ENGLISH FISHERIES. 119 



convenient port for despatching the fish from by rail, if 

 the boats happen to be fishing within some few miles 

 of that place. 



Between Plymouth and Brixham the fisheries are 

 not of great importance, although various modes of 

 fishing are carried on, mostly with small boats. During 

 the recent inquiry into the state of the general crab and 

 lobster fisheries, it was stated by a dealer of forty 

 years' experience that there had been no falling off in 

 the number or size of the crabs, and that those from 

 Start Bay were the largest he had seen. It is within 

 my personal knowledge that the value of the crab 

 fishery in Start Bay increased immensely in value, as 

 soon as facilities were provided for getting the crabs 

 quickly to market, by the opening of the railway within 

 some few miles of the fishing villages. Lines and seans 

 are also worked in this neighbourhood. 



We may now pass on to Brixham, which is an essen- 

 tially fishing town, as it has been for long beyond 

 living memory. There is good reason to believe that 

 Brixham has a just claim to the title of the mother-port 

 of trawling. Barking, on the Thames, is also a very 

 old station for this kind of fishing, and a claim has also 

 been put in for her ; but, in the absence of any precise 

 evidence in favour of either town, it is difficult to form 

 an opinion on the knotty question. To Brixham, how- 

 ever, undoubtedly belongs the credit of specially en- 

 couraging the trawling system, and introducing it at 

 other places. Eamsgate, was directly colonized from 

 Brixham, and Hull from Kamsgate and Brixham ; 

 Grimsby first became a trawling station in consequence 



