Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun, 
Tekms, $-t A Ye<r, 10 Cts. a Copy, | 
Stx Months, $2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1898, 
( VOL. L.-No. 28. 
i No. 846 Broadway, New York, 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
correspondents. 
' Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms; For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv- 
JUBILEE NUMBER. 
The issue of June 25 will complete the Fiftieth Volume 
of Forest and Stream; and the event will be fittingly 
marked by making that a Jubilee Number, filled to over- 
flowing with good things. It will be notable for store 
of good reading and wealth of illustration. A prelimin- 
ary notice to the trade has already assured for this special 
number a wide demand. It will have a large circulation 
among those who are not regular readers of the paper, 
and for this reason will have increased attractions for ad- 
vertisers. Special advertising rates for the Jubilee Num- 
ber will be sent on application. 
BALTIMORE'S DOG PROBLEM. 
With the coming of warm weather recurs the prob- 
lem of dealing with the surplus dog supply of towns and 
cities. The solution of the question has been discovered 
by New York city, which has intrusted to the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals the task of 
enforcing the license law, and collecting and disposing 
of unlicensed and stray dogs. The Society does the work 
most admirably, and so quietly and efficiently that the 
community is thoroughly satisfied and gratified. The 
experience of municipalities which have enlisted the ser- 
vices of the Society in this work has been uniformly 
happy, and may well serve as a precedent for others. 
The work is one which falls within the province of the 
Society, and wherever a branch of the organization ex- 
ists it may well be given jurisdiction in the matter. 
Baltimore is just now considering a reform in its 
method of dealing with this dog question. The pres- 
ent system is of a gang or gangs of self-constituted dog 
catchers, who are stimulated to activity by a reward of 
twenty-five cents for every dog captured and delivered 
at the pound. Wherever in force this system has al- 
ways proved vicious in practice. Voluntary dog catch- 
ers are likely to be ruffians and brutes, who fail to dis- 
tinguish between dog catching and dog stealing; affrays 
are always imminent between them and outraged own- 
ers; personal violence is frecjuently resorted to, and more 
than one murder has resulted from a dog catcher's mis- 
directed enthusiasm. That the system does not work 
more smoothly in Baltimore than elsewhere was illus- 
trated by % case which appeared in one of the police 
courts of that city last week, when a young woman was 
brought before the court to answer a charge of assault 
and battery, the offense having been committed while 
she was engaged in defending the family dog from 
seizure by two dog catchers, George Washington and 
Elijah Toogood, both colored. The defendant, as the 
testimony showed, had discovered the men making away 
with the dog, and had fired a gun from an upper window 
"at an open space to attract a policeman." George and 
Elijah were unscathed, but as is usually the case, several 
innocent bystanders suffered; a boy and two women 
were wounded; and in the case of one of them the justice 
imposed upon the family dog defender a fine of $75 and 
costs. Wha,t became of the dog is not reported: he prob- 
ably went to the pound and contributed his head-money 
to the enrichment of Washington and Toogood. This 
case is instructive because it is typical of the system. Un- 
der a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
regime, if there had been necessity of seizing the dog, it 
would have been taken quietlj', decently and without 
provoking a small riot; the public peace would not have 
been outraged by a woman shooting at random from an 
upper window; and Baltimore would have been spared 
the police court record of a case which reflects extreme 
discredit upon it as a civilized community. 
Manifestly Baltimore should reform its dog license 
system. Two measures looking to that end .are now 
before the city council. One proposed ordinance would 
give the superintendence and execution of the work into 
the hands of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals; the other one would provide two oflficial 
dog catchers, to be paid salaries, instead of being re- 
warded so much per head for dogs captured. Manifestly 
either of the systems would be in the nature of an im- 
provement upon the crude and brutal methods which 
now prevail with their shotgun accompaniments. 
FIELD SPOR rs AND WAR, 
"A SOUND mind in a sound body" is a maxim which 
appeals instantly to the favorable consideration of all 
sensible men. It is so self-evident that the mere state- 
ment of it wins one's assent. But, potent as it is in times 
of peace, in times of war it is a thousandfold more so. 
The defenders of a nation must needs be physically able 
and enduring and clear of mind, both for their own 
preservation as individuals and the preservation of their 
country. But the physically strong and courageous and 
sensible are not the product of accident, nor are they 
peculiar to any special land or climate. The most vigor- 
ous tnen are those who grow and develop according to 
nature's simple laws, those who breathe fresh air, live in 
the sunlight, drink pure water, and observe the gospel 
of cleanliness both in their persons and their lives; and 
while all can observe the latter conditions, the former are 
not so easy of attainment by those who toil at the desk 
or bench for their bread and butter, those who are 
chained to business. The workers, whether with brain 
or hand, can set aside but a small portion of their time 
for the needed recreation; but the benefits accruing from 
even a short time spent in field or on stream, in the whole- 
some sports of gun and rod, are incalculably great to 
those who are the beneficiaries. Such makes all the dif- 
ference between degeneracy and greater development, for 
no organism is at a standstill. Man advances or recedes. 
In engaging with the forces of nature, he develops to 
the highest capability of his nature. 
Week after week, for .many years past, the gospel of 
wholesome recreation has been persistently preached in 
these columns. The many thousands who have enjoyed 
the witchery of the waters wherein hide the cunning 
game fish have found in Forest and Stream a wealth 
of matter in sympathy with their sport, full of the best 
literature appertaining to it and related subjects, and also 
up to date on all technical information. The many 
thousands of others whose enjoyment was greatest in 
pursuing the big game of the forests, using the rifle to of¥- 
set the great size, strength and ferocity of the wild beasts, or 
those who pursued the gentler sports with dog and gun 
in pursuit of the game birds, were no less well served 
with the best that was entertaining and instructive. Thus 
the thousands who were "chained to business" had the 
newest and freshest of the world of sport from week to 
week, keeping their interest alive and their hopes revived 
for a time when the business chains would be broken — 
if not entirely, for a time at least sufficient to participate 
in the delights of the fields and streams. It was the 
doctrine of making men happier, and physically strong 
and capable. 
In preaching the gospel of wholesome recreation, the 
forsaking of desk and workshop for the necessary physic- 
al and mental recuperation, which can be found nowhere 
so potent as in nature's own unroofed temples, much 
more than a passing good was conferred. The camping, 
the fishing and the shooting, in themselves delectable 
occupations, were a means of conferring on the com- 
munity a class of defenders, men with sound minds in 
sound bodies. 
Men who are physically strong and vigorous — these 
qualities resulti- g from the freedom, the activity, the 
self-reliance incident to the pursuit of field sports in 
time of peace — are palpably a great addition to the na- 
tion's strength at all times, but they are of inconiparable 
value in time of war. While there is much in the work 
of the soldier that is distinctly different from the work 
of the sportsman, there is hardly anything in the experi- 
ence of the latter which is not directly of value, by way 
of preparation, and analogous to the soldier's life. The 
sportsman whose eye and hand and nerve are trained to 
the use of a rifle or shotgun makes a more efficient 
soldier from the very beginning than does the man 
whose fijst knowledge of a .xifl.e begins .with his finlist- 
ment. The man whose courage has been tested against 
the grizzly bear on its own ground displays greater forti- 
tude in the face of danger than does the recruit who 
never had occasion or opportunity to face any reaf 
danger in his Hfe. The man whose powers of body 
are developed to the highest degree of activity and en- 
durance from long pursuit in the chase, who is alert, 
aggressive, self-confident and daring, who has camped in 
the wilderness, endured heat and cold and depended on 
his own efforts for subsistance, has already acquired 
much toward the qualities of the best soldier. 
Thus field sports, with their lessons in the use of the 
gun, in camp life, in horseback riding, in discipline, in 
dangers, in developing strong, resolute and enduring 
men physically and mentally, are producing the very 
best material for the nation's defenders in time of trouble 
such as this country is now experiencing in the war 
with Spain. 
The Government officials appreciate keenly the im- 
portance of physically and mentally able men, and. their 
standards of fitness have these qualities in view, and ar« 
rigorously observed. Men who follow confining occu- 
pations, and who neither fish, ride, shoot, row, nor walk 
except from their doors to a street car, are apt to be 
narrow chested, and constitutionally incapable of any 
prolonged physical effort, even though they may have 
determination to go through a conflict, and grit enough 
to back up their determination. 
Let the young and the old fish and shoot, first becausa 
in these they have a healthy and innocent means of re- 
creation, and second, because the nation is a gainer in 
having better citizens, abler defenders, and a wiser peo- 
ple thereby. 
THE MINNESOTA INDIAN CASE. 
In our game columns to-day is reported an important 
decision just rendered by the Supreme Court of Minne- 
sota, defining the rights of reservation Indians as to the 
export of game contrary to the statute. An Indian 
woman residing on the White Earth Reservation, and 
engaged in the business of trading, shipped a consign- 
ment of birds to Detroit, Minn., where they were de- 
livered to the express company for exportation out of 
the State, in violation of the non-export law. The goods 
were seized by the game warden and confiscated as con- 
traband. The shipper then entered suit to recover, set- 
ting up the plea that the game having been killed on 
the reservation was not subject to control of the statute; 
and the case was carried to the Supreme Court. The opin- 
ion just handed down holds, after an examination of the 
treaties, that the jurisdiction of the State with respect to 
game extends over the Indian reservations, although 
by reason of the peculiar relations held by the Indians 
as wards of the National Government the State may not 
with respect to them enforce its laws on the reservations. 
When game has been shipped from the confines of the 
reservation, however, it becomes subject to State control, 
and if held in possession or transported in violation of 
the statute, it may be confiscated. This is good law 
and good common sense. The ruling will go far to make 
more eflicient Minnesota's excellent system of game pro- 
tection. With the market cut off the killing of game by 
the Indians will materially be reduced. How enormous 
this destruction is was indicated in a recent report by 
Rev. J. A. Gilfillan, a missionary among the Chippewas, 
who gave as his estimate, derived from an experience of 
years among the Indians, that the tribes in northern 
Minnesota killed annually an average of 355 moose and 
4,700 deer. They hunt, he says, at all seasons, by every 
method, without regard to law, and not only on the re- 
servations, but over large areas of contiguous territory. 
The very pith of the Supreme Court decision is just this, 
that it really has to do not so much with reservation 
game as with the game of the State at large, for the un- 
lawful destruction of which the reservation game traffic 
has been a pretext and shield. We may now look for a 
tightening of the lines of a system which has put Minne- 
sota in the front rank of game protective principles and 
practices. 
We would be glad to have addresses of Forest AND 
Stream readers, whether regular subscribers or news 
stand purchasers, who, having volunteered, are now in 
camp, whether in a State camp or at Falls Church, 
Chickamauga or Tampa. 
