Alleged Recipient of Large Sum Sent to Prison fter James Cater Scott Macallan. vil engineer, had been found ly at the Old Bailey on Nov. 23 of defrauding a nurse, a detective said that among complaints made about him was one that he had received a considerable sum of money for the purpose of taking war material to China and Spain. states the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, Macallan was sentenced to. 18 months' imprisonment for having obtained £125 by false pretences from Miss Elsie May Andrewartha, who visited him profes-imas Humphreys, pro-securing, said that Macallan told Miss Andrewartha that he was about to undertake a big improvement scheme at Brighton, involving about £3,000.-
000.
He was forming a syndicate to undertake the scheme, and he wanted Of all the rare things which adorn the table of the gourmet, none has a stranger background than caviar, the roe of the sturgeon. states John Hall in the "Evening Standard."
The best known caviar centres in the world are those of the Volga and Danube Deltas. There great fish are' caught weighing as much as 1.0001b. with sometimes 2,0001b. of caviar in them, My experience of the fishing was on the Danube Delta in Rumania, at the strange canal town in the middle of the delta swamps, Valcov, The town was founded over 100 years ago by Russian refugees from religious persecution, the Lipovanes. The inhabitants are still pure Russian peasants in language and spirit; wild drinkers, with beards and long smock blouses. Their fishing methods are primitive, sure and cruel.
The men journey down to the Black Sea, down five miles of canals, in clumsy canoes, four men to a boat.
Once in the sea, some thousands of yards from the shore or swamp fringe, a leaded line is let down between two boats, The line is covered with thousands of sharply-pointed iron hooks, S-shaped. and about 2% inches long one end of the S to the other, These hooks are tied to the line by the middle, Sometimes two or three lines are placed at different depths, all between the same two boats. The hooks are not baited.
Men are left to watch the lines and the rest of the party go inshore, ere the water is waist deep, and jump into the sea to set nets for Danube herrings and lesser fish while they await the coming of the sturgeon.
How Sturgeon are Caught What dooms the sturgeon is that he cannot resist scratching his back-He finds the line with the hooks and scratches away happily, until a hook chances to run under a scale into his skin and prick his flesh, He gives a wild, angry wriggle and a few more hooks stick in, and with every movement his struggles become wilder with the pain, As he moves, the two boats slacken the line, and he becomes tangled as well as hooked.
Then the rest of the party are called. A big fish is difficult to handle, as the value of the caviar goes down by nearly fifty per cent. if it is removed from a dead fish.
They come up in their boat and, swaying and sagging in the waves, they fight the fish, pulling and loosening the line until it is weakened by loss of blood and can safely be dragged into the canals and taken back to Valcov. either in a larger boat, or towed home behind the fisher's canoes, A big fish gives a hard enough fight even in a calm sea, When it is rough, men are often drowned in the battle, The live sturgeon are brought to the wharves on Valcov's Grand Canal.
The fish itself is like a huge silver and green mackerel, with a shark's head, but without the shark's wicked row of teeth.
When it is landed the fish is immediately weighed twice—once for the fishermen and once for the State. The State's representative buys the fish for cash, and deducts the money due for taxes, the only ones which the fisherfolk pay, The fishermen then lift it diving, and sometimes kicking, on to a wooden slab, One of them draws a sharp stabbing knife and makes a quick incision in the belly from chin to tail, Before cutting, many of the men. when they bring in a big fish, cross themselves, knife in hand, asking God to send them another such during the season, Some of them even make a little cut in their forehead with the point of the knife. They are very superstitious.
The fish once slit, the caviar i laid bare inside it, covered only by a thin membrane, It looks exactly as it does when served; little round eggs, grey and oily,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.