T he Game Breeder 



Published Monthly. Entered as second-class matter. July a, 1915, at the Post Office, New York City, 



New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 



VOLUME VIII 



FEBRUARY, J9J6 

 SURVEY OF THE FIELD. 



NUMBER 5 



The Annual Game Law Outrage. 



There seems to be something radically 

 wrong with the game laws under which 

 a number of respectable citizens of this 

 State have been victimized of late. 

 Either the law is pernicious or its ad- 

 ministration is oppressively harsh. In- 

 deed it rather looks as if both conditions 

 existed. 



As matters stand, a citizen does in one 

 State a perfectly legal act for which he 

 is penalized immediately upon his en- 

 trance into another. It is idle to say 

 that bringing the game one has shot into 

 New York is a separate proceeding from 

 the killing of it. This is only so as a 

 fiction of law. The game is killed for 

 use and enjoyment and the transporta- 

 tion of it to one's home is all part of one 

 continuous responsibility. The infliction 

 of a penalty for the final acts necessary 

 to the completion of a hunting trip is 

 unreasonable and unjust to a preposter- 

 ous degree. 



This is the reason why so many repu- 

 table people are caught in the nasty trap 

 which their State and its officials lay for 

 them. The law is so incredible that 

 many persons do not suspect its exist- 

 ence. The man who has killed or even 

 bought a bird or animal in innocence 

 cannot believe that his own State has a 

 pack of spies waiting to waylay him on 

 his arrival home to rob him of his prop- 

 erty and inflict a fine equal to that im- 

 posed in courts for serious offences. 



There is, unfortunately, no doubt as 

 to the power of the Legislature to pass 

 this law. But there is equally little 

 doubt as to the injustice of it. It would 

 seem as if there could not be too much 

 haste in amending it so as to admit to 

 the State unpenalized at least the bag of 



each individual hunter shot in a State 

 where the killing was legal and still re- 

 maining in his own control. Whatever 

 may be said of commercial importation, 

 this much at least is demanded by com- 

 mon sense. — N. Y. Evening Sun. 



Let Her Go Gallagher. 



We presume one of the official reports 

 of the "outrage," sent to Albany, read 

 something like this : 

 To Hon. George D. Pratt, 



Game Conservation Commissioner of 

 New York: 



I arrested a New York lady as she 

 stepped from the train, upon her return 

 from her Southern farm where she rears 

 game. I took her quail away from her, 

 threatened her with a jail sentence; I 

 settled with her for $50 (amount in- 

 closed), which was about all I thought 

 she would stand for, and then I Let Her 

 Go- 

 Gallagher, 

 Division Chief Game Warden, 

 Southern District, N. Y. 



A wonderful performance that for a 

 high salaried official ! The Evening 

 Sun, N. Y., mildly referred to it as "the 

 annual game law outrage" and let it go 

 at that. 



And Happy Boots Wilson Also. 



The excellent story of "the annual 

 game law outrage," printed in the Sun, 

 N. Y., says that Happy Boots Wilson 

 and his employer were surprised at the 

 conduct of Let Her Go Gallagher and 

 his band. It seems that a squirrel was 

 legally killed on a Southern plantation 

 and that Happy Boots, traveling with 

 his employer, was legally possessed of 

 the food until he ran across the New 



