22 



Not only were the fish taken to market, but they remained 

 in the cellars of the dealer for a week or ten days after 

 they arrived there. The process was very simple ; the fish 

 were taken out of the water in tons weight ; on deck were 

 a number of boxes, of which a specimen could be seen in 

 the Canadian Court, forwarded by Mr. Leckie of Toronto, 

 each box holding about two tons. It was packed round 

 the outside with non-conducting material ; a layer of 

 finely-powdered ice was put in the bottom, then a layer 

 of fish, then another layer of ice, and so on until there 

 were fifteen or twenty layers of fish and ice, and it was 

 then shut down tight and sent off. He need hardly say 

 that, if the fish were not in good condition, the inhabitants 

 of the great cities in the United States would not eat 

 them. He had often eaten this fish in the best hotels in 

 Toronto, and it was difficult to distinguish them from fish 

 caught in the bay in front of the city. If some similar 

 mode were adopted here, they would not hear of fish 

 coming to the London market and being condemned the 

 next day as unfit for human food. It was said by some 

 person that frozen fish were not fit for food, but he 

 could contradict that hi toto. The fish he had previously 

 been speaking of were principally white fish, pickerell, 

 pike, sturgeon, and fish of that order ; but he would now 

 say a word or two with regard to salmon. This was 

 caught in large numbers in the Canadian rivers. This 

 year there had been so plentiful a supply that they had 

 been unsaleable at a remunerative price, and large quan- 

 tities were immediately frozen. Since he had been over 

 here he had written to dealers in Canada to have some 

 of this frozen salmon sent to England, but the reply 

 he got was that they could not do so, as they were 

 under contract for all their fish to be delivered next 

 January, February, and March in New York, Boston 



