10 



call your attention to the fact that very much the same sort of 

 thing happens in the case of a common snake killed, and 

 dead beyond all question, but in which a muscular action 

 goes on for hours, and gives rise to the common idea that 

 a snake never dies until sunset. And I think our medical 

 men can tell us that a very strong muscular action oc- 

 casionally takes place in the human body after death from 

 some particular convulsive diseases. 



Taking the season through, a mackerel is worth two pence 

 at the boat's side, and, with that fact before you, I leave 

 you to judge how much the railway carrier and the fish- 

 monger between them get out of the consumer. 



Of course the price varies from day to day. Within the 

 last month I have known mackerel selling at the boat's side 

 for two and six pence per one hundred and twenty, or just 

 one farthing per fish ; and a boat with a catch of eight 

 hundred threw them all overboard rather than come into 

 harbour and pay her quay dues. On the other hand I have 

 seen them selling at the boat's side at one shilling per fish. 



The mackerel fishery of Cornwall is a very old one. The 

 fish itself was known in our seas very long ago, for it has a 

 name in the old Cornish language (" brithel "), but it was 

 but a small affair until railways opened up our markets in 

 1859. I find that in 1808 we were sending mackerel from 

 Penzance to Portsmouth in sailing cutters, but the record 

 does not say in what condition they arrived there. It was 

 probably fortunate for their owners that there were no 

 Sanitary Inspectors about the markets in those days. 



At this time, the fleet employed on the fishery in Cornwall 

 consists of about 400 sails of luggers of about 15 to 18 tons 

 burden, excellent sea-boats (of which many models are to 

 be seen on the Cornwall stall in the British Fisheries Gallery) , 

 costing, when the nets are on board, six hundred pounds 



