26 



Since I wrote the above about opening up a cheap 

 market for small dainty fish like the pilchard, the question, 

 as one intended to benefit the poorer classes, has been 

 placed before me in what is to me an entirely new light. 

 And it is this : Supposing you can supply pilchards in the 

 height of their season at one penny each over the fish-stall 

 (and the remark applies to all other fish which could be sold 

 cheap), what is the poor man to do with it ? In summer he 

 must go to the expense of a fire to cook it. At any time 

 he must provide fat in which to fry it, most of which will be 

 wasted, and after all, the chances are that his wife does not 

 know how to cook it, and will spoil the dish in the doing of 

 it. And for this, my practical informant says, there is but 

 one remedy. If you want to introduce cheap fish for the 

 use of the artisan you must in some way or other start 

 shops or whatever places you like where he can get it 

 cooked. Most of these difficulties apply also to the 

 dressing of fish by boiling, but my informant adds to these 

 another, that the prejudice against boiled fish is at present 

 so deep-seated as to be practically ineradicable. 



You will find in this building, pilchards cured by all the 

 methods in use, salted in barrels for the foreign market, 

 dressed in oil, as sardines, or in salt sauce, as anchovies, or 

 marinated, which is, I believe, an invention of our own ; and 

 in every form you will find them good. 



The method in which the pilchards are cured for the 

 Italian market expresses from them when "in bulk" (i.e., 

 under the pressure in large masses necessary for salting 

 them) large quantities of blood, which run from the curing- 

 house down the streets in gutters to the sea. We are a toast- 

 drinking people, and this peculiarity in the curing process 

 gave rise to a toast which used to be given as equiva- 

 lent to prosperity to the pilchard fishery. It was: 



