cx PROCEEDINGS. 
IV. From the population of Newfoundland being so generally a 
seafaring people, they have in use many technical terms connected with 
nautical life. Some of these are common with English sailors. Thus 
they have the word lobscouse, originally lobscourse, as in Peregrine Pickle, 
still farther contracted into scowse, a sailor’s dish, consisting of salt 
meat, stewed with vegetables and ship’s biscuits. To this they give the 
name scoff, which seems to be related to the verb scoff, given as a slang 
nautical term, meaning to eat voraciously (see Standard Dictionary). 
An odd phrase among them is Solomon Goss’s birthday. It is 
applied to Tuesdays and Fridays as pudding days, when at the seal 
or cod fishing. What is the origin of it, or whether it is peculiar to the 
people of Newfoundland, I cannot ascertain. 
But I would specially note the technical terms connected with their 
fishing. From the intercourse which has taken place for over two 
centuries between fishermen in Newfoundlard and those of the adjoin- 
ing coasts of America, and even between them and those of European 
nations, it was natural that the same terms should be used among them, 
though some seem to be peculiar to Newfoundland or are there used in 
a peculiar way. 
Thus flaik or flake is an old English word for a paling or hurdle. 
In old Icelandic it appears as flaki or jlekt especially a hurdle or 
shield of wicker work, used for defence in battle (Vigfussen Icel. 
Dictionary). Webster gives it as ‘* Massachusetts for a platform of slats 
of wands or hurdles, supported by stanchions, for drying fish.” But it 
has long been used in this sense in Newfoundland, and the adjoining 
coasts of British America, and it is now admitted into the dictionaries 
as a good English word. 
A curious custom is described in the phrase a press pile compass. A 
press pile is fish piled up to make, and a press pile compass is a trick 
played on a green hand of sending him to the next neighbor to borrow 
the press pile compass. The party applied to has not one to spare and 
sends him to the next, and so on as on April fool’s day. 
The fishermen of Newfoundland have a fishing-boat known as a 
jack, said to be peculiar to that island. It is from seven to fifteen tons’ 
burden. ‘The deck has open standing spaces forward and aft for the 
fishermen to stand in while they fish. The deck is formed of movable 
boards. It is schooner-rigged, but without either fore or main boom. 
The foresail is trimmed aft by a sheet, and the mainsail trimmed aft to 
