212 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



go on working and let it bleed well ; then get a 

 'chummie' to tie some tobacco round it. A burn 

 should always be held before the stove to draw the 

 fire out of it. A fracture was always left alone, 

 and the unfortunate transferred as soon as possible 

 to the cutter, which would take two days to get to 

 London, being 250 miles distant. Imagine that 

 happening with plenty of wind, and a hard bunk 

 no mattress to lie in. What strikes every one is 

 the remarkable stoicism displayed by these men. 

 They work away as hard as ever with great sea-boils 

 on their wrists, painful cracks between the fingers, 

 nasty poisoned fingers, and even after severe injuries 

 to head and limbs. * How can you go on like this?' 

 'Well, sir, it's either work or go home. If you can't 

 work you're a nuisance, and if you go home you 

 mayn't get work for weeks. And what are the wife 

 and children to do then ? ' Of course, the advantage 

 of spare hands is very evident, and an important point 

 in the Mission work. . . . 



" I had amongst my patients an ex-private of the 

 3rd Light Dragoons, who had fought in the Soudan 

 campaigns. He was interesting from the fact that 

 he received an arrow through his wrist, a bullet-wound 

 over the biceps of the right arm, and another in the 

 fleshy part of the back ; further, he had broken both 

 his legs ; he was a year and a half in a hospital 

 for rheumatism ; and he was in the smack Beaver 

 when she was hove down and had her decks swept 

 clean, both masts being broken and he himself swept 

 overboard, but no lives were lost. At present sea- 

 boils are his affliction." 



