NATIONALITY AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 23 



The meu engaged in the menhaden fisheries are drawn from all parts of the island, are gen- 

 erally sons of farmers, and, with the exception of the captains of the steamers, engineers, and the 

 superintendents of the factories, are not usually in the business more than a season or two. 



Mobals. — The people who are engaged in the Island fisheries have more the manners and 

 appearance of farmers than of the inhabitants of the exclusively fishing towns of the Eastern 

 States, and they will compare favorably in regard to education, thrift, and morals with most rural 

 populations. I think that these virtues increase with the number of miles between the villages 

 and New York City, and that there is also a difference between the north and south sides in this 

 respect which may have had some influence on the selection of so many places of residence by 

 wealthy New Yorkers on the south side, with its flat, low, barren lands, and on the waters of the 

 uninteresting Great South Bay, in preference to the high, rolling north side, with its charming, 

 deep, romantic bays; here there have been more deeds of violence, and among the majority 

 of the native population the language of ordinary intercourse is a shade more profane and loose. 

 We do not mean by this to assert that, even in the district spokeu of, these unprofitable vices are in 

 excess of what one often finds iu the interior, for most observant men must have noticed that in 

 small villages and country places there is, especially among young men, an affectation of profanity 

 and its accompanying vulgarity which seems strained to a city-bred man, and at first astonishes 

 him when heard from any but the vilest of men. To those who have been much among soldiers, 

 sailors, and fishermen, it is not at all surprising to hear bad language from men who are so well 

 known for their honest and upright conduct that they thiuk that they can afford to be careless in 

 respect to this, a point which, however, impresses the stranger unfavorably. 



Homes. — The dwellings of the fishermen are generally neatly painted and comfortable; their 

 families well dressed ; and it is rare to see an exception to this rule, for the varied pursuits included 

 in the list of labors by which a Long Island fisherman earns his living afford him a change from 

 one which is temporarily dull to something better and find him employment of some kind the 

 year around. When fishing is dull he turns his hand and boat to oystering, and if these are out 

 of season the hard or soft clam offers him remunerative employment. 



12. THE OYSTERMEN OF MARYLAND. 



Oyster dredgers. — There are two distinct classes of oystermen on the Chesapeake Bay, 

 namely, dredgers, and scrapers or tongers. The business of oyster dredging is carried on by about 

 5, GOO daring and unscrupulous men, who regard neither God nor man. The characteristics and 

 habits of these men are discussed, in connection with the oyster fisheries of Maryland, in Section III 

 of this report. Mr. Edmonds there describes them as among the most depraved bodies of workmen 

 to be found in the country. They are "gathered from jails, penitentiaries, workhouses, and the 

 lowest and vilest dens of the city." 



Oyster, tongers. — The oyster tongers or- scrapers are, both socially and morally, somewhat 

 superior to the scrapers, though, as a class, indolent and improvident. Mr. Edmonds, in the sec- 

 tion above refeiTcd to, also discusses the characteristics of this class of oystermen. The oyster 

 laws of Maryland require every vessel and boat engaged in gathering oysters to be licensed. The 

 amount received from touging license must be paid by the clerk of the circuit court of the county 

 " to the school commissioners for the public schools of the respective counties where such license 

 is issued ; provided, the sum received from white tongers shall go to white schools, and the sum 

 from colored tongers to the colored schools." 



Dredgers and tongers compared.— The two classes may thus be briefly contrasted : 



The oyster-dredge-fishermen of the Chesapeake are almost entirely whites of the lowest order. 



