PAPERS READ BEFORE THE 
American Fisheries Society, 
WITH THEIR DIsSCUSSiIoNns: 
WHEN SHAD WERE A PENNY A=PIECE. 
BY CHARLES HALLOCK. 
Every schoolboy knows in a general way that shad 
‘were once so abundant in the Connecticut river that hired 
men used to stipulate that they should be served with only 
a limited quantity per week for food, but I dare say few 
people, adolescent or adult, are aware that it was con- 
sidered disreputable a century and a half ago to eat shad, 
and that the epithet of ‘‘shad-eater” was regarded as most _ 
obnoxious and opprobrious in New England. 
Whether it was because shad were in common use by 
the vagabond Indians who occupied the valley, or because 
their very cheapness and abundance made them vulgar, 
history does not state. But itis of record that shad 
were overlooked, thrown out, and despised as food bya 
large proportion of the English occupants of the old 
towns for a period of one hundred years after their 
settlement. Only poor people ate shad in those days. 
Shad eating implied a deficiency of pork, and to be 
destitute of pork indicated poverty. Even now an 
apology is sometimes made when a family has no ‘‘meat,” 
