22 
net was by no means the net now in use, nor was it 
even made in Brixham ; it was merely a “chafing piece,” 
which was used to prevent the chafing of the net, and 
no doubt it had been obtained from the North Sea fisher- 
men, but it was no part or parcel of a Brixham trawl- 
net. With regard to the hemp piece of net which had 
been exhibited, that was only used at the bottom of the 
trawl in order to keep the fish in when once caught, and 
the small fish had an opportunity of going through the 
trawl before they reached that small piece. He denied 
most positively that the Brixham fishermen were in the 
habit of destroying the spawn of fish. They had great 
cause in Brixham to complain of the destruction of imma- 
ture fish, and at three little places close by, namely, God- 
rington, Helbury, and Paignton, it was the general custom 
to use the horse drag-seine, the mesh being so small that 
everything which came before it was dragged on to the 
sands, and there left to perish. He had seen thousands of 
little brill, turbot, and soles left upon the sands to perish. 
Ten years ago they had trawlers ranging from forty-five to 
fifty tons, but now a different state of things was coming 
about, which was destructive in every sense of the word to 
small fish, as a class of vessels was now being built ranging 
from fourteen to eighteen tons register, which used the long 
line, and attached to the side was a trawl, the mesh of which 
was considerably smaller than any which had been exhi- 
bited that morning. If those vessels were allowed con- 
tinually to shoot their trawls where they now shot them, 
and to catch the small fish which they now brought to 
market, they would be doing an incalculable amount of 
mischief to the fishing industry of Brixham. Scores of 
baskets of fish were landed, which were not fit for food, and 
he had lately seen ten baskets of fish landed from a vessel, 
