Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/276

250 of fish being disputed, the vicar, the Rev. Francis Cunningham, had the question tried before the local magistrates. He won his case, but the proceedings to enforce payment caused so much opposition and bad feeling that the vicar thought it his duty not to follow the matter up, and he appears to have abandoned all claim for fish-tithe, either from the herring or mackerel fishery. Since this time and then, a large fishing trade, the trawl fishing, has grown up at Lowestoft, from which no claim for a fish-tithe was ever made."

It would be interesting to learn if this custom prevailed, as I am of opinion it did, at other fishing towns in England.