Since everything is justly ordained in our best of all possible societies, my greater gain must prove, despite appearances, that I am this man's superior.
Besides, he speaks to me with manifest respect, and calls me "Sir."
A few nights later, there was another gale; a trawler was driven ashore, and her crew saved by the rocket apparatus.
Two or three nights later a Lowestoft smack was run down by a Norwegian barque, and the skipper and mate were drowned; one left a wife and four children, the other a wife and nine!
These casualties are happening constantly—they are so common they are scarcely reported, even in local papers; but what becomes of the widows and orphans?
A man's wages on the trawlers are 14s. a week, when his boat is at sea.
"They ought to be included in the Compensation Act," I suggested to a boatman.
"Who is to pay the compensation?" he asked.
I suggested the smack owners.
"Oh, they couldn't afford it"; they couldn't afford more wages; couldn't afford anything. They also were to be numbered amongst those deserving unfortunate classes of disinterested British capitalists who are living on their losses. Yet one doesn't hear of their starving in the winter, of their being drowned in quest of a precarious livelihood, of their widows and orphans being gathered into the workhouse. Nor the boatbuilders, nor the sailmakers, nor the Billingsgate "wholesalers," nor any of the men connected with the trade, except those who do the actual work of catching the fish.