CHAP, vi.] HERRING COMMERCE. 255 



including as well a definite sum of ready money by way of 

 bounty, perhaps also an allowance of spirits, and the use of 

 ground for the drying of the nets. On the other hand, the 

 boat-owner provides a boat, nets, buoys, and all the apparatus 

 of the fishery, and engages a crew to fish ; his crew may, per- 

 haps, be relatives and part-owners sharing the venture with 

 him, but usually the crew consists of hired men who get so 

 much wages at the end of the season, and have no risk or 

 profit. This is the plan followed by free and independent 

 fishermen who are really owners of their own boats and 

 apparatus. It will thus be seen that the curer is bargaining 

 for two hundred crans of fish months before he knows that a 

 single herring will be captured ; for the bargain of next 

 season is always made at the close of the present one, and he 

 has to pay out at once a large sum by way of bounty, and 

 provide barrels, salt, and other necessaries for the cure before 

 he knows even if the catch of the season just expiring will all 

 be sold, or how the markets will pulsate next year. On the 

 other hand, the fisherman has received his pay for his season's 

 fish, and very likely pocketed a sum of from ten to thirty 

 pounds as earnest-money for next year's work. Then, again, 

 a certain number of curers who are men of capital will advance 

 money to young fishermen in order that they may purchase a 

 boat and the necessary quantity of netting to enable them to 

 engage in the fishery thus thirling the boat to their service, 

 very probably fixing an advantageous price per cran for the 

 herrings to be fished and supplied. Curers, again, who are 

 not capitalists, have to borrow from the buyers, because to 

 compete with their fellows they must be able to lend money 

 for the purchase of boats and nets, or to advance sums by way 

 of bounty to the free boats ; and thus a rotten unwholesome 

 system goes the round fishermen, boat-builders, curers, and 

 merchants all hanging on each other, and evidencing that 

 there is as much gambling in herring-fishing as in horse-racing. 



