INLAND FISHERIES. 23 



hereby empowered and directed, in the month of March or April 

 annuall}', to choose three or more persons in each town respective!}', 

 being freeholders within the same, as a committee, who shall take an 

 oath to the faithful discharge of his or their dut}' ; and the said com- 

 mittee, or the major part of them, shall have power to cause the 

 natural course of the said streams through which the said fish pass, 

 to be kept open, and without obstruction, and to remove all such 

 obstructions as may be found therein, and to make the passage-ways 

 wider or deeper if they shall find it necessar}' ; and the committee, or 

 a major part of them, shall have authority' for such purposes, to go on 

 the laud of any person through which the said Ten and Three-Mile 

 Rivers run, without being considered as a trespasser or trespassers ; 

 and an}' person who shall hinder the said committee, or either of 

 them, in the execution of the business of his or their office, or who 

 shall obstruct an}' -.passage-way in the said rivers, otherwise than 

 may be allowed by the said committee, he or they shall forfeit and 

 pay a fine not exceeding the sum of fifteen pounds, nor less than five 

 pounds. 



Sect. 2. Be it further enacted. That the said committee, or a major 

 part of them, at any meeting by them duly notified, shall be and 

 hereby are authorized and empowered to open any dam or sluice-way 

 of any mill erected, or that may be erected on, over or across the said 

 rivers, at the expense of the owner or owners of such dam, provided 

 such owner or owners shall neglect to open the same when they are 

 required by said committee ; and the said dam or dams, or sluice-way 

 or Avays, so opened, shall continue open to such width and depth, and 

 for such length of time betwixt the first day of April and the last day 

 of May annually, as the major part of the said committee shall judge 

 necessary ; and in case any person or persons shall be found to 

 obstruct the passage-ways allowed or ordered by the said committee 

 in any dam or sluice, such person or persons so offending shall forfeit 

 and pay a fine not exceeding the sum of ten pounds, nor less than five 

 pounds. 



Sect. 3. Be it further enacted^ That all penalties incurred by a 

 breach of this act may be sued for and recovered in any court in the 

 county of Bristol proper to try the same ; and all sums so recovered 

 or forfeited by a breach of this act, shall be appropriated, one moiety 

 thereof to the prosecutor or prosecutors, and the other moiety thereof 

 to the use of the poor in such town where the offence is committed ; 

 and no person, by reason of his being one of the said committee or an 

 inhabitant of either of said towns, shall thereby be disqualified from 

 being a witness in any prosecution for a breach of this act. — [March 

 10, 1788. 



[Repealed as regards Three-Mile River Sp. Laws, vol. 1, p. 287.] 



