THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 43 
forms that are struggling for their lives. The first opera- 
tion that the men perform is to assort or classify the fish 
into “prime” and “offal,” which are the two classes 
known in the markets, although why haddocks and some 
other really good fish should be classified as offal is 
not easy to tell. Anything that is absolutely worthless is 
at once thrown overboard ; but all the cruel dog-fish, which in 
some seasons are wondrously plentiful, are carefully killed, 
they “die game” as the fishermen tell us, unless when 
“settled at once,’ by a strong blow on the head, which is 
seemingly the most vulnerable part of all fish. Such fish 
as turbot and brill live a long time out of water, but soles 
die quickly; it is astonishing however what a strength 
of vitality is exhibited by the smaller flat fish—which 
flop about for hours after they have been captured. 
After a brief time elapses, the trawl is once more placed 
in the water for another shot, and is hauled in about break 
of day ; and while it has been at work the previous haul of 
fish have been more carefully gone over, and packed in 
trunks or boxes, to await the arrival of the steam clipper, 
which comes to the fleet to carry the produce to market. 
A rather dangerous part of the fishermen’s work is the 
ferrying of these boxes from the smack to the steamer 
in a small boat—too small certainly for such work; but 
as the fish must be got to market, the men must risk their 
lives, no matter how wild the water may be during the time 
that kind of labour is going on. The placing of the fish on 
board the steam carrier involves a great amount of work, as 
will be obvious enough when the reader is told that as 
many as 2800 trunks of fish will occasionally be brought 
to market by one of these steam clippers. 
The preceding narrative presents only the merest outline of 
