ng spirits. It imposes a like penalty for
purchasing spirits by exchange or otherwise, and requires every British
vessel dealing in provisions or other articles to have a licence and to
carry a special mark. In 1882 Mr E. J. Mather started a mission to deep
sea fishermen, which sends out mission ships and supplies the fishermen
with good clothing, literature, tobacco, &c., at a fair price. This
mission, now the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, is
registered by the Board of Trade.

See E. J. Mather, _Nor'ard of the Dogger_ (1888), and publications of
the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.

COOPERAGE (from "cooper," a maker of casks, derived from such forms as
Mid. Dutch _cuper_, Ger. _Kufer_, Lat. _cuparius_; the same root is seen
in various Teut. words for a basket, such as Dutch _kuip_ and Eng.
"kipe" and "coop," but cooper is apparently not formed directly from
"coop," which never means a "cask" but always a basket-cage for poultry,
&c.), the art of making casks, barrels and other rounded vessels, the
sides of which are composed of separate staves, held together by hoops
surrounding them. The art is one of great antiquity; Pliny ascribes its
invention to the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys. The trade is one in
which there are numerous subdivisions, the chief of which are tight or
wet and dry or slack cask manufacture. To these may be added white
cooperage, a department which embraces the construction of wooden tubs,
pails, churns and other even-staved vessels. Of all departments, the
manufacture of tight casks or barrels for holding liquids is that which
demands the greatest care and skill since, in addition to being
perfectly tight when filled with liquid, the vessels must bear the
strain of transportation to great distances, and in many cases have to
resist considerable internal pressure when they contain fermenting
liquors. The staves are best made of well-seasoned oak. Since a cask is
a double conoid, usually having its greatest diameter (technically the
bulge or belly) at the centre, each stave must be properly curved to
form a segment of the whole, and must be so cut as to have a suitable
bilge or increase of width from the ends to the middle; it must also
have its edges bevelled to such an angle that it will form tight joints
with its neighbours. The staves being prepared, the next operation is to
set up or raise the barrel. For this purpose as many staves as are
necessary are arranged upr