310 
THE PISHING GAZETTE 
[April 29, 1893 
THE PROPOSED THA^I ES EYE-LAWS. 
The following very important discussion took 
place at the Berkshire County Council on Satur¬ 
day last, on a motion by Mr. H. \V. Russell, the 
chairman of the Maidenhead, Cookham, and Bray 
Angling Association, in the terms of the resolu¬ 
tion passed by the Reading and other town 
councils, as reported in the Fishing Gazette ot the 
15th inst. It will be seen from Mr. A^an de 
Weyer’s statement that the Conservators have 
made up their minds to abandon the objectionable 
netting bye-law. This is indeed good news for 
Thames anglers. 
Mr. Russell said he had no idea of interfering 
with the existing rights of property. The riparian 
owners were quite able to take care of their own 
interests. No bye-laws, and no action of that 
council, could in any way interfere with their 
proprietary rights, and he should be the last 
person to suggest such an idea. Every interest 
was represented on the Board of Thames Conser¬ 
vancy, but the interest of the general public. All 
the Upper Thames Conservators were riparian 
owners, and it was not therefore remarkable, but 
on the contrary, wholly natural, that when they 
were making new bjm-laws they should be to a 
certain extent biassed, not in the interests of 
those who used the river, but in their own 
interests. Feeling that, the enormous number of 
anglers who used the Thames had wished him 
and others to bring the question forward, and 
men who knew about it even more than he 
knew about it himself were convinced that the 
proposed bye-laws were capable of being turned 
to the detriment—nay, to the destruction—of the 
efforts which associations had been making for 
many years. Under those circumstances he felt 
quite certain that the council would come to 
the assistauce of anglers. (Cheers.) 
Mr. C. W. Cox said as an old Thames angler he 
seconded the motion. If the proposed bye-law 
were passed it would practically annihilaie the 
sport and pleasure of hundreds and thousands 
of London and local anglers. (Cheers.) 
Alderman Van de Weyer said he thought he 
could throw some light upon the subject. He 
was a friend of all fishing and also a friend to 
anglers, and belonged to the association of which 
Mr. Russell was chairman. On the other hand 
he was one of those dangerous persons—a fishery 
owner, and also a member of the Thames Con¬ 
servancy Board. It never was the intention of 
the Conservancy Board in any way to add to the 
privileges which the owners already had. They 
appointed a sub-committee to revise the fishery 
bye-laws,l and he supposed in trying to make 
them explicit they made them ambiguous. At 
any rate the new bye-laws aroused a considerable 
amount of suspicion. He attended a meeting of 
the Conservancy Board last Monday, and he did 
not think he was indiscreet in saying the opinion 
of the board was unanimous that no rights were 
to be conferred by the new bye-laws in excess of 
those already possessed by fishery owners. They 
felt that considerable doubt had arisen in the 
minds of the various fishery associations and 
others, and so they did what they thought about 
the best thing they could do—referred those ob¬ 
noxious bye-laws back to a sub-committee, con¬ 
sisting of one or two riparian owners, and added 
to them one or two perfectly independent and un¬ 
biassed members of the board, in order that 
they might see what the wording of the bye-laws 
really meant. The instructions to that sub-com¬ 
mittee were to go into the whole matter of those 
bye-laws with their legal advisers; but if there 
was anything in them that in their opinion gave 
additional powers those bye-laws were to be so 
amended that it should be made clear to the mind 
of any fair person that matters were left in statu 
quo. There was no intention of having bye-laws 
other than those already existing. The report of 
that committee the Conservators had not yet had 
before them, but he could assure his friend Mr. 
Russell that when they had the report of that 
committee no action would be taken upon it by 
way of sending the bye-laws to the Privy Council 
until he and his friends had had ample opportu¬ 
nity of considering them and making comments 
upon them. 
Alderman Sir George Russell, Bart., Q.C., M.P., 
said he should like to say a few' words in view of 
the statement of his friend Alderman A'an de 
Weyer. He (Sir George) had given notice of a 
similar motion. He, of course, fully accepted 
what Mr. Van de AV'eyer had said, and he had no 
doubt whatever there was no intention on the 
part of the conservators to do anything which 
would be injurious to the angling interests. But 
they all knew what “ intentions ” were, and they 
all knew they were the pavement of a particular 
place. Whatever the rights of the riparian 
owners might be, and whether there was an 
interference with those rights or not he did not 
pretend to say, but certainly and unquestionably 
the new bye-law was highly prejudicial to the 
angling interest, as compared with the bye-law 
it sought to replace (hear, hear). He would 
suggest to those representing the persons 
interested in angling, and the innocent enjoy¬ 
ment of the river, that after what Mr. Van de 
AVeyer had said as representing the Thames 
Conservancy, the resolution might possibly be 
adjourned, to be re-moved, if necessary, at the 
next meeting of the council. If a satisfactory 
arrangement was not arrived at in the meanwhile 
that resolution would certainly be re-moved, and, 
as he hoped, carried, at the next council meeting. 
(Cheers.) 
Captain Loder-Symonds said he should ex¬ 
ceedingly regret anything being done to injure 
in any way the angling in the river, which was, 
in his opinion, a matter of very much greater 
importance than any net fishing could possibly 
be nowadays. The cheap supply of sea fish had 
completely destroyed the value of the Thames 
fisheries from a commercial point of view. After 
what had fallen from Alderman Van de Weyer, he 
supported Sir George Russell’s suggestion. 
Mr. T. F. Wells said he had consulted his friends 
in the Wallingford district, and found they would 
prefer the old existing bye-laws to remain un¬ 
touched. It would be a great pity if anything 
should be done to take away from anglers their 
fascinating sport. He hoped anything which 
brought large numbers of visitors to the towns 
and rivers on the Thames would increase, and 
netting be scarcely allowed at all. (Cheers.) 
Mr. H. AV. Russell said with the pledge that if 
they consented to an adjournment of the question 
that day, they would not suffer by having those 
new bye-laws made law in the interim, he would 
ask the council to allow the resolution to be 
adjourned. (Hoar, hear.) 
©eat!) of tljc Prisiient of 
^nsUng ^ocicto. 
It is with much regret we have to announce 
the death of the beloved and esteemed presi¬ 
dent of the Highbury Angling Society, Mr. 
J. E. AVheatley. Mr. AVheatley was the oldest 
and most respected member of the society, 
being one of its founders close on thirty years 
ago. There is not a member who does not 
profoundly mourn his loss, he having gained 
their love from his unvarying kindness to all, 
and the energy he, through all these years, 
placed at the disposal of the members. 
He is interred in Highgate Cemetery, and 
the members have sent a beautiful wreath, to 
mark, in a slight way, their high regard for 
the dear departed friend and president. 
STRAY CASTS. 
Br Mona. 
Although the contemptuous indifference to his 
woes, which is invariably exhibited by the Philis¬ 
tine, sometimes severely tries the temper of the 
angler, he yet has got his consolation in the 
reflection that the existence of Philistinism and 
indifference alone renders his sport possible. 
AAYre all to find “salvation,” and fly to share the 
angler’s joys, what would become of us ? As 
the historian now tells of such and such a person¬ 
age that he fought and gained so many pitched 
battles in Flanders or elsewhere; of another that 
he was Prime Minister so many years, and was 
the father of certain epoch-making legislation. 
kSo the historian of the future would tell of some 
world-renowned magnate that he was known to 
kill as many as six trout in a single season, some 
even on the jhj ! Indeed, there is ample scops in 
the reflection I suggest for some Lytton to give 
us a new “ Coming Race ” from the point of 
view of the universality of the angling fever, in 
which we should read of break-neck rushes to 
some distant and almost inaccessible water, only 
to be reached by balloon, where, it was whispered, 
a trout was suspected to have once shown him¬ 
self. A: es, nothing that we have heard of—the 
race for the gold fields of California or Victoria— 
could rival the possibilities of this angling future. 
Now, fortunately, most ot us can pursue our 
gentle pastime undisturbed, subject to nothing 
worse than a mild suspicion on the part of the 
outsider of our complete sanity and fitness to be 
entrusted with any of the serious responsibilities 
of life. Ab, fools and blind! How little they 
suspect what the serious business of life really is. 
But let sleeping dogs lie. 
The most noticeable feature of Ireland at 
present is not the extraordinary and abnormal 
stillness of the political atmosphere, a stillness 
the most profound and unbroken that any 
country has ever experienced, but rather the 
decay of trout fishing. If we seem to have made 
what looks perhaps like the smallest possible 
excursion into the region of politics, the propriety 
of our action will not be questioned, we hope, 
when it is maintained that the decay of trout 
fishing is not very remotely connected with 
politics. In the first place, let me ask whether 
the reader ever watched a house on fire in which 
there were a few barrels of gunpowder ? If so, 
did he do anything but watch and watch in 
breathless fascination for what was coming, 
utterly oblivious for the time of all things else 
in heaven or earth ? Fancy a man talking about 
the weather, or his bad cold, under such circum¬ 
stances ! AVell, the tension of breathless expec¬ 
tation is here, and all eyes are riveted on one 
approaching event. The poacher may take his 
fish under the gaze of an army of constabulary 
and bailiffs in peace. They don’t see him. Their 
eyes are fixed elsewhere, though they seem to be 
staring at him. Certainly your poacher has 
never been cruelly harassed over here, to give 
his natural enemies their due, but the present 
are his real halcyon days. Query; AVhat if 
they should be his last? But the poacher 
is, after all, a small matter. The decay 
of fishing is attributable mainly to im¬ 
provements in farming operations. AA'e must 
call these things “ improvements,” of course, but 
let that pass. AA^e bow to the will of the majority, 
even in the matter of phraseology. What are we 
and our poor interests ? Did ever writer tracing 
the rise and progress of the prosperity of 
Glasgow, for instance, think it worth his while 
to remark, incidentally, that this boasted pros¬ 
perity was accompanied with the poisoning of the 
Clyde, and the utter destruction of the trout¬ 
fishing ? Certainly not. Have we not got a few 
thousand grimy factory-formed men and women 
(bless the mark) in its stead, and what more do 
we want ? In Ireland, of course, we cannot quite 
come up to this ; but even now there is a talk of 
factories in the air, and when the limpid waters 
of Killarney shall reek with the abominations of 
some chemical dye-works, or the like, your 
political economists will call upon us to sing 
anthems of rejoicing accordingly. Meantime we 
have done a little, a very little, truly; but “ suflS- 
cient unto the day,” &c. Farmers, in the first 
place, have made great changes in their 
methods of drainage during the last quarter 
of a century. Zig-zag drains and ditches, in 
the elbows of which water lay for months after 
rain, and slowly trickled into streamlets and 
brooks, have been made straight and regular, and 
of uniform depth. Except for an hour or two 
after heavy rain they are dry, and yield nothing 
to the neighbouring attenuated brook, which 
itself has suffered (p) in the same way. Marsh 
and bog, which once held water like a sponge, and 
formed perennial reservoirs for ample trout- 
streams, are firm upland and yield to the plough. 
Our water-sheds are becoming veritable roofs, 
down which the rain rushes, and is quickly back 
to its parent ocean. The aquatic vegetation, the 
habitat of that insect life which forms the food- 
supply of fish, is gone. The permanent surface- 
water has sadly shrunk. River margins, where 
cattle at present graze undisturbed in the highest 
