Middlemen in English Business 211 



cod from these parts. ^ Colchester had "a pecuUar art in barrelhng" 

 oysters "by which means they . . . (were) so well preserved 

 that great quantities of them . . . (were) sent to London and 

 other parts.''- These barrels were shipped by land.^ A new^ sort of 

 N'ehicle was devised by the Lincolnshire fishmen for carriage of live 

 fish to London. It consisted of "great Butts filled with Water in 

 Waggons;" the butts were filled with fresh water repeatedly enroute 

 at the inns; tench, pike, perch, and eels were thus carried; the carriers 

 took other goods along in their wagons besides fish.^ A similar device 

 was used for carrying live-fish to London by sea — a specially designed 

 sloop called ''fish-pool.""' 



(a) Fishmongers. The fishmongers' business took se\'eral lines of 

 dififerentiation and specialization. It divided on the basis of kind of 

 fish handled — salt fish, fresh fish, and oysters. It divided between 

 wholesale and retail. And between the wholesaler and the fisherman 

 the "salesman" or factor interposed himself. There appear to have 

 been wholesale fishmongers in the fourteenth century in London at 

 " Fysshwharfe"'' and they had to wage a long contest for the right to 

 do retailing." William III set up a body of regulations for the Bil- 

 lingsgate market in 1699 which included the prohibition of the practice 

 of fishmongers buying large quantities of fish which were di\dded up 

 by lot among them with the intent to sell them afterwards by retail. 

 This method was exadently an evasion of the common market regula- 

 tion against ingrossing and indicates the function of the jobbing 

 wholesaler. ** The term "fishmonger" came to be more and more ap- 

 plied to the wholesaler. He was described in 1747 as "a Tradesman 

 calculated for the Great and Wealthy: His Profits" being "without 

 Bounds, and" bearing "no Proportion to his Out-layings."* The 

 monopolizing fishmonger was much complained against as the cause 

 of high prices of fish in 1755.'" Their practice was to contract with 

 fishermen for their whole cargoes and stop the vessels at Gravesend, 

 whence the fish were "brought up to market only by boatloads at a 



1 V. C. H., Lincoln, II, .i92. 



' Cox, Mag. Brit. I, 707. 



» Defoe, Tour (1724), T, 12-13. 



*Ibid., (1738), II, 346. 



^' Ibid., I, 5. 



« Lib. Cus. II, CXIII. 



' Ibid., 384, ff. 



'Maitland, II, 791. 



» CampbeU, 279. 



'"Gent. Mag. 175.S: 12<). 



