34.-RHFORMS AND IMPROVEMENTS SUGGESTED FOR THE FISHERIES 



OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



BY J. LAWRENCE-HAMILTON, 



Member Royal College of Surgeons, London: Licentiate Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. 



[This valuable paper has been abstracted and arranged by the undersigned, with the consent of 

 Dr. J. Lawrence-Hamilton, partly from articles which have appeared in scientific journals and public 

 prints of Great Britain during the past lew years, but chiefly from a privately printed and copyrighted 

 pamphlet, issued in 1890, consisting of a" Report upon the fish markets, fish-trade abuses, and fish 

 supply of the metropolis" and a '' Supplementary report upon necessary practical reforms in the fish 

 supply of the United Kingdom." While the work of this author is well known in Europe, where his 

 writings have been extensively circulated and read, the fishing interests of the United States have 

 not generally had his papers brought to their attention. With a view to secure this result, the presen- 

 tation of this paper to the World's Fisheries Congress was suggested to the author. The paper is full 

 of important deductions, useful suggestions, and interesting information having application to the 

 fisheries of the United States, and will doubtless attract much deserved attention. — Hugh M. Smi,th.] 



GOVERNMENT FISH INSPECTION. 



For the safety and protection of the public it is necessary that Parliament should 

 have fish inspection carried out by efficient government officials, to be appointed to 

 guard over and to protect the interests and health of the public or fish-consumers. 



Owing to the general ignorance in detecting fish unfit for food by reason of its 

 decomposition, putrefaction, or poisonous qualities from disease, parasites, and other 

 causes, it would, at any rate for a time, be necessary to .appoint special fish -inspectors 

 to examine, seize, and condemn all fish unfit for human food. These official inspectors 

 should be duly trained aud competent fish experts, fish naturalists, and fish micro- 

 scopists familiar with fish diseases and fish parasites, and thoroughly acquainted with 

 the chemical and microscopical characteristics of stale, tainted, decomposed, putrid, 

 and poisonous fish, whether such poisons were normal, occasional, or accidental. A 

 knowledge of the various spawning periods and conditions of fish would be desirable. 



Fish markets, fish shops, and stores of fresh, cured, or cooked fish, fish vehicles 

 and barrows and their contents should, when necessary, be inspected. Also fish 

 curing, salting, preserving, bottling, potting, canning, and tinniug establishments, 

 wharves, warehouses, stores, etc., specially devoted to storing fish. Fishing smacks 

 and vessels, steam and other fish-carriers, including refrigerator vessels, when neces- 

 sary, should be inspected. It is, of course, in the interest alike of the public and 

 fish-traders that all premises and appliances in which fish are placed or stored should 

 be kept scrupulously clean, so as to avoid bacterial putrefactive infection. As soon as 

 this economical and sanitary lesson has been learned and appreciated by the public 

 and the fisherfolks, it is to be hoped and expected that fish inspection and fish inspectors 



will be but very rarely required. 



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