eager search of fish news. And while you are about the matter, just find
me a finer bit of literary style evoking the romance of the vast wastes
of the moving sea, in Stevenson, Defoe, anywhere you please, than such a
news item as this: "Capt. Ezra Pound, of the bark _Elnora_, of Salem,
Mass., spoke a lonely vessel in latitude this and longitude that,
September 8. She proved to be the whaler _Wanderer_, and her captain
said that she had been nine months at sea, that all on board were well,
and that he had stocked so many barrels of whale oil."
As exchange editor was it my business to peruse reports from Eastport,
Maine, to the effect that one of the worst storms in recent years had
destroyed large numbers of the sardine weirs there. To seek fish
recipes, of such savory sound as those for "broiled redsnapper,"
"shrimps bordelaise," and "baked fish croquettes." To follow fishing
conditions in the North Sea occasioned by the Great War. To hunt down
jokes of piscatory humor. "The man who drinks like a fish does not take
kindly to water.--Exchange." To find other "fillers" in the consular
reports and elsewhere: "Fish culture in India," "1800 Miles in a Dory,"
"Chinese Carp for the Philippines," "Americans as Fish Eaters." And, to
use a favorite term of trade papers, "etc., etc." Then to "paste up" the
winnowed fruits of this beguiling research.
As editorial writer, to discuss the report of the commission recently
sent by congress to the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, to report on the
condition of our national herd of fur seals; to discuss the official
interpretation here of the Government ruling on what constitutes
"boneless" codfish; to consider the campaign in Canada to promote there
a more popular consumption of fish, and to brightly remark _à propos_
of this that "a fish a day keeps the doctor away"; to review the current
issue of _The Journal of the Fisheries Society of Japan_, containing
leading articles on "Are Fishing Motor Boats Able to Encourage in Our
Country" and "Fisherman the Late Mr. H. Yamaguchi Well Known"; to combat
the prejudice against dogfish as food, a prejudice like that against
eels, in some quarters eyed askance as "calling cousins with the great
sea-serpent," as Juvenal says; to call attention to the doom of one of
the most picturesque monuments in the story of fish, the passing of the
pleasant and celebrated old Trafalgar Hotel at Greenwich, near London,
scene of the famous Ministerial white-bait dinners of the days of Pitt;
to make a jest on an exciting idea suggested by some medical man that
some of the features of a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, that is, baths, be
introduced into the fo'c's'les of Grand Banks fishing vessels; to keep
an eye on the activities of our Bureau of Fisheries; to hymn a praise to
the monumental new Fish Pier at Boston; to glance at conditions at the
premier fish market of the world, Billingsgate; to herald the fish
display at the Canadian National Exhibition at Toronto, and, indeed,
etc., and again etc.
As general editorial roustabout, to find each week a "leader," a
translation, say, from _In Allgemeine Fishcherei-Zeitung_, or _Economic
Circular No. 10_, "Mussels in the Tributaries of the Missouri," or the
last biennial report of the Superintendent of Fisheries of Wisconsin, or
a scientific paper on "The Porpoise in Captivity" reprinted by
permission of _Zoologica_, of the New York Zoölogical Society. To find
each week for reprint a poem appropriate in sentiment to the feeling of
the paper. One of the "Salt Water Ballads" would do, or John Masefield
singing of "the whale's way," or "Down to the white dipping sails"; or
Rupert Brooke: "And in that heaven of all their wish, There shall be no
more land, say fish"; or a "weather rhyme" about "mackerel skies," when
"you're sure to get a fishing day"; or something from the New York Sun
about "the lobster pots of Maine"; or Oliver Herford, in the Century,
"To a Goldfish"; or, best of all, an old song of fishing ways of other
days.
And to compile from the New York _Journal of Commerce_ better poetry
than any of this, tables, beautiful tables of "imports into New York":
"Oct. 15.--From Bordeaux, 225 cs. cuttlefish bone; Copenhagen, 173 pkgs.
fish; Liverpool, 969 bbls. herrings, 10 walrus hides, 2,000 bags salt;
La Guayra, 6 cs. fish sounds; Belize, 9 bbls. sponges; Rotterdam, 7
pkgs. seaweed, 9,000 kegs herrings; Barcelona, 235 cs. sardines; Bocas
Del Toro, 5 cs. turtle shells; Genoa, 3 boxes corals; Tampico, 2 pkgs.
sponges; Halifax, 1 cs. seal skins, 35 bbls. cod liver oil, 215 cs.
lobsters, 490 bbls. codfish; Akureyri, 4,150 bbls. salted herrings,"
and much more. Beautiful tables of "exports from New York." "To
Australia" (cleared Sep. 1); "to Argentina";--Haiti, Jamaica, Guatemala,
Scotland, Salvador, Santo Domingo, England, and to places many more. And
many other gorgeous tables, too. "Fishing vessels at New York," for one,
listing the "trips" brought into this port by the _Stranger_, the _Sarah
O'Neal_, the _Nourmahal_, a farrago of charming sounds, and a valuable
tale of facts.
As make-up man, of course, so to "dress" the paper that the "markets,"
Oporto, Trinidad, Porto Rico, Demerara, Havana, would be together; that
"Nova Scotia Notes"--"Weather conditions for curing have been more
favorable since October set in"--would follow "Halifax Fish
Market"--"Last week's arrivals were: Oct. 13, schr. _Hattie Loring_, 960
quintals," etc.--that "Pacific Coast Notes"--"The tug _Tatoosh_ will
perform the service for the Seattle salmon packers of towing a vessel
from Seattle to this port via the Panama Canal"--would follow "Canned
Salmon"; that shellfish matter would be in one place; reports of
saltfish where such should be; that the weekly tale of the canned fish
trade politically embraced the canned fish advertising; and so on and so
on.
Finest of all, as reporter, to go where the fish reporter goes. There
the sight-seeing cars never find their way; the hurried commuter has
not his path, nor knows of these things at all; and there that racy
character who, voicing a multitude, declares that he would rather be a
lamp post on Broadway than Mayor of St. Louis, goes not for to see. Up
lower Greenwich Street the fish reporter goes, along an eerie, dark, and
narrow way, beneath a strange, thundering roof, the "L" overhead. He
threads his way amid seemingly chaotic, architectural piles of boxes, of
barrels, crates, casks, kegs, and bulging bags; roundabout many great
fetlocked draught horses, frequently standing or plunging upon the
sidewalk, and attached to many huge trucks and wagons; and much of the
time in the street he is compelled to go, finding the side walks too
congested with the traffic of commerce to admit of his passing there.
You probably eat butter, and eggs, and cheese. Then you would delight in
Greenwich Street. You could feast your highly creditable appetite for
these excellent things for very nearly a solid mile upon the signs of
"wholesale dealers and commission merchants" in them. The letter press,
as you might say, of the fish reporter's walk is a noble pæan to the
earth's glorious yield for the joyous sustenance of man. For these
princely merchants' signs sing of opulent stores of olive oil, of
sausages, beans, soups, extracts, and spices, sugar, Spanish, Bermuda,
and Havana onions, "fine" apples, teas, coffee, rice, chocolates, dried
fruits and raisins, and of loaves and of fishes, and of "fish products."
Lo! dark and dirty and thundering Greenwich Street is to-day's
translation of the Garden of Eden.
Here is a great house whose sole vocation is the importation of caviar
for barter here. Caviar from over-seas now comes, when it comes at all,
mainly by the way of Archangel, recently put on the map, for most of us,
by the war. The fish reporter is told, however, if it be summer, that
there cannot be much doing in the way of caviar until fall, "when the
spoonbill start coming in." And on he goes to a great saltfish house,
where many men in salt-stained garments are running about, their arms
laden with large flat objects, of sharp and jagged edge, which resemble
dried and crackling hides of some animal curiously like a huge fish; and
numerous others of "the same" are trundling round wheelbarrow-like
trucks likewise so laden. Where stacks of these hides stand on their
tails against the walls, and goodness knows how many big boxes are,
containing, as those open show, beautifully soft, thick, cream-colored
slabs, which is fish. And where still other men, in overalls stained
like a painter's palette, are knocking off the heads of casks and
dipping out of brine still other kinds of fish for inspection.
Here it is said by the head of the house, by the stove (it is chill
weather) in his office like a shipmaster's cabin: "Strong market on
foreign mackerel. Mines hinder Norway catch. Advices from abroad report
that German resources continue to purchase all available supplies from
the Norwegian fishermen. No Irish of any account. Recent shipment sold
on the deck at high prices. Fair demand from the Middle West."
So, by stages, on up to turn into North Moore Street, looking down a
narrow lane between two long bristling rows of wagons pointed out from
the curbs, to the façades of the North River docks at the bottom, with
the tops of the buff funnels of ocean liners, and Whistleranean
silhouettes of derricks, rising beyond. Hereabout are more importers,
exporters, and "producers" of fish, famous in their calling beyond the
celebrities of popular publicity. And he that has official entrée may
learn, by mounting dusky stairs, half-ladder and half-stair, and by
passing through low-ceilinged chambers freighted with many barrels, to
the sanctums of the fish lords, what's doing in the foreign herring way,
and get the current market quotations, at present sky-high, and hear
that the American shore mackerel catch is very fine stock.
Then roundabout, with a step into the broad vista of homely Washington
Street, and a turn through Franklin Street, where is the man decorated
by the Imperial Japanese Government with a gold medal, if he should
care to wear it, for having distinguished himself in the development of
commerce in the marine products of Japan, back to Hudson Street. An
authentic railroad is one of the spectacular features of Hudson Street.
Here down the middle of the way are endless trains, stopping, starting,
crashing, laden to their ears with freight, doubtless all to eat.
Tourists should come from very far to view Hudson Street. Here is a
spectacle as fascinating, as awe-inspiring, as extraordinary as any in
the world. From dawn until darkness falls, hour after hour, along Hudson
Street slowly, steadily moves a mighty procession of great trucks. One
would not suppose there were so many trucks on the face of the earth. It
is a glorious sight, and any man whose soul is not dead should jump with
joy to see it. And the thunder of them altogether as they bang over the
stones is like the music of the spheres.
There is on Hudson Street a tall handsome building where the fish
reporter goes, which should be enjoyed in this way: Up in the lift you
go to the top, and then you walk down, smacking your lips. For all the
doors in that building are brimming with poetry. And the tune of it goes
like this: "Toasted Corn-Flake Co.," "Seaboard Rice," "Chili Products,"
"Red Bloom Grape Juice Sales Office," "Porto Rico and Singapore
Pineapple Co.," "Sunnyland Foodstuffs," "Importers of Fruit Pulps,
Pimentos," "Sole Agents U. S. A. Italian Salad Oil," "Raisin Growers,"
"Log Cabin Syrups," "Jobbers in Beans, Peas," "Chocolate and Cocoa
Preparations," "Ohio Evaporated Milk Co.," "Bernese Alps and Holland
Condensed Milk Co.," "Brazilian Nuts Co.," "Brokers Pacific Coast
Salmon," "California Tuna Co.," and thus on and on.
The fish reporter crosses the street to see the head of the Sardine
Trust, who has just thrown the market into excitement by a heavy cut in
prices of last year's pack. Thence, pausing to refresh himself by the
way at a sign "Agency for Reims Champagne and Moselle Wines--Bordeaux
Clarets and Sauternes," over to Broadway to interview the most august
persons of all, dealers in fertilizer, "fish scrap." These mighty
gentlemen live, when at business, in palatial suites of offices
constructed of marble and fine woods and laid with rich rugs. The
reporter is relayed into the innermost sanctum by a succession of richly
clothed attendants. And he learns, it may be, that fishing in Chesapeake
Bay is so poor that some of the "fish factories" may decide to shut
down. Acid phosphate, it is said, is ruling at $13 f.o.b. Baltimore.
And so the fish reporter enters upon the last lap of his rounds.
Through, perhaps, the narrow, crooked lane of Pine Street he passes, to
come out at length upon a scene set for a sea tale. Here would a lad,
heir to vast estates in Virginia, be kidnapped and smuggled aboard to
be sold a slave in Africa. This is Front Street. A white ship lies at
the foot of it. Cranes rise at her side. Tugs, belching smoke, bob
beyond. All about are ancient warehouses, redolent of the Thames, with
steep roofs and sometimes stairs outside, and with tall shutters, a
crescent-shaped hole in each. There is a dealer in weather-vanes. Other
things dealt in hereabout are these: chronometers, "nautical
instruments," wax gums, cordage and twine, marine paints, cotton wool
and waste, turpentine, oils, greases, and rosin. Queer old taverns,
public houses, are here, too. Why do not their windows rattle with a
"Yo, ho, ho"?
There is an old, old house whose business has been fish oil within the
memory of men. And here is another. Next, through Water Street, one
comes in search of the last word on salt fish. Now the air is filled
with gorgeous smell of roasting coffee. Tea, coffee, sugar, rice,
spices, bags and bagging here have their home. And there are haughty
bonded warehouses filled with fine liquors. From his white cabin at the
top of a venerable structure comes the dean of the saltfish business.
"Export trade fair," he says; "good demand from South America."
SOME NONSENSE ABOUT A DOG
_By_ HARRY ESTY DOUNCE
Harry Esty Dounce was born in Syracuse in 1889 and graduated from
Hamilton College in 1910. His first job was as a cub reporter on
the journal that newspapermen affectionately call "the old _Sun_";
the adjective is pronounced as though it were in italics. He was on
the staff of the Syracuse _Herald_, 1912-14; spent a year in New
Orleans writing short stories, and returned in 1916 to the magazine
staff of the Sun. He was editor of the Sun's book review section,
1919-20; in 1920 he joined the staff of the New York _Evening
Post_.
"My hand will miss the insinuated nose--"
_Sir William Watson_.
But the dog that was written of must have been a big dog. Nibbie was
just a comfortable lapful, once he had duly turned around and curled up
with his nose in his tail.
This is for people who know about dogs, in particular little mongrels
without pedigree or market value. Other people, no doubt, will find it
disgustingly maudlin. I would have found it so before Nibbie came.
The day he came was a beautiful bright, cool one in an August. A touring
car brought him. They put him down on our corner, meaning to lose him,
but he crawled under the car, and they had to prod him out and throw
stones before they could drive on. So that when I came home I found,
with his mistress-elect, a sort of potbellied bundle of tarry oakum,
caked with mud, panting convulsively still from fright, and showing the
whites of uncommonly liquid brown eyes and a pink tongue. There was
tennis that evening and he went along--I carried him over the railroad
tracks; he gave us no trouble about the balls, but lay huddled under the
bench where she sat, and shivered if a man came near him.
That night he got chop bones and she got a sensible homily on the
unwisdom of feeding strays, and he was left outdoors. He slept on the
mat. The second morning we thought he had gone. The third, he was back,
wagging approval of us and intent to stay, which seemed to leave no
choice but to take him in. We had fun over names. "Jellywaggles,"
suggested from next door, was undeniably descriptive. "Rags" fitted, or
"Toby" or "Nig"--but they had a colored maid next door; finally we
called him "Nibs," and soon his tail would answer to it.
Cleaned up--scrubbed, the insoluble matted locks clipped from his coat,
his trampish collar replaced with a new one bearing a license tag--he
was far from being unpresentable. A vet. once opined that for a mongrel
he was a good dog, that a black cocker mother had thrown her cap over
Scottish mills, so to speak. This analysis accounted for him perfectly.
Always, depending on the moment's mood, he was either terrier or
spaniel, the snap and scrap and perk of the one alternating with the
gentle snuggling indolence of the other.
As terrier he would dig furiously by the hour after a field mouse; as
spaniel he would "read" the breeze with the best nose among the dog folk
of our neighborhood, or follow a trail quite well. I know there was
retrieving blood. A year ago May he caught and brought me, not doing the
least injury, an oriole that probably had flown against a wire and was
struggling disabled in the grass.
Nibbie was shabby-genteel black, sunburnt as to the mustache, grizzled
as to the raggy fringe on his haunches. He had a white stock and
shirt-frill and a white fore paw. The brown eyes full of heart were the
best point. His body coat was rough Scottish worsted, the little black
pate was cotton-soft like shoddy, and the big black ears were genuine
spaniel silk. As a terrier he held them up smartly and carried a plumy
fishhook of a tail; as a spaniel the ears drooped and the tail swung
meekly as if in apology for never having been clipped. The other day
when we had to say good-by to him each of us cut one silky tuft from an
ear, very much as we had so often when he'd been among the burdocks in
the field where the garden is.
Burrs were by no means Nibbie's only failing. In flea time it seemed
hardly possible that a dog of his size could sustain his population. We
finally found a true flea bane, but, deserted one day, he was populous
again the next. They don't relish every human; me they did; I used to
storm at him for it, and he used, between spasms of scratching, to
listen admiringly and wag. We think he supposed his tormentors were
winged insects, for he sought refuge in dark clothes-closets where a
flying imp wouldn't logically come.
He was wilful, insisted on landing in laps when their makers wanted to
read. He _would_ make advances to visitors who were polite about him. He
_would_ get up on the living-room table, why and how, heaven knows,
finding his opportunity when we were out of the house, and taking care
to be upstairs on a bed--white, grimeable coverlets preferred--by the
time we had the front door open; I used to slip up to the porch and
catch through a window the diving flourish of his sinful tail.
One of his faults must have been a neurosis really. He led a hard life
before we took him in, as witnessed the game hind leg that made him sit
up side-saddle fashion, and two such scars on his back as boiling hot
grease might have made. And something especially cruel had been done to
him when asleep, for if you bent over him napping or in his bed he would
half rouse and growl, and sometimes snap blindly. (We dreaded exuberant
visiting children.) Two or three experiments I hate to remember now
convinced me that it couldn't be whipped out of him, and once wide
awake he was sure to be perplexedly apologetic.
He was spoiled. That was our doing. We babied him abominably--he was,
for two years, the only subject we had for such malpractice. He had more
foolish names than Wogg, that dog of Mrs. Stevenson's, and heard more
Little Language than Stella ever did, reciprocating by kissing proffered
ears in his doggy way. Once he had brightened up after his arrival, he
showed himself ready to take an ell whenever we gave an inch, and he was
always taking them, and never paying penalties. He had conscience enough
to be sly. I remember the summer evening we stepped outside for just an
instant, and came back to find a curious groove across the butter, on
the dining table, and an ever-so-innocent Nibbie in a chair in the next
room.
While we were at the table he was generally around it, bulldozing for
tid-bits--I fear he had reason to know that this would work. One
fortnight when his Missie was away he slept on his Old Man's bed (we had
dropped titles of dignity with him by then) and he rang the welkin
hourly, answering far-away dog friends, and occasionally came north to
lollop my face with tender solicitude, just like the fool nurse in the
story, waking the patient up to ask if he was sleeping well.
More recently, when a beruffled basket was waiting, he developed an
alarming trick of stealing in there to try it, so I fitted that door
with a hook, insuring a crack impervious to dogs. And the other night I
had to take the hook, now useless, off; we couldn't stand hearing it
jingle. He adopted the junior member on first sight and sniff of him, by
the way; would look on beaming as proudly as if he'd hatched him.
The last of his iniquities arose from a valor that lacked its better
part, an absurd mixture of Falstaff and bantam rooster. At the critical
point he'd back out of a fuss with a dog of his own size. But let a
police dog, an Airedale, a St. Bernard, or a big ugly cur appear and
Nibbie was all around him, blackguarding him unendurably. It was lucky
that the big dogs in our neighborhood were patient. And he never would
learn about automobiles. Usually tried to tackle them head on, often
stopped cars with merciful drivers. When the car wouldn't stop, luck
would save him by a fraction of an inch. I couldn't spank that out of
him either. We had really been expecting what finally happened for two
years.
That's about all. Too much, I am afraid. A decent fate made it quick the
other night, and clean and close at hand, in fact, on the same street
corner where once a car had left the small scapegrace for us. We tell
ourselves how glad we are it happened as it did, instead of an agonal
ending such as many of his people come to. We tell ourselves we
couldn't have had him for ever in any event; that some day, for the
junior member's sake, we shall get another dog. We keep telling
ourselves these things, and talking with animation on other topics. The
muzzle, the leash, the drinking dish are hidden, the last muddy paw
track swept up, the nose smudges washed off the favorite front window
pane.
But the house is full of a little snoofing, wagging, loving ghost. I
know how the boy Thoreau felt about a hereafter with dogs barred. I want
to think that somewhere, some time, I will be coming home again, and
that when the door opens Nibbie will be on hand to caper welcome.
THE FIFTY-FIRST DRAGON
_By_ HEYWOOD BROUN
Heywood Broun, who has risen rapidly through the ranks of newspaper
honor from sporting reporter and war correspondent to one of the
most highly regarded dramatic and literary critics in the country,
is another of these Harvard men, but, as far as this book is
concerned, the last of them. Broun graduated from Harvard in 1910;
was several years on the New York _Tribune_, and is now on the
_World_.
There is no more substantially gifted newspaper man in his field;
his beautifully spontaneous humor and drollery are counterbalanced
by a fine imaginative sensitiveness and a remarkable power in the
fable or allegorical essay, such as the one here reprinted. His
book, _Seeing Things at Night_, is only the first-fruit of truly
splendid possibilities. If I may be allowed to prophesy, thus
hazarding all, I will say that Heywood Broun is likely, in the next
ten or fifteen years, to do as fine work, both imaginative and
critical, as any living American of his era.