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required for paying persons to protect the fish which may ascend. It 

 would appear not to be inconsistent with equity, to compel millers to 

 bear this expense, when it is remembered that the public have con- 

 ceded great privileges to that class, in allowing them, contrary to law, 

 to build weirs entirely across rivers, and to raise them to great heights. 

 Next in importance regarding the regulation of mill-weirs, without 

 interfering with the milling power, is providing means to prevent the 

 fish from entering the tail-races of mills; and we have no doubt that 

 this also can be effected without any injury whatever to the milling 

 interest, by erecting gratings set in frames, which could be removed at 

 all times when the water might be so high as to require a perfectly unin- 

 terrupted flow from the wheel, to prevent back-water. For the object 

 effecting the passage of fish, those gratings would only be required 

 when the water is low ; because when it is high, there would be suffi- 

 cient stream in the natural bed of the river to induce the fish to 

 approach the pass over the weir; and at this low state of water, the 

 gratings could not by possibility throw back-water upon the wheel ; 

 and although the millers as a body may object to this, they are unwil- 

 ling to admit the rights of any interference whatsoever, and endeavour 

 to have it established, that their interests are paramount to all others. 

 Still, we will venture to assert, that their most eminent engineers cannot 

 honestly dissent from the proposition which we submit. We think, 

 therefore, that this question should be amply investigated, and that it 

 is sound policy, in governing the resources of a country, to prevent 

 any class or interest from sacrificing another, when it can be avoided, 

 without either loss to individuals or the community at large. 



POWER TO ERECT STAKE-WEIRS. Section 18 empowers proprietors of 

 several fisheries to erect stake-weirs and bag-nets, subject to provisions 

 of Act. Section 1 9 empowers occupiers of land to erect stake- weirs 

 where no several fishing exists. Section 20 regulates the size of 

 meshes and stake bag nets. Section 21 provides that no stake-net 

 shall be placed so as to be injurious to navigation, and empowers com- 

 missioners to declare them a nuisance, and order them to be removed. 

 Section 22 provides that no stake-net shall be placed where the breadth 

 of the river is less than three-fourths of a mile wide. Section 23 saves 

 the right to erect in narrow portions of rivers, where weirs have been 

 established for twenty years before the passing of the Act.* Section 

 24 saves the right to erect in narrow portions of rivers, to the owners 

 of several fisheries, where weirs have been established for ten years.* 

 Section 25 saves the right to erect head weirs in narrow portions of 

 rivers. Section 26 provides that stake-weirs shall not extend beyond 

 low-water mark. 



REMARKS. The object of the statute authorizing the use of stake- 

 weirs appears to have been for the purpose of introducing more effec- 

 tive engines for the capture of fish, and the privilege being limited to 

 the occupiers of land, and owners of several fisheries, the common-law 

 rights of the public were unquestionably interfered with, for the benefit 

 of a very few, comparatively with thousands who exercised and en- 

 joyed the right as subjects, to the free and uninterrupted fishing and 

 navigation of the tideways ; and a consciousness of this appears to have 



* This clause does not save a right to erect, but only to maintain. 



