20 
Appendices to Tenth Annual Report 
intake ; and this might be done, in spite of its great width, by putting 
two iron posts in the lade, with slots or grooves on their sides, so that 
a portion of the heck might be withdrawn in case of floods, and so the 
pressure of the water diminished. 
I visited this lade in 1883 ; and in my second Annual Report to the 
Board I write about it as follows : — * The dam and lade at Newbie Mill 
' are not constructed and worked in terms of the bye-law regulating the 
* construction and alteration of mill-dams, or lades or water-wheels, so as 
' to afford a reasonable means for the passage of salmon, in so far as hecks 
' are concerned.' There has been no improvement, no attempt to comply 
with the provisions of the bye-law, since the above was written. 
Paidle-nets I was informed by the Chief Constable and Superintendent Pool that 
on Blackshaw the paidle-nets, about which there has been so much controversy and 
Bank. litigation, and which have been again and again condemned as nets set up 
and used for the taking of salmon by Courts and Commissions, have been 
re-established on Blackshaw Bank in spite of Lord Trayner's Interlocutor 
of 10th December 1886, which declared them to be illegal, and ordered 
their removal. There are not, however, as many of them as when I 
visited the Nith District in 1883. I found the leaders of those I 
examined in July last to be from 4 to 5 feet high, and there was only 
an ebb arm. Some of them were in fishing order. 
Evidence with A great controversy has arisen and been carried on with a good deal of 
regard to acrimony as to whether these paidle-nets do or do not catch salmon. But 
Paidle-nets t jj e recen t though somewhat tardily published evidence" 55 " taken by the 
Commis? eCia Special Commissioners appointed under the Solway Salmon Fisheries 
sioners in Commissioners (Scotland) Act, 1877, to 'inquire into the legality of all 
1878. ' fixed engines erected or used for the taking of salmon in the waters 
' and on the shores of the Solway Firth in Scotland, as the same have 
' been fixed under the authority of "The Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 
' " 1862," and in the rivers falling into the same,' conclusively shows that, 
at the time of the Commissioners' visit, and for many years previously, 
these paidle-nets had taken salmon, not merely occasionally, but frequently, 
and in considerable numbers. Accordingly, the special Commissioners 
were quite clear that the paidle-nets were engines erected and used for 
the purpose of taking salmon, and they ordered to be removed such of 
them as they had seen at the time of their visit to Annan; and, on 
appeal, the Second Division of the Court of Session, without looking at 
the evidence, declined to interfere with the deliverance of the Commis- 
sioners, who, they held, had a clear statutory duty which they were 
bound to perform. It is worth glancing at some of the evidence laid 
before the Commissioners respecting these paiddle-nets. Mr David Poole, 
Superintendent of the Constabulary at Dumfries, says : ' The paidle-net 
' has been called a white-fish net by the people who fished it, but it is one 
4 which will quite as well take salmon. It is erected in nearly identically 
' the same manner as the salmon stake-net. In so far as the character of 
' the ground is concerned, these nets occupy precisely the same position 
' as the salmon stake-nets, or nearly the same position. At all events, it 
' is ground calculated for the catching of salmon and within the run of 
' salmon.' Afterwards he says : ' I have very often seen salmon caught in 
' them. I have seen eight salmon alive in one pocket. In that case, 
' when we were waiting to see what was in the net, the man went with 
' his knife and ripped the bottom of it. How many were in before I 
' don't know.' Again he says : — ' In 1869, 1870, and 1871, I was 
' present at every one of the prosecutions. Some of them were for fishing 
f during the annual close-time with paidle-nets. Others were for fishing 
1 during the open season, n nd catching salmon with paidle-nets. All those in 
* The evidence was taken in 1878, hut was not published until 1891. 
