LEGISLATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF MACKEREL. 303 
There is hardly anything which possesses life that has so little instinct as not to become very shy 
under such barbarous inflictions. It is obvious that all which are hooked in this manner are not 
taken on board; the gig frequently tears out, and thousands, millions of these fish are lacerated 
by these large hooks and afterwards die in the water.”* 
The following protest appeared in the Gloucester Telegraph, Weduesday, August 7, 1839, it 
being a quotation from the Salem Register: 
“All the mackerel men who arrive report the scarcity of this fish, and at the same time I 
notice an improvement in taking them with nets at Cape Cod and other places. If this specula- 
tion is allowed to go on without being checked or regulated by the government, will not these fish 
be as scarce on the coast as penguins are, which were so plenty before the Revolutionary war that 
our fishermen could take them with their gaffs? But during the war some mercenary and cruel 
individuals used to visit the islands on the eastern shore where were the haunts of these birds for 
breeding, and take them for the sake of the fat, which they procured, and then let the birds go. 
This proceeding finally destroyed the whole race. It is many years since I have seen or heard 
one except on the coast of Cape Horn. In 1692 the General Court passed an act prohibiting the 
taking of mackerel before the first day of July annually, under penalty of forfeiting the fish so 
taken. In 1702 this act was revived with additional penalties—besides forfeiting the fish and 
apparatus for taking, 20 shillings per barrel, and none to be taken with seines or nets. 
“A FISHERMAN, 
“MARBLEHEAD, August 3, 1839.” . 
1859.— Protests against the use of seines.—“A petition is now before the committee on fisheries, 
in the House, to abolish the catching of mackerel in seines on our coast. As mackerel can now 
be caught only in this way, and many of our people are interested in this business, it becomes 
highly important that any such stupid petition should be prostrated at once. Mr. Gifford has 
asked for a delay in the petition, and Mr. Atwood has written to show the nature of the business 
upon our coast. One thing is certain, if we do not take the mackerel in seines or nets we ghall 
get none at all.” + 
1870-1882.— Opposition to the purse-seine.—Since the general adoption of the purse-seine no 
year has passed without a considerable amount of friction between fishermen using this engine of 
wholesale destruction in the capture of mackerel and menhaden and those engaged in fishing with 
other forms of apparatus. Petitions to Congress and State legislatures have been made from both 
sides, and in some instances laws have been passed by State legislatures prohibiting the use of 
menhaden seines within certain specified tracts of water, such as the Chesapeake Bay. These 
laws, while especially antagonistic to menhaden fishing, were aimed chiefly at the purse-seine as 
a means of capture, and would doubtless have been equally prohibitory of mackerel fishing with 
purse-seines had this been attempted within the limits. In 1878 a delegation of fishermen from 
Portland, Me., and Gloucester, Mass., visited Washington for the purpose of securing the passage 
of a law prohibiting the use of purse-seines in the mackerel fishery. In 1882 the clamors of shore 
fishermen, especially on the coast of New Jersey, led to the appointment of a committee of the 
United States Senate, which took considerable testimony regarding the effect of the purse-seine 
upon the menhaden fishery, and incidentally upon other fisheries of the coast. The labors of this 
committee will probably result in the recommendation of some form of legislation which will apply, 
in part at least, to the mackerel fishery. 
In the summer of 1882 a serious commotion was caused among the mackerel fishermen by the 
“Newburyport Herald, Gloucester Telegraph, September 23, 1838. 
t Provinceton Banner, February, 1859. 
