Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Ots. a Copy. 
8 ex Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 2 9, 18 96. 
J VOL. XLTV.- 
I No. 818 Broadway 
•No. 26 
New York. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page vii. 
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 Strain Water Colors 1 
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and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, 
painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The 
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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twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished 
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PUBLIC FISH FOR PRIVATE WATERS. 
There are men in public life and in the public service 
who lift up their voices in eloquent periods and loudly 
declaim for the greatest good for the greatest number, 
and -when their official record is ciphered up it is discov- 
ered that by the greatest number they mean every time 
Number One. When these people get into Congress they 
are up to all degrees of jobbery, expensive or petty, that 
may be calculated to advance the interests of this par- 
ticular individual and personal greatest number. They 
will even steal fish. 
At the meeting of the American Fisheries Society, on 
motion of Mr. L. D, Huntington, this resolution was 
adopted: 
Resolved, That it ia the senses o£ this society that no fish or fry- 
should be distributed at public expense for private waters. 
The reason for such a manifesto was in plain English 
that it has been a regular custom to steal fish which be- 
longed to the public for private waters. United States 
Senators have been in the way of sending to such of their 
constituents as have fish ponds and fishing preserves fish 
and fry from the United States Fish Commission. In 
other words, they have diverted public funds to their own 
private purposes. 
The remedy for this evil is not to be found in depreca- 
tory resolutions of a fishery society. The parties to the 
scheme ought to be indicted. That of course would be 
out of the question, for the Americans do not require of 
their representatives in Washington the same honesty in 
the administration of public funds that is demanded in 
ordinary business and private life, and the fathers who 
laid out the details of our Government neglected to pro- 
vide for the punishment of public fish thieves in the 
Senate. In spite of what the American Fisheries Society 
has resolved, it is likely that the old system will continue, 
and the people will be taxed to support the United States 
Fish Commission to raise fish for the private waters of the 
friends of Senators. There are men right here within 
twenty-five miles of New York who have now fish in 
their private ponds with not a particle more of right to 
them than had the fish been stolen from some other pri- 
vate preserves instead of from the breeding ponds of the 
United States Government. "Why should I buy any 
more fry of you," said a fishing preserve owner to a trout 
breeder the other day, "when I can get all I want for 
nothing from the Government?" The conundrum was too 
much for the fishculturist, but he knows that he cannot 
sell his former customer any more trout fry 30 long as the 
Senatorial pull shall last and the Senator shall be willing 
to steal fish for his friend from the Government. 
Many persons in office make a distinction between pub- 
lic integrity and private integrity. An United States 
Senator may defraud the Government of its fish and not 
feel that he is doing a dishonest act, whereas he would 
scorn to cheat a private individual of a nickel. When the 
Fish Commission jobbery bill was before the New York 
Legislature, an employee of the Fish Commission wanted 
to put on a superfluous man at one of the hatcheries, in 
order thereby to secure the influence of a Senator from a 
western part of the State. He suggested that it would be 
quite proper to do so because it would hot cost the State 
much; and yet this individual, who was quite willing to 
squander public money in this way, if appointed executor 
of an estate might guard the interests of the widow and 
the fatherless with scrupulous zeal to the last cent. We 
have seen in this State the head of a great financial insti- 
tution secure from the Fish Commission fish for his pri- 
vate ponds by the dishonest ruse of writing in his appli- 
cation blank that the waters for which they were intended 
were public, while as a matter of fact they were private; 
and yet if one were traveling with this individual one 
would not feel it necessary to keep his hand on his pocket 
book. , 
How shall we account for this distinction between pub- 
lic and private honesty? How shall the paradox be 
explained? 
AN ANIMAL THAT HIES. 
With the single exception of his dog, the sportsman is 
probably the only animal now living on the earth that 
hies. All others are extinct. 
Even the sportsman never hies except in print or in 
manuscript intended for print; and even then, our obser- 
vation would appear to indicate, he hies more frequently 
in the manuscript than in the actual print. 
Other creatures, quadruped or biped, simply go, walk, 
run, travel, make a break, skip, scoot, slope, set out, 
light out, peg out, mosey; as the New York police say, 
get a move on themselves; or in the classic speech of the 
Bowery, chase derselfs. But the shooter hies him to the 
field, and the angler hies himself to the stream; there the 
one sees his dog freeze into a statue, the other catches 
speckled beauties; and neither ever eats his dinner or 
supper, but invariably does full justice to it. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The Hoboken Turtle Club, of this city, last week cele- 
brated its ninety-ninth anniversary with a dinner, in 
which,as in each of the ninety-eight that had gone before it, 
turtle soup was the chief dish. The club was organized in 
1796 by Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and other prom- 
inent men of the day, who used to go turtle hunting on 
the marshes of Hoboken opposite New York City. Hamil- 
ton and Burr must have eaten turtle together within 
sight of that. fatal field where afterwards their duel was 
fought. 
— — — — f 
We note a foolish proclivity of Florida newspapers to 
disseminate snake stories. There are snakes in Florida, 
thousands of them, big f ellows,ugly and deadly; but it is 
fatuous for Florida editors to multiply the actual snake 
supply and magnify its terrors. People live in Florida 
and go about their business, children grow to manhood 
and old age and pass away, without ever seeing snakes. 
The populace is not in a continuous stage of reptilian 
siege, as the snake reporters of the Florida papers would 
have us believe. What can be the special purpose of the 
snake stories? Do the editors expect to induce immigra- 
tion by them? 
No story can come out of Florida or any other remote 
quarter too silly for metropolitan journalists to pay tele- 
graph tolls on, if it comes in the silly season. The latest 
yarn is of an enormous alligator which came out of the 
St. John's River, dashed with wild fury through a Jack- 
sonville street, and, hotly pursued by a bombarding mob 
of shooters, finally climbed a telegraph pole. The fact 
that an alligator could not climb a telegraph pole in a 
thousand years does not count for anything with the 
managers of the rival press associations, who are con- 
tinually sending out to their clients competitive doses of 
just such silly specials, and quarreling in print with each 
other over their scoops. 
We observe with interest that the lie about President 
Cleveland's Sunday fishing, given currency by a Pennsyl- 
vania clergyman in a Sunday-school address, has gained 
such headway in most parts of the country that the denial 
never can catch up with it. This presidential Sunday 
fishing fake has taken its place with Senator Mitchell's 
Alaskan Indian duck egg fake, the Jacksonville telegraph 
pole climbing alligator fake, and the ancient and honor- 
able hoopsnake fake. Each of these, once started, is 
hard to head off. As for the Pennsylvania gentleman 
who set the Sunday fishing story going, nothing could 
have restrained him but an experience like that whibh 
cured Uncle Peter of his hoopsnake lies, as related by 
"Will Scribbler" in another column, and that was con- 
version. 
In Elizabeth, N. j., and many other towns, when slim- 
mer comes, the police turn out and shoot the dogs run- 
ning at large in the streets. Good dogs and bad dogs, 
thoroughbreds and curs, all are killed indiscriminately 
This method of abating the stray dog nuisance is barbae 
ous, indecent and unworthy of a civilized community. 
Because it makes no distinction between dogs that ought 
to live and dogs that should die, it is an outrageous in- 
fringement on the rights of owners of valuable animals. 
Because it does brutal dog murder in the public streets, it 
terrifies women and children. There is no excuse for the 
system. There are other ways of ridding the town of 
dogs and of doing it decently and in order. In Elizabeth 
and every other dog-infested community not run by 
Piutes, the superfluous canine supply should be rounded 
up, corralled in a pound, held a suitable time for redemp- 
tion, and then given a painless death. The system prac- 
ticed by the New York Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals has been described in our columns 
and is set forth in detail in the society's annual report, 
which might well be given study by municipal author- 
ities. 
Once upon a time there was a little boy and he had a 
little dog. They lived in a little city, so ridiculously small 
that the entire population, dogs and all, might have taken 
shelter in a single one of New York's big buildings, had 
there been such giant structures in those days. The little 
city had a little marshal, who used to wear his hat cocked 
to one side, his shoulders thrown back, and his chin in 
the air, all in a way which clearly said that he thought 
himself the biggest thing in the little town. He also car-* 
ried a gun and kept both eyes out for dogs in the street, 
just for all the world like those Elizabeth, New Jersey, 
dog cops. Now the little boy loved his little dog, as little 
boys do love little dogs; and no one had told him about 
the new dog law and the marshal with the gun. One morn- 
ing long before light — for such was the custom in the 
little southern city — the boy and the dog went to the 
market on the square for meat. As they were crossing 
the square, there stood the marshal. With not a word of 
warning he threw the cruel gun to shoulder; there was a 
crash in the air, a flash of flame, a heart-rending cry; 
and the little dog lay dying, licking the hand of the little 
boy, who cuddled it in his arms and cried over it. That 
was thirty years ago, and the marshal has long been asleep 
with his fathers, but to this day the boy has never for- 
gotten nor forgiven the cruel deed of that morning. 
Perhaps he never will. 
Now that shooting licenses are coming into vogue as a 
panacea for all our ills, why would it not be an excellent 
scheme to require a license of taxidermists in localities 
near to the game supply? They have adopted the plan in 
Maine, where the laws restricting the amount of game in 
possession are stringent. Such a law wprks no hardship, it 
allows the utmost freedom to responsible men, and afford 
opportunity of calling to account those persons who en- 
courage and aid the violation of the game laws. If those 
taxidermist establishments in the neighborhood of the 
Yellowstone National Park were under the surveillance 
and control of determined Game Commissioners there 
would be more hope for the Park buffalo. 
Illinois is rejoicing that it has passed through a legisla- 
tive session without having a Blow bill foisted upon it, 
New York's Donaldson law will bring to its markets the 
tons of Western game which the enactment of Warden 
Blow's measure would have kept in Chicago. The Game 
Laws in Brief as now revised shows that the laws of more 
than thirty States have been changed this year. The de- 
structive effects of Donaldson market-men's law will 
quite offset the sum total of advantage gained by al 
the new legislation put together. 
Am ong the season's records of big fish are a 261bs, 
striped bass caught off Greenwich, Conn., in Long Island 
Sound, and a 30iin. brown trout netted for the State 
hatchery in the Beaverkill, Sullivan county, N. Y. I 
you score anything larger than these, report your luck t 
Forest and Stream. 
