becomin' a winter fish, somehow, and up the harbours you started
catchin' 'em at Christmas and lost 'em by Eastertide:" while the
ordinary crabbing-grounds appeared to be clean bewitched.

One theorist loudly called for a massacre of sea-birds, especially
shags and gannets. Others (and these were the majority) demanded
protection from steam trawlers, whom they accused of scraping the
sea-bottom, to the wholesale sacrifice of immature fish--sole and
plaice, brill and turbot.

"Now look 'ee here, my sons," said Un' Benny Rowett: "if I was you,
I'd cry to the Lord a little more an' to County Council a little
less. What's the full size ye reckon a school o' pilchards, now--one
o the big uns? Scores an' scores o' square miles, all movin' in a
mass, an' solid a'most as sardines in a tin; and, as I've heard th'
Old Doctor used to tell, every female capable o' spawnin' up to two
million. . . . No; your mind can't seize it. But ye might be fitted
to grasp that if th' Almighty hadn' ordained other fish an' birds as
well as us men to prey upon 'em, in five years' time no boat'd be
able to sail th' Atlantic; in ten years ye could walk over from
Polpier to Newfoundland stankin' 'pon rotten pilchards all the way.
Don't reckon yourselves wiser than Natur', my billies. . . . As for
steam trawlin', simmee, I han't heard so much open grievin' over it
since Government started loans for motors. Come to think--hey?--
there ben't no such tearin' difference between motors an' steam--not
on principle. And as for reggilations, I've a doo respect for County
Council till it sets up to reggilate Providence, when I falls back on
th' Lord's text to Noey that, boy an' man, I've never known fail.
_While th' earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest shall not cease._
And again," continued Un' Benny Rowett, "Behold, I say unto you,