MR. A. H. PATTERSON ON A DECAYED TRAWL-FISHERY. 33 
houses and in haunts of vice. From the frequent loss of days, 
and the trouble ensuing upon this short spell of liberty the 
voyage was extended to two months — eight weeks of fearful 
toil and hardness, compared with which prison-life is luxury. 
A few single boaters (boats that made weekly trips and 
short voyages) belonging to small owners, landed their catches 
at the wharf or at the quay-side, despatching them from the 
latter by rail to Billingsgate, a less direct and more expensive 
method than sending it by cutter, as the fleets did. Every 
package of fish sent by rail, or that was transferred from the 
smack to the cutter, had a metal or a wooden “ tally ” attached 
to it, bearing the boat’s name, accompanied by check tickets 
specifying how many “ trunks ” of plaice, soles, haddocks, 
roker, whiting, &c., and “ peds ” of turbot, brill, &c., had 
been forwarded. Some of the cutters, when winds were 
adverse, made for the Roads, when the “ ferryboats ” were 
requisitioned, and the catches rowed ashore to be despatched 
upon troll-carts* to the railway stations. 
The lot of the deep-sea fisherman was, and is, by no means 
an easy or luxurious one ; the wild grey waves of the restless 
North Sea are but seldom shorn of their fierce white heads, 
for the shrill winds but seldom cease to trouble the waters. 
A furious north wind brings up a choppy drift which wars 
against twisting currents from the south, churning up a wild 
hurly-burly, that only modifies its anger when the strong 
inset of the westerly roll from the broad Atlantic pushes the 
contending forces asunder. To every quarter the fretful sea 
offers its resentment, and seldom indeed, save in the few calms 
that chance time obtain, does the smacksman find his sturdy 
vessel on a level keel. One graphic writer, who has seen the 
ocean in many quarters of the globe, and under all aspects, 
states that he “ never knew any sea more ugly than that 
which comes on the Dogger when a hard easterly gale blows.” 
He had wondered often that any one should be found to face 
a North Sea gale for a second time. “ Happily,” he says, 
* The last ferry or “ bullock ’’-boat disappeared more than a decade 
since, and only three troll-carts exist, one of which is in Norwich 
Museum, and two in Yarmouth Tolhouse. 
VOL. IX. 
D 
