THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
249 
he thought they were. I asked if they had purse seines. He said he thought not. I do not Ijoliove 
that tho purse seine is used on tho British coast; but I think it is fairly deducible from the tables and 
from the percentages, as shown by tho Boston Fish Bureau, that the tendency of tho use of these purse 
seines is to break up the schools, frighten tho older and wiser iish, the No. 1 mackerel, outside of their 
ordinary routes, and drive them off onto tho banks of Nova Scotia. It is fair to infer that fish have 
intelligence. Tho Senator from New York [Mr. Miller] is too good a sportsman to contend that they 
have not. They have sufficient, enough to protect themselves, of that instinct of self-preservation. 
And right here, it appears in the evidence that codfish on the Banks will go olf at tho fall of a 
single barrel on the dock, Avill sometimes disappear and be gone for a whole day, that tho fishermen 
on the Banks take the offal 40 or 50 miles out to sea and throw it overboard, rather than to throw it 
overboard amid tho schools of lish. Here are a hundred thousand barrels of dead iish thrown over 
to frighten these schools away from their ordinary route. 
Now those men come to Congress and ask for this act. I think that they arc entitled to considera- 
tion. It has always been the policy of the Government to lend a willing ear to any of the complaints of 
the men who have manned our Navy, of tho men who fought with Perry on Lake Erie, with McHonough 
on Lake Champlain, and with old Commodore Hull on tho ComlitiUion and on the United States, and 
in all those naval battles that have given our country its prestige upon tho ocean. 
I ask that this bill Avith tho amendments made by the committee may pass and that this trial 
may be made. Its operation is being deferred a year or two. If it is going to evork any hardship, it 
can be repealed after there may be a further expression uimn the subject. 
Mr. Frye. IMr. President, there is one thing Avhich has been stated hero that 1 wish tho Senate 
to distinctly understand, and th.at is that there is not one single mackerel-fishing vessel Avith a seine 
west and south of Massachusetts — not one. There is not one in New Jersey, or Noav York, or Penn- 
sylvania, and there is not a fisherman outside of Massachusetts and Maine that has the slightest 
earthly interest in this bill except as it is intended to lAreservo the fish. That is a fpieer monopoly 
that the Senator from Noav Jersey and the Senator from New York talk about. Hero is a llect of 200 
vessels, every one of them belonging to Massachusetts and Maine, eveiy one of them proposing to 
make money in tho spring fishing, every one of them fitting out to go down to the fishery oft' Ilattoras 
and go to fishing, and yet, amazing to say, they unite to a man in asking you to pass a bill Avhich shall 
absolutely prevent them from going down on the coast to fish. Why do they do that? To create a 
monopoly in their interest ; or is it in the interest of the peojAle of the country ? Talk about monopoly ! 
There has not been one single man before the Committee on Fisheries, there Avas not a man before our 
Committee on Foreign Relations — and we investigated this to a certain extent — Avho said one single 
word against tho close time of mackerel, except one or two fish-market men; and the fish-inarket men 
of NeAV York have had one fish-market man hei'e nearly this Avhole session of Congress busy to fill tbe 
minds of Senators with the idea that this Avas a monopoly in tho interest of Maine and Massachusetts — 
the Yankees, as the distinguished Senator from New York with good taste said. 
Mr. President, what is the fact? Tho fact is that these mackerel Avhen they come to the coast 
are as poor as they can be. The fact is that with the mackerel it is just the same as it is with salmon, 
and trout, and every knoAvn fish with known habits— that they eat very little indeed while they are 
bearing spawn. I hope the Senator from New York has finally got it through his head that spaAvning 
time is not the time when they deposit their spawn. These mackerel are bearing spaAvn from tho time 
they apxiroach the coast in tho middle of March nxi to June, and through .Tune Avhen they deposit their 
spawn no man eau take them with a jiurse seine, because they are out of sight, they are deeji doAvn in 
tho Avater, and tho purse seine only takes them Avhen they are coming uj) in shoals on top. 
It is another fact Avhich I knoAV myself— for I am something of a fisherman — that twenty years 
ago, before tho purse-seines Avero invented, you could start down on the coast of North Carolina and 
you could folloAv these fish away up to the coast of Maine, and there would bo dozens and dozens of 
little boats of 10, 1.5, 20, and 25 feet keel catching mackerel for market Avith hook and line. It is a 
fact to-day that these things arc unknown, that these boats have stopjied undertaking to fish Avith 
hook and line. It is a fact that twenty years ago I have taken mackerel by' the score and score right 
from tho wharf with a hook and line, and the whole bay full of them, and noAv tho mackerel in those 
bays arc almost absolutely unknoAvn. It is a fact that all along the bays on this coast used to be full 
of mackerel and that to-day it is an exceptional thing to take a dozen mackerel in a day’s fishing 
Avith a boat. What has done it? There is Avhere you Avero hurting tho poor men who want to fish. 
What has done it? Tho purse seine. 
I say it is a fact, Mr. President, that these poor men arc dejArived to-day of the rights Avhich 
used to exist. And why? Because two or three hundred Maine and Massachusetts fishermen, in 
