THE FISHERMAN.

No small part of the food that delights the palate, while it supports the life of man, is derived from the sea. That hardy race of men who draw from the ocean its scaly inhabitants, that they may administer to our wants and our pleasures, are closely connected with commercial pursuits, and deserve our especial consideration. Who could dispense with those luxuries that come to us in the shape of fresh codfish, mackerel, halibut, bass, blackfish, perch, flounders, eels, lobsters and oysters? They are rather necessaries than luxuries, and, when cured and salted, furnish the table on the weekly fish day, or, sent to the South, constitute an important article of food to the slave. In the seasons of Lent, and all fast days of the church, fish are indispensable, and become a part of our religion. The Pilgrims must all have perished the first winter, but for the clams and fish obtained from the sea. In another way, also, they owed their preservation, more indirectly to be sure, to the fisherman's trade. The Banks of Newfoundland were crowded with French and English fishermen

long before the Mayflower left Holland. Among these fishermen were learned the words by which Samoset greeted the arrival of the Pilgrims on the inhospitable and frozen shore, "Welcome, Englishmen!" But for this welcome they might have been swept away by hostile tribes, if not by starvation and the inclemency of winter.

There is much that is exciting, and therefore attractive, in the fisherman's life. He shares with the amateur the excitement of the

sport, but he feels

that his living, as well as his credit, depends on his success. He realizes little of the poetry, but all the hardships of his pursuit. He knows nothing of champagne or sherry to wash down his chowder or fry, but is confined to coarse and simple fare, surrounded by most ancient and fish-like odors. What the more favored of fortune pursue as a pastime, is to him the business of life. He looks at the fish as he pulls him over the side, not with the sportsman's eye, but as one who has to pay for his "great generals" and "little generals," and has a family to support. A "glorious nibble" may satisfy the amateur fisherman for a day's work, but not so with the professional man, whose daily bread is dependent on his success. To toil all day and catch no fish is to him not a matter of disappointment only, but of meat and drink, food and clothing.

Massachusetts is the fisherman's home, and is

deeply concerned in his success. The shores of Cape Cod and Cape Ann are lined with dories and smacks, which bring codfish from the Banks and mackerel from Bay Chaleur, while an innumerable fleet of oystermen and small craft bring oysters from the Chesapeake, and fresh fish and lobsters from the waters of the Bay. Since the introduction of railroads, fresh fish are carried hundreds of miles into the interior, where such luxuries were formerly unknown; and, by the aid of ice, those who inhabit the great valley of the Mississippi, where the smell of the salt sea is never borne upon the east wind, may enjoy their fresh fish, lobsters and oysters. Such are the revolutions of steam, and thus it contributes to the profits of the fisherman, and the comforts of the Western farmer, mechanic and merchant.

The fisherman's trade is not only an old, but a sacred one. The companions and disciples of our Saviour were the humble fishermen of Galilee. Here was witnessed the miraculous draught of fishes, and here, among those who gained a precarious living out of the sea, arose the new dispensation, or Christian religion. In one of those wonderful creations of art,—the cartoons of Raphael,-Christ is represented sitting at the end of a fisherman's boat, commanding them to throw over their nets again, although they had toiled all day and had caught no fish. So great was their success, that the boats were near sinking

with their loads. Thus the fisherman and his fish are associated forever with the presence of our Saviour, and one of his greatest miracles.

A pursuit so useful, so necessary, and so universal, becomes, as it were, sacred in our eyes, when we remember that the Saviour of the world found his most intimate friends and disciples among humble fishermen, and to them his counsels of faith and of hope were first addressed. He told them he would make them "fishers of men," and from this broad patent the church derives its authority, from St. Peter's at Rome to the humblest Quaker meetinghouse that witnesses the moving of the spirit. The fisherman may well be proud of his pedigree, which dates back to the associates and followers of Him who spake as never man spake.

Those who supply us with the luxuries of the sea are themselves strangers to the luxuries of the land. A humble and somewhat precarious living is all they enjoy or expect. In summer they catch our fish, and in winter they make our shoes. If mackerel will not bite, the summer is lost. Their life partakes of that uncertainty that belongs to speculation, and this uncertainty is no doubt one of the charms that allures to its pursuit. There is always a chance of great success, as well as the possibility of entire failure, and hence an excitement not found in more regular and certain pursuits on shore.

The fisherman believes in luck as profoundly as the Mussulman believes in destiny or fate. Like the sailor, he is superstitious, but unlike the sailor, he is not on wages, but dependent on his own skill and exertions.

His voyage extends not like that of the sailor, through several months, but only through so many weeks. He is an amphibious animal, neither landsman nor sailor, but, as it were, a mixture of both. In winter he belongs to the land, in summer to the sea. He goes to church in cold weather, while in warm weather he is off soundings, where there is no Sunday. The sailor's home is on the deep; the fisherman has also a home on shore. He owes a divided allegiance to land and water, forming a sort of connecting-link between seamen and shoremen. He unites the prudence and forethought of the one with the folly and recklessness of the other, exhibiting the virtues and vices of the land and the sea-a sort of mongrel, neither fish nor flesh, but a compound of both. His employment is a useful and necessary one; and if he has sometimes "fisherman's luck," he is also sometimes enabled to lay up something for a rainy day.