THE FISHING INDUSTRY. 409 



you from your angry fishermates. If the fishing is good, 

 every man is pulling first one of his lines and then the 

 other as fast as his hands can fly. 



When ten fishermen are all thus busy snapping up the 

 fish over the sides of the vessel, it is a spectacle never 

 to be forgotten. A constant stream of mackerel, with 

 their silver sides gleaming like so many snowflakes, fall 

 over the ship's rail into the fish tubs of dying companions. 

 Such biting lasts for two hours sometimes, when perhaps 

 a shark comes along, tearing hooks and lines which have 

 caught in his skin, and terrorizing the school of mackerel 

 so that not one is left near the vessel. 



Perhaps we have caught thirty " wash " barrels full, 

 some of the fish measuring fifteen inches in length. 

 These have to be dressed while the vessel is sailing back 

 again to her fishing ground, for she has drifted broadside 

 about three miles an hour. 



The skipper orders his men : " Haul aft the fore 

 sheet!" "Hoist the jib!" "Slack the boom tackle!" 

 " Haul aft the main sheet ! " " Right the helm ! " " Un- 

 hook the boom tackle ! " 



The vessel gets under way and then is brought around 

 upon another tack towards the place where the fish began 

 to bite. The skipper gets the schooner well balanced on 

 her course, gauging the helm so that she will keep straight 

 ahead ; then he leaves the helm lashed while he joins the 

 crew in dressing up their thirty barrels of fish. 



Two men work at each barrel, the splitter and the 

 gibber. The splitter has a board across the top of his 

 barrel, and, reaching down into the barrel with his left 

 hand, he places a fish upon the board. With one stroke 

 of the knife the back of the fish is laid open from nose to 

 tail along one side of the backbone, and the fish is pushed 

 off into the gibber's tub. This gibber, with a deft move- 

 ment of thumb and fingers, tears out the entrails. and 

 grills ; then he throws the fish into another barrel havine; 



