Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1883 — Newhaven Fishwives. [ARTICLE]

Newhaven Fishwives.

Most picturesque of all the figures tc be seen in Edinburg are the Newhaven fishwives. With short, full, blue cloth petticoats, reaching barely to theii ankles; white blouses and gay kerchiefs ; big, long-sleeved cloaks of the same blue cloth, fastened at the throat, but flying loose, sleeves and all, as, ii thrown on in haste; the girls bareheaded ; the married women with white caps, standing up stiff and straight in a point on the top of the head; two big wickerwork creels, one above the other, full of fish, packed securely, on their broad shoulders, and held in place by a stout leather strap passing round their forehead, they pull along at a steady, striding gait, up hill and down, carrying weights that it takes a man’s strength merely to lift. In fact, it is a fishwife’s boast that she will run with a weight which it takes two men to put on her back. By reason of this great strength on the part of the women, and their immemorial habit or exercising it; perhaps also from causes far back in the early days of Jutland, where these curious Newhaven fishing folk are said to have originated, it has come about that the Newhaven men are a singularly docile and submissive race. The wives keep all the money which they receive for the fish and the husbands take what is given them—a singular reversion of the situation in most communities. I did not believe this when it was told me, so I three fisherwives one day, and, without mincing matters, put the question direct to them. Two of them were young, one old. The young women laughed saucily and the old -woman smiled, but they all replied, unhesitatingly, that they had the spending of all the money. “It’s a’ spent i’ the hoos,” said one, anxious n'ot to be thought to selfish “it’s a’ spent i’ the hoos. The men, they cam home an’ tak their sleep, and then they’ll be ass agen.” “It ’ud never do for the husbands to stoop in tha city, an’ be spendin,’ a’ the money,” added the old woman*; with severe emphasis.