184 HEKEING COMMERCE. 



being usually that the curer •will take two hundred crans of 

 herring — and a cran, it may be stated, is forty-five gallons of 

 ungutted fish ; for these two hundred crans a certain sum per 

 cran is paid according to arrangement, the bargain including as 

 well a definite sum of ready money by way of bounty, perhaps 

 also an allowance of spirits, and the use of ground for the drying 

 of the nets. On the other hand, the boat-owner provides a boat, 

 nets, buoys, and all the apparatus of the fishery, and engages a 

 crew to fish ; his crew may, perhaps, be relatives and part-owners 

 sharing the venture with him, but usually the crew consists of 

 hired men who get so much wages at the end of the season, and 

 have no risk or profit. This is the plan followed by free and 

 independent fishermen who are really owners of their own boats 

 and apparatus. It will thus be seen that the curer is bargain- 

 ing for two hundred crans of fish months before he knows that 

 a single herring will be captured ; for the bargain of next season 

 is always made at the close of the present one, and he has to 

 pay out at once a large sum by way of bounty, and provide 

 barrels, salt, and other necessaries for the cure before he knows 

 even if the catch of the season just expiring will all be sold, or 

 how the markets will pulsate next year. On the other hand, 

 the fisherman has received his pay for his season's fish, and very 

 likely pocketed a sum of from ten to thirty pounds as earnest- 

 money for next year's work. Then, again, a certain number of 

 curers, who are men of capital, will advance money to young 

 fishermen in order that they may purchase a boat and the neces- 

 sary quantity of netting to enable them to engage in the fishery 

 — thus thirling the boat to their service, very probably fixing 

 an advantageous price per cran for the herrings to be fished and 

 supplied. Curers, again, who are not capitalists, have to borrow ' 

 from the buyers, because to compete with their fellows they 

 must be able to lend money for the purchase of boats and nets, 

 or to advance sums by way of bounty to the free boats ; and thus 

 a rotten unwholesome system goes the round — fishermen, boat- 

 builders, curers, and merchants, all hanging on each other, and 

 evidencing that there is as much gambling in herring-fishing as 

 in horse-racing. The whole system of commerce connected with 

 this trade is decidedly unhealthy, and ought at once to be 

 checked and reconstructed if there be any logical method of 

 doing it. At a port of three hundred boats a sum of £145 was 

 paid by the curers for " arles," and spent in the public-houses ! 

 More than £4000 was paid in bounties, and an advance of nearly 



