218 Our Food Mollusks 



but the prevention of quarrels between tongers and 

 dredgers, and the collection of revenue by means of 

 licenses. To enforce the laws, it has been necessary to 

 support an " oyster navy." The plan of collecting a 

 revenue has always been a favorite one. Just previous 

 to the passage of the new oyster laws, the state was able 

 to collect about forty thousand dollars — at an expense of 

 more than sixty thousand. The revenue plan has usually 

 operated in this way in Maryland. A law to compel 

 culling on the beds where oysters were dredged has been 

 on the statute books for years, but it has been observed 

 only when convenient. In short, such oyster laws as 

 Maryland has possessed, have rarely been enforced. It 

 must be said, however, that on so extensive an area as 

 the Chesapeake, where public sentiment was overwhelm- 

 ingly against existing laws, their enforcement was prac- 

 tically impossible. It is an interesting problem whether 

 the provisions of the new statutes can be enforced more 

 successfully than were the old. 



Many hard things, to be found in newspaper files, 

 magazines, and government reports, have been written by 

 citizens of Maryland and Virginia concerning the oyster 

 pirates of the Chesapeake, especially of their almost in- 

 credible lawlessness and cruelty, and hard as these state- 

 ments are, those who have been at all familiar with the 

 conditions in the bay in former times, will probably 

 agree with the statement of Mr. Ingersoll, who in- 

 vestigated the oyster industry previous to 1880, that he 

 believed them to be just. 



Other states, in past decades, have tolerated politics as 

 bad as those of Maryland. There are still localities 

 where even dynamite and the sawed-off shotgun may be 

 used against life with comparative impunity; but the 





