CHAPTER XI 



THE THREE GREATEST FISHING PORTS 



GRIMSBY, Hull, and Aberdeen are the greatest fishing 

 ports in the United Kingdom, and Grimsby is the 

 largest in the world. In each of these places railway 

 companies have enormous interests, and the towns bear 

 witness to the gigantic development of the steam-trawl- 

 ing industry during the lasfquarter of a century. Because 

 of its rapid rise from nothingness, Grimsby is more like 

 an American city than an English town. In the United 

 States many flourishing centres of trade and population 

 have been brought into being entirely owing to a railway 

 company's enterprise. So it is with Grimsby, which 

 owes its importance and prosperity to the Great Central 

 Railway, formerly the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln- 

 shire Railway. The company solely owns the immense 

 market and fish wharves, which are more than a mile 

 long, and in which over 500 merchants do their 

 business. 



At the time of the Crimean War, Grimsby was an 

 obscure town with little or no fish traffic ; to-day it 

 possesses nearly 700 steam fishing-vessels, representing 

 a capital of ,3,500,000 and employing crews numbering 

 nearly 6000, while directly and indirectly half the popu- 

 lation of the town is dependent upon the fishing industry. 



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