78 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



and calm, and trawling was impossible because there 

 was no wind, the cabins would be abandoned and the 

 decks used for a kind of grand reception, for perhaps as 

 many as a score of smacks would be lashed together, so 

 that it was easy to step from one to the other. 



There were no sanitary arrangements whatever in the 

 sailing smacks, whose domestic economy was through- 

 out of the most primitive description. They were as 

 different from the splendid latest types of steam-trawlers 

 as was the old emigrant ship from the Olympic. The 

 North Sea skipper of to-day has his own cabin and may, 

 if he pleases, live in isolated splendour ; the general 

 cabin is a fine, well-ventilated room of the most comfort- 

 able sort, and there is every facility for cooking and 

 serving good and abundant food. Excellent sanitary 

 provision is made, and some particularly well-appointed 

 steam-trawlers have bathrooms. I have seen two or 

 three of them, but they were used for the storage of boots 

 and clothing. The average North Sea man gets quite 

 enough of the water on the outside of his vessel. 



The marvel is that in past days men and boys could 

 be found to undertake the work, and probably the smacks 

 could never have been provided with crews if it had not 

 been for Boards of Guardians and reformatories. Legions 

 of miserable children have been sentenced to the Dogger, 

 to perish there, or become men and heroes. Those who 

 survived and remained did at least get inured to sufferings 

 and hardships, and provided the finest race of seafarers 

 in the world and that they remain to this day. 



I think that there is no officer or man in the Royal 

 Navy, or the merchant service, accustomed to big ships 

 and change of scene and climate, who will not readily 



