314 LABRADOR 
ment has followed in Labrador itself, though trapping fur- 
bearing animals is there naturally the second string to the 
settler’s bow. 
Few fishermen grow rich. Some, however, are able to 
put by considerable sums, and there are as happy and com- 
fortably provided families among our fisherfolk as can be 
found among any artisan class in the world. The very 
nature of the calling begets a healthy body, a simple 
nature, and an easily contented mind. Unaccustomed to 
luxuries, the lack of material wealth causes no vain regrets. 
Inured as they are to privations, the smallest acquisition 
gives pleasure. They may not aspire to have servants 
under them; they are their own masters at least throughout 
their working days. They have an interest in and love 
for their occupation, the like of which one can scarcely 
credit to a factory hand, who is always making a piece 
of a complicated whole, and never finishing a job, or 
ean credit to a clerk on a high stool everlastingly add- 
ing up figures. The men love their calling, and with 
sound reason. For sheer love of it, I know several, who, 
after trying Canada or the United States, have returned 
eventually to their old occupation as being ‘‘a far better 
job.” In what other calling are poor, working, unedu- 
cated men so able to enjoy the luxury of independence, the 
prize which riches might seem able to purchase for the 
wealthy only, and yet to which many rich men never in 
any way attain! 
When the French Revolution began, the fishers of cod 
on the Newfoundland-Labrador shores were already estab- 
lished in their more prosaic industry. In 1812 the catch 
of fish on the Labrador and French shore combined is 
