808 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 16, 1897. 
Devices of the Dealers. 
There ia a regrular system ia the conduct of the illegal bus- 
iness on Boutk Water street, and the concert and interde- 
pendence of the men engaged in the husiness are perfect. 
E?ery dealer on the street knows what to do, and when one 
way of smuggling is detected another is taken up. Thus, 
when he first went to work on the street this fall, Warden 
Loveday gave it out that he did not intend to bother so 
much about shipments of game which came by express to 
private parties, and not for the purposes of sale. "He preferred 
to devote his time to the better paying work of watching 
shipments to tlie hotels, restaurants aad game dealers. 
Boxes shipped from shooters to themselves or their friends 
at home here in Chicago were allowed to slip through, and 
the warden allowed this to be understood Note the result; 
In less than a week he and his men began to see an unusual 
number of boxes coming to "Mrs. So-and-so," or "Miss So- 
and-so." After the mysterious "Miss"' name would be the 
address of some dealer, or sometimes the box would be 
addressed to a "blind" address, and handled twice here in 
the city as a matter of precaution. After Mr. Loveday be- 
gan to see feathers sticking out of a box now and then, and 
to feel how heavy some of the boxes were, he concluded that 
too many "Mi>8es" were in evidence, and he began to seize 
the boxes. The whole street had caught on, and the word 
had been passed that this was the latest way to evade the 
warden and the law. 
After the warden broke up the "Miss" business, there was 
a sudden lull in receipts of game here at the depots. Inquiry 
developed the fact that the shippers were ordering their ex- 
press packages to come, not direct by rail over the roads 
running into Chicago from the game fields of Dikola and 
Minnesota, but only so far as Milwaukee, where they were 
transferred and sent down by boat, over the Goodrich Jme of 
steamers. It was known that the warden had no men 
watching at the steamer dock for illegal game, though he 
had four men under salary at different railroad depots 
watching the express companies. A little visit to the Good- 
rich docks one morning developed several boxes and barrels 
that were promptly seiz -d. 
1 have already mentioned the fact that for a time early in 
the season the dealers aot a great deal of game shipped in 
butter tubs, labeled as "fresh butter," and apparently packed 
as such, with the nice edge of the cheesecloth ostentaliouslv 
sticking out from under the rim. A great many "soonei" 
chickens were seized in this way. Lately the warden got so 
he could tell these packages pretty well, for sometimes the 
country shipper would use an oldish tub, one a little more 
weather-beaten than a butter shipper would be apt to me. 
Then a large influx of "fresh eggs" fell upon the market. 
The warden one day saw some feathers sticking out of an 
egg crate, and thinking perhaps some of the chickens had 
hatched, as they very often do in South Water street eggs, 
he opened the box to set free the young fowls. He found a 
layer of eggs on top and the rest of the box was full of half- 
grown prairie chickens ! The express companies gave Mr. 
Loveday permission to examine all suspected packages, and 
many is the little device of the canny dealer which he Has 
thus uncovered 
The Inference. 
Such are some of the ways the game comes into Chicago 
before and after the legal shipping season. Now, kt us see 
about the real case as to the hold-over privileges ot thes3 big 
storage companies which carry it At the end of one season, 
Feb. 6, I reported that a train-load of game was shipped 
from Chicagu to the East. It is stated regularly by the deal- 
ers that they do not hold over any game here after the close 
of the selJiug season, but ship it all out as soon as the selling 
season ends. Very well ; let us suppose they do. But comes 
Warden Loveday, and with his own eyes sees in three stor- 
age houses here this fall, b3fore the seiison opened, ovc 
$135,000 worth of game. How did it all legally get in there? 
Is it not all plaiu enough that, in spite of all that is done or 
can be done, the illegal game is pouring into this market all 
the year round, open season here or not, non-export laws. ob- 
served or not, legal or illegal as the game may be h-re or in 
the State in which it was killed? Is this rot self-apparent? 
If it be so morally certain, is it not legally possible to sh-»w, 
in some way, that this game is held here contrary to the Il.i- 
nois law, one of the most glaring violations of the laws of the 
land that ever went unpunished? 
We are having on trial here now a man charged with wife 
murder, charged with having burned up and destroyed all 
evidence of his crime, having burned up the corpus delicti 
till nothing but some questionable fragments remained. Yet 
the methods of modern justice confiJently hope to prove this 
man guilty, or to prove him innocent, even with the c ^rpus 
gone forever. Here, in heaps on South Water street, 
is corpus delicti, proof a' solute, testimony and evidence in 
tons. Is there no legal way of establishing guilt or innocence 
of these men, when evidence is so near and so abumlant? 
The thought that we cannot do this is an admission that we 
have no government, that we have no law in Illinois, li it 
true that we cannot punish our murderers? Is it true that 
we cannot confine our burglars? Is it true that we cannot 
imprison our thieves? If we cannot do these things, we 
have no law, . We are not yet a sociLty. We are sliii unor- 
organized. We still are savages. 
Some of the Cases. 
Among other cases now on hand, Warden Loveday has 
that of "Turkey" White, pf Momence, who shipped two 
boxes of illegal game to Chicago, and thoughtlessly left a 
letter in the box with the game. He will be tried at Kanka- 
kee. The agent of the express company will be on hand to 
testify. 
A. 'M. Lynch & Co , Chicago, arrested last week for han- 
dling illegal game, took a continuance. The case comes un 
Oct. 13. ^ 
Doussangs, a restaurant on Wabash avenue, Chicago, will 
be tried next Monday, T. J. Eellows, of 20^6 Wabash ave- 
nue, for some time openly advertised cn his bill of fare, and 
in his windows, illegal quail and chickens. Warden Love- 
day and his attorney, Mr. Exline, both calkd and had a meal 
of these "sooner" birds. "Have you been well served?" 
asked the proprietor as they rose to go. They allowed they 
had been. "Then come and try us again," said Mr Fellows. 
"All right," said Mr. Exline, "we will try you." And he 
did! Tnirty dollars and costs. 
The Monroe Restaurant, on Monroe street, this city, has 
been selling "sooner" chickens as "owls," a very foolish thing 
to do one would think. The case against them was clear^ 
and they will be convicttd without doubt. 
Deputy Phil, Goetter, who watches suburbs near the city 
on the west side, has had arrested five young Sunday bird- 
shooteis, who were out having a fete champetre, with four 
kegi of beer and some shotguns last Sunday. They had a 
number of robins, larks, jays, etc. Their guns were confis- 
cated, and warrants are out for the men for non-appearance 
at the court for trial. Their names are: Henry Stioe, 1353 
Twenty second street; John Moran, 533 California avenue; 
John Black, 1350 CaUfornia avenue; Frank Rich, 171 Twen- 
tieth street, and Frank Micks, 171 Twentieth street. 
George Airey, who is deputy for Morgan Park an I Blue 
Island region of the suburbs, lately arrested the engineer of 
the Oxf rd building, this city, a Frenchman, whose name is 
not at hand, accusing him with killing song birds. He 
promised to appear for trial, but did not do so, and was 
fined $60. A writ was issued for him, and he was told he 
would have to loosen or languish. He loosened. 
Local Weakness. 
Above are the most prominent features of the work of 
game protection up to date as applying to the warden' j! work, 
more especially in Chicago Of course, this is outside the 
question of the sooner shooting all over the game regions of 
the State. Of this a great deal went on, without doubt, and 
of course all th's ought to be stopped; but I want to close 
this long resume of the Illinois season in protection by show- 
ing some of the reasons why it is difHcult to stop it all at 
once, no matter how good or how bad a warden may be. It 
is the old case of local timidity, the resident ready to com- 
plain under cover, but not ready to testify in court. The 
following correspondence from the warden's oflace covers 
this part of the situation very pointedly, and it may prove 
interesting reading to a great many country residents who 
have some chicken shooting, and who want a special and 
secret ioterposi'.ion of Providence in order that it may be 
preserved for them without effort of their own. The letter 
from Mr. Cusson is from De K\ h, earlier mentioned as one 
of the points where the residents had taken it into their own 
hands to set the chicken date, making their own construcficn 
of the law. Mr Cussoa' letter reads: 
' DeKalb, III., Sept. i>—3Ir H. W. Loveday. Utite Game 
Warden, Chicago, III.: Djar Sir — Pot-hunters and law 
breakers have nad their way here this season, and when 
S^pt. 15 comes they can well afford to stay at home and 
lau*h at those who go in quest of birds, for "they have b:en 
shooting chickens since July 1. They have dared the law, 
defi" d arrest and invited prosecution, but nothing has been 
done. Our local warden is discouraged by the refusal of 
your assistance, and complains that he is not even lavored 
with a reply to his letters. 
"Even the farmers complain of the slaughter that has 
been going on and wonder if there is a law why some one 
with full power cannot appear during the scene of dtstruc 
lion and put a stop to it. In view of these facts, with the 
expeiience of the last two seasons, we may with certainty 
look for the full extermination of our game birds and 
chickens. Yours very truly, J. S. Clsson." 
To this Warden Loveday made the following pcrtment 
reply: 
"Sept. 10.— Drab Sir: Yours of the 9:h inst. duly received 
and contents not d; in reply, permit me to say that com 
plaints have come to me from your county — more than from 
any other of the one hundred and more counties in the State 
— relative to the unlawful hunting of prohibited game birds 
and, fowl; but when I call upon the citizens of D?Kalb 
county for proof in the shape of evidence against the ofltend- 
ers, it 18 not forthcoming — either the parties complaining do 
not have the evidence, or from financial, political or social 
considerations they will not, or at least do not, disclose it. ' 
' Parties from your county have offered to furnish the evi- 
dfnce of the killing of one bird, for the purpose of making a 
test case to go to the Supreme Court, if a fine should be im- 
posed in the Justice Court, and in the Circuit Court ; the fiae 
m such case would be not less than |5, nor more tnan |3,5. 
"Tue expense attending such a proceeding would amount 
to several hundred dollars, which I would be compelled to 
pay; and, as you are aware, or should be, that I receive no 
salary as game warden, it seems to me that you must recog- 
niz ; the folly of such a course. 
' If, as your letter, and other complaints, would imply, 
prairie chickens have been slaughtered by the hundreds, per- 
haps thousands, and people should come forward with the 
evidence showing the extent of the slaughter, the names and 
places of residence of the offenders, and approximately the 
number and kind of fowl killed by each, and then if my ap- 
pointee at DeKalb fails to prosecute 1 will take the matter 
up, provided I find that your State's attorney is willing and 
ready to put forth his best efforts to vindicate the law, as 
that same law says he shall. But if, as I have been in- 
formed by some of your ciliz ns, he is a violator of the law 
himself, or advises or encourages others to disregard it, you 
will readily see how futile my efforts mu t be in attempting 
to obtain a fair presentation of the case in court if he, the 
highest law officer in the Oouhty, is in opposition to the law 
v7hich he finds on our statute books, and in the enforcement 
of which he is, ihertin, directed to assist me. 
"The law has been tested several times in the appellate 
and supreme courts; with a fair presentat'on of the case to 
any judge, I should have no misgivings as to the outcome; 
but, according to the information given out by your own 
people (which, by the way, may do your Stale's attorney 
great injiistice) it would seem eminently proper that, if any 
additional test cases are to be made, the prosecution should 
be inauguratt'd and carried on by ths fiiends of the law, and 
not by its enemies. 
"My appointee at your place is a gentleman of your own 
selection, and has just as complete right and power to prose 
cute as I have; and he should receive the same moral and 
financial support as would be accoided me by all true 
sportmen and loyal citizehis;- and as pot hunters and game- 
law breakers are odious to all true sportsmen and gentlemen, 
I should like to see De Kalb Co. 's citizens give a much 
better account of her. 
"My duties iu preventing the receipt of and traffic in 
game keeps me busy frOm 5 in the morning until 7 or 8 at 
night, aad am obhged to depend on my appointees to look 
after the country, and some of them are doing nobly. 
"If the farmers. Jaw-abiding citizens, ai?d sportsmen will 
aallow personal- ctmsiderations to control them, and if they 
will ptrsist in withholding evidence that woull lead to the 
CQnviction of many persons, possibly some members of the 
best faini lies, but insist on trying a cooked-up case, for the 
killing of one bird, they alone will be to blame for the exter- 
mination of the game birds." 
l.llnols Game Crop. 
From all accounts obtainable, chiefly from the reports cf 
deputy wardens at different parts of the State, ic would 
appear that the game birds of Illinois are not yet all gone 
nor are their species threatend with extinction. The prairie 
chicken has done about as well here as in States further to 
the Weot. Mr. Loveday in his talk with me said that in 
Bureau, Wanye, Henry', Clay and Kankakee counties the 
chickens were abundant this year. In two days' shoot in 
Henry county, he bagged 70 birds himself, a bag greater than 
I have heard of to one gun in any part of the West this falL 
Mr. Loveday will go out quail shooting in Wayne county 
with Gov. Tanner on the first of the quail season, and expects 
to show the Governor that there is still some game in Illinois. 
Gov. Tanner is a very fair field shot, and is fond of the sport 
of the gun and dog. This is a thing to be thankful for, 
since a sporting Governor is something we have not had for 
a long time. Perhaps the sportsman spirit in high places 
mav become fashionable yet, and then we may expect results 
different from those of the past. 
Marsh Burnlnar. 
All over the West we have been having a very dry season, 
the droughty area being very large and very seriously 
affec'ed. The marshes of the Kankakee have been like tin- 
der, and wide and destructive fires have been raging along 
the Kankakee in Indiana the past week. In these marsh 
fires the peaty sod burns down several feet deep at times, 
making vast holes in which the vegetation is absolutely de- 
stroyed for a long time. This cuts off the duck feed, but 
opens up the heavy rice and reed beds so that the water 
stands in ponds. Much property was destroyed by these 
marsh fires the past week, and the farmers were out in force 
fighting fire for days at a time. 
Dakota Chicken Country. 
Mr. Th. Gjerdrum, of Mayville, N. D., writes me, and 
gives some information which may well be filed away for 
future reference by readers of Fohest asd Stream, who 
next fall will want to know where to go chicken shooting. 
I wish to thank Mr. Gjerdrum very much for the informa- 
tion. He says: 
"1 notice your remarks on prairie chicken shooting io this 
country and also that you have been very close to this 
vicinitv, at Fargo, N. D , from where you did some t-hoot- 
ing w ith game warden Bowers. In this connection allow me 
to say that if ever you come round here again it should 
afford me great pleasure indeed to arrange a trip and fiad 
some birds for j^ou, if I could manage to get away. 1 was 
out the latter part of August for six days, and our party 
(i.hree guns) got all the birds we could handle and take care 
of, and i thought birds were quite plentiful. If you will 
look at the Great Northern Railway's maps main line out 
west of Grand Forks, you will find Larimore. From there 
south runs a branch to Breckenridge. The second station 
from Laiimore is Northwood, and that is my starting place 
for cnickens. 1 was fifty miles straight west of Northwood, 
where the country is sparsely settled and the ground densely 
coveri d with grass. Here is the place where you find the 
grouse, but then we call chickens and grouse the same thing 
out here. We hael so much fun over the dogs and grouse 
that we did not molest the ducks at all, although we carried 
one of the Mullins 'Get There' duck boats along." 
The Saginaw Crowd. 
The Saginaw crowd this year is not really a Saginaw crowd, 
but it is a eood crowd and a jolly one none the less, "The 
special car W. B. Mershon roiled into Chicago over the 
Michigan Central Tuesday morning, this week, and left that 
evening over the Wisconsin Central. As stated earlier in 
these columns, the party will shoot at Dawson, N D., for a 
part of a week, then go further west to the Bad Lands io 
Montana for a deer hunt, with a very good possibility o.' gei- 
ting a silver-tip or so. Then they wiU return and shoot 
gf ese at Dawson for a few days, and get back througd h( re 
in about two weeks or so from now. It was my very good 
tortune to dine on the car with these gentlemt;n this lime, 
and so far as I can see, the oW car is about as good 
as it was when we went trout fishing with it last spring. 
It is admirably equipped for a hunting trip, with tents, 
boats, sleeping bags, full supplies for camping, and every- 
thing that heart could desire on a modern de ^iicle hunt. 
The pirty this year is made up as follows: Mr W. 13. Mer- 
shon, Lord High Janitorius, of Saginaw; Mr. W. A. Avery, 
of Detroit; Mr. A. P. Bigelow, of New York city; Mr, H. P. 
Dain and Dr. P. H. Mason, of Peekskill, N. Y.; Mr. W D, 
Schultz, of Zanesville, Ohio. Each and every one of this 
hearty contingent w^s able to eat a sciuare meal when checked 
up at Chicago, and every one was looking as if he was glad 
to be alive. It was rather tough luck to have to climb down 
off the car when the trail rolled out. We should hear of a 
big story about a week or so from now. 
Frcm the South. 
Any man from the South is welcome at the Forest and 
STREAii office, and the only trouble is that too few of them 
come. To day I am in receipt of a telegram from Tom 
D.vine, of Memphis, running to effect that he will jar the 
city by landing against the south edge of it about noon to- 
morrow. He comes jast too late to meet here a friend from 
his own section of the country, Coahoma (Major Dabney, 
of Clarksdale, Miss ), who has been up North attending the 
Waterways convention at Davenport. Major Dabney is the 
Government engineer in charge of levee work in the Delia 
country of Mississippi. He says that the redoubtable bear 
hunter, Capt. Bobo, still gets his bear every now and then, 
and remains as hearty as ever and as fuU of hunt. He tt-lls 
me also of a bit of country where a friend of his, who lives 
in New Orleans, has been still-hunting bears with a good deal 
of success, shooting three thus in one day. This was indeed 
gool fortune, for in that dense cane country it is rare indeed 
that the still hunter gets to see a bear. 
Coahoma is a lover of snakes, as all men know, but I am 
glad to. state that he did not, at least while here in the city, 
carry about his customary pocketful of rattlers and copper- 
heads in order to prove his assertion that the bite of such a 
snake is very mild, and indeed distinctly tonic in its effects. 
The truth is that Coahoma has in his work in the Delta 
bottoms grown so familiar with the face of the alleged ven- 
emous reptiles, that he has first endured, then pitied, then 
embraced 1 care not what others may think, but when I 
see a yellow -headed snake with a green eye and a stub tail, 
give me a lOft. pole. or give me death. Yet, outwardly, 
Coahoma evinces no sign of his preferences for snakes as 
friends, being very tall and rugged and with a normal eye. 
You would not think, to look at him, that he habitually 
checked his package of pet snakes at the depot or hotel 
when going out to dine, and that in doing his surveying 
along the levees he uses a chain made of highly educated 
moccasins with their teeth aU in. He says that he fancies 
this sort of a surveyor's chain more than, an iron or steel 
