470 
[I>BC. 11, 1897. 
THE MAN IN THE CLOCK TOWER, 
I'm the man up in the clock tower. As I have to be here 
day and night, right on the tick, I have no time to go shoot- 
ing or fishing myself, but have to take it out in "the next 
best thing." Between hours I have time to read Foiiest 
AND Stkbam, and when the mood is on to write. Taking 
advantage of the editor's standing invitation for those of us 
who have anything to say to say Jt, 1 am to have a column 
or two to myself — for how long I don't know— t j talk of 
things as I see them. 
The New School of Hunting. 
A Cincinnati Commercial- Tribune came to me a few days 
since with a full-page account of the trials of the National 
Fox Huntei'.s Associatioa, recently held at Cynthiana, Ky., 
and after reading it through to the end I found there a signa- 
ture of a lady, which at once explained why a full page was 
necessary to depcribe the weather, the sunnse, the costumes, 
the glories of Kentucky, the unapproachable Southern eti- 
quette, the persona] beauty and pedigrees of the visitors and 
— nothing of the meet proper. It goes without saying that 
any gentleman who is so ungallant as to differ from a lady, 
particularly on any matter pertaining to sport, and specifi- 
cally sport in Kentucky, is no gentleman ; therefore I will 
not differ from the fair writer, though at the same time sug- 
gesting that the art of writing requires fine discrimination as 
to what not to write as well as what to write. To this one 
should add at least a smattering of knowledge of the siibject. 
Here are some extracts from the story in question : 
Most of the hunters had seen the sun rise before, and were 
obliged to resort to flasks aud camp-fires by the roadsides I'or 
warmth. 
This was a marvelous gathering. Some of them had been 
80 active as to have already seen a sunrise — and what a con- 
sequence! they were obliged to resort to a flask or camp-fire 
for warmth, The ones who never had seen the sun rise 
before probably didn't know the difference between the flask 
and the fire. 
But the ways of the red fox, as set forth by the accom- 
plished writer, are far more valuable than would seem in a 
passing notice. Heretofore the fox has been considered the 
embodiment of cunning — an animal of infinite resource in 
devising means to evade his pursuers. He availed himself 
of the fences, of sheets and streams of water to throw off 
the hounds, and there are well authenticated instances 
where the fox ran round and round in a large circle, thus 
making a consecutive trail, on which the hounds ran after 
the fox had abandoned it; also of foxes which ran in relays, 
■one" relieving another when too closely pressed by the 
hounds, Whether this be true or not, the terms fox and 
cunning have long been held as being synonymous. But 
the fair writer says ; 
The red fos is a very wild and cowardly animal, although beauti- 
ful enough to make him coveted for his beauty's sake. He trusts 
nothing to cmining, but everything to heels. 
And cowardly I what animal would not run with a pack of 
crying hounds after it? Yet it is well known that a red fox 
will often turn on a single hound and fight it, 
But on matters of logical deduction the fair writer is no 
lebs precise. Here is how the hounds catch the fox: 
He will get up as far ahead of the hounds as possible and con- 
tinue to distance his pursuers until he gets far enou2;h ahead to 
maintain his advantage at his natural gait, which is a long leap. If 
permitted to pursue his own gait, the devil couldn't catch him, for he 
could run a week. To overcome all the advantage always in favor 
of the pursued, you must have dogs that will push ahead on a faint 
scent, and make quick and rapid casts ahead on the line of chase, 
and speed enough, with a good, high scent, to push the fox to his 
utmost rate of speed. If your hounds have got the bottom and 
endurance to keep him up to his rate, he is bound to strike his flag 
to them in from sixty minutes to two hours. 
You see, it's all very plain. The fox runs away from his 
pursuers till he gets as far ahead as he chooses, He can run 
faster and longer than the hound, but the hound chases the 
fox real hard and catches him in a little while, although the 
fox can run a week. It's all very clear. 
The true manner of fox hunting the talented writer gives 
from a high authority, as follows: 
If your dogs are well bred tliey will need no encouragement. You 
must never halloo when you see the fox and your dogs are running 
or coming to you. It will detract their attention and take them off 
their nose, and will probably cause them to lose or at least be at 
fault for a while. You must sit still aud let them pass, and then, if 
they seem tired and you think encouragement is needed— or it you 
can't help it— give a few short screams and ride beside them a little 
way. 
When dogs are some distance from you, It does them no good to 
halloo to them— they don't hear you, but the fox does, and quickens 
his pace. We signal on the horn to each other, and I train my dogs 
10 a certain signal when I see a fox and want |o get them close after 
him. 
Again from the same authority: 
The mode and object of hunting the fox in the South differs ma- 
terially from that of the North. Our .style partakes more of the 
English. We use horses that will and do take fences and stone walls. 
They are bred to stand our hard cross-country riding. 
And again it is a little confusing to understand how one 
could "sit still" while the hounds ran by if one were riding 
hard across country after the English style. It's very pretty 
reading if one doesn't stop to think. 
But the ladies, bless the dears ! We men, of every section, 
are as one "with our brothers of the South in our adoration of 
the fair sex. But 1 fail to see the relevancy of the following 
in the description of a fox chase : 
The Kentucky man likes to have his womenkind with him. He 
never feels that they are in the way. He protects as well as compli- 
ments. The Kentucky girls do not go chaperoned into the field- 
there is no need of chaperons with all those grizzled heads— and, 
anyhow, Kentuckians have a quick way of settling things that is not 
exactly conducive to presumption or overdaring on the part of rash 
youth. The Kentucky man has always taken care of his womenkind, 
and he always will "till the sun grows cold and the stars are old." 
But as to what the dogs did, which one won, what he won, 
and how he did it, I am as yet in the dark. Put fulsome 
self -laudation as an art, with a fox hunt as a pretext for the 
outpour, I now know all about. A fox hunt is made up of 
pretty feathers and ribbons, exaggerated compliments, his- 
tory of bygone splendors, chivalry, chit chat, and visionary 
theories. 
The Homing Instinct. 
1 read the other day of a Iiong Island deerhound which 
strayed away on the first day of deer shooting, and was 
finally tied up on the grounds of the South Side Club, 
gnawed the rope in two during the night, and made his 
escape and arrived home all right on Sunday, "having trav- 
eled the intervening" forty miles with no other guide than 
instinct, as he had never been over the ground before." 
Such incidents find frequent place in the newspapers. 
The greater the absurdity of a proposition, the more grave 
attention as a news featuie it receives. Not that dogs do 
not find their way home, but that they do not do so by in- 
stinct is what I believe. For my faith therein I have very 
good reasons. Every shooter, who has had much to do 
with dogs, knows how easy it is to lose a dog. and how easy 
it is to pay |3 or $35 for his recovery. Sometimes a dog 
will lose his master when out with him in the fields and will 
sit with nose pointing skyward giving vent to the most 
hopeless llowlings. • When dogs are lost in prowling about, 
they may come across some place where they have been be- 
fore, and which they recognize; then the return home is 
easily accomplished. If it were an instinct it would be 
present in all dogs. 
Formerly it was believed that the carrier pigeon found his 
way home by instinct from long distances. It is now known 
that it is from a matter of knowledge that they are able to 
return. The birds are many times successively released at a 
distance from home, further and further each time, yet at no 
time too far for them to recognize known objects when the 
birds rise to the first high altitude for observation at the 
beginning of the flight, so that learning a route more and 
more, they at last can take it home from any point with 
which they are familiar. The common honey bee was for a 
long time considered the best examplar of the homing in- 
stinct, but naturalists now hold that they fly home on a route 
which has been learned from observation. The manner of 
starting on a homeward flight, whether it be that of pigeon 
or bee, indicates that a sight of some familiar object is 
sought for guidance. There is much more homing instinct 
in the pen of writers who are writing on space than there is 
in both pigeon and bee. 
"The Fox as Game." 
No better examplifi cation of the fact that the point of view 
from which all is seen and measured is within one's self is 
necessary than the position taken in Foeest and Stream of 
Dec. 4 by Mr. W. H. Sullivan concerning foxes as game. 
He makes a scathing rebuke on those who take foxes in any 
manner but the legitimate one, that is to say, hunting them 
for sport. He overlooks the fact that the fox is a predatory 
animal, which, when it so pleases, does much harm among 
the farmer's fowls and sheep. That he affords sport to the 
sportsman is true; to such it is a game animal perhaps. To 
the farmer, on whom it inflicts loss, it is vermin, and he takes 
such measures as are resorted to in destroying vermin. 
Thus in one locality the fox may be entirely game, in 
another entirely vermin, accordingly as the locality gains the 
most sport or suffers the most loss of property. Wolves af- 
ford much sport in their pursuit, yet their predatory habits 
condemn them to destruction in any manner it can be accom- 
plished. The rabbit is generally considered as being game, 
but the rabbit in certain localities is a pest and thus perti- 
nent to the point under consideration. 
The trapping of rabbits should also be denounced by Mr. 
Sullivan, yet it is infinite glory to the farmer's boy to trap 
one. That is his point of view. With age, experience and 
knowledge hi,s point of view will change. At no time will 
his point of view be everyone's else point of view. Still he 
may pursue the fox as sport, and again he may kill him as 
vermin; it all depends on the point of view 
" Killed a Man for a Deer." 
With the regularity with which the daily press recounts, 
day by day, deaths caused by that terror of the woods and 
fields, the man who sees a movement and shoots, the stereo- 
typed plea is: "1 thought." It is not a good plea. It is an 
aggravation of the offense. The fact that the killer vaguely 
saw something moving was a warning not to shoot till he 
knew absolutely whether it was deer or man. When shoot- 
ing in settled communities or with companions, the shooter 
should never shoot till he knows beyond doubt that he is not 
shooting a man or a domestic animal. The New York Sun 
of Friday of last week has the following: 
PiTTSFiBLD, Me., Dec. 2.— For the thirteenth time since the himting 
season opened last September a man was mistaken for a deer and 
shot dead in Detroit to-day. The victim was Dana M. Gray, a farmer, 
of Plymouth, and the hunter who shot before he look ed was Benja- 
min R. Cross, of Detroit. Both men were out hunting deer on the 
newly fallen snow, aud were following tracks when Gray came up 
over the brow of the hill about 100yds. from Cross, who raised his 
gun and fired. Gray threw uj) his hands and fell dead on the ground 
with a .45cal. bullet through his heart. He was picked up by George 
A. Small, who was just beiiind him, but life M'as then extinct. The 
coroner decided that the shooting was purely accidental, and that 
no inquest was necessary. Cross, who.is regarded as eccentric, has 
been almost demented since the accident, and it has been necessary 
to use force to prevent him from taking his life. 
What an appalling record! And what an absurd coroner's 
decision! What a ridiculous use of the term accident! Any- 
thing which can be prevented by reasonable forethought or 
present care is not an accident. 
The Deadly "I Thought." 
Is it possible that there are men, who, gun in hand, care 
nothing for the life or limb of their fellows? Have they a 
craving for blood so great that the lives of others may be 
risked or sacrificed, or their bodies maimed, that, such crav- 
ing may be gratified? The events of the present season, 
answer the questions. Those events emphatically indicate 
that there are such men in plenty, and that, moreover, there 
are men so criminally ignorant in the use of firearms that 
that of itself is an offense. 
No sportsman is involved m this matter, for no sportsman 
would call anything sport which always had impending the 
death or injury to a fellow-being, or the death of domestic 
animals. Such is not sport. By no stretch of the fancy can 
the term be made to cover such mad use of the gun. 
Never before in the history of peaceful times in the United 
States has there been such a succession of killings, called ac- 
cidental, within its borders. Not a day passes but the press 
narrates the killing of one or more men in field or forest, 
with the monotonous reiteration by way of excuse— though 
excuse it is not— that the killer "thought he saw a deer." 
This newcomer with a new gun, or an old ignoramus with 
an old gun, whose "thought" was sufficient warrant for him 
to shoot and kill, has in one season effectually put in the 
shade the stanch, reliable imbecile of the past, who, with a 
penchant for mischief aud an unhappy success in its execu- 
tion, could only say when the killing was done that he 
"didn't know it was loaded." 
There are some conditions which have contributed to the 
pleasure of the merry, merry men who "thought it was a 
deer," who "killed a man for a deer," some of which are 
the opening of sections of country long closed, such as Ver- 
mont, Minnesota, etc., and the further condition that nearly 
all sections are now more or less densely settled by man. 
The opening this season of so much new deer country was 
in a way similar to the exodus to the Klondike gold region, 
in that there was a great rush. Of the men who invaded the 
deer country some were in every way qualified to hunt for 
sport, to hunt with skill and safety to their fellow-men, and 
in view of events and reports it is certain that there was also 
a hoard of irresponsibles and novices whose desire was to 
kill something, it mattered little what, if their craving for 
blood could but be satisfied. No doubt there also were 
some who were thoughtless, some who were stupidly igno- 
rant of the dangers of firearms, others who were vicious. 
The Loner-Range Rifle. 
General conditions have changed. The deer country of 
to-day is not the deer country of years ago, when a rifle ball, 
taking its flight, could not endanger the life or limb of man, 
for he had not then made the deer country his home. Bul- 
lets could then do no harm, for there was no harm possible. 
What a contrast between then and now 1 Hunters have mul- 
tiplied by hundreds. The deer ranges to-day where the 
highways lead to and across the country, from village to 
village and from city to city, with the domiciles of man 
everywhere where agriculture or art will support him. 
No sportsman would be guilty of the reckless act of shoot- 
ing a long-range rifle in such settled communities. The use 
of the latter arm has greatly aggravated an already bud state 
of affairs. The average range in deer shooting is less than 
200yds., and it is a vicious act to shoot a weapon with a 
range of two or three miles when one with a range of 800yds. 
is ample. The latter will spend its effects well within the 
range of the shooter's vision; the former goes on and on, far 
beyond his vision, knowledge or control. In the wilderness 
the senseless long-range fad would be harmless ; in a settled 
community it is criminal. Imagine the direful portent of 
an excited novice with a longe-range rifle in a section where 
there are deer, and where there are also people and horses, 
and cattle and houses, etc. Nervous, foolishly expectant, 
impulsive, raw and ignorant, is it to be expected that he will 
kill a deer sooner than he will kill something which is pro- 
tected by law from everything but himself? 
Legal Restrictions. 
The reckless tiring on moving objects, partially concealed 
or otherwise, in sections no longer a part of the wilderness; 
the reckless use of rifles with a range terrible to contemplate 
when discharged regardless of consequences in settled com- 
munities, and the general overrunning of agricultural prop- 
erty, with little or no regard for the rights of ownership, 
can have but one result in the course of time: that is to say, 
there will be such legal restrictions on the use of firearms as 
will subserve public policy. Life and proi)eTty will be pro- 
tected. This could be accomplished in several ways, as by 
the imposition of a license on the ownership or possession of 
firearms, or on their use, or by making more stringent tres- 
pass laws, or by all combined. 
There might be further restrictions, prohibiting entirely 
the use of firearms by those who had insulficient knowledge 
or skill to guarantee a reasonable assurance of safety to the 
public. 
"But," say several citizens all together, "we have a con- 
stitutional right to own guns and shoot them as we please." 
And this echoes a common though fallacious belief that every 
person has a const itutioual right to own and use a shotgun 
and rifle as he wills. And yet he has nothing of the kind. 
The second amendment to the Constitution of the Uniteti 
States reads as follows, and most of the States have clauses 
in their constitutions in accord with it: "A well regulated 
militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the 
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be in- 
fringed." 
The reader will at once perceive that the amendment has 
wholly a military significance. The right to bear arms has a 
direct reference to the military, and therefore refers to such 
arms as are fit for military purposes. The carrying of arms, 
as commonly understood and practiced, is not a right at all. 
It is merely a privilege resting largely on the traditions of 
the past and the indulgence of the present, which is a very 
far remove from a constitutional right. 
In the early days of the United States we all know how 
necessary was the ownership of firearms to hold at bay the 
hostile savages, aud to secure the needed sustenance where all 
depended more or less on the vocation of hunter. Without 
weapons, life then would have been short. No such neces- 
sity for their use exists at present. The law has already 
placed its ban on some weapons. It prohibits the carrying 
of knives, knuckles, slungshots, sandbags, etc., and some 
States forbid the sale of certain weapons entirely. The 
canying of pistols is regulated, it being illegal to carry them 
concealed in all States ; and in at least one State, Texas, it is 
illegal to carry them at all in certain places and at certain 
times. That the peop'e of to-day are permitted to carry the 
shotgun and rifle openly and at their pleasure is not because 
there is any constitutional right protecting the individual in 
doing so. It rests on the intangible and insecure ground of 
public opinion. 
The bearing of arms is dear to us. It is a part of our tra- 
ditions and intimately associated with the birth of our 
national freedom. Nevertheless, the bearing of arms in the 
eye of the law is viewed from a military standpoint. We 
have no great military system such as rules in European 
countries, yet the common use of arms may take the place of 
such schooling, imperfectly, it is true, but infinitely better 
than no schooling at all. But let there be a common and 
flagrant abuse of the privilege, endangering life, limb and 
property to such a degree that the rifle and shotgun are a 
menace to public safety, and the pri\dlege may have an end- 
ing or a curtailment. Once start the matter- of restriction 
going in a legislative way and no one can forecast where 
would be the end. 
The man who enters on the lands of another is a trespasser. 
It is an easy matter to make the trespass laws so stringent 
that trespassing would then be a serious offense. Such as 
the f oUowing do much to hasten the coming of such law : 
"The farmers of Vallejo township, just east of Petaluma, 
are up in arms against the numerous San Francisco hunters 
who come up on Sundays and invade the country. They 
pay no attention whatever to the hunting notices and run the 
country to suit themselves. On Sunday last one party was 
evicted from five different ranches where they hunted in 
spite of the notices . The farmers have stood all they can 
endui-e and nest Sunday officers will be on hand to arrest 
every trespasser caught." — Petahma Courier, 
