Proceedings Forty-seventh Annual Meeting 65 



to reach the people directly by sending out a small leaflet to each 

 person concerned, whose name we can secure, and we hope to at 

 least afford them a knowledge of what legislation is proposed and 

 when it becomes a law. 



The blue crab, which is a very valuable product, was rapidly 

 disappearing and it was difficult to secure the enforcement of 

 legislation on account of "county exemptions" and the failure of 

 some local justices to do their duty. But county exemptions are 

 now prevented by law and delinquent justices were advised that 

 unless they construed the law in accordance with its new interpre- 

 tations they would be invited before a grand jury, so we have had 

 no more trouble. 



We do not hesitate to arrest a citizen of Virginia, because our 

 laws are similar, and if the police of either state apprehend a vio- 

 lator, he is taken before a justice of the state in which he is a citizen. 

 In one instance a Virginia oyster man attempted to land a consid- 

 erable cargo of undersized oysters in Maryland. He was told that 

 he could not land illegal oysters, but must cull them. This was a 

 big job, but after he had culled them we permitted him to land 

 the big ones. Then we took him to Virginia where he was fined a 

 considerable sum and was made to return the small oysters to the 

 beds. That was only necessary once last year. 



Another law, recently passed, deals with the pollution of streams 

 and tidal waters, which provides not only for a fine, but also for 

 imprisonment for one to three years. We do not intend to be too 

 drastic in its enforcement and we propose to send a copy of the 

 law to every factory, large or small, asking every one to study his 

 own problem and to eliminate harmful waste. I fully believe that 

 if we could get the intelligent co-operation of those industries that 

 are discharging harmful wastes into the waters, we should soon 

 get back to the basis of greater food production." 



Mr. Wm. C. Barber, of Wisconsin, in discussing the foregoing 

 address, related a number of cases in which local justices had made 

 improper rulings in sympathy with the offenders until warned of 

 malfeasance. Juries also had to be warned that would be arrested 

 for perjury unless they found in accordance with the evidence 

 and the law. 



