110 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The committee recommend the passage of the folio wiDg act : 



STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. 



January session, A. P. 1871. 

 AN ACT to prohibit trap and heart-seining of fish in the waters of Narragansett Bay. 



It is enacted by the general assembly as follows : 



Section 1. No trap, heart-seine, or other contrivance of any kind or 

 description, other than pike-nets, purse-seines, shore-seines, scoop or hand- 

 nets, and hook and line for catching fish, shall be set or drawn in any 

 of the waters within the jurisdiction of the State, northerly of a line 

 drawn from the southerly point of the rocks at Brenton's Reef, to the 

 southernmost point of Point Judith, and north of the Stone Bridge at 

 Howland's Ferry. 



Sec. 2. That each and every person who shall be or shall have been 

 engaged m setting or drawing any trap or other contrivance prohibited 

 by the first section, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall 

 pay a fine of not less than fifty or more than three hundred dollars for 

 the first offense, and for the second and every subsequent offense he 

 shall be fined a sum of not less than five hundred nor more than one 

 thousand dollars, and shall be imprisoned for not less than one month 

 nor more than one year. 



Sec. 3. That all and every the nets or other contrivances, apparatus, 

 boats, and vessels of persons willfully and knowingly engaged or em- 

 ployed in violating the provisions of said first section, or in carrying off 

 the fish so caught, shall be forfeited upon being condemned, as herein- 

 after provided, to and for the uses hereinafter provided. 



Sec. 4. Complaint shall be made, or an information filed under oath 

 or affirmation, by the mayor or city marshal of any city, the president 

 of the town council, or any town sergeant, the sheriff and his deputies, 

 and the city or town constables, whenever either of said officers has 

 knowledge of the violation of the first section of this act within his jur- 

 isdiction, if no other complaint or information shall have been made or 

 information filed against the same property for the same violation of 

 said first section ; and may make such complaint or file such informa- 

 tion when the alleged violation has been committed in any place therein 

 forbidden, and any such complaint or information shall set forth that 

 the complainant or informant has reason to believe, or does believe, that 

 the traps or other contrivances, apparatus, boats, and vessels, which 

 shall be described as nearly as may be in such complaint or information, 

 are being used, or have been used, engaged, or employed in violating 

 the provisions of said first section, before any court of competent juris- 

 diction, and such proceedings shall be had therein as by law is pre- 

 scribed for protection of personal property under the penal statutes. 



Sec. 5. That any of the officers named in the fourth section may, 

 without a warrant, seize and detain any traps and other property men 

 tioned in the second section, found in use or engaged in violating the 

 provisions, or which he has good reason to believe, and does believe, has 

 been so used or employed, and shall convey the same to some proper 

 place of security, and there to keep the same until said traps and other 

 property mentioned in section second can be proceeded against as pro- 

 vided in the next preceding section ; and upon paid seizure the said com- 

 plaint or information shall be made or filed within sixty hours after said 

 property has been seized and secured as aforesaid; and when said inform- 

 ation shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the court of common pleas 

 within and for the county within which the said violation is alleged to 



* This bill failed to become a law. — S. F. B. 



