332 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



The Billingsgate ring, by a shrewd system of cruel, crushing mortgages on the 

 uncaiujht and the caught " fish," enslave and impoverish the indebted fishermen. 

 According to Oahill's evidence before the corporation 1881 fish inquiry: 



The practice in Billingsgate market i.s that its rin.n realizes the highest price it can, and returns 

 the sender what is expedient, or what may be agreed on among its members. This ring very often, 

 after agreeing on the price to lie sent ti> the senders, so distrust each other that they exchange 

 account sales inclosed in open envelopes, so thai A reads, seals, and posts It's sales, and vice versa. 



The charters for our fresh-food markets were granted to directly bring the pro- 

 ducer and public together, but are now usurped by a handful of capitalists, who have 

 cleverly cornered the public markets and their entire fresh-food supplies, so as to sweat 

 the producers, semistarve the masses, and overcharge the classes. 



Cobden's free-trade principles have been so engineered that the producer gets no 

 profit because the middlemen, monopolists, or enckoos of commerce, gain all. 



The Billingsgate ring excludes the public, the fishmongers, and the costermongers 

 from purchasing " fish " except from the ring, who cling to perpetuating bacterial 

 Billingsgate with all its avoidableabominationsandaugmentingabuses. Hence, stale 

 fish continues at famine prices instead of cheap, fresh, healthy, or Imperishable fish. 



Every day of the year2 pounds of bled, gutted, cleaned, dry- air-frozen (imperishable) 

 fresh herrings (about six fish) could be profitably retailed by costermongers for 1 

 penny, or 2 pounds of sprats for 1 halfpenny. 



(HEAP FOOD OB WANT. 



Want or semistarvation for the masses, the impoverishment of many capitalists 

 and manufacturers, and agitations leading possibly to riots, appear to threaten, unless 

 cheap, healthy, abundant food is speedily secured for our poor and comparatively 

 poor. Man, by labor or inherited labor called wealth, must get fed regularly and fed 

 cheaply. His digestion requires a wide and varied diet. In our cold, damp climate, 

 where sunshine is comparatively rare, every man should obtain at least one daily meal 

 of fish or meat. 



Owing to faulty distribution and preservation, much of the fish and meat con- 

 sumed by the poor is often wretchedly inferior and exorbitantly dear. Hence, perhaps, 

 their excessive tendencies to alcoholic drinks and tobacco, which at least please the 

 palate. «■ 



The producer provides cheap, excellent frozen meat, poultry, and game which too 

 rarely reach the consumer except when sold as and at the high prices of home bred, 

 fed, and killed animals. Legislative interference should prohibit such fraudulent 

 trading. Our manufacturers will soon be unable to compete with foreigners, who 

 obtain cheaper labor because of cheaper food. Hence the laud, buildings, and plant 

 of the British manufactories will suffer increasing depreciation ; their laborers and 

 those dependent upon the earnings of the laborers will find their occupation gone. 



Without the intervention of middlemen, by means of retail stores and coster 

 mongers for the poor, the producer should sell fresh food direct to the consumer. 



Inferior and bad feeding injures a nation's growth, health, strength, and digestion, 

 producing passing or permanent derangement and disease. Being thus enfeebled, 

 the laboring classes do diminished and inferior work, thereby inflicting direct but an 

 avoidable loss upon their employers. Hence the question of cheap, healthy, abundant 

 food should be carefully considered by Parliament and the municipal bodies. 



