EAELY FISH COMMERCE. 29 



from the want of investigation, were but little understood, have 

 been, with those additions which under such circumstances 

 always accumulate, haiided down to the present day, so that 

 even now we are carrying on some of our fisheries on altogether 

 false assumptions, never dreaming that there will be a fishing 

 to-morrow, which must be as important, or even more important, 

 than the fishing of to-day, beyond which the fisher class never 

 look. 



It is curious to note that there was in most countries a 

 commerce in fresh-water fish long before the food treasures of 

 the sea were broken upon. This is particularly noticeable in 

 our own country, and is vouched for by many authorities both 

 at home and abroad. We can all imagine, also, that in the pre- 

 historic or very early ages, when the land was untilled and 

 virgin, and the earth was undrained, there were sources for the 

 supply of fresh-water fish that do not now exist in consequence 

 of the enhanced value of land. At the period to which I have 

 been alluding there was a much greater water surface than there 

 is now — rivers were broader and deeper, as also were our lakes 

 and marshes. In those early days, although not so early as the 

 remote uncultivated age of which I have spoken, there were 

 great inland stews populous with fish, especially in connection 

 with monasteries and other religious houses, many examples of 

 which, ia their remains, may be seen in England and on the 

 Continent. In fact, fish commerce, in despite of many curious 

 industries connected with the productiveness of the fisheries, 

 was not really developed till a few years ago, when the railway 

 system of carriage began. Even up to the time of George 

 Stephenson commerce ia fish was, generally speaking, a purely 

 local business, except in so far as fishwives could extend the 

 trade by carrying the contents of their husbands' boats inland, 

 in order, as in more primitive times, to barter the fish for other 

 produce. The fishermen of Comacchio, for instance, still cure 

 their eels, because they have not the means of sending them so 

 rapidly into the interior of Italy as would admit of their being 

 eaten fresh. Scotch salmon in the beginning of the present 

 century was nearly all kippered or cured in some way as soon as 

 caught, because the demand for fresh fish was purely local, and 

 therefore limited. With the discovery that salmon packed in 

 ice could be kept a long time fresh, trade in that iish began to 

 extend and the price to rise. This discovery, which exercised a 

 very important influence on the value -of our salmon-fisheries. 



