30 MR. A. H. PATTERSON ON A DECAYED TRAWL-FISHERY. 
clanked with the beat of shipwrights’ hammers, and the 
clattering tools of the caulker ; forges glowed fiercely often 
into the dark night with the red heat of the forge-fires ; the 
rope-walks buzzed with the whirr of the twine-spinner’s wheel ; 
and the screeching music of running block, and the lusty 
“ Heave-y’ho ! ” of many deep voices broke the murmur of 
running waters. Hundreds of blue-slopped ship-carpenters 
and caulkers lined the quay-side paths at meal or work-times ; 
apprenticeships, in many industries, absorbed the more 
robust out-put of the day schools — it meant reproach for a boy 
in those days to go without a trade ; scores of needy women 
and deft-fingered girls helped the family earnings by braiding 
trawl-nets, while the ancient fathers of the households, too 
aged for braving the winter storms, helped with slower 
thrust of braiding needle. The south end of the town reeked 
with the pungent and marine-like odours of paint and Stock- 
holm tar, of boiling pitch, and bilge-water. Butchers’ and 
bakers’ carts rattled and raced to the wharves with provender 
for departing boats ; and mast and block-makers trundled 
hither and thither the iron-headed trawling beams, the lengthy 
masts and sturdy spars to and from the wharves. It was 
quite as busy a sight, without the feverish haste, as that 
which characterizes the herring harvest in the busiest days. 
With the decline of trawling, hundreds gradually fell 
out of work, and many of the hardy, brave, but uncouth 
smacksmen, with their big broods of rough-haired children t 
made tracks Grimsby-wards, where trawling was booming, 
others drifted to Lowestoft, Hull, Shields, and elsewhere ; 
those who remained awhile struggled bravely, or otherwise, 
against poverty, and either followed suit in the end, or drifted 
into other and casual employment ; to-day, I do not think 
there are half-a-dozen families in Yarmouth wholly dependent 
on trawling for a livelihood. The wharves with their 
forests of tall, shapely masts became deserted, and the river- 
side quays at Gorleston, which in the palmier days were 
alive with men and labour, became as deserted and dead and 
dingy as if there had been a visitation of the plague and an 
earthquake combined. And when one takes into consideration 
