export to Ceylon which will not admit a really bad 

 product ; hence greater facility and care in the cure. 

 Yet even on this coast a great deal is badly cured, 

 especially that intended for the markets of the interior 

 and particularly of the eastern tracts. It is obvious that 

 to secure a generally good product the consumer must be 

 educated as well as the producer, and the first step is the 

 production, by various reforms, of a better article which 

 will appeal first to the better class of consumer and will 

 gradually become acceptable and available to others. 



So matters remained for some years, till, early in 1905, 



the Government of Madras consule Lord Ampthill 



took up the question of the marine and inland 



fisheries ; their objects may be briefly summed up in the 

 words " Better food, more food, more and better fertiliser, 

 better organization." As regards marine fisheries, a brief 

 explanation of these general expressions and of the 

 methods now under experiment for the attainment of these 

 objects will be of interest ; the matter of inland fisheries 

 must await another paper. 



Better food. — This desideratum is placed prior even 

 to the second item because, in the case of fish, quality 

 must be sought before mere quantity ; we must make 

 the best use of what we now catch before proceeding 

 to catch yet larger masses. Of all general foods, fish is 

 most liable to taint and most poisonous when tainted, 

 and to increase the amount of the catches under present 

 conditions would be to increase the amount of dan- 

 gerous food. While we need not, at present, accept 

 Dr, Hutchinson's proposition that leprosy is generated 

 by a diet of tainted or badly cured fish, it is a priori pro 

 bable, and the probability is supported by convincing 

 evidence, by expert medical opinion, and by the general 

 practice and experience of other countries, that such food 

 is productive of, or predisposes to, intestinal and other 

 diseases. Tainted fish as produced in this country are 

 not merely penetrated by masses of the putrefactive 

 bacteria and by the very poisonous results of their 

 activity, but are liable, often in a high degree, to contain 

 — largely through the agency of flies — -the germs which 

 cause specific diseases such as cholera, typhoid, etc., 

 especially where the fish are stored in the huts of fishing 

 hamlets which have been the scenes of out-breaks of 

 such diseases, or where fish-curing yards adjoin such 



