YARMOUTH CURING-HOUSES. 157 



and "bloaters." The latter are prepared at Yarmouth 

 in immense quantities. The fish are run through the 

 gills with thin spits, and exposed to the smoke of small 

 .logs of oak. As they swell during the curing process, 

 they have come to be called " bloaters." They are more 

 or less smoked and salted according to the particular 

 market for which they are designed. They are packed 

 in barrels, each containing seven hundred and fifty fish. 



Yarmouth has long been celebrated for its herring- 

 fishery ; and, probably, the barrels of salted fish which 

 caused the Battle of the Herrings in 1429,* came from 

 this busy port. When the " statute of herrings " placed 

 the fishery under the control of the Crown, it was then 

 its principal depot. A century ago it owned 200 boats, 

 which employed, in one way or another, 6000 persons. It 

 now possesses double the number.t Each boat or "buss" 

 carries from 15 to 20 lasts of herrings, each last com- 

 prising 10,000 to 13,000 fish, and is manned by twelve 

 to fourteen men and boys. About 10,000 tons of salt 

 are annually consumed in the curing processes ; and the 

 quantity of fish sent off by railway exceeds 36,000 tons. 



A " curing-house " or " smoke-house " is a large oblong 

 building, some forty or fifty feet high, without a floor 

 between ground and roof, and divided above into trans- 

 verse compartments three or four feet wide, by partitions 

 of horizontal rails, beginning at about seven feet from 

 the base of the walls. These open partitions, or racks, 

 are called " loves," J and support the " speets " that is, 



* When the Due de Bourbon was defeated in an attempt to surprise a con- 

 voy of salt fish on its way to the English camp before Orleans. 



t Some of these are employed in the mackerel-fishery and the deep-sea fish- 

 ing. The capital invested in them is estimated at half a million. 



+ Probably from louvres, which they resemble in appearance. 



