195 



three fotirths of that quantity. Besides these, some thousands of bar- 

 rels are annually pickled. The kind known among dealers as the 

 gibbed kerring, when properly dressed and cured, is a good article of 

 food, and a substitute for the second quality of mackerel. 



Another sea fishery is that at the JVIagdalene islands, in which our 

 citizens are allowed to participate by treaty stipulation. It has been 

 thought to be of considei'able value as a means of employing vessels 

 (too small for carr3'-i.ng freight with profit) in the early part of the sea- 

 son. It has been prosecuted with various success. Our vessels visit 

 these islands in " spawning time," when the herrings are poor, and 

 the quality, if well cured, is not such to command a high price. For- 

 merly, so little time and care were bestowed upon them that many were 

 unfit for human food. Salted in bulk, as it is termed, they remained in 

 the hold of the vessel until her arrival in port, where they were packed 

 without being washed, and sv>?eltering in all their impurity. Some 

 masters and owners, to their credit, liave always been at the labor and 

 expense of curing them in a proper and wholesome manner. Of late, 

 smoking has been found preferable to pickling ; and whenever the fish- 

 ery is successful, many thousand boxes are sent to market. The seine* 

 is in commoa use at the Magdalene islands. The kind best adapted to 

 the fishery is large, requires some twenty or thirty men to manage it, 

 and is capable of enclosing and bringing to the shore several hundred 

 barrels at a haul. Captain R. Fair, in command of her Majesty's ship- 

 of-war the Champion, visited these islands officially in May, 1839, 

 and after the commencement of the fishery. He found the " quantity 

 of herrings very great, exceeding that of any former year; and the ex- 

 pertness and perseverance of the American fishermen" to be " far 

 beyond that of the" colonists. "About one hundred and forty-six sail 

 of American fishing schooners, of from sixty to eighty tons, and eacFf 

 carrying seven or eight men," were engaged in it, he continues, and 

 caught " nearly seven hundred barrels each ;" making for the number 

 stated "a, presumed product of one hundred thousand barrels, of the 

 value of one hundred thousand pounds sterling; the tonnage about ten 

 thousand, and the number of men about one thousand." Whatever the 

 statistics of the year in question, the average quantity of herrings caught 

 by our vessels is not probably forty thousand barrels ; v>^hile the price — 

 a iiound sterlivg the barrel — is quite fifty per cent., I suppose, above that 



* The machine for the manufacture of "bobbinet" is connected sufficiently with our general 

 subject to justify brief refei'ence to it. The first machine was iierfected in the year 18'J'J. 

 From a minute account of the invention the fiillowing fects are obtained. A workman of Xot- 

 tiughg.m, England, employed in making machinery for the manufacture of fishing-nets, seized 

 upon a hint furnished by a child at play, and discovered by that means a mode of forming the 

 bobbia aud carriage, as now used in the bobbinet machine. At first, the invention was con- 

 fined to the manufacture of fishing-nets, but was finally, and after many failures, extended to 

 the matking of lace. The value of lace made by machinery thus introduced is now immense. 

 By reference to the statistics of 1831, it appears that, in seven towns and cities in England, 

 thirty-one thousand persons are employed in making, and cue hundred rhousand women and 

 children e-btain a considerable portion of their subsistence by embroidering it. The quantity 

 of cotton required yearly is 2,400,0()U peunds, the annual manufacture is 30,771,000 square 

 yards, and the aauu-al value is £1,850,650, and the permanent capital employed about 

 £'2,000,000. Nor is this oX\\ the manufacture has been extended to the continent, and 

 10,000,0(>0 yards, or about one-third of the quantity made in Great Britain, it i-s estimated, is 

 produced there. 



