CONFERENCE ON ISTH JULY, 1883 



Sir JOHN ST. AUBYN, Bart, M.P., in the Chair. 



THE CHAIRMAN, in introducing Mr. Cornish, said he had 

 come at the request of the Executive Committee to tell 

 them something about a subject on which most people 

 knew comparatively little. Whilst almost everybody in 

 the room was more or less intimately acquainted with the 

 mackerel, there were very few, except those who lived in 

 Cornwall, on the west coast of Ireland, and on the coast 

 of Brittany, who knew anything about the pilchard ; but 

 they might take it on his authority that the pilchard was a 

 most excellent fish when eaten fresh, and when preserved, 

 either after the manner of sardines in oil, or salted for 

 exportation, it formed a most nutritious and excellent 

 article of diet. The Cornish fishermen were employed to 

 a very large extent both in the mackerel and pilchard 

 fisheries, and went out a considerable distance from the 

 shore in quest of these fish. They met with the mackerel 

 at spring-time at a distance varying from close in-shore, to 

 sixty, seventy, or one hundred miles out, and twenty-four 

 hours after they were caught, people in London were in a 

 position to judge of the result by seeing the mackerel on 

 the slabs of fishmongers. A pilchard was a different sort 



