BILLINGSGATE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10592, 22 October 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

BILLINGSGATE.

(By Stephen Gwynn.)

Billingsgate! Synonym to mo for the surest manners, the most consideiate couttesy. i have spent Jioms there, woiiymg people witli question,, I have mo\cd about in it when it was at its busiest, impeding rhe tiailie like a flj tn an aiu-hoap ; and i,nc\ei' lK.inl a cross word from ono of the ants. Reflccting on it, 1 considei that tint, is not meio vutue; it i< a necc\sits ot the case. II people let their U-inpii, rise in Billingsgate—as I suppose they used to. in some bygono age —t-iio business of the placo could nofrgo on. Blocsany of the ant-heaps' narrow' arLevies for'half a minute _with an' altercation —-and there would bo chaos.

It is worth going to verity, bub you must go early. As 1 rode' down Queen Victoria, street on my bicycle a/trotting horso passed me, though J. was doing my full twelve miles an hour. 1 looked at tho quick stepper and saw ho \Vas in the. cart of a, .'West End ii'sh dealer — who was feeling himself, no doubt, a

little behind tunc. It was tlicii 'n»-o minute* past six. .■My first yision of Billingsgate was, relatively speaking, in the late alter-' noon —s.-iy about 1 L.30. In the uiaric-.it itself sweepers were the only busy men, "for if Billingsgate is clean it is bygrace, not nature; the conditions of its existence plunge it .inch-deep in slush. But-tho dealers had settled into their' second day's work, .straightened up the records, getting it all down in black: and white. How ad that swift buying and selling gets itself, registered i cannot imagine." A box full of salmon is lying before me; five minutes later their placo knows them no more; they are scattered, dissipated. . Tho firm which sheltered mo (cordially /for 1 came with an introduction fromMr \V. S. Green, tho man who liar, done most to develop and extend the Irish fishing industry; stands, I should say, high in tho aristocracy of Billingsgate. Their trade is prinripaijy in salmon, trout, and such delicacies; 'tuny. m ■ the winter do they fall back on white -toil. To them naturally camo that day tue market's rarity—a parcel of red mullet from Cornwall. None had been seen m Billingsgate for weeks. 1 looked at the beautiful pinkish-scarlet fish and learnt, alas' why th'ey are scarlet. Shall I toll you? Better not, but still—they come 'out of the sea yellow; when the, outer skin is scraped off them tho red jlusj appears. If you wait till the fish dies beioro scraping him, yellow he remains. I learnt also, what was oeir.g asked for -them—fourpence more than the price of the best salmon. Ten minutes after they had vanished—no one seems to know where. Doubtless tho right man did; they had been consigned to some of the buyers of the. big shops who stood in and about the baotli picking out their lots. If 1 call—as I was invited to do—upon one. of these gentlemen, at tire department where ho presides, in the later J hours of tho day, 1 shall find linn ui a. very different guise from that in which ho kindly conducted me to a. point of vantage. Ho will not wear black slogs to keep him out of the slush, nor linen overalls to guard his trousers. The salesmen themselves wear aprons; the greater the man the smaller the apron-. . Employees are covered from shoulder to heel; employers only from the waiat ■ downwards. But tho distinguirhmg ', feature of Billingsgate is the poi tKo' ; headgear. It puzzled me when' L~JiTi,l saw it —made of solid leather, in shape liko a top-hat which has been sat on. But when I watched the strings and strings of these sturdy fellows m thensmocks (once white), marching witn fish-boxes on their heads, i realised the value of tho solid portmanteau-like top as a protection for the skull under the weight of the box, and of the broad, impermeable brim as a shelter from the drippiug mess of brine, slime, and icewater. . ' ' • Outside, in tho streets that leaa down to the Monument and abqut it for hundreds of yards-iri all directions/is a throng of vans, blocked, one against 'another —and the smell of fish meets you before you meet the vans. On the river carriers lie two or three deep ott the wharf: big steamboats, from whoso holds starts the interminable line ol white-clad figures, with tho deal box poised on each head, and the capping of ico showing above it. The line runs over bridges, across gangways, .stepping from stage to. stage, theft through the narrow entrance into tho still narrower lane-way through tho crowd, where fish are*auctioned—cod, whiting, plaice, and so on —sorted out .box by box. Tho choicer fish, sole, turbot, brill, halibut, come in separately, and are not auctioned in lots; you find them distributed through tho innumerable stalls. To keep up . this supply of waterborne fish, four fleets of trawlers—be/, steamboats, too—with fifty to .seventy boats in each fleet, are constantly at work, each under its own admiral, each having its own service of carriers, which go round tho fleet on tho fishing grounds, collect tho day's take, and off with it to London. Their radius of operations is limited—not more than 350 miles (says 30 hours' steaming) for the carrier from the port. About a third of the* entire fish supply of London comes thus; two-thirds is .rail-borne, from Orimsbv, Hull, Aberdeen, Fleetwood, Cornwall—all tho great, distributing centres. "

Ovei the whole intiica<c fonecin presides .i siipeiintendcnt an ofhrul ol the Correlation, who aio tho landlords — did chngc small rents Uo enfoices samtarj mles, allots spaces, regulates traffic "What j ]ob> Good Heavens' I th.it he in the last i esort is responsible lor tho language of Killingsgate, and, if so, it does him the utmost ciedit—so far as I obsert'ed, it would do credit to a Sunday school His offices aro on an upper floor, in a gallery mnnint, round the maiket, fiom which you survey that crowded yet orderly bustlo and 30stle The general impression is ono of dark figures moving ag.-tinst a whitish ground—white bellies of fish, white smocks of salesmen —.and through the whole those ceaseless lines of ant-like porteis stiearning in with v boxes from the wharf, out with boxes to tho street and' the vans What a maw' How wide the tentacles spread'to feed it' Trawlers are faking the banks of Iceland, i aknig the 1 White Sea till they come into conflict vith Russian authorities on its eastern shore, fishing down to the Bay of Biscay off the west co&st of Ireland. Salmon comes frozen from Canada, some 'even from the Pacific shores of British Colunv bn This is not so highlj thought of, but some that I looked at from the Yt lantio coast (New Brunswick fish) seemed excellent. My mentor in the market to'd me that up'to three months in the ice it is fit for anything. "Good enough for you or me to eat," he said. I lelt sincerelv nattered by .the imnlied inclusion in his own connoisseurship. But : in tn'rh. Billingsgate. left me reflecting . ' that I had still a vast deal to learn . : about fish.