The Argosy — page 220: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| \ | Fish Catching on the Dogger. 203 engaged in watch on deck, or occupied with the various details inci- ‘dental to the daily fishing operations. _ The smacksmen, as a rule, sleep in their work-a-day garb. De- scending from the lonely night-watch, cold, weary and not infre- quently saturated to the skin, the exhausted toiler simply sinks upon the bare floor, or at best siaalales into a comfortless bunk, and finds, in ideep slumber, a brief respite from his cheerless and dangerous toil. When the time for resumption of work again comes round, he rises, with clothes undried and stiffened limbs, and sets himself as he best may to re-commence the struggle with the elements which is an in- evitable attendant of his labour as a fish-catcher on the Dogger. The most important vessel in the fleet—the ‘‘admired of all ad- mirers”—is now usually a certain smack flying a well-known iflag, which is, as has already been stated, the pioneer of religion, iphilanthropy, and the civilising influences of social life amongst the weed sea trawlers. But until a few years ago a very different vessel was wont to accom- ‘pany the great North Sea fishing fleets. This was a foreign craft known as the ‘‘ Coper.” The “Coper” was a ship flying the Dutch or Belgian flag, but jmore commonly the former ; and she sailed from one or other of the \chief maritime ports in those two countries with a large cargo of tobacco, vile spirits, and bad literature. Thus was the sturdy animalism of the poor North Sea trawler effectually administered to at sea, and it is not too much to say that the arrival of one of these foreign cruisers was generally the prelude to a wild scene of de- \bauchery, and almost cannibal ferocity. ® Such events are happily a portion of the past. Good and cheap \tobacco may be purchased on the Mission Ship; healthy literature is supplied; and the influence of the foreign craft is at an end. \Happy is it for the deep-sea trawler that such is the case! © Many ja tragedy has been enacted on that wild strip of sea—many a scene jdark and criminal—whose prime cause was the presence of the Dutch trader; and many a man now sleeps on the bed of the ocean who might ive been alive and well, had it not been for the same evil ‘agency. .I'wice during the jaca -four hours—once by day and again in she night—the great trawl net is shot overboard. | The night-haul is, however, by far the more valuable of the two. The trawlers, indeed, reckon that one night-haul is worth two taken py day. During the night the vast bag net, attached to its enormous Tawl-beam, scours the bottom of the sea, and, in the morning, after a pong spell of hard labour, it is heaved in-board, and its contents pmptied upon the deck. In the haul, if it is a prolific one, a large quantity of sole, plaice, jurbot, gurnet, cod, whiting, haddock, ‘and such like, will be included. The cleaning and packing of the fish in suitable boxes for convey- | | | Sel 6 eB dk = a Fe, — ~ ¥ ls a ee 2 Ty ~ > ld os SES Sa S COMIC OOO <S)