SQUABBLE AS TO SALMON. 97 



can be caught in stake-nets." But the public must 

 submit to be told that, unless people will shake off 

 sloth, and inquire into facts and weigh evidence, they 

 shall offend against the laws which preserve the exis- 

 tence of all living creatures, and shall bring upon them- 

 selves needless poverty and loss. The public has a 

 manifest right to intervene in the squabble between the 

 belligerents striving for the possession of the salmon : 

 law, justice, and the public interest demand that this 

 strife shall be equitably adjusted. We confess that we 

 see no injustice in saying to proprietors on the coast, 

 Use only the net and coble in the capture of salmon ; 

 or, at least, agree to employ no fixed apparatus within 

 five miles of the mouth of any salmon river. If they 

 make wry faces at this reasonable proposal, we will not, 

 as they would think, mock them by advising them to 

 try fly-fishing for salmon in the sea, though we have 

 heard of it as most successful We remind them that 

 their right to do with their own what they please is 

 in the matter of salmon not so clear as they fancy, 

 and that the ancient laws of Scotland regarding salmon- 

 fishing may be invoked against them. We shall, with 

 the help of Mr Mackenzie's amusing chapters on 

 " Eights of Parties " and " Scottish Statutes," endeav- 

 our to make our readers acquainted with what may be 

 said in favour of the fresh- water proprietors. And in 

 order that their along-shore antagonists may not suspect 

 us of prejudice generated by self-interest, we hereby 

 depone that we possess neither land nor water in fee- 

 simple, and that our interest in salmon is merely that 

 of a friend of the persecuted finny tribes, and a student 

 of questions affecting social economy. If we seem to 

 bear hard on maritime proprietors, it is not because, 

 like Justice, we are blind, but because we have eyes 

 accustomed to look around with freedom, and are 

 thus aware of the multiform aspects under which the 

 debatable matter of the fisheries presents itself to the 

 impartial observer. If desirous to form an unprejudiced 



