38 MR. A. H. PATTERSON ON A DECAYED TRAWL-FISHERY. 
took place. Some were towed up Breydon and scuttled to 
sink into the mud in weak places beside the walls, where the 
currents threatened to undermine them ; several were sold 
abroad for conversion into small coasters,* and the worst 
were hauled ashore and broken up. Meanwhile Grimsby had 
been building and equipping powerful and up-to-date steamers 
for the trawl fishery, and the laugh went round against 
the credulity of those who had money to invest in rotten ships. 
With those that sought other ports went the remnant of the 
Yarmouth smacks ; and inertness characterized the wharves 
and stores that a few years since were human beehives of 
industry 
A chat with an interesting character, one Colby, f a crippled 
shrimper, who for some years was mate of a smack, may be 
worth repeating, giving as it does a survey of the busier days 
as he knew them from personal experience : — 
“ Look here, Mr. Patterson,” said he, “ I’ve been all through 
it ; it’s a rum, hard life ; I’d as soon be a conwick as go 
through it all again. Things wasn’t then like they are now; 
you lived on rough tack, and it grow’d a bit monotonous. 
We’d boiled fish for breakfast — which was mostly offal — dabs, 
whitings, garnets — we dussent tackle the prime, not as a rule, 
any way, for turbots and soles were not for us. For dinner 
we got salt meat two or three times a week, and not the 
tenderest or youngest at that, ’specially the pork ! We had 
brown biscuits — made of bad flour, no doubt — they called ’em 
smack’s biscuits. One skipper I was with wouldn’t let us 
soak ’em in our coffee, nor yet split ’em, and we had only 
a thin smear of butter to help ’em down. We didn’t often 
fry our fish, though we did chance times — using oil from the 
cod’s livers to cook ’em in. Two or three times a week we 
called ‘ branyan day ’ — the} 7 was boiled rice and treacle days. 
“ I’m speaking of 50 year ago. We used to start fishing 
20 miles east of Lowestoft, and never went lower than the 
* If my memory serves me rightly some went to Norway, and were 
used in the small Whale, and in line fishing. 
t This Colby has been in turn, wherryman, smacksman, drift- 
fisherman, shrimper, &-c. 
