Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/463

 and it afforded hardy practise for marine conscripts.

In 1884, St. Pierre was the premier fishing-port of the world. A visitor of that period, contributing to the Century Magazine, said of it, "Only at the wharves of Liverpool or New York can crowds of shipping be seen gathered in such dense masses of masts interlocked by ropes and yards." The commerce in salt and fish alone then approximated 40,000,000 francs a year. Each spring, passenger ships left the French coast towns of St. Malo, Dieppe and St. Brieuc for the little island on the other side of the sea. There the local fleet of fishing vessels was outfitted and despatched to the Banks with its Breton and Norman crews. When holds were full, schooners returned to land the fares of fish and take on new stores. While the fleet was away, fisher-wives and beach-boys spent their days on the gravel-flakes "making the cod." On every quintal of 112 pounds of fish the Government granted, and still grants, a bounty of nine francs, or about one-third the value of the catch. But in those royal days of thirty years ago St. Pierre had twice its present resident population of three thousand, and in addition, from May to October, ten thousand "Frenchmen from France" swarmed thither at enriching intervals. Everything they consumed was brought to the island and sold at a profit by merchants and shipowners whose swollen purses provided expensive