176 THE SALMON. 



the neglect and malversation of the Magistracy. That 

 the operation of the Act of 1842, on this point, was evil, 

 may be inferred from the fact, that, after great grumbling 

 and contention, its provisions as to fixtm^es were to 

 a great extent repealed by the Act of 1862. By that 

 Act, bag-nets are prohibited within any river, as defined 

 by the Commissioners, or within three miles of the 

 mouth of any river, as so defined, with the exception of 

 cases in which the right of salmon-fishing in the whole 

 of a river and its tributaries and lakes belongs to one 

 proprietor. No new fixed nets can be erected anywhere. 

 The Commissioners can order the removal of all fixed 

 nets that are in their opinion injurious to navigation, or 

 otherwise illegal. No cruive or trap can be used within 

 fifty yards of a mill-dam, unless the dam has a fish-pass 

 approved of by the Commissioners ; and nothing in the 

 Act is to render legal any fixed net or fishing weir in 

 contravention of any previous Act of Parliament, or of 

 the common law in force in Ireland. Though the prin- 

 ciple of the Irish Act, therefore, is not the suppression of 

 all fixtures as necessarily and in their nature evils and 

 encroachments, it deals with them as things which the 

 law must jealously watch and tightly restrict ; and it 

 would appear that the Act is interpreted and worked by 

 the Commissioners in such a way that, as to Ireland, the 

 mischief may be regarded as not only stayed, but reduced 

 to comparative unimportance. 



In 1863, a very useful little Bill was brought in by 

 Government, and passed Avithout resistance, " prohibiting 

 the exportation of salmon at certain times." The evil 

 which this measure was designed to cure, and in the 



