mail on the banks, with headquarters at Saint-Pierre. For the fisher- 

 men, often isolated for eight months of the year, far from their home and 

 home church, this contact with family is of great moral importance. 



Since the foundation of the Society of Workers of the Sea, the priests 

 on the banks have thus delivered 1, 168, 000 letters, sometimes effecting 

 these deliveries in bad weather at the peril of their lives. In addition, 

 since the installation of radio in 1921 aboard the hospital ships, 22, 270 

 private telegrams, or radio cable-grams, have been transmitted at a very 

 moderate fee. 



With radio, one should note an important innovation in the season of 

 1936: radio telephones on the bank. The sending station which was in- 

 stalled on the hospital ship then in service, the Saint - Yves , was given the 

 picturesque and appropriate name: "Radio- Cod. " 



The transmission of "Radio-Cod" provided the sailing vessels not only 

 local, national, and international news, but also professional data which 

 until then had been entirely lacking: time signals, weather bulletins, alerts 

 for lost dories, daily information on the position and course of the hospital 

 ship, permitting neighboring vessels having need of assistance to intercept 

 it. The radio telephone also constituted a means of rapid retransmission 

 of messages from outfitters, a means of rapid liaison between outfitters 

 and captains. 



The sailing vessels of the great fishery which did not have electric in- 

 stallations were provided with special receivers operating on batteries to 

 permit them to receive these broadcasts which contributed greatly to the 

 morale of the crews, at the same time carrying to the captains messages 

 of importance. 



31,452 days at sea, 13,052 cases at sea, 7,815 prescriptions of medi- 

 cine describes the activities of the doctors on the hospital ships, and there 

 is hardly a season during the course of which the life of one or many men 

 is not saved thanks to rapid medical and surgical treatment. 



As a general rule, the hospital ship is in communication, in the course 

 of each cruise on the banks, with all the French vessels it encounters, for, 

 if medical assistance is not required, it is rare that there is not mail to be 



119 



