CH. XXXVII. HADDOCK-FISHING. 285 



bundles and purses, but lighter hearts : however, I 

 fear that many of the inhabitants of the fishing vil- 

 lages spend a great part of their hard-earned wages 

 in whiskey instead of applying it to the comforts of 

 their families. Some are more prudent, and lay the 

 money by, in order that in due time they n^iy 

 become owners of a herring boat themselves. 



The inhabitants, at least the males, of fishing vil- 

 lages are an indolent-looking race, going about all 

 their land occupations in a slow and lazy manner, and 

 being for the most part remarkably ignorant. But we 

 should bear in mind that they spend their nights at 

 sea, in laborious and fatiguing occupation, exposed 

 to cold and wet, and that it is only during their 

 intervals of rest that we see them, when they are 

 lounging about half asleep, and leaving to their 

 wives the business of preparing their lines and 

 selling the fish. 



The coiling of a long line, with about three hun- 

 dred hooks on it, is a mystery to the unpractised 

 and uninitiated. Each haddock boat takes out 

 coiled lines with from two to three thousand baited 

 hooks upon them; and yet so perfectly and skil- 

 fully are they arranged that they never catch or 

 entangle, but run out with as great certainty and 

 as a ship's cable. 

 The haddock fishing on the coast is carried on in 



ease 



