REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [152] 



Inspectors are appointed by the superior court in the several counties, 

 and receive a fee of 20 cents per barrel for packing, heading, flagging, 

 pickling, and branding. u Any inspector of fish who shall inspect or 

 brand any package of shad imported into this State shall forfeit $5 to 

 the State." 



In the several provinces now comprising the Dominion of Canada 

 laws have from time to time been enacted requiring all pickled and 

 smoked fish to be properly salted, packed, and inspected before tliey 

 were offered for sale. In the year 1807 the Dominion of Canada was 

 created by the union of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and 

 New Brunswick. In 1S73 Prince Edward Island became a part of the 

 confederation; so that the Dominion of Canada now includes all the 

 provinces where fisheries are carried on, with the exception of Newfound- 

 land, which still retains its individuality as a separate province of Great 

 Britain. General fish inspection laws, extending throughout the Domin- 

 ion, were enacted by the Dominion Parliament in 1873, but were repealed 

 in 1871, when more complete statutes were enacted, which, with slight 

 amendments passed in 1870, 1880, and 1881, now regulate the manner of 

 preparing pickled and smoked fish for exportation or for sale within 

 the Dominion. 



We give in the appendix the fish-inspection law as enacted in 1871, 

 together with subsequent amendments; also the old law of Nova Scotia, 

 as found in the revised statutes of that province, published in 1851.. 



The principal object of fish-inspection laws is to prevent fraudulent 

 pickling. There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the 

 benefit of these laws; some packers contend that they are hardships, 

 while others claim that without some legislative regulations much 

 more fraud would result and the trade in salt mackerel be reduced 

 to a very low state. The law is a protection to both buyer and seller. 

 It guarantees to the former a definite quality of fish, and protects the 

 trade of the latter in that it prevents a great amount of dishonest un- 

 derselling and assures to the seller a definite knowledge of the mer- 

 chandise sold by his neighbor. The principal kinds of fraud in packing 

 mackerel are short weight and wrong grades. The first kind of fraud 

 is practiced by the addition of more salt than is necessary for the proper 

 preservation of the fish, and a corresponding subtraction in the quantity 

 of mackerel, thus keeping the same total weight in the barrel. Accord- 

 ing to law a barrel of fish, means 200 pounds of fish, and not that weight 

 of fish and salt. The second kind of fraud, or that of packing wrong 

 grades, is more generally practiced, and the least liable to detection by 

 ordinary customers. A ]S'o. 1 mackerel is plainly defined as the best 

 quality of fish, at least 13 inches in length. A packer's notion of best 

 quality may be as varied as the number of his customers, for, while the 

 requisite length of 13 inches is given, there may be great difference in 

 the degree of fatness, so that the No. 1 mackerel packed by one firm may 



