THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 3 
century ago. In Scotland, the patriarchal system of work 
is still largely maintained; in many Scottish fishing 
villages the family fishing boat is as much an institution as 
a family walnut-tree is in France. In a number of the 
English fishing ports the order of business is somewhat 
different from what we see in Scotland; there is less of 
sentiment and comparatively little of the superstitious ele- 
ment, but at Holy Island, Cullercoats and some other places 
the fisher class are much the same as we find them in Scot- 
land or Cornwall. In Scotland, the fisher communities 
seldom receive any accession of new blood, and fathers and 
sons go on succeeding each other for many generations. The 
fisher folk intermarry in their communities, and so preserve 
those traditions of labour and the observance of those social 
customs which have become stereotyped among the people 
who go down to, the sea in fishing ships. 
It is interesting to know, moreover, that in nearly all 
fishing villages, whether they are in Scotland or in France, 
in Spain or in Holland, the life of the fisher people, as of 
course it can scarcely help being, is of the same complexion ; 
a life mostly of hard work, much danger, and scanty remu- 
neration. Yes, the fisher folk of France are the very brothers 
and sisters of those of Scotland, their manners and customs, 
their modes of life, and all that pertains to their dangerous 
occupation on the waters, being nearly fdentical. The 
various communities seem to have set themselves down in 
convenient places for following their avocation. There are 
villages and little towns upon the shores of the sea that 
nature seems to have destined for the abodes of fishermen ; 
there is usually a natural harbour—“a bieldy cove,” in 
which the little fleet of fishing boats finds, during all seasons, 
a happy refuge from fierce winds and battling waves. 
It may not, perhaps, be generally known to those who 
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