BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 353 
ment is found lucrative to the company and a great advantage to the 
1 sailing vessels, as it insures the fish being delivered in good condition 
| and obviates the necessity of the smacks making long voyages to and 
from their port, often with contrary winds. The advantage of this 
; system to that of having steam carriers proper, is, that in the calm 
weather, frequent in summer time, the smacks can not work their trawls, 
| so that the carriers having no fish to take must lie idle, their resources 
unemployed, and their ice running to waste. On the other hand, the 
steam trawler is enabled to work without wind, and may catch fish 
which will be, perhaps, additionally valuable on account of the en- 
forced idleness of the other vessels.” 
Higher prices can generally be obtained for fish which are taken to 
market by the steam carriers than for those brought in by the single 
boaters, though this is not an invariable rule. 
It may occasionally happen, according to the report to the Board of 
Trade, that smacks fleeting are obliged to keep the fish on board for 
several days on account of the rough weather preventing their being 
conveyed to the steam cutter, and as the fleeting vessels do not carry ice 
like the single boats, it is quite possible, under such circumstances, 
that the fish may arrive in inferior condition. One witness stated that 
he had known salesmen to fill the steam-cutters’ boxes with fish out of 
a single boating smack in order to enhance the price. 
The fleeting system is preferred by the owners, though the fishermen 
are in favor of single boating. It is claimed that the fleeting system is 
more profitable, that it is a necessity for the owners that the returns 
should be not only quick and large, but subject to as little fluctuation as 
possible. Whilst, however, u a difference of 20 per cent, in the returns 
may make a difference to the owner of a fair profit or a decided loss, it 
only makes to the man sailing on shares a reduction of, say, from £ 2 to 
£1 12 s. per week, and to the man on wages it makes no difference at 
all.” Therefore, it is not, perhaps, to be wondered at that the fisher- 
men prefer the system of single boating, and that several objections are 
urged by them against fleeting. Chief among these objections are the 
hard and perilous work of u boarding” the fish, and the much longer 
time that they are obliged to be absent from home. 
The Duke of Edinburgh, in his excellent paper on the Sea Fisheries, 
etc., gives a graphic picture of the dangers incident to boarding fish 
as carried on under the fleeting system, which he concludes by saying : 
u No one will deny the great importance to the owners of smacks of 
getting their fish to market in a salable condition, but they are bound 
to effect this object without exposing the fishermen to dangers, such as 
I have above indicated, but against which no means of prevention 
have, as yet, been devised or adopted. I have alluded to this subject 
here as an illustration of the risks of a fisherman’s life, and can not 
leave it without expressing my opinion in favor of a careful and search- 
ing inquiry being made on each occasion on which a fishing vessel re- 
Bull. U. S. F. 0., 87—23 
