numbers by men and boys. I saw some on that occasion (it was either in 1857 or 1858) of splendid size and condition; indeed I have rarely, if ever, seen finer ones. Private individuals who wish to take eels, not for the market, but for pastime, or to supply their own tables, may take them in most fresh waters by means of night-lines baited with lob-worms, minnows, and small gudgeons. Jack and trout are often taken on these lines: I myself have taken fine fish on them, but only once a trout, and that was a small one; still I have known many instances of good trout being taken, as well as perch. There are other ways of taking eels on which I need not here expatiate. Holland is famous for its eels, and they are brought to Billingsgate alive, and there sold by tens of thousands each morning during the proper season. These are bought by costermongers and little dealers, and retailed in the streets. On a winter night, every street in a populous locality (especially if it be a low one) will exhibit its eel-merchant with a can of smoking hot stewed eels, and of the eel-pie houses and vendors I may truly affirm that “their name is legion.”
It is a very bustling, curious sight, very early in the morning, when eels are in season, to pay a visit to the Dutch eel-boats lying off Billingsgate, and to hear the great amount of rough but good-humoured badinage that goes on between the crews of the vessels and the intended buyers. A great lump of eels, twined and intertwined in so many Gordian knots, and all alive and writhing, is produced from a box (full of holes to admit the water, and fastened by a chain to the boat), and perhaps the seller ultimately takes a third of what he asked at first. The eel-buyers are an exceedingly sharp set, and can calculate to a fraction what a lot will be worth at a glance, knowing as they do the exact state of the street-market, and the prices to which (and no further) their street-customers will go. The day of the week also to a great extent influences the street-markets. On Catholic fish days, for instance, the demand with Irish labourers will be greater; and it must be remembered that fish being a stock in trade that will not keep, the street-seller must needs look very sharply to the probable demand. Most of those who deal in uncooked eels sell also plaice and other fish, whilst those who sell hot stewed eels, sell besides only whelks, and sometimes the eels alone. So popular are these stewed eels with street boys, that I am assured a lad, after having had one halfpennyworth, will come six or seven times again in the same evening if he has the money, and one street-dealer told me he had once sold thirteen halfpennyworths to the same boy within three hours!
The last variety of eel to which I shall refer is the small sea sand-eel, which is sold in vast numbers to the Londoners in the by districts, especially the Irish, and the young lads and boys who have a few pence to spare for what they deem a delicacy. This choice “morçeau” is particularly affected by the hangers-on of the Victoria Theatre: indeed, the class of people frequenting that district form at least eight-tenths of the customers of the eel-man. Sometimes a working-man’s wife, to get a hot and cheap supper for her tired-out husband, will buy a few of these eels ready stewed, and bring them home in a small basin.
The sand-eel does not differ in its habits from others of its tribe. It may be taken at any seaside place, as for instance, off Ramsgate and Broadstairs’ piers, by merely fastening a bunch of worms to a piece of worsted and dipping them into the water. The eels will hang on till lifted out. This method is termed “bobbing,” and I have often employed it, when a boy, at both the places mentioned. It must be practised when the tide is flowing, as the eels come in to feed with the flood tide. The worms should be sea-worms, dug out of the mud at low water. Common land-worms turn quite white in salt water, and are of very little use. I have also taken the silver fresh-water eel by “bobbing” in the river Loddon, and in the Thames at Henley.
The sea sand-eel is a very bony fish and exceedingly inferior, but it commands a good sale amongst the lower orders owing to its cheapness. Its size rarely exceeds twelve inches in length, and its thickness is no more than that of a man’s finger. It is sold on barrows in the streets and lanes of the New Cut, Whitechapel, the Edgware Road, Somers Town, and other populous localities, and also in the small fish-shops scarcely to be dignified as “fishmongers,” but where the articles offered for sale consist mainly of bloaters, dried haddocks, shrimps, whelks, and periwinkles.
Probably many of the readers of this periodical are not even aware of the existence of this little eel. It may often be seen taken in the shrimp and prawn nets of our coast, and under the large stones and seaweed in the shallow pools left by the sea at low water. I regret much to add that great and needless cruelties are practised on the eel tribe, as, though the eel is tenacious of life, the mere disjointing of one of the vertebræ is sufficient to deprive it of feeling, and the motion that follows is purely muscular. It is a piece of brutal barbarity to skin eels (as is almost always done), without first depriving them of feeling. I should like to urge a plea for the poor eel, who has not many friends; nay, why should I not urge a plea—as I most heartily do—for the whole of the dumb creation?
UP THE MOSELLE.
PART III.
