A Chat with a Fisherman by W. Clark Russell

A few days after the dreadful gale that had wrecked whole fleets of smacks belonging to the eastern and north-eastern ports, and drowned many hundreds of fishermen, I was visited by a Hull smacksman, who came to tell me that he had lost a son in one of the vessels which had gone down on the Dogger Bank during the storm, and to inform me of the misery and destitution into which the widows and children of the poor drowned men were plunged. He told me in a rough, plain, earnest way how his son was to have been married to a young girl on his return, and how the poor lad had saved up a few pounds to purchase a little furniture for the home, which she was preparing, when the news reached her that the smack in which her sweetheart was had gone down with all hands; how, in house after house, down whole streets, there was a constant sound of wailing and moaning, with misery and hunger indoors, amongst the weeping women and the sobbing children; and, said my fisherman to me, though God knew he was a poor man, yet such was the suffering he had witnessed, so unspeakably great was the calamity that had overtaken the fishing population of Hull -- and of other ports, but he spoke of Hull because he belonged to it -- that, had the thirty shillings he subscribed to the fund for the relief of these widows and orphans been the last bit of money he had in the world, he must have given it and taken his chance for himself.

The subject was a deeply interesting one to me, who had lived among fishermen, written about them, knew their heroism well, their hardships, the simple-heartedness of them. We got talking about the smacksman's life, his risks, of various features connected with his calling; and, as the subject is one that has been commended to the British public in an appeal for charity for those whom the frightful storm bereaved, I offer no excuse for repeating in print some of the observations made by this smacksman on his own vocation. His reference to what is known as the "boxing system" enabled me to lead off with my questions. The term boxing, I may say, is applied to the conveyance of fish in boats from the smacks to the steamers which bring the fish home. As the vessels fill up with fish they transfer them to steamers, which, by relieving them of their freight, enables them to remain for weeks on the fishing ground.