Mr. Irvine (3623) says the prices of last year leave only 40s. per ton to the curer, out of which he has to pay store rent, weighing, skippers' fees, gratuities to fishermen, and to meet loss by small and damaged fish, and of interest and risk. The total quantity of cod, ling, and hake landed from open boats and cured in Shetland in the year ending 31st December 1871, according to the returns made to the Fisheries Board, was 46,391 cwt. If we suppose that the expenses which are to be paid out of the fishcurers' 2s. per cwt. amount to 6d. per cwt., there remains a sum of £3479, 6s. 8d., as the total profit earned by thirty-seven fish-curers and fish-curing firms. If we suppose that these expenses absorb 1s. of this surplus, then the total profit amounts only to £2319, 11s. It may be observed, however that other sources of profit are open to these fish-curers. All of them have shops, in which the aggregate credit sales to fishermen amounted in the year 1871 (from settlement to settlement) to probably £14,000. A considerable amount of cash transactions, and sales of goods for butter and eggs, also take place at their counters; and many of them deal in cattle and kelp, and are engaged in the Faroe fishing. With all these sources of income, however, it is difficult to believe that no larger direct profit per cent. is earned from so complicated and hazardous a business as the ling fishing. STOCK SOLD TO MERCHANTS Next to fish, cattle sold form the largest and most common credit in the account of the fisherman farmer, although this is not, like fish, an indispensable item in the account. Cattle, ponies, sheep, and pigs, are an important part of the Shetlander's means, and they, like the rest of his saleable produce, are generally purchased by the merchant, who buys all that leaves the country, from a whale to an egg, and sells everything that the country people want, from a boll of meal or a suit of clothes to a darning-needle. The stock goes into the account, and is settled for at the yearly settlement. There is a custom throughout the country of holding public sales twice, sometimes four times in the year 'for the benefit of the tenant' as a witness puts it' but also for the benefit of the landlords and merchants. The sales are managed by the proprietor of the estate for which they are held, or by his tacksman or factor, and the prices of all the animals sold are paid, under the conditions of sale, into his hands. He has thus, just as in purchasing the fish of his tenants, an opportunity of retaining what is due to him for rent, and of making effectual his hypothec, or rather of avoiding the necessity of enforcing it at all. No cases have been alleged or proved in which advantage has been taken by proprietors or merchants of the power given them by their position, or by the indebtedness of tenants, for the purpose of getting cattle at low prices; and, indeed, the publicity of these sales