425 



Newhaven women are more like the buxom dames of the 

 market of Paris, though their glory of late years has been 

 somewhat dulled. There is this, however, to be said of them, 

 that they are as much of the past as the present ; in dress and 

 manners they are the same now as they were a hundred years 

 ago ; they take a pride in conserving all their traditions and 

 characteristics, so that their customs appear unchangeable, 

 and are never, at any rate, influenced by the alterations which 

 art, science, and literature produce on the country at large. 

 Before the railway era, the Newhaven fishwife was a great 

 fact, and could be met with in Edinburgh in her picturesque 

 costume of short but voluminous and gaudy petticoats, shout- 

 ing " Caller herrings !" or " Wha'll buy my caller cod?" with 

 all the energy that a strong pair of lungs could supply. Then, 

 in the evening, there entered the city the oyster-wench, with 

 her prolonged musical aria of " Wha'll o' caller ou ? " But the 

 spread of fishmongers' shops arid the increase of oyster-taverns 

 is doing away with this picturesque branch of the business. 

 Thirty years ago nearly the whole of the fishermen of the 

 Firth of Forth, in view of the Edinburgh market, made for 

 Newhaven with their cargoes of white fish ; and these, at that 

 time, were all bought up by the women, who carried them on 

 their backs to Edinburgh in creels, and then hawked them 

 through the city. The sight of a bevy of fishwives in the 

 streets of the Modern Athens, although comparatively rare, 

 may still occasionally be enjoyed ; but the railways have 

 lightened their labours, and we do not find them climbing the 

 Whale Brae with a hundredweight, or two hundredweight, 

 perhaps, of fish, to be sold in driblets, for a few pence, all 

 through Edinburgh. 



The industry of fishwives is proverbial, their chief maxim 

 being, that " the woman that carma work for a man is no 

 worth ane ; " and accordingly they undertake the task of dis- 

 posing of the merchandise, and acting as Chancellor of the 



