34 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
proach of the fish have fixed wages for the period they are 
at work, of £3 per month, and a perquisite besides of 
every hundredth hogshead of the fish captured by the 
boats which they serve. The wages or remuneration of the 
fishermen employed in the same boats is at the rate of 455. 
per month, one-ninth part of the fish caught being also 
their property. There are also men called “blowsers,” 
whose duty it is to land the fish and carry them to the 
curing cellars—their pay is arranged in proportion to the 
catch of fish. The wages in “kind” are at once paid, the 
ninth part of the fish being promptly taken possession of and 
divided among those entitled to them. According to Mr. 
Thomas Couch: “The crew of a sean consists of eighteen 
men, and commonly a boy. The wages of the ordinary 
seaner have varied from eight to twelve shillings a week ; 
the men who actually shoot the sean have a shilling a week 
extra, while the master-seaner’s pay is a guinea, with a 
gratuity on each hundred hogsheads which he is so fortunate 
as to catch; besides which the crew are in common entitled 
to a third part of the fish sold fresh, and a fourth of that 
which is exported ; in some places not even paying for the 
casks in which they are packed.” 
As there are 250 “concerns” (seines) in working order 
at St. Ives, it is obvious that they cannot all be at work at 
the same time, and it has therefore been wisely arranged 
among the proprietors that each shall take his turn at the 
fish, according to a scheme laid down to which all have 
agreed. The seines can only be worked from half-a-dozen 
positions, and, so that there may be fair play, all the seines 
are registered, individual owners agreeing among them- 
selves to work on the co-operative system ; and therefore at 
the beginning of each season a uniform plan of operations 
is agreed upon at a meeting of the seine owners, whereby 
