184 STATUTE LAWS RELATING TO 



quently amuse themselves by remarking that old 

 acts of parliament are become obsolete, when they 

 want to advance some favourite hypothesis or 

 opinion of their own, It might have been, and I 

 believe it was, not only necessary to alter the 

 times for taking salmon on Dart, Teign, and Plym, 

 but on every river ; though, if the times of defence 

 had been left to the county sessions, or fixed by 

 the parliament in the first instance, it would have 

 been much more likely to have met the reason and 

 policy of the case, than to have settled it in the 

 manner we have seen : especially since it appears 

 that very little attention could have been paid to 

 the nature of the subject. 



There are very few salmon which are in season 

 and fit to be caught so early as the 5th of March ; 

 there may be some, but not enough to pay the 

 fishermen for their nets, time, and trouble. The 

 defence of these three rivers is taken out of the 

 general act. The sessions have no jurisdiction or 

 discretion over the time for taking fish in them. 

 Certainly, in this instance, the act does "mow 

 down every thing before it," without mercy, judg- 

 ment, or consideration : there is no power to relax 

 its severity : the close time is two months too late 

 and two months too early. If, indeed, it had been 

 left competent to the magistrate to say, on the 

 production of the fish, whether such fish were in 

 season or not, (and it is impossible there could be 

 any mistake even from the appearance of the fish 

 alone,) then a stop, or, at least, some check might 



