MODERN HISTORY OF THE OYSTER. 6 1 



selves with a few, if their pockets forbade the gratification 

 derivable from scores of these delicacies, in the court, the 

 alley, or the street, (h) 



Bishop Spratt, after attributing the scarcity of oysters 

 to exportation to the Dutch, says: "There are great 

 penalties by the Admiralty Court laid upon those that fish 

 out of those grounds which the Court appoints, or that 

 destroy the cultch (the spat) or that take any oysters that 

 are not of size, or that do not tread under their feet, or 

 throw upon the shore, a fish which they call a five-finger, 

 resembling a spur- rowel, because that fish gets into the 

 oyster when they gape, and sucks them out/'' 



Slow conveyances were for a long period formidable 

 impediments to the enjoyment of oysters in the best 

 condition by the higher classes, and it was thought a feat 

 when such difficulties were surmounted. This appears in 

 the statement of Dr. Fuller: "I have heard that oisters 

 put up with care, and carried in the cool, w,ere weekly 

 brought fresh and good to Althrop, the seat of Lord 

 Spencer, which was eighty miles from the sea ; and it is no 

 wonder, for I myself have eaten, in Warwickshire, above 

 eighty miles from London, oisters sent from that city, fresh 

 and good ; and they must have been carried some miles 

 before they came there." 



There was a proverb, "The Mayor of Northampton 

 opens oisters with his dagger ; ' a shorter instrument 

 bringing them too near his judicial nose. The Hon. 

 Robert Boyle, in his well-known " Reflections," speaks in 

 abhorrence of the practice of "eating raw oysters." Dr. 

 Johnson could not agree with Boyle, and went so far in 



(h) " Adventures of an Oyster." 



