1 62 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



The neighbouring port of Yarmouth, like Aberdeen, 

 is under the direction of the municipal authorities. 

 These two ports are mostly associated with the herring- 

 fisheries, the days of their trawling glory having 

 passed. 



Though Hull takes second place to Grimsby in 

 relation to the trawling industry, yet the ancient town 

 maintains its importance. In the past the H umber 

 port has been famous for fisheries which have either 

 died out or ceased to be profitable. The Northern 

 Whale Fishery was formerly carried on principally by 

 Hull ships ; but the industry drifted farther north, 

 Peterhead securing most of it. In 1829 33 ships 

 left Hull for the whaling, returning with nearly 4000 

 tons of oil and 236 tons of whalebone ; but forty years 

 later scarcely a whaler left Hull. Etty, the painter, 

 who was apprenticed in Hull for seven years, spoke of 

 the port, referring to the whaling days, as " memorable 

 for mud and train-oil." The inhabitants, however, 

 had reason to be grateful to the North Sea for its 

 bounty. Taylor, the water-poet, who was at Hull in 

 1662, said 



" The people from the sea much wealth have won ; 

 Each man doth live as he were Neptune's son." 



That statement may have applied with truth in 

 Taylor's time ; but it certainly does not describe the 

 general state of things now, unless Neptune's son sub- 

 sisted in a very modest way. The steamboat fisherman 

 of to-day has become a hard industrial toiler, and 

 certainly, in great centres like Grimsby, Hull, and 

 Aberdeen, there is not much romance associated with 



