86 THE REY. R. F. WHEELER, M.A., 
little regulation in the mode of fishing, in the fact that the 
mussel fishing was nearly extinct before the Corporation of 
Boston took the subject up four years since; but that since then 
it has soimproved that ten tons a day are sent off to Manchester 
and the fishing is worth at least £60 a week to themen. Great 
quantities are also sent away by sea, and sold for bait to the 
fishermen along the Durham and Northumberland coasts. But 
the Corporation of Boston have recently been set at defiance, and 
the law has proved too weak, and so the old state of affairs is 
likely very soon to return. From the Durham coast the reports 
place the decrease in supply at from fifty to thirty per cent.; 
from Cullercoats, that the average now is about fifteen stones 
per boat. Years bygone it was nearly seven times as great. 
When a boat was entering the harbour it was then the custom 
to hold up the hand. If held up once it signified that one cart 
would he wanted to convey the fish away. If twice, two carts, 
and soon. Twenty years ago, any one could have gone down 
to the shore and had their choice of the best cod for fourpence 
each; the fishermen then getting from forty to sixty each This 
winter (1862-3), for days together, there has not been a cod 
amongst all the boats. far less fish sent to the south than 
formerly. Blyth, Holy Island, and the other fishing stations, all 
report to the same effect. 
I am not aware of the number of boats engaged on the Dur- 
ham coast, but it approaches one hundred. On the Northum- 
berland coast there are one hundred and fifty-five engaged in 
the white fishing, of which thirty-eight belong to Cullercoats, 
twenty-seven to Newbiggen, and sixteen to Holy Island. And 
in addition there are probably about one hundred exclusively 
employed in the herring fishery. 
It requires four men, or three men and a boy, to work a north 
country open fishing boat for white fish. The quantity of lines 
carried by the boats varies at the different villages. At Culler- 
coats, each man in the boat has eight pieces of line, each sixty- 
eight fathoms long, and the number of hooks is from 900 to 
1,000. Each hook requires at least two mussels to bait it. 
My paper has run to a very far greater length than I ever ima- 
