DECAY OF SALMON. 131 



bers was erected at a place called Newby, a short dis- 

 tance west of the mouth of the Annan, in 1788. Up 

 till that time, the rent of the Newby fishery had been 

 only 16, whilst the rents of the fisheries farther up the 

 firth amounted to several hundreds of pounds. In a few 

 years the rent of the Newby fishery, formerly 16, was 

 2000 ! whilst its upper neighbours sank to a mere 

 fraction of their former value. Here was a great transfer 

 of property, and then came a great destruction of pro- 

 perty. The Newby example was copied ; the firth was 

 over-fished ; the rent of Newby is now little more than 

 a tenth of what it was ; and its neighbours, though they 

 did not participate in its prosperity, have shared in its 

 decay ; for instance, a fishery which used to yield the 

 Corporation of Carlisle a rent of 722 when salmon sold 

 at 2d. a pound, now yields a rent of only 55 when 

 salmon sell at as many shillings a pound. In a word, 

 the " improved engines" have not only reduced the total 

 produce of the firth and its rivers, but have reduced 

 the total money value far below the amount at which 

 it stood when ten tons of the produce brought no more 

 money than one ton brings now. 



The evidence from all parts of England laid before 

 the English Commissioners of Inquiry (i860) was so 

 strong that they reported : " We are prepared, after a 

 full consideration of the case, to recommend the total 

 suppression by law of all fixed engines ; " and in the 

 same year a Committee of the House of Lords, appointed 

 in the interest and on the instigation of the owners of 

 fixed engines, also reported in favour of abolition. 



It will be seen at a glance that this comparatively 



