FISHING STATIONS— ENGLAND. 199 



on from Plymontli before the beginning of the present 

 century, as fifty years ago there were thirty smaclcs 

 belonging to tlie port, but they were only of halt the 

 size of most of the fine vessels now at work there. In 

 those times the supply of fish must have been generally 

 sufficient, and often more so than, to meet the demand 

 for the town and those parts of the neighbourhood 

 within reach of the hawkers; and we have often lieard 

 of the abundance of fish there used to be in the local 

 market, and the low prices at which it could Vie pur- 

 chased. The population was then comparatively small, 

 and they had the full benefit of most of the fish brought 

 in, for there were no means of sending a\^ay more than 

 a very small quantity. By the last return there were 

 sixty-six trawl-smacks belonging to Plymouth, aver- 

 aging 34 tons N.M., which, for this style and class of 

 vessel, would be equivalent to nearly double the ton- 

 nage by builder's measurement. The present smacks 

 are not only more than double the number of those 

 at work fifty years ago, but they are of twice the size ; 

 yet fish is now often scarce in the Plymouth market, 

 and high prices must generally be paid for it. These 

 facts are sometimes considered as quite sufficient to 

 prove that the sea fisheries have very greatly declined 

 and are rapidly going to ruin. But it must not be 

 forgotten that the vast increase in the local population 

 has caused a very much greater demand for the fish — 

 that the railway has for the last thirteen or fourteen 

 years carried away hundreds of tons of fish annually to 

 parts of the country where, in tlie old times of abundance 

 at Plymouth, such an article of food was scarcely seen 

 from one year s end to another ; and, lastly, that even 

 with the present higher prices, the Plymouth trawlers 

 must catch a very large quantity offish, or they woidd 



