AVERAGE CONSUMPTION OF FISH 49 



sources of supply of provisions to the metropolis" 

 was placed first in the list of advantages offered 

 to Parliament by the Board of the proposed 

 London and Birmingham Railway in 1831, and 

 the example might well be followed in the case 

 of the fish supply to-day. 



The average total weight of wet fish of 

 various kinds landed in ports of the United 

 Kingdom during the five years prior to the war 

 (1909-13), was about one and one-fifth million 

 tons annually, about half of which was ex- 

 ported and the balance consumed at home, or 

 destroyed. If a calculation be made on the 

 usual basis for reckoning, by adjusting the 

 account to provide for smaller consumption by 

 infants, children and women, and larger for 

 persons of " man- value," the amount of fish 

 consumed by each man-unit did not exceed 

 an average approximate amount of If ozs. per 

 day. That the proportion of fish food con- 

 sumed per man-unit is relatively small, when 

 compared with the total daily consumption 

 of butchers' meat, bacon, ham, fowls, rabbits, 

 and game, can be easily observed by any 

 private person. If the whole population of the 

 United Kingdom of all ages and both sexes 

 be used for calculating the average at a flat 

 rate, the average consumption is roughly only 

 1^ ozs. per week per head : one good-sized 

 herring alone weighs 8 or 9 ozs. 



About 100,000 tons of fish are annually 

 used in the United Kingdom by the fried fish 



