MEAT FOR THE MILLION. 121 



only proposed the removal of stake-nets to a certain 

 distance from the mouths of rivers. 



We trust that their valuable Keport will receive the 

 attention which it merits, both from the legislature and 

 the public. It is a mistake to suppose that this is a 

 matter chiefly interesting to the rich, or to the proprie- 

 tors of fishings. While the population is rapidly in- 

 creasing, and every effort to keep up the supply of food 

 is barely sufficient, it is surely most unwise to neglect 

 or destroy the produce of our rivers, which may easily 

 be made to yield a greatly increased revenue, as well 

 as much palatable and nutritious food at a price within 

 the reach of the great body of the people. Only 

 eighteen months ago the working-classes in certain 

 English towns came to a resolution to purchase no 

 butcher-meat until its price was lower. To multiply 

 salmon so that it shall be reduced to the ordinary price 

 of meat to stock our rivers with various other fish of 

 considerable value to induce the formation of fish- 

 ponds, such as were common in this country before the 

 Keformation to accustom our people to the more libe- 

 ral use of fish as a common article of diet, ought to 

 be the aim of all who know how important it is that 

 the physical energies of the nation shall be maintained 

 by the mass of the people being adequately fed. How 

 to supply our rapidly-increasing population with butcher- 

 meat is a problem not easily solved. London, with its 

 all-devouring maw, swallows every year about 270,000 

 oxen, 1,500,000 sheep, and 30,000 swine. The total 

 value of all the flesh, dead and alive, imported into 

 London, cannot, according to a recent estimate in the 

 'Scottish Farmer,' be much less than 14,000,000 

 annually. It is evidently high time that the people in 

 the country should in fish find a substitute for flesh, see- 

 ing that this monster city swallows so much of "the roast- 

 beef of old England," and is not satisfied without levying 

 heavy weekly supplies of oxen from the Land of Cakes. 



