SALMON LEGISLATION. 155 



off from the end of the net-fishing season, and a fort- 

 night from the beginning, so making the season run from 

 1st March to 14th September, and allowing rod-fishing 

 till 14th October. In the Committee of the House of 

 Lords, the time allowed for net-fishing was extended to 

 the 1st October, being a fortnight longer than the period 

 fixed by the Commons' Committee, though a fortnight 

 shorter than the period by the then existing law which 

 the promoters of the original Bill had not proposed to 

 alter. By what ultimately proved a happy accident, 

 their Lordships, in making this alteration on the Bill as 

 it came from the Commons, omitted to make a corre- 

 sponding alteration in the clause regarding rod-fishing, 

 so that the result, as to the upper proprietors, of the Bill 

 as it passed was, that they got only a fortnight of rod- 

 fishing after withdrawal of the nets (from 1st to 14th 

 October) instead of the three weeks they had possessed 

 for twenty years before, the month which had been offered 

 them by the House of Commons, or the three months 

 which had been tossed to them, trop tard, by their tardily 

 converted or frightened opponents. Although the Bill 

 of 1857 was not originally designed to make any altera- 

 tion on the seasons, that question might in a manner 

 have been considered settled had the Bill chanced to 

 become law as it passed the Commons ; as it was, the 

 question was, on the contrary, unsettled, and two years 

 afterwards was brought up again, and then settled, if not 

 in the best of all possible ways, at least in a way more 

 satisfactory than had been previously hoped for. 



The Bill of 1859, promoted mainly by the Duke of 

 Roxburghe, had for its chief object the earlier closing of 



