Q. Do you catch the bait ?—A. We buy it from the natives there. Q. Do you employ any men to go to catch it for you?-A. Yes; we employ the natives.

Q. I have never been there and would like to know: now supposing you went in, how would you proceed to get bait? What would you do?-A. A fisherman would take his seine and go and catch it for us, and we would buy it.

Q. Do you employ them?-A. Yes; we employ them before they go Q. But do you agree to pay them so much ?—A. We agree to give them so much for so many barrels of herring.

Q. The Bank fishing, 1 understand, is increasing, and is pretty good of late years? A. Yes; I don't know if it is increasing much. Our ves sels get good trips there.

Q. Now, with reference to the American shore fishing; has it increased, or is it decreasing?-A. I say it is decreasing.

Q. Very much?-A. Very much this year.

Q. Taking three or four years, or four or five years back ?—A. It has been decreasing for the last four years.

Q. Has it diminished to any material extent ?—A. Well, it has to a great deal. It is nothing like it used to be 13 or 14 years ago.

Q. You say each trip in for bait cost you $100 ?-A. Yes; for ice and bait, port charges, and everything, light-moneys. I call everything $100. Q. I didn't understand that they charged anything now for port charges-A. They do; I paid $18 this summer, that is once a year. There are harbor-dues, water-rates, cleaning, &c.

Q. How many barrels of bait do you take each time?-A. Sometimes 50 barrels and sometimes 40. Some vessels take 60 barrels.

Q. How much a barrel do you pay for that?-A. We pay so much for the lot. It is just according to how the herring are. If they are plenty we pay less, and if they are scarce we pay more. Sometimes it is $1 a barrel, sometimes $1.50, and sometimes $2.

Q. From one to two dollars?-A. Yes.

Q. Do you pay so much a barrel, or employ a man and pay him so much in the lump?-A. We will employ a mau that has a seine, and be will go catching herring for so much; it may be $30, $40, or $50 for all we want. If we want 40 barrels, we will give, say, $40; if they are scarce, perhaps more. He will take a seine, and perhaps be two or three days looking after them.

Q. You say, "I will give you $30 or $40 (as the case may be) to go and catch me so many barrels"?-A. Yes; that is the way it is done, and then sometimes we give $10 for ice.

Q. Do you give any assistance in catching them?-A. Sometimes we do.

Q. You send some of the men?-A. Yes; sometimes we do. It depends upon how he works himself. If he is a sociable good man, we give him help; if he is not, we let him do it himself.

Q. Does that affect the price?-A. Well, we don't say anything about giving him any assistance. Sometimes we give it. Usually they use drag-seines, and have to haul them ashore.

Q. Well, how many vessels from Gloucester are now engaged in the Bank fishing?-A. I suppose there may be 250 or 260. There are 488 véssels, I guess, last year on the register of Gloucester, almost 500 sail. They don't all go on the Banks. I suppose 200 go on the Banks. The others are round the Georges and their own shores and in the bay. A great many go to the Magdalens, and a great many to the Georges.

Q. You get your bait sometimes in Newfoundland and sometimes

here -A. We don't come here for bait from the Grand Banks. It is when we are fishing on the Western Banks. From the Grand Bank we don't come here at all.

Q. The prospects are for a pretty good season, are they?—A. O, yes. Q. You always buy ice where you get bait, necessarily ?-A. Well, we can't buy ice sometimes where we get bait. Sometimes we get bait in the outer harbors where we can't get ice. There is no ice between here and Canseau. If I don't get it here, I have to go to Canseau. There will be places below here, towards Ship Harbor and other places, where I may get bait.

Q. It is only of late years that this came up, this practice of going in for bait?-A. Since '72 or '73, most of it. Now it is only the Gloucester vessels that go for bait and ice, and if they would all go and take salt bait and stay out and fish with it they would do better, because they don't gain as much as they lose with the fresh bait, but if part of them go in for it they will all go.

Q. Why is that?-A. I don't know, I am sure.

Q. Has not the fact that, when fresh bait is being used, the fish won't take the salt bait, something to do with it?-A. Well, they used to do better, but the Gloucester people got in the way of going in for bait, and they are doing so. I think they are losing by it. If you lose 10 to 12 days each time, that is 40 or 45 days in the season.

Q. But then, if you catch more fish while you are there?-A. I say you will catch more, but don't you see the time you are losing?

Q. I think you said you were two years in the bay for mackerel, one of them only the fall, and the other the whole season?-A. Yes. In 1865 I was in the T. G. Curtis, from Wellfleet.

Q. How much did you say you got?-A. 1,100 quintals.

Q. That was a pretty good season's work?-A. Yes.

Q. When you fished in the bay, were there very many vessels there fishing then?-A. A good many vessels.

Q. Where did you fish?-A. We tried East Point, and went from there to Point Miscou, then to Bonaventure, then further up in the bay. Q. Had you a license?-A. I don't know. I was not master of the vessel.

Q. You tried up about Point Miscou and Bonaventure. Did you take anything there?-A..No; we didn't get a great many there. Then we went to the Magdalens, between Magdalens aud East Point. where we got the most.

That is

Q. Where else did you catch them beside ?-A. Some at the Magdaleus and a few off East Point.

Q. And around the shores of your island?—A. Abroad off there. Maybe eight, nine, or ten miles off there.

Q. And at Margaree ?-A. In the fall we did. We got some off Margaree and Sydney.

Q. How many did you get off Margaree and Sydney?-A. We got 200 barrels off Sydney, in the fall abroad off Sydney, between that and St. Anne's.

Q. How many did you get off Margaree?-A. We might have got them eight, nine, or ten miles off, sometimes closer in.

Q. Did you take any within three miles off Margaree ?-A. I don't think so. We might have caught a few, but none to speak of.

Q. Are you quite sure? Can you recollect with sufficient clearness to enable you to state how many?-A. We got most of them off shore. As far as I know, we got them all over three miles off.

Q. Between Cheticamp and Margaree might you have caught 100

barrels-A. We might have caught more than that. It might be 200 barrels.

Q. And then 200 off Sydney?-A. Yes; we caught them there.

Q. But you did not succeed at Prince Edward Island that year ?—A. No; nothing at all.

Q. And at Point Miscou, you did not do anything?-A. No.

Q. What is the tonnage of your vessel ?—A. This vessel, the T. G. Curtis, was about 80 tons, new measurement.

Q. How many hands ?-A. Sixteen hands.

Q. What was the tonnage of the vessels you fished in on the Banks?— A. 60, 70, or 80 tons. This vessel I am now in is 70 tons. The one I was in last year and have been in for the last four years was 60 tons.

By Mr. Dana:

Q. Whatever fish you say you caught in 1865 at Margaree and Sydney was abroad off; that is more than three miles ?-A. Those two hundred barrels at Sydney were more than five miles off.

Q. You were asked as to the mode of getting bait, whether you employed those men that went for herring. Do you pay them wages, or pay them after the fish are caught?-A. We employ them before they go. Q. But you don't pay them wages?-A. Yes, we have to pay them. If he goes and loses two or three days we have to pay him.

Q. But do you pay them wages, so much a day?-A. No, so much for the herring.

Q. Not by the time?-A. No.

Q. Nor in a round sum of money whether they catch or not. You don't pay them except for the herring they catch-A. That is all. I pay according to the quantity that I want myself. Sometimes he may haul 200 barrels, and I take what I want.

Q. You don't pay so much and take all he catches?—A. No, I take what I want, and pay him for what I take.

Q. You agree upon the price before he goes for them?-A. Yes. If he has them we take them. Sometimes when we get to Fortune Bay they have them.

Q. Then the first thing you do is, if they have them to sell, you buy them by the barrel and take them aboard?-A. Yes.

Q. And if they haven t them you agree upon the rate per barrel which you pay?-A. Yes.

Q. You tell him you don't want more than so many?-A. Yes.

Q. You don't pay them whether they catch or not?-A. Yes; sometimes, if I employ a man to go and catch them, if he loses three or four days sometimes I pay him.

Q. Are you obliged to do so or is it good nature?-A. Well, I never bave employed a man yet but what he got my herring.

Q. According to your bargain you say you pay him for what he catches? -A. For what we take.

Q. I mean that. And you won't take any more than you have agreed?— A. No. If it is one barrel I take it.

Q. You go into port and want, we will say, 50 barrels. You can buy 30 and want 20 more. Now you tell him you want him to catch you 20 barrels, and just give him so much a barrel ?-A. Yes, that is agreed be fore he goes.

Q. And if he comes back with ten barrels, or but one, you give him so much a barrel for them?-A. If he brings me ten barrels I pay him for ten; and if he brings me one, I give him the money for one; if forty, I give him the money for forty. If he brings me more than I want, he can have them himself.

Q. Do you know much about fishing with pounds and nets on the shores of Massachusetts ?-A. No. I don't know anything at all about pounds and nets. They have some pounds over there at Cape Cod. I don't know anything about them.

Q. But you know that from Gloucester all up and down the coast of Maine a great deal of inshore fishing is done with nets and seines and pounds?-A. There are not a great many pounds on the coast of Maine. Q. Are there on the coast of Massachusetts?-A. There are at Cape Cod.

Q. They fish from the shores with nets and seines?-A. Yes.

Q. Do you know much about that?—A. I have seen them hauling in their nets.

Q. Has not that kind of fishing on the coast very much increased?— They have increased in the business, but the fish have decreased. The fish are decreasing all the time.

Q. The number of fish caught?-A. Yes; but the business has increased.

Q. How can that be?-A. I mean the vessels and the boats.

Q. More vessels, boats, and seines are employed than there used to be-A. Yes.

Q. One word more about the people in Newfoundland. Do they de pend upon the Americans for selling their ice and herring ?— A. Decidedly they do. There is nobody else there that buys, except us. They don't use any ice except what we want. There is no other nation wanting the herring except the Americans.

Q. Is it a sure thing to get bait there?-A. It has been a very sure thing. It has always been since I have been there.

Q. What about those vessels that are there so long and don't get bait?-A. Spending their time in foolishness, I suppose; I don't know.

By Sir Alexander Galt:

Q. About this Newfoundland bait; you have spoken of herring only, but we have heard here that there are caplin and squid ?—A. Yes. Q. Now, what do you do about those? Do you buy them?—A. We buy the squid and caplin too.

Q. And do you get them under the same sort of arrangement that you have described?-A. No; we buy the squid by the 100 pounds, and the caplin by the barrel.

Q. Do you catch squid yourselves?-A. No; we buy them.

By Mr. Davies:

Q. Do you ever assist in catching squid ?-A. No; we pay them forty or fifty cents a hundred. We are paying pretty high, and don't feel like assisting them. If a man catches four or five thousand squid in one day at that rate he is doing pretty well.

Q. One question more. Do I understand correctly that if you employ a man to catch herring, and he is unsuccessful, you consider yourself bound to pay him?-A. I would pay him, but I never had to do so. I never employed a man but what he caught them.

No. 29.

JOSEPH O. PROCTER, of Gloucester, Mass., merchant, called on behalf of the Government of the United States, sworn and examined. By Mr. Trescot :

Question. You are a native and resident of Gloucester ?-Answer. I am.

Q. What is your business?—A. The owning and running of fishingvessels; taking care of their products is part of my business, perhaps the larger part, and other business connected with it.

Q. How long have you been engaged in your business?-A. I commenced in 1841, as a boy 12 years of age, with my father. I was with him until 1848. He died in 1848, and I then continued the business. On January 1, 1849, I commenced business on my own account, 19 years of age.

Q. You have continued ever since?-A. Yes.

Q. What species of fishing have you been engaged in?-A. Princi pally codfish. But I have had some vessels for mackerel and halibut and all departments.

Q. What fleet of vessels do you employ yourself?-A. The average is about 12, sometimes 13 and 14, perhaps down to ten. I have had as high as 14, and have now 13.

Q. Can you give me any idea of the character of your business for any past number of years? Could you, within a number of years, give me an accurate statement of the vessels and their results ?-A. I haven't any figures to give you the results of the work in any department except mackerel.

Q. How far back is that?-A. I have from my books the figures to give the results of the fishing in British waters for 19 years.

Q. You can use any memorandum you have prepared from your books, explaining to the Commission how you have prepared it, and I will haud it to counsel on the other side. How many vessels have you employed in the bay in these 19 years?-A. They vary from 1 to 8. The highest number since 1866 has been 8 and the lowest 1.

Q. Give me the number of vessels you have employed from year to year in that branch since 1866.-A. In 1866 I had 7; in 1867, 7; in 1868, 8; in 1869, 3; in 1870, 2; in 1871, 3; in 1872, 5; in 1873, 9; in 1874. 7; in 1875, 5; in 1876, 1; and in 1877, 1.

Q. What has been the result of that nineteen years' fishing? State the amount, if you can, for each year.-A. Might I explain that some of those vessels have made two trips and some one? I have the number of trips.

Q. How many trips did you make, and how many barrels of mackerel?-A. 170 trips my vessels made; that is, beginning with 1857 and ending with 1876.

By Mr. Davies:

Q. Can you give us the number of vessels from year to year, from 1857 down?-A. I cannot answer that further back than 1866.

By Mr. Trescot:

Q. You say your vessels made 170 trips in nineteen years. What number of barrels did they take?-A. 30,349.

Q. What was the average number for those trips, running over the nineteen years ?-A. 183 barrels; that is, packed barrels.

Q. What was the average value of your mackerel during that time?— A. The average value was $11.57 for 200 pounds of fish, exclusive of packing.

Q. What was the average value of the trips? Give me a rough esti mate of the result of those trips, the average. Taking the average trips of that number of barrels at that average price, what was the result to you ?—A. I make the result as no profit, so far as pursuing the business is concerned. I consider the gross stock, the barrels of mackerel at that price, taking the charge for bait, and dividing as we divide the proceeds,