The fishermen on the West Coast in 1919 enjoyed something like affluence as compared with their brethren on the East Coast, where the fish were scarce. Where there were lobsters, they were getting $35.50 or $35.00 per case of 48 one-pound cans. For cod, $11.20 a quintal of 112 pounds was paid. In 1918 over $15 per quintal was paid. On the other hand, with pork at $100 a barrel, coal at $24 a ton, and gasoline at 70 cents a gallon, the big prices for fish were matched by an alarming cost of the necessaries of life. Some fishermen make but $200 a year; a few make as much as $2,000 and even more. The merchant princes as a rule are the store-keepers who deal with the fishermen. There were two big bank failures in St. John’s years ago, and since that time many persons have hidden their money in the ground. One fisherman of whose case I heard had but $35 in cash as the result of his season’s effort, and he had eight to support besides himself. The small amount of ready money on which people can live with a house, a vegetable garden, and a supply of firewood at their backs in the timbered hillsides is unbelievable. If a man was fortunate enough to possess any grassland, he might get as much as $65 a ton for his hay in 1919, if he could spare it from his own cows and sheep. It is too bad that for the sake of the sheep the noble Newfoundland dog that chased them has had to perish. It is almost impossible today to find a pure-breed example of the dog that spread the name of the island to the ends of the earth. Such dogs as there are are remarkably intelligent and make excellent messengers between a man at work and his house. The “Southerners” go to the Grand Banks for their fishing; the others go to the Labrador. The three classes of fishermen are the shore fishermen, the “bankers,” and the “floaters”—those of the Labrador. Ordinarily the catch is reckoned by quintals (pronounced kentals) of 112 pounds. Those who live on the Labrador coast the winter through are known as the “liveyers”—the live-heres—and those who come regularly to the fishing are “stationers” or “planters.” During the war big prices have been realized for the fish, and unprecedented prosperity has come to the fishermen. The growth in the number of motor-boats is an index of this condition, though with gasoline at 70 cents a gallon on the Labrador (for the imperial gallon, slightly larger than ours), the question of fuel has been a disturbing one to many. Of late much of the fish has been marketed on favourable terms in the United States and Canada, but before this the preferred markets in order have been Spain and Portugal, Brazil and the West Indies. The three grades recognized, from the best to the lowest, are “merchantable,” “Madeira,” and “West Indies” (“West Injies”), the last-named for the negroes.