OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 351 
a hired servant, receiving a regular wage, and interested to no con- 
siderable extent in the pecuniary success of his fishing operations. In 
some cases, which are becoming, I am told, fewer in number every 
year, the skipper is also the owner of his vessel,—either actually so, 
or, much more frequently, owner only in name and on sufferance of 
the mortgagees. By far the greater number of vessels, however, are 
in the hands of companies or large private owners, and the hands 
engaged in working them are simply the servants of the owner. 
The method or rate of payment differs according to the rank of the 
hand. Thus the master or skipper, and the mate or “ second 
hand,” are paid in shares of ‘ clear money” or the profits, and are 
held responsible in corresponding shares of the expense if the 
vessel is worked at a loss. In the case of a steam-trawler the ex- 
penses reckoned in estimating the clear money are coal, engine- 
room expenses, ice, and men’s food, and 5 per cent. on the price 
obtained for the catch. After these items have been deducted from 
the gross receipts of the voyage the skipper gets “one share, and 
one quarter and one half-quarter”’ of the balance, which is divided 
into fourteen shares. The mate, or second hand, takes one share 
and one eighth. Both skipper and mate pay for their food, pro- 
vided at retail prices from the company’s stores by the steward. 
The ‘third hand” and the “deck hands” are paid a fixed salary, 
are provided with food by the owners, and are also, in common with 
the apprentices, allowed to make what money they can by the sale 
of “stocker bait,” a term which formerly included a number of the 
less valuable kinds of fish. Some years since the owners, finding 
a decrease in their profits, and noting, no doubt, a rise in the price of 
fish which had previously been hardlysaleable, came to an arrangement 
with the men by which the latter surrendered their rights to the 
“stocker ” and received an increase of pay, which was supposed to 
compensate them for the loss. They have, however, retained the 
right of selling fish-livers for their own profit. The livers are 
stored in ordinary petroleum casks, and sold to oil refiners at ten 
shillings per cask. As may be imagined, it takes the livers of a 
considerable number of fish to fill a cask, even when liberally 
adulterated with sea-anemones (Actinoloba dianthus), so that the 
profits accruing are not excessive. Ihave known instances in which 
the men have been allowed to sell such fish as gurnards and rays 
for their own profit, but I beheve that the owner is strictly within 
his rights in laying claim to everything that comes on deck. It 
will hardly be credited, perhaps, that within the memory of living 
fishermen, haddocks were a perquisite of the apprentices | 
In a steam-vessel the engineers receive a fixed wage, and have 
no interest whatever in the catch. ‘The coal-trimmer is usually an 
