404 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



were closed, but in consequence of the complaints of the 

 dredgermen, the whole were opened in December, 1872, 

 and have remained open ever since. It was alleged by the 

 dredgermen that the beds were being destroyed by not 

 being worked. They now state that, up to the time of the 

 beds being closed, as many as a thousand oysters a day 

 could be obtained from them, and that the operation of 

 the Order has been disastrous. That the beds are now 

 wholly exhausted is unquestionable ; but I can attach no 

 importance to the assertions of the dredgermen. The part 

 which has always remained open is as bare as that which 

 was closed for two years : the statement that up to the 

 grant of the Order a considerable number of oysters could 

 be dredged is at variance with the facts ascertained by Mr. 

 Pennell ; and one of the men who made that statement 

 gave diametrically contrary evidence at the inquiry in 1869. 

 I have before noticed that the fishermen labour under a 

 curious misapprehension as to the action, taken by the 

 Corporation, and that they declare the whole beds to have 

 been closed for three years. There can, in fact, be no 

 doubt that the Boston oyster beds were denuded by over- 

 fishing at the time when the Order was granted, and that 

 they have remained in much the same state as that in which 

 they were, except that one of them has been sanded over, 

 owin; to a change in the direction of a channel. 



O O 



As the Corporation have done nothing to stimulate 

 the recovery of the beds beyond closing half of them for 

 two years out of upwards of six for which the Order has 

 been in operation, and as it has never watched them, it 

 cannot be said to have made any serious trial of the powers 

 confided to it ; and neglect to carry out the apparent 

 object of a public trust cannot, as a general rule, be lightly 

 regarded. But in the particular case, as all the oyster beds 



