CURING OR PREPARING SMOKED OR RED HERRINGS. 123 



hands of the most respectable curers. He saw several, 

 many casks opened, and thought he had bought the quality- 

 necessary ; but, ' to make assurance doubly sure,' we en- 

 gaged two of the leading agents at two neighbouring ports 

 to examine the parcels purchased at shipment, so that 

 error or fraud might be prevented. 



" The captain, a most intelligent man, was also ac- 

 quainted with the qualities of red herrings, and to him we 

 confided the shipment for sale. He went to sell his her- 

 rings, and when he began to deliver them to the buyers, 

 it was found that the barrels generally contained a better 

 kind on the top ; that refuse qualities were in the middle ; 

 and although we bought the whole cargo as well-packed 

 barrels of full herrings, the barrels, when emptied out by 

 the buyers, were found to be very inferior, to our serious 

 loss, — namely, part of the herrings were not properly cured, 

 and part of them were empty or ' shotten ' herrings. From 

 that time we resolved neither to buy red herrings for our- 

 selves, nor to take the responsibility to buy them for our 

 correspondents abroad, and we do not now know any one 

 who would do so who knows the trade. We attribute the 

 inferiority of the quality partly to the reckless conduct of 

 the servants of these curers, who were considered honest 

 men, and partly to the dishonesty of some of the curers, 

 who really sold a fraudulent article ; and until the fishery 

 laws are extended to the curing of red herrings, we do not 

 think this trade will flourish." 



We think it right to quote this letter, and to remark, 

 that if such difiiculties arise as to making red herrings 

 a staple article, which can be, comparatively speaking, 

 easily examined in the casks, how much more difiicult 

 it would be, if our British white herring trade (the barrels 

 with the herrings lying in salt and pickle), were left to 



