TWEED FISHERIES ACT. 11 



the Upper Proprietors' Bill was to abolish stell-nets, 

 some aged Spittal fishermen, whose memories extended 

 for nearly eighty years, were called to prove their 

 antiquity. (A stell-net, we ought to explain, is the 

 ordinary fishing-net drawn across the river, and kept 

 in that position until the man in the boat, who has 

 rowed it out and keeps his hand upon the rope, feels a 

 fish strike, when it is quickly pulled in, enclosing the 

 salmon. This net, it was contended with some reason, 

 was a standing obstruction to the run of the fish, such 

 as is prohibited in all salmon- statutes.) On the other 

 side the witnesses were Mr. Kussel, editor of the 

 Scotsman and writer of articles on salmon-fisheries in 

 the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, Mr. Eichard 

 Hodgson of Carbarn (Chairman of the North British 

 Railway Company), Mr. Mitchell, the very efficient 

 Superintendent of Tweed Police, Mr. Fennell, the 

 Acting Chief Commissioner of Irish Fisheries, Lord 

 Polwarth, Mr. Dunbar, innkeeper and lessee of fisheries 

 at Brawl Castle on the Thurso, Mr. Andrew Young 

 of Invershin, lessee of the Shin fisheries, Suther- 

 landshire, and author of several small books on the 

 natural history of the salmon and on fishing, Mr. 

 Robertson of Kelso, and others. The House of Com- 

 mons' Committee unanimously rejected the Bill of the 

 Lower Proprietors, and found the preamble of that 

 of the Upper Proprietors proved. They decided that 

 the fishing- season for both nets and rods should begin 

 on the 1st of March, instead of, as formerly, on the 

 15th of February ; and should close for nets on the 

 14th of September instead of the 15th of October, and 

 for rods on the 14th of October instead of the 7th of 



