Again as regards Fish, of which six-tenths of the whole quantity consumed
in London is now brought by rail. The Great Eastern and the Great
Northern are by far the largest importers of this article, and justify
their claim to be regarded as the great food lines of London. Of the
61,358 tons of fish brought by railway in 1867, not less than 24,500 tons
were delivered by the former, and 22,000 tons, brought from much longer
distances, by the latter Company. The London and North-Western brought
about 6000 tons, the principal part of which was salmon from Scotland and
Ireland. The Great Western also brought about 4000 tons, partly salmon,
but the greater part mackerel from the south-west coast. During the
mackerel season, as much as a hundred tons at a time are brought into the
Paddington Station by express fish-train from Cornwall.
The Great Eastern and Great Northern Companies are also the principal
carriers of turkeys, geese, fowls, and game; the quantity delivered in
London by the former Company having been 5042 tons. In Christmas week no
fewer than 30,000 turkeys and geese were delivered at the Bishopsgate
Station, besides about 300 tons of poultry, 10,000 barrels of beer, and
immense quantities of fish, oysters, and other kinds of food. As much as
1600 tons of poultry and game were brought last year by the South-Western
Railway; 600 tons by the Great Northern Railway; and 130 tons of turkeys,
geese, and fowls, by the London, Chatham and Dover line, principally from
France.
Of miscellaneous articles, the Great Northern and the Midland each
brought about 3000 tons of cheese, the South-Western 2600 tons, and the
London and North-Western 10,034 cheeses in number; while the
South-Western and Brighton lines brought a splendid contribution to the
London breakfast-table in the shape of 11,259 _tons_ of French eggs;
these two Companies delivering between them an average of more than three
millions of eggs a week all the year round! The same Companies delivered
in London 14,819 tons of butter, for the most part the produce of the
farms of Normandy,—the greater cleanness and neatness with which the
Normandy butter is prepared for market rendering it a favourite both with
dealers and consumers of late years compared with Irish butter. The
London, Chatham and Dover Company also brought from Calais 96 tons of
eggs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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