96 INTRODUCTION. 



number exceeded 350, each employing seven or 

 eight men ; that they had besides from forty to fifty 

 fishing smacks, from twenty to forty tons each, the 

 whole employing 3000 seamen." (lb. 605.) What 

 hinders that as much should be done for Great 

 Britain and Ireland generally, as was done for the 

 Hebrides and the Isle of Man? It is true that 

 London is to an immense extent supplied with fish, 

 foreign and domestic; but there it is far more a 

 luxury for the wealthy, than daily food for the 

 poor : and, as it regards our own country, it is 

 very much at the expense, and to the detriment of 

 the other parts of the island. In many places of 

 Scotland, where salmon used to be almost a drug, 

 and sold for a few pence, it can now scarcely, in the 

 midst of plenty, be procured at all, and only at a 

 high price. And if fish be not superabundant in our 

 capitals and on the sea-coast, it is infinitely more 

 scarce in the interior, and that both as it regards 

 salt-water fish and fresh. 



That this deficiency of wholesome nourishment is 

 owing, not to the scarcity of fish, or even to the 

 backward state of our fisheries, but to the want of 

 an enlightened and steady demand, can admit, we 

 believe, of no question. An experiment made by 

 Mr. Hale, one of the Committee for the relief of 

 the manufacturing poor, proves decisively how easy 

 it would be to introduce the general use of fish into 

 the metropolis. He agreed with some fishermen 

 to take from ten to twenty thousand mackerel a 

 day, at a price not exceeding ten shillings the hun- 



