to wasli and brush the fleas out of him, and in a week he would swim after a feather or a cork.* “ He was a black cat natural, and I think the sea water made him blacker; his coat was as clean as a smelt, and had a noble gloss on it. I would not grudge a five-pound note, poor man as I am, to have my cat back. Oh dear, my poor cat! My Puddles was as good a cat for a rat as he was for a fish. I cleared out my cellar once, and I found twenty rats’ skins as Puddles had killed, all scooped out as clean as your ’bacca-pouch, but the tails was not touched. He was a plaguey cat, though, for he would go out into the harbour to catch rats, and come in all covered with mud and lay on my bed. 3 used to give him the cat. I says, ‘ So you’ve been up on my bed before you was dry, have you? Now take your punishment like a man.’ So I takes a nettle, and stands him on his front paws on the bottom step of the stairs, and I gives him his dozen. He stood quiet enough while I gave him a dozen; but if I gave him thirteen, ‘ marr ’ he’d go, and away he’d fly as savage as could be. It was a bad day when I lost my Puddles he was the most superbest cat as was ever afloat. 1

While this story of how Kobinson Crusoe trained his cat to the water was fresh in my mind, I saw some poor little children taken down to the bathing-machine and treated in a very different way to that in which Greorge treated his Puddles. I would beg to refer the reader to the Appendix.

thinks he was taken aboard a ship as went to the West Indies (“ sailors is terrible fond of cats,^ leastways them as has only got one tail), or else he was killed for his fine skin. There was a terrible cry for cats’ skins in Gosport at one time, and if I could only catch the beef-headed fellow as killed him, I’d up with my stump and hammer him like a stock fish. Them as is cruel to dumb animals is always cowards; and if I was a judge I’d soon clap the irons on their legs. I am going to bring up another cat to the water. I got a kitten at home now, but he won’t act at all. I must get one before he can see, and in with him into the water, and then he will take to it. Cats is terrible hard things to drown. There was a man the other day as wanted to drown a cat, so he tied a five-pound brick round his neck, and hove that ere cat with the brick on him in the water. But when he got home the cat was there fust; so he ties a stone on to the * “ Cats at sea.—Our readers must have often wondered why seafaring men are so fond of taking cats with them on a voyage. This is explained by two circumstances. Marine insurance does not cover damage done to cargo by the depreda-tions of rats; but if the owner of the damaged goods can prove that the ship was sent to sea unfurnished with a cat, he can recover damages from the shipmaster. Again, a ship found at sea with no living creature on board is considered a derelict, and is forfeited to the Admiralty, the finders, or the queen. It has often happened that after a ship has been abandoned some domestic animal, a dog or canary bird, or most frequently a cat, has saved the vessel from being condemned as a derelict.”— Once a Week.

cat, but even then lie got sheer of the rope, for he gnawed it off with his grinders, and it was three times before he drowned that ere cat.” 11 1 suppose you know the water here pretty well, Eobinson Crusoe?” “ Know the water, sir! I knows it well from Bern** bridge Ledge to the Needle Eocks, for I have fished a’most every foot of it; but it’s the wracks* as harbours the fish most. The ‘Loyal George’ used to be a capital wrack. A regular lubberly job that was. She went down ‘ holus bolus,’ she did; but they come and blowed her timbers all to pieces; and there arn’t not a bit of timber nor yet a fish on that wrack now. The other wracks is only barges, and brigs, and such like. If I was a gentleman, I would just buy a lighter, and sink her, and in about two years she would be a splendid wrack. There arn’t one out of a dozen harbour men as knows the marks of the best wracks, as they don’t take notice sufficient; and if you’re a foot outside of the mark, you may as well be at home and a-bed. I’ll tell you the mark of the wrack where I just catched the lobster, as you seems a kind sort of a gentleman. You must open the white chimney on the edge of the mud battery, and them three little trees on the windmill, and that will bring you right on top of the wrack. It’s

Wrecks.

the pouts as likes the wracks; they eats the little teeny long-pinchered crabs, no bigger than my thumbnail, and the sea woodlice, and such like; but a pout arn’t particular like a conger or a whiting; and them heavy whiting do bite ‘ logic’ dull like, and it’s a curious thing as any fish will eat boiled cabbage or boiled onions, and they comes about the ships at Spithead for it. I knows of seven or eight wracks hereabouts where I fishes. The ‘Boyne’ is about as good as any of them. She was a fine ship was the ‘ Boyne.’ She catched fire at Spithead (I think it was in 1798), and all her guns was shotted; they went off one alter the other right in among the fleet. Her magazine was full of powder, so they set her adrift, and she took the ground just at the edge of the Horse bank, and there she fired away her big guns anyhow till she blowed herself up, and she is now the wonderfullest wrack about here. There’s a wonderful sight of timber, and a wonderful sight of fish about her, and they always runs good. I fishes at her all the year round, and yet there’s always fish, though sometimes you can’t get a smell out of them, much less a bite. I once catched a hundred dozen of pouts in three bits of tide, and some of them was very fine pouts. The young flood is the time to catch ’em; then they stops nearly an hour, when the whole body of the tide comes in they begins again. There ain’t half so many pouts about as there

used to be; it’s the town gas as kills the fish. If a porpoise was to swallow one bladder of gas, as big as a halfpenny, as it comes out of Portsmouth harbour, he’d turn turtle in a minute; it’s real poison is gas, to any fish that swims—I don't care whether it is fresh or salt water.” “ But how do you manage with one arm?”

“Why, sir, my stump is very useful, and though I have lost my right hand I still feels my fingers on, particular at the change of the weather. I holds my hooks down with the stump—and it’s only made with an

Iold bit of leather and a boy’s spin top at the end—and puts on the worms with my left hand. I can feel a bite, and haul up fish with my stump; but I often fishes with my mouth when my other hand is so cold that I cannot use him. “ There’s some fine fish out away by the Warner Light. I once catched three cod there, and fine fellows they were too. They come off the Horse Sands, where the floating light is; but there arn’t many fish about the Spit Buoy.* But we don’t call it the Spit now; we

A few days afterwards we saw a curious-looking object coming along the shore. We ran up the hank, and, behold, it was our much-respected friend the Spit himself. Poor old fellow! all the long winter had he been out at sea, buffeted about by every storm and every wave, and tolling his bell all the time. Alas! he was worn out and wanted repairs. A boat-load of dockyard sailors were pulling him ashore, having

calls it the Crinoline Buoy. There’s a bell hung up in her, as tolls with the waves, and there’s seats ail round enough to hold a dozen men, with chains for them to catch hold of, and save the lives of the poor fellows as is wracked; and I see the gentleman a papering the Crinoline Buoy as well as he is Bobinson Crusoe.” (See engraving.)—“Thank-ye, sir. Now I shall go and get a ‘ monkey full of one-water grog,’ and shall feel quite comfortable after my night’s work. Glad to see you out fishing along with me, sir, if you don’t mind a poor man’s plain talk; and I’ll show you all the best wracks, for I knows where the fish lies at these tides as well as any man as comes off the harbour; and you seems fond of curioes, sir, and I catches some curioes sometimes. Will take you out fishing to-morrow if you like, sir, and show you some of the wracks.”

The next morning, however, we were doomed to disappointment, for the great waves came thundering in

fixed his “ double ” on his place at the edge of the Spit to take his turn at work during the summer. The white paint was nearly all washed off his rusty iron face, on which he wore a long beard of sea-weed; his belt was green as grass; he reeled about even in still water, as though he knew not for a moment what it was to be still. The letter T was washed out of the label—“ Spit,” and he looked like an old bull-dog with one eye. Never mind, old fellow, you’ve done your duty well; I only hope they won’t knock you to bits and sell your ribs for old metal to the Jews. These buoys would be fine places for trying experiments with various substances to prevent the fouling of ships’ bottoms with weeds, barnacles, &c.

rattling the shingle backwards and forwards, and dashing their white foam against Southsea Castle, and as the old barnacle-backed sailor said of the weather in the Bay of Biscay, “ After that it left off blowing, and went on anyhow.’ At last the weather became favourable. We therefore at once determined to go fishing, and see whether, after their long holiday from hook and line, the fish would not be in a biting humour. “ How long shall we be out?” said the friend who went with me. “ As long as the fish bite,” said I; “ therefore we had better take some food with us, for there are no bakers’ shops at the Spit Buoy, and they don’t sell cheese at the 6 Boyne.’ ” “ Morning, sir,” said Barney, the civil and obliging provider of boats on the beach, and whose name was once Barnabas, but who never will be called anything but Barney again. “ Better have the 1 Laughing Jackass,’

Page 3 of 46