Sixth Annual Meeting. 63 



dock where they were brought from, and to leave them there for 

 further orders. Then I wrote a letter to Mr. Royal Phelps, 

 President Society for Preservation of Game, and Mr. Roosevelt, 

 and others, and asked them what course I should pursue. They 

 all told me what would be the consequence if they caught 

 me with the trout, but they did not tell me what to do with 

 them. The next day, by mail, I received the invoice of the trout. 

 Now, although there was no intent to evade the law of 

 selling trout out of season, I became liable to a very heavy fine. 

 The Game Club have an idea, I think, that every man engaged 

 in the fish business is a suspicious character, and they will not 

 believe but that I will sell brook-trout at all seasons. Talking 

 with several of the members, they seem to think I have been 

 too smart for them, and that was the reason they have not 

 caught me in it, but they will catch me some time or other. 

 They sent an officer one time with a search-warrant to search my 

 stores, and they exposed my fish and put me to a good deal 

 of damage, because somebody had given information that I had 

 stored on my premises a box of Long Island brook-trout. It is 

 a benefit in my business as a trout-merchant to have a close law ; 

 for after the 15th of March I can sell more trout in thirty days 

 than I could if you had the sale open the year through. Now 

 with regard to these fish and the final disposition we made of 

 them : I shipped them to Boston, and they remained there until 

 the 15th of March, and then they shipped them to me again, and 

 I sold them legally and lawfully, and, so far as I could discover, 

 they were about of the same quality as those which we received 

 from Quebec and Montreal in March and April. 



Mr. Wilmot : Were they received from New Castle, Ontario, 

 or from Newcastle in New Brunswick ? 



Mr. Blackford : Newxastle in New Brunswick. 



Mr. Wilmot : That alters the case, for the present season for 



