52 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



In 186C twelve men were employed in fishing, and in subsequent 

 years an average of fifteen men. The barrels contained 150 pounds of 

 fish each. 



[Reducing the above to pounds, tbere are found to be 483,600; and on 

 the supposition that each fish weighs 5 pounds, there are 96,720 fish. J 



Captain Hetsel Handy : 



You may call on anybody on Cape Cod, and you will find he was 

 brought up to go to sea. There was nothing else for us. Steam has 

 now taken the lead ; and we must either take our families and go away, 

 or else something must be done to enable us to livQ here. With a weir 

 two or three men can Ciitch more fish than all the other fishers on the 

 coast. They ship off a hundred tons a day to New York, and they must 

 be used up or spoil; whereas if they were caught with a hook and taken 

 care of they would be good, healthy food for men to eat. 



1 don't know of any other way than to stop the pounds wholly. The 

 pound-men will not be satisfied with taking up their nets two days in a 

 week. The decrease of fish this year is 50 per cent. Fishermen who 

 have been in my employ two years say they used to fetch in five hun- 

 dred pounds of fish in a day and get a cent a pound for them. Now 

 they go out and try from 2 o'clock in the morning, and come in at night 

 with one or two fish; and some come with no fish at all. Twenty boats 

 will not bring in more than two barrels. It seems to me the men have 

 not made seventy-five cents a day; and they get up at 1 or 2 o'clock in the 

 morning and are off at the ''Bishop's," or some other fishing-ground out- 

 side, wiien day breaks. 



We have paid two cents a pound for blue-fish, and have lost a quar- 

 ter of a cent a pound. 



I ship to Baker & Co., J. W. Miller & Co., and Crocker & Haley. I 

 sell some, too. They don't lose anything. I sent two boxes of blue-fish 

 at the same time; for one I got $12, and for the other a dollar, or less. 



I have heard men solemnly swear they would destro}- the pounds and 

 everything connected with them that they could lay their hands on before 

 they wouhl submit to have the maintenance of their families thus taken 

 away. 



I think Government does not do what it should to protect the fisher- 

 men in their trials to get a living. 



I have handed a man a quarter of a dollar, and even less, for his day^s 

 work in fishing; and they would say their arms felt as though they would 

 drop off'. It is a hard case anyway. What are they going to do next 

 winter'? If they are well they njay keep out of the poor-house. 



There are a good many mackerel-fishermen who go from here. 



There are two weii'S in Harwick; four this side of Monomoy. 



Blue-fisli lilce squid very much ; they drive eels clear up the creeks. 

 The first blue-fish caugiit are caught at the bottom, while fishing for 

 scup. I never saw any scup in blue-fish. I have found a whole men- 

 haden in tlie stomach of a blue-fish. 



Gill-nets never ought to be set in these waters. The fish die in them 

 and drop around, and that frightens aw\ay all that kind offish. Two or 

 tiiree men about here have had weirs for thirty ^-ears; and they say 

 that if they cut up a shark and strew the pieces around they are not 

 troubled with sharks any more. 



If the work is given up to the pound-men, I do not know what will 

 become of the fishermen). It seems as if they cannot exist together — 

 the rich or the i)oor man must have it. 



I think 100,000 blue-lisli have been taken about Ilyaunis this year. 



