556 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



dealers will take all the oysters certain planters can raise. Often money is advanced upon this 

 understanding, or other help given, so that there is a closer business relation than ordinary 

 between the buyers and the planters an intimacy (and confusion in the matter of statistics) to 

 which the extensive partnership system lends itself. 



The third method i. e., sales on commission explains itself. It is not extensively followed, 

 since the planters do not have faith in it, and the dealers do not care to encourage it. 



Some dealers are shippers wholly, finding their customers all over New York, Lower Canada, 

 and the Lake States ; others restrict their whole custom to the city and suburbs. The former 

 require less men and dispose of larger packages at each order; the latter require many trucks and 

 delivery carts, though most of their customers themselves come after their supplies. I believe the 

 shipping trade is generally thought more desirable. The scene at the barges on both rivers, 

 during the busy months of autumn and winter, is a very lively one. The sloops, very trim craft, 

 bringing oysters to be sold, will sometimes lie a dozen deep opposite the barges, with plank walks 

 across their decks from the outer ones to the shore. The captain and crew attend to the getting 

 up of the cargo out of the hold and putting it into baskets, sorting it at the same time. East 

 River and Staten Island oysters are sold by the hundred or the thousand, as a rule, and must all 

 be counted. An expert man will count them accurately as fast as they can be carried ashore. 

 Long Island stock is generally sold by the "basket," this measure holding somewhat less than a 

 bushel; but some dealers compel the sloops to measure by baskets furnished them, which hold a 

 full bushel, or a trifle over. Even then care is taken not to shake the contents down. Virginia 

 oysters may be measured by the basket, but are paid for by the cargo or fraction of a cargo, except 

 where, as in the case of Staten Island planters, southern oysters, having laid a few months in 

 Prince's Bay or the sound, are brought to the city to be sold. 



The carrying of oysters from the vessels into the barges affords employment to a distinct class 

 of men, known as " carriers." There are from twenty-five to forty of these on each river. They 

 do not work on salary, but get 10 cents a thousand for the oysters carried, reckoning seven small 

 and four large baskets to the thousand. This seems very small wages, but they average from $25 

 to $30 a week during half the year, paid by the owners of the oysters sold. The opening of oys- 

 ters by the trade in New York is not systematically carried on, and scarcely any is done until after 

 the holidays. I doubt if more than one hundred or one hundred and fifty men are ever employed 

 at once in the whole city in opening for the wholesale trade. All the openers are men, chiefly 

 those who in summer get their living as deck-hands on steamboats and by other marine occupa- 

 tions. The pay is 10 cents a thousand, at which rate about $3 a day is regularly made when work 

 is plentiful. 



As to how many persons are concerned in the retail oyster business of the city only a mere 

 guess is possible, since a very large proportion of them are temporarily engaged, or have their 

 business so inextricably mixed with the liquor trade, or the business of selling fish and general 

 provisions, that it is out of the question to define it separately with any exactness. Twenty-five 

 years ago, when the " oyster riots" attracted attention to the matter, the number of persons sup- 

 ported by the restaurant trade in oysters was estimated at five thousand. Whether it is not 

 double that at this time it is impossible to say ; but I consider it safe to say that five thousand 

 families, at least, find their chief or exclusive support in selling or preparing the mollusks for imme- 

 diate consumption in the metropolis and its closely adjacent cities. 



The wages vary immensely, depending on employer, sex, age, and capacity of the employed, 

 amount of working time, kind of work, &c. Women receive from $3 to $6 per week ; boys and 

 men from $4 to $20. A correct average is almost impossible, and a total approximate summation 



