38 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



it exercised for the fisliing interests of the country, offered bounties 

 to encourage men to engage in fishing for cod. A certain sum was 

 allowed for each bushel of foreign salt used by vessels of more than 

 fifty -five tons registered tonnage. Block Island was at that time entirely 

 destitute of a harbor in which vessels could ride in a storm. We were 

 compelled in stormy weather to haul our boats above high-water mark 

 to save them from the fury of the waves. From this cause we could 

 not use vessels large enough to claim the bounty offered ; hence we were 

 compelled to compete at great disadvantage with the fishermen of more 

 favored localities. 



Second. When, in 1870, the breakwater at Block Island was begun, 

 one of the principal reasons given by the government for so large an 

 expenditure of money was that the work would greatly foster the fishing 

 interests of the island. If our fishing grounds are permitted to be 

 spoiled bj' the use of trawl-lines, then has the breakwater become of no 

 avail to benefit the fisheries of Block Island. 



We, your petitioners, almost without exception, are owners of small 

 tracts of land, from whicli we derive a small income, insuificient, it is 

 true, for our support, but which, when added to the amount realized 

 from cod-fishing, has hitherto given us a comfortable living. On these 

 tracts of land we have built us houses. Here are our homes. Xow that 

 our fishing threatens to fail us, we are very apprehensive that we may 

 be compelled to leave our homes; for if this business shall be ruined, 

 our island cannot support more than one-half of its present population. 

 We are, almost to a man, too poor to own boats large enough to trawl 

 successfully; but in our own boats we have been successful. We would 

 Ijoint with pride to the fact that while from most of the ports of tlie 

 coast numy vessels and men are lost every year in the fishing business, 

 not one Block Island boat has been lost within the memory of man. 



Therefore we do beseech your honorable commission to urge the pas- 

 sage of a law prohibiting the catching of cod l)y tra wl-lines in the waters 

 of the Atlantic Ocean between Montauk Point on the west and Xo Man's 

 Land on* the east, and thus insure the return and continuance of the 

 good fishing we formerly enjoyed, lest by the ruin of this fishery we 

 shall be compelled to seek our subsistence in other pursuits and in other 

 localities, away from the island endeared to us as the place of our birth 

 and the home of our childhood. 



That you will thus secure to us, on our native island, the opportunity 

 to obtain our subsistence by that honorable toil to whicli we have been 

 accustomed from our youth, we will e^'er pray. 



William Dodge. Darius B. Dodge. Seabury A. ^Mitchell. 



Welcome Dodge. Uriah B. Dodge. C. C. Holmes. 



Aaron W^. Dodge. John Thomas. R. W. Thomas. 



Edward P. Littlefield. James E. Eose. Joshua T. Dodge. 



Charles A. Paine. Herman A. Mitchell. WiUiam J. Steadman. 



George C. Sprague. Lorenzo B. Mott. Joseph H. Willis. 



