POLLUTION OF RIVERS. 



225 



visions. Dynamite or other explosives must not be used 

 to catch or destroy fish in a public fishery in any part of the 

 United Kingdom, or in the adjacent seas within a marine 

 league of the coast, nor in a private fishery in England, on 

 pain of fine up to ^20 or imprisonment, which may be with 

 hard labour, up to two months. 1 The poisoning of any salmon 

 rivers, 2 as well as of any waters where there is a private right 

 of fishery, 3 with " any lime or other noxious material," in 

 order to destroy fish, is an offence punishable with penal 

 servitude up to seven years. Pollution of salmon rivers 

 " to such an extent as to cause the waters to poison or kill 

 fish " (though not intended to have that effect) is punish- 

 able by fine on an increasing scale, ending in 20 a day 

 after a third conviction. But the party may escape 

 these penalties, if his act in sending refuse, or whatever it 

 may be, into the river, is not otherwise unlawful 4 and he 

 can show that, being thus in the exercise of his right, " he 

 has used the best practicable means, within a reasonable 

 cost, to render harmless the liquid or solid matter so 

 permitted to flow or to be put into 5 waters." Probably 

 it is not difficult to satisfy justices of this in a manufac- 

 turing district ; again, if the stuff poured into the river is so 

 noxious that there are not any practicable means at all of 

 rendering it harmless, it is by no means clear whether any 

 penalty is incurred. 6 The person complained of may also, 

 if a decision against him would cost him more than^ioo, 



1 1878, s. 32. z 1873, s. 13. 



3 24 & 25 Viet. c. 97, s. 32. It has been suggested that this would 

 apply to acts done by an owner of strictly private waters (ponds or the 

 like) on his own land ; but I do not think it will bear such a construction. 



4 It might be unlawful, for example, as amounting to a public 

 nuisance, or being forbidden by a local Act. 



6 The wearisome but inevitable " such " of accustomed parliamentary 

 style appears to have dropped out of the text. 6 1861, s. 5. 



VOL. I. H. Q 



