Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
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NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1894. 
i VOL XLEX— No. 7. 
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MR. MESSITEB IS NOT TO BLAME. 
How unreasonable some people can be. There has 
raged a pother over the New York deer season ; and on 
the part of those who thought they saw their Adirondack 
plans taking the forms of cocked hats, a disposition has 
been manifested to fix the blame upon Mr. Uriah S. 
Messiter, the honorable member from Sullivan, and 
father of the legislation that caused all the trouble. He 
should have been more considerate of the deer-hunting 
public, say they, and ought not deliberately to have 
opposed its interests. But Mr. Messiter, bless him, had no 
intention of inconveniencing the public, not a shade of a 
shadow of it. Indeed, and we say this for him with the 
utmost confidence, he had never a thought of the public, 
good, bad or indifferent. As the Assemblyman from Sulli- 
van he was not at Albany to represent the public. He was 
there as the member from Sullivan to look out for Sulli- 
van; and as the proprietor of the Wawayanda Hotel to 
look out for himself. His prospective guests would want 
deer hunting, and he proposed to give it to them. As a 
promoter of game legislation, Mr. Messiter was for Sulli- 
van, Messiter and deer meat, first, last and all the time. 
That was his plank. It was as far as he could see; beyond 
this his thoughts did not travel. To accuse him of inter- 
fering wantonly with the interests of the public would be 
to do him a grave injustice. For such an intention at 
least the Hon. Uriah S. Messiter is not to blame. 
But responsibility for this perpetration of an injury to 
the public does rest somewhere, and it is worth while to 
fix the blame where it belongs. For just consider what 
this Sullivan county deer law means; what a piece of 
game protection falsely so-called it is; what a shameful 
instance it affords of greed and dunderheadedness; what 
a fruit it is of local, narrow, individual selfishness; what 
a mercenary, look-after-my-own-purse spirit marks it; 
what a raid on the public funds it amounts to; what a 
fraud it is on the people of the State. 
New York has been engaged for some years in the 
enterprise of restocking the Catskill Mountain region with 
deer; something more than $20,000 has been expended for 
the purpose out of the State treasury. A deer park has 
been established and for several seasons live deer have 
been caught in the Adirondacks and taken to the Catskill 
park, thence to be released to the wild range. The terri- 
tory thus to be restocked comprises Delaware, Ulster 
Greene and Sullivan counties. To turn loose deer and to 
turn loose hunters and hounds with them would be on a 
par with stocking a range with cattle and corraling a lot 
of wolves and grizzly bears with the herd. The Legisla- 
ture made a law that the Catskill deer should not be 
hunted for a period of five years from 1892. Money will 
not restock a country; it requires time too; this law was 
made to afford the time. The limitation was approved by 
the public at large, whose taxes had been devoted to the 
enterprise; but it did not please Mr. Messiter, whose pros- 
pective guests hankered after deer meat. The proprietor 
of the "Wawayanda could not wait. Naturally enough he 
asked his fellow members at Albany to let down the bars 
for him; and they foolishly yielded to his selfish request. 
Upon them rests the responsibility; to them the blame 
attaches. 
If we may employ a homely illustration— for homely 
illustrations are sometimes pat — if a hog invades your 
garden and roots up the flower beds, you do not blame the 
hog; you do blame the careless person who left the gate 
open, whose business it was to keep the hog out of the 
garden. "When the Sullivan county hotel proprietor 
sought to invade the rights of the public, it waf the duty 
of the Legislature to keep him out. That they failed in 
their plain duty, and let him and his kind in to raid the 
protected deer woods of Sullivan, should be counted to 
them as a gross and inexcusable neglect of public interests 
and a betrayal of trust. We cannot blame the Messiters; 
we do blame those who should call the Messiters to order 
and vote them down, and stand between them and the 
public; that is to say, should keep the garden gates shut 
against them. 
HOWELL IN THE TOILS. 
When Captain Anderson, Superintendent of the Yel- 
lowstone National Park, set free the buffalo butcher, 
Howell, he warned him never, under any circumstances, 
to appear again within the Park. The warning was 
regarded until July 28 last, when Howell coolly walked 
into the post and went to the hotel. Captain Anderson at 
once learned of his presence and had him arrested. 
On Wednesday, the 8th inst, the United States attor- 
ney reached the Park, and on the same evening Commis- 
sioner Meldrum heard the case, found Howell guilty, and 
sentenced him to one month in the guard house, $50 fine 
and the costs of the proceedings. 
It is not likely that Howell would have done so foolish 
a thing as to put himself in jeopardy of arrest but for the 
fact that his friends had persuaded him that Capt. Ander- 
son's order not to revisit the Park was of no effect. He 
and others have now learned a lesson, and whether 
Howell takes an appeal from the decision of the commis- 
sioner or not, this conviction is certainly "first blood" for 
good order, and will open the eyes of the poachers very 
wide. 
THE MINNESOTA LAW. 
The game case which has just been determined in the 
Supreme Court of Minnesota is of unusual interest, since 
it involves certain basic principles of the utmost import- 
ance in upholding the game law. Minnesota enjoys the 
distinction of standing in the very front rank of States 
which have adopted what may be described as radical 
measures for the conservation of their game and fish. 
The statute is in itself extremely simple, sensible, com- 
plete and efficient for its purpose. An outline of its 
framework will repay study. 
In the first place, as a sure groundwork for the structure^ 
full control of the game and the fish is assumed and they 
are declared to be the property of Minnesota: 
No person shall at any time or in any manner acquire any property 
in or subject to his dominion or control any of the birds, animals or 
fish within this State, of the binds herein mentioned, but they shall 
always and under all circumstances and conditions be and remain the 
sole property of this State. 
This proprietorship and control are not surrendered, 
even after the game has been captured; the statute yields 
to the citizen only the privilege of using the game in 
certain clearly defined ways, but no other: 
By killing, catching or taking the same, however, in the manner and 
for the purposes herein authorized, and during the periods when their 
killiDg is not herein prohibited, the same may be used at the time, in 
the manner and for the purposes herein expressly authorized, but not 
otherwise. 
The law then prescribes certain seasons in which and 
methods by which the game may be taken and may 
be had in possession; limits the amount one person may 
take; and specifies particularly that it may be taken only 
for use within the State. The right acquired by the 
individual, it is thus seen, is of limited nature; he may 
never have an absolute, unrestricted property in venison 
or grouse or trout, even after he may have killed them. 
His right to the captured game is like the child's right to 
the cake, when its mother says to it, "You may eat a 
piece of the cake here in the room; you may not stuff 
your pockets with cake and walk off." 
This assumption of sole right, title and control in the 
fish and game is the basis of the Minnesota law. The de- 
fense having set up the proposition that "the State had no 
proprietary right to animals ferae, natures, and can acquire 
none by legislation," Judge Collins shows the fallacy of 
the contention by the beautifully illuminative declaration: 
"It is the doctrine in this State that the ownership of wild 
animals is in the State, not as proprietor, but in its sov- 
ereign capacity as the representative for the benefit of all 
its people in common." 
For the benefit of all the people in common the State 
may limit the privileges granted to the individual citizen 
as to the use of the game. It may limit the time and 
manner of taking, the disposition of it after it is taken, 
theperiod during which it may be possessed. If the State 
forbids exportation, that provision does not wrongfully 
interfere with any right of the citizen to export, for he 
has never acquired any such right; under the law he can- 
not acquire it. 
This declaration contained in the Minnesota law, of ab- 
solute control over the fish and game as its property, is 
contained also in the Arkansas Jstatute, and there it has 
stood the test of the courts. It is an admirable provision; 
it goes to the root of the matter; it combats and over- 
comes and destroys the twaddle so often heard, of the 
citizen's "natural right" to take "his" game and fish, how 
and when he will; it is founded on the fundamental prin- 
ciple of the brotherhood of man, for it provides that in 
the enjoyment of his own share of the bounties of nature 
every one is bound to respect his brothers' rights to their 
shares. 
THE NATIONAL PARK ROADS. 
A satisfactory item of legislation for the Yellowstone 
Park, reported from Washington as having recently 
passed, and having to do with the granting of leases in the 
National Park, is said to contain a provision that the ap- 
propriation for building and keeping in repair the roads 
and bridges there shall henceforth be expended under the 
direction of the Superintendent of the Park. 
The change is one that we have urged for many years 
on the ground of the greater economy and efficiency of 
such a system. Heretofore the appropriation has been 
expended under the direction of the chief engineer of the 
department in which the Yellowstone Park lies, an 
engineer officer being detailed to spend the summer in the 
Park. As might be supposed, the work has been well done, 
but it has always been undertaken at more or less disad- 
vantage on account of delays consequent upon the distance 
from headquarters. 
The damage to roads and bridges takes place for the 
most part in early spring, and it is then that the repairs 
are needed. Often half a day's work by a couple of men 
at that time will repair a break which two months later 
would tax the resources of a large gang of workmen 
laboring continuously for weeks. Moreover, since travel 
begins as soon as the snow disappears it is important 
that the work of repairing the roads should be done as 
early as possible, so that the first visitors to the Park may 
have decent roads to pass over. Too often we have had 
complaints from these early tourists about the villainous 
character of these roads, and descriptions of the suffer- 
ings that they have endured during their stage ride from 
this cause. 
It is evident that the Superintendent of the Park, who 
resides there continuously and whose men are constantly 
passing back and forth over the roads, will learn of the 
need of repairs earlier than any one else can, and if he 
holds the necessary authority and has the money to ex- 
pend, he can at once attack the breaks on the roads and 
arrest the damage before it becomes great. In this 
way much less time, and so much less money, will have to 
be expended on any given piece of road, the appropria- 
tion will go much further, and the roads will be mended 
and improved more quickly at relatively less cost than 
by the old system. 
THE "PLANK" AND THE SUPREME COURTS, 
For another instance of common sense and sound rea- 
soning, read the game law decision of Mr. Justice Van 
Fleet, of the Supreme Court of California, reported in 
our game columns. 
The California statute relating to venison is a practical 
application of the principle of the Forest and Stream's 
Platform Plank— "the sale of game should be forbidden 
at all times." In California venison may not be sold at 
all. In the test case just decided, the Supreme Court de- 
clares that the principle is reasonable and is in accord 
with public policy. Here, as in Minnesota, it is pointed 
out that the State, representing "the people in their col- 
lective sovereign capacity," controls the game; that no 
other rights in it may be acquired by an individual than the 
State may grant; and that the right to make merchandise 
of game is one of the rights which may be withheld from 
the individual by the State. This is to say that the Plat- 
form Plank rests on a firm constitutional support 
