POACHING AND POACHERS. 37 



that a given area of water will breed and feed only a 

 given number of fish. The interference of the poacher is 

 therefore an offence against economic as well as moral 

 laws. Yet in 1872-73, 327 persons were accused of 

 violations of the Tweed Acts; 164 of whom paid the 

 fines in which they were mulcted, while 41 were im- 

 prisoned, 44 absconded, and GO were acquitted. No 

 fewer than 235 various engines of capture were taken 

 from poachers during the same period. 



" The poacher's argument,"* says a contemporary, " is 

 just the old-fashioned one which has often been made to 

 do duty, that as a river is, generally speaking, the pro- 

 perty of twenty or thirty people, the salmon moving up 

 and down its stream cannot be the property of any par- 

 ticular person. But there is one crushing reply to this 

 proposition, which must be obvious to the meanest com- 

 prehension ; it is that by no species of logic can the 

 salmon in the Tweed and its tributaries be considered the 



property of the poacher As a plain matter of fact, not 



all the Queen's army could effectively watch a great 

 salmon-river if there were an extensive population in its 

 course. The Tay proprietors are fortunate ; that river 

 flows through a land where there is no population to 

 disturb its finny treasures. On the Tweed and its many 

 tributaries there is a considerable population, many of 

 whom have but a slight knowledge of ' mine and thine/ 

 and all of whom have a taste for salmon and a strong 



* A dour Scotch " wabster" once argued with the writer that the water in 



the Tweed, as it was constantly flowing, could not belong to Lord or the 



Duke of . We asked him to whom the bed of the river would belong, if 



it suddenly dried up ? Further, observing a water-butt in his garden, we re- 

 quested him to state to whom its contents belonged when filled by the rain, 

 which no more belonged to him than to his neighbour. Our friend shook his 

 head, but made no " articulate " reply. 



