The Chesapeake 219 



social conditions that obtained on the Chesapeake for 

 many years were so unique that one is quite at a loss to 

 understand how they could have escaped the attention of 

 the modern magazine story writer. During the quarter 

 of a century or more since the grim and grizzled pioneer 

 and the polite but dreadful cowboy, with his " six- 

 shooter," have become extinct, they have been celebrated 

 as typical western characters in a deluge of magazine 

 literature by eastern writers, and the flood continues un- 

 abated to this day. The equally picturesque bad man in 

 their midst has entirely escaped attention, perhaps be- 

 cause he has so recently been with them. It remains for 

 some Pacific coast writer, who has never crossed the 

 Coast Range, to exploit the wild oyster pirate of the 

 Chesapeake. There will be color for his tale in the facts 

 when he obtains them, and fiction will not be necessary. 



It has been stated that shallow waters along the shore 

 lines have long been set apart by law for tonging, while 

 it is intended that dredging shall be carried on elsewhere 

 in deeper water. While tonging is slow work that can 

 only be carried on in good weather, thousands of men 

 have been engaged in it. 



One of the functions of the state police is to prevent 

 dredging on the tonging grounds, but the bay is so ex- 

 tensive that a very large force would be required to ac- 

 complish it. With the pirates banded together for 

 mutual protection, and especially under the cloak of 

 night, tonging grounds may be dredged with safety and 

 profit when they yield more than those in deeper water. 



Night dredging on forbidden grounds has not always 

 been necessary. We are told, for example, that during 

 the winter of 1879-80 a large fleet of dredgers entered 

 the Rappahannock River in Virginia, and began opera- 



