Modern Yarmouth. 29 



Iconoclast with a household god, and it would ill become me 

 to skake the British nation's faith in her savoury bloater. But 

 it is said that numbers of the so-called Yarmouth B. come 

 from Ireland and Scotland, and are doctored and palmed off 

 to confiding breakfast-tables as the real original article. 

 When every purchaser of a herring insists upon its being a 

 bloater, a Yarmouth bloater, and a hard-roed Yarmouth 

 bloater, it is clear something must be done to keep up the 

 supply. However, let us confine ourselves to what is being 

 done under our own observations. 



The " herring office," where the fish are converted into 

 bloaters, is a very singular place. Upon the ground floor the 

 herrings recently arrived from the wharf are shot out of the 

 swills upon the stones, transferred by great wooden shovels 

 into a huge tub, thoroughly washed, and passed on to 

 women a much better type than those working about the 

 wharf and in the ruder sheds who thread them through one 

 of the gill covers upon a long slender lath called a " spit," 

 which accommodates five-and-twenty fish. The spits are then 

 taken up into the smoke-room, a lofty, barn-like apartment, 

 full of dark-coloured frames and beams from floor to roof. 

 The spits, charged with herrings, are placed horizontally in 

 niches which receive the ends of the stick, the tiers extend- 

 ing to the ceiling overhead. The only aperture in this dusky 

 room is in the centre of the roof, the great object being, when 

 the drying process begins, to "draw" the smoke. The 

 room being filled with tiers, containing sometimes as many 

 as a hundred thousand fish, small wood fires of oak, if 

 possible are kindled over the stone floor, and maintained 

 without flame. The uncemented tiles above, and the one 

 opening in the roof, promote a free draught, while the smoke 

 from the oaken logs gives a fine colour to the fish. For 

 certain markets where a particular colour is demanded, ash 



