100 SALMON-FISHEKY OF SCOTLAND. 



waters. He can, therefore, be considered no authority in the 

 matter. It was a subject out of his usual course of study, and 

 which had probably never occupied his mind for half an hour. 

 Had he been engaged in its investigation, like the learned 

 judges of the present day, for the best part of a quarter of a 

 century, the case would be very different. His Lordship was 

 not infallible more than other mortals. He had no other means, 

 of forming an opinion but from the statutes themselves, and 

 these statutes are now before us just as they were under his 

 eyes, and are better authority than all the lawyers in the uni- 

 verse. If his Lordship's shade takes now and then a peep into 

 the Parliament House, to see what is going on there, it must 

 have been sadly grieved at the use that has been made of an 

 inadvertent expression on a point which he had evidently not 

 studied, in depriving many of their fishing properties. 



That there are still yairs of the old description to be seen on 

 the coasts in different parts of the kingdom, can only prove 

 breaches of the law. Such violations of the law must have 

 occurred frequently even under the vigilant eyes of the ancient 

 Legislature, which was no doubt the cause of the repetition of 

 their acts; and it is the less to be marvelled at that they 

 should happen since. We wonder, if a case of this kind, where 

 it could be proved that one of these yairs on the coasts, 

 destroyed nine cartloads, or a ton of fry of all fishes in a tide, 

 were to be brought before the Court of Session, it would be 

 maintained, in the face of the express words of the statutes, 

 that it did not come within the prohibitions, because not 

 placed in a fresh- water river ? If violations of the law were to 

 operate as exemptions from the law, or were to render the law 

 nugatory, we know not what law would be in force in the 

 remote parts of the kingdom. There is a law against tracing, 

 hares on the snow, yet we have seen it openly practised even 

 by their little lordships, the sheriff-substitutes of northern 

 counties. It is, therefore, no wonder if the fishing laws should 

 be so, and millions of the fry of all fishes be destroyed, where, 

 however much the public interest should suffer thereby, no 

 individual would choose to involve himself in law proceedings 

 to prevent it in a country where no man can institute a 



