A HUMANISING AGENCY 201 



North Sea of an apprentice, by Otto Brand, the skipper 

 of a smack. The lad was done to death in the most 

 cruel fashion, and Brand was deservedly hanged at 

 Armley Gaol, Leeds, on 23rd May 1882. 



It was at this period the autumn of 1881 that the 

 idea originated of doing something for the men and 

 boys whose lives were spent on the Dogger and other 

 banks. At that time the largest and most famous of the 

 fishing fleets was the Short Blue, of which the owners 

 were Messrs. Hewett & Co., the organisers of the 

 fleeting system. The curse of the fleets was the coper, 

 craft which for half a century had sold drink and tobacco 

 to the English smacksmen. Originally these vessels 

 sailed from Dutch ports and sold articles of clothing 

 and gear to the fishermen ; but experience quickly 

 taught the Dutchman that it was far more profitable to 

 barter the tobacco and spirits for fish. The evil of 

 bartering grew so much that in the worst days of the 

 coper an established system of wrong-doing existed, and 

 it sometimes happened that a skipper, in order to satisfy 

 his craving for drink, would dispose of all his gear and 

 even, in extreme cases, the smack herself. 



To get the tobacco cheaply it was necessary to visit 

 the coper, whose skipper sold it at less than half the 

 price which had to be paid in England, because from 

 the Continent he obtained the article at practically cost 

 price, whereas in England a heavy duty was imposed. 



The copers were not all foreigners ; one or two sailed 

 from English ports. Mr. E. J. Mather, who founded 

 the Mission, related that one of these English craft was 

 the Annie, sailing from the Humber, and others were 

 the Dora and the Angelina, of Yarmouth. A man who 



