*** Source: History and Business Directory of Humboldt County, Lillie E. Hamm, November 1890, Eureka, Cal. *** ---page 008--- Laws for the Protection of Aids to Navigation UNITED STATES. AN ACT making appropriations for the construction, repair, perservation, and completion of certain public works on rivers and harbors, and for other purposes Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled SECTION 3. Any person who shall willfully and unlawfully injure any pier, breakwater, or other work of the United States for the improvement of rivers or harbors, or navigation in the United States, shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars. Approved, August 14, 1876. CALIFORNIA. AN ACT for the protection of Buoys and Beacons The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: SECTION 1. Any person or persons who shall moor any vessel or boat of any kind, or any raft of scow, to any buoy or beacon, placed in the waters of California by authority of the United States Light-House Board, or shall in any manner hang on to the same with any vessel, boat, raft, or scow, or shall willfully remove, damage, or destroy any such buoy or beacon, or any part of the same, or shall cut down, remove, damage, or destroy any beacon or beacons erected on land in this State by the authority aforesaid, shall, for every such offence, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof before any court of competent jurisdiction, be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding six months; one-third of the fine in such cases to be paid to the informer, and two-thirds thereof to the Light-House Board, to be used in repairing said buoys and beacons. SEC. 2. The cost of repairing or replacing any such buoy or beacon which may have been misplaced, damaged, or destroyed by any vessel, boat, raft, or scow being made fast to the same, shall, when said cost shall have been legally ascertained, be a lien upon such vessel, boat, raft, or scow, and recovered against the same, and the owner or owners thereof, in an action of debt, in any court of competent jurisdiction in this State. SEC. 3. This act shall take effect from and after its passage. Approved March 26, 1874. REWARD. A reward of one hundred dollars ($100) will be paid for information sufficient to lead to the conviction of any party or parties guilty of wantonly running down buoys on the coast of California. Several automatic whistling-buoys off the coast of this Light-House District have been run down, damaged, or sunk within the last year. This can only be due to criminal carelessness and unseamanlike negligence; and a strong effort will be made to fix the responsibility, and to enforce the law against any party or parties guilty of damaging these aids to navigation. By order of the Light-House Board. NICOLL LUDLOW, Commander, U.S.N., Light-House Inspector. ---end---