144 SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 



would be considered as a great hardship by farmers to be ob- 

 liged to keep an expensive establishment of servants to prevent 

 their corn from being stolen off their fields in the night ; nor 

 would trifling fines on the depredators prove any protection 

 against such an evil. And it is the same with the owners of 

 the rivers. These proprietors are unprotected, because the laws 

 are inefficient, and the public participates largely in their loss. 



There is one clause in those ancient statutes which directs 

 that magistrates who fail in their duty should themselves be 

 severely fined ; and we believe that, during the time of one of 

 the Jameses, a Lord of Session, whose decisions were reversed 

 three times, was declared unfit for the office. The principle 

 was founded in excellent sense. If judges judge often errone- 

 ously from incapacity, they are unfit for their office : if they 

 do so from corruption of heart, or, what is nearly the same, 

 from apathy or negligence, they are equally unfit. It is right 

 that proper respect should be paid to the judgment-seat ; but 

 in Scotland this is carried a great deal too far. The judges are 

 not the servants, but the LORDS, of the community, WHOSE 

 WILL is LAW, and who dispose of property, without a particle 

 of responsibility. If Scotland had a manly, independent, and 

 free press, the system could not have lasted so long ; but no 

 country on earth, as we said before, is less indebted to its press, 

 and so it fares for there is no other country more ridden and 

 oppressed. 



In Ireland, where the true nature of the salmon-fishery ap- 

 pears to be much better understood than by our Kennedys and 

 our Drummonds, and where the salmon are consequently much 

 more plentiful, the owners of rivers are not prevented from tak- 

 ing the new or clean fish when they come on from the sea, 

 even during close-time, though the breeding fish are then pro- 

 tected in the upper parts of the rivers. This is as it should 

 be, for the owners of the rivers have thus the full and natural 

 use of their properties, which no legislature has a right to de- 

 prive them of, all that is wanted from the legislature being 

 mere protection. Thus Mr Sheppard states in the Committee, 



" The close-time is only applicable to persons not proprietors of 



