1835: LABRADOR cod fishery; steamboats explosions; TRAPPIST MONKS La Trappe salt

Description

1835: LABRADOR cod fishery; steamboats explosions; TRAPPIST MONKS La Trappe salt
THE PENNY MAGAZINE
Feb. 21,
1835
Labrador cod fishing
steamboat explosions
Trappist monks
This is an issue of a weekly London paper which is
over 180 years old
!
It is printed in a small format, measuring 7 x 11 inches in size, and is 8 pages long. The paper came from a bound volume, and has typical slight disbinding marks at its spine, but is otherwise in excellent and attractive condition overall.
The paper has a pair of unillustrated articles of American interest. First is almost a full page (over 130 lines of text) on
COD-FISHING IN LABRADOR
.
The article is based on the writing of Audubon, and begins:
“Though the coast of Labrador is visited by European as well as American fishermen, the business is most extensively carried on by the traders of the latter country, and especially by the citizens of Boston and other eastern sea-ports on the American coast. The vessels employed leave their respective ports from the beginning of May to that of June, that is, as soon as the spring has dissolved the ice, which during the winter had blocked up the Gulf. A vessel of one hundred tons is provided with a crew of twelve men . . . For every two men there is alloted a ‘Hampton boat’. . .”
It goes on to describe the entire baiting and fishing process, and how the cod are handled on deck and back in the harbor; the extracting of fish oil, and how the cod are salted, etc. It ends by describing the seine-net method used to catch cod later in the season, and concludes:
“The business is very lucrative; and instances are known of men who by industry have in the course of ten years acquired a comfortable independence.”
******************
The final article in the issue takes up half of the last page, on
STEAM-BOAT EXPLOSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.
This talks of the facts presented in two Congressional reports on the subject:
“
From these documents it appears that rumour has magnified the number of those disastrous accidents, and the nature of their results. ‘The whole number of explosions in the United States is ascertained to be 52, number of killed 256; number of wounded 104.’”
Although this death toll sounds gruesome, and steamboat explosions provided dramatic news stories, the writers try to reassure the public that in relative terms, steamboats are not all that deadly:
“Although this is a melancholy detail of casualties . . . it will appear small when compared with the whole amount of injury and loss which has been sustained by travelling in stages and other kinds of carriages. More lives have probably been lost from sloops and packets on the waters of this State (New York) since the introduction of steam-boats than by all the accidents in the latter, though the number of passengers exposed has been much smaller. . . . One boat on the Hudson, built in 1825, has carried near 200,000 passengers; and we have sixteen or eighteen boats plying the Hudson . . . And this is only a section of the United States: now numerous steam-vessels are rushing up and down the majestic Mississippi, branching off into the the Ohio, the Arkansas, the Missouri, and carrying a stream, and ever-flowing stream, of population into wilds, which, very lately, knew no other lord than the red Indian of the forest.”
******************
In the center of the issue is an article on
LA TRAPPE
, about the Trappist monastery in France. Spread over three pages, it has about 150 lines of text on the history of the monastery, and the lives of the monks presently living there. It is illustrated with two nice wood engravings drawn by an English artist during a tour of La Trappe in 1833. They are captioned:
“The Porter of a Convent of La Trappe, in France,”
and
“A Monk of La Trappe at his Devotions.”
******************
There is also an article on
COMMON SALT
(more than a full page, and over 150 lines of text), describing the production of rock salt and sea salt around the world. The lead story in the paper is a short item, with a woodcut illustration, on “
POPE’S TREE, at Binfield, Berkshire.”
******************************************
Background on this publication:
The
Penny Magazine
was a weekly 8-page paper put out by London’s “Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.” Throughout the 1830s, an American edition was very popular in the United States, only to dwindle into extinction during the following decade. The paper did not cover the current news of the day, and carried no advertising. Instead, the
Penny Magazine
provided excellent essays on a wide array of subjects, such as architecture, science, geography and natural history, often illustrated with fine woodcut engravings.
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