346 



RECREATION 



both resident and migratory, in this state 

 shall be, and are hereby declared to be, the 

 property of the state." In Indiana it is the 

 same idea which underlies the law and which 

 makes it necessary for a land-owner to pro- 

 cure a license to hunt even upon his own es- 

 tates. 



Never mind what the landlords may claim. 

 I am one myself, and know that they will 

 claim everything in sight ; but they can not 

 sustain their claims to some things and wild 

 game and fish are two things upon which 

 they only have an equal right with the land- 

 less man. 



MAN IS THE CAUSE OF THE DECREASE OF BIRDS. 



"Beside man, all other destructive forces 

 dwindle into insignificance. The destruction 

 of birds by the elements or by their natural 

 enemies is not to be compared for a moment 

 with that inflicted by man on all species that 

 come within scope of his wants. Man's per- 

 secutions are annual and perennial." — Special 

 Report of the Decrease of Certain Birds and 

 its Cause. Prepared under direction of 

 Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. 



We notice that there is a general protest 

 by our brother editors of the press against 

 the barbarous and cruel practice of shooting 

 turtle-doves as game, and we often see quot- 

 ed our favorite lines from "The Ancient 

 Mariner": 



" He prayeth best who loveth best, 

 Both man and bird and beast." 

 This support by the press is one of the things 

 which encourages us in our fight for modera- 

 tion and for proper sentiment, and we agree 

 with our brother editors that the legalizing 

 of the destruction of the doves is a step in 

 the wrong direction, and that such a law is 

 vicious and corrupting in its tendency. We 

 think that very few men who call themselves 

 sportsmen will object to having so beautiful 

 and gentle a bird as the turtle-dove removed 

 from a list of game birds where it never be- 

 longed. Of course, it is good to eat; so, also, 

 are most live things, and, if we are to trust 

 the opinion of some wild people, a fat human 

 baby is also a delicacy; but it ill accords with 

 advanced civilization to kill everything which 

 our stomachs can digest. 



The Punxsutawaney Spirit says that the 

 streams of the commonwealth are its natural 

 sewers, and that the industries are worth vast- 

 ly more to our people than the fish. This is 

 a misleading statement, the first part of 

 which is true only in so far that the streams 

 are the natural drainage of the country, and 

 they become sewers only when they are pol- 

 luted, like the disgusting Passaic river; but 

 pollution is not necessary. The second part 

 of the statement is too vague for discussion. 

 It is quoted merely to show how purposely 

 misleading are such phrases. It is made to 

 appear that the only reason for uncontami- 

 nated water supply is to preserve the fish, 



In the first place, it is not necessary for 

 factories to drain their refuse in the streams, 

 and the reason they do is because labor fol- 

 lows the line of the least resistance and the 

 easiest and cheapest way to dispose of waste 

 is by dumping it into an adjoining stream. 

 When they do this they utterly disregard the 

 rights of a patient and long-suffering pub- 

 lic, and do it in defiance of the fact that the 

 health and life of the public is dependent upon 

 a supply of pure water. The same paper adds 

 the interesting item that a small chemical fac- 

 tory on the headwaters of First Fork, one of 

 the prettiest mountain streams in the world, 

 makes that little river look a combination 

 of ink and soapsuds, and has totally ruined 

 it as a fishing stream. A few years ago it 

 was the Mecca of fishermen from all parts of 

 the state. Now it is so nasty that the people 

 living along the banks cannot eat the eggs 

 of the poultry that drink from it. This is only 

 one of the numerous instances of its kind. 

 Then the editor wakes up and says some im- 

 portant things, as follows : 



"The rights and pleasures of millions of 

 people are thus sacrificed to the avarice of a 

 few. 



"This matter ought to be thoroughly inves- 

 tigated by a commission of competent per- 

 sons, and if it be found that the waters can 

 not be kept clean without crippling our in- 

 dustries, the fish laws should be repealed ab- 

 solutely. And if it be found that the va- 

 rious manufacturing industries could provide 

 methods of disposing of the poisonous chem- 

 icals used in their business at reasonable cost, 

 then they should be liable for all damage 

 such industry might do to the streams." 



The American people are not fools, and if 

 it is true, as Abraham Lincoln said, that you 

 can not fool all the people all the time, then 

 it is time that we united in a strenuous pro- 

 test against this outrageous use of our 

 streams for common sewers. As well argue 

 that all wells and springs are natural cess- 

 pools as that all streams are natural sewers. 



The Cooperstown Sentinel says that con- 

 siderable excitement was caused in Valley 

 City last Monday morning by the discovery 

 of a countless number of dead fish which 

 were floating on the surface of the Sheyenne 

 river below the mill dam. The dead fish are 

 all below where the city sewers empty into 

 the river, and are nearly all suckers; the 

 suckers are the only fish that feed on th p 

 mouth of the sewers, and the evidence strong- 

 ly points to the supposition that something 

 that passed through the city sewers killed the 

 fish, and that it is perhaps a case for the city 

 authorities and the health officers. There is 

 no perhaps about a matter of this nature; 

 substance which is deadly enough to kill as 

 tough a fish as a sucker is too deadly to be 

 allowed to run into a river. 



The Bellington, W. Va., Republican says 

 that recently the Tygarts Valley river has 



