NON-LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES. 217 



indefinite extension. It may be said that, until a few 

 years ago, the consumption of fresh fish was almost entirely 

 confined to the section of the population on or near the 

 sea-coast, and indeed chiefly to the proportion of that 

 section living in towns or easily accessible villages. The 

 expense, and still more the time of inland carriage were 

 almost insuperable obstacles as to the great mass of 

 people. The railways have revolutionized all that, and, 

 by cheapness and quickness of carriage, have made sea- 

 fish a comparatively common article of diet in the most 

 inland districts. To take an illustration from our own 

 neighbourhood, the picturesque fishwives of Newhaven 

 and Fisherrow are now almost as familiar spectacles in 

 such towns as Selkirk and Hawick as in Edinburgh or 

 Leith, going with full " creels " by the morning trains, 

 and returning with full pockets in the evening. Nor is 

 it only the interior of Scotland that has thus obtained a 

 share in the benefits formerly almost monopolized by the 

 dwellers on the shore the Scotch coasts are made to 

 supply even the farthest parts of England. Thus all 

 but a fraction of the fish landed at the numerous fishing- 

 towns in the east of Fife are (or lately were) carried off 

 by steamer and rail to Liverpool, Manchester, and Lon- 

 don ; and any man looking about him in Birmingham, 

 Nottingham, and others of the most inland towns of 

 England, will see in the fishmongers' windows grounds 

 for a conclusion, which a talk with the fishmongers them- 

 selves will confirm, that the people of those regions are 

 more prone to the consumption of fish, and especially of 

 sea-fish, than the people nearer the coast, who had been 

 accustomed for generations to obtain with ease what has 



