CHAPTER II.
FISH COMMERCE.
Early Fish Commerce—Sale of Fresh-water Fish—Cured Fish—Influence of Rapid Transit on the Fisheries—Fish-ponds—The Logan Pond—Ancient Fishing Industries—The Dutch Herring Fishing—Comacchio—the Art of Breeding Eels—Progress of Fishing in Scotland—A Scottish Buss—Newfoundland Fisheries—The Greenland Whale Fishing—Speciality of different Fishing Towns—The General Sea Fisheries of France—French Fish Commerce—Statistics of the British Fisheries.
There was a time when man only killed the denizens of the deep in order to supply his own immediate wants, and it is very much to be regretted, in the face of the extensive fish commerce now carried on, that no reliable documents exist from which to write a consecutive history of the rise and progress of fishing.
In the absence of precise information, it may be allowed us to guess that even during the far back ages fish was esteemed as an article of diet, and formed an important contribution to the food resources of such peoples as had access to the sea, or who could obtain the finny inhabitants of the deep by purchase or barter. In the Old and New Testaments, and in various ancient profane histories, fish and fishing are mentioned very frequently; and in what may be called modern times a few scattered dates, indicating the progress of the sea fisheries, may, by the exercise of great industry and research, be collected; but these are not in any sense consecutive, or indeed very reliable, so that we are, as it were, compelled to imagine the progress of fish commerce, and to picture in our mind’s eye its transition from the period when the mere satisfaction of individual wants was all that was cared for, to a time when fish began to be bartered for land goods—such as farm, dairy, and garden produce—and to trace, as we best can, that commerce through these obscure periods to the present time, when the fisheries form a prominent outlet for capital, are a large source of national revenue, and are attracting, because of these qualities, an amount of attention never before bestowed upon them.
Fish commerce being an industry naturally arising out of the immediate wants of mankind, has unfortunately, as regards the article dealt in, been invested with an amount of exaggeration that has no parallel in other branches of industry. Blunders perpetrated long ago in Encyclopædias and other works, when the life and habits of all kinds of fish, from the want of investigation, were but little understood, have been, with those additions which under such circumstances always accumulate, handed down to the present day, so that even now we are carrying on some of our fisheries on altogether false assumptions, and in many cases evidently killing the goose for the sake of the golden egg: in other words, 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 as a rule 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 prehistoric 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, and so 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, in their remains, are still to be seen in England or 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 in fish was generally speaking a purely local business, except in so far as the fishwives could extend the trade by carrying the contents of their husbands’ boats away inland, in order, as in the still 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 as soon as caught, because the demand for the fresh fish was only local, and therefore limited. With the discovery that salmon by being packed in ice could be kept a long time fresh, the trade began to extend and the price to rise. This discovery, which exercised a very important influence on the value of our salmon-fisheries, was made by a country gentleman of Scotland, Mr. Dempster of Dunnichen, in the year 1780. Steamboat and railway transit, when they became general, at once converted salmon into a valuable commodity; and such is now the demand, from facility of transport, that this particular fish, from its great individual value, has been lately in some danger of being exterminated through the greed of the fishery tenants; indeed, it cannot be said that it is yet safe, for every tenant thinks it legitimate to kill all the fish he can see.
The network of railways which now encircles the land has conferred upon our inland towns, so far as fish is concerned, all the advantages of the coast. For instance, the fishermen of Prestonpans send more of their fish to Manchester than to Edinburgh, which is only nine miles distant: indeed our most landward cities are comparatively well supplied with fresh fish and crustacea, while at the seaside these delicacies are not at all plentiful. The Newhaven fishwife is a common visitant in many of our larger Scottish inland towns, being able by means of the railway to take a profitable journey; indeed, one consequence of the extension of our railways has undoubtedly been to add enormously to the demand for sea produce, and to excite the ingenuity of our seafaring population to still greater cunning and industry in the capture of all kinds of fish. In former years, when a large haul of fish was taken there was no means of despatching them to a distance, neither was there a resident population to consume what was caught. Railways not being then in existence, the conveyance inland was too slow for a perishable commodity like fish, and visitors to the seaside were also rarer than at present. The want of a population to eat the fish no doubt aided the comfortable delusion of our supplies being inexhaustible. But it is now an undoubted fact, that with railways branching out to every pier and quay, our densely-populated inland towns are better supplied with fish than the villages where they are caught—a result of that keen competition which has at length become so noticeable where fish, oysters, or other sea delicacies are concerned. The high prices now obtained form an inducement to the fishermen to take from the water all they can get, whether the fish be ripe for food or not. A practical fisherman, whom I have often consulted on these topics, says that forty years ago the slow system of carriage was a sure preventive of overfishing, as fish, to be valuable for table purposes, require to be fresh. “It’s the railways that has done all the mischief, sir, depend on that; and as for the fishing, sir, it’s going on at such a rate that there will very soon be a complete famine. I’ve seen more fish caught in a day, sir, with a score of hooks on a line than can now be got with eight thousand!”
As to fish-ponds: at the time indicated it was quite usual for noblemen and other country gentlemen to have fish-ponds; in fact, a fish-pond was as necessary an adjunct of a large country house as its vegetable or fruit garden. These ponds, as the foregoing sketch will show, were of the most simple kind, and were often enough constructed by merely stopping a little stream at some suitable place, and so forming a couple of artificial lakes, in which were placed a few large stones, or two or three bits of artificial rock-work, so constructed as to afford shelter to the fish. There being in those days no railways or other speedy conveyance, there arose a necessity for fish-ponds to persons who were in the habit of entertaining guests or giving great dinner-parties; hence also the multiplicity of recipes in our older cookery-books for the dressing of all kinds of fresh-water fishes; besides, in the very ancient times, that is before the Reformation, when Roman Catholicism required a rigorous observance of the various church fasts, a fish-pond near every cathedral city, and in the precincts of every monastery, was a sine qua non. The varieties of fish bred in these ponds were necessarily very limited, being usually carp, some of which, however, grew to a very large size. There are traces also of some of our curious and valuable fishes having been introduced into this country during those old monastic times. Thus it is thought, as has been already stated, that the celebrated trout of Lochleven may have been introduced from foreign parts by some of the ancient monks who had a taste for gastronomy. The celebrated vendace of Lochmaben is likewise supposed to have been introduced in the same way from some continental fishery.