The Fishing Industry

by William E. Gibbs

The fish are gutted and salted by Scottish girls—many of them from the Hebrides—who come to Yarmouth and other places in the season for this purpose. These girls are all brought up in Scottish villages, and are extraordinarily expert in all the operations connected with the cleaning and salting of the fish. They work in crews of three, and take very good care that each member of the crew is a good worker, as they are paid according to the amount of work they do.

Each girl receives 25s. a week as a kind of subsistence allowance, and is paid 1s. a barrel for the work she does.

As the fish are delivered into the gutting trough, they are liberally sprinkled with salt, thus enabling the women to grasp the fish easily, as otherwise the fish are too slippery for quick handling.

The women work standing in a row beside the trough. They pick up a fish, gut it by inserting a sharp knife just below and behind the gills, and with a quick, upward cut, bring away the gut. The guts drop into small tubs placed in front of each worker, and are collected periodically and sold to manufacturers of manure. Behind each woman are three shallow tubs or baskets, and after she has gutted a fish, she throws it behind her into one of the three tubs, according to its quality and size. In this way, the two operations of gutting and selecting the fish are combined. As the tubs of gutted fish become filled, they are taken away by other girls to the barrel packers, and are packed in separate barrels, according to quality or size. The barrels are arranged in long rows, generally parallel to, and at some distance behind, the gutting trough. A girl will pack about three barrels in an hour.

The gutted fish are first of all emptied into large, shallow tubs called “rousing tubs,” placed just behind the row of barrels, and are again sprinkled with salt.

The packer takes an armful of fish from the rousing tub and drops them into the barrel. Each time the fish are taken from the rousing tub the contents of the tub are well stirred up. The fish are then packed in the barrel in layers, bellies upward, and each layer is liberally sprinkled with salt. In this way each individual fish is first of all thickly coated with salt in the rousing tub, and adjacent layers of fish in the barrel are also separated by a layer of salt. In this packing process, it is important that the fishery salt used should be coarse, reasonably hard, slow in dissolving and present in considerable excess. It should be coarse enough to prevent the fish from touching each other, thus enabling the brine to penetrate to every part. It should be hard enough to withstand the pressure of the fish in the barrel. It should dissolve slowly, so that the salting process takes place gradually, enough salt remaining undissolved throughout the process to keep the fish from touching. Altogether, about 1 cwt. of salt is used for each barrel of herrings cured.

The barrel, when fully packed, is covered over and left for about eight days. During this time, the salt extracts water from the fish and dissolves in it to form a saturated brine. The efficiency of this salting process necessarily depends upon the salt being present in considerable excess, so that the brine formed is kept saturated, and consequently continues to withdraw water from the fish.

At the end of eight days, the barrels are opened, an inch hole is drilled in the side at the bilge, and the pickle allowed to run out. It is found that, owing to the withdrawal of water from them, the herrings have shrunk considerably, and some more salted herrings are added to the barrel, until it is full again. It is then fastened down permanently, turned over on its side and filled with brine pickle, and corked up.