REFORMS IN THE FISHERIES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 295 



I maintain that the fishing industries and trades of the United Kingdom are 

 nationally more important than those of agriculture, which has its representative 

 minister in Parliament. In 1882 it was calculated that already, out of the 60,000 square 

 miles of fish-bearing rivers in England, manufactories and town sewage had so polluted 

 these waters that upwards of one-sixth of these rivers were then no longer able to 

 support fish life. This is an additional reason why national compensation to the 

 fishing industries, in order to cheapen the price of fish to the poor, should be effect- 

 ively undertaken by Parliament. 



I strongly urge upon Parliament to grant a special commission upon fish, fish 

 preservation, fisheries, fish- waste products, fish-hatching, and all allied subjects. I 

 suggest that this proposed royal commission on fish should investigate and report 

 upon the legal, administrative, economical, financial, commercial, trade, and scientific 

 reforms relating to the improvement, development, distribution, and cheapening of 

 the fish supply of the United Kingdom, upon the lines indicated in my report. 



THE TREATMENT OF FISH WHEN FIRST CAUGHT. 



Very great benefit would accrue to the fisheries by the more general possession 

 of knowledge regarding the best methods to follow in caring for the fish as they are 

 caught. Much avoidable loss annually results to the British fishermen through lack 

 of information on this point. To prepare fish properly for consumption in a fresh 

 condition, they should be killed as quickly as possible. 



Immediately on capture, where practicable, fish, prior to the coagulation of its 

 blood, should be gashed under the head, just behind the gills, the usual situation of 

 the heart in most fishes, or else above the tail, which has been the practice from time 

 immemorial in Scandinavia and in Holland ; nevertheless British fishermen seem still 

 unwilling to listen to and to learn this wise economical practice. Compared with 

 land animals, fish have but very little blood to lose, and hence fish, on being bled, 

 become at once faint and rapidly pass into insensibility. Next, speedily gut the 

 fish so as to remove its entrails, including the liver and roe. Finally, thoroughly clean 

 each fish inside and outside with abundant washing in clean, fresh-flowing water, sea 

 water being for every class of fish better than spring water. Though gutted fish keep 

 better and longer by the addition of salt or brine into the cavity of the body, I recom- 

 mend peat moss as being cheaper and much more effective. Universally abundant in 

 Ireland, peat moss should be freely used by its fishermen. 



Norwegian fishermen roughly estimate that by bleeding, gilling, and gutting flat- 

 fish about one-sixth of the total weight is lost, whilst long fish by bleeding and gutting 

 forfeit about one-fourth of their weight. In spawning fish, being full of roe, these 

 proportions would be materially increased. A codfish weighing 21 pounds is said to 

 have furnished 12 pounds of roe. Thus, especially for railway-borne fish, this econ- 

 omy in freight would mean a great saving to the public — the fish-consumers. 



The Dutch, introducing the Scandinavian plaus of bleeding, before clotting and 

 gutting, herrings on capture, together with the plan of pickling and curing herrings, 

 reinvented by an Englishman, Will Blenkinson, secured for their countrymen from 

 the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries the virtual monopoly of the marine master- 

 ship of the world, including its carrying and export commerce. Though fish is preemi- 

 inently more prone to early putrefaction than meat, nevertheless the conventional 

 British fish markets and many fishmongers' shops stink from avoidable causes, and 



