371 
a close, the largo majority of them are off to the great harvest of 
the sea — the Herring fishery. Some of the boats go north to the 
Scotch or Yorkshire coast, but the number is greatly increased in 
the homo fishery. 
The first arrivals from the Xorth Sea were very good in quality, 
and prices ruled high. A few fine fish were sold at the beginning of 
the season at ten shillings per 132, or .£50 per last, but the bulk 
produced from £10 to £23 per last. On the 1st and 2nd of 
October 1200 lasts were delivered at Yarmouth, and the deliveries 
were eipially good at Lowestoft. The fishing continued good till 
the terrible gale of the 14th of October put a stop for a time to all 
fishing operations. After the gale there were eleven fishing crews 
with 102 men missing, and the loss of boats and gear was estimated 
at £10,000. Very bad weather was also experienced on tlio 22nd 
and 23rd of the same month. The gale commenced on the Saturday, 
and as the Scotch boats do not fish on Sundays, they did not go to 
sea; the consequence was that they suffered no loss and were ready 
for sea as soon as the weather abated ; on the ^londay they were 
early afloat, and secured heavy freights, some of them taking from 
eight to ten, and one oven thirteen lasts. Five hundred lasts were 
delivered at Yarmouth, which produced from £10 to £20 per last. 
Some bad weather followed, interrupting the fishery very much, but 
with the month of November enormous shoals of Herring arrived 
very near at hand, and the weather being all that could be desired, 
the fishery at both Yarmouth and Lowestoft continued very good 
to the cml of the season, wdth the exception of a brief lull caused 
by bad weather at the end of November. Some of the boats made 
very large catches, eight, nine, or ten lasts not very unfrequent; 
one Lowestoft boat is said to have cleared £G00 in a fortnight. 
Early in December the fishery was again excellent, and the prices 
good ; the brilliant moonlight nights were very favourable for 
fishing, and five to ten lasts were frequently landed by fortunate 
boats, one Lowestoft boat, the ‘Fisher Girl,’ coming in with a 
“safer” of twelve lasts, worth about £200. 
The total delivery at the Yarmouth fish wharf, was 16,488 lasts 
of 13,200, or 217,641,600 fish, and at Lowestoft, 7362 lasts, or 
97,178,400 fish. 
The return for Yarmouth shows an excess of 1501 hists over the 
average of the autumn fishery for the past ten years, and that of 
