302 The Herring 



by smoking, having very little salt added, and is then 

 tied up in little bundles of ten, which are usually 

 sold three for twopence or one halfpenny each. Most 

 delicious and delicate they are in flavour, too, only 

 that they have the fatal plebeian stamp of plenty and 

 cheapness. But even the poor do not, I think, appre- 

 ciate them as they should. Not nearly as much, for 

 instance, as they do such shell-fish as the periwinkle 

 and the appalling whelk, which is a miracle of toughness 

 and indigestibility. 



Following up a theory very largely held that the 

 herring, the Sprat, and the sardine, are one and the 

 same fish, serious attempts have been made to serve 

 Sprats in tins a la sardine. But no one of the slightest 

 discrimination can fail to detect the difference at once. 

 There is no doubt that an enormous number of Sprats 

 are preserved in inferior oil such as cotton-seed oil, 

 and sold as sardines at fourpence to sixpence a tin, 

 sardines of undoubted genuineness costing at the 

 same time one shilling and twopence per tin of the 

 same size, and there is equal certainty that people 

 who have grown fond of fish preserved in oil do eat 

 and enjoy these tinned Sprats in the belief that they 

 are sardines, utterly oblivious of the fact that they 

 are paying from eight to ten times more than they 

 need for the dainty little fish, which when smoked, 

 may safely challenge the whole fish world in point 

 of flavour, but does not take kindly to preservation 

 in oil, as do the sardine and anchovy. But, except 

 for the fact that these Sprats are sold as sardines 

 when they are not, this is nobody's business but the 

 sellers' and the buyers' ; I mean, that no one is done 

 any great harm to, and so it is not necessary to interfere. 

 It is perfectly certain, however, that the name ' Sprat ' 

 has so low and vulgar a sound that, if these tinned 



