SOME FAMOUS AI^^GLING CLUBS 



for good. In that connection should be mentioned the Canadian 

 Camp Fire Club, made up of men who hunt and angle in Canada, 

 or have been participants in these keen and passionate joys in 

 the field of piscatorial endeavour. Down the Jersey coast, at 

 Asbury Park, we find the Asbury Park Fishing Club, a club 

 associated with the Tuna Club in a friendly alliance, which is 

 influencing, the entire Atlantic coast for a high standard of sport, 

 for better laws and more logical rules relating to the fisheries. 

 This club offers valuable trophies for anglers who shall take the 

 splendid game of this region with light tackle and display a strong 

 tendency toward fair play. I mean by this the Eooseveltian 

 attitude to game. Colonel Eoosevelt is not an angler ; he would 

 be if he but once tried conclusions with a Santa Catahna sword- 

 fish. In reading his book on hunting in Africa one is more 

 touched by his attitude as a gentleman and a civilized sportsman 

 of the highest type than by his perfect courage and poise under 

 dangers of the keenest sort. 



There are literary scavengers, famed for their sustained con- 

 tumelious fiction, who prod this American hunter for his alleged 

 savage nature, but I repeat one cannot but be impressed with 

 his constant sparing of game, because it was not needed, there 

 was no use for it, and when he does shoot a buffalo or an elephant 

 or a rhinoceros, perhaps to save his life or that of some one else, 

 there is always an apologetic note, a regret that he had been forced 

 to kill or wound unnecessarily. One could hardly imagine Colonel 

 Eoosevelt wounding an animal and leaving it to die. This 

 book is one of the finest sermons on fair play and respect for 

 animal life in the English language. The working hypothesis 

 is that every animal has its rights, but the law of right, justice 

 and scientific demand, allowed a certain killi ng. Despite the 

 extraordinary numbers and the constant temptation to shoot, 

 not an animal was killed that was not needed or could not be 

 used. 



This is the principle that actuates gentleman sportsmen every- 

 where, and this idea was what induced the author to establish 



381 



