306 FISHEE LIFE. 



existence. But offer one of them a penny less than she feels 

 inclined to take for a haddock, and he is a lucky fellow who 

 escapes without its tail coming across his whiskers. Of late 

 our fishwives have been considering themselves of some import- 

 ance. When the Queen came first to Edinburgh, she happened 

 to take notice of them, and every printshop window was then 

 stuck full of pictures of Newhaven fishwives in their quaint 

 costume of short petticoats of fiaming red and yellow colours. 

 They wear a dress of a peculiar and appropriate fashion, consist- 

 ing of a long blue duffle jacket, with wide sleeves, a blue petti- 

 coat usually tucked up so as to form a pocket, and in order to 

 show off their ample under petticoats of bright-coloured wooUen 

 stripe, reaching to the calf of the leg. It may be remarked 

 that the upper petticoats are of a striped sort of stuff technically 

 called, we believe, drugget, and are always of different colours. 

 As the women carry their load of fish on their backs in creels, 

 supported by a broad leather belt resting forwards on the fore- 

 head, a thick napkin is their usual headdress, although often a 

 muslin cap, or mutch, with a very broad frill, edged with lace, 

 and turned back on the head, is seen peeping from under the 

 napkin. A variety of kerchiefs or small shawls similar to that 

 on the head encircle the neck and bosom, which, with thick 

 worsted stockings and a pair of stout shoes, complete the 

 costume. 



The sketch of fisher-life in the Antiquary applies as well to 

 the fisher-folk of to-day as to those of sixty years since. This 

 is demonstrable at Newhavenj which, though fortunate in 

 having a pier as a rendezvous for its boats, thus admitting of a 

 vast saving of time and labour, is yet far behind inland villages 

 in point of sanitary arrangements. There is in the " town " an 

 everlasting scent of new tar, and a permanent smell of decaying 

 fish, for the dainty visitors who go down to the vOage of 

 Edinburgh to partake of the fish-dinners for which it is so 

 celebrated. Up the narrow closes, redolent of "bark," we 

 see hanging on the outside stairs the paraphernalia of the 

 fisherman — his " properties," as an actor would call them ; nets, 

 bladders, lines, and oilskin unmentionables, with dozens of pairs 

 of those particularly blue stockings that seem to be the universal 

 wear of both mothers and maidens. On the stair itself sit, if it 

 be seasonable weather, the wife and daughters, repairing the 

 nets and baiting the lines — gossiping of course with opposite 

 neighbours, who are engaged in a precisely similar pursuit ; and 



