Deo. 3, 1891.1 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



389 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



CHICAGO, 111., Nov. 28.— It is customary for the city 

 press of Chicago to fall over itself a good deal every 

 year by way of eulogizing the annual game dinner given 

 by Mr. Drake, the proprietor of the Grand Pacific Hotel. 

 I have mentioned it myself before now, the more will- 

 ingly because it is a Chic igo fixture 36 years old— older 

 than the Grand Pacific Hotel by many years. This time 

 I wish to mention it in order to give a chancs for the 

 descriptive writer who was detailed for the dinner by 

 one of the morning dailies here. The account begins as 

 follows: 



There was never anything like it before. All the fowls that 

 cleave the clouds from the lakes to the gulf, all the heasts thai 

 ruminate over the broad plains of the Southwest, or run wild in 

 the rocky fastnesses of the Sierras coutributed to the feast. 

 Reed birds and rice birds from the dank marshes of the suuny 

 South; quails, prairie chickens, jack snipes, plovers and partridges 

 from the Illiuois meadows: blue-winged tealsand butterball ducks 

 from the crystal lakes of Wisconsin and Minnesota; brants from 

 the far north, sage bens from the Colorado plains, wild turkeys 

 and gray squirrels from the forests of the Northwest, a whiff of 

 Northern pinelands, a reminiscencs of magnolia blooms from 

 Southern forests — all these were there. 



The heavily accentuated plurality of the pluralness of 

 the quails, snipes, xalovers, teals and brants of this story 

 speak well for the abundance of the where withnesses of 

 the repast, but very ill for the acquaintance of the his- 



general property of the people, the special property of 

 him who is man enough to reduce it to possession. They 

 treat wild game as if it were poultry. But which 

 of that crew, to whom South Water street ministers and 

 upon whom it depends — which of them ever botight a set- 

 ting of eggs to keep up the stock of poultry? The man 

 who sins through love of sport I can easily forgive, but 

 what pity should any of us have for the venders of game, 

 who knowingly, deliberately and by wholesale magnitude 

 of method set about destroying that which does not be- 

 long to them, and that which they are expressly forbid- 

 den by law to touch? Iq these late game law cases, 

 prosecuted this summer, there came to be some fear that 

 "public sentiment" would be antagonized if the prosecu- 

 tion was carried on till it became "persecution." I know 

 fthat when Mr. Abner Price counted out 132 prairie 

 chickens, the so-called "property" — which he could not 

 pwn — of B. Aaron & Son, and when Justice White con- 

 fiscated them (Aaron buying the lot back in for $10), it 

 was said by some, including Justice White, that this was 

 punishment enough, this fine of $30 that was imposed for 

 twelve other birds, and that it would be "persecution" to 

 try to get Aaron & Son fined for the possession of the 132 

 birds. A few, however, seeing the opportunity to teach 

 a lesson where it has so long been needed, forbore the 

 spontaneous pity at the agony evinced by Mr. Aaron in 



summer. This is a little hard on Mr. Aaron — to look 

 forward to 133 suits, or say even 20 or 30 of them— 

 but it'll be the makin' of the pup. 



Tsvo days ago a Madison street restaurant, in this city, 

 hit upon the sensational and disgusting idea of decorating 

 its plate glass front with dead quail. I counted 24 strings, 

 reaching from top to bottom of the great window, and 

 made a rough average of 45 birds on each string. This 

 would make at least 1,080 dead quail in one window. It 

 was a sad sight. Bat now, where do the quail go? Who 

 kills them? Why are they killed? Who invites their 

 killing? 



There is some unwritten history in the records of the 

 Palmer House which causes the management of that 

 hotel to weep canvulsively, when it looks thereon in bitter 

 meditation. This dates back till last June, at the time of 

 the great tournament of the Illinois State Sportsmen's 

 Association. It may be remembered that the Possum 

 Club gave a banquet at the Palmer House, to which every- 

 body was invited. The guarantee, however, did not fill, 

 and a deficit of $66 was after several months found re- 

 maining, for which the hotel had succeeded in getting no 

 settlement, as the Possum Club seemed to exist only when 

 it happened to feel like existing. In short, this $66 re- 

 mains a debt upon Chicago sportsmanship to-day. It will 

 never be settled until the Possum Club holds a meeting 



AMOISTG THE WILDFOWX.— XIII. 



On the Celert Beds. 



torian with good sportsmanlike usage in the matter of 

 speaking about game. I presume the "elks" and "deers" 

 will be found further on. But that isn't what I wanted 

 to get at. I don't even want to be so sensitive as to point 

 out that the "Illinois meadows" no longer supply either 

 partridges or quails, let alone prairie chickens and jack 

 snipes, and I wouldn't for the world say a word about the 

 wild turkey supply of the forests of the Northwest, be- 

 cause Southwest may have been intended. But I do just 

 wonder whether all those very plural birds mentioned as 

 coming from Illinois did really come from Illinois? If so, 

 unless Mr. Drake was fortunate enough to have his quails, 

 prairie chickens and partridges given to him by admiring 

 friends, he broke the game law of Illinois, which forbids 

 their being sold at any time. 



Doubtless Mr. Drake purchased of South Water street, 

 and knew nothing of where the game came from. It is 

 on that street that the game laws are violated most dan- 

 gerously to the welfare of sport. Catch South Water 

 street and you save the bird. The individual violator, 

 the country shooter or city shooter, who is not familiar 

 with the maz3s of the conflicting laws, may err and be 

 easily forgiven, the more so as his crime is petty and not 

 grand. The sinning finger is not the one that pulls the 

 trigger— some poor devil hard put to it to support a family, 

 perhaps — but it is that of the dealer who quotes a price 

 per head on this property of the people. The dealer is 

 the chief particeps in this crime. If no money could be 

 obtained for game, if it were unlawful and impracticable 

 to sell it, we could afford to be without open and close 

 seasons, could atford to shoot the year round, each man 

 as he liked, take humanity as it runs, and still we should 

 have more game than we have now. 



It's cold in a duck blind, and my market-shooter goes 

 out of it when he sees no dollars drawing in over his de- 

 coys. His legs tire of tramping the "Illinois meadows" 

 for quail at nothing a dozen. It's not the Esau sons, but 

 the great spawn of Jacob, the unsportsmanlike, unmanly, 

 stomach-conscienced, gulping part of this mixed people 

 of ours that is getting away with this wild game, the 



parting with $30 through his ignorance of the law, and 

 caring little for a public sentiment that never helped 

 sport or sportsmanship one iota, remarked: "Why, then, 

 let's persecute." 



Accordingly Game Warden Bortree swore out five in- 

 formations against B. Aaron & Son, for having in pos- 

 session for sale five pinnated grouse, making a case for 

 each bird. The prosecuting attorney for this district 

 construes the clause, "each bird shall constitute a separ- 

 ate ofl'ense," to bar an action for a total number. It is 

 the intention to bring suits for a few birds at a time, a 

 case for each separate bird, until the 132 birds shall be 

 exhausted, or B. Aaron & Son be driven to drink. The 

 first of these cases was set for trial before Justice White 

 this week, but was continued till next Wednesday. The 

 plea of defense is res adjudicata, or a thing already in 

 judgment, they setting up that these birds, having been 

 confiscated by due process of law, could not be brought 

 again into court. The State, by its warden, represented 

 by F. S. Baird, attorney, in its brief sets out that this con- 

 fiscation clause is simply a temporary and necessary pro- 

 cess to dispose of contraband game, and has nothing to 

 do with having such game for the purpose of sale: that 

 the fine imposed was for birds not included in or found 

 with this lot of 132 birds; that no information was ever 

 sworn out for these 132 birds or any part of them. On 

 this showing Justice White can hardly fail to find for the 

 State. The case will probably be appealed. It may be 

 better to have it go up. All South Water street is watch- 

 ing it. Probably it is a South Water street fund that is 

 backing it. It is a fight between the sportsman element 

 and Sotith Water street. This fight ought to go on, 

 though it tear our game law wide open— the genial deal- 

 ers threaten that— and tangle up the whole social fabric 

 of our fair land in a hideous internecine war, as some of 

 our gentler souls seem to fear it will. It is unfortunate 

 that the warden caught an ignorant firm like B, Aaron & 

 Son and not one of the bigger and shrewder dealers; but 

 the lesson to these will be a lesson to the market. The 

 Hiinois Association never did lick anything before this 



and "passes the hat." Then it will be paid easily enough, 

 without much question as to where the blame belongs for 

 letting the matter run on so long. The real diificulty has 

 lain in the fact that the flower of the Possum Club blooms 

 only in the winter. There has been no meeting since that 

 of last June. It might be well to call a meeting of the 

 club at an early date, as pofsums should now be about 

 ripe. Until that joyous season be arrived, the Palmer 

 House should not seek to intrude sordid matters on the 

 careless minds of the possum eaters. Once the season is 

 arrived, however, and the club in banquet assembled, 

 anybody can have $66 who happens to want it. 



A real live wild gray wolf, big as a St. Bernard — Chi- 

 cago wouldn't have a wild wolf if it wasn't a big one — was 

 found one morning this week at Twenty-fifth street and 

 Indiana avenue, about a mile and a half from the heart 

 of the city, and perhaps eight or ten miles inside of the 

 heavily populated district. When discovered the wolf 

 was trying to eat a dog for breakfast. The dog-catchers' 

 wagon went in pursuit, and after a long chase the wolf 

 was run to earth in a hole near the breakwater on the 

 lake shore. He was taken to the dog pound. No one 

 knows where the animal came from. It is probably a 

 specimen escaped from captivity somewhere in the city. 

 For a few days all the papers west of here have been wild 

 with merriment over Chicago's wolf story, andthe papers 

 here print a half column at a time of clipped comment 

 about the wolf. 



A novel legal process was taken here this week, by 

 which Wilson & Co., furniture dealers, issued an attach- 

 ment for a valuable dog, said to be worth $200, the prop- 

 erty of Mrs. Helen G, Wyng, who was in their debt and 

 who was said to be about to leave the city. Constable 

 Flemming met Mrs, Wyng at the depot, and demanded 

 custody of the canine. 



"I have a great attachment for this dog," said the lady, 



"So have I, madam," politely responded the constable. 

 He got the dog. 



Mr, J, M. Oliver, of Swan Lake Club, lower Illinois 

 River country, at the first of the week told me that the 



