FISHERY STATISTICS 227 



tained was expended in the payment of collectors 

 stationed round the coast. These collectors were 

 mostly Coastguard officers, but some were Customs 

 and Board of Trade officers ; others were " connected 

 with the fish trade " ; some were private persons, 

 but one at least seems to have been an alderman. 

 The average annual salary enjoyed by them was 

 about ^3, but one was paid £2^, two were paid 

 ^8 and £10 respectively, nine were allowed ^63 

 in all, and a number received £\ per year. There 

 were altogether 157 collectors at about 161 places. 

 They had to send to the Board monthly statements 

 which distinguished thirteen diffisrent kinds of 

 " wet fish " and three kinds of " shell-fish," giving 

 the quantities of these products landed, and their 

 values to the fishermen as sold at the seaside. 

 They had no statutory powers to demand a state- 

 ment of any kind from anyone whatsoever engaged 

 in the fishing trade, and they had no power to 

 board vessels, and examine catches or books, or to 

 examine markets or railway returns, beyond those 

 enjoyed by any other member of the public. 

 They were not, apparently, supervised in any 

 way, or if they were, the supervision must have 

 been the merest matter of form. Apparently they 

 were left to employ what ingenuity they naturally 

 possessed in furnishing the returns on which the 

 official abstracts of the Board were constructed. 



These annual abstracts — " Copies of Statistical 

 Tables and Memoranda relating to the Sea-Fisheries 



