278 ANNUAL QUANTITY AND VALUE OF WHITEBAIT. 



is hardly a fislimoDf^er iu London wlio does not sell 

 wlxitebait when in season. 



The principal whitebait merchant in Billingsgate is 

 Mr. John Welch, who has 12 boats at Southend, 6 at 

 Gravesend, 5 at Leigh, and 5 at Greenwich. The 

 share of wages which he pays is £60 to £70 per w^eek, 

 and the firm pay about £100 per week in wages. The 

 total amount spent in the catching of whitebait is from 

 £1,500 to £1,800 a year. 



At Queenborough we were informed that about £40 

 per week, or £2,000 a year is coming into Queenborough 

 as wages for the fishermen catching whitebait. 



Whitebait being par e.veellence the rich man's fish, we 

 were told at Queenborough by William Hoskins, fisher- 

 man of that place, that whitebait fishing " begins w^ien 

 Parliament meets, and finishes when Parliament is 

 adjourned." The general season for whitebait may be 

 stated to be from February to August. Whitebait 

 fetches from Is. to 2s. a quart wholesale. The average 

 number of whitebait cauj^ht durino: the season is about 

 half a ton a day. 



On the 4tli June, I saw at the Fenchurch Street 

 station no less than 28 flat baskets full of whitebait. 

 The baskets were shallow and open, and fish were 

 spread on the baskets to the depth of about 2in. I 

 made a calculation as to the number of whitebait in 

 these 28 baskets, and estimated that they contained 

 between G00,000 and 700,000 young fish. 



I bought a shilling's worth of whitebait in a London 

 shop, and found 204 fish weighing altogether 18oz. 



This, therefore, shows that whitebait is rather cheaper 

 than butchers' meat at Is. per pound. 



Mr. James Henry Cannon, an old man who had been 

 fishing for sixty years, gave us some very interesting 



