The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-24

UNPROTECTED FISH.
The Pound Nets Will Catch
Myriads During the
Coming Summer.
ANTI POUND BILL DEAD
Killed by Lobbyists Forcible Ar
guments-Game and Fisheries
Committees Report.
ANTI POUND BILL DEAD

The wholesale destruction of fish along
the New Jersey coast in the mammoth
fish pounds will continue for another
year, says the Philadelphia Enquirer
The pound net owners have had their
way In this Legislature, but the popular
demand for restrictive legislation is like
" to gain such strength within a year
that the Legislature Of 1898 will be COM
| PEELED to either regulate or wipe out the
deadly fish pounds Senator Francis, of
Monmouth county, who is interested in
the fish pounds, made the boast after the
Anti-Pound bill made its appearance in
the House that it would be killed before
It reached the Senate. Lobbyists were
engaged in working against the bill for
a week or more before it came to a vote.
Despite the able arguments advanced by
Chairman Scovel, of the Fish and Game
Committee, the bill failed of passage by
a few votes. Mr.. Scoyel claims that the
bin was iobbied to death.
Nc subject has been given more care
full investigation and consideration by
a legislative committee this session than
the fish pound question. The conclusions
OF the committee were given at length in
their report accompanying the bill re-
quiring the pounds to be licensed and
placed under the supervision of the State
Fish and Game Commission. They pre-
sent an unanswerable argument in favor
of the restriction or abolition of the de-
~structive coast fish pounds.
The committee in its report says
The first question considered was:-Are
the pound fisheries as now conducted
a1,7.,o{.-o ~ 49, x,,oIf -, ~ +t,o ~ ru-
est possible number of our citizens
Second, Is the pound system now in
vogue economical of immature fish life?
Third, Is the ocean holding its own
against the great catches of fish in the
spring, and the great slaughter of count
less myriads of fingerlings of the years
Matching, when they start on their south
ern migration in the autumn? To the OBJ
servant man there comes but one answer
a most emphatic mol
The answer ito the first of these ques-
tons is found in the fact that almost
the entire army of hook and Zine, drift,
sweep and gill net men, which prior to
the establishment of so many pounds
numbered about mime Thousand mea1.
nave been driven from the field of honest
toll by these vast con5trivaaces known as
fish pounds, many of these men knowing
no trade save that of fishing, have been
driven to the most desperate straits, and
find themselves casting about for amy
d job which may present itself, their
savings of years gone, and in some in
stances the sheriff's visit to their homes
has mot bee unfamiliar.
The HISTORY of pound fishing has moth
ing in 1T to command lit to either our
selves, or to coming generations, and
where its unrestricted use has been per-
mdtbed, nothing blt evil has followed in
it's wake. The condition of our great
lakes Is a Meter of common knowledge
AND SO peFsIstently had the pound i'm
| duatry been pursued there that extermin-
ton of that most valuable food, the
white fish, was imminent; alarmed at
the condition OF affairs, the General
all available points, and being a fish
easy of artificial rearing, the calamity
has to "a degree, been averted. The
\ same facts apply TO the salmon fishing
of the Pacific coast, but kesnay alive
to the Importance of their fisheries, re-
adopted, and all pounds are limited to
| a large mesh, and mot permitted to take
| fish off amy kind between Friday might
and Monday motning of each week dur
ing the salmon fishing zyerfod; and in
! connection herewith we have to acknow-
| ledge that we have yet to find a pound
met fisherman who in amy degree believes
TRIBES of fish, or will acknowledge aa.ti-
fetal propagation a blessing.
There are but few enterprises upon the
| seasli3reA which are not Affected in some
degree by the pound fishery, and the
taxpayers, who at ali times are heavily
| shore Improvements, " none, save the
pound owner, to thank that they are SO
much the poorer.
Year after year these pound net men