Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-10-16
TIMES-DISPATCH ERRATA.
fNorthampton Times. Cape Charles.I

Northampton Times. Cape Charles.l
The Commission of Fisheries is n i
State institution; its membership is not
beyond the pale of legitimate criticism,
nor do any of them so far as we know
or have reason to suspect claim such
privilege-it is more than doubtful that
one of them is so misguided as to es-
TEEN himself incapable of error. There
is reason, however, to assume that all
of them expect and feel deserving of
fairness in the discussion of their Off
cial acts, and in this we concur with
them unqualifiedly. But do they re-
ceive it, uniformly? We regret gen.
timely to say we think not.
1t is no part of our wish to be under
stood as imputing to any contemporary
a deliberate purpose to disparage the
Commission, but the logical end of the
many ill-considered utterances that
have emanated recently from our daily
press is to misrepresent and discredit
that body, and the injustice so wrought
is therefore no less palpable or fla
grant. The attempt was first vainly
made to ascfibe the scarcity of edible
fish to failure on its part to protect and
foster the supply. and here we were
treated to a line of editorial utterances
which for width of the mark were par
excellence to say the least. Now, with
all the pomp of unconscious ignorance
of its subject the Times-Dispateh brings
in an indictment of negligence for fail
ure to preserve the life of James river
oysters. In the sprightliness of its
supreme" imagination hundreds of
oystermen who were once won't to tong
their livelihood from the bottoms of that
unhappy estuary have been abandoned
to idleness and want, while the raw
boxes of Richmond cape emptily amid
the despairing hunger of half-shell
experts. We are pointed to this as
additional and conclusive proof of de-
fective legislation, and Indifferent exc
cutiou of our laws applicable to fish and
oysters. To people who know the facts
this is of course no less academic than
the alarm given by the same paper as
to how fish, edible and otherwise,
swim continuously through the "engulf-
ing maws" of pound nets to the fertil-
izer works located along our bay. But
such deliverences are misleading TO
those who like our Richmond contem-
porary know no better, and the fact ac-
counts in large percentage for the diff
ficulty experienced by Tidewater in it's
effort to procure and maintain sane and
substantial legislation on these very i'm
portant subjects.
Session after session mountaineers
and uplanders. imbued with the most
ldistorted ideas concerning 1.-THE wealth
Of our waters. come to Richmond de-
termined jointly and severally that the
same shall pay more revenue. Un-
informed themselves-many of them
they look to the Tidewater press, and
for their enlightenment and edification
they are treated TO editorials like the
big two of the Dispatch.
Why not tell them that fish are mi
gratory. and that the Legislature of no
State can regulate their movements;
and why charge the Commission of Fish
| cries with the duty of guarding James
river oysters against the muddy fresh
cts which sweep from the heights of
Richmond, and further down. upon and
kill themf There is not an FISHERMAN
along the shore3 Of the James who,
knowing his business. will not tell you
that the wholesale death of oysters. and
the spat as well, in that river is due
absolutely and exclusively to the mud
washed over them by the freshets
which this year have been unusually
severe.
The Commission has the same claim
upon us as has every other Institution,
]. O., to fair treatment.