However, as it seems to me unlikely that a man of genius will be a fish reporter shortly I will myself do the best I can to paint the tapestry of the scenes of his calling. The advertisement in the newspaper read: "Wanted—Reporter for weekly trade paper." Many called, but I was chosen. Though, doubtless, no man living knew less about fish than I.
The news stands are each like a fair, so laden are they with magazines in bright colors. It would seem almost as if there were a different magazine for every few hundred and seven-tenth person, as the statistics put these matters. And yet, it seems, there is a vast, a very vast, periodical literature of which we, that is, magazine readers in general, know nothing whatever. There is, for one, that fine, old, standard publication, Barrel and Box, devoted to the subjects and the interests of the coopering industry; there is too, The Dried Fruit Packer and Western Canner, as alert a magazine as one could wish—in its kind; and from the home of classic American literature comes The New England Tradesman and Grocer. And so on. At the place alone where we went to press twenty-seven trade journals were printed every week, from one for butchers to one for bankers.
The Fish Industries Gazette—Ah, yes! For some reason not clear (though it is an engaging thing, I think) the word "gazette" is the great word among the titles of trade journals. There are The Jewellers' Gazette and The Women's Wear Gazette and The Poulterers' Gazette (of London), and The Maritime Gazette (of Halifax), and other gazettes quite without number. This word "gazette" makes its appeal, too, curiously enough, to those who christen country papers; and trade journals have much of the intimate charm of country papers. The "trade" in each case is a kind of neighborly community, separated in its parts by space, but joined in unity of sympathy. "Personals" are a vital feature of trade papers. "Walter Conner, who for some time has conducted a bakery and fish market at Hudson, N. Y., has removed to Fort Edward, leaving his brother Ed in charge at the Hudson place of business."
The Fish Industries Gazette, as I say, was one of several in its field, in friendly rivalry with The Oyster Trade and Fisherman and The Pacific Fisheries. It comprised two departments: the fresh fish and oyster department, and myself. I was, as an editorial announcement said at the beginning of my tenure of office, a "reorganization of our salt, smoked, and pickled fish department." The delectable, mellow spirit of the country paper, so removed from the crash and whirr of metropolitan journalism, rested in this, too, that upon the Gazette I did practically everything on the paper except the linotyping. Reporter, editorial writer, exchange editor, make-up man, proof-reader, correspondent, advertisement solicitor, was I.
As exchange editor, did I read all the papers in the English language in eager search of fish news. And while you are about the matter, just find me a finer bit of literary style evoking the romance of the vast wastes of the moving sea, in Stevenson, Defoe, anywhere you please, than such a news item as this: "Capt. Ezra Pound, of the bark Elnora, of Salem, Mass., spoke a lonely vessel in latitude this and longitude that, September 8. She proved to be the whaler Wanderer, and her captain said that she had been nine months at sea, that all on board were well, and that he had stocked so many barrels of whale oil."
As exchange editor was it my business to peruse reports from Eastport, Maine, to the effect that one of the worst storms in recent years had destroyed large numbers of the sardine weirs there. To seek fish recipes, of such savory sound as those for "broiled redsnapper," "shrimps bordelaise," and "baked fish croquettes." To follow fishing conditions in the North Sea occasioned by the Great War. To hunt down jokes of piscatory humor. "The man who drinks like a fish does not take kindly to water.—Exchange." To find other "fillers" in the consular reports and elsewhere: "Fish culture in India," "1800 Miles in a Dory," "Chinese Carp for the Philippines," "Americans as Fish Eaters." And, to use a favorite term of trade papers, "etc., etc." Then to "paste up" the winnowed fruits of this beguiling research.
As editorial writer, to discuss the report of the commission recently sent by congress to the Pribilof Islands, Alaska, to report on the condition of our national herd of fur seals; to discuss the official interpretation here of the Government ruling on what constitutes "boneless" codfish; to consider the campaign in Canada to promote there a more popular consumption of fish, and to brightly remark à propos of this that "a fish a day keeps the doctor away"; to review the current issue of The Journal of the Fisheries Society of Japan, containing leading articles on "Are Fishing Motor Boats Able to Encourage in Our Country" and "Fisherman the Late Mr. H. Yamaguchi Well Known"; to combat the prejudice against dogfish as food, a prejudice like that against eels, in some quarters eyed askance as "calling cousins with the great sea-serpent," as Juvenal says; to call attention to the doom of one of the most picturesque monuments in the story of fish, the passing of the pleasant and celebrated old Trafalgar Hotel at Greenwich, near London, scene of the famous Ministerial white-bait dinners of the days of Pitt; to make a jest on an exciting idea suggested by some medical man that some of the features of a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, that is, baths, be introduced into the fo'c's'les of Grand Banks fishing vessels; to keep an eye on the activities of our Bureau of Fisheries; to hymn a praise to the monumental new Fish Pier at Boston; to glance at conditions at the premier fish market of the world, Billingsgate; to herald the fish display at the Canadian National Exhibition at Toronto, and, indeed, etc., and again etc.
As general editorial roustabout, to find each week a "leader," a translation, say, from In Allgemeine Fishcherei-Zeitung, or Economic Circular No. 10, "Mussels in the Tributaries of the Missouri," or the last biennial report of the Superintendent of Fisheries of Wisconsin, or a scientific paper on "The Porpoise in Captivity" reprinted by permission of Zoologica, of the New York Zoölogical Society. To find each week for reprint a poem appropriate in sentiment to the feeling of the paper. One of the "Salt Water Ballads" would do, or John Masefield singing of "the whale's way," or "Down to the white dipping sails"; or Rupert Brooke: "And in that heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish"; or a "weather rhyme" about "mackerel skies," when "you're sure to get a fishing day"; or something from the New York Sun about "the lobster pots of Maine"; or Oliver Herford, in the Century, "To a Goldfish"; or, best of all, an old song of fishing ways of other days.
And to compile from the New York Journal of Commerce better poetry than any of this, tables, beautiful tables of "imports into New York": "Oct. 15.—From Bordeaux, 225 cs. cuttlefish bone; Copenhagen, 173 pkgs. fish; Liverpool, 969 bbls. herrings, 10 walrus hides, 2,000 bags salt; La Guayra, 6 cs. fish sounds; Belize, 9 bbls. sponges; Rotterdam, 7 pkgs. seaweed, 9,000 kegs herrings; Barcelona, 235 cs. sardines; Bocas Del Toro, 5 cs. turtle shells; Genoa, 3 boxes corals; Tampico, 2 pkgs. sponges; Halifax, 1 cs. seal skins, 35 bbls. cod liver oil, 215 cs. lobsters, 490 bbls. codfish; Akureyri, 4,150 bbls. salted herrings," and much more. Beautiful tables of "exports from New York." "To Australia" (cleared Sep. 1); "to Argentina";—Haiti, Jamaica, Guatemala, Scotland, Salvador, Santo Domingo, England, and to places many more. And many other gorgeous tables, too. "Fishing vessels at New York," for one, listing the "trips" brought into this port by the Stranger, the Sarah O'Neal, the Nourmahal, a farrago of charming sounds, and a valuable tale of facts.
As make-up man, of course, so to "dress" the paper that the "markets," Oporto, Trinidad, Porto Rico, Demerara, Havana, would be together; that "Nova Scotia Notes"—"Weather conditions for curing have been more favorable since October set in"—would follow "Halifax Fish Market"—"Last week's arrivals were: Oct. 13, schr. Hattie Loring, 960 quintals," etc.—that "Pacific Coast Notes"—"The tug Tatoosh will perform the service for the Seattle salmon packers of towing a vessel from Seattle to this port via the Panama Canal"—would follow "Canned Salmon"; that shellfish matter would be in one place; reports of saltfish where such should be; that the weekly tale of the canned fish trade politically embraced the canned fish advertising; and so on and so on.