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intrude upon the rights of the citizens of the seaboard 

 states, in catching and converting valuable food fishes 

 into guano, but drive the food fish from their natural 

 feeding grounds and prevent the parent fish occupying 

 their natural spawning beds and reproducing their 

 kind. 



While it is often denied by those interested in 

 catching menhaden with purse nets that they catch 

 any food fish worth mentioning, I will briefly state one 

 or two of the man}' items of evidence of the catching 

 and of the wanton waste of food fish b}- them. In 

 1 89 2 a bill in the interest of the menhaden fishermen, 

 known as the Laphan Bill, was before Congress, the 

 provisions of which gave them the right to use the 

 purse net all along the coast, in the ba3''s, estuaries, 

 and rivers, limited only be3'ond the influence of the 

 tide, the law, habits, or customs of any state to the 

 contrary notwithstanding. Strenuous efforts w^ere 

 made to secure this law, which fortunately failed, but, 

 nevertheless, furnishes the plainest evidence of their 

 disposition to override all state laws for the protection 

 of food fish, etc., in their pursuit of the menhaden. 



At a hearing on this bill before a Senate Com- 

 mittee the following instances of the waste of food fish 

 were brought out : Mr. S. B. Miller, a fish dealer, in 

 answer to questions asked him, stated that he received 

 at one time 70,000 pounds of food fish, mostly weak 

 fish, from one of Daniel Church's steamers, 10,000 

 pounds of which went on the market; the balance, 

 60,000 pounds, went to the guano factory on Barren 

 Island. He also stated that at another time he received 

 from the same source another large lot of food fish 

 from out of which he selected about 10,000 pounds ; 

 that the balance of the lot were heated and unfit for 

 sale, and that he told the captain of the boat to haul 

 right out ; of course these fish went to the factories ; 

 he further stated that with their (meaning the men- 



