Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1871-05-12
The Price OF Fish.
CHApMAN's Po1Nr, Mav sM, 1871

Mr.. WELLs:-Permit US to demur to the
tone and character of your editorial of the 9th
instant upon the price of fish.
AS many Of the people of the county are
supplied from this shore, we feel to the fullest
extent the injustice of your criticism. The
words "barefaced ertortion," when applied to
Shylocks, highwaymen, and United States
internal revenue laws, may be mild" but
when applied to our prices for fish, we are
compelled to doubt either your knowledge oil
the subject or your honesty Of purpose. We
prefer the former conclusion, and feel satisfied
that you would not Intentionally do US an in
jury; therefore. request you to give equal
publicity to this, in order that the antidote
may follow the poison at once.
We say that the upper fisheries have been
anything bnt successful. Price is as much
an ingredient of success as quantity. We say
that up to the present, that our books show
a less successful fishery than any since the
war, with a prospect of its winding up So.
The low price Of fish in town is as much at
trbutable to the scarcity of money in Virgil
MIA as the excess ofquantity of fish caught at
the lower shores. The people having no mo-
ney, no competition is offered to the packers,
who are left free to FIX their own prices. Of
ten have bur fish been sold at low figures and
no sooner would the sale be made lat public
auction always) than the "ring" would be
broken, and the same fish retailed out of our
own vessels, to small purchasers, at price
exceeding our shore prices.
Our bucks afford a complete denial to the
sale Of fish at 50, or as low as So, as-a price.
We have heard that large bulks of heated and
81 Ia Ecb
your table, sold for 49,.
If our mode of conducting our private bu-
siness is to be made subject Of criticism in
the public prints, let it be done fairly and
with all the facts.
Take our cafrse for Q series of years, not
for. one, and tea an exceptional one. and we
are willing to abide the Judgment Of all fair
men, praying to be delivered from those who
have sour. dyspeptic stomachs.
Day after day for the last six seasons, have
we sold fish to the county people at So, when
every vessel load sent to town yielded us from
ST to SO. No cry of "barefaced extortion'
then.
In 1868 we sold fish for great part of the
season at So, when we we're offered and guar
ranteed So for all we could catch. No cry
of "barefaced extortion" then.
In 1867, when there were carts upon the
shore for 10000 herring, we supplied them
at Sc as fast as we could catch the fish, with
an agent of the spectators upon the shore
Offering ms $3.50. No cry of barefaced ex
tortion then but now, when the price of fish
has been put down by the unusual quantity
caught at the lower shores, with no money in
tho pockets Of the people to buy them, comes
this ungrateful cry, when we who come in
late at an upper shore are trying to save our
selves by selling, first at Sc, now at S.
Candid purchasers say behring's at $40 are
a cheap article of food. Whence then this
grum bling of our customers at S.?
A com parsen of our prices in town with
those on the sbure, for the last six years, re-
by vacillating with the town sales, for they
but seldom fell to SIS, and generally yielded
from 1878 to So.
What satisfaction would it be to the people
for us to sell fish to-day at SIS and Tomorrow
at SIS, or at Sc one day and So the next, &C
cording to thesartifcial aud fluctuating infu-
ences 10 towny We can assure you that no
fishing can besustained by the current sup
ply of 6sh,3at the late prevailing prices in
town, unless ypu can reduce wages and values
to the standard of forty years ago.
The only expense saved by US in selling
upon the shire is the agents commission.
which is but small item; the vessels for
transportation are paid $12 per day whether
we use them or not. The shore custom COM
pels this expense; for we must have vessels
but their captains will not run for us upon
pro rata wages, because we do sell to the peo-
Pile. Visit Alexandra and ask the consumer
there if be gets his fish at the quoted prices
he will tell you. DO. Had you taken the
trouble to post yourself, before making the
charge of discrimination, the same Virgins
consumers would have told you, as they have
been often heard to say, they would be glad
to get their family fish at our shore prices anc
in such prime condition.
Let the covert threat of repeating the law
protecting riparian fishermen be carried into
execution, the inevitable results of which
would be complete stoppage of all t'seines
laid out from and hauled to the shore" the
people will then see how much their interests
are identified with the shore fisheries. They
will also discover how much truth there is il
the reckless assertion of discrimination. in
having to pay IS or Sc, no matter what the
wholesale price may be in town. And they
will further see that they have deprived them.
selves Of not q small amount of taxable pro.
perty. PEARSON CHAPMAN,
JNo. s. CHAPMAN.