“FLITHER” GIRLS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 8360, 23 December 1887, Page 3

“ FLITHER ” GIRLS.

The sky stretches in an endless, cloudless blue expanse overhead; the sea below is broken by scarcely a ripple as the tide slowly advances along the rocky shore; and the almost angry heat of an August sun is tempered by a gentle breeze. "It’s all along o’them trawlers!” These are the first words, uttered in the broadest Y orkshire dialect, that catch my ear as I emerge at a little railway station on the cliff top, many miles north of fashionable Scarborough. " And what about the trawlers ?” I inquire from the woman whose words I have overheard.

"Well, yon see, it’s all along o’them trawlers that our lads ’as to leave the fishing, and our lasses go out to place; it’s the ruination of this ere town, and of a sight more bonny fishing towns as well.” " Them trawlers ” are large steam fishing craft, introduced some few years ago, which go out to deep sea fishing all the year round, dredge the banks, and (the fisher folk say) destroy tons of spawn and young fish, to the great detriment of the industry. Moreover, these craft, being in the hands of Companies, the trade is being congested into big centres; hence there is much wailing all along the coast in the hamlets which stud the cliffs.

I wend my way down through the stony, precipitate street of the straggling, redroofed village, clustering on the cliff side, between two high bluffs, and soon find myself on the slope which leads to the shingly beach. The fishermen, cutty in mouth, are taking their ease. The boats have just come in with herrings ; it is the time when the women and the girls " turn to.” They have already boarded the boats, counted the herrings, and now they come tripping across the rocks, their dresses turned up round their waists, over short blue serge petticoats, displaying beneath them, instead of the much-maligned trousers of the pit-brow women, pairs of shapely legs and feet, some bare, others encased in woollen stockings, and trim, stout, leather shoes. A fine sturdy set of lasses these are, with straight, stronglyknit frames and well-set heads, on which they poise with ease their heavy loads of fish or lines.

" What is that you are carrying ?” I ask a woman whose burden has just been skilfully packed upon her head by a young girl. " Them’s the ' overs ’ which I’m carrying upon my * skip ’ (basket).” " And what do you mean by 'overs’ ?” Well, you see, the ' overs ’ is the heavy fishing lines which the men take out with them, alongside o’ the net. I’m taking of ’em home to bait with ' fiithers ’; and they must be alive when we do it. We take ’em out o’ the shell and bait em, so that the men has ’em all ready.” "May I see one of the 'fiithers’?” I inquire.

A judicious handful of gooseberries poured into the palm of a small girl close by sends her scampering off to the nearest pool, and in a minute she is back with an unfortunate little “ flither,” or limpet, the collection of which has for generations been a distinct female employment along the coast.

" And how old do you begin ?” "As little as that ’un,” pointing to a small maid of some seven summers, who stands rubbing one little bare sandy foot against the other, " they begin to do what they can; but the grown-up lasses hires their-aens, and makes a trade on it.” " And what time do you go out ?” " That depends on the tide. We go out many a bitter cold morning at three o’clock, with lanterns, and we take our sharp knives and creels and go down on the Scar to look for fiithers.”

" I suppose you get home in good time for breakfast ?”

"Oh, no; we wanders miles along the Scar—-ten, twenty, thirty, and more, may be, to Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, and Scarborough. Sometimes it’s that bold wa come back wi’ nought—our hands tremble so -—but sometimes we get a lot of fiithers.” “ If you go so far, how do you manage at nights ? ”

“ There’s many a farm and cottage along the cliffs where they’ll give us a lodging. We go out in parties of ten, may be, and we pay threepence each for the night. I’ve slept with five other lasses in a bed, for they pack us close.” " And do they give you food ? ” "We take our victuals along with us when we stay out some days or a week.” . " Then how do you keep you r bait alive ? ” "We pack ’em careful and give ’em a sup o’ salt water now and then.” *‘ What can you earn ? ” I now ask, wishing to bo more practical, and finding it somewhat difficult to keep my readytongued friends to the point. " Sometimes tenpence or a shilling a day if we shells the fiithers, or even one and oightpence or two shillings if times are extra good. Some of the gels hires theirsens out for half-a-crown a week and their victuals, and go flithering for fishermen.” " Are not you afraid of being out at all hours and in. all weathers ?”

"No” —with almost a derisive laugh. "We’re a jolly lot, we are; when it’s dark we go singing along, hymn, after hymn—and songs too”—this sotto. voce , for the good folk here are very religious, and in some quarters “ worldly songs ” are entirely tabooed. " I suppose the train makes a great difference in your work ?”

"Yes, that’s been here this three year, and they take us cheap, but not as they do the Scarborough gels; they go for nothing, as a kind lady left. money in her will to free them over the lines.” "Well Iremember,” here chimes in an elderly dame, “ when I was a lass I’ve started off, with a dozen others at one o’clock m the morning, walked to Whitby, got a cup of tea, and then on to the flither ground. I’ve,known the police turn us back, a-saying we were a-muddling wi’ other folks’ fiithers.”

As I watched these healthy, bronzed, active lasses, my thoughts travelled back to the pale match-box girls toiling in our ’ great city. The pay of these fisher lasses is as small, the work is harder, but the very hardihood of their lives, the spirit of ; adventure engendered by daily contact ' with the ocean, and the winds, and the . rocks, develops in them capacity and selfreliance. We may well despond when we consider what we shall do with some of our poor city girls; but in these country lasses there is the making of a fine, useful womanhood.