The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-04-13
London Fish Market.

gate there 4O6 b. u. IL Is the only
market for fish in London, and has oc-
cupied its present site in Thames Street
about three hundred yards east of Lon.
don bridge and adjoining the west side
Of the Custom House ever since 1899.
1t was formerly ian elegant Italian
structure with tall companile, but
Bunning's building has now been super.
seeded by the new market, opened fol-
trade July 20, 1877. The campanile has
disappeared, but the river facade still
adheres more or less to the Italian gothic
legend. 1t presents a uniform frontage
of two lofty stories, the center portion
being thrown a little back. The wings
are occupied by tayerns, at each Of
which is a daily fish ordinary. All
along the front runs a broad floating
stage, to which come the fish-laden craft.
Steamers, broadly and strongly built,
convey empty trunks" and supplies OF
ice out to the North Sea, and distribute
them TO the fishing smacks, from which
they receive the trunks" already filed,
two round trips usually being made
within the week. All sorts and condi.
tons of vessels and boats besides these
larger craft are employed in the trade.
conspicuous among them being the
Dutch eel-schuyts, bluff and ecce trio
vessels, eXquisitely clean. built of oak,
scraped and polished till it is as slippery
and shiny as waxed floor, with copper
bolts that glisten like gold.
The landing process begins at the
stroke of five a. NJ, the fish being carried
ashore by the licensed porters, who in
their short ''day" of five hours often
make wages of one pound sterling. The
great hall occupies the whole ground
floor of the center building and is let oil
into one hundred and forty stands, at
each of which sales go on, many of them
at auction, making most intolerable
Babel. About eight hundred and twen-
ty-five tons of fish arrive daily by water,
and about twice that quantity by rail,
packed in ice in great iron-bound and
padlocked boxes fifteen feet long, six or
eight feet wide three feet deep. All this
has to be carried on mems shoulders TO
the stand, and then when it has been
disposed of, conveyed in similar man.
ner to the vehicles of the purchasers, and
all within four hours, as after nine o clock
the streets must be kept clear for the
regular day traffic. The sale of shell
fish goes on in the basement, where
there are provided large coppers in
which the purchaser can have his fish
boiled by steam in three-bushel crates,
the process occupying from ten to twen-
ty minutes. There are about one thou
sand onehundred licensed porters, be.
sides the clerks, police, etc.
The subject of Billingsgates engrossed
public attention on several occasions
during the last few years. Vainly did
the Baroness Burdett-C outts present the
city with Columbia Market, hoping 10
ease Billingsgate Gifts intolerable pres
sure, neither purchaser nor seller would
90 to Baroness road, E. and though the !
market established by the Great Eastern
Railroad Company at Canningtown has
been much more successful, Billinsgate
remains virtually the only fish market
not alone in London, but of a very
large portion of England. Upon its in
conveniences a writer in the Quarterly
ReriesO wakes eloquent, and his parable
is taken up by another writer in the
London Telegraph. 'Let it be dis
tinctly understood" says the latter.
"that the only approach from the land
side to Billingsgate is through the Lower
Thames Street, thorapghfare which is
feet wide, and along which
only two streams of traffic can flow. If
an accident of the most trivial kind hap
pens, the whole fish and foreign fruit
traffic is brought to stand-still. Six
vans, and no more than six, can unload
side by side at the same time. The fish
market opens at five a. m, before which
hour no fish are allowed to be sold, and
closes at nine a. m, when all vans, carts |
and barrows, sometimes amounting to |
nearly four thousand in number, have to
be cleared out OF the city in order to
make way for the regular traffic of the !
streets. The width of the river opposite |
to Billingsgate left open for navigation |
does not exceed two hundred feet. In |
front of the market on the water side |
there is large floating pontoon, but the
side it to unload, being compelled to lie |
off at a distance of one hund1ed feet from
the market-quay, and to land their fish |
along planks thrown out from the |
steamer TO barge, and from this barge |
to the floating pontoon. Every pound of !
fish brought by steamer and landed from |
the river at Blllingsgate. is carried along
these planks upon mems heads. Only |
two roads-one from and one to the I.
Steamers-are permitted by the market
authorities-that is, by the corporation
TO exist, and as the men have no choice
but TO follow each other. it is obviously
to land the large quantity of
fish before the market closes at nine in
the morning. The result is that fresh
fish is often thrown away because it will
not keep until five o'clock the following
Spencer Walpole. in his re-
port to the home Office, stated that,
thanks to the inadequacy of the Lower
Thames Street. the vans arriving from
the railway stations and the carts of real
dealers arriving to buy make the land
approaches to Billingsgate impossible
He adds that the vans, instead of being
are forced to move on and to
take their chance next day. One van,
whose case was exceptionally unfortu-
nate, returned in this way, not only time
after time, but day after dav, for eleven
days. The fish which it contained was.
d course, ultimately condemned"
While the supply of fish in the ocean is
inexhaustible, and one Lon.
Ton dealer announces that he could fur.
liSh the market with four hundred tons
Of FISH a day to retail to the working
classes at three-pence pound, it is i'm
possible to land anything like supply.
What makes the situation less tolerable
S that it is extremely doubtful whether
n reality the monopoly upon which Bill
ingsgate insists has any warrant in law.
Cor. ". Y World.
Now and Then.