230 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
and feed upon the food that thej-^ get near the shore are not protected. The result is that the old and 
the r^ise fish that are subjected from year to year to this persecution, 'which commences at Hatteras 
and which extends clear to the Bay of Fundy, become wiser, and they are deflected from the ordinarj' 
route ; they go outside ; and the fishermen are catching an nnprofitahle fish, a fish that is not anything 
like the mackerel that was caught fifty years ago. 
Right here I should like to refer to a table which was prepared by the Boston Fish Bureau, and 
which more than anything else, it seems to me, establishes the fact that the fish are being degraded by 
the persecution to which they are subjected upon the coast before they reach Nova Scotia. I shall 
show that it is fairly deducihle from the facts I am about to state. According to the report of the 
Boston Fish Bureau, in 1819 the catch with the hook and line was 19 per cent of No. 1 mackerel; in 
1829 it w.as 25 per cent of No. 1 mackerel ; in 1839 it was 30 per cent; in 1859 it was 61 per cent; in 
1869 it was 31 per cent; in 1879 it was 6 j)er cent. I will state right here in parentheses that the use 
of the i)urse-seiues commenced in 1873, and from 1875 down to the present time the degradation of the 
quality of the mackerel on the coast has been so marked as to c.all for legislative action. From 17 per 
cent in 1877 it has gone down to 9 per cent one year, to 6 per cent the next year, then to 8 per cent, 
then to 6 per cent, to 15 per cent, to 14 per cent, to 8 per cent, and to 7 per cent in 1885, showing a 
remarkable decrease in a very few years. 
I think it is fairly deducihle from this table that from some cause or other the larger fish are 
driven from the coast, and unless some remedy is found the fish eventually will not he worth the 
catching for anything except for fertilizers; they will he nothing hut “spikes,” as they are called in 
the market. 
There is no doubt in my mind that these fish, hy the way they are harassed (and I wdll bring 
evidence to hear on that point), are being driven olx from the coast. The men who have come and 
asked for this legislation are unanimous upon the suliject with the exception of one man. They ask 
protection from each other. They ask the enactment of a law that shall prevent one from getting the 
start of the others. If they were perfectly sure of each other’s good faith they would all stay at home ; 
hut if nine-tenths of the fleet remain at home one-tenth may go south and get in a very large mackerel 
catch and carry it into New York and get an .advantage over their brethren. 
There is no restriction to he placed on the catching of mackerel by hook and line. No one is to 
he damaged at all except the very men who ask for this legislation. They are the men who supply our 
navies with our sailors. We are now .agitated in .an attempt to protect them in their rights; and it 
seems to me that their voice should he heeded in legislation which tends to their prosperity and the 
prosperity of the fisheries. Unless something of this kind is done, I am perfectly certain that there 
will he no mackerel fisheries with purse seines — possiljly that would he a blessing — in less than ten 
yeiirs. 
I should like to read frotn some of the testimony presented to the committee. These letters .are 
from men who h.ave pursued fishing or have been connected with it in one way or another all their 
lives. Here is a note from W. A. Wilcox, manager of the American Fish Bureau. I road an extract 
from his letter of June 15,1886: 
From i)ersonal couversation with a number of the most reliable masters of vessels engaged, I find they estimate the 
aggregate amount thrown away by all vessels engaged at from 75,000 to 100,000 barrels. 
That is, from 75,000 to 100,000 barrels a year. It shows how the catch has deteriorated. The fish 
could not he marketed. They are thrown over at sea, the most of them, and that is another crying 
evil. 
Mr. Miller. Will the Senator allow me to .ask him a f|uestion? How does this hill prevent the 
c.atehing of mackerel hy purse seines? How does it enable the fishermen to catch only the good fish 
and to leave out the poor ones ? 
Mr. Palmer. If the Senator from New York can tell me why they should catch fish when they 
can not sell them, then I can tell him how it would prevent it. The hill proposes to enact “ That for 
the period of five years from and after the 1st day of J uly, 1887, no mackerel other than what is known 
as Spanish mackerel, caught between the 1st day of March and the 1st day of June, inclusive, of each 
year, shall he imported into the United States or landed upon its shores ” 
Mr. Miller. But if the hill said that no mackerel caught in purse seines or in any other way 
except hy hook and line should he imported into the United States, I could then understand how the 
hill would enable the fishermen, or would compel them, to bring in full-sized fish; hut it does not 
undertake to regulate the methods of fishing at all. 
