226 PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION, 



Newfoundland past Under the protection of the Newfoundland 



regulations. 



Colonial Government, which has enforced a close 

 season, not allowing- sail vessels to leave port on 

 sealing- voyages before March 1, and steam ves_ 

 sels before March 10, and prohibiting seal killing 

 before March 12, under a penalty of from four 

 hundi'ed dollars to two thousand dollars, and has 

 enacted other stringent regulations.^ But even 

 these laws have not proved sufficiently effica- 

 cious, and in April, 1892, a new act ''to regulate 

 the prosecution of the seal fisheries" was passed.^ 

 This act defers the date of leaving port two days 

 later, and prohibits the killing of seals at all sea- 

 sons of the year except between March 14 and 

 April 20, inclusive. It is further made an offense 

 to bring any seal killed out of season into any 

 port of the Colony under a penalty of four thou- 

 sand dollars, and all steamers are prohibited from 

 proceeding on a second trip to the seal waters in 

 any one year. It will be seen from the deposi- 

 tions of Richard Pike, a master mariner of forty- 

 four years' experience in hair-seal hunting, and 

 of James Gr. Joy, master mariner of twenty-four 

 years' experience in seal hunting, that the law 

 prohibiting the second sealing trip was enacted 

 because it tended to the extermination of the hair- 

 seals, as at least seventy-five per cent of those 



1 Newfoundland Seal Act, 1879, Vol. I, p. 442. 

 sNowltnuuUaiid Seal Act, 1892, Vol. I, p. 444. 



