important influence on the value of our salmon-fisheries, was made by a country gentleman of Scotland, Mr. Dempster of Dunnichen, in the year 1780. Steamboat and railway transit, when they became general, at once converted salmon into a valuable commodity; and such is now the demand, from facility of transport, that this particular fish, from its great individual value, has been lately in some danger of being exterminated through the greed of the fishery tenants; indeed, it cannot be said that it is yet safe, for every tenant thinks it legitimate to kill all the fish he can see. The network of railways which now encircles the land has conferred upon our inland towns, so far as fish is concerned, all the advantages of the coast. For instance, the fishermen of Prestonpans send more of their fish to Manchester than to Edinburgh, which is only nine miles distant: indeed our most landward cities are comparatively well supplied with fresh fish and crustacea, while at the seaside these delicacies are not at all plentiful. The Newhaven fishwife is a common visitant in many of our larger Scottish inland towns, being able by means of the railway to take a profitable journey; indeed, one consequence of the extension of our railways has undoubtedly been to add enormously to the demand for sea produce, and to excite the ingenuity of our seafaring population to still greater cunning and industry in the capture of all kinds of fish. In former years, when a large haul of fish was taken there was no means of despatching them to a distance, neither was there a resident population to consume what was caught. Railways not being then in existence, the conveyance inland was too slow for a perishable commodity like fish, and visitors to the seaside were also rarer than at present. The want of a population to eat the fish no doubt aided the comfortable delusion of our supplies being inexhaustible. But it is now an undoubted fact, that with railways branching out to every pier and quay, our densely-populated inland towns are better supplied with fish than the villages where they are caught—a result of that keen competition which has at length become so noticeable where fish, oysters, or other sea delicacies are concerned. The high prices now obtained form an inducement to the fishermen to take from the water all they can get, whether the fish be ripe for food or not. A practical fisherman, whom I have often consulted on these topics, says that forty years ago the slow system of carriage was a sure preventive of overfishing, as fish, to be valuable for table purposes, require to be fresh. “It’s the railways that has done all the mischief, sir, depend on that; and as for the fishing, sir, it’s going on at such a rate that there will very soon be a complete famine. I’ve seen more fish caught in a day, sir, with a score of hooks on a line than can now be got with eight thousand!” [Illustration]