3-074-600 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Cheering Gleam, 1883. 'The fishermen and other boatmen of the British coasts have continually to strive against difficulties and dangers arising from the sudden changes of wind and sea, which too frequently occasion sad loss of life, and which often deprive them of the means of subsistence for their families on shore. Much of their toil and peril on the waves is undergone at night, when landsmen are comfortably asleep in bed...Ignorant Cockneys...may...fall into the mistake of supposing that fishermen are a lazy tribe; but this uncharitable judgment will be contradicted by those who are acquainted with the actual conditions of their laborious life...The Illustration of "A Cheering Gleam," presented in this week's publication, shows a boat at sea, with a man and a boy, returning to shore from a hard and long spell of fishing; and when they draw near the village home, anxiously expected by a wife and mother, who may have risen long before daybreak to look out for their approach from her cottage window, they hoist a lighted lantern at the masthead, for a signal that they are coming and that all is well'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.