OF FISHINGS. 173 



private persons who have the right of fishing on streams 

 and navigable rivers, shall, for depredations which they 

 may commit, answer before the Officers of Maitrises, and 

 not before the Judges of the Seigneurs, to whom we inter- 

 dict the cognisance of such doings, and they shall be 

 sentenced according to the rigour of our ordinances. 



' 23. There shall be commissioned in each Maitrise Ser- 

 geants for the conservation of the rivers and fishings in 

 sufficient number, with wages and following the regulation 

 which shall be made in our Council, with the advice of 

 the Grand-Masters, to be daily on the streams and rivers, 

 to watch the fishers that they in no way contravene our 

 ordinances, and in case of contravention, seize the im- 

 plements, and send them, with their minute relative to 

 them, to our Registries of the Maitrises; they shall also 

 summon the delinquents on the first day to answer their 

 charge. 



'24. We permit to Masters, Lieutenants, and our 

 Attorneys, to visit the rivers, fish caufs, shops, and estuis 

 of the fishers, and if they find therein fish which are not 

 of the length and size above prescribed, they shall make a 

 minute of the quality and quantity of those which they 

 have found, and they shall summon the fishers to answer 

 for the misdemeanour, all without expense. 



' 25. If the Officers of the Maitrises shall find forbidden 

 implements and tackle, they shall cause them to be burned 

 before the gate of their Audience Hall at the close of their 

 Audience, and on the ground of what they have seized 

 they shall condemn the fishers to the penalties declared 

 above, without power to modify them, under pain of sus- 

 pension from their charges for a year. 



' 26. All the fines adjudged on account of navigable and 

 floatable rivers, atid of all our waters, shall be received for 

 our profit by the Sergeant-Collector of fines in the several 

 Maitrises or of the department, for which they shall account 

 as for those of our forests, and what comes to us shall be 

 paid into the hands of the Receiver-General, as are the 

 other monies under his charge* 



