60 THE riSH MAKKET AND THE FISH TRADE. 



abundant, and somewhat small. Plenty of black bream were visible, and 

 some were actually brought into the market alive, with their gills and fins 

 absolutely moving. Mullet, too, were j'lentiful, from the harbours and 

 lakes — not sea mullet, though, for these are only known here during some 

 six weeks of the year. Then the market is overstocked. The clerk at the 

 markets informed me that when they were most plentiful as many as fifteen 

 cartloads had been sent away for manure, there being a glut in the market. 

 "What a glorious opportunity for a fish-preserving industry is lost here, and 

 what a satire is this statement upon the enterprise of a community such 

 as this ? Ill New Zealand this mullet is canned^ and, to my taste — not perhaps 

 wholh/ uncultured in such matters — is superior to the celebrated salmon from 

 the Columbia and Frazer Rivers. Some day, probably, a couple of smart 

 Americans will take this industry in hand, and from behind their profits 

 laugh at the apathy of this community. Whoever does it, however, will 

 deserve their profits, for at present it is a noble gift of the Creator flouted 

 and disdained. Of blackfish there was a large supply in the markets, but 

 these are a cheap and poor table fish. A few — very few — soles and flounders 

 were there, and several green eels ; these latter not by any means bad eating. 

 Some very big jewfish were sold ; one fellow scaling something like 301b. 

 There were also a few nannygai, the handsomest of our fishes, large-eyed, 

 and beautifully pink. A fair supply of prawns were disposed of, but no 

 oysters, very few of which, indeed, pass through the markets. A great many 

 complaints are made from time to time concerning the cost of fish to the 

 public. A list of what some species brought on Friday morning will give 

 the reader a fair idea of the profit made by the hawkers, which is certainly 

 not enough to account for the costliness of fish to the consumer. Schnapper 

 brought from 8s. to 12s. a dozen ; squire, from 3s. to 7s. ; flathead, from 3s. 

 to 21s ; whiting, from 2s. to 9s. ; flounders, from 3s. to 13s. ; soles, from 2s. 

 to 5s. ; jewfish, from 12s. to 72s. ; mullet, from 2s. to 4s. ; and eels, from 6s. 

 to 18s. Baskets of bream, from SO to 90 lb., brought from 10s. to 34s. ; and 

 the same weight of garfish was sold from lis. to 18s., and of blackfish 8s. to 

 22s. Doubtless, the hawkers and fishmongers make a considerable profit on 

 these jirices, but then the one has to pay rent, and the other, inmost cases, to 

 support the cost of a horse and cart, as well as providing for themselves and 

 their families. 



The remedy for this is palpable. Fish must be cheapened to the hawker 

 before it is cheapened to the public. How this may be done has frequently 

 before been pointed out. There is fortunately no scarcity of fish in our 

 seas, but the means of reaping the harvest of our teeming waters are un- 

 usually inadequate. In the first place, to obtain a large supply of fish it is 

 necessary that fishermen should go further afield, and to ensure their own 

 safety, and provide for the arrival of their fish at the Woolloomooloo 

 markets in prime condition, they must abandon their primitive fishing-boats 

 and take to serviceable steamers, fitted with wells or ice-rooms. At present, 

 from the price which the fishermen's goods bring in the markets, 5 per cent. 

 is deducted by the City Council, and the same amount is charged by the 

 fishermen's agents. The first charge cannot reasonably be avoided by fisher- 

 men, inasmuch, as they have the advantages of the market and the services 

 of the officials for whom the Corporation pays. With reference to the 

 second, the remedy, as an article in the Herald pointed out some little time 

 ago, is in the hands of the fishermen themselves. That the gains of a fisher- 

 man even under the present system need not necessarily be small may be 

 guessed from the facts communicated to me by a reliable authority that two 

 fishermen at Botany sometimes shared between them as much as £800, the 



