312 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



Iu 1382 " Reynald atte Chambre brought in maliciously herrings and mackerel, 

 corrupt and unwholesome for man," for which the mayor and alderman put him in the 

 pillory for six days, and burnt his fish beneath him, as was then the custom of the 

 city of Loudon in like cases. 



About the same time John Welburgham, who kept a fried-fish shop in Bread 

 street, London, sold two pieces of cooked conger eel "rotten, stinking, and un- 

 wholesome for man," to four countrymen who went to dine at his house. They had 

 the fish taken to Guildhall. There a jury of cooks, good men and true, were sworn to 

 smell the fish, and by their verdict Welburgham was put into the pillory and his stock 

 of fish burnt under him. 



Compiled probably somewhere about 1410, or earlier, it was enacted by the Liber- 

 Albus that "No fishmongers shall be so daring as falsely to dub their baskets, or to 

 make a show of desirable fish at the top of the basket, and undesirable fish of little 

 value beneath. On. being attainted such a ' dubber ' shall forfeit his fish to be burnt 

 with fire in the Chepe — now Cheapside — in London. Such a dubber shall be held a 

 cheat and imprisoned therefor/' 



In 1499, by 19 Henry VII, a trade search was made quarterly, or oftener as need 

 should require, by the wardens of the Fishmongers' Company, who were to perambu- 

 late the whole city and suburbs for corrupt and unseasonable fish. The mayor for the 

 time being was to punish and correct delinquents according to the laws and customs 

 of the city. These laws were confirmed by the charter of James I in 1604 to the Fish- 

 mongers' Company. 



Officially printed in 1620, " The laws and markets " of the city of London enacts 

 that " no unwholesome or stale victual was to be sold; each offense to be punished 

 by a penalty of 40 shillings and forfeiture of the victual. 



The 1668 bylaws of the Fishmongers' Company — which the company professes to 

 have religiously carried out from that date to this — in its trade duties include the 

 prevention of the sale of " overday" fish, that is fish over a day or twenty-four hours 

 old, by "ort,v/,s'" hosts, innkeepers, or eating-house keepers within a radius of 12 miles 

 of Billingsgate market. If the company were to enforce this law, the sale or distribu- 

 tion of bad fish in greater London and in its markets would be impossible. 



It appears that on January 14, 1685, by 16 Charles II, the charters of the com- 

 pany were surrendered, but they were subsequently restored and confirmed. 



FISH AND CHOLERA. 







Unfortunately the present (September and October, 1893) outbreaks of cholera at 

 Grimsby and at Hull (our largest fishing ports) further confirm the associationship of 

 avoidable fishy tilth and preventable diseases. 



On September 4, 1893, at Bradford, a fish-hawker (John Walinsley) died, appar- 

 ently from cholera. On September 2 he had obtained a consignment of mussels from 

 the cholera-infected port of Grimsby (Cleethorpes). 



At Rotherham, on September 6, Burnand died of cholera, having on September 

 5 visited Grimsby. lie had been fishing the day previous to his death. 



On September 8, at Doncaster, Hepworth, of Leeds, died of cholera, having recently 

 eaten oysters from ( ieetliorpes in the port of Grimsby. 



At Leicester, on September 10, a woman living at a fish and oyster shop died in 

 a few hours, apparently of Asiatic cholera. 



