Johnson.  No  appeal  was  brought  from  this  judgment  on
the  demurrer ;  but  on  appeal  to  the  Exchequer  Chamber
for  a  new  trial  on  the  ground  of  misdirection  or  other
grounds,  Whiteside,  C.  J.,  strongly  expressed  his  dissent
from  the  principle  affirmed  in  the  judgment  of  the  Court
of  Common  Pleas  on  the  demurrer.^  The  case  subse-
quently went  to  the  House  of  Lords,  but  the  point  as  to
the  right  of  the  public  to  fish  not  being  before  the  House,
no  decision  was  given  on  it,  but  their  lordships  held
unanimously,  that  the  Crown  has  no  prima  facie  right  to
the  soil  or  fishery  of  non-tidal  waters,  though  they  were
doubtful  whether  the  rule,  that  the  riparian  owners  on
non-tidal  waters  are  prima  facie  entitled  to  the  soil  ad
medium.  Jilum  aquw,  applied  to  large  inland  lakes.'  In  the
case  of  Mayor  of  Carlisle  v.  Oraham,  the  English  Court  of
Exchequer  held,  following  Murphy  v.  Ryan,  that  as  the
public  right  of  fishing  in  public  navigable  rivers  arose
from  the  ownership  of  the  Crown  of  the  bed  of  such  rivers,
where  a  public  navigable  river  changed  its  bed  and  flowed
over  a  channel  in  the  soil  of  a  subject,  the  public  right  of
fishing  was  lost.*  In  Orr  Ewing  v.  Colquhoun,  it  is  ex-
pressly decided,  that  the  right  of  navigation  on  non-tidal
waters  confers  no  right  of  property  on  the  public  navigating.'^
If,  therefore,  it  be  law  that  the  public  right  of  fishing  is
a  right  arising  from  the  ownership  by  the  Crown  of  the
bed  over  which  the  water  flows,  it  seems  to  follow  from
necessity,  that  in  rivers  above  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the
tide,  in  which  the  ownership  of  the  soil  is  undoubtedly  in
the  riparian  owners,  and  in  large  navigable  non-tidal  lakes
where  it  is  undoubtedly  not  in  the  Crown,  such  a  right
cannot  exist.     It  being,  however,  undecided  to  whom  the

1  Bristowe  v.  Cormican,  Ir.  E.,  10  ^  3  App.  C.  641.
