348 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
out at the different ports differ, so far as I can learn, chiefly in 
regard to the grounds affected, and in regard to certain market 
customs and requirements with which we are not here much 
concerned. My own knowledge of the deep-sea work is derived 
almost entirely from Grimsby, so that any remarks I have to make 
must be taken as applying to that port, unless special mention is 
made of another. | do not know of any particulars in which the 
Hull fishery differs from that of Grimsby; the boats seem to work 
precisely the same ground, and are of the same build and average 
tonnage. Much of the Scarborough trawling fleet is more or less 
constantly employed at Grimsby, and steamers from the more 
northern ports are at least frequent visitors. 
The fine fleet of steamers owned in Boston appears to be engaged 
in the same operations as those from Grimsby and Hull. I cannot 
claim much special knowledge of the boats belonging to southern 
ports, but I believe that the necessarily scanty nature of the account 
which I give of them is of little importance, owing to the absolute 
preponderance of Grimsby and Hull in the North Sea trawl-fishery 
as a whole. 
Besides the deep-sea fisheries, in which we may include trawling, _. 
lining, and drift-netting, and, at Grimsby, oyster-dredging and 
whelking, there are a certain number of men at most of the larger 
ports engaged in longshore work of one sort or another, such as 
shrimping, prawning, crabbing, seining, whelking, stake-netting, 
inshore line-fishing and trawling, &c. &c. With some of these we 
shall have to deal in a later chapter. 
The regular prosecution of the deep-sea fisheries may be said to 
be confined to such large centres as our remarks have hitherto dealt 
with. Such centres have, no doubt, attained their present import- 
ance in virtue of physical conditions which have lent themselves 
to the development of the fishery on a large scale, but there exist, 
of course, a great number of smaller communities. 
In fact, wherever the nature of the coast permits of the launching 
of a boat of any sort, there will be found a race of fishermen engaged 
in such operations as the harbour or beaching accommodation and the 
resources of the adjacent grounds permit. 
But the conditions of these small communities are altogether 
different from those of the larger centres. Their importance, in fact, 
may be said to be purely local, and the share which they bear in the 
production of the general food-supply of the nation is so insignificant 
that the extinction of any one of them as a fishing community would 
hardly be felt outside the limits of the parish. It needs, however, 
no argument to demonstrate that their welfare is none the less im- 
portant on this account; and I believe that for many years the 
