Baring-Gould mentions
terrible stories of ships lured to destruction by the
exhibition of false lights on shore being told in
Cornwall. He remembers an old fellow -- the last of
the Cornish wreckers -- who ended his days as a
keeper of a toll gate. This fellow would never allow
that he never had willfully drawn a vessel upon the
breakers. When a ship was cast onshore by the gale,
it was a different matter.
The coast dwellers
believed they had a perfect right to whatever washed
ashore. By the turn of the century, the coastguard
kept such a sharp lookout after a storm that very
little could be picked up. The usual course of action
then was for a person to heave up something heavy
found on the beach in some hidden or inaccessible
part of the beach. The government has an auction on
the beach for found articles and if the object is
spotted it was usually knocked down for a trifle and
the man who found it could then have a lawful claim
on it. If the item was not observed, then he could
fetch it later at his convenience. It was generally
considered too unsafe to try to make off with
anything of size after a wreck but to obtain it by
means of the auction because the auctions were not
well attended and the bidders did not compete against
each other vigorously.
Baring-Gould, A
Book of Cornwall.)
