BEFORE THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 128 



by lights and then speared, a practice which is 

 called burning the river. Fry are also killed at 



NOTES. 



said so much on this subject already as to render it unne- 

 cessary to add more. Power once possessed, is so fre- 

 quently abused, that it is at all times a dangerous and 

 formidable weapon in the hands of man ; it should therefore 

 be guarded with caution, and watched with jealousy. 

 These cruives once put up in the least objectionable way, 

 soon get a legal footing ; they become prescriptive, are in- 

 numerable, and are the destruction of all the fish on every 

 stream where they exist. Let them not then take root ; it 

 is easier to exclude* than to eradicate. Prescription is a 

 dangerous doctrine. Those which exist in England have 

 their origin in encroachment. What the Scotch laws may 

 be I know not, but by those of England we have seen that 

 the statute of Elizabeth says, that salmon shall not be taken 

 by any engine or device, but by the net of two inches and 

 half mesh : if so, how can these things be regarded in any 

 other light than as encroachments on the privileges of the 

 public ? Down then with your fish traps and cruives, and 

 give the fish a fair chance, by which we shall have a 

 thousand, where we now get one. 



Mr. Wilson very honestly tells us the truth, that the 

 scarcity proceeds from the destruction of the breeding fish 

 in close time, and to the defects of the laws, as we have 

 just seen by his evidence. If fry are destroyed in any way 

 it is very easy to prevent it; but it is absurd to attri- 

 bute the few taken by the amusement of angling as 

 contributory to the general scarcity; it is as a drop in 

 the ocean, and wholly beneath the dignity of parliament 

 to take that recreation from gentlemen who delight in it? 



