2042 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Q. Do cod fishing- vessels do so ? A. I do not know anything about 

 the cod-fishery ; I never went cod-fishing. 



Q. You have no knowledge of the cod-fishing business at all ? A. 

 No. 



Q. You have spent your life in the mackerel-fishing business ? A. 

 No ; I have been in the marine service and in different businesses ; I 

 have been coasting. 



Q. You have been fishing a great many years ! A. Yes. 



Q. From 1852 up to the present time ; first you fished, and then you 

 owned vessels ? A. Yes ; I was fishing, and I have owned vessels. 



Q. From 1852 up to the present time, you have been engaged in the 

 mackerel fishery, either fishing yourself or owning vessels ? A. Yes. 



Q. And you have no knowledge of cod-fishing? A. Cod-fishing I know 

 nothing about. 



Q. Have not very great catches of mackerel been made in the Bay of 

 St. Lawrence ? A. Some few years they have. 



Q. And during some years, the mackerel fishery has been bad ? A. 

 Yes. 



Q. And during the whole period in question, have there not been taken 

 enormous catches of mackerel ? A. I do not know that fishermen have 

 done any better in the Gulf of St. Lawrence than on our own coast. 

 Vessels that have followed up our fishery have done so right along. 



Q. Has not the mackerel fishery on your own coast failed to a great 

 extent ? A. It was very good last season. 



Q. I will just read a passage from Professor Baird's report, and see if 

 it is correct in your opinion. Do you know Professor Baird ? A. I have 

 no acquaintance with him, but I have seen him here. 



Q. You are acquainted with him by reputation ? A. Yes. 



Q. The passage is as follows : 



Bearing in mind that the present report has more particular reference to the south 

 side of New England, and especially to that portion of it extending from Point Judith 

 on the west to Monomoy Point on the east, including Narragansett Bay, Vineyard 

 Sound, Buzzard's Bay, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, I have no hesitation in stat- 

 ing that the fact of an alarming decrease of the shore fisheries has been thoroughly 

 established by my own investigations, as well as by evidence of those whose testimony 

 was taken upon the subject. 



Is that correct in your view ? A. I should think so. 

 Q. Here is another passage : 



We may also refer to the testimony of the Rhode Island committee, on page 104, in 

 reference to the increase of the cost of living on the coast of that State, in consequence 

 of the diminution of the fisheries. "One very intelligent man thought it made $100 

 difference in the cost of living on the shore and in the small towns on the bay, and, 

 from bis own experience, he had no doubt that there are one thousand persons living 

 near the shore to whom it made this difference, amounting to a loss to them of $100,000 

 each year, that of the high price of fish in Providence market not beiug taken into 

 account." 



Is that correct ? The report continues : 



Many persons are in the habit of considering that the fish supply of the sea is prac- 

 tically inexhaustible ; and, therefore, that a scarcity of any particular location is to be 

 referred rather to the movements of the fish, in changing their feeding-grounds capri- 

 ciously, or elf*e in following the migration, from place to place, of the food upon which 

 they live. This may be true to a certain extent, as we shall hereafter show, but it is 

 difficult to point out any locality where, near the shores in the New England States, 

 at least, under the most favorable view of the case, the fish are quite as plentiful as 

 they were some years ago ; and still more so where, by their overlapping the original 

 colonists of the sea-bottom, they tend to render the abundance appreciably greater 

 than usual. And, furthermore, if the scarcity of the fish be due to their going off into 

 the deep waters of the ocean, it is, of course, of very little moment to the fisherman 

 that they are as abundant in the sea as ever, if they do not come upon such grounds 

 as will permit their being taken by his lines or nets. 



