The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 20, 1899, Page 31

THE SUNDAY CALL. 81 Quaint Scenes on Fishermen's Thart of the Sea to Provide Us With Ocean Delica- - eies-—-Their 0dd Superstitions, Yueer Qustoms and Daily Work. The crab catchers make their appear- they ance with pretension and .aere is little Interest evinced ip the g/ They dump the sacks which contain the wriggling creatures down by the scales of some particular dealer, and those they cannot sell are confined in the bar- nacle-covered crates scattered about swung into the water beneath the wha ers res fixed steadfas e is forming. one industry s no compet dyeing or ric sail, but give two-third who fu ed boat upon the caugt at the whart this city. It tanning the nets and brown color one observes 1 they are drifting out 108t expen This industry was established thirty- ve years ago by Captain Barlow, who began bu when the fancy here. He died one year after removing It to its present quarters, and for twenty years his son, Willlam G. Barlow, has | tanned the fishermen's nets in the long, low shed at the eastern end of the whart. Here above & brick platform are swung five great caldrons, the smallest holding two hundred gallons, and also the im- in which the nets and sails are plunged after belng scalded for eix hours in a decoction of oak bark, twelve tons of which are used every year for this purpose. Most of the fishermen have their sall dipped once a month, for which they p the sum of §. The process is said, how- ess at the C ing industr -street whar{ was in its in- s IN THEIR BOATS,. masts led their g in are load- 1es, and lle deep s weight of their at will hold 3000 p Pietro hears ts.” he repl un dog I theswharf and is jumpir He darts around the eT where ‘oung pilferers are hidden, and the rger of the quartet, being just at the edge, goes into the bay with a splash, his hands full of tell-tale fish. The mild ex- tement pervading the crowd changes to 1d alarm » fisherman tips over his ttle of wine, and the red stream stains his newly painted boat. Another just cc ing down to the ladder to his craft drops A great N | ever, to preserve them double the time ) | they would otherwise last. : 0 boats anchor at the whart, for o , the occupation of dyeing nets s > derable one. 7 | | ome time ago steam pipes for heating | | considerabls : \ expense, but tkh fishermen showed their A dislike of in =0 plainly—in other > - | words grumbled rons i that the and the : old and prim resorted to of - J building a fire upon atform under J ; each separate boiler £ ; : | In this way young Bar- . ; ‘ low's work was re for’as soon as i | the first fire the men wera C.-0 | willing to vouch t being well = 3 { d « PRICE. o ‘ T Tl T 3 7 | 4 R POINTER ON | <M 1 ; MOSQUITOES ‘When a man he that it° is the does all the biting, glad. Further com knowledge th for the first time male mosquito that 1kes him feel right f the has nsibilities 5 He has quite a brush of hairs on his antennae, and with them he hears. Mayer stuck one of his kind on a gl late and s ed tuning forks about. When one was made certain ha while all the otk w tone would start anothe and so on. Also, if the tuning fork w at one side of the mosquito hairs on that antenna trembled most ntly, so that when the male hes ther feels the voice of his beloved in one antennae, he wheels about so that the vibration is equal in both, and flies s ight ahead to meet her. That is about all there is to the male mosquito, though, except that he cannot bite for the sufficlent reason that he has no apparatus with which to saw through the skin. So to speak, he has the pumps, but no drill. But the female is thoroughly equipped for getting through even a poli- ticlan's hide. The only mystery is what possesses her to want to bite at all. How émns she come by her hankering for blood. The scientists give it up. If she laid her eggs in the wound, like the carrion fly, it would be easy to answer the question, but she doesn’t. If she stung to defend herself, llke the wasp, it would be easy. und- set to vibrati unch of carrots away. rgain for the 1. The Portuguese are father and his friends 1 gets well enough to e all filled with hich requir m four to six hem, and the crowd upon the r again perhaps he'll be iarf {s greater than in the morning. ful The hoats have been out two, three, per- haps s, and fishers X fous to « of their catch ar seek their homes. A Neapolitan, less averse than the others to talking with strange: com- ght and plains bitterly of the fishing steamer. able to ‘l make plenty money before fishing steamer come. I keep wife and children I f I got plenty children—too mucha. \ Il i ake everything—striped bassa, \ 7 5 work half plentiful, 1 Steam with rockcod; it taka de herrin’—mucha fish Sell it a-cheap and make it bad—vera had! s , who usually buy their day's Plenty fishermen, plenty little children, go Fr Kk y at 2 and 3 o'clock in morniug, hungry disa winter—too bad.” | | i | | | ) the cheapest. It must be h tack helpless The fishermen are very careful of these that promy nets, and on Saturday one may see them human beings. She cannot get this crav- congregated in the low shed on the land- nheritance, for the chances are ward side of the wharf making and mend- none of her ancestors ae far back anchored and fed - upon small fish untll ing these accessories of their craft, whicn a3 \Villlam the Fonayeror exer Bad & taste there is a demand for them. on their arrival at shore are seen draped + Etoop of an evening and a mosquitd, Among all the toilers of the sea the lot in amazing numbers over the wharf rail, D hotr ont of .the water. will of these poor crab catchers is the hard- or spread at length upon the northern make straight for you as if she had est. They must seek thelr cargo among arm of the wharf, where one walks heen born for that pirpose. When one breakers and in the most dangerous loca- through a lane of nets. et live and die. 1o saamspsiwiiere tions, and in spite of the hardships they Here in the shed with their nets they Ments that Tve and e in SWAmES Where endure their earnings are pitifully -mall. do not seem 80 much masters of the situ- f..."r ng mired, one can easily believe Many of the fishermen, and there are ation &s in their boats. Speak to one of the estimate of entomologists that not one more than a thousand of them in this them and the chances are that he will in a million ever samples red blood.— % city alone, do not own the boat in which pretend not to hear you, but will keep Ainslee’s Magazine for August,