DO PEOPLE LIVE IN LABRADOR? 59 



be nearer the fishing ground." An American stove, 

 or more often an open fireplace (the smoke going out 

 of a huge chimney like in an Irishman's cabin), serves 

 for warmth and cooking. The stove, anyhow, is a 

 movable chattel, and accompanies its master to his 

 winter hut in the fall. Clothes are so expensive and 

 so scanty that every man is his own wardrobe, and 

 he who puts his clothes in a drawer must himself 

 go naked. Thus a block of furniture is obviated. 

 Bunks are put up for the men or a partition boarded 

 off, while the girls sleep in a " lean-to," called a 

 "bunk-house," or have a part partitioned off, or hang 

 an old curtain in front of their bunk in the smaller 

 huts. 



Some Newfoundland planters and agents provide 

 boarded huts for their "crowd," but in all the arrange- 

 ments are much the same. The Livyeres' families 

 have all their separate huts. Each " crew " has a 

 fish stage, alongside which the fish are brought in 

 the boats. These stages are built out on piles driven 

 into the mud. Long poles, known as " rounders," are 

 laid side by side across the tops of these, and form 

 a kind of flooring. The whole is then roofed in 

 with poles and sods, in order that fish-curing may 

 proceed at night by costers' lamps, or in bad 

 weather. Up the middle of the stage runs a table 

 for splitting the fish on. The green fish are hove 

 up on to the stage with pitchforks, seized by a woman 

 who cuts off the head " the header," and passed 

 on to one who opens the throat " the throater." 



