Formerly they took their own fish to other places to sell, making trips to Halifax, Boston or New York, and some adventurous sailors even carried ship loads annually to Italy, just before Lent, bringing back good pay and cargoes of oil and salt. In those days they could bring their own supplies from the ports they visited, and a very simple shop or two in each village was enough. But the keen eye of the speculator was upon them. The merchant, a new factor, made his appearance. The merchant came into the village, with means at command, and built warehouses and a wharf, and had his own vessels. He brought in staple articles of all kinds, groceries, cloth, shoes, coal-and then he took pay for these in codfish. This saved the fishermen all trouble in marketing their catches; they had only to fish and take what they caught and cured to the convenient merchant, instead of across the seas to Italy or down to the States. If they had a bad season, the merchant trusted them, and they could pay when they had better luck. Of course he paid something less than they could get by going farther, but they saved time and stayed nearer home. So they fell easily into the new way, and dropped the habit of going abroad, having this ready purchaser at their door.
Bye and bye prices were not so good for fish, and now and then groceries went up a little. The people awoke too late to the situation. They had lost their markets. Simple as their wants had always been, they were now more pinched than ever before, and there was nothing to do but to go on fishing, always fishing, that they might get flour, molasses, clothing, coal, from the ever accommodating merchant.
Channel is a fair sample of the larger coast villages. Its merchant has a comfortable house and a well-filled store. His yard is well fenced, and there his only child, a little daughter, plays alone. She is not allowed the companionship of the fishermen’s children, and when she is older she will have a governess. Other children attend the Church of England school or the Methodist school, the Roman Catholic children remaining outside until after prayers.
The fishermen live in small, poor cottages, with the barest necessities of life. As you meet them on the road or shore and look at their weather-beaten, serious faces and their friendly, inquiring eyes, you are touched with the pathos of their condition.
The merchant is not the only well-to-do man in Channel. The government has its salaried officials there also, the stipendiary magistrate, who can offer his guests cake and wine, the constable, who has charge of the empty prison, patrols the paths, and takes command in cases of shipwreck, and the postmaster, who for thirty years has lived there comfortably and raised a large family of sons and daughters. He told us that it had been his custom at the beginning of each winter to lay in ten barrels of flour and a whole frozen ox. These men support the government policy and seek no changes. They are good in their place and earn their salaries, but their lot is immeasureably easier than that of the fishermen.
The school teacher gets a little pay from the government and a little from each family, probably not more than three hundred dollars in all. The doctor receives five dollars annually from each family, except the very poorest, and for this sum he treats them in all their illnesses. He is also the doctor for Codroy, Little River, and one or two other places, on the same terms.
There is no dentist or barber in Channel, and not one saloon. It is a strict temperance place from force of circumstances, and the roads are as safe at midnight as at midday.