lchards are caught by drift nets, it is unnecessary to consider them
when dealing with the great North Sea drift fishing)--is carried on on a
system of sharing profits between owners and fishermen. Trawlers, i.e.
craft that fish with a "trawl" net for flat fish, haddocks, etc., etc.,
are managed differently.

"Making up" is the technical term for balancing profit and loss of a
season, and ascertaining the sums which are due to owners and crew
respectively.

In the days when Fitzgerald was a "herring merchant," the systems of
Yarmouth and Lowestoft were different. At Yarmouth the owner of the boat
took nine shares out of sixteen, and bore all losses of damaged or lost
nets, etc., the remaining seven shares being divided among the crew in
varying proportions. For instance, the skipper took 1.75 or two shares,
the mate 1.25 or 1.5, and so on down to the boy with his one-half or
three-eighths share. At Lowestoft the shares were also divided into
sixteen; but the owner took only eight, and the crew the other eight. The
losses of gear, nets, etc., however, were borne equally between the two
lots of eight shares, and, on the whole, I believe the Yarmouth system
was more favourable to the men, though the Lowestoft system made the
skipper and crew more careful of the nets and gear than they might have
been did not they suffer for any loss of them. The introduction of steam
drifters has made the shares complicated in the extreme. The owners take
so much as owners of the boat, so much for the engines, etc., etc., and,
in fact, the owners get the share of a very greedy lion. However, the
prices rule so high nowadays, and the catches are occasionally so large
(the other day a steam drifter brought in over 200 pounds worth of fish
to Grimsby as the result of one night's fishing), that the great
Martinmas fishing of the east coast has become a gamble in which fortunes
may be made and lost. Many a boat earns over 2000 pounds from October to
December. A lucky skipper may take 200 pounds for his share of the home
fishing alone. But such figures would have sounded fantastic in
FitzGerald's day, for I have been assured over and over again by herring
fishers that in the sixties and seventies, ay, even in the eighties of
last century, 20 pounds was a "good season's share" for a prominent hand
of a successful drifter.

Posh, as half owner, would take four-sixteenth shares, and as skipper
would probably take another two-sixteenths