THE APPRENTICES' SALMON
Slll,—In his review of Thi Food of the People, in the Spectator of July 29th, Sir jack Drummond refers to the regulations which are sup- posed to have prevented craftsmen from offering salmon to their appren- tices more than a certain number of days a week. Austin Dobson, in his Thomas Bewick and his Pupils (1899), writes: " Bewick boarded with Mr. Beilby this master in Newcastle upon Tyne], and, after the fashion of those days, attended him to divine service twice every Sunday; prob-
ably carrying the Prayer Book, groomed his brother's horse and made him- self generally useful, not omitting, doubtless, to abstain carefully from the aver-abundant Tyne salmon which (as per indenture) the apprentice of the period was not obliged to eat more than twice a week." Bewick himself narrates that when a boy he was frequently sent by his parents to the fisherman at Eltringham ford to buy a salmon. He was always desired not to pay 2d. per lb., and commonly paid only Id. Thomas Bewick, the reviver of the art of wood-engraving, was born in 1753 and died in 1828.
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