296 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



thereby spoil any unspoilt fish in their vicinity. A slaughter-house would be properly 

 objected to in the heart of most towns, nevertheless fish markets and fishmongers' 

 shops, evil-smelling from avoidable putrefactive bacteria, are sanctioned by indolent 

 custom, though I presume that under the health acts of the United Kingdom their pres- 

 ent condition is illegal. 



Chiefly owing to being bled on capture prior to the clotting of the blood, Swedish 

 and Dutch herrings are abroad gradually excluding Scottish herrings, which are less 

 carefully cured and selected than the Scandinavian and Dutch herrings. 



Modern science confirms the view that putrescent changes occur more rapidly in 

 blood and other body fluids than in muscle and fat by the microscope so frequently 

 revealing putrefactive germs or bacteria or microbes in the blood and internal fluids of 

 fish, flesh, and fowl, whilst their muscles and fat may still be quite healthy. When 

 the blood becomes contaminated with these putrefactive germs it is likely to at once 

 infect the sound flesh, muscle, and fat. Indeed, in preserving all animal substances 

 it is advisable to keep them as dry as possible, which is the principal factor in 

 curing, salting, or smoking fish or meat. Handling fish or meats tends always to 

 accelerate and often to invite and start putrefaction. In the frozen-meat trade, not 

 alone is the carcass kept hard-frozen and dry, but it is invariably covered with a 

 stout sack or shirt to prevent dirt, by handling or other means, injuring the meat. 

 Hence fish, freshly captured and placed on their bellies upon the too-frequently filthy 

 board at the bottom of the fishing smack, will often have their bellies rotten whilst 

 their sides and back remain comparatively sound. Other conditions and circum- 

 stances being equal, it is found that fish, flesh, and fowl keep in proportion to the 

 length, density, compactness, and hardness of the microscopic fibers which unite 

 together in bundles to form the muscle. Fat, of course, keeps much longer good than 

 muscle, whilst moisture, high temperatures, and exposure to the direct rays of the 

 sun hasten decomposition. Over-driven cattle, and fish drowned in the meshes of the 

 nets, as well as all animals wbose strength has been exhausted by the chase or previous 

 privation or disease, are prone to decompose with increased rapidity. This tendency 

 to rapid putrefaction after death has been observed, by army doctors, in troops who 

 have died on the battle-field after long fasting, fatigue, and fighting. 



TORTURING AND STARVING FISH. 



Fisherfolk waste fish by starving and torturing. In the United Kingdom those 

 professionally and pecuniarily interested and engaged in fish torturing and starving 

 have, in the ignorant thoughtlessness of chronic custom, been alike blinded to the 

 sacred civilizing duties of humanity and Christianity, and have also overlooked and 

 omitted their own material profits and advantages. Fish starving is a domestic sport 

 which diminishes the commercial value of the fish; it ruins the flesh, flavor, and firm- 

 ness of the fish; it tends to induce parasitic, bacterial, and other diseases in the fish; 

 it diminishes the weight of the fish, and increases its cost both to the professional 

 fish-starver and to the consumer — the general public. Fish so starved are more liable to 

 rapid decomposition soon after death, and in codfish such starved fish are more difficult 

 to crimp, which are additional causes and circumstances tending to enhance the avoid- 

 able risks of the present fish trade, and therefore an unfair tax on the consumer. The 

 average absolute loss in weight of codfish by starvation and imprisonment appears to 

 represent 10 per cent of the entire weight of the natural normal healthy fish, a heavy 



