THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 79 
is of use to the State, as it provides a hardy population of 
sailors from which the mercantile navy is occasionally 
récruited, and from which our ships of war, were they not 
nowadays chiefly manned by mechanics, in the persons of 
their engineers and stokers, might obtain a supply of sailors. 
It may be said of our fishing craft generally that they 
afford a fine training in habits of industry and discipline 
to thousands of persons who in after years season the 
population with that independence of character and that 
love of personal liberty which is so desirable for a free 
people; and it is a pitiful circumstance that in so many 
instances a lifetime of arduous labour should only end in 
abject poverty ; it is sad to find, as not infrequently happens, 
that many a man, whose everyday heroisms would in some 
other calling have made him famous, has landed in the days 
of his old age in the workhouse. 
We cannot prophesy with any certainty as to the future 
of our fisheries, but it may be predicted that steam-fishing 
craft of all kinds will come more into use than has hitherto 
been the case; and if that should happen, it will in some 
degree better the position of the fishermen. With steam 
power they will be able to accomplish their work with a 
greater degree of speed, and will also be better able to 
battle against the elements with which they have to con- 
tend. Occasional dread catastrophes occur every now and 
then to our fishing fleets ; they are of kin, in their suddenness 
and terrible fatalities, to the explosions which take place 
in our coal mines ; and at such periods the aid of the chari- 
table is demanded for widows and orphans. It is not our 
purpose to say one word that would freeze the fountains of 
benevolence, but is it not time that the fisher folk should ac- 
cumulate a fund, to be in readiness for such times of need ? 
In some fishing communities there are, we know, “ friendly 
