April 17, 1890.] 



FOREST AND STREAM, 



249 



not long ago, They claimed to be seining for minnows, 

 but their net was 66ft. long and 6ft. deep, while the law 

 only permits one 50ft. long and 3ft. deep. We got a good 

 conviction of four game dealers in Milwaukee in 1888, 

 Mr. Armour, my deputy there, bringing the action. 

 These men got $25 and costs, and appealed. They showed 

 bills of lading to prove they got their game from Chicago, 

 but I notice they paid their fines before the appeal came 

 up. 



"In the first eighteen months of my term I turned into 

 the State $1,100 in fines. Judge Bartels, the Ellis Junc- 

 tion warden whose track you crossed last summer, turned 

 in $52. Calvin Morse, of Monroe, is anew man. John 

 White, of Alma, turned in $330 in the above time. You 

 can see the total for outraged justice for a year and a 

 half is not large. I do not want you to print this show- 

 ing, lest it might be thought as drawing too much credit 

 to my own work; but those are the real figures as I have 

 them. 



"I have about forty deputies under me and I must say 

 they are usually a faithful lot. My deputy Atley Bing- 

 ham, at the lower end of Lake Koshkonong, I prize very 

 highly. One night Atley heard a seine at work. He 

 crawled down on the beach and they pulled the seine 

 Out right around him. It was pitch dark, but he made a 

 rush and caught one fellow and held him. The others 

 ran away, but after a little one man came back with an 

 oar in his hand and told Atley to 'let that man go or 

 he'd kill him with the oar/ Atley told him if he came 

 closer he would shoot him. Atley then dragged his 

 man off through the woods toward town. The fellow 

 lay down and would not walk. He hauled him four 

 miles by the collar, and then it came daylight, and he 

 made him get up and walk on ahead. This turned out 

 to be old Cap Sherman's boy Fred. Old Cap. is one of 

 the tough ones. Not many men would have done what 

 Atley Bingham did that night. 



"I had a darling of a warden up at Manitowoc. He 

 was a little Irishman and his name was Jimmy Carrol. 

 [ nearly cried when he was removed — in September, 

 1887 — but the Governor of the State insisted on it, for it 

 began to look as if Jimmy would have everybody in the 

 county arrested. He turned in $250 fines in eight months, 

 and lie told me he put $801) in his own pockets in that 

 time. You see, a deputy is allowed to figure his mileage 

 in the costs, besides getting half the fine. The further 

 Jimmy could snail a man, the better he liked it. He 

 would arrest a man in one end of the county and take 

 him to a justice of the peace in the other end of it, and 

 in that way he made a pretty good thing of it till he 

 raised such a howl I had to let him go. 'Ye see, Misther 

 Wentworth,' he said to me, 'I can't fer the loifeof me see 

 phat's the use bein' a depity onless ye're a h — 1 av a fel- 

 ler!' I have never since succeeded in getting another 

 'h — 1 of a fellow' in there. I have had three deputies 

 there since then and not a single arrest. 

 ■ "We have an absurd search-warrant clause in our 

 Wisconsin law which has lost us evidence in many a 

 case. Before we can get authority to break open a box 

 which" we know holds game billed out of the State, the 

 box is spirited away to some other place, or shipped on 

 an earlier train. A warden ought to have authority 

 to search on suspicion. As it is, it looks as though the 

 law was made to tie a warden's hands rather than to help 

 him. I will tell you how that works. A great many 

 canvasbacks are snipped out of here each year billed as 

 "poultry.' There is one N. Durham, 138 Reed street, in 

 the great and good city of New York, who buys much 

 of the canvasback product of Koshkonong Lake. It is 

 illegal to ship game out of this State, but so long as New 

 York offers a market, and Chicago does the same, that 

 long the market-hunters will kill and ship our game, and 

 we have no machinery adequate to stop them. No one 

 knows this better than I do, and I have worked my best 

 under our present law. Casper Sherman, who has served 

 two days in jail for it, has been shipping canvasback 

 'poultry' to that New York man Durham all this fall, 

 and he has been using an illegal 'float' to do it. You 

 stop your Mr. Durham and Til stop my Mr. Sherman. 



"They kill and box up a lot of canvasbacks in one part 

 of the Take and take them off to the other end to ship 

 them. I got wind of two barrels and a box of 'poultry' 

 one night and traced the wagon to Fort Atkinssn. I 

 oould find nothing there, and it later transpired that they 

 were at once taken to another point for shipment. I 

 telephoned the station agents at all the stations about the 

 lake. After locating the stuff, how could I get to it with 

 the proper search warrant before the first train took it 

 out? That was in October, and the stuff was shipped by 

 Herman Miller who runs the cabin-boat we saw opposite 

 Blackhawk club house. Last fall this same Miller shipped 

 142 canvasbacks to New York, billed as 'bedding.' At 

 Johnson's Creek, where he took the box to ship, the agent 

 saw something wrong about the box, the weather being 

 warm, and he opened the box and counted the birds. At 

 Chicago the box became offensive and all the birds were 

 thrown out. What could I do? Could I get to Johnson's 

 Creek with my little search warrant in time? You stop 

 your Mr. Durham and I'll stop my Mr. Miller. Give us 

 a law with some business, horse sense under it, and we 

 may stop the slaughter of our game and fish. Under the 

 present system, no warden can do much to stem the tide. 

 I have made at least 200 arrests in the two and a half 

 years of my work. I made 186 arrests in the first two 

 years. About one-half of these arrests have resulted in 

 conviction, and you already have an idea of the fines. 

 My barn was burned down mysteriously one night last 

 fall. I don't know who did it. I don't think any of the 

 boys about the lake have that kind of a grudge against 

 me. I have tried to do my duty and I am going to keep 

 on doing that. They ought to know they can't bluff me, 

 and before I'm done I will make it warmer yet around 

 these lakes. But you may set it down, that the game 

 warden business is an uphill job, with mighty little 

 money and mighty little glory in it." 



I have given much of Air. Wentworth's talk from 

 memory, but believe I have not misrepresented him or 

 the facts on any point, and if I have I should be glad to 

 make the correction. No comment would help his 

 straightforward talk if I could give it as actually spoken. 

 There is, however, this to be said, and I hope every mem- 

 ber of the Blackhawk Club will say it to the Governor of 

 Wisconsin, and to his successor, and to the successor of 

 him, namely, that Mr. Wentworth belongs just where he 

 is, politics or no politics, He has done good work. He 

 knows the ropes, knows the old offenders and their ways, 

 known the paters and the places furnishing the moat 



offenses against the laws, and moreover has a good force 

 of deputies who, like himself, have acquired a practical 

 knowledge of the fore and aft workings of that estimable 

 piece of jocularity, the Wisconsin game law. He is a 

 man all the way' through him, with the breadth and 

 charity of nature that only come of a wide look at life. 

 Keep him at work where he belongs. He is the only 

 game warden I ever found who ever wardened anything, 

 and I am as proud of the discovery as good Mr. Gordon 

 was of his black-throated guillemot, of which only two 

 have ever been known in America. I have not found 

 the other warden yet. E. Hou'iH. 



jANESVlLLE.Wis., March 25.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 With the advent of bluebird and robin comes the revival 

 of the spring shooting controversy, particularly so in this 

 locality, situated as we are near the dividing line between 

 open and closed spring shooting. 



Our friends across the line send cheering reports 

 to Forest and Stream of glorious sport on the Calumet 

 and Kankakee marshes, and we are entertained by ac- 

 counts of how some prominent members — in one instance 

 the president of one of our prominent game preserve 

 clubs— is slaughtering the ducks down South during the 

 winter months. Again, we read of clubs organized in 

 Chicago, composed of "way up" sportsmen, who with 

 unlimited command of money, have secured the control 

 of still another of the few remaining good fall shooting 

 grounds of our State. Thus they go, one after the other, 

 and soon the omnivorous greed of these wealthy sports- 

 men, most of them non-residents at that, will have 

 secured every pond, lake or marsh in the State where 

 wildfowl stop during their fall migration. 



Disgusted, we turn to the columns of the old reliable 

 friend, Forest and Stream, where moderation in 

 language, fairness and impartiality in discussions of all 

 questions pertaining to stream and forest have always 

 indicated the higher standard of true sportsmanship. 

 But alas! here also of late we find our people, and particu- 

 larly the farmers and resident land owners round about 

 Lake Koshkonong, outrageously slandered and our game 

 and fish laws ignorantly or viciously mis-quoted by some 

 perambulating correspondent, whose inspiration is evi- 

 dently derived from a peculiar local source. 



Your correspondent cheers us with the comforting in- 

 formation that jointly the Blackhawk Club and Peck's 

 Place now controls miles of the best part of the Koshko- 

 nong shooting grounds, and that to then- influence, in a 

 great measure at least, are we indebted for our present 

 noxious onesided laws on wildfowl shooting. 



Now, Mi - . Editor, I venture to say that we may 

 all be mutually benefited by a friendly interchange of 

 honeBt, though it may be conflicting opinions, on even 

 such questions as spring shooting. I believe that we 

 will all agree to the old established principle that the 

 game ferce natural rightly belongs to the people of the 

 State and to the whole of the people, and not particularly 

 to those individuals who are everlastingly boring you 

 with the "big I and sportsman" racket. Assuming that 

 we all agree to this, that to the people of the State be- 

 longs the game, then such laws and regulations as will 

 best tend to increase the production and equalize the dis- 

 tribution of the benefits of this, the people's common 

 property, should be the aim and object of game legisla- 

 tion. Approaching the question then, if possible with- 

 out bias or prejudice for or against any of the variously 

 designated classes or individuals of the State, let us face 

 the situation fairly and squarely, even if in so doing we 

 shall be compelled to admit that a short open season for 

 spring shooting of the migratory water fowl will be 

 much more equitable, fair and just to the whole people 

 of the State than our present extremely partial, unjust, 

 and to a great extent inoperative laws on the subject. 



If, say, fifty sportsmen kill two hundred ducks apiece 

 in the fall at their club home, the number of ducks be- 

 longing to the people is reduced ten thousand. Very 

 likely one-half of these sportsmen are non-residents of 

 the State — which I think is not at all overestimated. 

 Then we have twenty-five citizens of the State who have 

 enjoyed the benefits due to and held in common by all of 

 the people, at the expense of ten thousand ducks out of 

 the common property of the State. 



You may reply that all have the same chance, and if 

 they want their share of game and sport and healthful 

 exercise, they must go where the game is and shoot when 

 the law allows. All very well, except for the fact that 

 in the fall of the year the wildfowl shooting grounds in 

 our State are very limited, confined, in fact, to less than 

 a dozen localities, consisting mostly of small shallow 

 marshy lakes, where wild rice and wild celery furnish 

 the necessary feed. Furthermore, these very grounds 

 are already to a large extent owned and controlled by 

 the sportsmen of this and adjoining States, who enjoy 

 their shooting and fishing from the Gulf of Mexico to 

 Winnipeg, from Maine to Washington. I do not object 

 to these people enjoying themselves. I wish there were 

 more that could do the same, in fact I have taken some 

 of the same kind of medicine myself: but I do most em- 

 phatically object and protest against these very men so 

 manipulating our legislators as to enact laws that virtu- 

 ally prohibit ninety-nine out of every hundred of the 

 citizens of the State from ever getting a shot at a goose 

 or duck, while they are taxed for the support and enforce- 

 ment of these very laws. Supposing the people of the 

 State should wake up some day and imagine that they 

 had been gulled and humbugged in this whole game pro- 

 tection business, and should insist on reversing the whole 

 arrangement. 



"These lakes and marshes where wild rice and celery 

 grow are the breeding grounds and natural home of our 

 wildfowl: you have legislated for us long enough; you 

 have prohibited us from getting a shot at these birds at all, 

 as the only time they are found in our part of the State is 

 in the early spring during high water. Just see us run 

 the machine for a while. It may be a little hard on a 

 very few of our citizens, but for the benefit of a very 

 large majority of our taxpayers and all the people. We 

 will prohibit entirely all shooting at all times on these 



Eonds, lakes and marshes, and make these places the 

 ome of peace and plenty for our birds at any and all 

 times of the year. Instead of furnishing grand sport to 

 twenty-five of our people at the cost of 10,000 ducks, we 

 will give 10,000 people a chance of shooting at and prob- 

 ably not killing 5,000 ducks, by a short open season on 

 wildfowl during high water in early spring, which is the 

 only time of the year that these birds are distributed 

 quite generally all over the State," 



Consider further that the landowners are the only ones 

 that have any right to shoot at all. Is it any wonder that 

 the farmers post their grounds when sportsmen have so 

 manipulated the game laws that not one in a thousand 

 of the landowners of the State can ever fire a shot at 

 duck or goose on then own land, and when, if they go to 

 the fall shooting grounds, they very soon find them- 

 selves hustled off of somebody's private shooting grounds, 

 and may be thankful if they do not find themselves ad- 

 vertised as "rats" or "brainless idiots," who require the 

 average club house sportsman to guard the "poor farm- 

 ers'" interest? 



With this condition of things staring us in the face, I 

 ask. is it not about time that we ask ourselves, have we 

 "done to others as we would that others should do unto 

 us?" The silly rot about one bird killed in the spring 

 being equal to a dozen in the fall , is not good nonsense. 

 A boy eight years old can tell you that if he has a flock 

 of ten chickens and he Mils nine of them in the fall, he 

 has but one left for breeding in the spring, but if he kills 

 only two in the fall and six in the spring, he has still 

 double the amount left for breeding purposes. It matters 

 not so much when our game is killed, but how much is 

 killed. Suppose we should shut out the whole outfit of 

 club house and market-shooters — yes, all shooting entirely 

 — from our wild rice and celery grounds, would there 

 not be many thousands of ducks saA'ed in the fall, which, 

 returning in the spring and scattering all over the State, 

 for a few days, would give hundreds of people a little 

 sport at that time of the year when nothing else is avail- 

 able? Instead of this, now we are having them slaugh- 

 tered in the fall by a few men who, day in and day out. 

 week in and week out, ' 'pound it to 'em'" from a blind 

 over a big bunch of decoys, and ship them by the thous- 

 ands to Eastern markets, assisted it may be by those very 

 men whom the people imagine to be their game protec- 

 tors. H. L, Skavxem. 



CLUB MEETINGS, 



'l^HE New York Association for the Protection of Fish 

 _L and Game held their regular monthly meeting Mon- 

 day, |April 14, at Piuard's. After dinner the general 

 routine business was gone through with. Mr. John G. 

 Hecksher was unanimously elected a member of the As- 

 sociation and several gentlemen proposed for member- 

 ship, among whom was Mr. Dean Sage, of Albany, the 

 noted salmon angler, and author of that grand book on 

 angling, "The Salmon of the Restigouche." 



Mr. Blackford announced that the bill authorizing the 

 appointment of a commission for the codification of the 

 game laws had been signed by the Governor. The Com- 

 mission, three in number, to consist of one member ap- 

 pointed by the Fish Commission, one by the Attorney- 

 General, the third by the New York Association for the 

 Protection of Game. This appointement will be made at 

 the next meeting. 



A very interesting letter was read from Manasset 

 Smith, an honorary member of the Association now re- 

 siding at Woodsford, Me., where he is confined to his 

 room by severe illness. Mr. Smith, in this charming let- 

 ter, which is suggestive of sparkling trout brooks and 

 spicy balsam, mentions the fact that the poachers in his 

 section are rapidly being convinced of the error of their 

 ways through their pockets. They find amateur sports- 

 men pay well for the privilege of getting a shot at a deer, 

 and a live deer is worth ten times — yes, twenty times — 

 his weight in venison. The sooner all guides find this out 

 the better. 



The District Attorney's office has been waging war on 

 the city poachers. Mr. Willett Kidd, the warden, has 

 brought several suits to a successful end, and is going for 

 more. Good luck to him! 



Boston, Mass., April 11. — The regular monthly meet- 

 ing of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Protective Asso- 

 ciation was held at Young's Hotel, in this city, on 

 April 10, forty-five members being present, with Presi- 

 dent E. A. Samuels in the chair. The following gentle- 

 men were elected members: Dr. E. H. Branigan, L. A. 

 Dean, Dr. Geo. E. Bill, Thos. Curley, Dr. Chas. G. Weld, 

 Geo. O. Adams, Wm. Garrison Reed, Wm. C, Thairlwall, 

 John B. Patterson, Edwin A. Hills, Henry B. Callender, 

 Wm. S. Leland, Horatio Davis, Jos. G. Thorp, Jr., Ches- 

 ter S Day, E. W. Dsvight, Lemuel R. Howe, James L. 

 Wesson, Edward C. Hodges, Geo. C. Wadleigh, Geo. C. 

 Dickson, Geo. P. Field, Chas. G. Davis, H. C. Bronsdon, 

 E. H. Eldredge and C. W. Whittier. Nine applications 

 for membership were received. Letters were read from 

 different sections in the South and West, informing the 

 Association that next summer and fall we can procure 

 plenty of the different varieties of quail and grouse, and 

 oxu- committee on game importation is making extensive 

 preparations for continuing the work of stocking Massa- 

 chusetts with game by procuring and distributing large 

 numbers of these birds. Encouraging reports have been 

 received from different localities in the State where quail 

 have been let loose, stating that many of the birds have 

 been seen, and were thriving and getting along nicely. 



Richard O. Harding, Secretary. 



Schenectady's Game Constable. — Schenectady Sta- 

 tion, April 7,- — Editor Forest and Stream: At our charter 

 election on Tuesday, April 2, Mr. Harry Coates was 

 elected game constable of Schenectady county. Mr. 

 Coates was sworn in on Saturday last and is now getting 

 his boats ready to watch the illegal fishermen who are 

 using nets in the Mohawk. He promises to make an ex- 

 ample of the first person he catches using nets, and he 

 further says, "They can't buy me for a glass of whisky." 

 The Mohawk River a few years ago contained an im- 

 mense number of bass, but for the past few years the 

 nets have destroyed them. Success to Mr, Coates! — 

 Lopis. 



Detroit, Mich.— At the annual meeting of the Old 

 Reliable Rod and Gun Club, of Detrout, Mich., the fol- 

 lowing officers were elected for 1890: Pres., W. P. Hutch- 

 ins; Viee-Pres., S. R. Baugh; Sec.-Treas., Dr. W. G. 

 Wood worth; Directors, W. H. Smith, B. W. Parker, 

 Thos. Reeder; Capt., R. C. Judge: Lieut., C. H. Prestoni 

 — W. H. Smith. 



Names and Portraits of Birds, by Gurdon Trumbuu. a 

 book particularly interesting to gunners, for by its use they can 

 Identify without question all the American game birds which 

 they may kill. Oloth, 830 pages, price §2.80, For sale by Forest 

 and Stream. 



