The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-02
"LIVYERES" OF LABRADOR.
IHEIR MOST DESTITUTE CONDI-
 TION
Causes Anxiety to the Colonial Cow ernment-LittIe to Encourage Resi- dence -BaI rem Country.

coast, is every year a cause of anxiet.
 to the colonial government, because 1T the event of the failure of the cod fish
 cries relief has to be provided for them
 the region producing nothing, and there
 being nc stores or depOts where fooe # can be procured, while an ice barrier
 shuts it off from the outside world fol
 half the year. Almost every year 2
 steamer has to be sent along the coast
 her hold filled with stores, from which
 the most needy are supplied, and it is 6
 task calling for the most careful atten-
 tion and Judgment, thoroughly to in
 vestigate these cases and apportion the
 allowances properly.
 Labrador is a peninsula of one hun
 dred and twenty thousand square ciles
 while it's population consists of but
 five thousand souls, of whom about
 thirty five hundred are whites and fif-
 teen hundred Eskimos. As it is fre-
 quented only by the Newfoundland
 people, it has been under the jurisdc- tion of that colony for nearly ninety
 years
 The land seems accursed it is bare of
 greenery and living things, a desolate.
 black wilderness of forbidding rocks
 and stunted forest growth as if it had
 been thrown up in some past age by a
 volcanic eruption, and the premature
 cooling caused innumerable cracks in
 the crust, as the coast is scanned with
 hundreds of harbors and studded With
 islands by the thousand. These latter
 have been chosen wherever suitable, as
 defenses behind which to locate a little
 settlement, the shelter thus afforded < being of inestimable value when the
 wintry gales blow and the relentless
 fcepack sweeps along the shore, de-
 stroying everything in its path. But
 this doubles the danger of navigating \ the region.
 There are over one hundred fixed set
 Elements from Battle to Main. each
 having a resident population of five to twenty-five families. They are termed
 .sliyyeres Give heres) to distinguish them from the mass of the Newfound- land fishermen, who only frequent the coast during the summer fishing sea- son. and are termed "floaters" It is doubtful if the world has the counter part of this annual fishery migration Tn June each year the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Newfoundland, to the number of some twenty-five thou sand men. women and children-start for Labrador to engage in the cod fish cry. They load their schooners with their household goods, provisions and salt (for fish curing), and make their way to the harbors where they intend to fish, and there they remain until September or October, when they re- turn to their homes again,
 ' During this period the "livyeres" en- joy comparative comfort, for they can
 3~ with certainty on enough food to keep body and soul together. It is when the sf1oatersy start for home that the misery begins. The ''livyere" is always a fisherman, but of the poorest order He takes service with some well-to-do .'fioater," who provides him with a fishing outfit, boat hooks and lines, and his catch he exchanges for food and raiment at prices that almost equal those of the Klondike. For his fish he receives only about two dollars quin- tai of one hundred and twelve pounds, while for third-rate flour he pays eight | dollars 8 barrel, sour molasses sixty cents gallon, and musty tea sixty cents a pound. These form his staple l articles of diet, together with cod, her ring and shellfish
 Meat in any form, butter milk cheese | and such like he never sees, from the | cradle to the grave. Nor does he know | what money means; he never handles a | coin, and all his transactions are con- ducted by the principal of barter, qnintal of fish forming the standard of | value. As regards clothing. the "liv- we're" and his family contrive to get along with perhaps less than any other civilized beings, and that, too, in the face of thermometer that for eight | months of the year never rises above zero.
 The further north one goes the more appalling becomes the condition of the coast folk, and if Dant could have inn agined an inferno of ice, the circum- stances here existing would have afford ed him all the requisite material for Thrilling picture of ever-present misery. Pitched among the rocks in the little harbors are the rude homes of the liv- yeres In many places the fronts of the structures are upheld by posts, while the rears rest on convenient lodges, and ngress and egress are by means of lad iers. Timbers securely stepped in { heaps of great rocks are tightly wedged against the houses to prevent their be- { Ing overthrown by the gales, while the soofs are lashed down with heavy -opes, which are to prevent some bois- .erous gust from uplifting the hatch. Troops of almost naked children gam { pol about and stare in amazement at he stranger who lands for closer in- ,pection of the place, and hordes of | lungry dogs sniff at his heels, ready to ( ample his calves at the slightest pro- I ,ocation Dirt, filth, misery, poverty I hese are stamped across the face of g very settlement visited. f A place called Boulter's Rock is with { ut exception the worst human habita- | ion that could be met with. It beats novels, Achill mud-houses ( r West Hebrides crofter cottages easi- S y. Imagine an ancient and rotten flank hut, scarcely up to the standard g a decent cow-pen, without door or U The "livyere," finding the a interior too large, pulled down the ceil- | ng, or part of it. and roughly divided r if one end. The inside held decrepit II tove and a wooden bunk or bed- place. l; he occupants, man and wife, had been s larried two years, and he had spent c he whole time here fishing A1OD pside f.