not disturb salmon when spawning, or their
spawning-bed, or wilfully disturb or injure or
destroy the young of salmon, or obstruct their
movements, or buy them or sell them.  Except
for scientific purposes.  It shall be unlawful
to fish for salmon from the first of September
until the first of February, except that during
the September and October of that close time,
they may be fished for with a rod and line
Between the third of September and the
second of February, it shall be unlawful to buy
or sell salmon unless cured, pickled, dried, or
imported fresh from abroad.  During this close
time all fixed engines for intercepting salmon
are to be removed.  In the fishing season also
there shall be a weekly close time.  From
twelve at noon on Saturday till six o'clock
on Monday morning, there shall be no salmon
fishing lawful except that with rod and line;
and during the weekly close time a free passage
of not less than four feet shall be left through
every crib or trap.

The Home Office superintends the operation
of this act, and appoints two inspectors of
fisheries, who make yearly reports to parliament.
Finally, justices at sessions have power to
appoint conservators or overseers of rivers, for the
preservation of the salmon, by enforcing the
provisions of this act; in which there are many
more words and a few more provisions, but of
which we have here given the essence.

The actual result of this act has been everywhere
good, and in some places good beyond
expectation, seeing all the drawback there still
was on the establishing of right relations
between men and salmon.  As there is a time
before corn harvest during which the earth is
yielding her increase, so there is a time also
before salmon harvest during which the water
yields its increase; costing no rent of land, no
labour to those who shall gather, and, when
respected, leaving a rich harvest-time that lasts
for more than half the year.  But, with the
increase of fish, there has been increase also in the
number of the fishers.  In its natural and honest
sense that only means revival of a decayed
calling, and the opening of a new field of
occupation to the many thousands who have bread
to earn.  If, therefore, the new race of fishers
would fish fairly, everybody must rejoice to see
their numbers rising every year in proportion to
the rising numbers of the salmon who frequent
our streams.  But they do not fish fairly.  On
the upper waters of most of our salmon rivers,
the proprietors have in most cases formed
associations for protection of the fisheries,
subscribing annual sums for payment of a watcher,
for erecting fish-runs where there are barriers
to the passage of the fish, and for like acts of
prudence.  They themselves catch only a few
fish with the rod and line.  Fifty or a hundred
are caught in the tidal waters for every one that
is caught in the upper streams.  But as they
found that the result of all their labours was
mainly the enrichment of hundreds of reckless
fishers in the lower streams, who do much to
spoil the fishery, while they take all they can
seize and do not pay a farthing towards protection
and improvement of the stream, it is no wonder
that the zeal of those associations should decay.

Fairly to watch and protect a salmon river,
to incur the cost of putting up fish ladders
wherever they are needed, to induce or compel
all the millers and factory owners who have use
of the stream to avoid unlawful pollutions or
obstructions, costs both trouble and money.
More trouble under the act of 'sixty-one than
under the new arrangements now becoming
law.  In the Taw and Torridge rivers the last
salmon act caused owners of land on the upper
streams to subscribe liberally, and employ their
keepers in aid of the general protection of the
waters.  The fish had been barred out, but a
way up for them had been made by fish ladders,
and there are now in those rivers four salmon
for every one there used to be.  But a hundred
men in the estuary draw their profit from the
increased harvest of fish, pay nothing towards
its protection, and even grumble that they may
not get more by fishing longer, though it is this
natural limitation of the fishing time, and care
of the breed of fish, that has given to these
men the livelihoods they now enjoy. Seeing
and hearing this, the voluntary subscribers for
protection of the river slackened in their zeal,
and the annual subscriptions have fallen from a
hundred and thirty pounds to thirty.  The only
fair thing to be done is to make every one who
profits by a salmon fishery contribute in his just
proportion a small sum towards the fund that
will secure its adequate protection.  That has
been the system in Ireland for the last seven
years or more, and that is the system now to be
introduced in England.  The Severn Association,
from their practical knowledge of the funds
necessary to good maintaining of the fishery and of
the nature and extent of the fisher population,
have suggested a fair scale of contribution in
the form of licenses, from five pounds for the
use of a weir trap, to a pound upon each salmon
rod, and half-a-crown apiece for putts.

But there are salmon streams, like those of
Yorkshire, so long barred by insurmountable
dams, and otherwise damaged, that their fisheries
are all but extinct, and there are not fishermen
enough from whom to raise a fund for their
re-annexation to the domains of King Salmon.
Reclamation there can be only by a frontage
rate on property upon their banks, not as a
substitute for the license duty, but as a rate in aid,
whenever two-thirds or three-fourths of the
proprietary on the river agree that it is
necessary, and that it shall be levied.

The act of 'sixty-one saved all existing rights
on streams and tidal waters, and a host of new
claimants of rights have set up what are called
"fixed engines," made lawful by no charter or
immemorial usage.  It was costly and difficult
to bring such cases into the law courts.  It was
proposed, therefore, that a more recent Irish
example should be followed, by constituting an
English Commission of Inquiry for the examimtion
of all claims, establishment of rights, and
destruction of illegal erections.  This is