INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 21 



the condition of the fishermen is reported. In Madura it 

 is said that, on the whole, the sea fishermen have increased, 

 but that the aboriginal fishing castes have decreased, owing 

 to emigration or their becoming sailors. At Ootipadaram 

 the native official estimates the daily earnings at threepence, 

 taking all the year round, and excluding costs, and at 

 Munjery at from three-halfpence to ninepence, while at 

 Tenkarei their earnings are computed at from threepence 

 to one shilling a day. In the Tanjore Collectorate, they 

 are reported to have decreased in some places, but remained 

 stationary in one locality. A little better report comes 

 from Madras, but there the fishermen are also employed as 

 boatmen, which is very profitable, while the vicinity of 

 large stations affords a ready sale for fresh fish. Without 

 tracing out the condition of these people in each district on 

 the coast, it will be sufficient to say that they are poor and 

 miserable, but not so badly off as in the Bengal maritime 

 districts, where they appear to be quite poverty-stricken, 

 unless near large towns. Passing on to Burmah with its 

 cheap salt, we find the sea fishermen well off. 



If we survey the reports from all the sea districts of 

 India, we find the fishermen well off in Sind, while, unless 

 in the vicinity of large towns, they are miserably off in the 

 Bombay Presidency. Along the western coast of Madras, 

 with its untaxed salt-earth, these people prosper ; but once 

 round Cape Comorin, where the collection of spontaneous 

 salt becomes a penal offence, they become, as observes the 

 Collector of Tinnevelly, a very miserable lot of people, and 

 such is the same account all up the Coromandel coast, 

 except where there are large towns. With poverty we find 

 them reported to be decreasing in numbers, due to cholera 

 or other diseases, emigration, or accepting service as Lascars 

 in coasting vessels. These are a people who in olden times 



