from the county agent or warden of the institution, as the case may 

 be, and the receipts are placed on file in the office of the secretary of 

 this Commission. 



One of our wardens, Mr. George W. Grlynn, reports fifty barrels of 

 fish so dispensed during the past 17 months. 



What we need in the work is a warden service in which those em- 

 ployed shall receive a stated salary and necessary expenses, so that 

 there need be no incentive to the prosecution of merely technical 

 violations, such as cited before, but with a certainty of a proper re- 

 muneration for the work they can vigorously prosecute all inten- 

 tional violations. In order to inaugurate this method the Commission- 

 ers would respectfully recommend the repeal of that portion of the 

 fish laws which provides for the appointment of an indefinite number 

 of men as wardens who are to be paid out of such fines as may be 

 collected, and, instead provide for the appointment of four or five 

 competent men by the Governor, on the recommendation of the 

 Commissioners. These men to be paid a salary and such expenses 

 as may be incurred in their work, on order of the Commissioner or 

 Commissioners who may have that part of the work in charge. And 

 we would also recommend that all fines resulting from convictions 

 be disposed of by turning over one half to the school fund, and send- 

 ing the other half, which now belongs to the complainant, directly, 

 to the State Treasurer to form a fund out of which can, eventually, 

 be paid the salaries and expenses of these wardens, upon presenta- 

 tion of a bill of particulars, recommended by the Commissioner or 

 Commissioners having charge of the work, and approved by the 

 Governor, 



For the first two years an appropriation to cover the cost of such 

 work would be necessary, but after that time a sufficient sum will be 

 recovered to make the work self-sustaining. This method has been 

 tried and is now in force under the law enacted at the last General 

 Assembly for the protection of game. 



Without charging any one of our wardens with a desire to do 

 more than strictly to enforce the law as it now stands, we cannot dis- 

 miss the subject without reiterating our opinion as to the vicious 

 character of the law in the hands of an unscrupulous official, and the 

 temptation that is offered to such to give protection to dishonest 

 dealers for a remuneration. "Something for nothing" is, at best, a 

 bad business proposition, and a man who is working for the benefit 

 of the general public should be paid for his work, lest, failing to ob- 

 tain legitimate compensation, he be tempted to get it by other 

 means 



Without any warden service the streams and lakes of the State, 

 naturally prolific of a supply of good and wholesome food, would be 

 at the mercy of thousands of poachers and the immense output of 

 late seasons would soon be reduced to a small amount. 



The practice of taking the buflPalo fish along our rivers at spawn- 

 ing time caused such a vast reduction in the supply that in 18S0 the 

 statistics showed scarcely a million pounds sent to market. This is 



