066 FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. [22] 



FISHERMEN'S LOG BOOKS. 



While the bounty law was in force it was part of the duty of a fish- 

 ing skipper to keep a log of the movements of the vessel, the amount 

 of fish taken, the grounds visited, &c. These were, however, generally 

 very unsatisfactory, so far as giving any information is concerned. 



Of late years some of the more intelligent fishermen of New England 

 have kept log- books or journals of their trips at the request of Prof. 

 Spencer F. Baird, United States Fish Commissioner, who wished to ob- 

 tain extensive* notes of this kind for assistance in his study of the 

 American fisheries. Many of these logs contain a vast deal of interest- 

 ing information which throws much light on the movements of fishes, 

 the methods of fishing, &c. 



FISHERMEN'S WIDOWS AND ORPHANS AID SOCIETIES. 



In most, if not all, of the smaller fishing ports of the United States 

 there have been no regularly organized societies for the aid of the families 

 of fishermen lost at sea. The men sailing from those ports have not, as 

 a rule, engaged very extensively in the winter fisheries, and conse- 

 quently the loss of life has been comparatively small. There has not, 

 therefore, seemingly been the same urgent need of relief societies in the 

 small communities (where the few needy families of lost fishermen could 

 be cared for to a greater or less extent by their more fortunate neigh- 

 bors) as there has been in the large fishing port of Gloucester, Mass., 

 from which the fisheries are pursued at all seasons, and where the sac- 

 rifice of life has often been tremendous within the past thirty to forty 

 years. The result of such fearful loss of life as often occurs, when, as 

 sometimes happens, 100 men or more go down in a single gale, is to leave 

 many families deprived of their natural protectors — the hardy and dar- 

 ing fishermen who man the fleets of New England. As a matter of 

 course the widows are frequently left with large families of young chil- 

 dren, and entirely without the means of subsistence, while the care that 

 must necessarily be given to those dependent on them deprives them of 

 the opportunity to engage in any employment. In other cases when 

 the widows of lost fishermen can and would gladly work they are often 

 unable to find employment in the towns where they reside, and the 

 struggle for life often becomes a very disheartening one. When the 

 losses from Gloucester were of comparatively rare occurrence the ne- 

 cessity for aid societies was not so apparent as at the present time 

 when it is not an unusual thing for more than 200 men to be lost in a 

 single year. The suffering which this terrible loss has caused on spe- 

 cially fatal occasions has led to the formation of several aid societies, 

 some of them of brief duration, being organized only for the emergency 

 which called them into existence, while others have continued since 



