FISH AND FISHEHIES. 139 



CHAPTEE XI. 

 The Fish Market. 



The following particulars ai'e taken from tlie Commissioners' report. 

 The alterations which have taken place since that time will be referred 

 to when dealing with the Fisheries Act, whose pi-ovisions can hardly yet 

 be said to have come into full operation : — 



The Fish Market of Sydney, to which all fish intended for sale are 

 brought, is vmder the supervision of an Inspector of the Municipality, 

 whose duties are to ascertain the fitness for human food of the fish 

 brought into the Market, to condemn and cause the instant removal of 

 that which is unfit, and to dispose of the remainder by public auction. 

 The duties of this ofiicer commence in the summer months at 5, and in 

 the winter at 6 a.m. The disposal of the fish by public competition is 

 an arrangement made by the Inspector and assented to by the fishermen, 

 and appears to be the most desirable mode of dealing with the supply. 

 The fish are brought into Market during the night and in the morning 

 immediately before the sale. The supplies which are brought from a 

 distance in coasting-steamers arrive generally during the night previous 

 to the day's sale. A return, carefully prepared by Mr. Inspector 

 Seymour, gives abundant information concerning the sources of supply, 

 the varieties and quantities and value of the fish, extending over a period 

 of seven years. During the winter months these supplies are enlarged by 

 the facilities for bringing in a fit state to market the produce of the 

 fisheries of places as distant as Port Stephens to the north and Jervis 

 Bay to the south. As no arrangements have ever existed for the 

 carriage along our coasts of fish in ice, any distant fishing-grounds are 

 during the summer months proportionally valueless for the purposes of 

 a supply to the metropolis. Up to a very recent period, no arrange- 

 ments had been made for the reception in an ice-house at the Market of 

 the fish as they arrived. The consequence of the entire absence of any 

 means of preserving the fish after capture until their delivery at the 

 Market, and there up to the time of their disposal, was the loss of very 

 large quantities of valuable food. The particulars of this loss will be 

 found in the return made by Inspector Seymour, to which reference has 

 already been made. The result of the non-employment of ice or any 

 other means of bringing the fish to Market in a fresh condition, was of 

 course to limit the sources of supply to the harbour and to its immediate 

 vicinity. It would appear that the Sydney Market is regularly supplied 

 in the following way : — There are engaged in fishing in the numerous 

 bays of Port Jackson, including the Parramatta Eiver, twenty-seven 

 seine-boats, each manned by four men ; and eight boats for line-fishing, 

 with crews of about thi-ee each. Only one steam-vessel is regularly 

 employed in the fishing trade, although in the winter months consider- 

 able quantities of fish are brought in the Hunter Piver and lllawarra 

 lines of steamers from Tuggerah, Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, Port 

 Stephens, and other places to the north, and from Wollongong, Shoal- 

 haven, and Jervis Bay to the south. The solitary steam -vessel in the 

 trade leaves Sydney every Monday morning at 7 o'clock, goes to Broken 

 Bay, and returns to the Sydney Market at 5 the next morning, bringing 



