THE SALMON AND CHANNEL FISHERIES. 161 



moved to set the rule nisi aside, Lord Ellenborough 

 expressed himself as follows : " It is impossible to 

 '" sustain this verdict. The right set up by the 

 * 6 defendant to have a stone weir is plainly founded 

 *' upon encroachment. The erection of weirs 

 " across rivers was reprobated in the earliest 

 *' periods of our law. They were considered as 

 " public nuisances. The words of Magna Charta 

 " are, ' that all weirs from henceforth shall be 

 " ' utterly pulled down by Thames and Medway, 

 " < and through all England;' and this was followed 

 " up by subsequent acts, treating them as public 

 <c nuisances, forbidding the erection of new ones, 

 ** and the enhancing, straitening, or enlarging of 

 " those which had aforetime existed. I remem- 

 " ber that the stells erected in the river Eden by 

 *' the late Lord Lonsdale and the Corporation of 

 " Carlisle, whereby all the fish were stopped in 

 " their passage up the river, were pronounced in 

 " this court, upon a motion for a new trial, to be 

 " illegal, and a public nuisance. Now here it ap- 

 " pears, that, previous to the erection of this com- 

 " plete stone weir, there had always been an 

 " escape for the fish through and over the old 

 " brush- wood weir, in which those in the stream 

 " above had a right ; and it was not competent for 

 " the defendant to debar them of it by making an 

 " impervious wall of stone through which the fish 

 " could not insinuate themselves, as it is well 

 " known they will through a brush- wood weir, and 



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