22 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
ing. Other men with gaffs seize them and drag them over the slippery floor to the end of the 
building. Here a stout spruce or pine box is waiting, standing on platform scales. One by one 
the fish are lifted into the box, and a shovelful of ice is poured into the abdominal cavity. The 
box is filled, its weight noted and marked in large figures in one corner, and then it is transferred 
to wooden rollers and handed over to the carpenter, who nails the cover on, using a peculiar instru- 
ment, very appropriately called a ‘‘devil’s claw,” if we accept the idea that the devil has an 
unyielding clutch. 
If, as frequently happens, the fish are taken from the vessel, weighed, and beheaded faster 
than they can be boxed, they are dragged aside and thrown in heaps according to the several 
grades. It is not an uncofmmon thing to see 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of halibut piled up on the 
floor of a large packing establishment, and in some instances a much larger quantity is heaped 
together. 
When taking out halibut the average rate of progress is from 7,000 to 10,000 pounds an hour; 
the speed depends somewhat on the height of the tide. “The best, time we ever made,” says Mr. 
John F. Bickford, foreman of the Atlantic Halibut Company, “ was in the summer of 1878 when 
we took a-trip of 103,000 pounds of halibut out of the schooner William Thompson in 9 hours and 
15 minutes, and had an hour’s nooning out of the time. The actual time at work was a little more 
than 8hours.” These fish were bought “right through,” and, being in good order, needed no culling, 
and consequently could be handled very rapidly. 
A fall working gang in the building is eleven men, all told. These are divided as follows, 
namely: A weigher (who is usually the foreman), the culler and assistant at the scale, the header, 
a man to haul the fish away, three men boxing and weighing the fish, two men nailing the boxes 
and wheeling them away, and one man grinding ice. One of the “ boxers” assists the “ ice-grinder” 
in dragging away the baskets of ice, &c. With a gang like this at work boxing, the fish can be 
put up ready for shipment nearly as fast as they are usually taken out of a vessel. The boxes 
hold an average of 425 pounds of halibut. | 
Mr. B. W. Griffin, culler at the New England Halibut Company’s establishment, and Mr. 
Thomas Tarr, foreman of the same, gave the following information : 
“We take out anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of halibut an hour, under ordinary 
circumstances; generally more if the chance is favorable. The best we ever did was in 1878, when 
we took a trip of 42,000 pounds out of the George P. Whitman in an hour and three-quarters. 
With a full gang at boxing, which includes six men—three boxers, two nailers, and one ice-grinder— 
we can box, ready for shipment, 40,000 pounds of halibut in four hours, but in some instances we 
do even better than this. Some years ago, the schooner Wm. T. Merchant came in with a trip of 
halibut that had been sold to arrive, at a high price, and we were anxious to get the fish on the 
market. She hauled alongside of the wharf at 5 o’clock p. n., and at 9 p. m. we had her trip of 
50,000 pounds boxed and all on the steamboat wharf, ready for shipment.” 
It seems appropriate in this place to allude to the system of “ culling fish” which is in practice 
among the merchants of Gloucester who buy fresh halibut from the fishermen. They have estab- 
lished three grades of halibut, known as “ white,” “ gray,” and “sour”; the white halibut are those 
which have their under sides immaculate, the gray halibut are those whose under sides are more or 
less tinged with gray,pr drab, while the sour halibut are those which are slightly tainted in the 
vicinity of the abdominal cavity. The largest halibut are almost invariably gray. The price allowed 
to the fishermen for gray halibut is considerably less than that for ‘‘ white,” frequently not more than 
one-half. The price of sour halibut, again, is considerably less than that of gray. For instance, 
when white halibut sell for 5 cents per pound, gray will sell for from 3 to 34 cents per pound, 
