8. Other nets, or similar engines not named above 9. Bag nets 10. Fly nets 11. Stake nets, or stake weirs (Scotch) 12. Head weir 13. For every box, crib, cruive, or drum net in any weir for taking salmon or trout 14. For every gap, eye, or basket in any weir for taking eels Note-Fixed fisheries for salmon or eels claimed to be "several fisheries," whether fished by means of fixed weirs with boxes, cruives, or rails for stopping the fish, or by means of the fish being stopped by rocks or other natural or artificial obstructions, and taken by means of draft or other nets Licence duties. such as shall be fixed by commissioners or conservators as provided by this act. £5 0 0 5 0 0 15 0 3 5 0 0 1 0 0 To be rated at ten per cent. on poor law valustion, unless such per-centage be reduced by the commissioners or by the conservators, as provided by this act. 13 & 14 Vic. c. 88. Sec. 1. [Construction of terms of recited acts, and of this act.] Whereas it is expedient to amend and explain the several acts relating to engines used in the fisheries of Ireland: be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the passing of this act the several interpretation clauses in the said recited acts contained shall be and are hereby repealed; and that in the construction and for the purposes of the said recited acts and of this act, unless there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction, the words "person," "owner," and "proprietor" shall mean and include any body corporate, aggregate, or sole, as well as an individual, and also any company or partnership; and any word importing the singular number only shall mean and include several persons or parties as well as one person or party, and several things as well as one thing respectively, and the converse; and any word importing the masculine gender only shall mean and include a female as well as a male; and the word "lands" shall mean and include all messuages, lands, tenements, and hereditaments; and the word "waste" shall include and extend to any and to all uncultivated or unprofitable lands; and the word "county" shall include and extend to a county of any city or town; and the words "estuary" and "bay" shall include and ex tend to any harbour or roadstead; and the word "rivers" shall include and extend to tributaries of rivers, and to all other streams and watercourses; and the word "vessel" shall mean and include any ship, boat, cot, coble, or curragh; and the word "fish" shall extend to and include oysters and oyster brood; and the word "salmon" shall extend to and include grilse, peal, sea trout, samlets, par, and all other fish of the salmon kind, and the spawn and fry thereof; and the word "trout" shall extend to and include pollen or fresh-water herring, and all fish of the trout kind, and the spawn and fry thereof; and the word "net" shall mean and include all descriptions of tackle, trawl, trammel, stake, bag, coghill, eel, haul, draft, and seine nets, and all other engines or devices, of whatsoever construction or materials, or howsoever known or styled, which shall be used for the like purposes as those in this act or in the said recited acts referred to; and the words "fixed net" or "fixed engine" shall extend to and include weirs, stake, bag, stop, and still nets, and all other engines or devices used for the like purposes, of whatsoever construction or materials the same may be, or however known or styled, and whether fixed to the soil or held by hand, or made stationary in any other way; and the words "close time" or "close season" shall mean and include any time or season within which it is or shall be prohibited to fish for, take, or destroy any salmon, trout, oysters, or any fish of any of the kinds in this act or in the said recited acts referred to, or the brood, spawn, or fry thereof; and the word "fisheries" shall mean and include all fisheries, whether several or public; and the words "several fisheries" shall mean and include all fisheries lawfully possessed and enjoyed as such under any title whatsoever, being a good and valid title at law, exclusively of the public, by any person or persons, whether in navigable waters or in waters not navigable, and whether the soil covered by such waters be vested in such person or persons, or in any other person or persons; and the words "owner" or "proprietor" shall mean and include every person who shall be in the actual possession or use and enjoyment or receipt of the rents or profits of any lands or fisheries (as the case may be), save that in every case in which any person shall be in possession or receipt of the rents or profits of any fisheries or lands under any sequestration, extent, elegit, or other writ of execution, or as a receiver under any order of a court of equity, the person whom such writ shall have issued, or who but for such order would have been in possession, shall, jointly with the person in possession by virtue of such writ or order, be deemed for the purposes of this act to be the owner of such fisheries or lands; and the words "judge of assizes" shall, as to cases arising or to be determined in the county of Dublin or county of the city of Dublin, mean and include a judge of any of the law courts of record in Dublin at Nisi Prius, at the first sittings after the pronouncing or making of any order or decision appealed from or complained of; or if such first sittings shall commence within 21 days after the pronouncing or making such order or decision, then at the sittings next immediately after such first sittings. Sec. 2. [In case of lands and fisheries vested in one person.] Where any person shall be the owner of any lands, and also the owner of or interested in some question as to any fisheries adjoining to such lands, or carried on or exercised upon the same, such person for the purposes of this act or the said recited acts may act and be dealt with in both or either of the several characters. Sec. 3. [In case the owner is under legal disability.] Wherever the owner of any lands or fisheries, or any person interested in any question as to any fisheries, shall be a minor, idiot, lunatic, feme covert, beyond the seas, or any other legal disability, the guardian, trustee, committee of the estate, or husband of such person or owner, or his or her attorney or agent, nominated under their hands and seal, shall be substituted in their place; and by s. 4 acts may be done by agents duly authorized. Sec. 5. Conservators empowered at general meetings to depute conservators for electoral divisions to act for such electoral divisions. See 11 & 12 Vic., c. 92, by which existing fishery districts, &c. may be altered from time to time by the commissioners. Sec. 7 provides that all fisheries rated under poor law valuation to pay the same rate, in addition to license duty, as several fisheries, and s. 8 enacts that the district funds are to be applied by the conservators elected for the year. Sec. 9. [Appeal against amount of licence duty.] Any party who shall conceive himself or any other person to be unduly or unequally or insufficiently charged by any such board of conservators with any licence duty, may present his appeal therefrom either to the assistant barrister for the district, or to the going judges of assizes, at the then or then next assizes holden for the county or jurisdiction wherein his fishery district is situate; and such assistant barrister or judges, as the case may be, shall hear and examine into such appeal, and adjudicate thereon, and such their adjudication shall be final. Sec. 11. [J. P.'s being conservators not disqualified from sitting at the trial of offences against this act.] No elected or other conservator, being also a J. P. for the jurisdiction within which his district or electoral division is situate, shall be disqualified to sit upon any complaint instituted by the board of conservators of which he is such member. Sec. 12. [Penalty for fishing without license increased.] Any person using or erecting any engine, net, instrument, or device whatsoever, without being duly licensed under the provisions of 11 & 12 Vic. c. 92, or this act, shall be liable to pay such penalty, not less than double nor less than treble the license duty which the engine, net, instrument, or device he shall have been so using or erecting would for the time being be subject to under the said act or this act, in addition to the forfeiture of the engine so used, anything in the said recited act to the contrary notwithstanding (c). Sec. 13. Elections of conservators to be triennial instead of annual as under 11 & 12 Vic. c. 92, s. 112. Sec. 14. It is by this section provided that the commissioners may adjudicate on complaints of illegal fishing, and order weirs to be abated, and section 15 provides for appeals from such adjudications. Sec. 16. [Penalties for erecting and using weirs contrary to this act.] No person, other than the person entitled to exercise such right as in the said recited acts or this act mentioned, shall place, erect, maintain, or use any weir, fixed net (d), or other contrivance for placing or erecting nets or taking of fish on any parts of the coast of Ireland, or on the bank or shore of any river or estuary wherein the tide ebbs and flows, or in the sea or tideway adjoining such coast, bank, or shore; and that if any person or persons, other than the person or persons so entitled as aforesaid, shall place, erect, maintain, or use any weir, fixed net, or other such contrivance as aforesaid, contrary to this act, he or they, being thereof convicted, shall for every such offence forfeit not exceeding £10, nor less than £1, together with the further penalty of 10s. for every fish taken or destroyed by him or them by means of such weir, fixed net, or contrivance; and the said weir, fixed net, or contrivance shall also be forfeited, and ordered to be abated, or removed at the expense of such offenders or offender, by the commissioners, or (as the case may be) by the magistrate before whom such conviction shall be had; and the materials thereof shall be disposed of in such manner as is by the said recited acts or any of them directed, with respect to illegal nets used or legal nets illegally used for fishing. Sec. 17. [Penalties for erecting or re-erecting weirs after conviction.] If, after any order of any judge of assize heretofore made for abating or removing any weir, &c., or after any order or decision of any court whatsoever, which shall at any time hereafter (c) See 11 & 12 Vic. c. 92, s. 22, ante, p 549. (d) A net fastened to a pole and used from a boat is not a fixed net, Brophy v. Ward, 4 Ir. J. N. S. 235. be made, for abating or removing same, unless and until the same shall be reversed on appeal, any person shall erect, re-erect, use, or fish with any weir, fixed net, or engine, in or adjoining or contiguous to any place where it shall be decided it shall be removed, or if any person shall erect, re-erect, use, or fish with any weir, &c., contrary to law, and after conviction of any person for such offence, then and in every such case the said commissioners, or any two J. P.'s for the county or other jurisdiction wherein the said weir, &c. shall have been so erected or re-erected, or used or fished with, shall, by warrant under their hand, from time to time, abate and remove the same, at the expense of the party erecting, &c. the same, or of the owners or occupiers of the soil whereon such weir, &c. shall be so erected, &c. (if such owners or occupiers shall appear to have permitted or suffered such erection, &c.) and further, that the materials of every such weir, fixed net, or engine shall be forfeited or otherwise disposed of as the said commissioners or justices shall direct; and that the said party shall (independently of all other forfeitures and penalties to which under this act or the said recited acts he may be liable) forfeit for every such offence not less than £20, and also not exceeding £10 nor less than £2 for every day during which such weir, &c. shall continue to be so erected, &c., and that the produce of such sale and all such forfeitures and penalties respectively shall be disposed of and applied in such manner as is in and by the said recited acts directed in regard of illegal nets or nets illegally used for fishing. Sec. 18. Not to prevent in certain cases the erection of weirs in or adjoining to the place from which weirs had been abated and removed by order of court. Sec. 21. [Further powers for defining mouths of rivers.] It shall be lawful for the said commissioners to define the mouths of rivers at their entrance into the sea, where they shall think fit so to do, subject to the provisions of the said recited acts; and when the mouth of any such river shall have been defined as herein provided, the same regulations with respect to using, placing, or erecting nets shall be observed, and may be enforced in like manner as provided by the said recited acts and this act, and any person offending shall suffer the same forfeitures and penalties as therein provided (e). Sec. 22. [Penalties for neglect to make or maintain the statutory free gap or Queen's share.] Any person entitled to or possessed of the fishing of any river or branch thereof, or any weir, dam, or dyke for the taking of fish, and not being by prescription or (e) See ante, 5 & 6 Vic. c. 106, s. 22; 7 & 8 Vic. c. 108, s. 8; 8 & 9 Vic. c. 108, s. 9. |