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The catching of salmon by the employment of fire is hibited, under a penalty of not more than £10, or less than £2 for each offence. Persons selling, having in their possession, or wilfully taking or obstructing, spawn or fry, forfeit a sum not less than £1, or more than £10.2 Persons trespassing on land or fishings for the purpose of catching salmon, forfeit a sum not more than £5, or less than 10s.3 All penalties go to any informer who will prosecute, and prosecutions may be raised before the sheriff or justices, who may decide summarily, and without written pleading, subject to appeal to the Circuit Court, or Court of Justiciary. There are provisions for assessing proprietors for the necessary expenses connected with the regulations.5

4

An interpretation act was passed in 1844, to remove doubts that this act extends to the sea. It applies a penalty not less than 10s. and not more than £5, to the taking of salmon in any estuary, sea-loch, creek, bay, or shore of the sea, or in any part of the sea within a mile of low-water mark, without the owner's permission.6

SECT. 5.-Tweed Fishings.

In the Tweed and its dependencies, the catching of salmon with the net is prohibited between the 15th October and 15th February, or with the rod between 7th November and 15th February. During the period from the 15th February to the 1st June, they must not be taken between six o'clock on Saturday night and two o'clock on Monday morning; and from 1st June to 15th October they are not to be caught between six o'clock on Saturday night and six o'clock on Monday morning. For every breach of these rules, a penalty not less than £2 and not more than £20 is incurred (with forfeiture of fish taken and engines used); and in the case of infringement of the weekly close time, the justices cannot mitigate the penalty to less than £10, unless the offence have been committed within half an hour after the forbidden time has commenced or before it is over. Whoever buys or sells or has in possession a fish of the salmon kind, caught in the close time, forfeits a sum not less than £1 or more than £2 for each fish, with the fish and the boat, cart, &c., in which it may be found.9 When salmon are found in the possession of persons during the close time, the

8

19 Geo. IV. c. 39, § 6.- Ibid. § 4.-3 Ibid. § 3.- Ibid. § 9.-5 Ibid. $10.-67 & 8 Vict. c. 95.-7 Local Acts, 11 Geo. IV. c. 54, §§ 1, 2. 6 Wm. IV. c. 65, § 6.-8 11 Geo. IV. c. 54, § 3.- Ibid. § 4.

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proof that they are not caught in the Tweed lies with themselves.1 Persons trespassing on the river or adjacent lands for the purpose of catching salmon, forfeit for each offence not less than 10s. or more than £5, and the possession of nets or other instruments is held evidence of the intention.2 Persons beating the water, or otherwise interrupting the progress of the fish, forfeit not less than £10 and not more than £20 for the first, and not less than £20 or more than £40 for every subsequent offence.3 Persons injuring the fish by quick-lime or other deleterious substances forfeit a sum not less than £2 or more than £5 for the first, and not less than £5 or more than £10 for subsequent offences; and persons throwing rubbish into the stream forfeit £1 for each offence.5 Persons catching or injuring the spawn of salmon forfeit not less than £1 or more than £10, and 2s. for each fish caught or destroyed, with the instruments used, &c.6

4

Disorderly persons, who are not possessors of fishings, fishing with net and coble, &c., within the mouth of the Tweed, forfeit a sum not less than £2 or more than £20 for each offence, with the nets, cobles, &c.7 No person must fish with salmon-tackle without leave from a proprietor, under a penalty not less than 10s. and not more than £2;8 and any person fishing for trout, and happening to catch salmon, must deliver them to the proprietor, under a penalty of not less than 10s. or more than £2 for each fish.9 There are provisions for the removal of boats and nets during close time, for appointing overseers and bailiffs, and for imposing assessments on proprietors, &c.

SECT. 6.-Solway Fishings.

Salmon must not be caught in the Bladenoch, Luce, Pollanton, and Cree, between 25th September and 31st December; in the Dee and the Fleet between 25th September and 1st February; or in the Solway Frith, the Nith, the Urr, and any other stream connected with the Solway not specified, from 25th September to 10th March. This close time extends to the Annan, to which, however, more special regulations and distinct penalties have been applied by a later local act. The same periods apply to the dependencies of the respective streams.10 Salmon must not be taken with the lyster, spear, &c., in any of the waters of the Solway, to

111 Geo. IV. c. 54, § 2.-2 Ibid. §§ 7, 8.-3 Ibid. § 10.5 Ibid. § 23.- Ibid. § 6.-7 Ibid. § 18.- Ibid. § 28.— 10 Local Act, 44 Geo. III. c. 45, § 1.

Ibid. § 22.Ibid. § 29.

which the old act applies, between the 25th September and the 10th March. The penalty of transgressing any of these regulations is, for the first offence £5, for the second £15, for the third and every other £20, together with forfeiture of the fish caught and the tackle used, which must be destroyed.2

Persons who catch, destroy, or have in their possession breeding fish, or fish out of season, incur like penalties, and the sum of £1 for each fish;3 but owners or tenants of fishings do not incur the penalties if they restore the fish to the water unhurt.4 Persons who have made cuts for irrigating land must cross them with bars or wirework sufficient to prevent the fry from passing, under the same pecuniary penalties as the above; and similar penalties are incurred by proprietors of fishings, or of mills, manufactories, &c., who injure the fry. Persons fishing without leave of proprietors forfeit the same penalties, and their tackle, which must be destroyed. Owners and occupants of fishings, and persons authorized by them, may angle with the rod from the 1st June to the 25th September.7 Persons having in their possession or selling salmon in the shires of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigton during close time (unless they can prove the fish to have been caught in a place where it is not close time), or foul fish, incur similar penalties.8 Justices may mitigate any penalty by subtracting £5 from it when it exceeds that sum, and may impose costs of suit. An appeal from the judgment of the local magistrates lies to the Circuit Court of Justiciary.10

The Annan, with its tributary streams and the seacoast adjacent to its mouth, was subjected to new regulations in 1841. Besides the annual close time from 25th September to 10th March, there is a prohibition against taking fish between six o'clock on Saturday night and two o'clock on Monday morning from 10th March to 1st June, and between six o'clock on Saturday night and six o'clock on Monday morning, from 1st June to 25th September. There is a farther prohibition against fishing in the mouth of the river during the two complete consecutive periods of the flowing and ebbing of the tide, in which high water occurs between twelve o'clock on Saturday night and twelve o'clock on Monday morning, between 10th March and 25th September.12

Local Act, 44 Geo. III. c. 45, § 1. Ibid.-3 Ibid. § 4.-4 Ibid. § 5.Ibid. § 6.- Ibid. § 9.-7 Ibid. § 10.- Ibid. § 11.-9 Ibid. § 17.10 Ibid. § 24.- Local Act, 4 & 5 Vict. c. 18.- Ibid. § 22.

The neighbouring proprietors are appointed commissioners for applying the act. Penalties are recoverable before the sheriff or any one justice, and they may respectively grant search-warrants on information.2 It is specially provided, that being a commissioner under the statute, or being interested in the fishery, is not to disqualify any one from acting as a justice in its enforcement.3

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SECT. 7.-Net Fishing for Trout.

Fishing with net for trout in fresh water is specially prohibited to any one who is not proprietor of the adjoining land, or not having a right there to fish for trout or fresh-water fish, or not having a written permission from some such proprietor or person entitled to fish as aforesaid." Persons offending are liable to a penalty not exceeding £5, for each offence, with all fish taken and nets and other things used.* The pecuniary penalty is incurred for trespassing with intent to fish, and the possession of a net is sufficient evidence of intent. An offender may be seized and brought before the sheriff or a justice for committal, until he find caution to appear. It is no disqualification to a justice so acting, that he is the proprietor of, or otherwise interested in the fishings. The complaint is heard and decided on by the sheriff, who acts summarily, justices only having jurisdiction as committing magistrates. An appeal lies from the sheriff to the Circuit Court or the High Court of Justiciary.7

1 Local Act, 4 & 5 Vict. c. 18, § 2-13.-2 Ibid. §§ 38, 49.-3 Ibid. $ 45.—48&[9 Vict. c. 26, §§1.—5 Ibid. §§ 2, 3.—6 Ibid. §§ 4, 5.—7 Ibid. $$ 6, 7.

PART VII.

REGULATIONS AS TO TRANSIT.

CHAPTER I.

POST-OFFICE

WITH the general practical operation of Mr Hill's Penny Postage Act (3 & 4 Vict. c. 96), the public in general must be familiar, and the most important part of it, the scale of duties as applied to the weight of the letters, and the difference between the respective postages of letters prepaid or stamped, and those charged by the post-office on delivery, are matters for which a law book is not likely to be consulted. Those who wish to refer to the statutory authorities on these matters, will find them provided for in §§ 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17. The most complicated portion of the old post-office law consisted in the exceptional provisions connected with the various franking privileges, and in the stringent rules it was necessary to adopt to prevent the postoffice from being defrauded, through these privileges, or through the employment of private methods of conveying letters. For the same reason, the regulations for the free transmission of newspapers had to be carefully watched in their operation. The uniformity of the present system has removed these causes of complex arrangement, which were aggravated by the difference, now no longer subsisting, between the city district postal arrangements, called penny posts, and the general arrangements for the passage of letters from town to town.

It is a general rule under the act, that there is one rate of postage for letters prepaid or duly stamped, on being posted, and another rate exactly twice as high applicable to letters paid on delivery. It is one of the most useful but perhaps least known peculiarities of the system, that when a letter,