| tions for a better oyster police force. It seams that a
greater yield of the Virginia oyster grounds tempted the
Maryland oystermen over the line. The Governor said
"at present our interests are actually at the mercy of
these marauders, we are powerless to defend our rights,
and daily and hourly these desperate men are found in
our waters plying their vocation and carrying away the
property of the state which she has declared shall be pre-
served for the use of her own citizens."'0'
On February 27, 1894, a figh was reported to have
taken place in Tangier Sound. Fight or ten Maryland
boats were found at work o~n a Virginia side of the
dividing line and they were fired upon by the Virginia
steamer Chesapeake of the oyster fleet. The Marylanders
fled, returning fire, and were pursued into Maryland and
arrested. (Hlardly had the news of this episode become
generally known before Governor Brown, of Maryland,
in response to a telegram, despatched the steamer Gover-
nor Thomas armed with a breech loading cannon and
breech loading rifles to the Amnamessex River. This time
the trouble was with the Virginia dredgers, illegally
taking oysters. The action of the Virginia steamer
raised the question as to whether one State could
lawfully seize the vessels of the other when once
they had passed into their native waters~. In the
following March, Virginia passed "an ac.) to pro-
vide for reciprocal rights and powers" between the two
states. This act provided that "the offender can be pur-
sued by the legally constituted authorities of said state
whether the offense was committed up to and across the
boundary line between said states, into the said waters
of said state where the offender resides, to a distance not
exceeding ten miles." '102 This was to be enforced on the
passage of a similar act by Maryland.
'~ mi .. Baltimore Sun," February 21, 1894.
102 -- V'irginia Act of Assembly," 189,4, CIL 828.
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