Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/88

76 ⌊about the year 1818, and created quite a sensation.

Fire Insurance Companies.—The Birmingham dates Us establishment from March 1805. All the companies now in existence are more or less represented here by agents, and no one need be uninsured long, as their offices are so thick on the ground round Bennet's Hill and Colmore Row, that it has been seriously suggested the latter thoroughfare should be rechristened and be called Insurance Street. It was an agent who had the assurance to propose the change.

Fish.—In April, 1838, a local company was floated for the purpose of bringing fish from London and Liverpool. It began swimmingly, but fish didn't swim to Birmingham, and though several other attempts have been made to form companies of similar character, the trade has been kept altogether in private, hands, and to judge from the sparkling rings to be seen on the hands of the ladies who condescend to sell us our matutinal bloaters in the Market Hall, the business is a pretty good one—and who dare say those dames de salle are not also pretty and good? The supply of fish to this town, as given by the late Mr. Hanman, averaged from 50 to 200 tons per day (one day in June, 1879, 238 tons came from Grimsby alone) or, each in its proper season, nearly as follows:— Mackerel, 2,000 boxes of about 2 cwt. each; herrings, 2,000 barrels of 1 cwt. each; salmon, 400 boxes of 2 cwt, each; lobsters, 15 to 20 barrels of 1 cwt. each; crabs, 50 to 60 barrels of 1 cwt. each; plaice, 1,500 packages of 2 cwt, each; codfish, 200 barrels of 2 cwt. each; conger eels, 20 barrels of 2 cwt. each; skate, 10 to 20 barrels of 2 cwt. each.—See "Markets."

Fishing.— There is very little scope for the practice of Isaac Walton's craft near to Birmingham, and lovers of the gentle art must go farther afield to meet with good sport. The only spots within walking distance are the pools at Aston Park and Lower Grounds, at Aston Tavern, at Bournbrook Hotel (or, as it is better known, Kirby's), and at Pebble Mill, in most of which may be found perch, roach, carp, and pike. At Pebble Mill. March 20, last year, a pike was captured 40 inches long, and weighing 22lbs., but that was a finny rarity, and not likely to be met with there again, as the pool (so long the last resort of suicidally inclined mortals is to be filled up. A little farther off are waters at Sarehole, at Yardley Wood, and the reservoir at King's Norton, but with these exceptions anglers must travel to their destinations by rail. There is good fishing at Sutton Coldfield. Barnt Green (for reservoir at Tardebigge). Alcester. Shustoke. Salford Priors, and other places within a score of miles, but free fishing nowhere. Anyone desirous of real sport should join the Birmingham and Midland Piscatorial Association (established June, 1878), which rents portions of the river Trent and other waters. This society early in 1880, tried their hands at artificial salmon-hatching, one of the tanks of the aquarium at Aston Lower Grounds being placed at their disposal. They were successful in bringing some thousand or more of their interesting protegees from the ova into fish shape, but we cannot find the market prices for salmon or trout at all reduced.

Fishmongers' Hall.—Not being satisfied with the accommodation provided for them in the Fish Market, the Fish and Game Dealers' Association, at their first annual meeting (Feb. 13, 1878), proposed to erect a Fishmongers' Hall, but they did not carry out their intention.

Flogging.—In "the good old days," when George the Third was King, it was not very uncommon for malefactors to be flogged through the streets, tied to the tail end of a cart. In 1786 several persons, who had been sentenced at the Assizes, were brought back here and so whipped through