36 POACHING AND POACHERS. 



public opinion. Poaching has been called an " abject 

 trade," but it is certainly a profitable one j and a large 

 portion of the population seem unwilling to believe that 

 the rights of property extend to river-waters. They 

 appear to appreciate intensely 



" The good old rule, the simple plan, 

 That they should take who have the power, 

 And they should keep who can." 



Lord Minto asserts that "not one man in a hundred 

 believes himself to be violating any moral law when he 

 offends against the Tweed Acts." And the improved con- 

 dition of the salmon-fisheries has given a fresh stimulus 

 to poaching by largely increasing its gains. The salmon 

 being a migratory fish, ascending from the depths of ocean 

 to the sweet waters of some sequestered woodland pool, 

 falls an easy victim to its human enemies, and perishes 

 by hundreds every year just at the time when it is most 

 valuable ; for, however costly a thirty-pound salmon may 

 be on the slab of a Bond Street fishmonger, it is infinitely 

 more precious when on the point of multiplying and re- 

 plenishing its kind.* Few persons have any idea of the 

 multitudes of fish captured and killed by the poachers. 

 It is on record that a gang of these men (and occasionally 

 women) have taken a hundred salmon from the spawning 

 beds in one night. To bestow any sympathy on such 

 ignorant and destructive plunderers is surely ridiculous ! 

 The salmon is beset by natural enemies, and nature 

 has so carefully guarded against its unlimited increase, 

 that we do not need to step forward and wage an ex- 

 terminating war against it when it is unfit for food, and 

 preparing to reproduce its kind. It is a well-known fact 



* See The Times, August 27, 1874 : "The Tweed Fisheries." 



