3 mi A Plea for Sea Fishers Chapt. xxvi. 



end of December, 1877, the famine time, being 1,817 tons per 

 diem. 



24. In another place we have the calculation that trawl vessels 

 alone, " irrespective of the vast quantities of herrings, sprats, shell- 

 " fish and of other descriptions of fish, which are supplied by other 

 " modes of fishing," annually supply to London alone about 80,000 

 tons of trawled fish. 



25. Of beam trawlers it is said : " Leaving out of consideration 

 " the minor ports then, and taking account only of the Thames, Yar- 

 " mouth, the Humber, Ramsgate, Brixham, Plymouth, Liverpool, 

 " Fleetwood, and Dublin, not fewer than 955 sail of trawlers of 

 " between 40 and GO tuns are employed in the North Sea, the 

 " Channel, and St. George's Channel. These vessels are manned by 

 "at least 5,000 souls; they represent a capital of, at the very 

 " lowest estimate, £1,000,000, and they supply the daily market 

 " with probably not less than 300 tons of fish, valued at from £1,500 

 " to £2,000." 



26. Thus we have 300 tons a day, which, omitting Sundays, 

 means 93,900 tons a year, and this from beam trawlers alone, and 

 from English trawlers alone, and from nine localities alone. 



27. Thus one single mode of trawling supplies 93,'.HMI inns ;i 

 year; several modes of trawling supply London alone with sii,imiii 

 tons a year, without taking any count of any of the other methods 

 of fishing, though one alone of them, seining, is so successful, thai a 

 single port, Scarborough, sent inland a surplus for a time of 700 to 

 800 tons a day. Twelve lines of rail carried in a year 122,381 tons 

 of fish. These calculations take and can take no note of the 

 numbers carried inland by carts from every fishing village, of the 

 numbers taken off by French and Dutch boats, of the numbers 

 consumed on the coast. 



28. These numbers, though a palpably deficient return of the 

 fish farm of our English coast, still serve to open the mind to its 

 magnitude. "Without some such preamble, I could not expect a 

 moment's faith for the figures that 1 shall have to set forth with 



reference to India. 1 may add that, had 1 wished to show large 

 figures, 1 might have quoted from other sources; but they do QOt 

 seem to me to be so precise as the official report, so I have confined 

 myself to the l'.lue Hook. 



29. But, 1 may be asked, what ground have you for drawing a 



