PRIME AND OFFAL 103 



interesting performance was gone through. By using 

 specially constructed landing-nets men removed the cod 

 from their floating prisons and put them into what were 

 known as cod-chests. These were boxes 7 ft. long, 

 2 ft. deep, and 4 ft. wide, the construction being very 

 much like the fish-trunk of to-day. The top of the box 

 was completely planked over, although in the middle 

 there was an opening, provided with a lid, into which 

 the fish were placed. As the bottom and sides of the 

 chest were formed of planks with spaces between them, 

 the chests naturally floated on the surface of the dock. 

 Through the opening in the top the fish were emptied 

 from the landing-net, and nearly a hundred small-sized 

 cod and about forty large fish could be kept in one of 

 the chests for two weeks without going off in quality. 

 It was quite usual to have three hundred or four hundred 

 of these cod-chests in Grimsby dock at the same time, 

 and they would contain anything up to twenty thousand 

 live fish. 



With such a system as this it was not difficult to 

 keep the market more or less adequately supplied with 

 cod, just as butchers furnish the public with meat in 

 proportion to the demand. The quantity of fish that 

 was wanted for the market being known, the task of 

 supplying it would begin, and men would fall on the cod- 

 chests and produce and prepare the fish for market. It 

 was not a question of getting the creature out and letting 

 it die in the ordinary way, but a matter of expediency, 

 humanity, and profit. The fish were promptly taken out 

 of the cod-chests and as promptly killed. To each end 

 of the chest was attached a rope or chain handle so that 

 the big box could be easily dealt with. A chest was 



