Show RELIGION HELPS FISH TRADE Fish Trado Would be Dead but for Catholic Countries Though most of the sturdy fishcrfolk of Newfoundland are Protestants they derive the larger part of their living I from the > copleof Roman Catholic countries The fact that In the course of the year there are many Cat days when millions Roman Catholics eat little animal food except fish has been n godsend to the greatest fishing countries coun-tries which have thus been provided with certain and regular markets for their fish I Is well known that the Inhabitants of the temperate zones are eating less and less salt fish Pickled herring twenty years ago was landed to the amount of scores of thousands of barrels a year at a few leading northern ports of America and Europe Scarcely a barrel of this commodity is now to be seen in these ports unless landed for transshipment to the Rot Ro-t man Catholics of subtropical and 1 tropical countries which are buying more salt fish than ever as they grow In population Thecod Is commercially the most Important of fishes The only reason that makes it so is because salted salt-ed cod is an extremely popular article Catholic coun of food in all Roman Catholc tries on account of Its nutritive quality and cheapness Protestant countries cat comparatively little cod and most of that is fresh Instead of cured When the fishermen of all nations toss their handlines baited for cod over the side of their little vessels clean and salt the catch as they haul It aboard and then after reaching port expose It on rude platforms to the sunshine Unit is flaky white and thoroughly dried it is certain that they are workIng work-Ing for tho Roman Catholic parts of the world CODFISH AND CURED FISH Wellcured cod to be sure is not to he disdained by any one nevertheless by far the larger part of it is eaten by Catholics I is the fresh cod of our inland fisheries that has supple most of euromarkets while the salted cod of the banks Is chiefly sold either in Catholic countries or in lands where that religious element is large The wellknown stockfish of commerce is the dried cod of Norway and Sweden and it Is shipped at once for the south ern parts of Europe These lands of many fast days also buy the Scottish dried cod Wells filled with salt water in the hold of English cod vessels keep the fish alive till it arrives fresh In the markets for the English eat very few cured codfish Frances cod catch Is almost as large as our own and her fishermen are sent thousands of miles to the banks to catch and cure the great stores of cod which this Catholic country requires It is not Great Britain but rather i Italy Spain Portugal and Brazil that are the largest buyers of the cured fish which is the greatest resource of Newfoundland New-foundland These countries pay cash too for they do not send Newfoundland In commodities onetenth of the value of the fish they buy from her Cana das exports to Italy In 1S96 were wholly fish to the Spanish West Indies seven ninths fish to Brazil over fivesixths fish to Spain over onehalf fish There is no country in tho world In which so much fish Is eaten as In European Russia Rus-sia and the reason is because the Greek church has many more fast days and I observes them more strictly than the Western Catholics The use of meat is prohibited or greatly restricted on nearly half the days of tho year and the result is to give enormous importance impor-tance to the prolific homo fisheries in river lake and sea which supply 96 000000 people with fish food Cyrus C Adams in AInslees |