HISTORY OF SEA-FISHERIES. 203 



exempted from the post-horse duty. The general 

 desire to obtain this fish in perfection has led to 

 the well-known relaxation of our laws against 

 Sunday trading, which permits the open hawking 

 about of mackerel on that day a practice which 

 is punishable with regard to any other fish, or in- 

 deed to articles of any kind, with the exception of 

 milk. The fishing boats on those parts of the 

 coast which are sufficiently near to the Thames 

 were accompanied by fast-sailing cutters, which 

 collected the takings of the fishing boats and pro- 

 ceeded to the Billingsgate market while the boats 

 pursued their occupation ; in some instances screw 

 steam-vessels with wells in them have been used 

 and found of very material benefit from the com- 

 parative certainty with which they could arrive in 

 any stated port in time to send their cargo to the 

 metropolis or any interior part of the country by 

 specified trains. I find from inquiry that about 

 one third of the fish consumed annually in Lon- 

 don is brought to Billingsgate by land carriage, 

 of that quantity, about one third by Great North- 

 ern Railway, one third by Eastern Counties, and 

 the remainder by South Eastern, South Western, 

 North Western, Brighton, and other conveyances, 



