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WHEREAS by a statute, made in this kingdom in the twenty eighth year of the reign of King Henry the eighth, it is among other things enacted, “That it shall and may be lawful and justifiable for any person or “persons in the counties of Kildare, Catherlough, Wexford, Kilkenny, Waterford, and Tipperary, in company with any sheriff or seneschal of any county aforenamed to prostrate and break, and cause to be prostrated and “broken, from time to time all wears, purprestures, engines, streights, or “other like obstacles erected or to be erected in any of the rivers or waters “of Shure, Nore, Barrow, and Rye, and also to leave a convenient gap or place for boats and other vessels to pass and repass in, of, upon, and through “every mill-pond made or to be made in any of the said rivers or waters;” which statute does not effectually answer the good ends and purposes intended thereby, because there is no penalty on persons, who shall repair the said wears, purprestures, engines, streights, or other like obstacles, after they are so broken down: for remedy whereof be it enacted by the Kings 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 first day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty one if any person or persons shall repair, or cause to be repaired, any wear, purpresture, engine, streight, or other like obstacle, which shall be broken down or removed by authority of the said recited statute, every person or persons so offending shall for the first offence forfeit the sum of fifty pounds, and for the second and every other offence respectively the sum of one hundred pounds; to be recovered in any of the King's courts by action of debt, bill, plaint, information, or otherwise, wherein no essoin, protection, or wager of law, and no more than one imparlance, shall be admitted or allowed; the one moiety to the use of the King, his heirs and successors, and the other moiety thereof to the party that will sue for the same. [Rep., in general terms, 14 & 15 Vic. c. 90. s. 13.]
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