Forest and Stream; 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
FERifs, $4 A Year 10 Cts a Copt. 
Six Months. 82. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1897. 
j VOL. XLIX.-No. 19 
"I No. 346 BROADWAy, New YoRft. 
AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
In times past the pot-hunter was held up for the execra- 
ftion of those who were believers in sport pure and true. 
While there was then no efficient legal restraint governing 
Ihis market-hunting purposes, there was a strong public 
.•sentiment against the killing of game as a regular business 
loccupation. It was the common property of the people, 
land, by the industrial and capitalist classes, the men who 
worked and the men who planned and invested — it was 
•considered a common property for their legitimate sport 
iin the few days which could be spared by them from toil 
•or business. The pursuit of game was their pleasure and 
jrecreation. 
The pot-hunter was a man whom they considered as 
(one who was looting the common property and means of 
jrecreation. Often he had no social or business standing, 
and as a class they were not of such personal attainments 
•as would atone for any transgressions in respect to public 
opinion and property. 
But gradually the loose and ineffective tenets of public 
opinion on matters pertaining to game protection took the 
more efficient form of more efficient statute law. One 
would naturally expect that the pot-hunter of the old 
school, he who shot not from wantonness but from motives 
of gain, he whose station in life made him indifferent to 
either financial, social or legal responsibilities, lie whose 
one ambition was to make a living in the laziest, easiest 
and most thoughtless manner, would be the man of all 
men to break the modern gaaie laws. His plea was the 
vulgar plea of killing for the pot. He plead-i his necessi- 
ties. He was, in his irresponsible way, endeavoring to 
make a living. He had no opportunity to study the nicer 
points of the subject, and no capacity for it. He was deal- 
ing in a simple way with the problem of making a living. 
But keeping in view the denunciation of the pot-hunter 
by all true sportsmen, what can be said of a class of men, 
whose station, birth, fortune and associations in life are of 
the best, yet who deliberately and with premeditation 
violate the game laws in their letter and spirit, and who 
further violate the laws of humanity and common decency 
by the wantonness and cruelty of their acts? To some the 
term noblesse cblige seems to be meaningless. Rank, sta- 
tion, fortune and character are but means to a life of sham 
respectability. Let the orderly ciuntry gentleman visit 
the city wherein his doings will be unknown to his kith 
and kin, and his character undergoes a revolution. Let 
the city gentleman go into the country, and again on occa- 
sion there is a change. 
There is » class which by habit, self-interest and the 
necessity of living up to an established character in a cer- 
tain environment, lives much alike one day with another, 
but out of this environment, and the extraneous restraints 
of it being absent, they soon demonstrate that they have 
lived a false character if the proper occasion presents 
itself. 
From Mr. E. Tinsley, Chief Game Warden of the Prov- 
ince of Ontario, comes a complaint to us against a young 
lawyer of Syracuse, N. Y., who is alleged to have killed 
itwo moose and numberless game birds in Ontario, in vic- 
/lation of the laws of the Province. The recountal of his 
ishameful misdeeds was presented in the columns of a con- 
(temporary as the doings of an accomplished sportsman, a 
•college graduate, with a shooting experience on two con- 
itinenta, a skillful hunter and a gentleman. Were terms 
■ever more misused in the cant of him who seeks to make 
liw-breaking and wanton killing deeds of high sportsman- 
s'up? 
From Maine there comes to us a letter of hot protett 
against the wholesale destruction of big game by visiting 
sportsmen. A clipping was inclosed with it which relatts 
a grewsome story. Information reached Hon. L. T. Carl- 
ton, chairman of the Board of Game and Fish Commis- 
aioners of Maine, that a party of sixty sportsmen from Ohio 
had been scattered about in camps near Jackman, and had 
been hunting there during three weeks. Game Warden 
C, 0. Nichols was sent to investigate. He captured four 
large boxes of game, ready for shipment, immediately on 
his arrival. The report says that the ground around the 
camps he found covered with carcasses of deer, partridges, 
loons, hawks, etc., and that there were scores of partridges 
killed and thrown away lying about rotting. An exam- 
ination of the rotting deer showed that the best parts only 
had been taken ior use and the rest thrown away. In the 
other camps of the party the warden believed that the 
destruction and waste were quite as great. 
It is regrettable indeed that there should be men who 
profess to be gentlemen and sportsmen, and who, while 
living up to the character at home, yet when abroad 
should be so prone to break the laws and identify them- 
selves with sneaks, ruffians and law-breakers. There is 
no difference in principle between stealing from the pub- 
lic and stealing from the individual, although there is a 
vast difference in the courage required for the one act as 
compared with that of the other. The cowardly character 
chooses the course of least danger. 
A gentleman is a gentleman at all times, and a sports- 
man is a gentleman. Neither is compatible in character 
with ruffianism and law-breaking. And the whole basic 
principle of conduct and sportsmanship is found in the 
G ilden Rule, a rule equally forceful at home or abroad. 
BULLET PROOF HUNTING COATS. 
The Zeglen biallet-proof cloth, which has for some time 
past engaged a certain degree of official interest in army 
circles, was again submitted by its inventor to a number 
of tests against rifle and pistol bullets at the United States 
Armory, Springfield, Mass., last week. 
As a whole, the cloth withstood the tests but partially, 
and thereby fell short of the inventor's claims for it, and 
his anticipations of its success. 
The cloth's resisting powers were tested in three ways, 
namely, when suspended loosly as a curtain; when fast- 
ened by its four corners to a frame and stretched in it, atd 
lastly, with a board backing. The rifles used in theteit 
were the new .30 Springfield magazine rifle using the 
steel-jacketed bullet, and the old .45 Springfield using the 
soft bullet. At five hundred yards the cloth resisted the 
bullets successfully, though at three hundred yards it was 
a partial failure. At the latter distance, without the board 
backing, it was pierced several times by the steel jackettd 
bullet, while the .45 bullet was only partially imbedded in 
it. With the board backing, it was not wholly pierced by 
the steel -jacketed bullet, but at the point of impact the 
board was shattered to such a degree that, on picking out 
the splinters, a hole was made through it. The .45 bullet, 
under the same conditions, rebounded from the cloth. 
Mr. Zeglen declared that this piece of cloth was imperfect 
from injuries received in former tests, and a new and 
lighter piece of cloth was substituted, with better results. 
It entirely resisted most of the bullets at fifty yards range, 
and none entirely pierced it. Yet in the tests in which it 
had a board backing, the shock of the bullet was so great 
that the board at the point of impact was shattered 
throughout its thickness, thus demonstrating th9.t a 
powerful shock would be communicated to any solid 
backing of the cloth, which offered a resistance to the 
bullet. 
In the tests against pistol bullets at twenty-five yards the 
cloth proved successful. The pistols used were the new 
.38 and the old .45 army revolvers. Placed on the chest i f 
a dummy soldier, the cloth was but slightly penetrated by 
the .38 bullet, while the .45 was deeply imbedded in it. 
Tested with a board backing, it was not wholly pierced by 
the .38 bullet. Reinforced with the board backing, the .45 
bullet rebounded from it. While the bullets thus failed to 
pierce the cloth, the tests demonstrated their powerful im- 
pact and the terrific shock consequent to it. The .38 bul- 
let made a dent in the board an inch wide and two-tenths 
of an inch in depth, while the .45 demonstrated its greater 
momentum and greater shocking powers by making a dent 
one and five-tenth inches wide and three-tenths of an inch 
in depth at the point of impact. 
Hence, while the cloth would shield a body from being 
pierced by a bullet, it would not prevent the terrific shock 
which the backing body would receive, one similar to the 
shock given by a hammer blow. 
In devoting all his energies to perfecting his bullet- 
proof cloth for military use, Mr. Zeglen proves himself no 
student of the dangers of society in time of peace, and 
the consequent need for some such protection as he is en- 
deavoring to perfect; for the growing horde of irresponsibles 
who cannot distinguish between a man and a deer once 
they are in the woods with a deadly weapon in hand, and 
the growing numbers of the didn't-know-it-was-loaded 
class, and the equally culpable class who do not think or 
who do not care, render an efficient safeguard a neces- 
sity. 
The best safeguard would be to hold the offender legally 
responsible for his misdeeds. A gun in the hands of a 
man may be discharged by accident, but a death resulting 
from such discharge is no accident, for tlie reason that 
there is no justification for having the gun pointed at atiy 
one at any time. 
Only a few days since the lives of two people, Mr. A. B. 
P. Kinney, of Worcester, Mass., the well known sportsmah 
of national fame, and Miss Nellie Thomas, were gravely 
imperiled by the criminal carelessness of a salesman who 
was exhibiting a rifle to a customer in Mr. Kinney's store. 
The rifle was discharged, carelessly or accidentally, the 
bullet striking the edge of the showcase on which Mr. 
Kinney's arm rested, severely shocking his wrist, then 
barely missed his body, thence touched the young lady's 
jacket and barely missed her neck. While the accident 
might or might not have been prevented by proper care, 
there was absolutely no excuse for having the gun pointed 
toward people at any time. 
Death or injury refeulting from such carelessness is not 
death or injury resulting from accident. Calamities which 
result from neglect of common precautions, which are 
within common foresight, which have been earnestly 
inculcated by precepts for years, whose need has been 
demonstrated by tragedies innumerable, are not accidents. 
The best bullet-proof protection in time of peace is a 
sound public opinion on these matters, reinforced if need 
be by legal penalties. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
France presents a curious anomaly in the practices of her 
farmers and sportsmen with respect to song and insectivor- 
ous birds. The French sportsman who pots little birds 
would excite ridicule and contempt in this country; it is 
the foreigner with French proclivity to make pot-pies of 
our small birds who taxes the vigilance of game wardens 
in the vicinity of American towns. On the other hand, 
the French were the first to have an intelligent appreci- 
ation of the value of the insectivorous species as aids and 
allies in agriculture; and bird protection was a feature of 
domestic economy in France at an early date. Interest in 
the subject is lively just now. An international congress 
for the protection of insectivorous birds will be held in the 
town of Aix<, France, on the 9th of this month, under the 
management of the Ligne Ornithophile Frangaise. The 
programme provides for discussion of these subjects: 
"(1) The scientific demonstration, with figures in support, 
of the injury done to international agriculture by the der 
struction of insectivorous birds, several species of which 
have already completely disappeared from certain regions. 
(2) The absolute prohibition, by special laws and severe 
penalties, of killing or capturing birds in large numbers 
where they alight in the course of their migrations. (3) 
To urge all the European governments to tajje measures 
and pass laws for the repression of poaching, or capture by 
traps, nets, and other devices, of all species of birds feed.- 
ing on insects.'' 
At a meeting of the New York Fisheries, Game and 
Forest Commission last week, Mr. A. N. Cheney submitted 
newly compiled figures, showing the killing of deer in the 
Adirondacks for the year 1896. As in previous yea p, 
more deer were killed in 189 i by hounding than by niglit- 
hunting and still-huniing together; the ratios were three 
thousand four hundred and sixty-one by hounding, one 
thousand five hundred and ninety-nine by night-hunting, 
and one thousand two hundred and eighty-six bys'ill- 
hunting, a total of six thousand four hundred and six. Tbis 
exceieded by one thousand five hundred and six the total 
of fqur thousand nine hundred for 1895. 
The American Express Company report that they 
shipped in 1896 six hundred and thirty-six carcasses, one 
hundred and thirty-nine saddles, one hundred heads, of a 
total' weight of eighty thousand six hundred and fifty 
pounds. The National Express Company report that 
they shipped two hundred and thirteen carcasses. As 
they give no weights, we may estimate each carcass at one 
hundred and twenty-five pounds, or total of twenty-six 
thousand six hundred and twenty-five pounds, or grand 
total by the two companies of one hundred and seven 
thousand two hundred and seventy-five pounds. Of 
course the saddles are but a portion of the weights of the 
carcasses they represent, but here are one thousand 
and eighty-eight deer in 1896 as against eight hun- 
dred and seventy-four by the same companies in 1895. 
These shipments of deer by express are those of deer 
accompanied by their owners. The year 1897 will of 
course show no such numbers of deer killed, since the law 
nosv forbids both hounding and night hunting. 
