24 By Stream and Sea. 



two-wheeled carts, drawn by plump, fast-trotting cobs not to 

 be beaten in any other English town, and from which may 

 be any day selected half a dozen greys and iron-greys fit for 

 presentation to an Arab chieftain. 



Here at last is the fish-wharf, a fine straight quay with a 

 Substantially built market facing the newly arrived vessels — 

 of say fifteen tons average. The tug has just brought in 

 three of these fishing-boats ; having been relieved of their 

 cargoes these crafts will, without the delay of an hour, go 

 out of the river, make full sail to the offing, and cast out 

 their drift-nets before nightfall. The skipper and crew care 

 nothing about the fish after they have been deposited on the 

 wharf, and they have nothing to do with their sale. The 

 wholesale fish-market, to the very doors of which the vessels 

 are brought, was built to remove many of the inconveniences 

 formerly experienced under the old system of landing the 

 herrings on the beach — a system, be it remembered, which, 

 owing to the monopoly it fostered on land, much better 

 pleased the local fishermen than the newer free trade regula- 

 tions under which the Scotch and French fishermen are able 

 to compete so vigorously with them. The beachmen, 

 finding to a great extent their occupation gone, naturally 

 complain of the change, and it is no consolation to them to 

 know that it is for the public good. 



Before the fishing-vessel has fairly brought up alongside 

 the market wharf she is boarded by a number of men who 

 are not, as their eager gestures and impetuous language 

 would signify, about to murder the crew and scuttle the 

 ship ; they are " tellers"" on the look-out for an engage- 

 ment, and the large panniers they carry are not Welsh 

 coracles, but " swills " into which the fish in the hold will 

 be counted — each swill, for the accuracy of sale, to con- 

 tain five hundred fish. The wharf is- covered with swills, 



