m BILLINGSGATE 119 



buyers and buyers' agents, to keep prices down, 

 are the rule rather than the exception. 



(4) Billingsgate, with the best possibilities, is 

 the least satisfactory of all the markets. Long- 

 shoremen have not enough capital to speculate In the 

 market, nor can they be there, and fishing too, or 

 afford agents on the spot. No check can be kept 

 upon Billingsgate. Returns may not be believed, 

 but they have perforce to be accepted. Collusion 

 between salesmen and buyers, the buyer being 

 secretly an agent of the salesman, is an undoubted 

 fact, though difficult to prove legally. To send 

 catches to Billingsgate Is frequently to receive, 

 Instead of money, a demand for payment of 

 freightage. A fisherman has been known to go 

 up and see his own fish sold, and then to receive 

 from the salesman about a third of the sum, 

 together with a note to the effect that there had 

 been a glut on the market. Another fisherman, 

 having brought a catch ashore, telegraphed to 

 Billingsgate, and heard in reply that prospects 

 were good. He sent up twenty-two thousand 

 herrings {i.e. 26,400 at ten dozen to the 'hun- 

 dred'), and In return received a penny stamp and 

 a halfpenny stamp ! His payment for help and 

 the damage done to^ his nets by the heavy haul 



