LETTER FROM CAPE COD.

Down the Ankle of Cape Cod to Heel and Instep-Amputated Limb of a Town-Look of Thrift-Contentment on Barren Sand-Primitive part of the Cape, unreached by Steam and Rails-Ladies' Polkas-Statistics of Mackerel Fishery-Three Prominent Features of the Cape, Grave-Yards, School-Houses and One other-Praiseworthy Simplicity of Public Taste -Partial Defence of "Dandies"--The "Blue-Fish"-Class of Beauty on the Cape-Comparative Vegetation and Humanity, etc., etc.

Ar the close of my last letter, I believe, I was bound to take tea on the heel of Cape Cod, and, thence, to cross over and sleep on the instep. We stopped upon the way-between the two veins of Bass River and Herring River—to visit one of the "packing wharves," to which the mackerel fishermen bring in their cargoes for inspection and barrelling. These long projections of framework into the sea, of which there are several along the Southern beach of the Cape, have a strangely amputated look--a busy wharf having usually a busy city attached to it, and such a limb of a town on a desolate shore doing as much violence to association as to see an arm there without the remainder of the man.

In the mackerel fishery is engaged a very large proportion of the inhabitants of Cape Cod, and this, and other navigation are

STATISTICS OF FISHING.

41

enriching that part of the country, at present, at an almost Californian rate-at least, if the usual indications of renewed prosperity are at all to be trusted. The little fleets of fishing vessels which are constantly visible in the distance, following the "schools" of their prey, are beautiful objects, looking like flocks of snow-white birds painted upon the blue tablet of the sea. They are, each, a small republic, composed of ten or twelve men, with proportionate shares in the enterprise, and their voyages last from two to six weeks The fish are assorted, at the packing wharves, into three qualities, inspected and sent to market. At the head of each of these landing-places is a "store" for sundries, where the fishermen may find the few goods and groceries that he requires, and, all around-warehouses, pyramids of new barrels, workmen and all-had a look (it struck me) of most especial thrift and contentment.

And I must put in here, my dear song-writer, a paragraph which you poetical and un-practical people may skip if you likestatistics of mackerel fishery which I took some pains to inquire out, and by which persons of other vocations can make that comparison of outlay and profit, so useful to a proper appreciation of human allotment.

The small vessels in which fishing is most successfully pursued are from 50 to 100 tons burthen, and cost from $2000 to $4000. The expenses and fittings-out are divided into two classes of articles, which are technically called the "Great Generals" and the "Small Generals"-the former consisting of salt, barrels, expense of packing, and Skipper's commission on the proceeds; the latter consisting of provisions for the crew and fishing-tackle. The owners furnish vessel, sails, rigging, etc., and draw 25 to 30 per cent. of the proceeds, after the "Great Generals" are

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MACKEREL FISHERY.

I

deducted. The crew receive the remainder, and divide among themselves, according to the quantity of fish caught by each. forgot, by-the-way, to mention the Skipper's premium for commanding the vessel, which is 2 per cent. on the proceeds. And another item-whoever furnishes the "Great Generals" receives one-eighth of the gross proceeds, and it is sometimes done by the owner of the vessel, sometimes jointly by the crew. The average quantity of mackerel taken by single vessels in a season, is 600 barrels, and they usually bring $6 per barrel. Let us put it into a shapely business statement:

Gross proceeds,

DeductGreat Generals:"

:

$3600,00

Sometimes (I must add), the crews are part owners of the vessels, and, according to their standard of wealth, when a man has acquired $4000, he has an independent fortune-the cost of living, for a fisherman's family on the Cape, not necessarily exceeding $200 per annum.

There is bitter complaint of the Government, among those

interested in the mackerel fishery-(a very formidable body of voters)-so palpably injured is this large and hardy class by the operation of the ad valorem duty on foreign mackerel. In the British provinces, where this fish is taken by a seine, instead of by hook and line as in this country, they can afford to put the value as low as two to three dollars per barrel, making the duty from forty to sixty cents. The American fisherman furnishes a better article, but to enable him to compete at all with his foreign competitor, there should be a specific duty of so much per barrel.

The cod fishery, by which the tough sons of the Cape are best known, is so incomparable a school for such sailors as the country relies on in time of danger, that the Government gives a bounty to those who engage in it. This premium on an industry which is an education in skill and hardihood-the exposure to fogs, ice and difficult navigation being greater than in any other pursuit-amounts to $300 given to the owners and crew of each vessel, three-eighths to the owners and five-eighths to the crew.

The barren sand and starved vegetation of this whole line of coast naturally suggested a query as to the contentment of residence here, but, in answer to various inquiries, I found that a Cape man's proverbial ambition is to have a comfortable home. where he was born; that the Cape girls have no wish to live anywhere else; and that increased means only confirm them in the fulfilment of these indigenous preferences. Just now, certainly, there are more new houses going up on the Cape roads than in any section of the country which I have travelled through, and, as to poverty, it seems unknown, from the Cape's toe to its kneepan. In Provincetown, where the population is between two and three thousand, there are but two paupers and these are disabled and decrepid fishermen. If green and fertile Ireland,

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FASHION ON THE CAPE.

(which is the first land eastward,) could only close up to the Cape, what a picture of double contrast would be presented, and what a neat Gordian knot it would offer-wealthy and intelligent bleakness, and ignorance and poverty-stricken fertility—for political economists to unravel!

We left, at Harwich, the relays of kind friends who had passed us along in their vehicles on the Southern shore, and resumed the stage conveyance on the regular highway. From this point to Chatham (along the ankle of the leg), we saw, I presume, a fair segment of the primitive state of things—unaltered, I mean, by the new-fangleries of the march of improvement. The two ends. of Barnstable County are in a state of transition-the upper end having a railroad running into it, and the lower end connected with Boston by a daily steamer-and, for old-fashioned Cape Cod manners and habits, the traveller will soon be obliged to confine his observations to this sandy betweenity. Trifles sometimes, show, like sea-weed, the reach of a resistless tide, and it amused me to notice that the article of lady's dress called a visite or polka, (a brown over-jacket that has been, of late, a popular rage,) was universal as far down as Yarmouth, scattering through Hyannis, unseen through Chatham, Eastham, Wellfleet and Truro, and suddenly universal again where the steamer touches-at Provincetown. How soon these two converging tides will polka the whole Cape, is a nice and suggestive question of progress.

The houses in this intermediate region, are of a most curiously inelegant plainness-the roof all painted red, the sides of rusty white if painted at all, and the model invariably the same, and such as a carpenter would build who thought only of the cheapest shelter. Ornament of any kind seems as unknown as beggary. The portion of a house, which in every foreign country is decently