160 CAPE BRETON. 



apparently inexhaustible. They crop out here and there 

 all over the island, but are worked mainly in the vicinity 

 of Sydney, where there is an excellent harbour. 



No part of British North America is better situated as 

 regards the fisheries than Cape Breton. Cape Breton 

 schooners are to be met with on the Newfoundland banks 

 off Anticosti and off Labrador, following their business. 

 The owner of the fishing schooner is often the merchant, 

 who gets half the catch, the crew getting the other half; 

 but as the latter are obliged to take all their food, stores, 

 gear, <Src., from the merchant at his own valuation, the 

 balance that remains to the poor fisherman after his debts 

 are paid, is very small at the best, and often there is no 

 balance at all. It is the habit of certain people to talk 

 of the tyranny of an aristocracy. The little finger of a 

 merchant where the truck system is in vogue is thicker 

 than the loins of any aristocrat in the Old World. In all 

 but the extreme outlying places of the Dominion the 

 people have emancipated themselves from this tyranny, 

 but the poor fishermen in many places still groan under 

 it. The merchant waxes fat and kicks, the fisherman 

 toils all his life at an occupation fraught with hard- 

 ship and danger, and, though the fisheries of the St. 

 Lawrence are rich beyond the imagination of an ojd- 

 country man, he remains always poor and often down- 

 trodden. Jersey merchants monopolize some of the best 

 fishing stations in the gulf. One of their factories is 

 at Ciietecamp, in Cape Breton. These establishments 

 are models of order, system, and good management ; no 

 woman is admitted within their precincts, and mar- 

 ried men are objected to. Codfish abound on the 



