960 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



In 1833 a Select Committee of the House of Commons, 

 appointed to inquire into the present state of the British 

 Channel fisheries and laws affecting the fishing-trade of 

 England, and to which committee petitions from Emsworth, 

 Brixham, Havant, Langstone, Bedhampton, Farlingdon, 

 Plymouth and Rosham, complaining of distress, were 

 referred, report, in reference to the petitions (see Report, 

 p. 13), that not only in these harbours, but in others, a 

 practice generally prevails, and which appears to be of 

 recent introduction, of persons coming in fishing-smacks 

 to dredge for, and carry away, the young brood of oysters 

 and other shell-fish, to the great damage and destruction 

 of the oyster-beds and the brood of other fish there ; and 

 it appearing to your committee that such a practice is also 

 unjust, inasmuch as the oyster-beds in those situations are 

 generally known to have been formed by the labour and 

 industry of the fishermen and inhabitants of the neighbour- 

 hood, or their ancestors, thus affording to them a beneficial 

 source of employment upon which they have been accus- 

 tomed to rely, and in which therefore they ought to be 

 protected. 



The committee then go on to report, that, having 

 examined the Acts of Parliament, they do not find any 

 sufficiently stringent to prevent the grievance complained 

 of, and that it should be made unlawful to take or carry 

 away any oysters from such beds of a less size than are fit 

 for food, that is to say, of less size than 2^- inches in width ; 

 or to fish for oysters at any time between the first day of 

 May and the last day of August in every year, or such 

 other time as should be fixed in reference to any particular 

 harbour, according to the season in which the oysters there 

 become fit for food ; such seasons, and all necessary 

 regulations for those fisheries, being determined or 



