AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 2361 



I lost $600 the first cruise, and on tbe other three or four cruises I 

 hardly got out square. I was very unlucky. If you dou't hit the mar- 

 ket at Gloucester you get shoved overboard. 



Q. That is when they want bait ? A. Yes. 



Q. Did you intend to assent to the statement that all the herring- 

 fishing you know of is in British waters ? A. Not by any means. In 

 winter it is the only place where they catch them. I don't know but that 

 there is as good fishing on our shore, but we never catch them in winter, 

 and never tried; but we do in spring and summer, and now they 

 are doing as well in Portland herring fishing as was ever done anywhere. 



Q. There is herring-fishing all along the United States coast 1 A. I 

 rather think there is. 



Q. You say you did not mean to say in cross-examination that all the 

 herring fishing is in British waters. Will you enumerate the places on 

 the United States coast where herring are caught in considerable quan- 

 tities, and the season of the year when they are caught ? A. I don't 

 know of any place on the whole coast but which, at certain times of the 

 year, has large quantities of herring. At Isle of Haut, for instance, 

 we were getting from 5 to 15 barrels a night in one net when I left there. 

 They were small-sized herring; the nets were one-inch mesh. They 

 sunk the nets and lost some of them. The people had no means of 

 smoking the herring, so they salted them for lobster bair. There are 

 100 sail vessels which make it a practice to go in the fall to catch her- 

 ring. They make Portland their headquarters. They strike for Wood 

 Island, and go eastward to Cape Porpoise, and clear along into Boston 

 Bay, and^down by the Graves, and they catch more herring than is 

 caught anywhere I know of in British Nprth America. 



Q. Did you mean to assent to the statement that American vessels 

 fish for herring in British waters as a fact you know of? A. Not with 

 nets. They buy herring there. I never knew an American to have a 

 net there, and I never heard of one. 



Q. Did you mean to assent to the statement that there were several 

 fishing towns in Maine which gained their whole livelihood by fishing iu 

 British waters? A. I do not know of any such business. 



Q. Will you state whether you understand that there are any fishing 

 towns in Maine the inhabitants of which get their living by fishing iu 

 British waters ! A. I don't know of one. 



Q. Did you mean to say, in answer to Mr. Weatherbe's question, that 

 there were any towns on the coast of Maine the inhabitants of which 

 get their living by fishing in British waters? A. No; but I do think 

 the people of Eastport and Grand Manan are like one, and fish back 

 and forth. 



Q. That is what you stated yesterday ? A. Yes. 



Q. You say that the frozen herring business, as far as you know, is 

 carried on in British waters entirely? A. Yes. 



Q. In answer to questions put to you yesterday with regard to the 

 failure of the fisheries of Maine, did you refer to the failure of the fish- 

 ing business or to the failure of the catch of fish ! A. I meant the fish- 

 ing business. 



Q. How is it as to the catch of fish off the coast of Maine ? A. I 

 cannot say that the catch has materially altered there, although fish are 

 not so plentiful as they used to be. But I don't think that the change 

 in the catch makes so much difference as the price and expense of get- 

 ting them, for Maine is about bankrupt from end to end in the fishing 

 business. 



Q. When the fishing-vessels of your own town atftl its vicinity, and 



