194 



STATUTE LAWS RELATING TO 



shall not be taken possession of. Now a fish in a 

 trap from which he cannot escape, is as much taken 

 as a bird in a cage or in the hand. As well may 

 those who use the fair and legal net, draw on a 

 Sunday, and keep the fish in the water, encircled 

 by the net, until the Monday morning. No man 

 has any absolute property in fish until they are re- 

 duced to possession : there may be a qualified in- 

 terest, but that is liable to defeat by the fish shift- 

 ing their quarters ; and this taking and stopping 

 the fish may prejudice the rights of others. If the 

 possession of fish in a private pond gives a pro- 

 perty, so must the possession of fish in this trap if 

 the trap be lawful ; and I incline to think, that if 

 fish were to be stolen out of it, the occupiers would 

 be apt to say that the trespassers had incurred the 

 penalties of the 5 Geo. III., or the black act. The 

 fish, then, are as much taken and secured on the 

 Sunday, as if they had been encircled in a net 

 and only waited their deaths until the Monday 

 morning. The net and the trap produce the same 

 effect by different operations. 



This act gives the magistrate a power to determine 

 offences, upon a view, which power does not exist 

 in the general acts. What this view can have refer- 

 ence to, I cannot imagine, unless it was intended to 

 be directed to these particular kinds of nuisances in 

 the characters of traps and engines; there is nothing 

 else mentioned in the act that demands a view, over 

 which the judgment is required to be exercised ; 

 and if so, there must be things in the contempla- 



