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truck at company’s full risk, and fish at £11, but £14 135. 4d. 
was charged if the company were responsible. Railway 
companies knew that fish must be carried by them, or cured 
and sent by sea, and in their dealings with the fish trade 
they were insolent, arrogant, and impudent. 
Mr. STEVENSON remarked that the fish had to be sent 
express to London, and that no delay was permissible ; if 
it was delivered at Billingsgate at three or four o’clock in 
the afternoon, from circumstances over which the railway 
companies had no control, the value of the fish was gone, 
so that it would be a near-sighted policy to propose that 
fish should be carried at a farthing per pound, and have it 
subject to delay. 
Mr. JEX then read another letter which he had received 
from a gentleman, stating that the rates for fish by goods 
trains were 2s. 9d. per hundredweight, the railway company 
not being responsible for any damage. The letter went 
on to state that railways were constructed with a view to 
facilitate the trade of the country, but, instead of doing so, 
they were doing all in their power to impede it. Some people 
might call them gigantic monopolies, but, in his opinon 
that was to mild a term—that a cask of herrings could 
be carried from Glasgow to Cork for 2s. 5d, but if it was 
sent to London by goods train it would cost 754d. (lie 
North British Railway or the Caledonian Railway would 
send a waggon with one horse from Leith to Midcalder 
for 3s, and for one barrel of fish weighing two cwt. 
they. charge 2s. 3d. . Another letter was from Mr 
Matthias Dunn, of Mevagissey, to the effect that the 
rate for fresh fish from that place to Billingsgate was 
£5 per ton, for which sum goods could be forwarded to 
Australia and sent back again, and then leave a surplus. 
The writer expressed an opinion that the facilities offered 
