LOSS OF LIFE. 191 



mortality which certainly should figure in the returns 

 of the Registrar-General as " preventible." Every now 

 and then the voice of wailing is heard along our coasts 

 because of that loss of the crews of fishing-boats which 

 justifies the Scottish poet when he makes the fisher- 

 woman say, 



"Buy my caller herring ; 

 Though ye may ca' them vulgar fairing, 

 Wives and mothers maist despairing, 

 Ca' them lives of men." 



We allude to the obstinacy of our fishermen in plying 

 their hazardous calling in undecked boats. Caught in 

 a storm, there are on the east coast few harbours into 

 which they can run; and so these boats are driven 

 helplessly out to sea, where they are swamped and lost, 

 after the men have been exhausted in vain efforts to 

 keep them to the wind in order to avoid shipping the 

 broken waves which surround them. Heavily laden, 

 a single wave may swamp them ; and when this casu- 

 alty overtakes a whole fleet, the scene of misery which 

 ensues is indescribably distressing. In ' Life in Nor- 

 mandy ' there is a fearfully graphic picture of the agony 

 of the watchers on the beach near a Scottish fishing 

 village straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of what 

 was befalling their nearest and dearest in mortal jeo- 

 pardy on the raging sea. " Whisht ye," said an old 

 woman to a boy crying aloud by her side ; " keep yer 

 greetin till it's wanted ; Lord knows but ye may be a 

 faitherless bairn before mornin', and I a bairnless 

 mither." Dismal forebodings sadly verified ! Thirty- 

 two boats were lost, and ninety-one poor fellows per- 

 ished ; and this was not all numbers of the fishermen 

 were ruined by the loss of their nets. 



"All this loss of life and property arose from the 

 boats being open ; for every boat that was lost either 

 foundered at its nets or was swamped in the sea. Had 

 they been decked, the men could have hung on and 



