FOREST AND STREAM. 



311 



gaging in it that excellence in a general way which will enable 

 them to make any special application of it at a moment's 

 notice. We do a vast amount of work in our gymnasiums 

 which seems to have little relevancy to the work of actual 

 every-day life, yet no one would think of abolishing these use- 

 ful institutions because each sort of work or practice was con- 

 ducted under strict rule. There is an indirect preparation 

 and'a direct work. Rifle shooting is of this former class, and 

 to judge it by the rules or practices of the work toward which 

 it is tending is entirely unfair and illogical. There is much 

 that is artificial about it. The target is an arbitrary arrange- 

 ment; the rule of shoulder shooting up to 200 yards is not the 

 practice of the battle-field, and in other ways it would be 

 manifestly improper to make the free and easy method of men 

 before the enemy the rule for the conduct of formal tests on 

 the range. Be the rules as they may, they bear uniformly, 

 and are just or unjust to all alike, and until it is shown that a 

 rule is decidedly prejudicial, that its tendency is bad, or that 

 it is entirely an obstruction, it is wiser and safer to keep it. 

 The old rule of position in military shooting has not been 

 shown as yet to be of this character. 



Personal.— Dr. J. FitzMathew, late H- M. ?2d Regiment, 

 an English sportsman wide and favorably known in America, 

 haa gone to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton in quest of salmon. 



Col. W. E. Burr, of St. Louis, favored us with a call last 

 week. He is a frequenter of the Lake Superior country. 



The Princess Louise, who delighted the Canadian heart last 

 winter by indulging in the wild sport of the toboggan, has 

 added new laurels to her fame by " running the slides " of the 

 Grand River. 



We are glad to see Dr. Frank Clerk back again from 

 Europe, where he has been for two years painting landscapes 

 and punishing salmon. He has now laid aside his rod, sold 

 out his river in Canada, and is devoting himself more to ims- 

 bandry, as it were, in connection with his wife and fine little 

 boy. He says salmon fishing is too fatiguing for him. He 

 will spend the coming summer among the hills of New 

 Hampshire sketching and trout fishing. He looks as hearty 

 as ever. 



A School of Silk Culture. — There has been established 

 at the Permanent Industrial Exhibition in Philadelphia, a 

 school of silk culture. The season opened last Thursday, and 

 will be continued about eight weeks from that date. Dr. S. 

 Chamberlain, who is an experienced and skillful silk culturist, 

 has charge of the school, and the students will have the bene- 

 fit of his long study of the subject. Silk culture is an unde- 

 veloped industry which, from its nature, it is very desirable 

 should be cultivated. It is profitable, is especially adapted to 

 the family, and may be engaged in by all who can raise a few 

 mulberry trees or simply procure the leaves. When the 

 cocoons are produced, they can either be sold or an added 

 value put upon them by reeling the silk, or they can be used 

 to raise eggs again for sale. The climate even as far north as 

 Connecticut, and perhaps further north, favors this industry. 

 Our readers may further inform themselves by personally in- 

 specting the methods exhibited by Dr. Chamberlain, in the 

 Philadelphia school, or by correspondence with Mr. Horace 

 T. Smith, Permanent International Exhibition, Philadelphia, 



Pa. 



■ ■» . 



M.UBIO and Lunatics.— The much maltreated expression 



concerning the soothing influences of music had a novel 



illustration in New York the other day. A portion of the 



Black well's Island Lunatic Asylum which contained ninety 



of the most refractory female patients was discovered to bo 



on fire one evening last week. With great difficulty the 



lunatics were guided from the building and marshalled into 



the large amusement hall. Here they cowered in abject 



terror, evincing the greatest suffering from their apprehension 



of danger. Suddenly one of the attendents began playing the 



livliest airs on the piano ; the effect was instantaneous. The 



poor creatures forgot their fear, their countenances lighted up 



with mad mirth, and the whole company plunged into the 



giddy mazes of a most extraordinary dance. The music kept 



up its strains and the legs and arms flew wildly until the 



flames were subdued and the old quarters were made ready 



again for the receptioa of the Balamites. 



Caba*er en Grand Tenue.— We have received from Eng- 

 land some elegant photographs of Dr. Carver iu costume, as 

 he appeared before H. R. H., the Prince of Wales, at Sand- 

 ringham, on April loth, 1370. One of these shows the Doctor 

 in his velvet shooting jacket, ornate with trophies and medals, 

 as he appears at the glass ball trap ; and another in full pano- 

 ply of beads and buckskin, embroidered leggings and wide 

 spreading sombrero, in his character of vaquero, ranger, and 

 plainsman, roping victims with his lariat, shooting arrows 

 Indian-fashion, and hitting glass balls with a rifle from his 

 saddle, with his horse on full jump. The English sporting 

 papers admit that all this sort of thing is quite new to them, 

 and altogether marvelous in its way ; at the same time the 

 feats of skill divide their attention with the remarkable 

 weapons which ho uses. The London Field explains that it 

 is the Winchester Magazine litis, with Us sixteen cartridges 

 discharging in five seconds which make these apparently in 

 credible feats possible. This rifle does not seem to be known 

 in England, though it has probably been heard of in Turkey 

 andRus3ia; several millions having been shipped there from 

 time to time. Dr. Carver has taken an excellent method to 

 introduce it to notice. 



Sabbath Mishaps.— Last Sunday afternoon a party of ex- 

 cursionists in a tiny steam launch were capsized in Little Hell 

 Gate, in the East River, New York, and three of them were 

 drowned. This is one of a number of similar Sunday acci- 

 dents, which some people regard as special dispensations of 

 Providence for the punishment of Sabbath-breaking. This 

 leads us to say that those reasoning thus should remember 

 that persons who seek their enjoyment only on this day are of 

 necessity little experienced in the ways of these pastimes. 

 They do not find sufficient opportunity for perfecting them- 

 selves in the use of the oar or trimming the sail, or handling 

 the gun or holding the ribbons. This lack of skill gives op- 

 portunity for frequent mishaps, and the wonder is -for this 

 reason that so few Sabbath pleasure-seekers come to grief. 



Taxing Anglers. — In England the York Fishery Board 

 have imposed a rod licouse of 2s. 6d. (62A cents) per head for 

 the privilege of angling in the waters of that district. This 

 would seem a very severe exaction to us here in America \ 

 but how much more so the license of 10=. ($2.50) which is de- 

 manded in the Teign, the Dart, the Taw, the Torridge, and the 

 Tamar Fishery Districts ! As all of these districts adjoin, the 

 imposition amounts to a tax of 810 upon persons wishing to 

 angle over an area of a comparatively few miles. Of course 

 many protests are raised, and much remonstrance against a 

 system of class legislation which in effect gives only those who 

 can afford it a monopoly of the sport. The pretext, of course, is 

 to preserve the fish and secure better fishing ; but most per- 

 sons would prefer a total prohibition of all fishing whatever 

 rather than a discrimination which becomes prohibitive as 

 respects poor men. It is one of the inevitable results, how- 

 ever, of civilization and crowding settlements. It is ex 

 emplified on our own Long Island, where a tax of 50e. to $1 

 per pound on all trout taken amounts to a burden really more 

 onerous than some of the exactions of the English rod license 

 system. Little complaint is heard so long as free streams 

 in the wilderness are comparatively accessible ; but as 

 population becomes more dense, the trout will disappear 

 unless preserved ; and those persons who may then pay 

 to preserve and propagate the trout, will in turn ask pay from 

 those who propose to catch them. There will be no more 

 free fishing. 



It is just so, to a measurable extent, with our game. When 

 our country was a wilderness, and the game creatures were 

 really "feram natures," men had common rights to kill and 

 capture ; but when the increase of settlements came to divide 

 the territory, and subdivide it again and again into large and 

 small farms, the owners of those tracts and parcels acquired 

 rights upon which outsiders could not intrude. This is the 

 secret of the continual wrangle between the resident farmer 

 and the nomadic sportsman, and the cause of trespass notices. 

 A visible trespass notice implies game within the forbidden 

 inclosure ; the owner of the land is presumably the protector 

 of the game on his own territory, and either he must exercise 

 his rights respecting trespass, or the law must intervene and 

 put a tax on guns, just as it has done in England on both 

 rods and guns. 



—The Dartmouth College boys have figured in the news- 

 papers as rebelling against the Faculty. Of course the rebel- 

 lion was settled as it invariably is, by the students coming to 

 terms and apologizing. When will American college students 

 learn the folly of attempting to defy the authority of tneir 

 professors ? In the Dartmouth trouble some young heathens 

 revived the old barbarism of the water-treatment, and held 

 their comrades under the pump nozzle. The injured men 

 threaten to go to law for redress. That, is what, they should 

 do. Put the odium of a criminal offense upon what is a 

 criminal offense. 



GAME PROTECTION. 



— We wonder that Michigan permits fishing for black bass 

 during the month of May. It is just as proper to fish for 

 trout in October. 



Migratoht Quail. — The quail imported by the Lakeville 

 (Conn.) Club last year have returned from their winter mi- 

 gration. 



Massachusetts. — The first conviction under the new Mass- 

 achusetis game law was a case in Wakefield, one John Mc- 

 Jague being convicted of killing and having in possession a 

 partridge contrary to law, and fined $25 and costs, amount- 

 ing in all to $30.80. It was a pretty dear partridge. The 

 Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Association, who 

 were the prosecution in this case, mean to make it expensive 

 work to kill birds out of season. 



A Bad Law and a Corrupt Law-makbr. — If the facts 

 as related below by a Seneca Falls correspondent are without 

 palliating circumstances, the condition of things aa pictured 

 is not creditable to the Senatorial District concerned. Poli- 

 ticians are unhappily nowadays not severely scrupulous as to 

 the waysand means employed to seat themselves in the Slate or 

 National Capitol, and there is consequently no cause for sur- 

 prise in the fact that a prospective law-maker should " make 

 his calling and election sure " by deferring to the demands of 

 greedy and unscrupulous fish-mongers. Possibly the com 

 munities which sanction and encourage the capture of gravid 

 fish may not realize what the certain result of such destruc- 



tion must be ; but the game protecting clubs mentioned by 

 the writer should certainly possess sufficient gumption to un- 

 derstand the case and enough spunk to remedy the abuse . 

 Our correspondent writes : 



" The north end of Cayuga Lake, two miles from Seneca 

 Falls, is (from the configuration of the lakes and the sboal- 

 ness of the water) the breeding-ground of the entire lake. 

 This Senatorial District is, politically, a close one. An ex- 

 Senator secured his election by pledging himself to a clique 

 of pot-fishermen that he would cause the passage of a law 

 repealing all State enactments relative to fishing for a space 

 of four miles from the north end of Cayuga Lake. As a re- 

 sult, this portion of the beautiful body of water is, except 

 when winter prevents, almost festooned with fykes and other 

 implements of fish butchery, which rapidly deplete the finny 

 tribe and render fair fishing worlhhss. As an example, I 

 met one of these piscatorial pirates to-day with over fifty fine 

 black bass, ranging from two to four pounds each, gravid 

 with spawn, which exuded from them at every jolt of his 

 wagon. He coolly informed me that "about one hundred 

 men were netting them," that they had "the right kind of 

 Assemblymen and law here," and that "they could ' torpedo ' 

 them if they wanted to." This sort of thing has been going 

 on openly since the ice was out of the lake, and has been the 

 practice for years past. There is no attempt, at concealment, 

 and the flsh are openly shipped off by express to distant points, 

 and are daily peddled around in this place, Waterloo, Geneva 

 and surrounding villages, all in different counties from where 

 the fish were trapped. There are two flourishing " Sports- 

 men's Clubs," but I cannot, after diligent inquiry, find that 

 there has been an arrest for infraction of game or fish laws in 

 five years. 



There is no similar local exemption in any other section of 

 the State, that I can ascertain, and it certainly seems that 

 even if such an ill-begotten edict must encumber our statute 

 book, yet the right should not extend to selling the fish all 

 over different counties in this part of the State with impu- 

 nity, and virtually reduce the fishing laws to a farce — more 

 especially when such strenuous efforts are being made at 

 Syracuse, Rochester and elsewhere to restock the lakes and 

 streams and to punish all violations." 



SrPEimsons and Game Laws. — Bath, N. T., MaylO. — 

 Editor F, rest and Stream : A short time since we stocked the 

 river running through this place with black bass, and as we 

 wished to protect them until they will hnve;time to propagate, 

 we petitioned our Assemblyman to have an act passed to pro- 

 hibit fishing for two years, and he informed us that it would 

 be difficult to get such an act passed as the Supervisors were 

 delegated the power to pass such. I wish to ask if the reso- 

 lutions, etc., ef the Supervisors to such an effect would be 

 perfectly legal and binding. I had heretofore supposed, of 

 course, they were, until two young attorneys, who take de- 

 light in fighting any and every measure we take to protect 

 both game and fish, said that they will undertake to clear any 

 one who breaks said law, and that it has been done. 



E. N. H. 



We are at a loss to account for the widely prevalent mis- 

 conception regarding the authority of Supervisors to alter or 

 amend existing game laws. The clause in the Game Bill de- 

 fining this authority reads : " It shall be lawful for the Board 

 of Supervisors of any county to make regulations touching 

 other birds, fish or game than those mentioned in this act, and 

 such ordinance shall be published, etc.," aud we have before 

 insisted that this is such plain English that it cannot be re- 

 written in a more unmistakable form. Authority to legislate 

 respecting other birds, game or fish than those mentioned in the 

 act, surely cannot by any legal contortion be construed into 

 authority to make laws regarding what are mentioned in the 

 act. Here, for instance, in the case now propounded, black 

 bass are included in the State law ; the Supervisors of no 

 county therefore have any authority to fix other close or open 

 seasons for these fish than those assigned by the legislators 

 at Albany. The question is not whether the newly planted 

 fish should be protected or not J the question is of the proper 

 persons to secure the protection. The Assemblyman by con- 

 sulting his handbook will see that he is mistaken iu supposing 

 this is not bis business, and having convinced him of his mis- 

 take our Bath correspondent will doubtless thereby induce 

 him to work for the needed legislation. Our young legal 

 friends, we may remark, are conect in their decision ; but the 

 spirit of hostility to game protection not only displays their 

 lack of public spirit, but is discreditable to the profession. 

 There are never lacking such legal sticklers for the letter of 

 the law who bring to the defense of poachers and pirates the 

 quips and quibbles of the statute -, and it is by such defense 

 that the illegal pot-hunter is encouraged to pursue his calling. 

 And on the contrary, the most efficient friends of game pro- 

 tection and the most intelligent laborers in the cause are 

 found in the legal profession. 



ft* §ifle, 



Massachusetts — Walnut Bill. — The two days spent in rifle 

 woik at the range by the Massachusetts Rifle Association 

 members were both marked by very good work. Wednesday 

 the 14th was long range day. The light was good, and the 

 wind, marking from "8 to 9 o'clock," quite manageable un- 

 til the men had moved back to 1,000 yards, when it exhibited 

 an uncontrollable disposition. Several of the marksmen 

 made excellent range scores. Following is the result : 

 W II Jackson. 



I ....4 4 5 6 6 a B 4 5 .•> 5 D 5 5 5—7* 



» 4 4555545658565 5—7(1 



l|WW 3 6 5 5 5)55855555 3—6 



J S Sumner. 



1 4 5 3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 5 5—72 



t 5 3 6 5 5 6 5 5 6 5 5 4 5 4 5— Til 



1,000 5 I-i K 6 4 4 3 5 5 5 4 B S 5 5— £6— 20S 



Wm GeiTlBb. 



SOU b 5 9 4 G fr * 6 6. 6 6 6 5 s 6— 74 



9J0 3 6 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 4 4 5 4 5—68 



'■" 4 44i5 65B6BSS 5 5 5 5-65-408 



J V Brown, 



80i) 4 5D65556S45655 5-73 



BOB 5 6444555654545 6—70 



1,000 £ 4562346445 3-64 4-62— 205 



