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tured before theKing's posts are abandoned by the Company, 

 the Salmon rivers will be in the hands of hordes of lawless 

 men, who will exterminate the fish, by means of nets, 

 spear, torch, and every other engine of piscine destruc- 

 tion, and will kill, burn, and mutilate every fish that 

 ventures up our rivers." 



Such is the present state of the fisheries of the Kiver St. 

 Lawrence — for the same mode of destruction is practiced 

 in every river where they are wont to coiigregate — only 

 that in the lower part of this district mill dams have not 

 yet been built, and it is to be hoped that, when it becomes 

 necessary to build dams therein, every precaution will be 

 taken by the erection of chutes or slides, so that the fish- 

 eries of these rivers may not be destroyed, as, one within 

 this district has been, the Escoumins, which deserves and 

 will receive especial notice in another place, as tending to 

 shew the utter destruction that may be brought upon a 

 river by the erection of mills without the necessary slide. 



Although, comparatively speaking, they are still good 

 Salmon rivers, yet there is not one-twentieth of the fish 

 taken within this district at the present time, to what 

 there were in former years. Bouchette, twenty years ago, 

 complained of the wanton destruction of the fisheries, 

 caused by injudicious management. What would he say 

 now ? 



But let us proceed onward, and review the rivers in 

 this locality, and while so doing it is my intention to 

 estimate the number and value of the fish, and to base my 

 calculation on the lowest scale. That my statements may 

 not take the reader by surprise, I will quote a paragraph 

 from the Daily Scotsman of the 18th December last, 

 relative to the Salmon fisheries of the river Tweed. 



