Enormous accessions in the supply of fish to the London market have been effected, first by the employment of clippers as carrier-boats, (instead of each fishing-boat bringing its own cargo as formerly,) and secondly, by the use of steam-tugs for towing the transit-craft up the river. In the old time a south-westerly wind deprived all London of fish. While it prevailed the boats, which usually took shelter in Holy or East Haven on the Essex shore, waited for a change of wind, till the fish became odoriferous. The cargo was then thrown overboard, and the boats returned on another fishing voyage. The Thames was, at that time, the only highway by which fish was brought to Billingsgate; but the old losses and delays are again obviated by another source of acceleration. Our turbot is brought at waggon pace compared with the more perishable mackerel. The Eddystone lighthouse is at least two hundred and fifty miles from Thames Street. Between it and the Plymouth Breakwater lie some hundreds of fishing boats, plying their trawl-nets. A shoal of mackerel, the superficies of which may be measured by the mile, find their way among them, and several thousands dart into the nets. They are captured, hauled on board, shovelled into a clipper, and while she stands briskly in for shore, busy hands on board are packing the fish in baskets. Thousands of these baskets are landed in time for the mail train, rattle their way per railroad to Paddington, and by seven o’clock on the following morning—that is, in sixteen hours after they were rejoicing in the ‘ocean wave’—are in a London fishmonger’s taxed-cart on their road to the gridiron or fish-kettle, as the taste of the customer dictates. No distance appears too great from which to bring fish to Billingsgate. Packed in long boxes, both by rail and river, between layers of ice, salmon come daily in enormous quantities from the remotest rivers of Ireland, of Scotland, and even from Norway. So considerable an item is ice in the fishmonger’s trade, that a large proprietor at Barking has an ice-well capable of stowing eight hundred tons. Another in the same line of business has actually contracted with the Surrey Canal Company for all the ice generated on their waters! As we cogitate concerning these ‘great facts’ on the dumb-barge, and while the baskets and boxes are being systematically landed, it strikes five. A bell—the only noisy appurtenance of Billingsgate—stunningly announces that the market is open. The landing of fish proceeds somewhat faster, and fishmongers, from all parts of London, and from many parts of the provinces—from Oxford, Cambridge, Reading, Windsor, &c.—group themselves round the stalls of such salesmen as appear to have the choicest fish. These are rapidly sold by (Dutch) auction; and taken to the buyers’ carts outside the market.