254 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



dynamite and gun-cotton used by them on shore for 

 blasting, had been in the habit of catching fish by explo- 

 ding such substances at sea. For one fish caught for food 

 in this way, a hundred were wantonly destroyed, and 

 neighbouring nets and vessels were rendered insecure. In 

 1877, fi sri an d fishing-boats became nearly as amply pro- 

 tected against dynamite as public buildings then were.- 

 By the Dynamite-fishing Act, all persons using explosive 

 substances for catching fish in public fisheries become 

 liable to a fine of 20, or to imprisonment for two months.* 

 Such offences committed on the coast, or at sea within 

 three miles, are deemed committed within a public fishery, 

 and, for purposes of jurisdiction, they are held to have been 

 committed on the land adjoining such sea. The prompt 

 Explosives Act of the present Session, aimed against 

 grosser malefactors than dynamite-fishers, might possibly 

 occasion even the latter greater severity. By the Act passed 

 this April (i.e. April 1883), the mere possession of explo- 

 sives may render the possessor liable to fourteen years' 

 penal servitude. Mr. Stansfeld, in the House of Commons, 

 argued against the punishment, as it might render liable a 

 land-poacher with an ounce of gunpowder. This is possibly 

 the case, and the penal servitude under the Explosives 

 Act might therefore, with greater possibility, be used 

 against a sea-poacher in possession of an ounce of dyna- 

 mite. 



The rating of fishermen was regulated in 1880. In the 

 Merchant Service, a seaman to be rated A.B. must have 

 served four years before the mast (43 & 44 Viet. c. 1 7, s. 7). 

 Fishermen who have been employed for three years or 

 longer in a registered decked fishing vessel may be 



* The Dynamite Act, 1877, is distinctly a Sea Fishery Act, as it 

 was not extended to rivers until 1878 (by 41 & 42 Viet. c. 39). 



