Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1897. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
VOL. XLVIX.— No. 17. 
846 Broadway, New York. 
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Writers upon ethics have sometimes discussed 
what they hold to be a paradox. The end of fox- 
hunting, they say, is presumably to catch the fox. 
Now, no one would risk his neck to catch a per- 
fectly useless animal, and his real motive must, of 
course, be the exhilaration of the gfallop. Yet it is 
(equally true that the pleasure somehow vanishes 
if you suppose the fox to be absent. The riding; 
across country would lose all its charm, if there 
were not a real animal and a bona fide attempt to 
catch him. The scientific results attainable in 
Nansen^s case — the mapping of an utterly useless 
region — the incidental discovery of new forms, 
which may help to illustrate some points of nat- 
ural history, have the same kind of value as the 
catching of the fox. In that sense, I admit a cer- 
tain importance in providing one^s self with a pre- 
text, which takes the pursuit out of the category 
of mere amusement. Without it even so grand a 
sport as a journey to the North Pole would tend 
to lose its charm. Leslie Stephen. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
SiSNATOR Teller's bill to regulate iaterstate traffic in 
gam3 cjatemplates action by Congress to prevent tke 
shipment of elk, antelope, bison or mountain sheep out of 
Colorado, Wyoming or Utah, except in such quantities as 
may be permitted by the laws of those States. The 
measure is admirable in purpose, bat is based upon an 
unsubstantial assumption respecting the jurisdiction of 
Congress in the matter. The preamble reads: 
"Whereas By reason of the exclusive power of Congress 
to regulate interstate traffic the States are powerless to 
regulate or prohibit the transportation of said articles to 
other States, and the enactment of the following provisions 
will enable each State, by legislation, to protect the wild 
game within its own borders." 
But Congress does not possess the exclusive power to 
regulate interstate traffic in game, nor are "the States pow. 
erless to prohibit the transportation of said articles to 
other States." Or, to put the first proposition more pre- 
cisely. Congress has not the exclusive power to regulate 
the interstate traffic in game, since the State has the 
power to forbid its game becoming a subject of interstate 
traffic. Under the police power the State may limit or 
absolutely prohibit the export of game beyond its boun- 
daries. This has been established by the United States 
Supreme Court in the case of Geer vs. State of Connecti- 
cut. Connecticut has a law forbidding the export of par* 
tridges. One Geer, a commission merchant, was prose- 
cuted for violating the law. He set up as a defense 
that the statute was in conflict with that clause 
of the Constitution of the United States, which gives 
Congress the exclusive power to regulate interstate com- 
merce; and he carried the case on appeal to Washington. 
The Supreme Court found against him in a decision which 
declared in most explicit language the right of the State to 
control the taking of game, and to prescribe the purposes 
for which it may be taken and the final disposition made 
of it. In particular, as the specific issue for determination, 
the court ruled that in the exercise of the police power, 
the State has ample authority to forbid the export of its 
game; and that where laws to this eflfect prevail the game 
cannot become legitimately a subject of interstate com- 
merce, and therefore cannot come as an article of inter- 
gtate commerce under the jurisdiction of Congress. 
In short, in this decision, the Supreme Court has de- 
clared that Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have ample 
power to do, and that it is solely within their province to 
do, with respect to their game precisely what the preamble 
of Senator- Teller's measure premises that they are power- 
less to do. More than this, if the regulation of the export 
game is, as the Supreme Court declares, a function of the 
individualiStates, it is not a function of Congress. This 
means that the problem of local game protection must be 
worked out at home by each State for itself, and not in 
Washington, however alluring may be the notion of 
Federal control. 
It was our privilege to know a simple-hearted, ingenu- 
ous and kindly man, a sportsman who observed the 
golden rule in his daily life and not less scrupulously on 
the ducking marsh, a gentle man who knew no guile, 
whose life was placid, whose end was peace, and whose 
memory is blessed. For years this man harbored the 
hurt of a certain afternoon on Northern waters, when 
snugly ensconced in his blind for ducks, he saw another 
hunter take position near him, stealing his advantage, and 
wantonly and selfishly depriving him of any possible shot. 
The outrage rankled long afterward; it was the one blur in 
the pleasing retrospect of a sportsman's life. If the census- 
taker made note of these things, the statistics would show 
a thoupand and one other men who are to-day cherishing 
a grudge against the fellow who stole their sport away in 
some such manner. It takes all sorts of men to make up 
the world, the rusher in ahead is one sort. 
When a dog steals a point in a field trial he is penalized. 
What is justice for dog is justice for man; a Michigan 
genius— one of the Saginaw crowd, most likely — who has 
endured interference in duck shooting until patience has 
ceased to be a virtue, has had the wit to go to the Legisla- 
ture for relief. Cheated of the ducks galore he has counted 
but has not gathered, this defender of the rights and liber- 
ties of duckers on their points has induced the People of 
the State of Michigan to enact, to wit: 
That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to willfully scare 
or drive wild ducks or other wild water fowl, or cause the same to be 
done, from any person lawfully hunting the same on the public 
waters of that part of Lake Erie within the State of Michigan, for the 
purpose of depriving or attempting to deprive such person of any or 
all of his opportunities of shooting or hunting such wild ducks or 
other wild water fowl; and every person so ofiEending, upon conviction, 
shall pay a penalty of $20 and costs of suit, which penalty shall be 
recovered by action brought by the prosecuting attorney of the 
county where the penalty is incurred, in the name ot the People of 
the State of Michigan. 
This is the season of the year when every one may be 
his own Columbus, and discover, if he will, a new world. 
It lies all about us in the northern latitudes, flaming in 
scarlet and crimson and gold. The wondrous pageant of 
the autumnal foliage is again unfolded; and happy indeed 
is he who may find the time—or make the time— for an 
October outing, to look upon a landscape which, however 
familiar the contours, is in its brilliant hues as a new and 
unfamiliar world. 
The A''ermont deer hunters report a shrinkage of the 
supply. Before the season opened the game was re- 
ported in myriads, but actual pursuit by ambitious seekers 
revealed that the Green Mountain deer have a way of 
going single and solitary, and not in herds and droves. 
The central and southern portions of the State are most 
plentifully stocked, but taking the whole range at large, a 
well-informed correspondent tells us, probably not thirty 
deer have been killed in the entire State. 
The season has supplied a normal quota of incident and 
material for quip and story. The largest deer reported 
was killed at Middlesex, Washington county; its weight is 
given as 3411b8. The proud slayer was somewhat taken 
aback, however, when he discovered that it was a tame 
deer which a farmer had harbored with his cattle. A 
curious complication has arisen in one case. The law, con- 
templating the killing of males only, provides that "deer 
having horns" are legitimate game, and a Barnard 
hunter having brought down what was thought to 
be a spike-buck, found that he had killed a horned doe. 
A St. Johnsbury man laid low a fat steer, and a Lincoln 
hunter killed a calf. As was to be expected, the excited 
hunter who thought it was a deer when it was a man has 
played his part ia the campaign, and distressing fatalities 
have resulted. One victim, himself a hunter, was clad in 
a sheepskin coat, and thus in a way brought his fate upon 
himself. 
The Jackson's Hole elk case has been discussed so fully 
in these columns and our position respecting it is so well 
known, that there is less necessity of commenting upon 
Mr. Whitehead's letter than of taking care lest the topic 
be pursued beyond patience. Under the circumstances, 
we refer to what we have said already about the point at 
issue. Eeduced to its simplest statement, the specific 
question is whether the Wyoming statute which forbids 
the capture of live elk was intended by the Legislature to 
be enforced against one person and not against another, or 
whether it should be enforced impartially with all alike. 
The more general consideration^ias to which our corre- 
spondent dissents from our position, is that laws are en- 
acted for the purpose of being executed, and that executive 
officers are charged with the duty of executing them; and 
that an official may not, at his own sweet will, refuse to 
enforce the law when it is being violated and he knows 
that it is being violated. 
As to these principles, we hold that the game law does 
not difler from other laws, in that no one is to be accorded 
the privilege of determining at his own option whether of 
not he will obey any given law, for if one may at his 
option elect to disregard one law which appears to him to 
be unjust, another has equal right to violate some other 
law which does not suit him, and thus in the end we have 
disregard and contempt of all law. Nor may one refuse 
obedience to the statute on the ground that it imposes 
upon him some personal hardship or loss. The statutes 
are made for the public good, in which the individual 
may, under certain circumstances, find personal hardship^ 
but the rule that the greatest good to the greatest number 
must prevail makes obligatory upon every citizen com- 
pliance with all the laws. Otherwise we should have 
an end of society. Despite Mr. Whitehead's protest that 
arguments are not carried to their logical conclusions— 
which we do not admit— the logical conclusions of this 
case are such as we do not shrink from and he cannot 
avoid. 
The plea of humanity, concerning which we have heard 
so much in this case, and upon which Mr. Whitehead 
naturally puts so much stress, should not^be permitted to 
befog the real issue. No man can i claim for his defense a 
humanity of that sort which helps itself to the proceeds 
no more than one may claim honesty when he returns so 
much of a lost sum of money as he decides he will not pay to 
himself for having found it. It then is simply a commer- 
cial proposition. The plain fact here is that Adams has 
violated a specific Wyoming law by shutting up a band of 
wild elk. His offense would not be greater were he the 
most brutal man in Wyoming^ nor ia it any the less becausef 
he claims to be humane. 
Mr. Whitehead ignores entirely, or evades by specxo'ud 
argument, the fact that if the State of Wyoming is indebted 
to Mr. Adams for food given to the elk, the Jackson ranchr 
man has the same recourse in law that all other creditor^ 
have. No creditor under the law is at liberty to help him- 
self at his own pleasure to his debtor's property, and the 
property of the State is no exception. 
A meeting of the executive committee of the New York 
State Association for the Protection of Fish and Game 
was held in Syracuse on Thursday of last week, for the 
purpose of making provision for a convention date earlier 
than the present one. Dec. 9 was determined upon, and a 
call will be issued for that date. The sentiment which 
has been growing for a long time, that the protective fea- 
ture of the Association should be divorced in name, as 
well as in fact, from the trap tournament activities, found 
expression in a proposed change to that eflfect in the con- 
stitution, and in a new name, the New York State Fish^ 
Game and Forest Protective League. These innovations 
will be submitted for approval at the December meeting. 
The earlier date^of meeting will prove of distinct advan- 
tage, and there can be no actual loss in the change of 
name, even to one hardly less cumbersome than the old titl^. 
Perhaps it will be permissible to refer to the organizatioB 
as the New York Fish and Game League. 
