Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Tear. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
i 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1896 
I VOL. XLVI.-No. 1. 
! No. 818 Broadway, New York. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page v. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press 
on Tuesdays. Correspondence intended for 
publication should reach us by Mondays and 
as much earlier as may be practicable, 
Forest and Stream Water Colors 
We have prepared as premiums a series of four artistic 
and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, 
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subjects are outdoor scenes: 
Jacksnipe Coming In. "He's Got Them" (Quail Shooting:). 
Vigilant and Valkyrie. Bass Fishing at Block Island. 
SEE REDUCED HALF-TONES IN OUR ADVT. COLUMNS. 
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to old or new subscribers on the following terms: 
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DOG EAR CROPPING. 
There has been much misunderstanding of the recent 
action of the American Kennel Club in regard to crop- 
ping, a misunderstanding which has been fostered and 
broadened by the statements published in the daily press. 
In substance the press reports set forth that the result was 
a victory for the advocates of cropping. The misunder- 
standing could easily gain ground with those who had but 
a superficial knowledge of the issue. 
The action of the American Kennel Club is, further- 
more, presented in such a manner by the daily press as in 
most cases to imply that that club indorses cropping. 
Such statements are incorrect and misleading. 
The American Kennel Club did not indorse cropping 
either directly or indirectly. So far as the sentiment of 
the club on the issue is concerned it was decidedly against 
Dropping. The vote shows a majority in opposition to the 
practice. Many of the delegates who, under instruction 
of their clubs, voted in favor of cropping, afterward re- 
pudiated the action so far as they were personally con- 
cerned. Several of the clubs voting in favor of cropping 
were actuated by the belief that the question was one 
which should be left to the specialty clubs most directly 
ooncerned, and indeed this plea, broadened now and then 
Jo far as to question the jurisdiction of the American 
Kennel Club in the matter, was the main defense of the 
specialty clubs which were interested in the mutilated 
breeds. The question of cruelty was in the main touched 
i>n very lightly by the defenders of cropping. Many of 
ihem disapprove of it. 
Thus the vote was most positively and plainly in 
jpposition to cropping, while the minority vote, peculiar 
.n its way, ignored the cruelty of the practice, but based 
ts opposition on an evasive assumption of lack of juris- 
liction on the part of the club and the exclusive power 
>n the part of the specialty clubs directly interested. 
The resolution was lost, not by a preponderance of sen- 
iment against it, but by the restriction of the constitution 
fcvhich required a two-thirds vote to adopt it. Thus there 
Iras nothing whatever from the inception of the resolution 
lo its final defeat which could be justly interpreted as an 
Indorsement of the mutilation by the A. K. C. 
. It is not a probability that the recent action of the club 
Is final in the matter. The opposition to t'he reform will 
lerve to stimulate more positive opinions on the subject, 
|nd bring the matter more conspicuously before the pub- 
lic. It will thus be subjected to closer public investiga- 
tion and criticism. Opposition to a public measure which 
h founded on firm and resolute public sentiment merely 
lastens the reform and gives it lasting vitality. This is a 
feature of the matter which those in favor of cropping 
Ihould seriously consider. They can gain much credit 
my taking voluntary action in the matter and thus avoid 
|>ossible compulsion. 
I The issue has more vitality since the recent action of 
■he American Kennel Club than it ever had before, and it 
Is not improbable that, instead of the last action being a 
final disposition of the issue, it will have to be again con- 
sidered with all the added opposition to it which broader 
discussion, humane sentiments in action and more organ- 
ized effort are sure to engender. 
THE DUNRAVEN CASE. 
While it would seem that only good and sufficient rea- 
sons could have induced the special committee to hold 
the examination in secret, we believe that a serious mis- 
take has been made, and one that cannot now be repaired. 
The object of the investigation of Lord Dunraven's 
charges is not to vindicate Mr. Iselin before the yachts- 
men of New York or Boston or of the United States, as 
that would be unnecessary, especially in view of the very 
flimsy nature of the charges as thus far formulated by 
Lord Dunraven. The chief end, as we understand it, 
was to vindicate American yachtsmen before those of 
other nations, especially Great Britain. To this end it 
was essential that, in addition to the selection of a com- 
mittee whose personnel should be above suspicion, the 
hearings should be public, or at least that the press should 
be properly represented and allowed to publish the full 
report of the proceedings from day to day. If the com- 
mittee is looking only for the truth, and intent on bring- 
ing it to light, there can be no valid objection to publicity 
in regard to its methods andy the testimony of both par- 
ties, and the publicity given through the full stenographic 
reports in the daily press is the surest means of convincing 
yachtsmen abroad. 
Later on, in a week, a month or a couple of months, the 
committee will probably issue a complete report of the 
proceedings, and those who can obtain them and have 
the requisite leisure will be able to read the full reports of 
the special committee, the America's Cup committee and 
the regatta committee. These reports will probably settle 
the question of the collision in the second race and of 
Lord Dunraven's charges against Mr. Iselin, so far as all 
impartial yachtsmen are concerned; but the great trouble 
is that they will come too late and will fail to reach the 
great body of the public who are now interested in this 
international quarrel. In the interests of the defense, 
which, we believe, has nothing to conceal, the evidence 
presented within the last two days should be already in 
the hands of yachtsmen and the general public on both 
sides of the Atlantic. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Is there in all America, from Alaska to Venezuela, an- 
other paper like it, so choicely good even in soporific 
qualities? For here comes a Connecticut correspondent 
who gives testimony that when the Forest and Stream 
puts him to sleep it opens for him the ivory gates and blazes 
the trail to those delectable hunting countries of Dream- 
land where game is always plenty and the aim ever 
true. If then you chance to be a sufferer from insomnia, 
throw physic to the dogs and patronize the news stands. 
If you cannot straightway woo the drowsy god, do the 
next best thing, read Forest and Stream, wrap the 
drapery of your couch about you and lie down to pleas- 
ant dreams. 
"We have been discussing for many years the interesting 
question, What is a sportsman? and probably the dis- 
cussion will go on for as many more years to come. 
There is much talk about pot-hunting and pot-hunters. 
What is a pot-hunter? A Detroit duck shooter and his 
friend have made a run of 4,102 ducks, and the report of 
it says that if "anybody besides pot-hunters" made a bet- 
ter record this year, they have not been heard from. What 
and who are pot-hunters? 
When Mr. Irland wrote in the Forest and Stream of 
Dec. 14 of the lost man his party had encountered in New 
Brunswick wilds, it was suggested to him that the pub- 
lication of the incident would probably bring to light 
further intelligence of the mysterious stranger. We were 
not surprised then to receive the letter from a Boston 
correspondent which is printed to-day. The season has 
now advanced so far that the lost man must have found 
his way out of the woods long before this or have per- 
ished. Can any one give us another chapter of his 
erratic wanderings? 
Mr. Harry S. Page, while following the hounds of the 
Meadowbrook Hunt Club across country on Saturday, 
Dec. 28, was severely injured; at first it was considered 
that his injury was fatal. The ground was slippery 
and the riding dangerous. At a fence, near which was 
a ditch concealed by grass, Mr. Page's horse slipped in 
the take-off, caught his toe on the fence, turned a sum- 
mersault witk his rider under him, and in struggling to 
rise rolled over Mr. Page, breaking his pelvis and other- 
wise injuring him. Latest reports are that he is recover- 
ing. In the same hunt Mrs. Kinsley Magoun had a nar- 
row escape from death. In turning a corner her vehicle 
was upset and she was dragged under the seat a short 
distance, fortunately escaping injury. 
The New York policemen are armed with revolvers, 
which they are expected to know how to use on occasion. 
How little some, of them actually do know is now de- 
veloping at the newly instituted school of shooting, where 
it is not unusual to see a man shut his eyes and pull the 
trigger, sending the bullet not into the bullseye, but wide 
of the mark or into the floor. There is no ground for 
supposing that the police of other cities are a bit more 
"handy with their guns" than the New York police force, 
and we look to see the police shooting school an institu- 
tion elsewhere adopted with good results. 
There should be a large attendance at the winter 
meeting of the New York State Association in Syracuse 
next week, Thursday, Jan. 9. The time has not yet gone 
by when voluntary clubs and associations may give over 
their activity in game protection. If the official State 
protectors are to be dismissed because the Commissioners 
cannot afford to pay their salaries, the beheaded districts 
must still be taken care of by unofficial activity. 
The game preserve and its trespass sign are live topics 
in the sportsmen's questions of the day in California. 
The conditions of land holding in that State are such as 
to encourage the game preserve system. Immense tracts 
are devoted to grazing, and the owners or lessees are ac 
customed to grant individuals or clubs the exclusive shoot- 
ing privileges on these territories. The tracts are posted 
and trespassers are warned off; but the human nature 
in California is the human nature which prevails else- 
where and rebels at exclusion from shooting privileges 
enjoyed so long that they have come to be re- 
garded as rights. There is a constant conflict be- 
tween preserve holders and shooters outside of the 
clubs. San Francisco has a Sportsmen's Protective Asso- 
ciation, whose purpose -is to maintain and enforce what 
the members believe to be their legal rights as to shooting 
and fishing. As in certain instances the definition of these 
privileges depends upon the determination of riparian 
rights, it will be understood that there is abundant occa- 
sion for protracted disputation. 
The interesting fact is that we have been printing from 
week to week in Forest and Stream— that is to say, 
every week — a store of good reading which in volume is 
equivalent to the amount of matter in a monthly maga- 
zine, and in quality is unapproached by any other litera 
ure accessible to the sportsman of the day. Another 
interesting fact is that we shall continue the programme 
for the fifty-two weeks of the New Year. This present 
issue is Number One of the Forty-sixth Volume— twenty- 
three years. And there are names on the subscription 
list to-day which were there in 1873 for Volume One, 
Number One. A Happy New Year to all, old readers and 
new; even to that unfortunate individual whose plaint is 
that as for him he cannot be happy because he cannot go 
fishing; and he cannot read the Forest and Stream 
because its reports of other people's outings make him 
all the more unhappy that he cannot have an outing 
of his own. 
We are told that in some parts of North Carolina there 
have been extensive shipments of quail to markets out- 
side of the State, the notion prevailing that the law for- 
bidding export of game had been repealed. No notice of 
such repeal is given in the Game Laws in Brief, no such 
act is contained in the printed volume of the laws of 
1895, and the old law there appears still to be in force. 
Under these circumstances we trust that some public- 
spirited citizen will take upon himself the duty of putting 
a stop to the market industry instanter. A New York 
sportsman who has just returned from one of the districts 
of the State where game has always been abundant re- 
ports that the market-shooters have effectually cleaned out 
the supply. 
The capercailzie is attracting much attention as a game 
bird for importation to America. We shall print next 
week a description of the bird by Hon. W. W. Thomas, 
Jr., who while Minister to Sweden had abundant oppor- 
tunity to study the capercailzie in its home. 
