THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
247 
Mr. Hale. Does ho not know of hnndrods and thousands of coast iishermen who c.atch tliese fish 
in boats and take them into a market who are heuoflcially affected by this bill, and Avho will catch 
the big fish that ought to bo taken into market because they catch with seines and get the big fish. 
Mr. Sewell. It is a time of tlie year when iish are scarce practically, when fish command a good 
price. It is a time of the year when people ought not to be prohibited from their natural right 
simply because you want to gobble the whole catch. 
Mr. President, as I said, the result will be that our friends in Massachusetts and Maine, with 
their usual foresight, will bo enabled to take the fish in the best condition, I grant, but will take all 
of them to the exclusion of the inhabitants of the United States south of that lino. It is a monopoly 
and a monopoly of the worst kind, one that legi.slation of the United States has never gone into up to 
this time, to exclude any part of its citizens from the natural right to Iish on the high seas. 
Mr. Palmer. There seem to bo some very queer and diverse views eTitertained in regard to this 
bill. One gets up and claims that it is a monopoly. The fact is that the men who are claimed to bo 
seeking possession of a monopoly have it now, and I should call it a bill as much for the protectioii 
of the fishermen of New Jersey and Delaware as for the protection of the fishermen of the New 
England coast. Tins whole mackerel lleet that uses purse seines is owned upon the New England 
coast. The bill is a guarantee that each member of their fraternity will observe the obligation that 
they all profess to be willing to enter into — to not destroy the fish by harassing the schools as they 
come to this coast. 
We have not claimed, in the inishing of this- bill, that the catch of mackerel was decreasing, but 
taking this table from the mackerel chart, showing the Massachusetts c.atch for the p.ast seventy-five 
years, you will find that it has positively decreased, notwithstanding the immense advantages by the 
purse seine and the immensely increased demand by the methods of distribution through the railro.ads 
and steamboats and the refrigerator cars throughout the country. 
Mr. Miller. I know the Senator does not wish to convey a false impression in regard to this 
matter. He is altogether too fair to do that. The table he is re.a.ding from says this is the “total 
number of barrels of each quality of pickled mackerel inspected in M.assachusotts from 1809 to 1885 
and the total value of each year’s inspection from 1830 to 1885.” 
Those gentlemen who are telling the Senate that, notwithst.anding the wonderfully improved 
methods of fishing, the catch has not increased, certainly are making a misleading statement, because 
this table has nothing whatever to do with the mackerel that is brought into the port of Now York 
or into any of the Atlantic ports which are consumed as fresh fish. In fact nearly the entire c.atch of 
the three months of March, April, .and May are thus consumed. They are not salted. Some of the 
testimony given here in this book undertakes to show that the catch in these three months is not 
salted at .all; that it is all distributed over the country as fresh fish. Certainly the Senator will not 
undert.ake to base his statement upon that table, because it leaves out .all the c.atch of the three 
months which is distributed over the country as fresh fish. For instance, in the ye.ar 1885, when 
60,0(10 barrels were brought into New York in one day, that table shows nothing of it at all ! 
Mr. Palmer. If the Senator will permit me, I will state that the only means we h.ave of coming 
to a conclusion as to the rel.ative catch of mackerel is by this table prepared by the Poston Fish Ilure.au, 
and there it is shown that in 1831, with the hook and line, .383,000 b.arrels of fish were caught; but .at 
no time since then has any such quantity been caught by the fishermen of Massachusetts. 
Mr. Miller. Th.at does not .answer my question at all. 
Mr. Palmer. I was going to qu.alify my remark. As a nuatter of course this does not take into 
account the amount that has been marketed in New York fresh, nor does it take into account the 
100,000 barrels that are thrown overboard to infect the waters and to frighten the schools of mackerel 
as they come along the shore. And right here I should like to show what is said on that point. Here 
is a letter from Capt. Joseph .Smith, of the schooner Lizzie M. Center. He says: 
For the first four or five years the number of vessels engaged early was small. 
That is, engaged in purse-seine fishing. 
They did not appear to make much impression on the school, as they were very numerous and large and the vessels did 
not start before May, but the bast eight or nine years the fleet has increased so very much, and .starting, s.ay, in March, 
meeting the mackerel off the coast of Virginia, and at times farther south, while they are moving north to their 
spawning grounds, Inarass and annoy them by their seines and by sailing through the schools i'righten the fish, l.re.aking 
them up and turning the fish offshore in deep water, on the very edge of soundings, and the re.sult, they shun our bays and 
small banks, where they formerly resorted to deposit their spawn, .and p.ass .along to the south of Georges Hanks, and 
striking the southern coast of Nova Scotia, dei.osit their spawn .among its numerou.s islands and lia.ya, where they have not 
been molested to any extent in the early p.art of the season. 
