140 NEW SOUTH WALES 
daily freights up to Saturday morning. She collects her freights from 
fishermen at Broken Bay, and goes about 10 miles up the Hawkesbury 
River. It was ascertained that for this service her owners receive one- 
third of the proceeds of all fish carried by this vessel to market. The 
fishermen supplying the Market do not seem to have any direct dealings 
with the fishmongers or hawkers who are engaged in the distribution of 
the fish ; but the entire business between the producers and the fisher- 
men is managed by agents, who collect the moneys from the buyers and 
pay them over with commission deducted, to the fishermen. As may at 
once be ascertained by a reference to the figures contained in the tables 
prepared by Mr. Inspector Seymour, the fish supply is quite unequal to 
the existing local demand, while with the immensely increased facilities 
for disposal created by the opening up of railway communication with 
places in the interior, where no supplies of fish can be obtained except 
from the seaboard, there seems no reason for supposing that under 
existing circumstances any such demand could be at all satisfactorily 
met ; and yet, as will be seen hereafter, the sources of supply, if properly 
guarded, are practically equal to any demand that could possibly be made 
upon them. At present the price of fish is, as will be seen from the 
evidence, excessively high.* In January of this year bream were fetch- 
ing from 30s. to £2 a bushel (that is;sold wholesale to the fish-hawkers) ; 
schnapper were readily fetching from 28s. to 30s. a dozen; squires, from 
5s. to 15s, a dozen ; whiting, from 6s. to 8s. a dozen ; garfish were sold 
at £2 18s, a bushel ; soles and flounders at times ls. to 2s. per pair, and 
other varieties of fish at proportionate prices. The prices given by the 
consumers, who in the absence (with but a few exceptions) of regular 
fish-shops, purchase from the hawkers, are enormously increased—in some 
cases, as will be seen by the evidence, doubled, and in others quadrupled. 
The inadequacy of the supply to meet the demand may be inferred from 
the value of the imports as it is furnished by the Statistical Register. 
From this it would appear preserved fish of various kinds was imported 
to the value of £161,970 in 1877, and £133,334 in 1878. We ascer- 
tained that there are several places even in the city of Sydney itself 
where fish is rarely if ever seen, and where the people have become so 
entirely unaccustomed to the use of it as an article of food that they 
seldom if ever think of purchasing it. 
* This was written in 1879. 
