The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-10-14 00:00:00

LOBSTERS AliD CRABS.

"Oysters have recently been the subject of the gravest
deliberations of a Parliamentary Committee, from whose
repot t based as it was on a really valuable mass of evidence,
s satisfactory icginlatire outcome may ere long be expected"
emeriti the Daily Telegrapt, and proceeds—
Meanwhile the time of the crustezeca to be overhauled
has come; and on Teursday last Messrs. Frank Buck.
land, Spencer Walpole, and Archibald Yotteg, the
Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Crab and
Lobster Fisheries of Scotland, held their first sitt;ng
for the purpose of taking evidence in Edinburgh. The
principal witnesses examined were fishmonger; fisher-
men, and lessees of fisheries; and their testimony was
generally to the effect that, as respects crabs, there
was at present a great decrease in their number
and size, owing to over-fishisg. The demand was
much greater than the supply. Forty years
ago a dozen crabs might be purchased "in the trade"
for tenpence • but the price would now be three
shillings. Lobsters, likewise, during the last twenty
years had fallen off wofully in Scottish waters, and
fish formerly worth only a shilling now fstched two
shillings or half-a crown. There was a general con<
sensus that both crabs and lobsters were taken when of
too small a size, anchin the breedingseason ; but opinion
varied as to the best remedies for stopping an acknow-
ledged evil. One witness thought that there should be a
gauge for crabs and lobsters, and that none of the
former under six inches along the back, or of the latter
none less than eight inches in length, should be taken
out of the water. Another witness thought that a oloue
time during the month of June, to be enforced for
three or four years, would do a great deal of good; while
others advocated the gauge without the close time, and
some a close time and a gauge to boot. It might, per-
haps, be difficult to draw a hard and fast line as to
measurement, unless the naturalists are prepared to
rove conclusively that a little crab left to itself is
sure to grow into a big one; and, again, when the
Commissioners have finished their investigations, some
other authorities, such as epicures and medical men,
might be allowed to say a word or two on the
subject. The gastronomes will point out that
monstrous crabs and lobsters are apt to be
tough and devoid of flavour; whereas the doctors
may opine that a big shell-fish is, under any cir-
cumstances, a great evil, and that a huge crab,
especially when dressed in the unscientific manner in
which Britons delight, is often a fatally unwholesome
delicacy. We usually eat our shell-fish at the wrong
time—late at night. We use too much vinegar and
mustard and too little oil in dressing them; and the
poorer classes, at least, wash down their "dressed
crab" with preciesly the wrong kind of beverage, •
heavy beer. At the same time—albeit the doctors
may shake their heads at the article altogether—it is
expedient that this most popular item of food should
-be abmadant in quantity and cheap in price; and, if
the Scottish fisheries have really fallen off to an appre-
ciable extent, it would be certainly beneficial to
enforce a close time and to adopt some reasonable
gauge of measurement.