644 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [2] 



told that the volume of fish sent to Billingsgate was nearly three times 

 larger in 1880 than in 1853 ; that within the last six years it has increased 

 from 95,000 to 130,000 tous per annum, and that this latter figure means a 

 supply of 400 tons of fish for every working day, being, according to 

 Mr. Edward Birkbeck, M. P.„ equivalent to a drove of 1,000 fat oxen 

 entering London upon every one of 313 days in each current year? 



Surprising as this statement may appear to many, it is nevertheless 

 beyond a peradventure that of the cheaper and coarser kinds of fish 

 which would enter directly into the consumption of the i)Oorer classes 

 an absolutely illimitable supply might be poured into the metropolis by 

 river if a suitable market, open at all hours and accessible at all states 

 of the tide, were available to receive it. Before showing what sort of 

 fish market it is absolutely necessary that London should have, we 

 propose to reveal what, at this moment, Billingsgate is. The materials 

 for describing it lie close at hand. They may be gathered in abundance 

 from Mr. Spencer Walpole's report to the home office; from that of 

 the fish committee appointed by the corporation of the city of Lon- 

 don, to which Billingsgate belongs; and, passim, from the evidence 

 given before the two special committees of the Lords and Commons, 

 which sat last session, to consider the "London Riverside fish market 

 bill." Better, however, than any description would be the practical 

 experience gained by a Londoner who had sufficient energy and curi- 

 osity to pay Billingsgate a visit between the hours of 5 and 9 

 upon a Friday morning, the best day in the week for seeing it to ad- 

 vantage. There is an Eastern saying, to the effect that the distance 

 between the ear and the eye is verj'^ small, but the diflerence between 

 hearing and seeing very great. Eeadin<? is but another form of hear- 

 ing and to those who care to understand what the Billingsgate monopoly 

 means, we would recommend a visit to the famous market upon the first 

 morning of a week-day that may suit their convenience. 



Billingsgate market (concerning the antiquity of which th^e is a dif- 

 ference of opinion between those who hold, with Mr. Walter Thorn bury, 

 that it owes its origin to Belin, a king of the native Britons, who flour- 

 ished 400 years B. C, and others who maintain, with Stow, thai a man 

 called Billing, or Beling, owned a wharf upon the same spot, presuma- 

 bly in Queen Elizabeth's reign) is now and has been the property of 

 the city of London for so long a time that it is not easy to calculate the 

 amount of revenue already brought in by it. It has a frontage to the 

 river of 200 feet, and a superficial area of 40,000 square feet, which area 

 affords sites to seventeeti shops and two large public houses, although, 

 since the " Eiverside fish market bill" came before Parliament, the 

 site of one of these public houses has been voluntarily thrown into the 

 market. 



The interior of this metropolitan emporium offish, being obviously far 

 too narrow for the business transacted there, is divided into spaces or 

 forms placed in such close contiguity to each other that the customers 



