CHAI-. ii.] ERRORS AS TO MODE OF CARRIAGE, ETC. 63 



no risk. Another suggestion is to unite the offices of 

 ecoreur and mareijeur in one person, or even, as is already 

 done in some quarters, to combine these two functions with 

 the owner's own special duties. Undoubtedly, a much more 

 effectual plan than either of these is a reduction in the 

 expenses of carriage and duties. The system of transport is 

 manifestly defective, inasmuch as the rate is a uniform one 

 for fine and ordinary fresh fish. The expenses of the carriage 

 compel the fisherman in many cases to retain the ordinary 

 or inferior qualities of fish and endeavour to make use of them 

 otherwise than for sale by employing them for the food of 

 their own households, feeding poultry, or manuring barren 

 land. They in some instances cut off the superfluous parts 

 of the monkfish the tail, fins, etc. to rediice the carriage 

 weight ; and although the fish thus mutilated fetch a less 

 price than they would otherwise bring, the depreciation of 

 the selling-price is more than counterbalanced by the reduc- 

 tion in the freight. 



It would be difficult to suggest a system which would at 

 once meet the wishes of the owners of boats, the fish- 

 merchants, and the railway directors. On the southern and 

 western railway lines in Ireland the fish are divided into 

 classes. Turbot, sole, plaice, whiting, eels, and shrimps, are 

 charged two-thirds of the rate for salmon ; oysters, crabs, 

 and lobsters, one-half ; and herring and the common fish 

 one-third. In France, as I have already said, the rate is 

 uniform. The cost of transport depends upon the distance 

 alone. The Commercial Treaty has brought foreign fish 

 more abundantly into the market ; but those coming from 

 England, being gutted to make them keep, have no longer the 

 red gills by which the buyer distinguishes fresh fish ; and 

 between a gutted fish and one with the gills intact the 

 purchaser never hesitates to choose the latter, without the 

 slightest regard to the place at which it has been caught. 



