p. 2176
of his crew to whatever task their respective qualifications called for. Some were sent every evening at some distance off shore where they would cast long lines or trawls (harouelle). Others, on larger and stouter crafts, fished with seins. The latter were large-sized nets measuring from one hundred to one hundred fifty fathoms in length by fifty to a hundred feet in width, and tapering towards the ends. The seine was cast so as to encircle a school of fish and then drawn out of the sea, the catch totalling at times as much as forty or fifty hundredweights. . . . .
Every evening the catch was brought to the stage, a sort of board wharf or platform, built on stakes, and projecting far enough into the sea to allow the unloading of the boats at both high and low. tides. There the fish was “headed”-and “dressed” or cleaned.*
The cod fish were then split, salted and put to dry on the pebbles, on boughs or on hurdles called “flakes.” It remained there all day long exposed to the action of the sun and heat ; such process of handling extended over a whole month, and the cod was given as many as ten “sun exposures,” daily at first and then at greater intervals. The final operations were assigned to the “beach workers” (graviers), whose task was a rather arduous one and poorly remunerated. Their duties consisted in drying cod and protecting it against any damage from rain. One may imagine what difficulties this entailed in a wet country like Newfoundland.1
The foregoing remarks afford a peculiar, and yet fairly common, instance of the relationship that exists between custom and legislation. The fishermen, on the shores of Newfoundland, laboured under most exceptional conditions. Being at a great distance from the mother-country, they could not be made subject to the same legislation and ordinances as the other French people. As a matter of fact, legislation of a general character was inadequate, and special conditions called for special enactments. The mariners undertook themselves to provide for their safety, and the government merely confirmed such steps as had been taken, giving them force of law and supplementing them with penalties. That legislation soon became obsolete, no longer serving its purpose or suitable to new conditions. New practices sprung up that soon became the law.
* Ad. Bellet, op. cit., pp. 68, et ssqq.
[1927lab]
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