8 BRITISH IND US TRIES. 



Anyone who has at all looked into the question of 

 the daily supply of fish from our coasts, must be well 

 aware that these direct consignments to inland markets 

 afford the most positive contradiction to the argu- 

 ments which the systematic denouncers of free fishing 

 in the sea have so frequently brought forward. For, 

 notwithstanding the literally enormous quantity of 

 fish which is thus sent to inland towns without coming 

 at all to Billingsgate, that great market has been so 

 overburdened with the supply sent there for some 

 years past, and the various narrow streets and lanes 

 leading to it have been so choked daily with the 

 number of railway waggons waiting to deliver their 

 loads, that the Corporation of London have recently 

 taken the subject in hand, and at very great expense 

 are doubling the size of this great metropolitan fish 

 market. Yet where, twenty or thirty years ago, fish 

 was almost unknown in the country, there is now 

 a regular supply at prices very commonly lower 

 than those charged by the West End fishmongers in 

 London. 



The railways have thus revolutionised the trade in 

 fish, more so, undoubtedly, in England, than in either 

 Scotland or Ireland ; but the railway system has also 

 told very largely, indeed, in the sister kingdoms, and 

 the recent extensions on both sides of Scotland have 

 led to increased fishing on many parts of those coasts. 

 Next to railways as a means of facilitating the dis- 

 tribution of fish to all parts of the country, and thus 

 stimulating the fishermen to increased enterprise and 

 energy in their vocation, I must mention the very 



