CITY POLICE COURT

Evening Star, Issue 4293, 29 November 1876, Page 2

CITY POLICE COURT

Wednesday, November 29. (Before hia Worship the Mayor and K. Ramsay, Esq., J.P's.) Drunkenness.—William Boss was discharged with a caution ; Mary Sinclair, 5s ; Thomas Mann, 20s, in default three days' imprisonment. Obscene Language.—Ellen Barry, for this offence, was fined 40s or fourteen days' imprisonment. Fighting.— John Perry and Frank Gillan, for this offence, were each fined 5s and costs, in default twenty-four hours' imprisonment. - Gillan alwo charged Perry with assaulting him. One Alfred White deposed that Perry struck the iirsfc blow.—Berry was fined 10s and costs, with the alternative of twentyfour hours' imprisonment. Salmon Trout Fishing.—Ah Mong was charged with being guilty at Dunedin on the previous day of contravening the regulations of the Salmon Trout Act of 1867, made under and by authority of the Governor in ■■ Council. Mr Bathgate defended and pleaded I not guilty.—lnspector Mallard : I can only state that the defendant is charged with committing a breach of the Salmon Trout Fisheries Act, and there are certain regulations laid down in that Act, and these regulations have been enforced for the Province of Otago. I will produce the ' Gazette' and call Sergt. Fair, who is a clerk in the Commissioner's office, to show that while on the jetty last night he saw the defendant with a net, having a very small mesh, engaged in tishing and catch the salmon trout produced (the trout weighed about 91bs). Sergt. Fair detained the net and the fish in accordance with section 9 of the Act. An order in Council of 11th March, 1869, states that his Excellency the Governor, with the advice and sanction of his Executive Council, exercising the power vested in him under the Act of 1867, had declared that the regulations should apply to the Province of Gtago, and that the fish mentioned in section 2 of the Act—including salmon trout—should be protected. The Act wa3 very sweeping in its regulations, and after that in 1870, there proclamation which prohibited fishing in certain places.—Sergt. Fair deposed that defendant was engaged fishing with a net supported by bamboo work with a very small mesh. He caught a salmon trout, and witness detained it and the net. He said he had not a license to fish for salmon trout.—Mr Bathgate submitted that fishing with a net was not an offence. The authorities had made regulations prohibiting the use of nets in certain streams, but Otago Harbor did not come within the regulation, As a second contention, he submitted that a "trout" spoken of in the proclamation did not refer to a salmon trout.—On the second point the Bench at once decided against the learned counsel. -Mr Bathgate then submitted that the size of the net was not dealt with under the regulation.—Mr Reeves thought that the sooner a proclamation was made the better. If a net of the description produced, with so small a mesh, was to be allowed there would be no fish left in the harbor.—Mr Bathgate pointed out that defendant only did what others had done. Salmon trout had been caught in the harbor and exhibited in fish shops in the city, while the newspapers devoted paragraphs to the writers, and yet the police took no notice of the same.—lnspector Mallard argued that the regulation applied to the whole of Otago, and not to any particular stream. —Mr Bathgate pointed out that the defendant was engaged fishing for other fish when he caught the salmon trout. —lnspector Mallard contended that there would be no offence had the fish been returned to the water. He asked that the information be amended so as to charge the defendant with illegally taking the fish from the water. He merely wanted a nominal penalty, so that the matter knight act as a caution to others.—The defendant was fined Is, without costs, the Bench holding that he had acted in ignorauce.