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William III. which has not been since varied, except spe. cially by the 9th of Ann, and collaterally by the statutes which have been passed, from time to time, respecting Fish in general.

The size and local situation of this market might have been neither inconvenient, nor very inadequate to the existing population of the Metropolis in 1699, when the Act of William III. was passed. Marylebone, Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Lambeth, Islington, and many other connected parts of our present town, were then outlying and distinct villages in its vicinity. The inhabited space of the Metropolis and its population were such, at that period, as to bear no comparison with their present accumulated magnitude; the new houses that are now within the bills of mortality, and those immediately adjoining to and connected with them, covering an additional space of several miles of ground, which did formerly contain hamlets and townships in the neighbourhood of London, but are now become united and integral parts of the Metropolis, and accommodate a great portion of its population.

In less than half a century, however, from the passing of the Act of the 10th of William III. the inadequacy and inconvenience of Billingsgate market were generally felt and acknowledged; and in 1749 a similar Act (22d Geo. II. cap. 49.) was passed "for making a free Market for the Sale of Fish in the City of Westminster." In sixty-four years which have elapsed since the passing of that Act, the population of Westminster and its connected vicinity is become above three times what it was in 1749; yet no benefit whatever has been derived to that immense aggregate of population, from the Act of George II. By what circumstances the execution of it has been so long deferred, it may be unnecessary at present to inquire, except with a view to avoid any further delay from causes

similar to those which have hitherto impeded the execution of the Act; among which probably the most important may have been, that the commissioners appointed to the Act into effect, had not taken any warm or pecarry culiar interest in its success.

The obvious result of what has been above stated seems to be, that the measures to be adopted for better supplying the metropolis with Fish, must commence with the improvement of our wholesale Fish markets,-to be obtained by an enlargement of the present market of Billingsgate, and by carrying into execution the Act of the 22nd of George the Second; in order to which, the appointment of new commissioners in the room of those named in the Act (who are all since deceased) will be a primary and essential step. In this appointment, it may be material to consider, whether one of the qualifications for an acting commissioner, shall not be the loan, at lawful interest, of a certain sum of money for the purposes of the Act; the principal and interest of which may be endangered by the neglect and inattention of the commissioner to the important objects of his trust.

Another impediment arises from this circumstance;that some of the fishermen frequenting the Billingsgate market cannot venture to bring up so large a quantity of shoal fish as they might obtain, while there are so many circumstances existing to render the sale of it difficult and uncertain. In order to remove this impediment, it may be expedient to assure to the fishermen a certainty of sale, to a limited amount and at a low price, as to such Fish as might be the object of purchase to the middle and lower ranks of society, and might be preserved by salt or vinegar as a store for the manufacturing class and others. The extent of purchase and of expense might be ascer tained; and from the effect of the experiment recently

and successfully tried by the Committee for the Relief of the manufacturing and laboring Poor, it appears that it need not be a matter of either cost or uncertainty.

A third difficulty, as to the general supply of Fish in the metropolis, attends the distribution and retail of it; a difficulty that is aggravated by the local situation of Billingsgate market. For it will be obvious, that the cost and labor of the poor basket woman, who can afford to buy only a small lot of fish, must be greatly increased, by her being obliged personally to attend at Billingsgate between three and six o'clock in the morning on account of her little purchase, and to return with it several miles on her head, before she can begin her sale; and it will be equally obvious that this cost and labor must be paid with some addition by the consumer. This evil would be in a great measure done away by the establishment of a Fish-market in Westminster; which would, at the same time, partly obviate another difficulty occasioned by what has been already noticed, the basket women giving up the sale of Fish as soon as they are able to deal in fruit, which they can purchase at a more central and convenient market; a difficulty which would no longer exist when a Westminster Fish Market was opened in a spot, equally convenient with that for fruit and vegetables at Covent Garden; or if it did continue to exist in any degree, would be wholly removed by other persons being induced to enter into the same business.

A fourth obstacle to the use of Fish in the metropolis is the uncertainty of its price, and the perfect ignorance in which we are kept as to the daily state of the supply. The housekeeper, who is going to market, knows pretty correctly what will be the price of mutton, beef, bread, cheese, butter, milk, and almost every other article of subsistence; but has no means of guessing whether Fish wil!

that morning be two-pence or two shillings a pound. She knows that the butcher and the baker are obliged to govern their prices by a general standard; but she supposes that it may in a great measure depend on the pleasure of the fishmongers, at what price they will serve her; and thus Fish becomes in a great degree a prohibited article in London, and is confined to the tables of the rich and luxurious; and that which might be very cheap and plentiful, and a universal benefit to all, is excluded from the domestic arrangement of the great mass of its inhabitants. This, in its effects, is injurious to the fishmongers, as well as to the public; reducing their trade to a tenth part of what it might be; for at times, when there is even a glut of fish, there is no mode of diffusing the information, or of increasing the means of sale; nor is there any reasonable ground to confide in, that what may be offered for sale, is not the stale fish of a former day. The most obvious remedy for this inconvenience seems to be, the giving notice every morning throughout the metropolis, of the state and prices of the Fish-market; so as to enable every housekeeper to judge, how far it will be economical and desirable on that day, to derive a part or the whole of their family meal, from the morning's supply of the market.

Another measure might be adopted, to attract the attention of prudent families more to the extent of supply, and the relative cheapness of the day; and that would be by inducing some of the dealers to affix in their shops the daily prices of their Fish for sale; as has been recently done by a fishmonger in Lower Brook Street, who has derived a considerable degree of custom from that circumstance. The prices of Fish in the metropolis were indeed formerly regulated by tables of prices, fixed by His Majesty in Council, which the dealers in Fish were not allowed to exceed and there existed in Athens a law;

which is noticed by Athenæus (and a similar regulation existed in Venice) that fishmongers should have tables in their shops, inscribed with the price of their. Fish; and that they should be subject to imprisonment, if they took less than the affixed price. This is mentioned, not with an idea of proposing such a law, but merely of suggesting whether it may not be expedient, to endeavour to engage some of the fishmongers to fix and announce in their shops their prices, for the benefit of themselves and others.

How far, in addition to these and any other measures to be adopted for removing the present impediments and obstacles to the supply of the metropolis, it would be expedient to take any other means, by rewards or otherwise, to force the supply beyond its natural course, may be very doubtful; not only, because the effects of bounties appear in many cases to be uncertain and equivocal, but that in every instance where the industry and cupidity of man are operating in any speculation or trade, the true policy is to leave him as free as may be, honestly to profit by his own exertions; removing at the same time, as far as is practicable, every artificial and natural obstruction which may check or impede his course.

The benefits to accrue from the removal of the present obstacles to a more general use of Fish in this country, may be classed under the heads of FOOD, OCCUPATION, NURSERY FOR seamen, and INCREASE OF TRADE.-The greater part of Norway derives five-sixths of its food from Fisheries, without which its population could not exist. It is not desired, nor may it ever be expedient or necessary, to carry the use of Fish to even a third of that comparative amount. But if one fourth only of the subsistence of this country were derived from Fish (the other three parts being chiefly composed of corn, meat, and potatoes) and an equal quantity were exported in exchange for the wheat,

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