Forest and Stream. 



A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 



Terms, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. ) 



Six Months, $3. ( 



NEW YORK, OCTOBER 18, 1888. 



t VOL. XXXI.-No. 13. 



I No. 318 Broadway, New Vork. 



COBRESPONDENOE. 

 The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 

 ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 

 Communications on the subject to which its pages are devoted are 

 respectfully invited. Anonymous communications will not be re- 

 garded. No name will be published except with writer's consent. 

 The Editors are not responsible for the views of correspondents. 



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 Only advertisements of an approved character inserted. Inside 

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 and twelve months. Seven words to the line, twelve lines to one 

 Inch. Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday previous to 

 Issue in which they are to be inserted. Transient advertisements 

 must invariably be accompanied by the money or they will not be 

 Inserted. Reading notices $1.00 per line. 



SUBSCRIPTIONS 

 May begin at any time. Subscription price, $4 per year; $ 2 for six 

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 Ave copies for $16. Remit by express mouey-order, regi ered letter, 

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 Company. The paper may be obtained of newsdealers throughout 

 the United States, Canadas and Great Britain. For sale by Davies 

 & Co., No. 1 Finch Lane, Cornhill, London. General subscription 

 agents far Great Britain, Messrs. Davies & Co., and Messrs. Samp- 

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 Address all communications, 



Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 

 No. 318 Broadway. New York City. 



CONTENTS. 



Editorial. 



The Presidential Election. 



By Writ of Mandamus. 



Snap Shots. 

 The Sportsman Tourist. 



Through Okeechobee to the 

 Gulf. 



That Camp. 

 Natural Historv. 



Breeding Grizzlies in Confine- 

 ment. 



Serpents and Their Ways. 

 Game Bag and Gun. 



Some Stories about Bruin. 



One Way m Newfoundland. 



Chicago and the West. 



Game and Game Grounds. 



A Massachusetts League. 



Notes tiMro Puget Sound. 



The Drop < f Stock. 

 Sea and River Fishing. 



The Winninish Discussed. 



Ha Ha Bay. 



Bluefish. 



FlSHCULTURE. 



List of Fisb Commissioners. 

 Notes on the Commissions. 



The Kennel. 



Short-Haired Newfoundland 

 Dogs. 



"Practical" Judging. 



Eastern Field Trials Club. 



The History of a Mushroom. 



Richmond Dog Show. 



Spaniels and their Work. 



That Mitchell Letter. 



Indiana Field Trials. 



Kansas City Dog Show. 



Kennel Notes. 



Kennel Management. 

 Rifle and Trap Shooting. 



Range and GaUery. 



The Trap. 



Jersey City Heights G. C. 



Tournament. 

 The Suburban Tournament. 

 Middlesex Gun Cxub. 

 I Yachting. 



A New Spring Turnbuckle. 

 Canoeing. 

 ! The A. C. A. Camp of 1888. 

 New York C. C. International 

 Race. 



I Answers to Correspondents. 



THE PBESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 



IN recalling some of the incidents of journalism the 

 other day, a gentleman related to us how he had 

 given up reading the Spirit of the Times when George 

 Wilkes switched about from sturdily supporting Gen. 

 McClellan and cam© out one week with a savage attack 

 on that leader's course. That was back in the sixties. 

 Readers of the Spirit of the Times in that decade and 

 the succeeding one will recall the vigorous political 

 leaders Wilkes used to write. In those days one might 

 take offense at the views expressed in these editorials, 

 but no one thought of questioning the propriety of a 

 "sporting" journal's holding and expressing political 

 opinions. The scope of such publications was wider then 

 than now. The contents of the Spirit of the Times in- 

 cluded not only matter relating to the turf, the ring, 

 athletics, shooting, fishing, rowing, yachting and other 

 branches of "sport," but market reports, agricultural 

 essays, fiction and politics. 



Times have changed. Good citizens who now read 

 "sporting" or "sportsmen's" journals still read political 

 leaders, but they no longer take their politics and their 

 fishing together. No one who buys the Forest and 

 Stream and carries it home to read Thursday evening, 

 after getting through his second political lesson of the 

 day in his evening paper, expects to sit down and turn 

 over the pages to be confronted by arguments to prove 

 that unless Cleveland be elected the country will go to 

 the bow-wows, or that the salvation of the Eepublic 

 hangs on the election of Harrison. He would strenuously 

 resent any dabbling in politics in these pages, and at the 

 first show of party bias his impulse would be to send 

 word "stop my paper," and no one would blame him if 

 he were to carry out the impulse. 



There is an unexpressed and unwritten compact between 

 publishers and subscribers of a journal devoted to the 

 outdoor world that the two topics of political faith and 

 religious creed are not to be made subjects of discussion. 

 This is a natural outgrowth of the development of 

 special or class journalism. The same principle applies 

 to numerous other special journals, but perhaps to none 

 in a stronger degree than to the Forest and Stream. 



Under these circumstances, no clear way presents it- 

 self in which we may avail ourselves of the offer made 

 by an enterprising and doubtless well-meaning Boston 

 publisher, who invites us to "show commendable enter- 

 prise" by buying enough copies of his three-colored folio, 

 containing "over fifty autograph reasons" why Blank 

 and Blank should be elected," to go around to all our 

 readers as a "campaign supplement." To supply them 

 with the flaming folio, this publisher says, "will largely 

 increase the reputation of your paper with your indepen- 

 dent constituency ;" but for the remainder of the cam- 

 paign Forest and Stream will have to do without any 

 increase of reputation won by such means. 



Bl WRIT OF MANDAMUS. 



IN the "Topics of the Times," of the Century Magazine 

 for last August, a thoughtful paper discussed the 

 necessity of finding some remedy for the lawlessness of 

 law-officers. "The fact is notorious," it was said, "that, 

 all over the land, plain statutes are disregarded by those 

 who are plainly bidden to enforce them: that sheriffs and 

 constables and policemen stand and look on while the 

 laws which they have sworn to execute are dishonored 

 before their faces. This is the feature of our political 

 administration that is most troublesome and discourag- 

 ing." 



The class of laws more specially referred to were those 

 relating to the liquor traffic. These statutes are in many 

 places not enforced; and it was pointed out that among 

 the reasons for their non-enforcement might be reckoned 

 the subserviency of police officers to organized bodies of 

 law breakers, and a laxity of public sentiment expressing 

 itself through the judiciary, which fails to support the 

 police. Again, where public opinion does demand that 

 the laws be executed, it may happen that the executive 

 delinquents cannot be roused from their apathetic or con- 

 niving failure to act. To oust corrupt officials and put 

 honest men in their places is a task usually requiring 

 long continued and persistent effort, and the rule is that 

 reformers grow weary before attaining their ends, and 

 official inaction triumphs. One speedy and effective 

 stratagem has been found to compel law officers to do 

 their duty, and it w 7 as thus described in the Century: 



It sometimes happens, however, that public sentiment expresses 

 itself through the judiciary more directly and efficiently than 

 through the executive; and a curious incident of recent history 

 shows how the courts may 7 be used to spur to action a derelict 

 administration. In one of the cities of Ohio, the law requiring 

 the closing of the saloons on Sunday had been flagrantly dis- 

 obeyed for years, and the public authorities, who had been com- 

 manded by the law to see to its enforcement, had never lifted a 

 finger to restrain the transgressors. At length application was 

 made by citizens to one of the judges of the Court of Common 

 Pleas for a writ of mandamus, requiring the police commission- 

 ers to execute the law. The case was argued, the fact of the entire 

 inaction of the authorities was shown— could not, indeed, be dis- 

 puted; and the judge promptly issued the writ, commanding these 

 officers to perform their duty. The commissioners met and con- 

 sulted. "Suppose we refuse," they said, "what then?" "That 

 will be contempt of court," replied the city solicitor. The jail 

 already contained one or two inmates whom the judge had 

 recently punished for contempt, and the prospect was not allur- 

 ing. "I move," said one of the commissioners, after a solemn 

 pause, "that orders be issued to the men to enforce the law strictly 

 next Sunday." The motion was unanimously carried, and on the 

 next Sunday, for the first time in fifteen years, every saloon was 

 closed. 



Any one who has had much to do with the game laws 

 can readily trace a very close similarity between the diffi- 

 culties encountered in enforcing the statutes for the pro- 

 tection of fish and game and those met in enforcing the 

 laws to regulate the liquor traffic. It is likewise true, 

 with respect to the game and fish laws, that they are not 

 effective because not sustained by a public sentiment 

 strong enough to punish the culprits. Thus, in some in- 

 stances, we find sworn game protectors and game con- 

 stables refusing to prosecute law violators because they 

 are indifferent to the law infractions or in league with 

 the offenders. In other cases, where the executive offi- 

 cers do their duty, arrest the guilty parties and bring 

 them before a magistrate or a jury, the ends of justice 

 are defeated because public sentiment, as manifested 

 through the magistrate or the jurors, refuses to inflict 

 the prescribed penalties. This parallel of the two classes 

 of laws and law infractions is so obvious that after read- 

 ing the Century's account of the Ohio resort to a writ of 

 mandamus, a correspondent'sent us a suggestion that the 

 same step might be taken to secure the correction of such 

 a condition of affairs as, for instance, the "Adirondack 

 Abominations" described last August. 



That the suggestion was a sensible one has just been 

 shown by an amusing case in Connecticut, where recourse 

 was had to a threat of taking out a writ of mandamus to 

 compel a grand juror to do his duty. The Connecticut 

 Association of Farmers and Sportsmen for the Protec- 

 tion of Game and Fish has been active in bringing to 

 punishment a number of market hunters and grouse 

 snarers; and it secured evidence to warrant the arrest of a 

 violator, who, it appears, is not to be classed as a poor 

 man, which fact perhaps had something to do with the 

 action of the grand juror, when that functionary refused 

 to act. The Association thereupon sent him a letter, the 

 pertinent portions of which are as follows: 



Harteortj, Conn., Oct. 11, 1888.— Mr. Amam Johnson, Grand 

 Juror, Eastford, Conn.: Dear Sir— Your refusal to sign the com- 

 plaint "State vs. James Preston," of your town, compels us to say 

 unless you sign the said complaint when it is again presented to 

 you, we shall proceed as follows, to wit: Make an application to 

 the Superior Court for a mandamus. With said mandamus com- 

 pel you to sign said complaint. The cost of a mandamus will be 

 $50 to $75 for some one to pay, and you can draw your conclusions 

 who will pay the cost of said mandamus. * * * We do not 

 mean that the poor law breaker be used any worse than the 

 wealthy. We prosecuted two persons last week in Ashford, and 

 pray understand we shall prosecute the said Preston. We give 

 you a 1air warning, and hope you will do your duty without 

 further trouble, as your oath demands. Awaiting an early 

 answer, we are, respectfully yours, A. C. Collins, President. 



The effect was speedy; the grand juror signed the com- 

 plaint, the offender was brought before the justice, and 

 fines were imposed on two counts. The Connecticut As- 

 sociation has the credit of proving the worth of a writ of 

 mandamus as a stimulus to the performance of official 

 duty. 



SNAP SHOTS. 

 ^l^HE valleys and the hills and the mountains are 

 aflame with the gorgeous colors of autumn. The 

 October sky arches blue overhead. The eager dogs flash 

 through the cover. The rifle's sharp crack and the boom- 

 ing of shotguns are heard in the land. This is the season 

 of the year when life is worth living. The autumn days 

 are passing, as the leaves fall, and happy are they who 

 can enjoy them in the field to the full, from the frosty 

 gray of morning to the purple haze on the hills at the 

 dying of the light. 



Florida has no game law; but there are numerous citi- 

 zens of the pennisula who are a law unto themselves, and 

 shoot game only in what they consider to be the proper 

 and legitimate season. Some of these people lately adopted 

 a novel device to force folks to conform to their own 

 standard in this respect. The sportsmen of a certain 

 county met and endeavored to hit upon some plan to pre- 

 vent quail from being killed prior to Oct. 15, the negroes 

 being the principal offenders. They adopted the device 

 of arresting those who were found with game in their 

 possession and severely reprimanding them and threaten- 

 ing dire punishment should they repeat the offense. The 

 plan worked very well until one of the prominent men 

 of the county and a member of the State Legislature be- 

 gan to shoot young quail, and then the scheme "petered 

 out." This method of protecting game was of course 

 illegal, and was adopted only as a last resort. It is a 

 shame that the State has no efficient game laws. The 

 Northern people that are moving into the State will prob- 

 ably endeavor to have game laws adopted that can be 

 enforced. 



There are numerous reports of very late broods of quail 

 this autumn; and in several instances nests have been 

 found with the eggs destroyed by the cold weather or 

 with young unable to withstand the rigors of the season. 

 The necessity of intelligent identification of birds when 

 facts relating to them are reported, is shown by one of 

 the communications received by us, which stated that 

 the young birds found killed by the cold were grouse; 

 on examination the specimens sent proved to be quail. 



It is reported from Winnipeg, Manitoba, that Major 

 Bedson has sold his herd of domesticated buffalo to a 

 Kansas ranchman for $28,000. The purchaser is sup- 

 posed to be "Buffalo" Jones, who already has a herd of 

 his own; and the dispatches are therefore incorrect in 

 stating that the Bedson herd is the only one on the 

 continent. . 



The winninish discussion at the meeting of the Massa- 

 chusetts Association, as reported in our columns, is an 

 exceedingly interesting chapter of "fish talk." 



