THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 53 



ice ; while ice, as a preservative, would have been too heavy 

 for the old conveyances to have carried. Ice, as an article 

 of commerce, has not had a history of fifty years. Before 

 the development of railways and the trade in ice, fish were 

 brought to London in welled smacks. The welled smacks 

 are not even now entirely superseded. They are still used 

 in the Grimsby line trade, and Dutch eels are brought to 

 the Thames in the same way.* But the railway has become 

 the great carrier of fish ; the railways bring the fish whole- 

 sale to Billingsgate ; they distribute them subsequently in 

 small parcels throughout the country. 



If these facts be borne in mind, it will be easily under- 

 stood that space is eminently desirable at Billingsgate. A 

 market which is already the centre of an enormous trade, 

 and which every year is required to transact a larger business, 

 must provide adequate accommodation for those who 

 frequent it. Unfortunately Billingsgate does not fulfil these 

 requirements. Built originally at a time when London was, 

 compared with its present dimensions, a small town, and 

 when the fish trade was only a humble undertaking, it is 

 inadequate to supply the wants of the largest capital in the 

 world. Nor is it easy to see how its shortcomings can be 

 dealt with. Situated as it is in the centre of London, the 

 surrounding land is occupied by property of a valuable 



* There is a curious circumstance connected with the carriage of 

 Dutch eels which is worth recording. The increasing pollution of 

 the Thames made it impossible to bring even eels alive to London. 

 " For ten years," so said Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons 

 in 1828, "the water was deteriorating in quality, as was found by 

 various fishermen who had found it necessary to abandon this mode 

 of obtaining a livelihood, in consequence of the insalubrity of the 

 water driving away the fish. In truth, the fishermen's trade was 

 destroyed ; and, strange to tell, eels imported from Holland would not 

 live in Thames water." 



