PUBLIC RIGHTS. 209 



or they may be for the benefit of persons having special 

 rights in that particular fishery. We will take the general 

 question of persons first. Are there any inland waters 

 where all the world are legally entitled to fish ? There are 

 certainly some. It is allowed without question that fishing 

 is of common right in the tidal part of an ancient navigable 

 river, unless a contrary private right can be shown. If an 

 exclusive right exists in such water, it is an exception to the 

 common rule of law. It may exist, however, by a grant 

 from the Crown before the date of Magna Charta ; and 

 ancient and continuous usage may establish a judicial 

 presumption that the usage had its legal origin in some 

 such grant. Since Magna Charta the Crown has had no 

 power to make a grant of this kind. Therefore anybody 

 may fish in the Thames below Teddington Lock, for 

 instance, without lawful hindrance except from the person, 

 if any, who can make out his title by special grant or usage 

 to exclusive fishing-rights in the river at the particular spot 1 

 In the case of the tidal part of the Thames there are not in 

 fact, so far as I am aware, any such exceptional rights. If 

 we go above Teddington Lock, we find a very different state 

 of things. In practice all manner of people fish on the 

 upper reaches of the Thames and other navigable rivers 

 without interruption. And whether they are within their 

 legal rights in so doing is a question that has been settled 

 in England and perhaps not finally only by decisions 

 given so lately as last year. 2 It was long uncertain whether 

 there did or did not exist a public right to fish in navigabk 

 rivers above the limits of the tide. In Ireland it has been 



1 But not when or as he pleases, for the Thames fisheries are 

 regulated by the Conservators under special statutory powers. 



2 Pearce v. S catcher, 9 Q. B. D. 162 (March 31, 1882); Rcece v. 

 Miller, 8 Q. B. D. 626 (April 4, 1882). 



VOL. I. H. P 



