IT now but remains for me, in order to complete this account of the "street-sellers of fish," to form an estimate of the amount of money annually expended by the labourers and the poorer

Adding together the above totals, we have the following result as to the gross money value of the fish purchased yearly in the London streets:

Hence we find that there is nearly a million and a half of money annually spent by the poorer classes of the metropolis in fish; a sum so prodigious as almost to discredit every statement of want, even if the amount said to be so expended be believed. The returns from which the above account is made out have been obtained, however, from such unquestionable sources —not from salesman alone, but checked and corrected by many gentlemen who can have no conceivable motive for exaggeration either way or the other—that, sceptical as our utter ignorance of the subject must necessarily make us, still if we will but examine for ourselves, we shall find there is no gainsaying the facts.

Moreover as to the enormity of the amount dispelling all ideas of privation among the industrious portion of the community, we shall also find on examination that assuming the working-men of the metropolis to be in number (the Occupation Abstract of , gives individuals following employment in London, but these include merchants, employers, shopkeepers, Government-officers and others), and that they, with their wives and children, make up million individuals, it follows that the sum per head, expended in fish by the poorer classes every week, is a fraction more than , or, in other words, not quite penny a day.

If the diet of a people be a criterion, as has been asserted, of their character, it may be feared that the present extensive fish-diet of the working-people of London, is as indicative of degeneracy of character, as Cobbett insisted must result from the consumption of tea, and "the cursed root," the potato. "The flesh of fish," says Pereira on Diet, "is less satisfying than the flesh of either quadrupeds or birds. As it contains a larger proportion of water (about per cent.), it is obviously less nourishing." Haller tells us he found himself weakened by a fishdiet; and he states that Roman Catholics are generally debilitated during Lent. Pechlin also affirms that a mechanic, nourished merely by fish, has less muscular power than who lives on the flesh of warm-blooded animals. Jockeys, who in order to reduce their weight, live principally on fish.

The classes of fish above given, are, when considered in a "dietetical point of view," of distinct kinds; viz., those which form the staple commodity of the dinners and suppers of the poor, and those which are mere relishes or stimuli to failing, rather than stays to, eager appetites. Under the former head, I include red-herrings, bloaters, and smoked haddocks; such things are not merely provocatives to eat, among the poor, as they are at the breakfasttable of many an over-fed or intemperate man. With the less affluent these salted fish are not a "relish," but a meal.

The shell-fish, however, can only be considered as luxuries. The thus annually expended in the streets, represents the sum laid out in mere relishes or stimuli to sluggish appetites. A very large proportion of this amount, I am inclined to believe, is spent by persons whose stomachs have been disordered by drink. A considerable part of the trade in the minor articles, as winks, shrimps, &c., is carried on in public-houses, while a favourite pitch for an oyster-stall is outside a tavern-door. If, then, so large an amount is laid out in an endeavour to restore the appetite after drinking, how much money must be squandered in destroying it by the same means?