16 THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 



Any change of rigging, which relieves the work of the 

 fishermen, necessarily enables them to prosecute their 

 calling with more profit, since it allows them to work their 

 boat with a smaller crew. The crews which fishing-boats 

 carry depend on the trade in which they are engaged. A 

 first-class trawler will carry three, or in some cases four, men 

 and a boy ; a first-class drift boat requires seven men and 

 a boy ;* while a large Grimsby smack will carry nine to 

 eleven hands. In most parts of the British Islands the 

 fishermen have an interest in the proceeds of the fishery. 

 The owner of the boat, the owner of the net, and the fisher- 

 man, all taking a certain proportion of the profits. In most 

 parts of the British Islands, again, the lads who are employed 

 in the boats are the near relatives of the fishermen engaged. 

 But on the east coast of England, and at Hull and Grimsby 

 in particular, a different system has arisen, and large 

 numbers of lads, strangers to the fishermen and unacquainted 

 with the sea, are apprenticed to the fishing trade. As the 

 condition of these apprentices has attracted a good deal of 

 attention of late years, it may be desirable to add a few 

 words upon it. 



It is not difficult to determine the reasons which have 

 induced the boat-owners of Hull and Grimsby to engage 

 apprentices. The large smacks which are fitted for line 

 fishing require the services of many hands ; but they only 

 need comparatively inexperienced labour. Almost any boy 

 can be trusted to bait a hook ; to haul in a line ; or to take 

 a fish off a hook. More unskilled labour is thus required 



short or small mizen mast ; the dandy wink the small windlass ; and 

 the dandy line the small hand-line in contradistinction to the long 

 line. 



* This is the crew carried in Scotland and the Isle of Man. A still 

 larger crew is carried by the Yarmouth boats. 



