OYSTERS.
It seems that the Wellington people have fallen upon an expedient to have oysters in the close season. A tetter in the Wellington Avijmx seta forth the process : "-Sir,—A high authority has declared that even an oyster may be crossed in love. My object in writing, however, is not to make any amorous complaint, but to' appeal to the police for that protection the law says we are to have, as well as to prevent people eating ns and poisoning themselves. Sir, an Act passed in 1866 renders any person 'who shall sell, offer for sale, or have in his possession,' any oysters during the close period, or spatting season, liable to a penalty of not more than LSJO. As this Act was only applied to my big ttat brothers, another Act was passed in IBT4, taking care of my branch of the family, and enacting, with regard to rock oysters, that any pers< n who, during the close season, should "sell, expose for sale, or buy,' any of ns should be liable to a tine of L2O. This is the close season, and yet every day thousands of us are being sold, exposed for sale, and bought in this city. We are not wholesome to eat when we are spatting, but our condition here now is enough to poison anyone. Some months ago, I was torn from my native rocks in Auckland, and brought down here, where I, with cartloads of others, was thrown into a pen below low-water mark, just where several sewers discharge themselves. There we have lain ever since, amongst disgusting green slime, enough to make at* oyster sick. Garbage of every kind floats around, and even the water we suck in is impregnated with vile sewage. My beard has turned grey with what I have suffered, and I don't envy the man who cats me. There are, E ant told by a little fish, three ©r four such pens about the foreshore, and all fed; by sewers. Every day some of us are taken out, washed free of slime, and then exposed for sale as if we were good and wholesome. 1 was taken ottt yesterday, and that is how I got this chance of writing to you."
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Bibliographic details
Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 296, 5 April 1877, Page 4
Word Count
374OYSTERS. Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 296, 5 April 1877, Page 4
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