78 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



ins" into the habits of fishermen ashore and at sea, conse- 

 quent upon the terrible fate which befel poor Henry Papper. 

 From the evidence then collected out of the mouths of all 

 classes of persons connected with the trade — skippers and 

 smackowners, solicitors and salesmen, managers of societies 

 for the protection of fishermen and of associations of pro- 

 prietors, casuals and apprentices, aldermen and police 

 inspectors — it appears that a very considerable difficulty 

 exists in determining the status and providing for the 

 wants of the younger members of the crew. The system 

 of apprenticeship, by which the masters were bound to 

 provide food and lodging for the boys ashore as well as 

 afloat, is rapidly falling into decay, and in one of our 

 ports the number is less than one-twelfth of what it was 

 two years ago. Great disorders prevail in consequence 

 among the fisher-lads, many of whom live habitually in 

 disreputable houses while ashore, so long as their money 

 lasts. Very serious damage also is caused to the interests 

 of the owners by the habitual desertions of the casual 

 hands, the absence of one member of the crew being suffi- 

 cient to detain the vessel sometimes for two or three days, 

 thereby causing a loss amounting perhaps to some hundreds 

 of pounds. Violent remedies are employed to obviate this 

 desperate state of affairs, and in one town, which it is not 

 necessary here to specify, literally 20 per cent, of the whole 

 body of apprentices were imprisoned for desertion in the 

 course of less than three years. Such a result, it is clear, 

 inevitably tends to defeat its own purpose, inasmuch as 

 disgrace, the chief element in that kind of punishment, 

 must almost disappear when one person out of every five is 

 subjected to it, much as in certain public schools of a 

 former generation, the boy who had not been flogged was 

 hardly considered to have obtained a respectable footing 



