34 FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



ing, Charles Robin, in 1766. l A practical fishing master of 

 Gaspe to-day, trained by long experience in the Robin estab- 

 lishment, upon reading Denys 7 account, assures me that, mu- 

 tatis mutandis, that is, due allowance being made for the 

 fact that the fishing fleet is now Canadian and not French, 

 the methods and processes in vogue now are entirely like those 

 of 200 years ago, and that time has found little to add to the 

 efficiency of the business. 



"It was the business of the beach master then, as now, 

 to keep the beaches well covered with rounded stones and 

 pebbles, as free from sand as possible, and to see that the boys 

 pulled out all weeds and removed all debris. With the same 

 shaped hooks and with lines rigged as now, and with the 

 same bait, the cod was taken, and pitched from the shallops 

 with the same shaped irons. At the splitting table, built as 

 to-day, were the trancheur, decoleur and picqueur, supplied 

 with fish from the same shaped barrow by the same shaped 

 boy. The splitters, with knives of the ancient pattern, to-day 

 still grasp the fish by the ears for decapitation, with one time- 

 honored movement disembowel it and push the livers into the 

 vat through a hole in the splitting table, and with another 

 cut out the backbone. The liver vat still has its wicker for 

 the oil to drain through, and still gives off, as the livers stew 

 in the sun, an incense too rank to rise heavenward, the special 

 parfumerie of the devil, equalled only by the aroma rising 

 from the cods ' heads festering in the sun 's heat on the plowed 

 fields. 



"It is going on three centuries since the splitters at their 

 table stood in half barrels with their aprons running down 

 outside. In describing the work at the splitting table, Denys 

 says amongst other details: 



' The decoleur pushes the cod on to the dresser, who takes 

 it by the ear with a mitten that he wears on his left hand, 

 otherwise he could not hold it firmly, places the back against 



i There are some manuscript records in possession of the federal 

 and provincial governments referring to this industry, and many 

 others have more recently been copied in Paris under direction of 

 Dr. A. G. Doughty, C. M. G., Dominion Archivist. E. T. D. C. 



