SALMONID^E. 71 



myself to such figures as appear reliable. The returns of the number of boxes 

 averaging 112 lb. each sent to Billingsgate Market (Young, British Industries, 

 p. 299), and divided into quinquenial periods, give the following annual 

 average results : 



1847-51. 1852-56. 1857-61. 1862-66. 1867-71. 1872-76. 1877-81. 



English and Welsh 56 85 333 860 1,079 1,220 1,330 



Scotch- - - 18,372 17,872 16,850 22,086 23,110 26,775 24,214 

 Irish - - - 4,218 5,131 4,911 8,130 6,858 6,626 5,942 



The annual value of the British salmon fisheries has been estimated as follows : 

 England 100,000, Scotland 250,000, Ireland* 400,000. 



It has been questioned whether the amount of salmon in our rivers is really- 

 much less than was formerly the case. It can be shown that they have been 

 exterminated from the Stour, the Itchen, the Medway, the Avon, and the 

 Thamesf in England. In Scotland, the Fifeshire Leven no longer contains salmon, 

 in the Tay district the Almond, Ericht and Dighty are ruined from pollutions, 

 and many other rivers are greatly injured. While stopping pollutions has been 

 found so difficult and expensive, that the polluters appear to have it all their 

 own way. 



Mr. Blake, in 1874, writing of his Irish district, extending from Wicklow 

 Head to Rossan Point, says that due to pollutions nearly every river in the 

 county Down has been destroyed as a salmon producer. One reason which 

 has been advanced as a proof of the diminution in the supply of those rivers 

 which still contain salmon is stated to be (and likewise denied) that formerly in 

 indentures of apprenticeship a proviso was usually inserted that the apprentice 

 should not be compelled to eat salmon more than three days a week. It has been 

 advanced that this regulation, if it ever existed, may have been for the purpose 

 of preventing masters giving their apprentices " kelts " as food, which are readily 

 captured after spawning and might have been salted down. This seems very 

 unlikely, for if kelts were prohibited by British Legislators from being used 

 by the rebellious Irish as food (see p. 62) so early as 1645, it is improbable 

 they would have permitted masters in England feeding their servants upon them. 

 That such prohibitions were not unknown in other countries can be demonstrated, 

 thus in Eastern Pomerania on the River Oder and its affluents, the monastic 

 accounts show that a regulation was in force prohibiting salmon being given 

 as food more than three days in a week (Gadow). 



In Notes and Queries for May, 1857, the following quotation is given from 

 Coursell's History of Gloucester, " It was a standing condition of apprenticeship 

 that the apprentice should not be obliged to eat salmon more than thrice a week, 

 the object being to render him less liable to the leprosy, which after the crusades 

 in the Middle Ages was a formidable disease, that was supposed to be brought on 

 or aggravated by the eating of fish." In a History of Worcester (1808, p. 48) 

 the existence of this proviso is asserted as a well known fact. Mr. Rowell (Land 

 and Water, July 16th, 1881) observes that this stipulation existed in the north 

 as may be shown in a very old history of Newcastle, written during the last 

 century, when salmon were taken there in amazing quantities. The Cromwellian 

 trooper, Captain Franks, writing of Stirling remarked that " the burgomasters, 

 as in many other parts of Scotland, are compelled to reinforce an ancient statute, 

 that commands all masters and others not to force or compel any servant or 

 an apprentice to feed upon salmon more than thrice a week." At Inverness a 

 century later Burt tells us salmon sold at one penny a pound. 



But we are reminded that it is difficult to compare the price charged a 



* In 1879 Ireland exported to England 45,039 boxes of salmon, each averaging 150 lb. weight; 

 and 50,517 in 1880. . 



f We are informed that for several centuries a tithe of Thames salmon had been claimed and 

 allowed to the Abbot of St. Peter's at Westminster, on the plea that when St. Peter (according to 

 the legend) came and consecrated that church, he promised the fisherman who ferried him across 

 the river a plentiful supply of fish provided he ceased fishing on Sundays and gave a tithe ol 

 his captures to the Abbot. This was paid until 1382 and then stopped, and this is said to 

 be doubtless the reason why the last salmon was killed in 1833 ! 



