154 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



The population of the port is nearly 70,000, so that 

 about 35,000 men, women, and children subsist on the 

 trawl, line, and herring fisheries in connection with the 

 town. The population in 1790 was only 982. 



The steam-trawlers are dealt with all the year round, 

 and on a busy day as many as a hundred will be dis- 

 charging their cargoes of live and dead fish, and at the 

 same time huge quantities of ice, from the local factories 

 and the Norwegian ice-fields, are being handled. Four 

 trains abreast may be seen loading up with fish for the 

 London and provincial markets. The fish is loaded 

 direct from the market into the trucks, and is dispatched 

 by special express and passenger trains as well as by the 

 Great Central steamers to the Continent. 



The first fish train leaves Grimsby at 9.9 a.m. for 

 the West Riding and the North of England, as well as 

 Scotland ; the last departs at 8.30 p.m., for the Lancashire 

 and Yorkshire districts. Between those hours thirteen 

 fish trains are dispatched, conveying fish for all parts of 

 the United Kingdom. The London supplies are sent away 

 at 1.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m., and 7.40 p.m., these trains convey- 

 ing the cargoes which will be sold at Billingsgate on the 

 following morning. The times named are, of course, 

 subject to alteration, to meet the requirements of the 

 trade. These are frequently very severe, especially 

 when there have been exceptionally heavy deliveries of 

 fish ; but the resources of the Great Central are equal 

 to any strain that can be put upon them. An express 

 fish train takes precedence of all other goods and minerals 

 traffic, and even a passenger train may be shunted to 

 allow the passing of the freight which is so perishable. 

 A train of this description consists of about a dozen 



