To the Editor of "The Times."

The attempt which is now making to amend the laws relating to the
Salmon fisheries, appears to run such a great risk of failure,
from the opposition of interested persons, that I think a short
sketch of the defects of the present laws and their effects on the
breed of fish, and a comparison of them with the proposed
amendment, may be interesting to some of your readers, and may,
perhaps, induce some influential gentlemen to throw their
influence into the right scale, in the approaching discussion on
this subject.

The Salmon fisheries in former times appear to have supplied food
for a large portion of the people, as there are still traditions
current on the banks of various rivers in the north, that the
indentures of apprenticeship always stipulated that the apprentice
should not be compelled to eat Salmon more frequently than three
days a week, and however exaggerated this story may appear at the
present day, I hope to succeed in showing that it is neither
improbable that it has been so, nor impossible that it may be so
again,--if good laws are made for their protection, and these laws
are properly enforced. At present there is no doubt the fisheries
are rapidly declining, and in some rivers which used to have a
good many Salmon in them, and which used to swarm with Smolts (or
fry) in the spring within my remembrance, they are now rarely
seen. To show their scarcity I may mention a circumstance which
occurred in the Wharfe, which was formerly one of the finest
rivers in Yorkshire for Salmon. A few years ago a pair of Salmon
were seen on a spawning bed in the Wharfe, about forty miles from