

volution has accordingly been wrought in public opinion 

 with regard to them. But although eight years have 

 now nearly elapsed, since the illegality of the use of 

 stake-nets in friths and rivers under the existing law of 

 Scotland, was finally declared ; yet no effort has been 

 made by the proprietors of the fisheries in the friths, to 

 avail themselves of this change in the public opinion, and 

 to obtain relief from their fetters. They have submitted 

 to them calmly and quietly,- charmed, one would almost 

 believe, by some potent spell, which it is impossible to dis- 

 solve, and have allowed their own fisheries to return to 

 their former state of non-existence. The upper heritors 

 have not been so idle ; but have kept united, carefully 

 watching over the welfare of their monopoly. Nay, in 

 some districts, schemes have actually been laid to take 

 advantage of the lethargy of those most interested, and, 

 by smuggling a bill through Parliament, to rivet, by the 

 force of a modern statute, the absurd and noxious fetters 

 already existing. And in other districts, emboldened by 

 their former success against the fisheries in the friths, the 

 river proprietors are now aiming a deadly blow against a 

 discovery, for it truly is one, *even more valuable and 

 splendid than the original. This is a matter which it 

 deeply concerns the public to attend to. 



At the time when the use of stake-nets was prohibited, 

 the tenants, and those who had been practically engaged 

 in the stake-net fisheries, had large capitals invested in 

 them, which could not be diverted into any other chan- 

 nel of employment but at a very great loss. They, how- 

 ever, have not remained so inactive as the proprietors of 

 those fisheries. No sooner were they driven out of the 

 friths and estuaries, than, with an enlargement of view* 

 and an elasticity of invention beyond all praise, they ex- 



