50 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
told by one of the Great Grimsby smack-owners, is not 
quite ten per cent.—in fact, his share is an eleventh—of the 
proceeds of each trip; the hands are all paid fixed wages, 
the mate twenty-two shillings, and the men each 1/. 
per week. In addition to these wages they are provided 
with food. 
Scottish fishermen industriously pursue the white-fish 
fishing at all times when cod and other round-fish are in 
season: in almost every little bay and firth there are boats 
that fish for the fresh-fish markets, and sell their produce 
on landing to the buyers for the English salesmen ; some of 
these boats make pretty long voyages, and remain out for 
two or three days, but the necessity of selling their fish while 
they are newly caught, urges them to run to port as often as 
possible. The life led by such fishermen is laborious and 
hazardous, from the occasional sudden storms which prevail 
in the northern seas, where they ply their occupation. There 
are also persons on the coasts of Scotland who fish for cod 
and ling, but these fishers being far from the market have no 
alternative but to curve their catch, and this is one of the 
branches of fishing industry which is taken cognisance of 
by the Scottish Fishery Board, and of which statistics are 
collected every year. 
One of the chief factors in the cod and ling fishery is 
“bait.” Without bait the cod-men are unable to pursue 
their vocation, and throughout Scotland the gathering of 
bait used to be an “industry” of great pith and moment, 
and to-day the delay in procuring bait often keeps the men 
at home when they would willingly be at sea. In former 
times the women and children of every fishing commu- 
nity might be seen daily on the coast left bare by the sea, 
engaged in gathering mussels for the lines; the Scotch 
people have long been wedded to the mussel, as they 
