Historic Pinole: Illegal Fish Catch Goes to Orphans

This week's Historic Pinole involves a company that was caught trying to deal 125 pounds of undersized fish. By law, striped bass weighing less than three pounds were not allowed to be caught or sold. Apparently, some locals got nabbed by authorities, who turned the fish over to an orphanage.

The article is from the Nov. 19, 1898 edition of the San Francisco Call newspaper.

FEAST FOR THE ORPHANS.

More Illegally Killed Fish Seized by Deputy Commissioners.

The bay fishermen who are netting undersized striped bass are having their work for nothing. Under the State law no one is allowed to take or offer for sale any of these fish weighing under three pounds. It is not easy to arrest the first offenders, so the deputy commissioners arrest the middlemen or dealers when they can and seize all the undersized fish they can find. Early in the week nearly 300 pounds were confiscated in Wells Fargo & Co.'s express office and sent to the Almshouse, where they were much appreciated by the old people.

Another lot was seized in Oakland a few days ago and the dealers were arrested. Yesterday it was learned that a consignment had been made by Eldridge Bros. of Pinole to A. Palidini of this city. When the fish arrived Deputies Vogelsang and Davis confiscated the entire lot, consisting of 125 pounds. This lot was sent to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum for the benefit of the little folks there.

This article comes from the California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc. The collection has digitzed more than 400,000 images from newspapers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Images dated between 1846 and 1922 are in the public domain and not subject to copyright.