BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 359 



Birchy Cove (which only occupies twenty minutes), he heard the 

 complaint of Sergeant Sheppard, and then apologetically asked the 

 law-breakers if they would prefer to wait over and stand trial, as 

 do other wrongdoers, or " pony up " and proceed. Law-breakers 

 usually dislike more notoriety than is necessary, and these two vio- 

 lators of a law for which many of our own Newfoundland men have 

 been heavily fined or jailed, naturally concluded they would pay up, 

 which they did to the tune of an insignificant $30 apiece. 



It would be inconvenient, doubtless, for these men to be detained 

 here two days, subject to the gaze and comment of the crowd who 

 might be present at their trial, and the convenience of this Judge and 

 his travelling companion from Pennsylvania weighed down the legal 

 balance that is applied to the " common herd " of Newfoundland, so 

 that their seat was made soft, and their transgression minimized by 

 an obliging magistrate. 



In the case of two unfortunate Newfoundland fishermen, striving 

 to earn an honest living for their families by catching fish which a 

 benignant Providence has placed within easy reach of them, and 

 actually successful in hauling a little over one barrel, worth, perhaps, 

 $1.50, a fine of -five hundred dollars, or three months in jail is imposed. 

 The two fishermen are hounded and hunted all over the Bay of 

 Islands Arms, captured, obliged to leave their nets full of herring 

 in the water, with probable destruction in store for them. They are 

 hustled to the court-house early in the morning, where the magistrate 

 is waiting with judgment prepared and written before the trial pro- 

 ceeds, ready to "salt" them for an offence that hundreds of their 

 fellows are guilty of, but are not prosecuted for. 



In the case of the two rich American sportsmen, the same magis- 

 trate metes out an entirely different sentence for a much graver 

 offence. They are allowed to travel in a Pullman car, surrounded 

 with all the ease and elegance at the disposal of the railway com- 

 pany, with white-coated servants dancing attendance upon their every 

 requirement, and a policeman in the capacity of a genial body guard. 

 The magistrate sacrifices his judicial importance, leaves his square 

 judgment seat beside the well-filled, warm court-house " bogey," and 

 tramps the railway track a distance of six miles, in disagreeable 

 weather, in order that rich men may not be inconvenienced. Surely 

 no greater travesty upon justice could be recorded than the foregoing. 

 And as surely men living in this locality, paying taxes, as well as 

 taxpayers all over the Colony, will arise and unite in effectually and 

 speedily ending so disgraceful and disreputable a condition of affairs. 



In the condemnation of this shameful application of the law, none 

 are more pronounced than the honest law abiding American sports- 

 men, all of whom declare the punishment inflicted upon Judge 

 O'Connor and his companion to be an inexcusable outrage, destined 

 to make Newfoundland a target for the contempt and ridicule of the 

 outside world. These gentlemen, many of whom haye been here 

 during the past two weeks, unite in the contention that every visiting 

 sportsman knows the law; that they are intelligent and responsible, 

 and that any violation of well-known enactments should invariably be 

 visited with prompt, proper, and regular punishment, without dis- 

 crimination and without subserviency. 



We have the cruiser Fiona constantly tramping the arms of Bay 

 of Islands, expensively equipped and officered at public expense, 



