curator Fiscal (who is the local Public Prosecutor in Scot- 

 land) to institute proceedings in respect of the destruction 

 of thousands of Salmonidae, which gave to the Tweed Com- 

 missioners a right of action. The County Sheriff awarded a 

 sum of 2, being the full allowable penalty. The party 

 convicted appealed to the Supreme Court in Edinburgh. 

 There, the Sheriffs judgment was affirmed, with an award 

 of 12 of expenses ; but it cost the Tweed Commissioners 

 157 to obtain the conviction! a proof of the utter in- 

 sufficiency of the existing law to meet even a case so mani- 

 festly flagrant as that just referred to. 



This subject of river pollution suggests a remark of 

 wider application. Important as it is to afford to Fishery 

 Boards more legal power for the protection of fish, the 

 gross pollution of our rivers, streams, and lakes by sewage 

 and manufacturing refuse, ought to be prevented for the 

 sake also of higher interests. The health and domestic 

 comforts of thousands of our population demand, that there 

 be a stringent law declaring such pollution to be a crime, 

 irrespective of any proof of injury to fish or to individual 

 riparian proprietors. A public officer ought to be appointed, 

 not only to prosecute such offences when they occur, but to 

 prevent the discharge of noxious matters (whether from 

 towns or private houses), and even the erection on the 

 banks of rivers of any manufacturing works, which would 

 cause gross pollution of the water. 



(4) Another point of importance, as regards Scotch 

 salmon fisheries, is the mode of enforcing the prescribed 

 rules of fishing. 



On the Tweed we have no difficulty with the lessees of 

 the fishings, or the men employed in working the nets, 

 who are about 476 in number. But we have great difficulty 

 in repressing the poaching which goes on during the 



VOL. vi. C. M 



