8H 



Chicago, who with others like him, have magnificient homes on Fox 

 Lake, has taken a deep interest in tish matters connected witli that 

 region and has given valuable time to it. Our commission feels 

 under great obligations to him. 



LAKE MICHIGAN. 



Efforts to enforce the law relating to Lake Michigan have heen 

 kept up and the very best results have followed our efforts. We are 

 assured that conditions are better than for years and with anything 

 like uniform laws, in a few years white fish and lake trout will again 

 be taken in territory covered by the State, for the past twenty years 

 almost extinct. 



Mr. A. Booth, one of the i^ioneer fish dealers of Chicago, has re- 

 peatedly stated that the first few years of his business in Chicago it 

 was not unusual for boats to go out in vicinity of Chicago and take 

 full loads of these fishes. The various means to take at all times of 

 seasons causing an immense drain on resources, the pollution of the 

 w^ater and other causes having as stated nearly depleted the waters. 



THE PISH MARKET OV CHICAGO. 



The city of Chicago is unique in man^^ ways, but it stands alone 

 in one thing, viz., the Jewish fish market, where the Bohemians, 

 Poles and Hebrews go to buy their fish. There is nothing like it in 

 the Ignited States. South Jefferson street, from Twelfth to Maxwell 

 street, on one side of the street is lined with small, dingy buildings 

 one story high, in which the retail fish merchant displays his stock 

 of fresh water fish. On the outside is a stand on which the fish of 

 all kinds are piled and mixed indiscriminately — black bass, black fins, 

 bullheads, crappies, herring, mullet, pike, pickerel, perch, rock bass, 

 suckers, sheepsheads, sunfish, trout, whitefish, and white bass. On 

 the inside of the store are tanks, where the live buffalo, carp and 

 dogfish are displayed, and the customer selects the fish, it is caught 

 in a net, then wrapped in newpapers (a large pile being always on 

 hand), and given to the customer, who takes the live carp and walks 

 out of the store feeling sure of its being fresh. After the fish is 

 wrapped in the paper it is perfectly quiet, although just previously 

 it may prove highly jDugnacious in its efforts to escape from its cajj- 

 tor with the net. Possibly its new surroundings may numb its facul- 

 ties or maybe it is smothered in the close wrappings of the paper. 

 This is all the more strange as the carp will live longer out of the 

 water than any other fish. Its tenacity is proverbial. The buyers 

 are of all kinds, from the poor woman that takes two or three small 

 suckers, to the prosperous merchant's wife, who brings her basket 

 for a mess of black bass at 14 cents a pound or live carp at from 8 to 

 10 cents. 



All go through the sami' routine of buying, selecting the live fish 

 or taking up, the dead fish in their fingers, examining it, smelling it 

 to test its freshness, then handing over to the salesman the C[va,ntity 



— 3 F C ■ : ^-r ■:'-::^ 



