126 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 5, 18S9. 



scientious sportsman we do not have with us than Mr. 

 Sloan." 



After this open admission of the inefficiency of our 

 game laws — which bears directly upon the facts set forth 

 by myself last fall and later, to the effect that the con- 

 flict in open dates of the great game markets practically 

 keeps all the markets open the year round— Mr. Low 

 proceded with the prosecution to a short extent, Mr. 

 Donald thinking it best to go on. 



Defense set up that the prosecuting witness was not a 

 game warden; thtt only a game warden bad power 

 under the statute to search "premises for illicit game ; 

 that although power to prosecute a fine might hie in the 

 people, action did not lie in this case for the people. 



Upon the defense being outlined, Mr. Low dismissed 

 the prosecution. The result was practically a non-suit 

 and not a trial on the facts at all. Defense showed in- 

 cidentally the name and address of the proper game 

 warden. * The Randall suit being of the same nature no 

 appearance was entered in it, and it was dismissed. The 

 Randall birds were sold by agreement. Mr. Sloan left 

 Justice Smith's court in anger and refused to remove the 

 confiscated game, which was put into a freezer by prose- 

 cution and watched. Mr, Sloan said he knew nothing of 

 the birds and did not receive them. Mr. Randall said 

 his birds came from Sioux City, Iowa. I am told this 

 box also had quail in it. 



Mr. Donald tried earnestly to secure the attendance of 

 a number of our leading sportsmen at this trial, and sent 

 to Forest and Stream an invitation to be on hand. The 

 latter was accepted, but i 5 ie result of the morning suit 

 caused the dismissal of t-. • ifternoon suit, which was the 

 only thing to be expected. Not a soul of our leading 

 sportsmen was there. Mr. Donald said to me, "When I 

 left the room I was so disgusted with the whole affair 

 that I would have handed in my resignation as president 

 of the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association, if I could 

 have found anybody to hand it to." Mr. Donald shall do 

 nothing of the kind. He has ner^c enough to make a 

 start, at least, and so he belongs riu 1 i where he is. Cer- 

 tainly the boys wiil be piqued and shamed enough by 

 these rather inglorious results to chijj in and back up 

 Fred C. Donald, one of their own companions, to the 

 extent of the $50 or $100 necessary to make another 

 proper case, and one which will result in a conviction on 

 South Water street, which will now laugh louder than 

 ever at our "yearly trap-shoot league" of an association, 

 if something is not done. I am ready to stand my share 

 of such a fund. I believe Forest and Stream is ready 

 to stand its share. Every shooter in this city ought to be 

 able to stand his share. The association has no money. 

 Let it not be said that it is all apathy. Not much money 

 is needed. Mr. Low offers his services to prosecute a 

 ease at any time. The iron is hot now. There are plenty 

 of summer quail in the market now, and it won't take 

 long to get a case. Besides, you know, we know the 

 name of our game warden now. 



Such, so far as I am able to make it, is a plain, unvar- 

 nished exposition of the truly delectable state of affairs 

 in game protection in this city. Is it any better any- 

 where else? Is there any State sportsmen's" association 

 which is anything more than a yearly trap shoot? If 

 any, speak, and give our sleeping brethren the benefit of 

 one good example. I have no grudge against the Illinois 

 Association, certainly, but if there is anything on earth I 

 do love in newspaper work, it's facts. I talked with Mr. 

 Low, ex-president, to-day. 



"Mr. Low," I said, "a while ago I wrote an article for 

 Forest and Stream in which I tried to rip the State 

 Association up the back a little on this protection busi- 

 ness. The paper declined to use so severe an article. 

 What do you think — are we any good, or not?" 



"No," said Mr. Low, "we are not, and you were doing 

 no injustice, but a possible good, in stating the facts as 

 you did. There is lamentable deficiency both in the 

 State Protective Association and in the State game laws. 

 Look at the balk made on the prairie chicken law this 

 year. We hardly know how we stand. Judge Caton 

 has just handed me an old decision which makes it at 

 least doubtful whether you can't go behind the law as 

 published. All I can say is, we are mixed, and badly 

 mixed. I once stated for Forest and Stream, and also 

 publicly in an address to our State convention, I believe, 

 that our game wardens had police authorities under the 

 new law; but for the life of me I can't find this clause in 

 the published laws, although I have received congratu- 

 lations upon its being passed. The amount of it is, that 

 none of us sportsmen can afford to go down to Spring- 

 field and stay a whole session to watch a measure 

 through. We can't afford it. The Association makes no 

 appropriation for it. But the South Water street men 

 can afford to have a lobby there, and they do. Result is, 

 they get there, and we don't. No, sir, you may say for 

 me that I love the Association and enjoy its meetings, 

 but so far as being a practical protective association is 

 concerned, our record shows that we have no right to 

 claim it." 



Upon being questioned to similar purpose, Mr. Donald, 

 the present president of the Illinois State Sportsmen's 

 Association, said: 



"I am feeling pretty sore about this late action. I 

 have had a bona fide intention to do something on this 

 line, and I honestly thought I would have backing 

 enough from the boys to give me at least a little moral 

 support in these late cases, unfortunate as they were. I 

 had no support whatever. I am willing and anxious to 

 try again, and do not believe in giving up so easily, at 

 least not until issue has been fairly joined in a well-taken 

 case. I want to go ahead and fight now, if there is any 

 interest held by any other members. But what am I to 

 do? The truth is. our association don't take hold and 

 never did, and it all is very discouraging." 



Once we had a president to our association who once 

 upon a time was asked for $5 to aid in a game law prose- 

 cution. "If it was for politics, I'd go you," said he, "but 

 for game protection, excuse me!" This man is now high 

 in politics here. In men like Mr. Donald and Mr. Low 

 we have a great deal better material than that, and both 

 these gentlemen have certainly shown themselves gene- 

 rous of their time and money to the last degree. To 

 what good? 



We have here, made right to order, a beautiful example 

 of the practical— not the theoretical— workings of the 

 local protection system and the game warden scheme. 

 We can see, not what it might accomplish, but what it 

 does not accomplish. Our law is no good, because it can 

 not show results. Our law is so weak that perhaps all 



we can do at best is to break it over the beads of the 

 game dealers at the very next suit. Our law, plainly, is 

 worthless. But we are not going to change it. Our 

 State association has no money to employ even one man 

 to try to better it. 



Now. here is another side to it. I know almighty well 

 that men like Henry Sloan and George Randall and Col. 

 Bond don't want to sell unlawful game. They would 

 rather not. They would be willing to go into some com- 

 promise which would relieve them of the necessity— that 

 is it, the necessity. When will our high and mighty 

 sportsmen, who can't protect anything, and don't want 

 to try. come down from the hill of their own conceit and 

 offer a flag of truce to these game dealers, who can do 

 just what they want to do, and who are desirous in many 

 cases of saving the game, and not of selling it? In such 

 a union there is strength indeed. It is not certain that 

 such a union is impossible, if proper grounds of com- 

 promise were determined. 



I have written of this before, and have thought of it 

 often. It is my hobby. The present state of affairs does 

 not induce one* to think otherwise. There may never be 

 a time when sportsmen and game dealers. East and West, 

 will march on shoulder to shoulder, strong as an army 

 with banners, but until something of the sort is approached 

 or undertaken, do not let the Illinois State Sportsmen's 

 Association imagine that it is an army with banners. 

 Far more like is it to the melancholy spectacle of the 

 lone Knight of La Mancha, mounted upon a bony and 

 tottering steed, clad in armor, becoming yearly more 

 antiquated and unfit for modern use, and waving feebly 

 a rotted, weak and pointless spear. 



Aug. SI.— Irving Park Gun Club, near this city, having 

 grown impatient at the continual violation of the chicken 

 law in this vicinity, has made arrangements to prosecute 

 the next instance. So far as I can learn, the approaching 

 of the open date has caused much more violation of the 

 law than was the case last year or the year before. 

 Everybody wants to get in ahead now, and is afraid 

 some one else will get a chicken or so. No convictions. 

 No arrests. 



One of the members of one of our prominent clubs 

 here killed six prairie chickens last week, at the club 

 house in Indiana. He is not especially anxious to have 

 this generally known. A grand example he sets! 



To-morrow is open day in Indiana. There are numbers 

 of birds along the edge of the Kankakee marshes, or 

 there were a few weeks ago. The marsh hunters, push- 

 ers and "swamp angels'" generally have been at them 

 steadily for a long time. One pusher at the Cumberland 

 Club, whom I thought quite above such work as that, is 

 reported to have been shooting chickens regularly. No 

 arrests. The Indiana law is a very peculiar one. In 

 order to convict, it is almost necessary that the prose- 

 cuting witness shall have seen the defendant kill the 

 bird, no doubt being left as to that fact. Of course, that 

 is a good protective law. It protects the law breaker. 

 Most of our game laws do. 



Mr. W. N. Low has received an invitation from his 

 brother at Wall Lake, Iowa, to come out for a chicken 

 shoot. "Wall Lake is in "Wright county, Iowa, and is in 

 one of the best chicken countries I ever knew. That 

 used to be our Iowa hunting ground, and I have 

 passed many pleasant days about that peculiar little 

 lake. There is fair pickerel fishing in the lake, and 

 there are bullheads till you can't rest. We used to back 

 the wagon down into the lake at night and fish with a 

 lantern hung at the tail gate. The farmers of that neigh- 

 borhood were very hospitable and friendly in those days, 

 eight years ago. Mr. Low says the chicken supply is still 

 good around there. Mud Lake, in Hamilton county, 

 below there, should also have a few chickens around on 

 the stubble about it. we always used to get all we cared 

 to eat, and that with only a little hunt each evening. All 

 that part of Iowa and also the country still further to the 

 northwest in that State is naturally a grand chicken 

 country. It is shamefully, persistently and unlawfully 

 harried by the market shooters. Local gun clubs are 

 also very bad. 



I presume if a party of shooters should head for Ruth- 

 ven, in northwestern Iowa, they would either get good 

 chicken shooting near there or learn where it "could be 

 had. I should not pretend to advise any shooter more 

 definitely than this, because the conditions of a shooting 

 country change very rapidly. Moreover, I should regret 

 very much to send into this or any other country a party 

 of shooters who might, as so many others have done 

 there, simply give full rein to their 'love for slaughter, 

 and go in to see how many chickens they could kill. 

 There have been thousands of chickens killed in Iowa 

 which never were picked up out of the grass, and thous- 

 ands which were left rotting about the camps. Add to 

 these the hundreds of thousands shipped to the yawning 

 game markets, and you may well wonder there is a bird 

 left in the State. The law is worthless. No arrests. 

 Open date in Iowa Sept. 1. 



Sep t. 1— Into the pleasant life of one whose duties 

 bring him much among sportsmen, whom we may count 

 the best of friends, there comes sometimes an event the 

 more painful through the contrast of its setting. This 

 morning Mr. W. K. Massie writes from Lexington, Ky., 

 announcing the death at that city, on Aug. 2T, of Mr. 

 George Williams, one of the best known young sports- 

 men of that community, and one of my entertainers dur- 

 ing my late visit to Lexington. Mr. George Williams 

 was a brother of Roger D. Williams, known to readers of 

 this paper through his connection with greyhound inter- 

 ests. Mr. George Williams was an expert and enthusiast 

 in the sports of the field, and moreover a gentleman, 

 kind and manly. The picture of vigorous young man- 

 hood, his death was keen surprise to his friends. During 

 his duties as adjutant at the maneuvers of the State 

 guard, he was overcome by heat, and expired a few hours 

 later in a congestive chill. He and his cousin, Mr. Massie. 

 had just planned a fishing and camping trip together. 

 Few young men would be missed so much in sporting 

 circles, and few so much among the friends who knew 

 him socially. He was a man. E. Hough. 



McFarland and His Deer.— Keene Valley, N Y.. 

 Aug. 37.— Editor Forest and Stream: You may be glad 

 to notice the fact that the game warden of Essex county 

 is doing his duty. A guest of the Adirondack House in 

 this place returned from a. trip in the woods about the 

 first of this month with a deer. When told that it was 

 out of season, he replied that he didn't care for that; he 

 should kill a deer whenever he got a chance. The skin 



of the deer was nailed to dry on the stable door. But 

 word was sent to the game warden at Malone. He came 

 here at once, and the offender, a McFarland, of Philadel- 

 phia, paid $100 to settle it. It will teach him a lesson 

 and be a warning to others. A gentleman who came from 

 the Saranac to day told me they Avere hounding there, 

 and he saw a party start out with hounds this morning. — 

 Capias, 



Minnesota, Aug. 22.— Prairie chickens are scarce here, 

 and a great deal of the land is posted. Lawlessness on 

 the part of hunters has driven farmers to this step. 

 Sloughs are so dried up after five dry seasons that there 

 will be little or no fall duck shooting. — Y. 



Providence, R. I. — Woodcock and partridge are very 

 plenty this season, and the law has been respected better 

 than common this year. The prospects are good for the 

 first of September. I shall try my luck with the rest of 

 the boys.— Cohannet. 



The Ideal Loading Tools are steadily growing in favor among 

 spoilsmen, and the manufacturers are kept busily at work in 

 order to supply the demand. The subjoined letter is a sample of 

 many which speak in praise of their value; 



One of Thousands. 



Auburn, Me., Aug. 19, 1889. 

 The Ideal Manufacturing Co., New Haven, Conn.: 



Gents — Kn closed please Jind SI. 25, for which send me a set. of 

 your "Ideal Shotgun Loading' Tools," same as i had before. 12- 

 gauge, and all nickel plated. Yours respectfully. S. .r. Brett, 

 Auburn, Me., P. O. Box 895'. P.S.— Please send as soon as possible. 

 -S. J. B. 



Auburn, Me., Aug. 25, 1889.' 

 Gents- The Loading Tools sent me Auer. Stt arrived all right. 

 They are the handiest set of tools that 1 ever owned to rake on a 

 hunting trip. Yours respectfully, S. J. Brett. 



CAMPS OF THE KINGFISHERS.-VIII. 



ECHO LAKE, ONTARIO, CANADA. 



I HAD not looked into the little trout stream yet, except 

 at the "Jedge's pool'' near the camp, and accordingly 

 next morning, with rod and bait box of worms— fly-fish- 

 ing was out of the question on account of the "bresh"— I 

 took my way up the rough road leading from the dock 

 along the ridge overlooking the gulch, at the bottom of 

 which the stream found its way among the ragged rocks, 

 intending to first have a look at the abandoned copper 

 mine back in the hills and then fish the stream back to 

 camp. 



A matter of half a mile from the lake the stream separ- 

 ated, the road crossing the left hand branch by a rude 

 bridge, and following the other one toward a high, rocky 

 hill a quarter of a mile further on. The left branch we 

 afterward learned from Farmer Ruttle was the outlet of 

 a small lake — nearly a mile long — that was a. couple of 

 hundred feet higher than Echo Lake, and might be 

 reached by a trail leading across a distance of a mile and 

 a half from the deep bay, a couple of miles below our 

 camp. He said it was full of a kind of fish that the 

 people of the neighborhood called trout, but from his 

 description we could not make out the species, unless 

 they were the landlocked salmon. A suggestion that we 

 take a light boat across the carry and try it a day or two 

 developed the fact that there was not muscle enough in 

 the camp that was willing to undertake the feat, and the 

 lake was left in its solitude. 



The road led along a little brook to a cluster of four or 

 five nearly new and very comfortable hewed log houses, 

 standing on a level spot of a few acres near the foot of 

 the hill, all open and deserted, giving the place a dreary 

 and deserted appearance, that was further heightened by 

 the oppressive stillness that reigned over the scene. A 

 path led off the left from the road up a slight ascent to 

 the level above, and following this I entered one of the 

 most pretentious of the houses and sat down on a pine 

 bench in the main room to rest, for legs will get weary 

 and the breath grow short as the years "silver the crown,"' 

 and the road had been nearly all up hill since leaving the 

 camp. 



Scattered around on a long pine table, on another 

 bench and on the floor, were fragments of "blossom 

 rock," copper ore and other specimens, that reminded me 

 of pleasant days and climbs in the Rockies in years 

 a-gone, when life was young and bright and muscles 

 tireless. Selecting a few to take home, they, with the 

 rod and bait box, were left on the table to be picked up 

 on the way back; and taking another path that led back 

 to the road down past the "root house," I crossed the 

 stream on another bridge and was directly climbing the 

 side hill along a zigzag road — cut in the rock in this 

 manner to ease the grade — to the mine entrance, which 

 we had been told was a hundred yards or more from the 

 cluster of houses. When about out of breath, a level 

 spot in the road gave me a chance to recover my wind 

 and peer into a chasm 20 or 25ft. deep and 4 to 8ft. wide, 

 at the bottom of which the little stream whimpered nois- 

 ily as it tumbled over its rocky bed on the way to the 

 level below. 



Spanning this was another stout log bridge, and on the 

 further side against the side of the hill was a rude shed, 

 under which stood a good-sized upright steam boiler 

 (however, there was no engine in sight) that had doubt- 

 less done duty in pumping water from the mine. A 

 steam boiler is not a rare sight, but I marveled much how 

 the mine men ever got that one up that steep, tortuous 

 road. 



Two or three rods from the shed I entered the mouth 

 of a tunnel that led straight into the hill, doubtless to 

 the shaft where the copper came from; but after follow- 

 ing the drift a few rods it was so dark and gruesome, 

 with little pools of water under foot and the monotonous 

 drip, drip of the drops percolating through the rocky roof 

 overhead, that I turned and came out in the sunshine 

 and free air again, with my curiosity fully gratified with- 

 out a peep in the shaft or knowing now far it was from 

 the mouth of the tunnel. But the wild beauty of the 

 place was compensation enough for the tramp from the 

 lake, and I sat down on a stone to enjoy it. 



At my feet was the deep rift in the rock, seemingly cut 

 by the attrition of the stream during unknown ages; be- 

 low and to the right spread the little valley where stood 

 the deserted houses of the miners; further on a belt of 

 timber and swamp, out of which came the left branch of 



