68 



RECREATION. 



when he reads of the disgraceful and de- 

 grading conduct of this mossback Bible- 

 pounder. 



I have the highest possible respect for all 

 good Christian people, but when I hear 

 of a preacher who openly violates the game 

 laws and who outrages the laws of God 

 as to the rearing of the beautiful creatures 

 He has placed on this earth, I wish I had 

 the power to punish that man as he de- 

 serves. 



There is one course that never fails to 

 carry conviction to the heart of even the 

 hardiest game hog that ever lived. That is 

 for ioo or more gentlemen sportsmen to 

 write personal letters to such brutes and 

 tell them to their faces, so to speak, what 

 decent people think of them. Will not a 

 lot of the readers of Recreation use a little 

 stationery and a few postage stamps in an 

 effort to shame this old reprobate into a 

 proper regard for the laws of his State 

 and for the laws of decency? Give it to 

 him straight from the shoulder and send 

 me copies of your letters. 



were all killed at short range and by men 

 who thought they knew what they were 

 doing. 



MANY FATALITIES. 



The hunting season which ended with 

 December yielded the usual crop of fatali- 

 ties among hunters. Here is a record of a 

 few of them : 



George Miller mistook Matt Britz for a 

 deer . in the woods near Lathrop, Mich., 

 and killed him. William Walsdorf was 

 shot and killed near Chippewa Falls, Wis., 

 by an unknown man, who probably thought 

 he was shooting at a deer. Near the same 

 place Carl Emerson received a load of 

 buckshot in the shoulder by an accidental 

 discharge of a gun in the hands of a friend. 

 A settler named Martino, living near 

 Bloomer, Wis., was killed by a stray bullet, 

 which entered his left ear and came out of 

 the right ear. William Fremert, of Ocon- 

 to. Wis., was accidentally shot in the leg 

 while hunting ducks. 



Henry McPeters, of Milford, Me., W. 

 C. Trickery, Dayton, Ohio, Leslie Bowker, 

 Marshfield, Me., Frank Leonard, Frank- 

 fort, Me., and John O. Weeks, Boston, were 

 killed in the Maine woods while hunting, 

 and there are several counties yet to hear 

 from. 



Certain people talk a great deal about 

 modern high power rifles being dangerous 

 for use in deer hunting, but it seems that in 

 nearly all cases where men have been mis- 

 taken for game and killed in recent years, 

 they would have met the same fate if the 

 hunters had been using the old black pow- 

 der rifles. A man who shoots at a moving 

 bush or a patch of something he does not 

 exactly know the nature of, almost invaria- 

 bly bags his man, whether he uses smoke- 

 less or black powder. It will be observed 

 that only one of the 9 men mentioned 

 above stopped a stray bullet. The others 



LEAGUE MEMBERS IN CONGRESS. 



The game birds and wild animals will 

 have another strong friend in the next 

 Congress in the person of Mr. George 

 Shiras, of Pittsburg, an old time League 

 member. He was elected in November last 

 and on account of his intimate friendship 

 with several other members and Senators 

 will be a power for good in the cause of 

 game protection. 



Mr. Shiras was probably the first man in 

 tfl.-"! world to substitute the camera for the 

 gun in hunting big game, and for 10 years 

 past has been making flashlight pictures of 

 wild animals in their native haunts, which 

 have surprised and delighted millions of 

 people. I have published a number of his 

 pictures and have others in hand for future 

 issues of Recreation. Mr. Shiras has made 

 many beautiful pictures of deer, lynx, por- 

 cupines and birds within the past 2 years, 

 which will be reproduced in a book he is 

 now writing, to be entitled "The Camera 

 Sportsman." 



Another League member was elected to 

 Congress last fall, in the person of the 

 Hon. B. G. Humphreys, of Greenville, Miss. 

 So we now have 9 L. A. S. men in the na- 

 tional House of Representatives. 



Lacey, Shiras, Thropp, Small, Shattuck, 

 Caldwell, Ray, Robinson and Humphreys 

 will be a great team in the next House. 



IT'S UP TO MY READERS. 



A subscriber complains that I am giving 

 too much space to criticisms of Marlin 

 rifles and Peters cartridges, and charges 

 me with condemning them myself. I have 

 never said a word, editorially, against 

 either of these lines of goods. I simply 

 allow my readers to tell of their troubles 

 with these, as with any other guns or am- 

 munition, whether advertised in Recrea- 

 tion or not; and as long as I print this 

 magazine, I shall accord this privilege to 

 my friends. I have printed just as severe 

 criticisms of Winchester and Savage rifles 

 as of Marlin rifles, but the difference is 

 that only one man in 10,000 of those using 

 Winchester and Savage guns has any 

 trouble; while the percentage of those 

 using Marlin rifles is different. 



I have on file large numbers of complaints 

 about Marlin rifles and Peters cartridges 

 and these letters will be printed in the order 

 in which they came. Whenever any weap- 

 on proves defective in the hands of a read- 

 er of Recreation, and he sees fit to write 

 me about it, his complaint will be printed 

 whether the weapon be advertised in Rec- 

 reation or not. My Gun and Ammunition 

 Department is a medium for the exchange 



