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fleets was, that such a large percentage of the earnings was 
taken in railway carriage, that owners could not make it 
pay. Now during the last three months, the supply at 
Billingsgate was about 230,000 boxes, an average of 17,700 
a week, or nearly 3,000 a day ; but the number of days this 
average supply reached London was only nine for the whole 
period of thirteen weeks; there had been about twelve 
days when under 1,000 came to market (of course he only 
included market-days), on six days there had been no 
steamboats there. On the contrary, on one day there were 
9,100, another, 8,000, another, 7,600, and another, 7,200. 
That did not prove that there was an average of 3,000 
boxes. daily, but just the contrary. Again, taking the 
average weekly supply of 17,000 to 19,000 boxes, there 
had only been four times that quantity, twice over 23,000, 
and once under 8,000. Then as regarded the freshness of 
the fish, he would allow that steamboats were well able to 
bring fish fresh, provided the steamer were always there at 
the time when the fish was ready to be put on board ; 
but in winter the cutters were sometimes astray, and at 
such times the fish is either thrown overboard or sent to 
market in very inferior condition. As had been said 
before the Conference, on one occasion they sent away 
three steamboats one morning, and one the night before, 
and there was none left ; the fishing vessels put the gear 
down that night ; and he wished them to take particular 
notice that they wasted more fish on that occasion than all 
the single boaters wasted in twelve months ; and although 
such occurrences are not common, this is by no means an 
isolated case. Sometimes it happened on account of 
there being fresh winds, there were some men so humane 
that they told the skippers not to board; but there were 
men in the fishing interest who would let men board, no 
GZ 
