The Argosy — page 221: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

204 Fish Catching on the Dogger. f ance by steamer to the London markets then follows, there being, 4 4 the reader will already have gathered, a regular service of cutters — between the Metropolis and the Deep-Sea Fishery. The sole or | haddock, which the London fishmonger declares to be in prime condition and to have been actually “‘caught yesterday morning,” — was forsooth brought up in the trawl a week ago on the “ Dreary © Dowger,” and made the long journey of 250 miles to town amid a thick layer of ice in a big fish-box! Oh, nimble tongue of the astute trader ! | | Most curious and sometimes startling relics are occasionally — brought up in the trawl net. These vary in importance and interest, — from the child’s plaything to the ghastly skeleton. Many a human © skull has been tumbled on to the slippery deck, with its ghoulish, — grinning teeth, furnishing a fitting opportunity for a North Sea Hamlet (if such there were) to exclaim: ‘ Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to get the table in a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning.” et ; | The North Sea trawler is thus interesting alike through his per — sonality, his long sojourn on the ocean, and the nature of his work. Philanthropy and education will, between them, do great things for him ; and just as there is at present no finer English seaman, so, ere — long, there will, in all probability, be no worthier specimen of the hard-headed, upright, heroic, well-informed English working citizen. And the romance of his life of toil and trouble will abide. The blasts of Heaven will continue to beat around him; the wild Nor-— easter will not cease to sweep round the tail of the Dogger, carrying destruction in its course ; the waves will still buffet him; he must is the fierce encounter suffer and suffer again. But in the future he will be made to feel, far more than he has done in the past, that his existence 1s not unknown to his countrymen; and that many good wishes and hearty sympathies are with him, as he spends the lonely hours, ‘‘ placed far amid the melancholy main.” , ALEXANDER GORDON, _ COMME OOO KS aol ink