SEA FISHERIES. 11 



be always a sale for it. But it not unfrequently 

 happens that there is a glut of some of the better 

 kinds of fish, and, as we have said, the market must be 

 cleared; then the costermongers may be seen going 

 with their barrows into more select neighbourhoods 

 than they usually visit, and hawking soles, haddocks, 

 and whiting, fresh from the market, as well as their 

 more general stock of inferior kinds. And the fish 

 they are thus enabled to sell at low prices is excellent, 

 while the fashionable world are paying fashionable 

 rates for such fish as the ordinary purveyors may like 

 to send them fresh from the ice in their cellars. 



It may be a question whether fish kept in ice will 

 long 'retain its flavour and firmness, but I believe 

 there is no doubt of its being wholesome and nutri- 

 tious, if used immediately after removal from the ice- 

 box. There are very few kinds of fish which would not 

 taste better, if eaten as soon as they are caught ; but such 

 delicacies are* now seldom to be procured, if a railway 

 be within reach of the place where they are landed. 

 There is no help for it, however ; for, were ice not in 

 such general use by the fish dealers and many of the 

 fishermen, a much smaller supply of fish would be in 

 a saleable condition when it reached the market, and 

 the quantity sent would be materially diminished ; at 

 the same time the existing facilities of transport in- 

 land direct from the fishing stations would, as at pre- 

 sent, certainly lead to a great demand for it in the 

 country ; competition between the buyers for the fish 

 likely to bear the carriage to distant markets would 

 result in prices which would cut off hundreds of 



