200 



STATUTE LAWS RELATING TO 



tinue the same after defendant shall have appeared, or shall 

 be nonsuited, and if upon demurrer judgment shall be 

 given against the plaintiff, the defendant shall have double 

 costs ; and no action, suit, infprmation, or other proceed- 

 ing, shall be brought for any offence against this act, unless 

 the same shall be commenced within six calendar months 

 next after such offence committed. 



14. Nothing in this act shall alter any act of parliament, 

 or any clause or penalty contained in any act, in force for 

 the regulation of the fisheries, or preservation of the fish 

 in any particular river, &c. 



15. Saves the rights of lords of manors, who may appoint 

 conservators. 



16. Nor to affect the rights of corporations, or to dimi- 

 nish any rights which they " did or might lawfully claim^ use, 

 or exercise in any river" 



17. Nor the city of London. 



Here ends the last general act relating to salmon 

 and their progeny ; and if the sense which is given 

 to some part of it be the true sense, it were better 

 for the public if no such act had ever passed. 



The act is intitled and professes to be " An Act 

 for preventing the Destruction of the Breed of Sal- 

 mon, and Fish of the Salmon kind;" it adds very 

 little to the laws already in force upon that subject, 

 and yet, unless it did something more, it may have 

 been as well, and much better, left alone. I trust, 

 however, that the construction which is put upon the 

 clause adverted to is not the right one; if it be, it is 

 a "mowing down act" with a vengeance. So little 

 has the act to do with what it professes to be, that 

 its proper title ought to have been, " an Act to 



