SALMON— AS FOOD FOR APPRENTICES. 113 



have been, whether salted fish wore roferrccl to as has been supposed, or whether 

 this prohibition was introduced after the Crusades, because badly salted fish 

 predisposes to leprosy (as it most undoubtedly does), we have now but little 

 evidence to foil back upon. It has also been advanced that this regulation 

 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 prohilnted by British 

 Legislators from being used by the rebellious Irish for food so early as 1G45,* it is 



at Ncwcastlc-on-Tyne, " when a boy, from about the year 17C0 to 17G7, I was frequently sent by 

 my parents to the fishermen at Eltringham Ford to purchase a sahnon. I was always told not 

 to pay twopence a pound, and I commonly paid only a penny, and sometimes three halfpence, 

 before or perhaps about this time. I have been told that an article had been always inserted in 

 every indenture of apprenticeship in Newcastle that the apprentices were not to be ^forced to eat 

 salmon above twice a week, and the same bargain was made with common servants." 



I may here allude to the evidence of Mr. Little on this point, given to the Parliamentary 

 Committee, in 1824 ; he remarked, " I have been told, from inquiring of people with respect to the 

 fishings in the Severn, that the salmon were formerly very abundant all along the Bristol Channel 

 —so much so that in the apprentices' indentures it was a clause that they should not be fed with 

 salmon more than two days in the week " (p. 134). , , ,, ^ 



Murdo :\Iackenzie, ISfiO, in Salmon Fisheries of Scotland, p. 6, also remarked that " servants 

 of farmers used to stipulate with their masters that they should not be obliged to eat salmon 

 except on a certain number of days in the week." ■, , • ^ ^■ 



In the Rejyort of the Salmon Commission, 18G0, it was observed, "We heard also m every locahty 

 that we visited that it was in former times a condition commonly made in indentures of apprentice- 

 ship that the apprentice should not be obliged to dine on salmon more than twice or three times 

 a week. We endeavoured to obtain a sight of one of these instruments but without success, though 

 we met with persons who stated they had seen them, and the universal prevalence of the tradition 

 seems to justify belief in it" (p. vi). . , . . 



Mr. Partridge, j.p., when giving evidence before the Commissioners appointed to inquire into 

 Salmon Fisheries in 18G0, observed " that in all the indentures of apprenticeship of the period 

 there was a stipulation that the apprentices should not eat fish more than so many times a week. 

 You will find that in the Hereford charter and in many other places" (p. 41). 



In M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce, 1869, we read that "within the memory of many 

 now living, salted salmon formed a material article of household economy m all the farmhouses 

 in the Vale of Tweed, inasmuch that indoor servants used to stipulate that they should not be 

 obliged to take more than two weekly meals of salmon. What is true of Tweedside might also be 

 so of any other salmon-producing district ; and I have just heard, on the authority of a lady lately 

 residing near Nairn, that similar stipulations were made in her father's house in that neighbour- 

 hood within her own recollection. Although such agreements were, in the case of domestic 

 servants, probably never committed to writing, and perhaps rarely even in that of articles of 

 apprenticeship, it seems not improbable that a custom apparently so common might be incident- 

 ally referred to in the correspondence of that period. An examination of the rich collection at 

 Dunrobin Castle has as yet, however, furnished no evidence, save indirectly, in connection with 

 the cheapness of the commodity in question, which seems to have been occasionally sold at less 

 than a penny a pound." . . , i <,-n i ^i 



In Kidd's Companion to Southampton and the Isle of Wight, it is observed, " Formerly the 

 salmon fishery was carried on here (Southampton) with much success, and a few of them are still 

 occasionally taken. So abundant was the supply that farm servants and apprentices used to 

 stipulate with their masters that they should not have salmon for dinner more than twice a 



A gentleman writing to me from France in 1884 observed, " The story of the apprentice not 

 being compelled to eat salmon more than thrice a week I found current on both the Rhine and 

 the Elbe, showing that the decrease of salmon is general." 



I have also been informed by a German lady that in and near the towns of Schlawe and Stolpe, 

 in Eastern Pomerania, situated not far from the sea and on the banks of the rivers Stolpe and 

 Wipper, servants of both sexes at the annual hiring before 1850 invariably stipulated that they 

 should not have meals of salmon more than three times a week. This fish was served to them 

 fresh and very rarely cured. But by the year 1854 this stipulation began to be no longer 

 observed, as the price had risen to 5d per pound, flounders to four a penny, and herrings to 

 from six to twelve for a Ud. Prices after this rapidly increased, salmon rising to 8d a pound, 

 and flounders to two for U^d. About 1860 a disease broke out among the fishes along the coast, 

 proving very fatal to salmon and flounders. About this period the Government stopped all sea 

 fishing for four seasons, or two years, consequently the only fish in the markets were those from 

 inland lakes. Salmon since 1860 have risen to such prices that they are out of the reach of any 

 but the richer classes, having become a luxury, while their size has much decreased. From 1860, 

 due to the diminution in the number of these fish, their capture has become a lottery, and the 

 Jews have contracted with the fishermen for their takes, which they smoke, pickle, or otherwise 

 cure, and now their very entrails fetch from 2d to 3d a fish. 



* See page 98 ante. „ 



o 



