As denoting the prosperous state of the people of Buckhaven, it may be stated that most of the families there have saved money; and, indeed, some of them are comparatively wealthy, having a bank account, as well as considerable capital in boats, nets, and lines. Fishermen, being much away from home, at the herring-fishery or out at the deep-sea fishing, have no temptation to spend their earnings or waste their time in the tavern. Indeed, in some Scottish fishing villages there is not even a single public-house. The Buckhaven men delight in their boats, which are mostly “Firth-built,”—i.e. built at Leith, on the Firth of Forth. Many of the boats used by the Scottish fishermen are built at that port: they are all constructed with overlapping planks; and the hull alone of a boat thirty-eight feet in length will cost a sum of £60. Each boat, before it can be used for the herring or deep-sea fishery must be equipped with a set of nets and lines; say, a train of thirty-five nets, at a cost of £4 each, making a sum of £140; which, with the price of the hull, makes the cost £200, leaving the masts and sails, as well as inshore and deep-sea lines and many other etceteras, to be provided for before the total cost can be summed up. The hundred boats which belong to the men of Buckhaven consequently represent a considerable amount of capital. Each boat with its appurtenances has generally more than one owner; in other words, it is held in shares. This is rather an advantage than otherwise, as every vessel requires a crew of four men at any rate, so that each boat is usually manned by two or three of its owners—a pledge that it will be looked carefully after and not be exposed to needless danger. With all the youngsters of a fishing village it is a point of ambition to obtain a share of a boat as soon as ever they can; so that they save hard from their allowances as extra hands, in order to attain as early as possible to the dignity of proprietorship. We look in vain, except at such wonderful places as Rochdale, to find manufacturing operatives in a similar financial position to these Buckhaven men; in fact, our fishermen have been practising the plan of co-operation for years without knowing it, and without making it known. The co-operative system seems to prevail among the English fisher-folk as well. At Filey, on the Yorkshire coast, many of the large fishing yawls—these vessels average about 40 tons each—are built by little companies and worked on the sharing principle: so much to the men who find the bait, and so much to each man who provides a net; and a few shillings per pound of the weekly earnings of the ship go to the owners. In France there are various ways of engaging the boats and conducting the fisheries. There are some men who fish on their own account, who have their own boat, sail, and nets, etc., and who find their own bait, whether at the sardine-fishery or when prosecuting any other branch of the sea fisheries. Of course these boat-owners hire what assistance they require, and pay for it. There are other men again who hire a boat and work it on the sharing plan, each man getting so much, the remainder being left for the owner. A third class of persons are those who work off their advances: these are a class of men so poor as to be obliged to pawn their labour to the boat-owners long before it is required. We can parallel this at home in the herring-fishery, where the advance of money to the men has become something very like a curse to all concerned.
The joint-stock fishing system has been prevalent in Scotland, with various modifications, for a very long period. Ship-carpenters at one time used to speculate in the fisheries, and build boats in order to give fishermen a share in them, and persons who had nets would lend them out on condition of getting a share in the speculation. The two or three fishermen chiefly concerned would assume a few landsmen as assistants. At the end of the season the proceeds of the fishing were divided; the proprietors of the boat drew each one deal, every man half a deal, and every net was awarded half a deal. The landsmen, being counted as boys, only drew a quarter of a deal.
The retired Buckhaven fishermen can give interesting information about the money value of the fisheries. One, who was a young fellow five-and-twenty years ago, told me the herring-fishery was a kind of lottery, but that, on an average of years, each boat would take annually something like a hundred crans—the produce, in all cases where the crew were part owners, after deducting a fifth part or so to keep up the boat, being equally divided. “When I was a younker, sir,” said this person, “there was lots o’ herrin’, an’ we had a fine winter fishin’ as well, an’ sprats in plenty. As to white fish, they were abundant five-an’-twenty year ago. Haddocks now are scarce to be had; being an inshore fish, they’ve been a’ ta’en, in my opinion. Line-fishin’ was very profitable from 1830 to 1840. I’ve seen as many as a hunder thoosand fish o’ ae kind or anither ta’en by the Buckhyne boats in a week—that is, countin’ baith inshore boats an’ them awa at the Dogger Bank. The lot brocht four hunder pound; but a’ kinds of fish are now sae scarce that it taks mair than dooble the labour to mak the same money that was made then.”
In the pre-railway era, most of the fishermen along the east coast of Fife (at Buckhaven, Cellardyke, St. Monance, and Pittenweem), as also the fishermen along the south coast (North Bewick, Dunbar, Eyemouth, and Burnmouth), used to carry their catchings of white fish to villages up the Firth of Forth, and dispose of them to cadgers and creel-hawkers, who had the retail trade of Edinburgh and Leith in their own hands. These persons distributed themselves over the country in order to dispose of their fish, and some of them would return with farm-produce in its place. The profits realised from thus retailing the produce of fishermen belonging to distant villages enabled those who resided on firths bordering the large towns and cities quietly to lie on their oars. Railways having given facilities to the east coast of Fife fishers, as well as those on the opposite coast, to send their produce to market from their own respective villages, and a new class of traders having arisen—viz. fishmongers having retail shops—the creel-hawking trade is now fast declining, and as a following result so also must be the material wealth of the villages that were in a great measure dependent upon it. In fact, railways have quite revolutionised the fish trade. There are a few females, formerly creel-hawkers, who continue still to act as retailers of fish. But many of them have taken shops, and others stalls in retail markets, and attend the wholesale market regularly to purchase their supplies. These retail dealers in fish do remarkably well; but those who still continue to hawk about a few haddocks or whitings when they can be procured find that creel-hawking is but a precarious trade.
I will now carry the reader with me to a very quaint place indeed, the scene of Sir Walter Scott’s novel of The Antiquary—Auchmithie; and then on to Fittie, at Aberdeen—another fishing quarter of great originality: we will go in the steamer.
Steamboat travelling has been in some degree superseded by the railway carriage; but to tourists going to Inverness or Thurso the steamer has its attractions. It is preferable to the railroad when the time occupied in the journey is not an object. On board a fine steamboat one has opportunities to study character, and there are always a few characters on board a coasting steam-vessel. And going north from Edinburgh the coast is interesting. The steamer may pass the Anster or Dunbar herring-fleet.
“Up the waters steerin’,
The boats are thick and thrang;
Aboon the Bass they’re bearin’,
They’ll shoot their nets ere lang.