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gentlemen present from large inland towns. He came 
from exactly the centre of England, but it was only a 
small town, and it appeared to him the railway rates were 
almost prohibitive of fish being sent to inland towns. 
Take the rates, for instance, from Inverness, Newhaven, 
and Anstruther; the principal fish they got from there 
were sprats and herrings; only this last week they had 
sprats from Inverness, and the rate he was paying was 
£4 5s. per ton, which, he maintained, was much too high, 
and he hoped a resolution would be passed asking the 
railway company to lower the rates. In his district three 
times the quantity of fish could be sold if the rate were 
lowered; and it seemed to him a great anomaly that 
fishermen should go out to catch fish, bring them in to 
Inverness, and get less for them than they cost for carriage. 
He had known sprats sent to Birmingham, and the con- 
signees had to call on the fishermen to send up money, 
because they had not made as much by them as the 
carriage. They got mackerel from Kinsale, and herrings 
from Rowth and Arklow; the rate from Kinsale to Ban- 
bury was 8s. 6d. a box of two hundredweight, and herrings 
from Howth and Arklow were about the same rate. Those 
mackerel were a grand fish, and ought to be brought into 
the inland towns for the sake of the population. He was 
a member of the Town Council of Banbury, and a Poor 
Law Guardian, and he was glad to say they were now 
introducing fish into the unions; but the rates ought to be 
lowered, so that poor people who were just on the verge of 
pauperism should be able to eat fish, whether it were of the 
class called roker, dead cod or haddock, which, when well 
iced, was a good and wholesome fish, though, of course, 
not equal to live cod, which they had to supply to their 
regular customers. It was a great anomaly that the 
carriage of sprats and herrings was 44 5s. a ton, whilst the 
