THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 45 
are all excellent boats, costing when new from a thousand 
to twelve hundred pounds, whilst the value of the steam 
carriers will not be less than £6000 each. 
The amount of capital invested by the Messrs. Hewitt is 
about £ 100,000, and their steam clippers take the fish direct 
to London. The time of a trawler at the fishing varies from 
five to eight weeks, during which of course the carrier collects 
the fish day by day. We have not the means of knowing 
the earnings of individuals for all the hard and dangerous 
work they undergo, but we question if, in numerous 
instances, it will amount to much over a guinea a week— 
no great sum, when it is taken into account that the men 
have to sail the ship and work in the rigging as well as 
attend to the trawl-net, which, as has been indicated, is a 
most formidable instrument of fish-capture. It can be 
gathered from the evidence taken by the Sea-Fishing Trade 
Committee, that many of the Grimsby men feel irritated at 
not receiving prompt payment of their shares, and, above all, 
at not being presented with proper details of the sales. In 
one case, where a man asked to see the settling bill, “the 
skipper threatened to put him out of the window.” As to 
the food given to the fisher lads aboard the trawling smacks, 
it is very plain and roughly served, but it is good, and 
consists of fish in the morning, with biscuits and butter, beef 
and pies and duff for dinner, and fish again at night. There 
are other trawling fleets than those of the Messrs. Hewitt 
engaged in the North Sea—the Hull Steam Fishing Com- 
pany and Great Northern Steam Fishing Company for 
instance have 250 smacks at work, the London Fishing 
Company works 125 vessels and four steam carriers, these 
in addition to the numerous vessels of the Messrs. Hewitt 
make up a fishing navy of large figures, and when the single 
