504 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[January 26,1882. 



GAME PROTECTORS. 



SOME of the New York game protectors have shown them- 

 selves to be great frauds. Other3, like agent Dodge, 

 have done efficient and faithful service. These men were 

 not well selected. Localities which stand most in need of 

 such officers were entirely neglected. The number of game 

 protectors is insufficient. 



Is it expedient to increase the force ? 



No, if Tom, Dick and Harry are to draw the salaries of 

 the office, and wink when anything is said to them about 

 moving their lazy stumps from the stove. 



Yes, by all means, if the right men can be appointed, who 

 will do their duty, or who can be made to do it. 



It has been suggested that the usual State fishculture ap- 

 propriation be assigned for protection of the fish already on 

 hand instead of for propagation of more, to go into the poach- 

 er's net. It is not advisable to cut off" the funds for the main- 

 tenance of the regular work of the hatching house. But it is 

 'ughly essential that both propagation and protection, should 

 be adequately provided for. An increased fund should be 

 assigned lor the game and fish protective machinery of the 

 State. The force of game constables should be trebled. 

 But we don't want public money thrown away on shirks; 

 there must be some way of holding the game protectors to 

 account. 



Unless this matter is taken in charge bythe proper parlies, 

 and carried through by a well-matured and effective plan, 

 the people of New York State will be no better off after the 

 Legislature adjourns than they are now. We publish to-day 

 a second letter on the subject. The writere are in earnest. 

 They are backed by influence. Why can they not them- 

 selves form the nucleus around which shall gather the influ- 

 ence necessary? 



If the great body of men in this State who are interested 

 iu these matters could be brought together to act in unison, 

 they could ask an! receive anything they wanted at Albany. 

 What hinders such a union of strength ? 



Wak Helios.— An interesting chapter might be written on 

 the manufacture and sale of different bogus relics. A 

 Chattanooga correspondent tells us of an enterprising genius 

 dwelling on the famous Lookout Mountain, Tenn., who has 

 struck a veritable lead mine. He buys up old lead, molds it 

 into bullets, which are fired against the rocks, then gathered 

 up again and smeared with mud. These eloquent "relics of 

 the war" are then disposed of to curiosity-seeking visitors at 

 ten cents apiece. We have in our possession several genuine 

 war bullets, which we gathered ourselves from the rocks and 

 fields, or dug out of the trees of Lookout Mountain. Bomb- 

 shells, bayonets, an occasional rusted musket barrel, and such 

 souvenirs of the strife often rewarded our expeditions. Dur- 

 ing our stay on the Mountain a paper-weight formed of such 

 bullets was sent to the poet Whittier, to which he responded 

 with some graceful verses. We trust that the good mau may 

 never be imposed upon by the base counterfeit relics of 

 these degenerated times. What a mean, lying thing a man- 

 ufactured war relic is ! And what a mean man it takes to 

 make and sell them! 



The Wolfe Shooting Case.— Some weeks ago we re- 

 ported the case of a young man named Wolfe, one of the 

 thought-it-was-n't-loaded idiots, who, as a good joke, fired a 

 charge of buckshot into the young lady upon whom he was 

 calling, in Peru, New Jersey. Much to the astonishment of 

 her surgeons the girl recovered ; but Wolfe is not yet out of 

 trouble. He was arrested last week and is now committed 

 to be held on a charge of atrocious assault pending the action 

 of the Grand Jury. We shall watch this case with some 

 interest. Things have come to a sorry pass if criminal care- 

 lessness of this kind is allowed to go unpunished. 



An Adirondack Pathc.— In another column will be 

 found the announcement of a most important movement to 

 protect from vandalism a portion of the great Nerth Park of 

 this State- It is said that corporations have no souls. The 

 State of New York certainly has no soul to appreciate the 

 importance of taking care of her great sanitarium regions ; 

 and it is, therefore, a most fortunate thing that private citi 

 ZeuB are found who will come forward to undertake the work 

 neglected by the State. 



Tiik Belgian Devil.— A few weeks ago we gave an ac- 

 count, of a machine called a Belgian devil, which was used by 

 the fishermen of Belgium for cutting the nets of others in the 

 North Sea and letting the fish into a net of their own which 

 followed the vessel. A bill has just been introduced into the 

 Belgian Chamber making it a penal offence to manufacture, 

 sell, take on board or use engines for cutting or destroying 

 fishing nets at sea. The fishermen of England and Germany 

 have been sufferers from this practice and have made com- 

 plaints. 



Dog Poktbaitubk.— We have recently been shown an oil 

 portrait, of the Willoughby pug "Buster," the properly of 

 Mrs. C. Berdan, of Hackensack, N. J. The picture, which 

 is exceedingly "well done, is the work of Mr. W. Holbcr- 

 ton, who is to be congratulated upon the life-like expression 

 he has succeeded in giving to the portrait. As every one 

 knows who has ever tried to paint a dog, the constantly 

 chaugi og expression of the dog's face renders the task a 

 most difficult one. 



Off to tub South. — .Dr. S. Schoonmaker sailed last week 

 for his annual Florida tour, and promises to give the readers 

 of Forest and Stream some notes. Messrs. E. M. Messen- 

 ger, of the Bromlield House, Boston, Morrill and Bounell, of 

 the same city, and D. Greeley, of Nashua, N. IT., make up a 

 Florida party. They will stop in North Can .Una for a while 

 and will not return to the North before March. 



Death of Mr. Rockwell — Those who knew Mr. Henry 

 E. Rockwell, fur many years the Secretary of the United 

 States Fish Commission, will be pained to learn that he died 

 suddenly of heart disease at his residence in Washington at 

 eleven o'clock on Sunday night last. Mr. Rockwell was 

 seventy-one years of age and was a kind and genial gen- 

 tleman. 



A New Rifle Firm.— The Marlin Fire Arms Co. has been 

 organized at New Haven, Conn., with Chas. Daly, president: 

 J. M. Marlin, treasurer ; and Joseph J. Sweeney, secretary. 

 The company holds the patent of the Marlin arms, which they 

 will manufacture. 



Training vs. Breaking. — Ihe marked favor with which 

 the earlier chapters of this series was welcomed, has been 

 followed since by many demands for them in a perrnaneut 

 form. To meet this demand, the papers will be republished 

 as a book. Due notice of its issue t will be given in these 

 columns. 



Ready Next Week. — The Forest and Stream Publishing 

 Company will publish. February 2d, " Shooting: Its Appli- 

 ances, Practice and Purpose." By J. D. Dougall. The vol- 

 ume will be handsomely printed on fine paper and bound in 

 cloth. Price, $3. See further announcements next week, 



A National Sportsmen's Association is proposed by the 

 Michigan Association. There was once a national society, 

 which has never been formally disbanded. For ail that we 

 know to Ihe contrary, however, it is dead. 



The Michigan Association held its annua convention 

 last week. A full report from a special correspondent will 

 be published in our next issue. 



Just as we go to press we are handed the following copy 

 of a dispatch received to-day (Wednesday), by General 

 Wingatc : 



London, January 25— Wing-ate, N. K. A., BT. Y.— We accept standing 

 200 yards. Ketum match mtjBt remain open question.— HArpOM). 



1 state- 

 tiat the 

 Of the 

 r their 

 tn only 



GAME PROTECTION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



Ogdenshckg. N. ?. 

 Fditri' Forest and Stream: 



'• Syracuse," in your issue of the 13th inst., has struck the 

 key note of game protection. His utterances are a condensed 

 elaboration of the whole subject — of its justification and the 

 means to make it effective. They express the revival from a 

 languishing interest of large numbers whose efforts in the 

 past have met so iutlifferent success a9 to have generated a 

 sense of disappointment and disgust, without even the sorry 

 alleviation of the thought that duriug their lives, at le.aBt, the 

 game of the State may not be wholly exterminated. 



I believe the utterances of " Syracuse" are the culmination 

 of sentiments which in the last half dozen years have been 

 surely enlisting popular support. Assuredly, their expres- 

 sion follows, and is the outgrowth of a fact generally under- 

 stood by all, that the question has come to be one of protec- 

 tion or extermination. The issue is at last clearly defined. 

 It cannot be further delayed. 



Shall we enforce Ihe laws and protect and perpetuate the 

 game in our forests and streams for the good of all, Or shall 

 we utterly abandon it to the wanton destruction of the few 

 who make a trade of lawlessness, and by indiscriminate 

 slaughter in their wreLched vocation, scandalize every senti- 

 ment of duty, humanity and decency? 



And, just here, something more than mere 

 ment is demanded. It should he Lome in : 

 public has come to be fully informed and appr 

 great abuses existing, and of the method 

 perpetration. Indeed, thy offending classes (an< 

 do I speak in this letter) and the ir methods ha 

 tentatiously paraded as to produce with the most indifferent 

 a sense of outrage and resentment. 



Count first the class of persons living in the vicinity of, or 

 hanging about the skirts of our forests, whose acres— when 

 they possess any— are abandoned to thistles in the Indolence 

 of lives demoralized for manly industry by years given to 

 the. vagabond business of hunting and tishinp. They prey 

 with the voracity of the wolf upon forest-life, struggling for 

 existence with the severities of season and weather,' and 

 make their villainy most telling when the game is lea3t 

 capable of self-protection. Their slaughter is indiscriminate 

 and wholesale; and the " groceries" for which they exchange 

 spoils are a new incentive to its repetition. Hides are so 

 much apiece, though there be not meat enough on the car- 

 casses to stay a stomach in the stripping. 



"Wolf!" — indeed the name is already utilized. 



" He is a wolf," already stigmatizes the creature— captain 

 of one to halt a dozen dogs, who in the months of spring and 

 early summer makes havoc on the land and in the water. 

 By ever.y known appli.an.oB be slays mothers bearing young, 

 or tenderly nursing their offspring by their sides— kills day 

 and night; for the shades of night which invite fort li to the 

 water's edge the. mother doc, and seem tO protect its with a 

 mantle her tender kids, are by torch and shot-gun made the 

 mos f certain helps to slaughter. 



"He is a wolf," stigmatizes the "cruster," the wretch 

 who tracks Ihe frozen snow, hunts out the nearly starved 

 deer, incapable of flight or resistance, instinctively huddled 

 together for what protection that should give them, and with 

 club and axe knock out their brains. 



Why has it never occurred to the caricaturist to present, 

 with the mastery of his art, the salient features of this sport 

 to general appreciation ? Never mind the scandal it; would 

 fasten upon "sportsman's associations," "game protective 



associations," and their carnivals at the trap and in the 

 tavern, but give the details to the public— the people — for it 

 is tine and of universal application tint " the eyes of the 

 ignorant are more learned than their ears." This business of 

 the night-hunter, and the cruster is of a species of horror that 

 would not escape the merest tyro in its exposition. 



Count, agsju, by hundreds, others of a class scarcely less 

 iniquitous, the masters of as many dogs, who habitually and 

 industriously violate the law by killing game and fish in the 

 close season, and, in St. Lawrence county (where that 

 iniquity, hounding, is forbidden at all times), by dogging- 

 deer to the water, to be there slaughtered for the amusement 

 of those who can pay them for it. 



These classes constitute the bulk of the army of guides. 

 Their equipment— each a boat, dog or dogs, and a knife. In 

 camp they are servants of all work, devoted to the tastes and 

 wishes of their employers by presents, promises and pay. 

 Nominally, but unjustly, classed with them are men whose in- 

 stincts and feelings are averse to all this lawlessness and out- 

 rage, and who will bravely and earnestly second any efforts 

 for reform. 



As generally happens in the gradations of society, another 

 class of persons is equally guilty with the guide, and without 

 his excuse. This is'the tourist, class, those who resort to the 

 woods to violate the law for pleasure and amusemeut. An 

 army without taste for, or knowledge of. wood-craft, gener- 

 ally alien to the best sentiment and passion that caVets 

 forest-life for its proper and peculiar value and fascinations ; 

 and in their experience there, the victims of delusive hopes, 

 of a thousand and one annoyances and of impositions they 

 never know and so never appreciate. Fashion is the bane 

 of this class. It is fashionable to go to the woods ; once 

 there, what can they do — what appreciate ? Why, the chase, 

 and " the chase" for them is the poor panting game driven 

 by dogs to the extreme of endurance, and then made the 

 victim of an instinct that seeks safety in the water, there to 

 be murdered, utterly feeble, helpless and forlorn. 



To discriminate and apportion the odium of this business 

 is impossible. It is of such a grade of iniquity as renders aU 

 principals — though detestation attaches in the inverse order in 

 which they shall be named— dog, guide, per se tourist. 



Count again another class, the proprietors of public bouses 

 kept, along Ihe line of the forest-lakes and rivers. What a 

 loss of caste to be without fresh venison steaK in any season 1 

 And count with the offenders in this class the guides and 

 others retained about their establishments in the close seascn 

 for tin ir services as purveyors, the hsanmi of the woods, 

 who supply the tables with " mountain mutton." 



Quite a formidable combination, you perceive — formidable 

 in its interests, connections and dependencies, but formidable 

 to the better sentiment of the community only in that abso- 

 lute indifference, which it is a consolation to know lies 

 passed away. 



it tit: on of the game constable was a gratifying 

 'vhleiice of public attention properly directed, and so, too, 

 is the p -ipnlstr condemnation of that method in practice. 



Away with the whole batch of local game constables. As a 

 clais they wink at, stand indifferent, or pander to the viola- 

 tion of the law. and this disgraces its administration. 



Officials representing the State and its citizens, unin- 

 fluenced by local influences of fear, favor, affection or reward ; 

 appointed to office in the interest of local protective effort, 

 and recommended by integrity and capacity rather than by 

 political partisanship, are the proper guardians of the public 

 interests in the protection of game. 



An admirable system forsooth that "makes annual ap- 

 propriations for hatching- and distributing fish only to have 

 them illegally caught" with impunity. An insensate theory 

 that, which spends the people's money for purposes rendered 

 abortive from laxity in administration. The veto of the 

 bill that passed the last Legislature amending the game laws 

 was a positive service to game protection. It was a rebuke 

 to the chronic listlessness that regales itself with the ridicu- 

 lous notion that to pass laws is to protect fish and game. 

 It virtually and truthfully asserted the adequacy of laws as 

 they are, and commended their vigorous enforcement. And 

 to th''s end any legislative aid in the creation of executive 

 officers necessary will not be withheld. 



That a larger number of State game protectors is required 

 is Unquestioned. That the whole northern section of the 

 Sta'e— a forest border and penetralia of hundreds of miles, 

 a region of mountain, lake and stream containing the princi- 

 pal fish and game of the State— was ignored, as were principal 

 markets of illicit trade, is an indication of the influences 

 that controlled the appointment of the present corps of game 

 protectors. Such abuses may be prevented in the future. 

 Let us ask for thirty more game protectors. Their services, 

 with the surveillance of local clubs, will organize a public 

 sentiment of obedience to law, and secure for the fish and 

 game in forest and stream a protection like that of our cattle 

 in the pastures. "Syracuse" suggests "local clubs," not 

 '' local sportsman's associations," and you observe^there is an 

 absence in his letter of any word or thought that associates 

 game protection with class or class privileges. He pleads 

 for all— -the people. Let us relegate the word sportsman and 

 its derivatives to the knights of the turf and their congeners. 

 It has contracted an odium— it has. It suggests class, class 

 privileges and something worse. Besides, it has no proper 

 significance to. no large affiliation with, the broader and better 

 purposes and results of game protection which concerns the 

 people in some of their broadest and best interests. 



In the crusade against the poachers let us say— "We, the 

 People." Why not ? We have the solemn fiat of their 

 Sovereignty written on the public statutes, denouncing penal- 

 ties and imprisonment upon the destroyers of their game, 

 and we have the duty of every good citizen to do what fie 

 may to bring offenders to justice. 



There should benothing'in the purposes of those discharg- 

 ing a public duty like vindicttveness or gratification of per- 

 sonal resentment. There has been hitherto an indifference, 

 an inattention to the enforcement of the game laws which 

 has amounted, practically, to toleration. The first purpose 

 in reform should be to disarm opposition, and invite the co- 

 operation of all for the common ben»flt. To this end general 

 amnesty should be extended. Let the offences of the past be 

 remembered only in aggravation of the offences of the 

 future. 

 Let us recapitulate ; 



1. The enforcement of the laws for the protection of fish 

 and game for the common good. 

 3. The organization of local clubs devoted to that interest. 



3. Legislation authorizing the appointment of additional 

 game protectors, to be recommended by local interests most 

 deserving- their services. 



4. General amnesty for all past offences, and so the co-oper- 

 ation of all for the common benefit. 



In these purposes "Syracuse" will be supported by 



OflDSHHBTJSa. 



