146 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



and you watch it just as closely as you follow the 

 blows of the man who, in a Chicago stockyard, 

 hammers the skulls of the big beasts in the two-pair 

 pens, or the swift blood-sodden slaughterer of the 

 pigs which have whirled the wheel and hang by 

 shackled leg from the sloping bar of steel on which 

 they travel to the jabbing knife. 



I have watched that wholesale butchery in Chicago, 

 and have been too much stupefied to be sickened ; 

 and I have seen repeatedly the unlashing of the 

 big-bag knot on sailing smack and steamboat ; but 

 while in the stockyards there is no escape from the 

 horrors of the knife and hammer and the streams of 

 blood, there is at least on the North Sea an absence 

 of any gruesome spectacle and always the chance 

 to turn away to windward and take a deep breath of 

 briny, uncontaminated air. 



When fishing during the day steam-trawlers have 

 a ball hoisted forward, the ball being replaced at 

 night by a white light ahead a white globular light 

 which is carried in addition to the ordinary mast-head 

 and sidelights. The admiral's vessel has specially 

 fixed cross-tree lights, so that she can be readily 

 distinguished from the other craft in the fleet. 



In ordinary circumstances a steam fleet of about 

 50 trawlers will be spread over an area of 7 or 

 8 miles. The mizzen is invariably set when 

 trawling, and in some cases the mainsail as well. It 

 is necessary when trawling to exercise great care, 

 so that the gear shall not be fouled. Any sudden 

 movement of the vessel causes the hawser to slacken 

 and the boards to fall down. It happened in the 



