Crossing the Channel we can see that the general sea fisheries of France are also being prosecuted with great vigour, and at those places which have railways to bear away the produce with considerable profit. I am in possession of notes and statistics pertaining to a large portion of the French seabord, giving plentiful details of the modern fishing industry of that country; and the fisheries of France are greatly noticed just now, in the hope of their forming a splendid nursery for seamen, the improvement of the navy being at present one of the dominant objects of the Emperor of the French. The Marine Department, having this object in view, have sagaciously broken through all the old protective laws incidental to the fisheries, and now allow the fishermen to carry on their trade very much as they please; trawling has therefore become pretty general at all those ports which maintain railway communication with the interior: thus at Dunkerque there are 60 trawlers; at Boulogne, 100; at Tourville, 109; at Treport, 53; at Calais, 84; with lesser numbers at smaller ports, most of them being engaged in supplying the wants of Paris with deep-sea fish; and as the coasts are provided with excellent harbours of refuge, the trawlers follow their avocations with regularity and success. The modes of sea-fishing are so much alike in every country that it is unnecessary for us to do more than just mention that the French method of trawling is very similar to our own, about which I will by and by have something to say. But there are details of fishing industry connected with that pursuit on the French coasts that we are not familiar with in Britain. The neighbouring peasantry, for instance, come to the seaside and fish with nets which are called _bas parc_; and these are spread out before the tide is full in order to retain all the fish which are brought within their meshes. The children of these land-fishers also work, although with smaller nets, at these foreshore fisheries, while the wives poke about the sand for shrimps and the smaller crustacea. These people thus not only ensure a supply of food for themselves during winter, but also contrive during summer to take as much fish as brings them in a little store of money.