HOW ELK MAY BE SAVED 273 



whether a resident of Wyoming or not, has an 

 individual and personal interest in their wel- 

 fare, as he has in all wild animals which in- 

 habit our national parks or public lands outside 

 the parks. But we are inclined to neglect the 

 things that we do not see. Let visitors to Cen- 

 tral Park, New York City, trample and de- 

 stroy a bit of grass, and the newspapers set up 

 a loud cry of distress; let several thousand noble 

 elk, in which every citizen has an interest, be 

 starved to death by slow torture and neglect, 

 and the newspapers devote a half dozen lines 

 to it. Let Reggie Moneybags wed Miss Gwen- 

 dolyn Sillypate, and the newspapers devote at 

 least two columns to the function, though 

 neither of these twain ever did a useful thing in 

 their precious lives; and when they are di- 

 vorced a year later in Reno other columns are 

 devoted to them; and still other columns when 

 they each choose new matrimonial partners at 

 the lapse of another month or so. 



But morbid curiosity must be satisfied, even 

 though the valuable space spent in gratifying it 

 excludes news of real importance — and the 

 wholesale starvation of elk in February, 191 1, 

 was a matter of real importance to the people 

 of the country, though our papers gave it no no- 

 tice generally, or at most scant reference. News- 



