Mackerel
one of the great food fishes, everywhere abundant in Atlantic waters. It belongs to the trout and salmon family. The common mackerel has a spindle-shaped body, bright blue above and silvery beneath, the back marked with thirty-five wavy stripes. An average mackerel is fourteen to sixteen inches long and weighs two pounds. It is a very handsome fish. Mackerel may be taken with hook and line if the bait be kept moving rapidly. A "mackerel breeze" is a gentle wind suitable for mackerel trolling. They are taken also by large seines wrought by two boats. In this way a school may be surrounded and hauled aboard. A third method--the one most frequently employed--is that of drift nets. These nets are often a mile in length and twenty feet wide. One end is made fast to a buoy and the other is attached to the fishing boat. The upper edge is held up by cork floats; the lower edge is weighted with sinkers. The net is made of woven twine with meshes just large enough to allow the mackerel to pass until the first pair of fins is through, but not large enough to permit the largest part of the body to go through. The mackerel, once part way through, is thus unable to go ahead or to retreat. Each morning the fisherman gets into a small boat and goes the length of his net lifting it to the surface as he goes, removing the mackerel, and returning the net to the water. Sometimes a heavy catch gladdens the fisherman, and sometimes marauding dogfish have broken his nets and done more damage than he can hope to make good in a week's fishing. Steamers with ice aboard make the rounds of the fishing fleet, buy the catch, and convey the fresh fish to market before they spoil. Often the fisherman puts his mackerel down in brine and salts them for future sale.
The mackerel is a true sea fish, traveling in immense schools, some of which it is estimated contain as high as 1,000,000 barrels. They live on small fishes, and such minute shellfish as float on the waves. In the summer season they move north, keeping in water, as has been observed, having a temperature of about 45 deg. F. They spawn in the open sea. The female produces from 10,000 to 50,000 eggs. Each egg contains a tiny drop of oil that causes it to float. The young fish grow rapidly, attaining a length of about five inches in a single summer. In winter the mackerel shoals move farther out to sea. The mackerel fishery is one of the most important of fishing industries. It is estimated that the Scandinavian nations take 1,500,000,000 pounds a year, the fishermen of northern Scotland, about 200,000,000 pounds; the fishermen of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, 250,000,000 pounds; the fishermen of New England, 65,000,000 pounds. Other nations as the Dutch, French, and Germans make smaller catches. Gloucester, Massachusetts, is an important center of the mackerel industry. A very similar mackerel is beginning to attract attention on the Pacific coast. There are perhaps 3,000 people engaged in these fisheries. They take about 50,000,000 pounds a year.
McKinley, William (1843-1901), the twenty-fourth president of the United States. He was born at Niles, Ohio, January 29, 1843, and died at Buffalo, New York, September 14, 1901. He completed a portion of a college course at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania. He taught in the public schools and served as clerk in a postoffice. June 11, 1861, he enlisted as a private in a company of the twenty-third Ohio volunteers. He was present in several battles, including Antietam and South Mountain. He was promoted several times. When mustered out, he held the rank of major and was an acting adjutant general. After the close of the war he studied law at Youngstown, Ohio, and in the law school of Albany, New York. In 1867 he opened a law office at Canton, Ohio. Three years later he was made county attorney and took a prominent part in state politics. He was elected to Congress in 1877 and served almost continuously until 1890. He had a reputation as an orator. In his congressional career he came into prominence as chairman of the ways and means committee, and was the author of the McKinley Tariff Bill. In 1892 he was elected governor of Ohio. In 1896 he was nominated by the Republicans for the presidency. He received 7,104,779 votes, a popular majority. The vote in the Electoral College stood 271 for McKinley and 176 for Bryan. The war with Spain, the liberation of Cuba, and the acquisition of the Philippines took place during his first administration. In 1900 he was reelected by a still greater popular vote, receiving 292 electoral votes and carrying 28 states.
September 5, 1901, he visited the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York, and delivered an address on the questions of the day. On the following day, while holding a reception in the Music Hall of the exposition, he was shot by an anarchist. He died September 14th. His assassination created the greatest indignation. It was as much as a man's life was worth to say anything in palliation of the assassin's detestable act. Services were held abroad in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral. Sympathetic telegrams were received from all parts of the world. McKinley's remains were conveyed to Canton, Ohio, where they now rest under a fitting monument. Though not ranking with the foremost Americans in point of commanding ability, William McKinley was a patriot and a man of integrity. He met with business reverses, but refused utterly to take advantage of bankruptcy laws. He was a model son and a model husband.
The popular indignation and wrath at his murder led temporarily to some ill-advised attempts to check anarchist doctrines by dangerous interference with the precious American principle of free speech.
See Presidents