82 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



tions. It is a decided point that a title to salmon- 

 fishing does not carry exclusive trout-fishing along 

 with it — and there is little foundation in any legal 

 decisions for a claim even on the part of ex adverso 

 landowners to such exclusive privilege. If any party 

 of anglers, therefore, want a day's fishing in Kuther- 

 ford-water, we should have no hesitation in recom- 

 mending them to go, maugre John Aitken and his 

 master, " and all that ever with them be." 



We do not know, indeed, that there is now an inch 

 of water between Eutherford and Kelso, a distance of 

 about five miles, which is open to the public — or rather, 

 which has not been seized upon, and an exclusive pri- 

 vate right, in defiance of the public, asserted by force 

 of gamekeepers. Thirty years ago, there was not an 

 inch of it which was not free, and the preserving 

 practice, which is now very rigid, was carefully and 

 insidiously begun. People, under the shadow of Floors 

 Castle, were induced to take written permissions; 

 gradually it came to be known that anybody who 

 fished in Floors water was expected to ask leave, while 

 it was understood that nobody who asked would be 

 refused; and finally within the last ten or fifteen years, 

 what young men can remember as perfectly open to 

 all, came to be obtainable only by special favour of the 

 Duke of Eoxburghe or his Chamberlain. We do not 

 know whether leave is at all liberally issued by his 

 Grace or not, and we can easily understand how a 

 keen angler, through whose possessions the Tweed 

 flows as if it were part of them, should desire to have 

 it exclusively to himself; but we confess that we are 

 radical enough to think that the ducal owner of Floors, 



