Fighting Fires and Thieves 201 



government there is no chance of their being faith- 

 fully executed unless public opinion upholds them. 

 The whole problem, therefore, resolves itself at last, 

 like all similar problems in the United States, into 

 the question : how can the public be brought to 

 demand, persistently and emphatically, due care in 

 the handling of fire in the woods by all parties con- 

 cerned, and the punishment of all persons guilty of 

 negligence ? 



The enforcement of the law itself undoubtedly 

 exerts a very great educational influence on the 

 people. A single conviction for negligent handling 

 of fire, or even a prosecution that fails for insuffi- 

 cient evidence, will make all the people of the 

 neighborhood more careful for a while at least. 

 Not only will they be afraid of punishment, but the 

 arrest and trial of an offender will forcibly call at- 

 tention to the necessity of care in a manner which 

 no amount of writing and speaking can accomplish. 

 Yet writing and speaking will do much in this 

 direction. The local and agricultural press, which 

 reaches the persons here concerned far more often 

 than the city daily or the literary magazine, has a 

 duty here to which it pays far too little attention. 

 The rural preachers also ought to make this vice 

 of negligent fire setting a frequent topic of their 

 sermons. For here certainly is a question of 

 morals, and a sin of which their parishioners in the 

 forest districts are guilty much oftener than of some 

 others, which are favorite topics of the ministers. 

 At the bottom of the whole matter is a lack of the 



