EDITORIAL WANDERINGS 



329 



PERVERSION OF GAME LEGISLA- 

 TION. 



On March 8 a bill was introduced in the 

 New York Legislature to give to certain 

 persons in Nassau County, Long Island, the 

 special privilege of turning loose tame deer 

 and hunting them with hounds. The bill, 

 obviously, is in the interest of those rich 

 sports who attempted to vary their anise- 

 seed hunting with a tame deer chase last 

 fall and were prevented by the Society for 

 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It 

 is opposed by the State Game Warden, who 

 declares that the privilege asked for should 

 be denied, and doubtless it will be opposed 

 by the Society and all who sympathize with 

 the Society's purposes. 



On other grounds than those taken by the 

 anti-cruelty people, the bill is open to criti- 

 cism. It seeks to confer upon favored in- 

 dividuals or a small number of rich men 

 a privilege denied by law to the people as a 

 whole. For good and sufficient reasons, the 

 law forbids the hounding of wild deer, and 

 the owners of enclosed game preserves are 

 amenable to that and to all other provisions 

 of the law designed for the protection of 

 game. Neither the owner of a twenty-thou- 

 sand-acre park in the Adirondacks nor the 

 farmer of a small tract may kill out of sea^ 

 son the wild birds or animals living on his 

 land. The game laws of this country have 

 not yet been perverted to the exclusive 

 benefit of the landlord, as in Europe, but 

 it is necessary to keep close watch lest the 

 pernicious idea that "sport" is a peculiar 

 privilege of the leisure class find lodgment 

 in our game legislation. 



Opportunities for hunting are being taken 

 away from the people rapidly enough by the 

 extinction of game and destruction of its 

 wilderness haunts, and the time is coming 

 when the sports of forest, field and stream 

 can be enjoyed only by those who can afford 

 the time and expense of long journeys. One 

 of the purposes of game laws is to defer 

 that time and preserve to the people, so far 

 as is possible, the opportunity for rational 

 enjoyment of the sport of hunting in re- 

 gions not difficult of access. So far as the 

 conditions are affected by legislation, equal- 

 ity of opportunity must be maintained and the 

 American principle of equal rights to all, 

 and special privileges to none, must be in- 

 forced. 



The bill under consideration is an attempt 

 to engraft a particularly offensive piece of 

 special legislation upon the general game 

 law. It is even worse in spirit than the 

 perennial proposition to restrict the right of 

 the citizen to possess and bear arms by im- 

 posing a gun tax under the pretence of pro- 

 tecting game. Plain American citizens, who 

 resent the intrusion of snobbery and class 

 privilege into our system of government, 

 should join in the protest. 



READ, YOUNG MAN. 



The sporting editor of the Detroit Free 

 Press has been placed upon the free list of 

 Recreation indefinitely. Apparently, he is 

 as much in need of education in the direc- 

 tion of the proper limit to be placed upon 

 the sportsman's catch as any man in the 

 United States. 



In the recent issue of this famous paper, 

 there appears a four-column reproduction 

 of a photograph of an immense string of 

 fish taken through the ice at Ore Lake by a 

 number of so-called Brighton sportsmen. 



It is a matter of grief and surprise that so 

 famous a paper as the Free Press will pub- 

 lish, without condemnation, such an exhibit 

 of wanton and selfish destruction of fish and 

 call it "great sport." Such barbarous ideas 

 c>i sport do not belong in this age and should 

 find no place in a sheet like the Free Press. 



OLD OFFENDER CAUGHT. 

 Game Warden James Halliday, of Union 

 County, South Dakota, raided the house of 

 Herman Becker, an old offender against the 

 game laws, and found 419 quail and 369 

 prairie chickens in boxes. Becker was con- 

 victed under the State law governing the 

 shipment of game out of season, and fined 

 .$100. 



A DIFFICULT SITUATION. 

 I. T. Huff, a mine superintendent at Ur- 

 sina, Pa., was arrested early in March on a 

 charge of dynamiting fish. Huff alleges that 

 he used the dynamite in an effort to clear 

 several streams to prevent two county bridges 

 from being carried away by the ice. This 

 seems to be somewhat of a difficult situation 

 for the Justice before whom the case is to 

 be tried, especially in view of the fact that 

 informers against violations of the fish and 

 game laws are entitled to one-half of the 

 fine in Pennsylvania. 



A GOOD WORK. 

 Ernest Harold Baynes in his lectures 

 throughout the country on "Our Last Chance 

 to Save the Buffalo," is accomplishing a 

 great work, his appeal for the preservation 

 of our finest native animal accompanied by 

 stereopticon slides showing the buffalo in 

 all phases of its life, being extremely inter- 

 esting. The National Historical Society of 

 Boston recently passed resolutions endorsing 

 the work, after hearing Baynes' lecture. 



ALL HAIL HIS NAME. 



In a letter from Mr. Charles H. Ward, 

 of Rochester, we were delighted to discover 

 the real bona fide ultra scientific name for the 

 pot hunter. It is Pithecanthropus erectus. 



Don't forget that name, you may want to 

 use it and I doubt if an old-time mate on a 

 Mississippi River boat could invent a worse 

 one. 



