APPENDIX 



A. THE NEW TWEED ACT. 



So ineffectual, or rather so disastrous, has been the 

 operation of the amended Tweed Act of 1857, that the 

 experience of 1858 has only served to convince all in- 

 terested in the river that its effect would be to increase 

 the speed and certainty of the ruin that has of late 

 years seemed to be approaching. The netting season 

 of 1858 was remarkably productive ; but the netters 

 were so skilled and deadly that they suffered scarcely 

 a fish to pass them, and when their " innings" was 

 over, and that of the rod-fishers began, the latter found 

 that they could score nothing. They had only a fort- 

 night of grace (from the 1st to the 15th of October) ; 

 and, as it happened, during the whole of that time the 

 river was in the very worst order for angling. Loud, 

 accordingly, were their complaints the Duke of Kox- 

 burghe, in a circular dated October 4th, opening them 

 with a solo. "After the experience of two seasons," 

 said his grace, " so great is the dissatisfaction, that it 

 is notorious that the upper proprietors generally will 

 refuse to do even as much towards the preservation 

 of the fish during close-time as they did formerly, and 

 which it was a main purpose of the new Act to induce 

 them to increase." 



The ominous threat was but too well fulfilled. As 

 soon as the legal salmon-fishers had put up their rods, 

 and the salmon began to swarm in the streams of the 

 Tweed and its tributaries, poaching began to run riot 

 to an extent greater than can perhaps be remembered. 

 The Conservators of the river had spent some 10,000 

 in the fight before Parliament, and thus had so greatly 



