85 



speeches without end, supplementing this acknowledgment 

 of the want of more fish in London, not only in the 

 description which forms a delicacy at the rich man's table, 

 but for the coarser sort, which Mr. Osborne, of Clerkenwell, 

 so truly states were "essential for the sustenance and 

 physical well-being of the poor people." My audience 

 will, I am sure, again appreciate my abstention from 

 overloading this paper with oft-repeated truisms, which 

 are patent to the readers of every public journal, especially 

 as I have personally gauged the soundness of the conclu- 

 sions by the unerring standard of value. I have purchased 

 cod in Mr. Whiteley's stores at I s. per pound, and have seen 

 it labelled elsewhere at is. ^d. In King Street, Hammer- 

 smith (a remarkable place on a Saturday night), I have 

 bought, and subsequently eaten with satisfaction, five 

 sprats, beautifully cured, form and colour preserved, for \\d., 

 tied in a bundle. I have purchased mackerel at gd. each, 

 and refused them at is. But let us probe the matter 

 further, and see whether in the circumstances attending the 

 transfer of fresh fish, under the present available supply, 

 from the place of capture to the London market accounts 

 for the present price. 



In a circular I produced at the Conference on the 

 reading of His Excellency Mr. Walpole's paper, the rates 

 of fish from the places of capture to the several towns in 

 England did and do show a want of appreciation of the 

 great trading motto of low price and large and quick turn 

 overs ; but to show you what a blessing railway connection 

 is, even with exorbitant rates, the settlement of that great 

 corporation on our eastern coast at Greenore, with the 

 best plant, as I am constrained to say, metamorphosed 

 the district into which it has penetrated, by running over 

 the Great Northern system right across Ireland, taking 



