86 FISHING INDUSTRY OP PLYMOUTH. 



become the owners of the vessel. The following method is 

 usually adopted. A young man who is qualified^ and is 

 "second hand" on board some other boat^ is offered the post 

 of skipper on board the new vessel, and he undertakes to 

 " work her out." He pays over year by year, out of his 

 earnings, a proportion of the value of the vessel until a 

 certain sum is in the hands of the builder, who then accepts 

 a mortgage on the boat and the skipper becomes the owner 

 and pays off the mortgage in instalments. 



As will be seen in the following account, as skipper and 

 owner he receives four and a half shares of the net proceeds 

 of the catch. 



Payments. — The men are paid on the share system, 

 according to the value of the fish caught ; the proportions of 

 the shares varies, however, in the different kinds of fishing. 



Insurance. — There are clubs for the insurance of trawlers, 

 and of drifters and hookers managed entirely by the fisher- 

 men themselves in a very excellent fashion. 



Fishermen. — The men who go fishing from this port are 

 hond fide fishermen, they are not landsmen shipped during 

 the fishing season and who work ashore during the rest of 

 the year : such is the case with a great proportion of the 

 crews of fishing boats on the Scotch coast during the herring 

 season and on the east coast of England, but here the men 

 are brought up to the fishing business and understand all 

 the details connected with the craft as only such men can. 



Boys. — The few apprentices who are shipped on board 

 these boats are well treated, the boys generally engaged are 

 sons or relations of the skipper, owner, or one or other 

 member of the crew of the smack in which he sails, and 

 they are paid by a proportionate share of the value of the 

 catch. 



A complaint of ill-treatment made by a boy is, I under- 

 stand, unknown here, and the good feeling and kindness 

 existing was very favorably commented on by the committee 

 appointed in 1883 to inquire into these matters (No. 21). 

 The fishermen bear a character for thorough honesty and 

 kind-heartedness, which I myself have every reason to believe 

 is not exaggerated. 



