[3] THE LONDON FISHERIES EXHIBITION. 319 



[and an opinion prevails that the demand might in some degree be met 

 bj' educating the palate of the London fish consumer to appreciate what 

 are known in the metropolitan market as the interior classes of fish. 

 "We have enlisted the sympathies and secured the services of the mana- 

 gers of the School of Cookery at South Kensingtonj they have under- 

 taken to cook and present in the cheapest and most palatable form at 

 breakfasts and luncheons to be served in the Exhibition, dishes of the 

 inferior fish. Now the importance of this will be understood when 

 we look at the prices paid for first and second-class qualities in Loudon. 

 Following is a list of the average prices, taking all the year round, at 

 Billingsgate: Sole, salmon, brill, gray mullet, John Dory, whiting, and 

 eels average Is. per pound; haddock, sprats, cod, herring, coalfish,. 

 plaice, ling, and hake on an average bring only 2d. per pound. Now 

 nobody but a cockney would give six times the price for a sole or a 

 whiting that he Avould for a haddock, or even a good fresh herring; but 

 the fact is these second-class fish are not much known in the West End. 

 By presenting them in a dainty form, we hope to show that they are 

 not inferior to tish that command exorbitant prices, and if we can suc- 

 jceed in doing this we shall benefit alike the London fish consumers and 

 the fishermen on the coast. Fifty per cent is the average deduction 

 you have to make in this part of the country on your sales of fresh fish 

 in London for railway rates and commission. Sometimes the whole pro- 

 ceeds of a sale are swallowed up by these two items, leaving absolutely 

 no profit to the fishermen. The committee recommend that the railway 

 commission be made permanent, and that on the application of traders the 

 commission have power to order through rates; but this power is not to 

 enable the commission to order lower rates than the limit at present 

 charged. The railway commission is to hold sittings in Scotland. This 

 is not a large concession, yet it might prevent the excessive rates; and 

 although uniform rates are, in the opinion of the committee, impracti- 

 cable, yet we look to the action of the commission to lower the rates^ 

 and to diminish the anomalies, which a comparison of the rates in differ- 

 ent localities at present presents. For instance, the Caledonia Kailway 

 charged four times the mileage between Montrose and Glasgow that it 

 charged in through rates to London. Even the competition of sea trafiie 

 to London ought not to make so great a difference as this, and we may 

 look to the action of the commission and the legislation that will follow 

 the report of the committee for some measure of redress. The question 

 of rates forms part of a subject for which the Exhibition committee 

 offer a prize of £100 in the essay department. 



Improved fishmarkets are needed in many places, but particularly 

 in London. In Mr. Spencer Walpole's report to the Home Secretary in 

 1881 he mentions that in the seventeen months preceding December. 

 1880, 777 tons of fish were destroyed as being unfit for human food, and 

 he attributes this loss in a great degree to the defective state of Billings- 

 gate Market. Two-thirds of the fish that reaches the London market^ 



