SHRIMPING AND LINE-FISHING 



some will even sarcastically affect never to have heard 

 of it. 



Let us have a day off with a Dutch visschers-boot (which 

 we may manage to do if our command of German, Dutch, 

 or Flemish be of such a nature as to persuade the crew 

 that we are anything but British), and we shall have a 

 chance of seeing why shrimpers demand to be classed with 

 trawlers and other workers at dangerous trades. 



Those who laugh at the Dutch fishermen have not seen 

 them at their work (except English fishermen ; and these 

 justify the proverb that two of a trade seldom agree). 

 They may let their hair grow rather long; they may 

 wear wooden shoes nowadays they far more often invest 

 in English-made sea-boots; they may require a very 

 great deal of alcohol to enable them to face a gale ; but 

 their clever seamanship, their industry, and, when it 

 comes to the pinch, their cool courage, demand that we 

 shall speak of them with all respect. It is to these men 

 that the London market is indebted for its winter supply 

 of shrimps ; in fact, from December to June, by far the 

 greater quantity comes from Holland, the fish being 

 vastly inferior to those taken from the Thames estuary. 



Each smack, with an average crew of four, carries a net 

 shorter than a trawl and of much smaller mesh, but not 

 otherwise differing; and the men work almost a whole 

 tide, going off with the ebb and not returning till nearly 

 flood. Such boats will go from fifteen to thirty miles 

 away, working every minute of daylight. The men 

 know well enough, within a little, where they will find 

 their fish, and, with a favourable wind, will soon be 



43 



