the local name of pullet.
Some allusion to two or three quaint works published at
various times during the period described in the present
chapter may not be here out of place. One of the earliest
printed works, published on vellum in 1496, was that of
Dame Juliana Berners, a lady celebrated for her love and
knowledge of masculine sports. This Diana of the English
gives very practical and exact directions for the making of
hooks, observing at the same time that that portion of the
whole outfit was the most difficult to make. Amongst other
lore she describes twelve manners of impediments that cause
a man to take "noo fysshe." "Now shall ye wyte," says
this Rosa Bonheur of medieval literature, "that there ben
twelve manere of ympedyments whyche cause a man to
take noo fysshe, w'out other comyn that maye casuelly
happe. I, badly made harness. 2, bad baits. 3, angling at
wrong time. 4, fish strayed away. 5, water thick. 6, water
too cold. 7, wether too hot. 8, if it rain. 9, if hail or
snow fall. 10, if there be a tempest. II, if there be a
great wynd. 12, if wind be east." And so forth through
twenty-three pages of the best vellum. A somewhat
I
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
43
similar production was given to the world two hundred and
fifty years later in the shape of a work entitled 'The
Gentleman's Recreator.' This remarkable production, re-
versing the process of the celebrated treatise on tar-water,
begins the encyclopædia of a gentleman's instruction with
a description of astronomy and other sciences and arts, and
concludes with some instructions in cock-fighting, that
being an equally essential branch of knowledge in a liberal
education. Among the various polite accomplishments
here mentioned, such as horsemanship, hawking, fowling,
and hunting, fishing is by no means forgotten. Its pages
are adorned by a chart, exhibiting the various features of
the art, and some peculiar kinds of nets and methods arc
described in its course. The wolf-net and the raffle are
both mentioned, the former bearing a resemblance to a
lobster-pot, and being designed for use in ponds and
streams; the latter differing in that it was prevented from
touching the bottom. A suggestion is given for storing
and preserving fish in the midst of any river by making a
warren, as it were, for the fish to retreat; and the method
of taking pike with a running noose of horsehair as they lie
sunning themselves in the sun, is also to be found there.
A work of a different and far graver stamp, though con-
taining much matter which would hardly pass current with
our present knowledge, is the history written by Olaus
Magnus, the venerable Archbishop of Upsala, who was
born at Linköpin towards the close of the fifteenth century,
and after being sent by the Pope to attend the Council of
Trent, died at Rome in 1568. His ably written and enter-
taining history, in addition to the information which it
affords as to the condition of Biarmia and Finland, gives
many details as to fisheries and fishing. He speaks of
many kinds of fish being salted, dried, and hardened in
44
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
}
smoke: such as "pikes, mullets, prasnie and borbochi, and
those they call syck in Gothland," and he describes a custom
common in that country, where the rivers are frozen up for
months together, of fishing through the ice and using horses
to assist the men. The natives would walk on the ice clad
in iron-pointed shoes, and in default of these would go
barefoot rather than use the ordinary oiled leather which
soon froze and became as slippery as the ice itself. The
freezing of the river did not hinder them from pursuing
their favourite occupation. Two great holes were opened
in the ice some eight or ten feet broad, and distant about
150 or 200 paces from each other. Between these limits
thirty or forty lesser openings were made, and cords,
having nets attached to them, being dropped into the water
at one extremity, were guided by means of spears penetra-
ting through the smaller holes to the great opening at the
further end. Here the cords were drawn out of the water
and given to men on horseback, who rode off at a smart
pace in order to drag the net out quickly and prevent the
fishes from having time to break the mesh.
Jacopo Sanazzaro, a poet whose fishing eclogues were
published by Aldus at Venice in 1570, with the well-known
and appropriate emblem of the dolphin and anchor, had
already obtained the praises of two Popes for the religious
sentiment displayed in a former poem. As for his piety
we readily concede it, but as to poetry we may be permitted
to exercise an independent judgment. His verses are as
correct, and about as much worth reading, as those of a
fourth form schoolboy of twenty years ago. They teem
with allusions to Melisæus, and Damon, and Alexis, and all
the regular stock-in-trade of the Latin eclogue maker, and
they have not a breath of nature about them. With the
execrable, if accountable, taste of the time, Sanazzaro
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
45
cvidently considered himself bound to produce still paler
shades of those pale shadows, the Eclogues of Virgil, just
as their author, the most precedent-loving of poets, rarely
ventured to introduce an image or an incident without the
authority of some Greek original.
All the strong energy and love of maritime dominion
animating the British nation of that period is well brought
out in Sir John Burroughes' work on the British Sove-
reignty of the seas. Cæsar, he says, found the islanders
independent and absolutely repulsive of strangers, a pheno-
menon not even now wholly unfamiliar to our clubs and
drawing-rooms. He quotes, too, the grandiloquent decree
attributed to Edgar, wherein that monarch claims "by
the wide-flowing clemency of the high-thundering God
(altitonantis Dei largifluente clementia),” to be the Basileus
of the English, and of all matters and islands of the
ocean, and of all the nations which are contained within it.
But, as the more sober Evelyn observes, the fact that the
savages of Britain drove strangers from their coasts by no
means argues any sovereignty over the waters; nor does
Edgar's decree, even if we grant its authenticity, assert
anything more than a dominion over the islands and the
dwellers within them. Very strong arguments against the
absurd assumption of an universal jurisdiction possessed
by England over the waters of every ocean are brought
forward by the latter author, though he is not ashamed
to own that he lends it his public support. The licences
imposed by the Scottish Parliament upon the fishermen
of England are sufficient in themselves to destroy the
notion, while the protest of the Danes at Breda against
the proposed acquisition by the Scotch of the right of
fishing at Orkney, on the occasion of the marriage of
James the First and Sixth with the daughter of the
King of Denmark, is another irrefutable proof that the
46
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
sovereignty of the seas could never have been acknow-
ledged to be the property of England, or indeed of any
one nation alone. A matter of greater moment treated by
Sir John is the disposition of the fisheries around our coast
about that time. Herrings were caught from July to
November. Cod visited Lancashire in the spring, the west
coast of Ireland during the summer, and took up its winter
quarters near Padstow. Pilchards appeared from May to
Michaelmas. Hake favoured the Irish seas rather late in
the year, and ling both the north-east and south-west
coasts of England.
One not unnatural consequence of the fury for adven-
turous enterprise was an amount of reckless speculation.
which could end at last only in disaster, and which in fact
collapsed with so wide-spread a deluge of ruin as almost to
attain the dimensions of a national calamity. During the
carly years of the eighteenth century, the speculation in
fisheries attained its height, and all sorts of bubble com-
There were
panies sprang into ephemeral existence.
Greenland companies and Orkney companies, private com-
panies, such as Cawood's and Garraway's; there was to be
a royal company of ten million, a company to fish up coral,
and another to fish for wrecks off the Irish coast. But of
all the projects then fostered none attained such importance
or created such misery as that of the South Sea Fisheries
Company. The scheme was founded upon grounds not
unworthy of consideration; and a similar plan had been
advocated a hundred years before by Sir B. Rudyerd in
the House of Commons in order to cut out the King of
Spain. Its designs, however, were probably too large for
the machinery of the time, and the economical fallacy of
the mercantile theory entered too prominently into its
calculations. Its chief promoter was Sir John Eyles, one
of the Commissioners for the Estates forfeited in the
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
47
Rebellion of 1715; and it was constituted upon a
petition for a Grand Fishery Company presented in
January, 1718, and signed by seven peers and many
merchants and gentlemen. Many petitions on such
matters were presented at the same time, and all were
opposed by counsel, the Fishery alone excepted. On
this the Crown lawyers reported that a Fishery Charter
under proper regulations might be very beneficial to the
nation. In regard to the same, the House of Commons
passed a resolution on the 27th of April, 1720: "That the
undertaking proposed to be carried on by the name of the
British Fishery, wherein the scaports and royal burghs are
concerned, may be successfully carried on, and thereby
prevent great sums from going annually out of the nation;
may secure a valuable trade; and may, upon any emer-
gency, furnish seamen to man the royal navy; and there-
fore highly deserves encouragement." The following ex-
tract shows an inflation startling enough no doubt to the
speculators of those days, though they rather pale before
the records of Ballarat and San Francisco:-
Original Money
paid in or due.
£ s.
d.
IO
Royal Fishery Commis-
sion,
Fish pool, for bringing
fresh fish by sea to
London (Sir Richard
Steele's project).
Orkney Fishery.
For a Whale Fishery
(Sir John Lambert).
National permits for 5 0 o per share
a Fishery (George
James's) 50,000 per-
mits at six pounds
each.
The Grand Fishery.
o o per cent.
25 OC
O IO O
O 10 O per share
Highest sold for
in 1720.
£
S.
25 0
d.
o per cent.
160 0 0 per share,
250 o o
3 10 O
5 0 0
before any
money paid
down.
60 oo each permit
before any
money paid
down.
48
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
Another project, of somewhat later date, for conveying
fish to town by means of post horses, gives us an opportu-
nity of comparing the rates of carriage existing about this
time with those current at the present day. The company
proposed to convey from eight to ten hundredweight of fish
daily to the Hercules Inn, on the Surrey side of the me-
tropolis, by relays of post horses, and put forward an
elaborate calculation of the expenses involved. Taking as
a basis half a ton, and assuming a rate of six miles with
fresh relays at every second hour, we get the following
items for the accomplishment of seventy-two miles in
twelve hours :—
72 miles @ Is. a mile
Post boy @ 1d. a mile
Greasing the carriage
Ostler, 6d. a stage
Total, exclusive of turnpikes (which, says the author)
of the proposal, cannot be ascertained)
£ s. d.
3 12 O
090
O IO
030
4 50
Upon this scale, therefore, half a ton could have been
conveyed 144 miles in twenty-four hours at a rate now
sufficient to convey an ordinary parcel by goods train for
400 miles; a contrast not quite so deep as one might have
fancied would be the case.
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
49
CHAPTER V.
DEEP SEA FISHING AT THE PRESENT DAY.
Ho! come, and bring away the nets.
Pericles.
DEEP SEA FISHING, at least in its general form, is a
creation almost of the last half-century. In Grimsby, for
example, the capital, if we may so call it, of the deep sea
trade, thirty years ago the imports of this kind hardly
equalled those of Southport or Grossmont at the present
day, and nowhere nearly approached Hartlepool or Filey.
In 1854 the number of tons conveyed inland was 453.
Ten years later it had decupled, in 1869 it had become
sixtyfold, and by 1881 had attained a growth of nearly
one hundredfold in little more than five-and-twenty years.
Trawling is the method to which this great increase is
principally due, and it may be well here to describe the
peculiarities of the different kinds of nets used in deep
sea fishing. On the open sea there are two kinds of nets
chiefly in use: the trawl for those fish, such as turbot,
which love to hide themselves at the bottom of the ocean,
and the drag for such as like the herring prefer the
surface. The trawl is in fact a kind of sea plough, one
essential object of it being to stir up the inmates of those
deep recesses, and it is fashioned with a view to effect this
purpose, no less than to capture them when once driven
E
50
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
out of their hiding-places. It consists of a single spar,
called the beam, about as long as from the stern of the
boat to the mast, fixed upon two large iron supports or
heads, and having a long flat and pocket-shaped net attached
to it, the mouth of which is extended by being fastened to
either end of the spar. These supports keep the trawl off
the bottom, the apparatus being lowered in such a way that
the spar always remains uppermost; and a ground-rope is
fastened to the lower margin of the net so arranged as to
clip the bottom, and to cause any prey that may be lurking
there to pass over it into the meshes. As this rope may by
chance be caught in some irremovable obstacle, it ought to
be somewhat old and easily broken, otherwise the more
valuable part of the apparatus might be in danger of fracture
from the resistance. It is, however, protected by a series of
gutta-percha rubbing pieces from immediate contact with
any rocks or stones, though fair ground only is suit-
able for trawling. The net itself is shaped in a very
peculiar way. At its extremity is a smaller sort of bag
called a purse or a cod, made with a lesser opening and
with finer meshes; and half-way from the mouth the
upper and lower portions of the net on either side are
sewn together for about 16 feet, forming two enormous
pockets or valves, the mouths of which opening towards
the cod leave a kind of valve or curtain flapping in front
of it, on account of the greater resistance of the water due
to the finer meshes with which that part is made. When the
trawl is lowered, it is necessary that the vessel should be
under sail, and proceeding through the water at a greater
rate than the tide. This is required to keep the net
extended as it descends, and to prevent it from twisting
or otherwise getting out of gear. As soon then as the
ground-rope reaches the bottom the fish disturbed from
เ
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
51
their lurking-places rise up and dart forward, find that the
head of the net has already passed over, and hurrying back
are caught in the cod at the end, from whence there is no
escape, except into the flaps and pockets at the side.
Many countries are engaged in this modern but highly
important form of capture. Belgium, Holland, France, all
have their fleet of trawlers (though the occupation which
goes by the name of herring trawling in Scotland is nothing
else than seine fishing), and numerous stations in England,
more particularly on our east and southern coasts, such as
Hull, Grimsby, Dover, Ramsgate, Plymouth and Brixham,
send out their boats to the Inner and Outer Well Banks,
the Great Silver Pit, the Botney Gut, and other famous
resorts not yet exhausted. Of late years these vessels have
been built larger than of old, the length of the boats having
been increased. A mizen has been added, so that the
pressure on the sails has been lowered in its centre of
gravity. Ice is now commonly carried in large quantities
and wells have been added, so that the fish can if neces-
sary be kept on board for a week, though their condition is
undoubtedly deteriorated thereby. Accordingly steam
cutters attend the different fleets and convey the catch
either to the nearest port or else direct to London. The
well is at the bottom of the vessel, the extremities of which
are pierced with auger-holes in order to allow the sea to
pass through freely, and it is said to have been imported
from Holland, and to have been first tried at Harwich in
1712.
G
These additions have of course increased the cost of
the smacks employed, and 1200/. is required now for
engaging in the trade, where a few years ago 700% would
have sufficed. A double set of gear is requisite in order
to provide against mishaps. A net, which should be made
E 2
52
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
of cotton, and dressed with cutch, may be reckoned to
last about three or four years, though different parts will
require repair from time to time. Carrier pigeons are im
use with the men of some ports to bring early news
of the take from the catcher on the ground; but the
device has not yet become general. One practice con-
nected with trawling, that of packing them in boxes, and
placing them on board a steamer to carry into port, is
attended with a good deal of danger, particularly if per-
formed in rough weather, as is not unfrequently the case.
Much complaint was made with reference to this practice
before the Royal Commission held last year for the purpose
of inquiring into the condition of our fishermen; but it
seems impossible to suggest a substitute.
sugge
Fish habitually frequenting the surface of the water,
such as herrings, mackerel, pilchard and the like, are
caught by drift-net, mackerel being taken by line as well.
Drift-nets, which catch their prisoners by the gills, are
probably the oldest form of piscatory implement known to
society, and are those of which mention is so frequently
made by the writers of the New Testament. They are
supported by floats, and at the present day are of enormous
length, several being joined together so as to form a train
from one to two miles long towed by a single vessel. The
nets are kept afloat by small buoys or bowls, of which all
but five are painted black. These five, called "gay bowls
are used for marking the extent of the net as it is hauled
in, the first or casting bowl being painted wholly red, the
next three-quarters red and one quarter white, and so forth,
the last, or "puppy bowl," being wholly white. At the
close of all is attached a buoy, with a flag, which remains
always above the water and marks the end of the line of
nets. Sunset or sunrise are the best times for casting, and
">
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
53
a slight ripple on the water is of much advantage. Off the
Scottish coast a good take frequently succeeds a thunder-
storm, but on the following day hardly any catch is to be
made except at the verge of the deep sea. Herrings, it
may be observed, are taken in largest quantities when the
water has a temperature of about 54° or 55° Fahr., according
to the best German authorities.
Two kinds of nets, more of local than of general use,
may also here be mentioned: the trammel, employed in
some parts of Devon and Cornwall, on the south coast
of Ireland, in Guernsey, and on different parts of the Scotch
coast; while the kettle-net is confined to the parts about
Beachey Head and Folkestone. The trammel derived,
according to Mr. Holdsworth, from the French tremail, or
tramail, a corruption of trois mailles, consists, as its name
implies, of a combination of three nets or wallings placed
side by side and fastened together at the back, foot, and ends.
Of these three nets the two on either side have their meshes
wide and exactly corresponding to each other, but that in
the middle is of much finer make and of nearly double the
size, the result being a quantity of slack netting between
the two. When therefore a prisoner having entered the
first, endeavours to pass through the third net, he carries
with him a portion of the second, and the more he struggles
the more hopelessly he becomes entangled. The kettle-
net is an arrangement of stakes and nets, used principally
for the capture of mackerel when they come close in shore
in the locality above mentioned, and not altogether unlike
the nets in connection with towers on the Rhine, built for
the purpose of catching salmon. The seine, used for opera-
tions performed from the shore, must be familiar to many
who have spent their holidays at the seaside. In shape
it used to be deeper in the middle than at the sides or
54
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
sleeves-at Tahiti one was used in the form of a V-as
the fish congregate towards the centre, and its extremities
are pulled together by two boats rowing towards each other,
the towing boat being followed by a smaller vessel called
the follower. On the Cornish coast, when a shoal of
pilchards is expected, it is customary for a look-out man,
called the crier, to ascend an eminence overlooking the sea,
and to give notice of their approach by throwing up his
arms. Amongst the lines used at sea the principal are
the spiller and bulter, the former being employed for
whiting or other smaller fish, the latter for catching cod,
ling, halibut, and haddock. Fifteen dozen, with twenty-six
hooks a-piece, are sometimes attached to the Grimsby
smacks, the whole string being not less than seven miles in
length, and carrying with it 4680 instruments of death.
Some years ago a great outcry was raised to the effect
that trawling was destroying the fisheries by stirring up
the spawn, and that the fishery grounds themselves
were undergoing the same process of depopulation as
the inland waters. In particular, difficulties arose with
the men of Tarbert and Oban, and a Commission having
been appointed to inquire into the matter, a sort of
Melian conference took place, related in a strictly Thucy-
didean manner by the Commissioners. The drift-net
fishermen and their supporters urged that immature
herrings may be caught by the method of seining; that
the shoals of fish, being disturbed and dispersed by the
seine-nets on entering the estuaries from the sea, would
soon desert the waters, which they would otherwise
have frequented; that the shoal once scattered does not
again unite; that the seine fishers sweep across the beds
where the fish are depositing their spawn, and not only
take the spawning herring, but destroy the spawn which
1
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
55
has been deposited; that the herring caught by the seine
are not fit for curing, on account of the injury received by
them in their capture; that the trawlers or seiners are a
turbulent set of men, who wanton in mischief, and love
to cut away drift-nets or stab the buoys which float them,
and thus produce much damage to property; that the
two systems cannot be carried on together in narrow
waters, as the trawlers get foul of the drift-nets, and drive
away the fish which would have meshed themselves; and
that the extravagant gains of the trawlers, monopolised by a
few, alter the market prices by sudden fluctuations, to the
great detriment of the drift-net fishermen, who prosecute
their labour in a more steady and less gambling manner.
To this indictment the trawlers replied that when the mesh
is less than that of the legal standard they catch immature
fish, but that it is not their interest as a class to do so; that
larger and finer herrings are caught by the trawl (meaning the
seine) than can be got by the drift-net; that the enclosure of
herrings in a circle by a net drawn gently round them in a
retired locality on the coast cannot disturb the general shoal
of fish as much as their meeting numerous walls of netting,
often miles in length, let down into the sea to obstruct their
progress; that their nets do not interfere with the spawning-
beds; that there is only a small market for full fish on the
west coast, and for this reason alone it is not their interest
to catch fish in an immature condition; that the destruc-
tion of the spawning-beds was not produced by them, but
by the drift-net fishermen on the coast of Ayrshire, who
sink their drift-nets as trammels to catch the fish in the
act of spawning; that the fish caught by trawling is, by
the admission of all, good for the fresh market; and that
the fish so caught are quite fit for curing, though there
may be an occasional inferiority in this respect, on account
of the rapid and careless handling to which the fish are
56
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
subjected in the prosecution of an illegal fishing, which
may at any time be interrupted. They denied too that
as a class, they injure the nets of the drift-net fishermen ;
they pointed to the records of collisions between the drift-
net fishermen themselves before trawling was introduced,
and averred that the alleged instances of mischief on the
part of the trawlers have never been substantiated when
submitted to official investigation. They saw no difficulty
in carrying on the two systems of fishing together, as the
trawlers chiefly fish close to the shore in shallows, where
the drift-nets are rarely placed; and they further asserted
that instead of driving the fish away, so that they will not
mesh in the drift-nets, they drive the shoals out of the
shallow into deeper water, where the drift-nets are enabled
to capture them; and finally that the large hauls got by the
trawlers are of great benefit to the consumer of fish, by
enabling him to get herrings at a much cheaper rate than
he could by the old method of drift-net fishing, so that
the poor especially benefit by the abundance of fresh fish
thus thrown into the market.
After full examination of petitions and evidence on both
sides, the Commissioners gave an elaborate judgment that
in their opinion the fishery of Loch Fyne had suffered no
diminution by the operations of the trawlers, but that, on
the contrary, it is a steadily progressive fishery, when the
periods of comparison are made sufficiently long to correct
the annual fluctuations, which are always considerable in
this as in all other herring fisheries. In support of this
statement they adduced the following return for a period
of thirty years :-
General annual average take from 1833 to 1843
1844 "
1848
1849 "
1853
1854
1858
""
1859 "
1862
""
رد
""
3353
""
""
""
""
""
""
""
""
18,994 barrels.
15,427
19,149
""
25,744 ""
42,165
"}
در
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
57
This steady increase of the fishery during the period
when trawling was practised, they went on to say, could not
be ascribed to any augmentation in the number of drift-net
boats; for these, on the average of the same years, with
the exception of 1862, show no increase, while the number
of square yards of netting employed remains also com-
paratively stationary. Hence they were forced to the con-
clusion that there were no grounds for the alarm that the
fishery of Loch Fyne was being destroyed by the operations
of the trawlers. The same reasoning was found to apply to
the west coast of Scotland as a whole, viz., that there is a
steady increase in the fishery during the periods when trawl-
ing was prosecuted; and that trawling (or rather seining)
for herring has been an important means of cheapening
fish to the consumer, and has thrown into the market an
abundant supply of wholesome fresh fish at prices which
enable the poor to enjoy them without having to come into
competition with the curer. They pointed out also that
by prohibiting the use of herring for bait during the close
period from 1st January to 31st May, the white fish, like
cod and ling, have been allowed to multiply. A single
herring used for bait is employed to catch three of those
fish, each of which if left in the sea would have devoured
annually at least between four and five hundred herring;
so that the cod and ling actually caught and cured on the
Scotch coasts in 1861, would, if left in the sea, have destroyed
more herring than 48,000 fishermen. As only 42,751 fisher-
men and boys were engaged in fishing in the year, the
magnitude of this destructive agency will be readily per-
ceived. The close time which diminishes the capture of
such fish must necessarily prove destructive to the herring.
Nothing can be more satisfactory than to find that so
far as regards the ocean, no danger of scarcity need be
58
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
apprehended in our day, and that there are still more fish
in the sea than ever came out of it. According to Prof.
Huxley, one of the greatest living authorities on these
matters, the ravages of man are but very trifling in character
when compared with those arising from other and natural
causes, and more particularly from the depredations of the
birds and the larger members of their own tribe. According
to the illustrious Professor, in the case of the herring at least,
bird, fish, and man form a kind of joint-stock company, the
latter having to be content with a modest 5 per cent. of
the annual dividends. In fact, so far did the trawlers turn
out to be from destroying the herrings by routing up the
spawn, that they tended greatly to their preservation
through the capture of such fish as turbot, brill, sole, and
plaice, who possess an epicurean appetite for that kind of
food. Such a declaration is undoubtedly reassuring, but
yet one cannot altogether repress a certain qualm of ap-
prehension when we read upon an authority of such great
practical experience as Mr. Olsen, of ground after ground,
in which the abundance of fish is a matter of the past. In
the Off-ground near Grimsby, formerly abounding with all
kinds of fish, there has been a scarcity of late. In the
California Ground, a small one no doubt, large quantities of
soles used to be caught. On the Doggerbank codfish have
been caught abundantly in former years, but have been
scarce of late. From the Great Silver Pits large quantities
of soles were taken for the first three years. The Botney
Ground formerly abounded with a great variety of fish, but
of late years it has not been so productive. Off the N.N.E.
Hole the supply of soles, formerly abundant, is now
fluctuating, though still occasionally large; and so on in
the case of nearly every fishing resort mentioned by this
high authority, that fatal past tense is continually recurring.
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
59
CHAPTER VI.
DIMINUTION AND REPRODUCTION.
Others will come, my lord, all sorts of fish.
May.
LIKE almost every other commodity, fish experienced the
effect produced upon commerce by the introduction of
railways, not merely in the increased production of the
staple, but in the relative importance of the different kinds.
Freshwater fishing in modern days has sunk almost into
insignificance in comparison with coast fisheries, hardly
noticed at the commencement of the present century, from
the multiplied facilities for sale and transit; but the increased
activity in regard to our streams and rivers has by no
means been followed by the same gratifying results. For
that the inhabitants of our inland waters have disappeared
with alarming rapidity în proportion as the numbers of
fishermen have grown larger, cannot, unfortunately, be
doubted for a moment. We may or may not give implicit
credence to the venerable story of the apprentices' objection.
to the salmon, though it is strange that no indenture of
the kind has ever been brought to light in spite of the
handsome reward offered for a sight of it; just as we may
or may not altogether believe the parallel case of the little
pauper child who was taken out to Canada, and there ran
away from an excellent situation, for no other reason than
60
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
that her employers persisted in giving hér turkey so fre-
quently for dinner. But whatever our opinion may be upon
the stipulations of the apprentices, there can be no question
whatever that in former days many of our streams abounded
with excellent fish, where few or none are now to be found.
Nor is the evil by any means confined within the limits of
England, or even of the United Kingdom. Switzerland
sends forth a lamentation over her failing resources, so
does Hungary, so does Belgium, so does Norway itself,
the fruitful mother of cataract and fjord. Many causes, no
doubt, combine to produce this disastrous result: the
poisoning of streams by the sewage of towns, and by the
refuse of manufactories, the greediness of fish-eating birds,
surpassing, it would seem, even the voracious rapacity of
fish-selling man, are all elements tending to the destruction
of the aquatic creation. Rigid rules as to close time and
prohibitions as to the discharge of deleterious matter en-
forced by active inspection have done something to arrest
the wholesale waste of the material of food, but preventive
measures alone will not suffice to restore the lost fruitful-
ness to our empty streams. To give back to the rivers the
stock they once possessed and to vivify with fresh abundance
our waste and desecrated waters, is a task requiring much
intelligence, no little capital, and almost infinite patience.
Yet so widely has it been attempted, and so beneficial
are its results when carried on under the conditions neces-
sary for success, that although these breeding-grounds are
rather nurseries for the spawn than actual fisheries, still no
history of the latter can have any pretension to complete-
ness which does not afford some slight indication of the
numerous efforts made in this direction.
P
Pisciculture in its simpler form was without question
commonly practised in ancient times, and the classic writers
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
GI
allude almost as familiarly to the fish ponds of the great as
to the farms of the humbler class of citizen. Attention too
was paid to the diet of the denizens of these ponds, but
rather with a view to heightening the flavour to please the
palate of the rich than to increasing the stock in order that
the poor might have a more abundant and cheaper supply.
Civil wars, however, jointly with foreign invasion, destroyed
all traces of this art in classic lands, so that centuries
elapsed during which little is heard of pisciculture in the
western world. Its revival is due, according to the Baron
de Montgaudry, to Dom Pinchon, a monk of the Abbey of
Reome, in the Côte d'Or, during the fifteenth century. A
very simple apparatus was all that the good father used-
long boxes, wooden at top and bottom, and latticed at the
extremities with osiers, were filled with fine sand as a lining,
and covered at top and bottom with latticework. After
the lapse of nearly three centuries, a second step was taken
by a fisherman of Lippe in the direction of discovering the
artificial propagation of trout, and a series of experiments
was carried on for sixteen years by Jacobi, of Hohenhausen,
the results of which were communicated some time after-
wards by Sir Humphry Davy to our own countrymen.
About 1824 Professors Agassiz and Voght had occasion
to make experiments on a class of the salmonidæ in
Neufchatel, and employed artificial fecundation for obtain-
ing the eggs required. Next came Shaw's experiments at
Edinburgh; and the evidence given at Stormontfield irre-
fragably established the various stages of parr, smoult,
grilse, and salmon. To another fisherman of Bresse, a
village in the Vosges, is due the observation of the causes
leading chiefly to the destruction of the fry to be found in
the consumption of the eggs by other fish, the floods, the
droughts, and the attacks of insects. And from him too
62
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
proceeded the suggestion of pierced tin-boxes for the eggs,
which has proved so highly successful. A word of com-
mendation must be paid also to the remarkable institution
established by the French Government at Huningue in 1863,
for the artificial stocking of rivers and streams throughout
France, which has resulted in restoring many of her waters
to their naturally prolific condition, although the territory
containing the institution itself has passed into other hands.
Sweden, no less than France, had recourse to pisciculture
in order to restore to its waters their exhausted fertility,
and her efforts have been crowned with equal success.
A large establishment has been instituted by the Swedish
Government at Ostan-Beck for the distribution of spat
through the neighbouring localities, and very happy
results attended the labours of Monsieur Widegren;
while the experiments at Estersund have also attained
celebrity.
Norway, once revelling in the wealth supplied by her
streams, has of late years experienced great sterility, but
owing to the efforts of Professor Rasch steps have been
taken toward remedying this terrible calamity. Since 1852
an Inspector of Fisheries has been instituted, and more
than one hundred localities are now furnished with the
means of repairing the loss inflicted by former carelessness
and greed. Salmon has been restored in various parts of
Sweden. Eight lakes, situated in Röraas, have been stocked
with Salmo-Fario, and kindred sorts. Three lakes in the
same neighbourhood have received similar advantages, as
has also the large lake of Stort Jernet, near Sjovold, and
others in the neighbourhood of Sondrevik, Hitterdaal, and
Folgen.
I
Almost the same experience has happened to the
Russian Empire, which since 1854 possesses at Nikolks, in
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
63
<
the principality of Novgorod, an establishment of pisci-
culture, founded by M. Vrasski, whose efforts, though
unattended at first with success, have since produced the
very best results. The locality chosen by M. Vrasski is
admirably adapted for the purpose on account of the
abundance and the purity of the water, and the establish-
ment being located at the point of separation between the
basins of the Volga and the Ladoga, is especially suited to
the purposes of acclimatisation. From half a dozen other
countries of Europe the same story reaches our ears. Bel-
gium and Hungary, Germany and Switzerland, all tell the
selfsame tale of anxious effort to repair exhaustion caused
by wanton carelessness; and in the last-mentioned of the
countries, at Meilen, near Zurich, 200,000 trout are annually
produced to repair the ravages of former years. The new
country too is in the same category with the old, and in the
United States, to quote a single example, the Commissioner,
Mr. Atkins, states that the "passage of fish was interrupted
by building impassable dams for manufacturing purposes on
the Kennebec and Penobscot, in 1837. On the Kennebec
the first fall is 17 feet at the head of the tide-waters."
These two rivers of 500 miles had previously produced
180,000 salmon, and are now reduced to a catch of 2100
annually. Two other rivers, the Androscoggin and Saeo, of
320 miles in length, which had previously produced 50,000
salmon annually, now produce only 2000. "Most of the
rivers in the State are in the same condition as the Ken-
nebec." The three rivers that previously produced 230,000
fish are 580 miles in length, and now produce only 4100
annually. We may fairly estimate the loss of 225,900
salmon, of average weight, 9 lbs., or upwards of fifty
thousand pounds, at only 6d. per lb. value, as the annual
loss of valuable nutritious food paid for the erection of a
64
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
few mill-weirs for water-power upon the three rivers. Thus,
from every quarter rises up a chorus of testimony to the
national injury and loss inflicted by neglecting the care of
our Fisheries. It may be that we have yet to learn the still
higher penalty attaching to the neglect of the interests of
our Fishermen.
+
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
65
CHAPTER VII.
A GLANCE AT FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
Winged ships... and thousand fishers.
Spencer.
FRANCE with her coast-line of 1500 miles and her traditions
of adventure, naturally claims to be one of the first rank in
all matters relating to maritime affairs, and has held no less
than three special exhibitions at Boulogne, at Arcachon,
and at Dieppe, with a view to promoting her interests in
this direction. Out of 90,000 sailors constituting her fine
navy, not less than 65,000 are fishermen, a proportion well
illustrating the expression, so often recurring in our own
annals, to the effect that the fisheries are the nurseries for
seamen. Whaling is the principal occupation of the major
portion of this fleet, and a very remunerative employment
it is. Establishments for the manufacture of fish products
are found in France, as in Norway and Newfoundland: and
yield excellent returns. The seas about Iceland and the
rich banks of Newfoundland attract another large section of
French vessels. In 1866, no less than 448 ships with 10,000
to 12,000 men on board, a formidable squadron of the naval
nursery, left the shores of France for the cod fishing in the
north-west Atlantic; the wages of the men varying from
£3 12s. to £4 a month. The presence of the French in
F
66
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
these parts is connected with many associations of our own
history, and one can the better understand the miserable
antipathy between the two nations, now happily almost for-
gotten, when we find them fighting tooth and nail over such
easily comprehensible matters as the pounds, shillings, and
pence, derived from the fisheries. Some one has, or ought
to have, already observed that war never yet broke out which
had not for its real intention a change in the ownership of
territory; but most persons would be surprised at the number
of Treaties in which the right of fishing claims the dignity
of especial mention. Nearer home the capture of herrings
employs some 4000 or 5000 Frenchmen from July to
November, but the method of carrying is hardly so suc-
cessful as that of Holland, and the fish suffer much in con-
sequence of the want of wells in the boats. In the earlier
part of the year, or rather during the spring, mackerel are
obtained on the northern, western, and southern coasts; and
what are popularly supposed to be sardines on a holiday
excursion from their home in the Mediterranean, make
their appearance in the fashionable month of May. At
Dieppe there is a school for giving instruction in the
mending of nets, two of which differ in their action from
those hitherto described, the carelet being a net for upward,
and the epervier for downward capture.
Norway, dotted with its innumerable islands and indented
by fjords stretching far inland among the mountains, is the
very home for cod and such like fish. From 20 to 25
millions are taken every year off the Lofoten district
alone. Herrings are very capricious in their visits to the
coast, or at least their movements are subject to laws not yet
discovered. From 1650 to 1699 they stayed away altogether,
and again from 1784 to 1808, both from the Norwegian and
the Swedish coasts; a subject now receiving illustration from
}
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
67
the labours of Professor Sars. Their favourite resort in
Norway during the seasons of their advent is Bergen, the
capital of the south-western district, at no great distance
from the beautiful Hardanger Fjord. The herrings, however,
when they arrive make up for their absence by the magni-
tude of their shoals, giving employment to some 6000 boats
and 30,000 men. Oysters are found in abundance in the
Christiana Fjord; and, as many an English tourist well
knows, salmon frequent the rivers and rushing streams,
though even their saltatory powers are not equal to such
leaps as the Riukan or Voring Voss would require.
In the mackerel fishery, according to the report of M. Her-
mann Baars, Special Commissioner of Norwegian Fisheries
and Navigation, each boat produces from about 1000 to
3000 each night, but by the barrage nets the fishermen
sometimes catch 10,000 to 20,000 in a single haul. This
fishery has been so much developed the last few years,
that it now counts about 2500 boats, which have caught
from 30 to 35,000,000 of fish during a season. This
immense abundance is preserved in ice and sent to England;
and the roe of the mackerel consumed in Norway, as well
as the cod roe, are sent to France as bait for sardines.
Lobsters are of great importance in the northern districts.
of Norway. They not only supply highly-prized food for
the population, but also an export of commerce amounting
to not less than from 700,000 to 800,000 francs a year in
addition to crab fish. Oysters are distributed all along the
coast from Namsen Fjord to Christiana Fjord. Banks of
large extent supply the wants of the country; but through
ignorance or negligence many have been destroyed or ex-
hausted. Men are beginning, however, better to understand
their value. Existing banks are treated with much more
care; oyster culture is becoming more general; and there
F 2
68
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
is every reason to believe that it will become one of the
most important products of the country.
From time out of mind, or at all events from the close
of the ninth century, Sweden has been renowned for its.
fisheries and fishermen. A little more than a thousand
years before Professor Nordenskjold commenced his suc-
cessful voyage, Flosco, a native of that country, set forth
for Iceland, or Snowland as it was then called, discovered
a few years previously by a roving pirate. During the
middle ages there are various allusions to Swedish fisheries,
and in 1555 Olaus Magnus published his book entitled,
'Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' to which we have
already referred. In more modern times Cederstrom's
treatise which appeared in 1857, and Christoffel's work,
published in 1829, may be mentioned as giving informa-
tion. From the situation of the country and the formation
of the coast, indented in every part with innumerable bays
and fjords, Sweden offers a natural resort for fish of almost
every description frequenting the Northern Waters, except,
perhaps, the whale; and her splendid rivers provide a home
for many of the principal kinds of those inhabiting fresh
water. Sea-fowl in great numbers are found on the Baltic
and the coasts of Bothnia; but though their presence is
doubtless prejudicial to the development of the spawn, it
does not perceptibly affect the vast abundance of supply.
Turbot and cod, salmon and mackerel, ling, herrings, lobsters,
oysters, and crabs, all find their way from the ocean to the
Swedish shores, while the rivers are full of perch, pike, roach,
char, salmon, grayling, bleak and eels. No less than sixty
kinds of fish are said to be sold in the market of Gothen-
burg; but this estimate includes different kinds of the
same fish. Stroemming, about the size of a sprat, visit
the eastern coasts of Sweden, especially of the province of
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
69
Bohus during certain parts of the year. Herrings, which,
with salmon, form the staple of the fisheries, are found
chiefly on the western coasts north of Gothenburg off the
ports of Uddevallen and Stronstad in the winter months.
Here also the visits of herrings are subject to considerable
fluctuation, and in connection with this subject M. von
Yhlen, Inspector of Swedish Fisheries, has carried out
some interesting investigations, based on the theory that
the occurrence is dependent on a natural law; the shoals
of anchovies taking precedence, the smaller shoals of
herrings following them, the larger bringing up the rear;
and the return of fish in large numbers indicating the
advent of another fruitful period of seventy years. Lastly,
it may be mentioned that Sweden is not wholly at
liberty to dispose of her fisheries as she may see good,
at least in one particular direction. By the treaty of
1855, signed at Stockholm between Great Britain, France,
and Sweden and Norway, the latter kingdom bound itself
not to cede or exchange any rights of fishery or pasturage
with Russia, and to make known to the two former
monarchies any proposals to that effect which Russia might
put forward; and on the other part Great Britain and
France guaranteed to defend Sweden and Norway in the
cvent of insistance on the part of Russia. It may be
questioned whether this peculiar relic of the Crimean War
is not liable to create the very complications it was
originally intended to prevent.
In the Russian Empire the fishing is chiefly conducted
upon the five great Inland Seas, or Salt Lakes-the Caspian,
the Azov, the Baltic, the Black and the White Seas. The
navaga frequents the Gulf of Onega and the mouth of the
Petchina, while the chimaia prefers the Sea of Azov and
the Caspian. Fish being the only food allowed on fast-
70
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
create an
days, of which the Russian Calendar contains an exceed-
ingly large number, the demand is very great, the men
being hired for the season, and bringing their produce to
the vataga, or central establishment. Throughout the Oural
districts a guardian is appointed over each yatove or deep
basin; and the most stringent precautions are taken to
prevent the fishes from being disturbed, even fires being pro-
hibited at certain periods. In the fresh and brackish lakes
of the Caspian, says Count Danilewsky, President of the
Russian Commission, everything unites to create
abundance of fish: the quantity of organic matter and
the great growth of vegetable life producing insects and
infusoria on which the fish are nourished. Both seas are
extremely shallow, the Caspian having a depth only of
50 feet, and that of Azov, 6 feet less, whereby a great fertility
in plants and animal food is obtained for the inhabitants
of the waters. The mouths of rivers, too, separate into
many small streams before leaving the lakes, thereby
affording convenient spawning-grounds where the young
may be well fed and protected from their enemies. There
are four species of sturgeons, better known under their
commercial name of red fish. Again, certain sorts are used
in the manufactories for oil, and other products, viz. the
sandre, two kinds of herrings, breme, tarane, and smelts,
valued at 175,000l. Cod, carp, salmon, and white salmon,
may be estimated at 87,500l. Salmon is found in the
North Sea and the rivers; white salmon in the Volga,
the Dwina, and the Petchora in very large quantities; and
lastly, navaga is found in the White Sea, in the Gulf of
Onega, in the Dwina, in the Mezene, and near the mouth
of the Petchora.
Turning from Russia and crossing the Atlantic Ocean we
arrive at an island the fisheries of which have been the scene
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
71
of what is probably the most extraordinary political history
recorded of any country whatsoever. About the year 1497
John and Sebastian Cabot set sail from Bristol with a small
equipment of five ships and 300 men, furnished by the
financialist monarch Henry VII., who had just discovered the
penny wisdom and pound foolishness involved in ignoring
the dreams of Columbus. On the 6th of June, according to
some accounts, they sighted the island now called New-
foundland, destined from that time to be considered, as a
public writer recently observed, in the light of a ship moored
in the Atlantic for the benefit of British fishermen; though
the country was not formally annexed to the Crown of
England till Sir G. Peacham took possession in the name of
Elizabeth in 1583. This was a proceeding which to men of
the present day bears no slight resemblance to an act of
unblushing impudence, inasmuch as the French numbered
150 vessels in those parts, the Spanish 120, the Portuguese
about one-third of the former number, and the English not
so many as the Portuguese. But overweening scrupulosity
was not the most marked characteristic of the worthies of
Bideford and Barnstaple, and Bristol, who composed the
crews of that famous Elizabethan era. To Sir G. Peacham
succeeded Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with the illustrious
Walter Raleigh as second in command; but that halcyon
period soon came to an end, and then commenced what
may fairly be pronounced to be the most outrageous poli-
tical experiment ever tried upon a body of helpless colonists.
By a decree of the Star Chamber the immediate govern-
ment of the island was placed in the hands of an individual
dignified with the title of Admiral; and that officer obtained
his post neither by nomination of the Crown nor by election
of the colonists, nor by any other process known to civilised
law, but simply by being the skipper of the vessel which
arrived at Newfoundland the first of the season. This
72
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
extraordinary system of happy-go-lucky administration,.
founded apparently upon the principle of "first come first
served," gave rise as might be expected to endless struggles
between the fishermen and the regular settlers, whose inte-
rests were sacrificed upon every occasion. To such an
extent did the Government carry out the policy of discoun-
tenancing settlement-a policy absolutely unintelligible to
modern minds-in order to favour the supposed interest of
the fisheries, that no one was allowed to cut wood for firing
within six miles of the port. Nay, one of the most promi-
nent merchants connected with the fish trade in Newfound-
land, Sir Josiah Child, went so far as to advocate the
entire displanting of the inhabitants of the colony on
the ground that, since the growth of the colony, the vessels
engaged with cod had declined by more than one-half in a
lapse of less than seventy years, and orders were actually
issued to put this monstrous decree into execution. After
the treaty of Ryswick confusion was rendered worse
confounded by the addition of two fresh officials, styled
respectively Rear and Vice-Admiral, in the shape of the
skippers of the second and third ships arriving for the
annual sojourn ; and the affairs of the colonists continued in
the utmost depression until in 1728 Captain H. Osborne
and Lord Vere Beauclerc restored some sort of order and
justice by restraining the autocracy of those ignorant and
incompetent despots. Several years later Labrador was
placed under the same jurisdiction, and the whole colony
was raised to a Crown plantation. Of late the rights of the
permanent inhabitants have been suffered to develop them-
selves with greater freedom from restraint; but traces of the
old restrictive policy are still to be seen in the uncultivated
condition of the rich lands lying almost unknown in the
heart of the island.
Passing over to the American coast we arrive at another
!
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
73
scene of British adventure and another locality teeming
with associations for the student of history in later times.
More than two hundred and fifty years ago Massachusetts
had already twenty sail engaged in this occupation, and a
century and a half later the fishermen of North America
left no inconsiderable record in the military annals of that
country. At Louisberg they took a fortress defended by
250 cannon; and in the course of two years of the Revolu-
tionary War they captured 733 ships together with property
amounting in value to twenty-five million dollars. The
records of Marblehead in particular serve as a comment
on Gray's well-known line upon the path of glory. In
1772 the voters of that town numbered 1203, in eight
years afterwards only 544 were left of them. Nor were
the succeeding generation unworthy of their fathers, and
the offspring of those fishermen who had perished for the
independence of their country manned the frigates of 1812.
Immutable, immemorial China, on the far western coast
of the Pacific, with its highly developed industries and long
descended customs, the land from which many a product,
both of nature and of art, has found its way to western
countries, forms an appropriate connection between ancient
and modern times. Amongst other occupations fishing
received its full measure of attention, and the various forms
under which it is practised are far too numerous to be here
described, though a few of the principal must be noticed.
Rather more than a century and a half ago, the encyclo-
pædia, Koo Kin Too Shoo Tseih Ch'ing, in one thousand
volumes, was drawn up by Imperial authority, and two
articles on fishing are contained in it under the section Shuh
Teen. A few plates are to be found in connection with the
74
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
article; but most students will probably prefer to consult
the French work of M. Dabry de Thiersant, whose abundant
illustrations are only equalled in interest by the excellence
of the invaluable information conveyed in his text. There
are many sorts, both of lines, nets, and modes of capture.
The Kuen Keon is a line two or three hundred feet in
length, with several branches. It is made of hemp, and is
soaked in a strong decoction of oak-bark (ko-chou), or else
in the blood of a pig. Pe-Chen-Keon, a line of a somewhat
similar character, differs from the Kuen Keon in having its
hooks rather smaller, and being suitable for the lesser kinds
of fish, more especially eels. Amongst the snares may be
noticed the Pan-ta-tseng, a large net in the form of a square,
having in its centre a pocket with a bamboo box for the
reception of the captives. Four pieces of bamboo, fitted to
the corners of the net, meet at the top, and are fixed to the
extremity of a lever about ten or twelve feet long, itself
reposing upon a strong bamboo which forms the fulcrum of
another lever resembling the first, and intended to keep it
in equilibrium. This second lever is furnished with leads
to counter-balance the weight of the nets, and the
machinery is so devised that these heavy nets can be
manipulated by the slightest touch. Cormorants are
another famous means applied by this ingenious people
to the capture of fish, the bird being trained to release his
prey at the touch of the rope encircling his neck, with as
great certainty as hawks are taught to obey the call of the
keeper or the retriever to secure the game. Domestic affairs
are conducted with the same strict attention to economy, and
consequently attain the same astonishing results among the
fishermen as among all other classes of inhabitants through-
out the celestial Empire. Although the whole annual family
expenses do not average more than about £24, or a little
1
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
75
over 10s. a week, that is to say, the wages of an English
agricultural labourer, out of which the head of the family
has to make provision for medicine, and to procure what
we should consider luxuries, such as tobacco, and a kind
of oil (mien-tse-yeou) for the preparation of food, yet he can
repair his net, set apart something for religious purposes,
and spend an appreciable portion of his income upon three
annual festivals.
Opposite the Chinese coast stands another mighty
empire, in which the fisheries form an element of almost
incalculable importance. Somewhere about thirty-five
millions is considered to be the number of fish consumers
in Japan, and the persons employed in that trade amount
to 70,000 in Nagasaki alone. Salmon in particular gives a
constant dish to their dinner-tables. Triangular nets are
used for its capture, and the take is said to be sometimes
10,000 at a time. With their quaint love of symbolism, the
Japanese use this fish to inculcate morality upon their
children. When a boy is born, the parents place over the
house a paper salmon, made with round head and open
mouth, so that the wind blowing in at the aperture expands
the entire body. When the feast celebrating the birth of
the child is over, the fish is taken and preserved among the
household gods. The boy is bidden to imitate the perse-
verance of the salmon, which never ceases to make its way
upwards until it has attained the position it desires.
76
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
h
CHAPTER VIII.
A PRACTICAL CONCLUSION.
Fare you well.
The fool shall now fish for himself.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κάκων, πλείη δὲ θάλασσα.
Full is the earth of sorrows; full the sea.
Hesiod.
YARMOUTH, where, as tradition asserts, the first herrings
were caught in the fifth century of the Christian era, is still
one of the principal centres of British fisheries; and fish in
many forms, but more particularly in that of the herring,
forms the staple, not to say the totality of its commerce.
Throughout the eastern counties a peculiar measurement
prevails. Four herrings go to a warp, and thirty-three
warps, or 132 fishes, are reckoned as a hundred, the buyer
getting the benefit of the odd thirty-two; a method of
calculation especially to be recommended to the notice.
of publishers, with whom the reckoning of thirteen to the
dozen goes rather the other way. Perhaps the computation
may have originated in a custom still prevalent in some
parts of the kingdom, of permitting the fishermen to carry
away a certain number of handfuls. A hundred of these
"hundreds" make up a "last," each of which therefore
contains not 10,000, but 13,200 herrings. When the
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
77
weather is fine the smacks enter the haven to discharge
their contents; but as the bar becomes dangerous if the
wind be at all strong, ferry boats are then employed, and
the cargo is conveyed in baskets called "swills," containing
about 500 fish apiece. The baskets are carried high up on
shore and placed in ranks two deep. A lively scene
prevails during the sale, and a good deal of fluctuation is
found in the returns. In 1869, for instance, the number of
lasts was about 13,500; then it rose rapidly to more than
19,000; then, within four years, it sank to 12,000, and then
again it commenced to rise. By the latest returns of the
Board of Trade, it appears that the total number of lasts
of all kinds of fish was 32,696, a very satisfactory increase
when compared with the 31,238 of the previous year.
The work of the crew on board a trawler is distinctively
assigned to each hand, each man being supposed to be
capable of performing the duties of all those below him.
It is the boy's part to cook, to coil the warp, and to steer
during mealtimes, unless the weather be particularly
rough. Steering and keeping watch form the business of
the sixth hand; mending the nets is the additional duty of
the fifth, and shooting the nets of the fourth; while the
third hand must be able to work the net at all seasons;
and the second must be able to determine the position at
sea and take charge of the vessel. In addition to these
matters, a more important and peculiar knowledge, that of
the fishing-grounds, is required for the master, and this can
only be gained by experience from season to season.
On the eastern coast, and more particularly in the York-
shire parts, a good deal of difficulty has lately prevailed with
reference to the relations between the smack-owners and the
boys. To investigate these matters another Commission was
appointed during last year, with the special object of enquir-
#
78
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
ing into the habits of fishermen ashore and at sea, conse-
quent upon the terrible fate which befel poor Henry Papper.
From the evidence then collected out of the mouths of all
classes of persons connected with the trade-skippers and
smackowners, solicitors and salesmen, managers of societies
for the protection of fishermen and of associations of pro-
prietors, casuals and apprentices, aldermen and police
inspectors-it appears that a very considerable difficulty
exists in determining the status and providing for the
wants of the younger members of the crew. The system
of apprenticeship, by which the masters were bound to
provide food and lodging for the boys ashore as well as
afloat, is rapidly falling into decay, and in one of our
ports the number is less than one-twelfth of what it was
two years ago. Great disorders prevail in consequence
among the fisher-lads, many of whom live habitually in
disreputable houses while ashore, so long as their money
lasts. Very serious damage also is caused to the interests
of the owners by the habitual desertions of the casual
hands, the absence of one member of the crew being suffi-
cient to detain the vessel sometimes for two or three days,
thereby causing a loss amounting perhaps to some hundreds
of pounds. Violent remedies are employed to obviate this
desperate state of affairs, and in one town, which it is not
necessary here to specify, literally 20 per cent. of the whole
body of apprentices were imprisoned for desertion in the
course of less than three years. Such a result, it is clear,
inevitably tends to defeat its own purpose, inasmuch as
disgrace, the chief element in that kind of punishment,
must almost disappear when one person out of every five is
subjected to it, much as in certain public schools of a
former generation, the boy who had not been flogged was
hardly considered to have obtained a respectable footing
S
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
79
among his fellows. Still it is far casier to make objections.
than to suggest any other process which shall secure to the
owners their unquestionable rights. Much carelessness, too,
in regard to the lives of those employed in this dangerous
occupation, is not unfrequently found even among such as
believe themselves to be perfectly blameless on this point.
Thus one witness, having affirmed with evident sincerity that
smackowners treated apprentices as if they were their own
children, went on almost in the same breath to describe the
danger attached to the simple process of drawing water in
a bucket from the sea while the vessel is in motion, because
of the sudden and unexpected strain of the current on the
novice's hands; and observed that the youngsters have not.
got their sea-legs, and soon tip overboard. Another
witness again, himself a fisherman, objected strongly to
being obliged to give a report on his return to shore of any
death which might have occurred on board during the trip
because he wanted the time to land his fish. Not that this
indifference is universal, or even, perhaps, very general, any
more than such terrible cruelty as was practised on board
the Rising Sun. Yet when we learn from the lips of a
competent witness, himself largely representing the special
interests of the proprietors, that a skipper dismissed for
cruelty would probably be engaged by someone else on the
following day, it is impossible to conceive that any great
amount of solicitude is habitually given to the welfare of
these helpless lads.
To enter upon any lengthy discussion of the relative
merits of the parties to this question, and, in particular, to
form any judgment upon the action of particular associa-
tions or individuals, would be to go outside the province
of a history; but none the less should we fall short of the
design both of this present volume and of the whole vast
80
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
undertaking of which it is an infinitesimal portion, if we
omitted to draw attention both to the facts themselves.
and yet more particularly to the remedies which, as a
matter of history, the Commissioners proposed. For enquiry
is good, discussion is excellent, illustration is admirable, but
the only fruitful and satisfying result of history is improve-
ment in administrative action.
The proposals adopted by the Commissioners were
simple, and likely to be effectual. They consisted princi-
pally in the recommendation of four important measures:
the issuing of a certificate for captains after passing an easy
kind of examination specially adapted for their require-
ments; the imposition of an obligation to keep a rough
kind of log; the compulsory requirement of a declaration
as to any death which may have occurred during the trip;
and the endowment of the officer of the Board of Trade
with parental authority in the interests of the apprentices.
The first and last of these suggestions, when taken together,
seem especially suited to effect their purpose, since they
create an authority sufficient to deal with the master of a
ship, and an easy means by which that authority may be
exercised.
But the space we have measured grows immense, and
the time approaches to loose the neck of our smoking
steeds. Yet one more flight awaits us, for there is still
one kind of fishery-or shall we say a dozen kinds-of
which we have made no mention. Down from the
heights of the Olympus where the Commissioners sit
enthroned in Whitehall Gardens, let us dive at a plunge,
like Thetis of the gleaming foot, swift as the flash of
thought into the azure depths of the Sicilian sea. A
thousand forms of strange beauty are around us; a million
insects are at work, building up, as they have done through
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
81
uncounted ages, grottoes and stony ferns, and pinnacles, of
which each component atom is a gem, and fantastic forms
of every hue surpassing the pen of man to describe and
almost the heart to conceive; which, like the walls of Thebes
beneath the lyre of Amphion, rise up in a silence unbroken
save by the music of the southern wave. We are amid
the coral groves, that marvellous aggregation of living
animals, so subtly constructed to deceive the sight that
none dreamed of the pulses of animal life beating beneath
the tree-like rock until the ill-rewarded labours of Peys-
sonnel revealed to an unappreciative world the true nature
of coral, "the daughter of the sea." Surely in so retired a
spot, and amid such lovely scenes as these, some respite
may be found for the denizens of the waters. Not at all.
Not even the repose of coral groves can hope to escape the
disturbance of the never-resting industry of man.
As we
gaze upwards through the translucent wave a huge, strange
combination of wood and iron descends, shaped in the form
of a cross, with two bars strongly lashed and bolted to-
gether, and seven lines attached to it. An immense stonc
directs its course towards the bottom, and the gentle motion
of the vessel drags it against the rocks and with a series
of jerks bears off the coral to be the ornament of some
bride or matron.
Enough. We have looked over many lands, down into the
depths of many an ocean. We have seen our brave toiler
of the sea struggling everywhere, and taken note of the
riches he reaps for the benefit of others. Is there no other
side to the question? Is there no sight which tells of his
own condition, and are there no memorials which we may
finally carry away in our minds as illustrative of the lot of
the fisherman? Alas, such a picture exists; and sad as
is the contrast between the tales of national wealth and
G
82
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN
ASSEN, traden Valley
the personal sufferings of those by whose labour that wealth
is gained, there is nothing we can more profitably impress
upon the imagination as a farewell picture. At Hibernia
Chambers, London Bridge, close by historic Billingsgate,
whither for a thousand years the fish of every sca have made
their way, stand the offices of the Society brought into exist-
ence for the relief of shipwrecked mariners and fishermen.
That admirable Institution, established now for more than
forty years out of the thousand, and supported by the sub-
scriptions of fifty thousand fishermen and mariners, has four
objects in view; to board, lodge, clothe, and generally assist
all wrecked seamen or other poor persons of all nations, cast
destitute upon the coasts; to help seamen, whether of the
Royal Navy or Merchant Service, fishermen, coast-guards-
men, pilots, boatmen and apprentices, subscribers to the
Society, towards replacing their clothes and boats when lost
by storms or other accidents at sea, and to relieve their widows
and orphans, or dependent aged parents; to award gold
and silver medals, and other honorary or pecuniary rewards,
for any praiseworthy endeavours to save life from shipwreck
on the high seas, or coasts of the colonies; and to give
small gratuities to its old and necessitous members in
extreme and special cases. Already more than three
hundred thousand persons, including not only mariners,
fishermen, pilots and boatmen, but, alas, what is yet more
urgently required, the widows, orphans, and aged parents
of those whom the sea has claimed, have experienced its
benefit in their hour of need. How deep that need must
be, may soon be seen from a brief inspection either of
that most melancholy of documents, the Annual Wreck
Chart published by the Board of Trade, or of the cqually
significant statistics-oftentimes the blank and passionless
records of the most passionate and personal sorrows-
OF ALL COUNTRIES.
83
that during the single year 1880, 4804 fishermen and
scamen, and 8330 of their bereaved and helpless de-
pendents, received the assistance of this society; or by a
glance at that simple and stern account of the ratio
between the number of tons of fish obtained, and the
number of fishermen's lives destroyed, which is given
upon the map of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. No
words can be more forcible, or more appropriate for the
conclusion of a work which deals with the history of our
fishermen, than those in which the Committee put forward
their earnest appeal to the public. "They cannot but urge,'
they say, "that the dangers and the hardships of our brave
sailors—the men that is, to whom, under God, England owes
her proud pre-eminence as Mistress of the Seas amidst the
Nations of the World-have a peculiar and irresistible
claim upon the hearts and the sympathies of a maritime
people. It is impossible, the Committee feel, for those not
themselves involved in the frightful disaster, fully to realise
all the horror and woe attendant on sudden shipwreck-
men, women, and children, only saved, if saved at all, from
the terror and dismay of impending death, to be cast naked,
exhausted, and perhaps grievously injured, ashore; even
then, it may be, still to suffer or perish in utter friendless-
ness, but for the outstretched hand and the speedy relief,
ready on the spot, through the watchful agency of this
Society." Surely each object of such a society as this must
go straight to the heart of a great maritime nation which
claims the wide ocean for her home and calls her fisheries
by the endearing title of nurseries.
And now, patient reader, having fairly sent round the
plate, it is high time to say farewell. Together we have
experienced the hardest test which can befal a friendship.
All the world admits-and here at least experience con-
""
-
G 2
S4
FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN.
¿
firms the verdict of all the world—that nothing so greatly
tries and tires sympathy as fellowship in a long and
indefinite journey. Even those heaven-born twins of
travel-the Pylades and Orestes of tourists to the youth of al
former generation-Lumley Ferrers and Ernest Maltravers,
found a few years of desultory wandering almost too much
for their mutual forbearance. Their parting was a mixture
of fire and of ice. "Is this fair to me?" cries Lumley, for
once angry in reality. 'Trouble me no more," replies the
haughty Ernest, as his late companion in not unnatural
dudgeon turns to leave the room. Let us hope that no such
stormy ending may attend the conversational stroll which
we have taken together through some ten or twenty
thousands of miles and over a range of two or three dozen
of centuries
(C
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND Sons, Limited,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING Cross.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
"
ZENOBIA;
OR,
THE FALL OF PALMYRA.
A Tragedy in Three Acts.
"SOME weeks ago, Mr. J. M. Bellew introduced to the public a new tragedy, by
Mr. W. MARSHAM ADAMS, late Fellow of New College, Oxford, entitled, 'Zenobia;
or, The Fall of Palmyra.' We have had the pleasure of reading this tragedy, and can
speak favourably of it. It is a scholar-like work, full of passages of great vigour and
beauty, and sparkling throughout with perfect gems of poesy. A singular unity
pervades it. The plot of Paul, detailed in the second act, is carefully prepared in the
first, and recoils with tremendous force upon his own head in the last. Each character
is distinct, though each displays a wide range of passions. The dignified Longinus,
the petulant Mæonius, the passionate Zenobia, the despairing Paul, an outcast from
both worlds,' the generous but fanatical Heliodorus, preserve their identity through
every phase of varying emotion. The incidents are entirely the product of the passions
of the characters; and the result is, that the interest continues unflagging down to the
very
fall of the curtain. 'Zenobia' is a specimen of the legitimate drama, admirably
conceived and skilfully executed."-Once a Week.
'For many centuries the famous treatise 'On the Sublime' was attributed to
Longinus, the rhetorician. His authorship has since been called into question, like
many others, by the school of high criticism; but it will in all probability still remain
connected with his name. The biographical dictionaries state that his great reputation
caused him to be summoned from Athens to Palmyra by Queen Zenobia, that he
became her chief counsellor, and that he was put to death in A. D. 273 by order of the
Emperor Aurelian, as having instigated her futile war against the Romans. With
regard to Zenobia herself, we are told by the same convenient authorities that she was
Queen of Palmyra, and had the credit of having brought about the death of her second
husband, Odenathus; that she proclaimed herself Monarch of the East, and declared
war against the Romans; but that she was conquered and taken prisoner, and carried
off to grace the triumph of Aurelian in the Eternal City, where she afterwards lived
and died in obscurity.
K
"Such are the chief fragments of history on which Mr. MARSHAM ADAMS appears to
have built up his new tragedy. In a prefatory note he warns the reader, that although
some of the principal personages of the play are historical, the incidents are to a great
extent fictitious.' The creatures of the poet's imagination are the following persons :-
A foundling whom King Denathus (or Odenathus) has adopted under the name of
Mæonius; a priest of the Sun, one Heliodorus, compelled by Longinus to conform
outwardly to Christianity; and Viola, a daughter of Longinus. In the opening scene
Heliodorus is discovered in grief near the ruins of the temple of Apollo, or the Sun, at
Palmyra. To him, after a brief and striking soliloquy, enters Paulus, an apostate
bishop, who had once been ambassador at the court of King Denathus, but who had
been absent from Palmyra for seventeen years at the opening of the drama.
The two
old friends renew their acquaintance, and unite in expressions of hatred towards
Longinus and his Christianity. Heliodorus introduces Paulus to the young foundling
Mæonius, whose gratitude for his princely rank as the king's adopted son is not strong
enough to conceal his dislike of the old monarch's frequent reprimands, and his
rancorous impatience at the prosy tutorship of Longinus. These hot feelings are
easily ripened into absolute detestation of the two oppressors, as he thinks them, of his
youth, and he readily accepts a small packet of poisons which Paulus offers him as
a convenient cure for the tiresomeness of an enemy. After Mæonius has refused to
attend the summons of a messenger to the king's presence, Longinus comes on the
same errand, and is accused by the young prince of being the lover of Zenobia. The
despised messenger returns with an order from Denathus to depose Mæonius forthwith
from his exalted station, and to cast him out as a mere foundling, without a father, or
family, or position. Stray expressions which fall in an aside from the lips of Paulus
allow the reader to divine that this apostate bishop has once been a lover of Zenobia.
Altogether, this first scene brings the characters, and their mutual position, well before
the mind, and, independently of its great poetic merit, inspires that interest in future
events which is one great element of dramatic success. It leaves also a due amount of
mystery and unexplained embarrassment around the chief personages, which is not
* Mæonius is a historical character. He was the nephew and assassin of the King Odenathus
(
2
cleared up until the tragic close of the play. The miserable Paulus had really in his
youth been the lover of Zenobia, and Mæonius was the illicit offspring of their attach-
ment. To free herself from the persecution of an unworthy seducer, Zenobia had
confessed her guilt to Denathus, and by his advice had made Paulus suppose that their
infant child was dead, while in fact Denathus generously adopted it, under the name of
Mæonius, as his own heir. Ignorant of the circumstances of his birth and education,
the supposed foundling is brought up in an equivocal position, and without any of the
ties which spring from recognised natural affection. Zenobia is anxious to conceal
from every eye, even from Mæonius himself, her maternal love. Denathus is conscious
of his heroic generosity towards the son of a wicked rival, and expects from Mæonius
a constant gratitude and submission, which the youth knows no true reason for
according him. To render the complication still more complete, Zenobia and Longinus
have really fallen in love with each other, and are only restrained by their Christian
piety from avowing a mutual passion, which their words and looks unconsciously betray
to the courtiers and servants around them, The heart of Mæonius is divided between
impatience and anger against Longinus and love for Viola, the fair daughter of the
learned man. The ruined and disgraced Paulus, abhorring Christianity and Christians
with all the concentrated fury of a traitor and an apostate, becomes the evil genius of
Palmyra.
"The dénouement is brought about by the sudden love which the unchanging beauty
of Zenobia excites in the breast of the victorious Aurelian. But we must in fairness
leave our readers to discover from the work of the poet himself the masterly details of
this tragedy and its end. It is marked throughout, but especially in the last act, by
passages of singular beauty and power; and while the framework of the drama reminds
us frequently of 'Hamlet,' the diction and imagery are those of a true poet, who might
almost, if he had lived at the same epoch, have been deemed not unworthy to contend
with Shakspeare himself."—Tablet.
With no great faith in current ability to produce a readable tragedy in blank verse,
we confess to taking up 'Zenobia' with some misgivings. We are therefore the more
pleased to speak in its favour, and to regard it as possessing something more than the
negative order of merit, and as being in many respects a superior composition. There
are occasional flashes of eloquence that, if not rivalling Shakspeare, are very Shak-
spearian in their mode, and do the author infinite credit. The following extract will
give our readers an estimate of the literary merit of this work, though it should be read
in its entirety to do it justice :
"" Mæon.
Thou hast spoken well,
But that thy strain demands too high a pitch
For common mortals, and for present need.
"
'Long. Because full liberty not yet hath dawn'd.
Trust me, Mæonius, there shall come a time
When kings shall haste to hear their subjects speak,
Not timid nor compelled, but weighing well
The arguments of all, or high or low :-
High wisdom oft in lowly forms is found :-
When subjects shall confess their monarch's sway,
Equal themselves to monarchs-chief in this
That they may vent the overgathering mind,
Nor dam remonstrance to Rebellion's height;
When the whole people shall the people rule,
And the nice framework be so interknit,
One heart shall beat, one common pulse shall throb.
No head so high, the law may not control
No state so low, the law shall not defend."—Examiner.
star.
"We hope it is Mr. Bellew's intention when in London to read from the works of
comparatively unknown authors, as by so doing he may bring to light some hidden
For instance, in the course of the evening Mr. Bellew gave selections from
a tragedy by Mr. W. MARSHAM ADAMS, called 'Zenobia; or, The Fall of Palmyra.'
Mr. ADAMS is a scholar, and was at one time Fellow of New College, Oxford. His
work is polished, and the versification excellent."—Era.
44
The plot is ingenious and interesting. We have no hesitation in affirming that we
have often seen a poetical drama of fewer merits on the stage."-Athenæum.
"
A drama of great interest."-Morning Post.
1
The attraction of the evening (at Mr. Bellew's reading) was a scene from
Mr. W. MARSHAM ADAMS' new tragedy of Zenobia; or, The Fall of Palmyra."-
Standard.
44 4
''Zenobia' is a real, living work."—European Mail.
"The spirit of Mr. ADAMS' tragedy is highly classical. The Fall of Palmyra is
a fit subject, and it is here spiritedly dealt with by one who has all the scholarly
qualifications, and no inconsiderable dramatic power. There are many passages of
great beauty, and the interest is never permitted to flag."-Westminster Review.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 03366 4312
1


OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS
INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION,
WM. CLOWES & SONS, Limited, 13, Charing Cross, S.W.
(And Sold at their Stalls near each Entrance to the Exhibition.)
OFFICIAL GUIDE BOOKS, &c.
LARGE PLAN and TOUR of the BUILDINGS, 1d.;
post-free 1d.
GUIDE to the EXHIBITION, 3d.; post-free 4d.
PROGRAMME of MUSIC, &c., 2d.; post-free 3d.
OFFICIAL CATALOGUE, Second Edition, 1s.; post-
free 1s. 4d.
OF THE
CHEAP RECIPES for FISH COOKERY. Prepared
by Mrs. CHARLES CLARKE. 3d.; post-free 4d.
}
PUBLISHED BY

THE FISHERIES PORTFOLIO:

TITLE.
I.--Bait Gatherers
Stand
Ten Original Etchings of Scenes on the British Coast.
•
CONTAINING
2.-Running Ashore
3.--A Fisher Girl
4.-Fishing Boats off Hastings
5.--Going for Bait
6. Boat Building on the Yare
7.-Preparing for Sea-Hastings
8.-Ramsgate Harbour
9.---Fisherman's Haven
10.--Stranded-Rye.
•
.
ARTIST.
R. W. MACBETH, A.R.A.
COLIN HUNTER.
J. D. WATSON.
DAVID LAW.
OTTO LEYDE, R.S.A.
C. J. WATTS.
C. P. SLOCOMBE.
J. P. HESELTINE.
J. MACWHIRTER, A.R.A.
WILFRID W. BALL.
Price 15. the complete set.

LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, LIMITED,
ATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION, & 13 CHARING CROSS.

valej v ligija pa
PAPERS OF THE CONFERENCES
Held in connection with the GREAT INTERNATIONAL
FISHERIES EXHIBITION.
NOW READY.
Demy 8vo., in Illustrated Wrapper. Price Sixpence each.
INAUGURAL MEETING: ADDRESS. By Professor HUXLEY, P.R.S.
H.R.H. the PRINCE OF WALES (President of the Commission) in the Chair.
NOTES ON THE SEA FISHERIES AND FISHING POPULATION
OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. By H.R.H THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH, K.G. IS.
THE FISHERY INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. By Pro-
fessor Brown Goode, M.A.
OYSTER CULTURE AND OYSTER FISHERIES IN THE NETHER-
LANDS. By Professor HUBRECHT,
PRINCIPLES OF FISHERY LEGISLATION. By Right Hon. G. SHAW-
LEFEVRE, M.P.
ON THE CULTURE OF SALMONIDAE AND THE ACCLIMA-
TISATION OF FISH. By Sir JAMES Ramsay Gibson Maitlany, Bart.
FISH DISEASES. By Professor HUXLEY, P.R.S.
THE ECONOMIC CONDITION OF FISHERMEN. By Professor LEONE
LEVI.
THE FISHERIES OF CANADA. By L. Z. JONCAS.
PRESERVATION OF FISH LIFE IN RIVERS BY THE EXCLU-
SION OF TOWN SEWAGE. By the Hon. W. F. B. MASSEY MAINWARING.
MOLLUSCS, MUSSELS, WHELKS, &c., USED FOR FOOL OR BAIT.
By (4.125 HARDING.
COARSE FISH CULTURE. By R. B. MARSTON. -
ON THE FOOD OF FISHES. By Dr. F. DAY.
THE HERRING FISHERIES OF SCOTLAND. By R. W. DUFF, M.F.
LINE FISHING. By C. M. MUNDAHL.
FISH TRANSPORT AND FISH MARKETS. By His Excellency SPENCER
TREE CULTURE ON WATER
WALPOLE.
J


FOREST PROTECTION AND
FRONTAGES. By D. HOWITZ, Esq.
SEAL FISHERIES. By Captain TEMPLE.
FISH AS FOOD. By Sir HENRY THOMPSON.
STORM WARNINGS. By R. H. ScoTT.
ON THE DESTRUCTION OF FISH AND OTHER AQUATIC
ANIMALS BY INTERNAL PARASITES. By Professor COBBOLD, F.R.S., F.L.S.
SCIENTIFIC RESULTS OF THE EXHIBITION. By Professor E. RAY
LANKESTER.
A NATIONAL FISHERY SOCIETY FOR GREAT BRITAIN,
C. E. FRYER.
CRUSTACEANS. By T. CORNISH.
TRAWLING.
By ALFRED ANSELL.
THE BASIS FOR LEGISLATION ON FISHERY QUESTIONS. By
Lieut.-Col. F. G. SOLÁ.
MACKEREL AND PILCHARD FISHERIES. By T. CORNISII.
ARTIFICIAL CULTURE OF LOBSTERS. By W. SAVILLE KENT.
IN THE PRESS.
SALMON AND SALMON FISHERIES. BY DAVID MILNE HOME, F.R.S.E.
FRESH-WATER FISHING (other than Salmon). By J. P. WHEELOON.
ON FACILITIES FOR THE IMPROVED CAPTURE AND ECO-
NOMIC TRANSMISSION OF SEA FISHES, AND HOW THESE MATTERS AFFECT
IRISH FISHERIES. By R. F. WALSH, of Kinsale.
THE FISHERIES OF IRELAND. By J. C. BLOOMFIELD.
THE FISHERIES OF OTHER COUNTRIES.
Sweden, Norway, Spain, &c., who took part in the Conference.
LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, LIMITED
INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES EXHIBITION, & 13, CHAR
I
By Commissioners for
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET A
✓