Lastly, those who are interested in the national supply of food must lament that, while Great Britain possesses perhaps the best opportunities in the world for securing a large and cheap supply of fish, she fails to attain it, and procures so little only, that it is to the great majority of the inhabitants an expensive luxury. Fish is a food of great value; nevertheless it ought in this country to be one of the cheapest aliments, since production and growth cost absolutely nothing, only the expenses of catching, and of a short transport being incurred. This is a question which must sooner or later be solved by the public themselves, unless some persons in the trade, more enterprising than those who now pursue it, will abandon existing conventional rules and habits, and venture on the assuredly safe and profitable enterprise of supplying fish, good and fresh, at prices far lower than those which it is agreed shall rule at present.*

* Something has been done to meet the wants of fish consumers by the fish dealers at the docks of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, to afford a regular, prompt, and cheap supply of fresh fish to families in London, and also in the country for those who reside at no great distance from a railway station. The result I believe to be tolerably satisfactory; but, with enterprise, it might be rendered more so. For a regular and varied kitchen supply - and I believe a weekly fish - dinner is a welcome as well as a wholesome change for the "servants' hall" - it may be depended on as fresh in quality and reasonable in price. But for "live salmon" or a choice turbot, as well as for "the pick of the market" in soles and other fish, a town fishmonger of the highest repute should be always applied to Our fish supply neglected.

A very large proportion of our town population would profit by exchanging some of their meat, as an article of daily diet, for fish. Where occupation is chiefly of an intellectual kind, and demands little physical exertion, fish is often much more suitable than butcher's meat. Without active exercise in the open air, the digestive system is apt to become overloaded and oppressed by meals consisting chiefly of meat; and even if the primary digestion of it is, in these circumstances, fairly accomplished, many a constitution suffers from an over-supply of nutritive matters, which cannot be disposed of easily without considerable habitual muscular activity.

There is no doubt that the obvious and admitted value of a highly nitrogenous food, of which meat is a concentrated form, to the labouring man, has occasioned the almost universal belief that such meat, of which let beef and mutton be the type, is the most desirable food staple for all. "If you wish to be strong, eat plenty of meat;" "If you are feeling weak, eat more meat, and at every meal;" such are the well-known articles of a creed which is deeply graven in the popular mind. Nevertheless, few statements relating to diet can be more misleading, and this is, as already intimated, one which often gives rise to serious ill-health.

It is this habit of adopting meat as the chief element of his dietary, which the sedentary man, with little opportunity for bodily exercise, the man who uses his brain more than his muscles, should avoid. But especially, also, should he abstain from fatty matters in large quantity, taking only a moderate proportion, which is not only permissible, but to a small extent necessary. For if he habitually consumes these two classes of food freely, materials are introduced into the system which it cannot eliminate under the conditions named, and which must ultimately obstruct the function of some internal organ. Thus the periodical bilious attack, or the recurring fit of gout, or some other relentless tormentor, clears the system for a time of the offending matter which the daily error in diet is perpetually reproducing and accumulating. Those who are thus affected often endeavour to ward off their troubles by systematic muscular exercises, fencing, rowing, and the like, and they do so with a certain amount of success. It is for the purpose of getting rid of superfluous nutritive materials that others (who may be wholly unconscious of the need which impels them) secure their yearly shootings, make Alpine excursions, or seek the mineral springs of a foreign spa - more or less agreeable contrivances, all of them, for effecting the required elimination once or twice a year, but which would not be necessary had food suitable to a sedentary life only been taken. On the other hand, the pleasurable pursuits named would - the proviso as to diet having been obeyed - be more enjoyed for their own sake; and preferable to flesh for the sedentary, for whom much fatty food is undesirable.

Fish valuable food for many,and the considerable amount of training essential for the over-loaded constitution would not be a troublesome preliminary. Many a man might indeed safely pursue a sedentary career, taking only a small amount of exercise, and yet maintain an excellent standard of health, if only he were careful that the "intake" in the form of diet corresponded with the expenditure which his occupations, mental and physical, demand. Let him by all means enjoy his annual pastime, and profit by it, to rest his mind and augment his natural forces, but not for the mere purpose of neutralizing the evil effects of habitual dietetic wrong-doing.