Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/53

 that at the end of the ten years, about twice as much food was needed to satisfy daily wants as was required immediately after the shipwreck. It is true that they found food much easier to obtain than they had at first. If there were more mouths to feed, there were also more hands to work; and they had besides had time to find out the best and most profitable way of working. Nevertheless, one result of the increased number of mouths to feed was that food had to be obtained at a proportionately increased sacrifice of time and labour. At first, for instance, the skilful fisherman only went to those pools where the fish were most abundant; and from these, in favourable weather, he could catch enough in a few hours to feed everyone on the island; but now these pools were not such good fishing-ground as they used to be; the stock of fish there had become to a great extent exhausted; and it was necessary, when fish were needed, either to fish for a greater number of hours in these favourite old pools, or to make long and perhaps dangerous journeys to distant fisheries, where the labour of the fisherman was