62 
A Miscarriage of Justice, 
Front the Paterson, N. y,, Sunday Chronicle. 
The WSttlt of the trial of James L. Tooker, Jr., for 
manslaughter on Monday last was a discredit to justice in. 
New Jersey. 
The point which would be apt to first strike a disinter- 
ested observer was the presence in court of foreign coun- 
sel. There come to these shores annually hordes of semi- 
barbarians, who have no love for this country and no re- 
gard for our laws. A few of these remain for an inde- 
finite time, but most of them return to their own homes 
after having taken from the decent American laborer a 
large share-of the work which should come to him. These 
men do not intend to become American citizens, and while 
here they are governed by their own rules and usages.. 
They have formed here the Italian Society of the United 
States, an organization which has gained an unenviable no- 
toriety in some parts of the country under the home name 
of Mafia. This organization usurps the rights of adminis- 
tering law; it is a conspiracy here among us to set aside 
the laws of this country. It protects all its members, 
against the infliction of punishments by our courts. 
Wherever a money penalty is imposed it is paid out of 
the treasury of the society. One of the most common 
forms of violations of the law on the part of members of: 
this society is the gunning for birds, contrary to our 
laws. Of the forty odd Italians arrested in this part of 
the State during the past year, charged with violations of 
the gunning laws, not one went to jail, the fines of all 
being paid out of a common treasury, a premium thus- 
being placed on defiance of our laws. But these ma- 
rauders do not confine themselves to violations of the gun- 
ning laws; they kill everj^thing that affords a target, and 
landowners have been loud in their complaints on ac- 
count of the loss of domestic fowl. Evidence tending to 
show the characters of these pillagers was rigidly ex- 
cluded by the court. Yet this society, which guarantees 
immunity from punishment for violations of our laws, 
was openly represented in court by paid counsel, the first 
time in the history of New Jersey that we know of where 
private interests were permitted to aid the State in prose- 
cuting an accused person. The partnership between the 
State of New Jersey and the Mafia is hardly a pleasant 
subject for contemplation. 
Stress was laid upon the supposition that the accused 
was under the influence of liquor at the time he fired 
the shot. We do not believe with some judges that a 
man should be sentenced to safe keeping behind the bars, 
for taking a drink of beer, but in this present case we do- 
not believe that any reasonable man would come to the 
conclusion that the defendant was intoxicated. According 
to his own admission he had taken three small glasses of 
beer; according to the oath of his companion he had 
taken only three, having once taken a cigar. After having 
started on the errand on which the authorities of the 
State sent him, the defendant walked four or five miles 
through the bracing mountain air. The supposition of 
Ihs intoxication was based on statements made by a wit- 
ness who did not see the defendant tintil just before 5 
o'clock; the shooting occurred at 2 o'clock. The State 
detectives and the agents of the Mafia had scoured the 
country to find more evidence of partaking of beer, but 
were unsuccessful ; the reason for their failure to suc- 
- ceed will be apparent to all. 
The contention on the part of the State was that there 
was not sufficient provocation to justify the shooting; in 
fact, that the provocation was very slight. If the de- 
fendant could be induced to shoot by merely seeing a vio- 
lator of the law before him, how was it that he did not 
shoot Daniele, with whom, according to undisputed evi- 
dence and the admission of Daniele himself, he had a 
scufile for the possession of a gun? There AA^as tnore pro- 
vocation to shoot Daniele, according to the latter's story, 
but the defendant made no attempt to shoot Danifcle. The 
answer to this question is to be found in the statement of 
two respectable American citizens and officers of the 
State that Ganova had raised his gun to shoot the de- 
fendant. 
In the charge of the presiding judge every point which 
could possibly be made agiiinst the defendant was brought 
out with force. The most incisive of these -was the argu- 
ment that if the defendant had only exercised his right 
there was no cause for regret, and that the in- 
ference accordingly was that the defendant was. 
conscious of some wrongful act, and that his feeling was 
remorse and not regret. We do not see how it is con- 
ceivable that a man who kills another can escape being 
the victim of acute regret. The man who shoots a burg- 
lar or highway robber cannot but regret the act. Wc 
have known cases here in Paterson where conductors and 
engineers refused to pursue their occupations because 
they had been the means of depriving a human being of 
life even when all the facts plainly showed that there was 
no culpability on their part, and when they had been fully 
exonerated by public tribunals. Regret at taking life is 
inherent in the breast of every human being. In the case 
of Tooker we find a man of more than ordinary intellectu- 
ality and sensitiveness suddenly confronted with the fact 
that he had deprived another of his existence. He was 
excited, his mind confused and like a drowning man 
grasping at straws, he sought for extenuating circum- 
stances ; he recognized his own position and cried out that 
he had not intended to kill, even though his own life was 
in danger. Artfully this exclam.ation on his part was 
made use of to indicate that he had been guilty of man- 
slaughter. Every word used by a man laboring under the 
most intense excitement was construed against him. 
The verdict was not the result of calm deliberation on 
the part of the jurors. If any credence can be placed in 
stories circulated about the court house, and which have 
since been corroborated by the jurymen themselves, their 
first ballot stood nine for acquittal and three for convic- 
tion of manslaughter. The jurors were boisterous, and 
if the secrets of the jury room leaked out it was their 
fault. A majority of them stood in favor of acquittal 
when word was sent that the presiding judge intended to 
go home unless the juror.'? had agreed. This meant that 
the jurors would be put to the inconvenience of being 
locked up all night. Then it was announced that they 
had agreed. The constable who was sent to the jail to 
bring the prisoner into court advised him to take his ef- 
fects with him, as the verdict would be one of acquittal. 
Buoved i!p with this hope, Tooker heard the verdict which 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
consigns him to prison for a large part of his life. Could 
more refined cruelty be imagined? 
As to the judgment of the court, we know that we are 
:simply voicing public sentiment when we say that it was 
harsh, cruel and uncalled for. The crime of manslaughter 
■consisted in accidentally killing when there was no inten- 
tion to kill; such was the theory laid down by the court 
on which the verdict was found. Eight years is too mtich 
•even if every contention on the part of the State had been 
.admitted. 
The Right to Make Arrests. 
Unpleasant recollections about his own arraignment 
on a charge of having violated the fish and game laws 
were perhaps flitting through the mind of Judge Dixon 
-when he indulged in his denunciation of former Game 
Warden Tooker previous to the imposition of sentence. 
If everybody believed the law to be as laid down by 
Judge Dixon the violators of the law would have an easy 
time of it. Judge Dixon declared that the wardens on 
the occasion referred to had no right to make an arrest, 
.as the law provides that they can make arrests only on a 
■warrant or when they see the law violated. In the opin- 
ion of Judge Dixon the wardens did not see the law vio- 
lated. The evidence on this point was undisputed. The 
wardens heard a shot fired near them ; they saw the 
smoke arising from the discharge of the gun and saw 
birds flying wildly about, just as they do when they have 
been shot at ; the wardens took only a few steps before 
they encountered two men with guns. Judge Dixon does 
not think this was seeing the law violated, even when the 
fact is taken into consideration that one of the men had 
birds' feathers sticking on his coat. If Judge Dixon's 
construction of the law is correct there will be few ar- 
rests made in future, for it would require remarkably 
clear ej^esight to see the shot leave the gun and strike 
the bird. This opinion of Judge Dixon is probably on a 
par with another opinion he delivered some time ago, 
which caused the Supreme Court subsequently to remark: 
"If the law is as claimed no man who respects himself 
coiUd undertake the performance of the duties of office." 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST, 
Pheasants. 
Mr.H. F. Bosworth. of Milwaukee, Wis., whom I take to 
be the largest and most successful breeder of ring-neck and 
Mongohan pheasants in this part of the country, says that 
his birds are doing very well, and that the farmers still 
continue to protect those liberated in the vicinity of Hart- 
land, Wis. Mr. Bosworth tells me that he is getting a 
great many inquiries for these birds from different parts 
of the State of Texas. The Mongolian pheasant experi- 
ment will become an industry in this country before long, 
and if it shall enforce upon the average mind the fact 
tiiat there is such a thing as protection, and such a thing 
as a creature worth protecting, then the pheasant will 
not have come to us in vain. 
Sportsmen Butchers. 
I am in receipt of a letter from Mr. M. D. Grew, of 
Portland, Ore., who speaks to the point on interesting 
subjec-S. He says: 
"Having been a reader of Forest and Stream for a 
number fo years, and knowing its liking for the mar- 
ket shooter and game hog, I thought the enclosed clip- 
pings might be of interest to you. The most of this game 
is killed and sold by sportsmen, so called, and the height 
of their ambition is to kill more than the other fellow. 
Six of us, workingmen. leased a lake to shoot on last 
fall, and our best shoot was 106 ducks, which was twenty- 
two too many. I think a dozen birds ought to be enough 
for any man in one day, especially ducks, grouse and 
pheasants. I forgot to mention that the clippings were 
from the Morning Oregonian." 
This is the right sort of talk from the right sort of a 
sportsman. The newspaper clippings referred to uncover 
rather a nasty state of affairs out in the State of Oregon, 
and I am pleased to see the most important newspaper in 
Portland is going after the so-called sportsmen, who are 
really worse than any market hunters. Personally, I do 
not believe in market hunting, but some of my best 
friends are market hunters, For the man who has means, 
and is not obHged to sell his game, but none the less does 
butcher and sell it, I have no use whatever. Here are 
excerpts from the Oregonian stories: 
"Several years ago there was quite a cry against the 
market hunter. It was alleged that good-for-nothing 
worthies put in the better part of seven days out of the 
week loafing about lakes and destroying wildfowl, and 
that the sportsman proper did not get his deserts. Very 
correct was this, but now a new evil confronts us. There 
are those who dearly love to hunt ducks. Some of these 
parties are famous shots, and rarely let a bird escape. 
There is an annual flight of ducks down the coast line of 
this continent, and a great many find their way into the 
Columbia valley, The natural food of wildfowl has been 
(thanks to a blunder of the United States Fish Commis- 
sion) largely destroyed by the carp. Before the advent 
of the carp natural food was very abundant, and if birds 
were persistently hunted, even in the mosffavored lakes, 
they soon changed their flight. The above-mentioned 
persons, in their desire for good shooting, bait certain 
spots with large amounts of grain, and as a result many 
ducks are killed. To reimburse themselves for this out- 
lay the birds are sold, and more grain is scattered. It 
soon becomes a regular business; the more grain scat- 
tered, the more birds for sale. It also becomes a sort of 
competition between the different hunters to see how 
many birds they can bag. In the writer's opinion this is 
all very wrong, and he does not think any man should be 
allowed to kill, unaided, between 1,500 and 2,000 ducks 
in the course of 'two or three months. Something must 
be done to put a stop to the slaughter, for the markets 
are more overburdened with game than they were in the 
halcyon days of long ago — in the days when any one 
could go out, and if he were a fair shot soon secure a 
few birds, the remainder of the flocks decamping to other 
feeding grotind?. ' , _^ , 5 , 
[Jan. 21, 1899. 
"Stringent means will have to be adopted or these 
'sportsmen' will soon clean us out. 
"The recent wholesale slaughter of wildfowl by Port- 
land 'sportsmen' has had the effect of overstocking the 
market with all varieties of ducks and geese, and the re- 
sult of the oversupply has been a downfall of prices. 
Yesterday a prominent Front street commission man sold 
a lot of 900 mallard and teal ducks and widgeons for a 
total of $45, or at the rate of 5 cents apiece. Another mer- 
chant disposed of a lot of 700, 100 of which were mallards, 
and the remainder teals, widgeons and. geese at 50 cents 
a dozen. Both sales were forced, for the merchants had 
either to clean up their stocks at once or find themselves 
with a lot of unsalable fowl on hand. 
"In speaking of the stagnation of the market, a mer- 
chant said that the whole trouble was caused bv Portland 
'sportsrnen,' who have been in the habit of making Sun- 
day visits to neighboring duck ponds and returning with 
bags of 300, 400 and 500. The ducks have been placed on 
the market all at once, and, together with the receipts 
from the regular country shippers, have swelled the 
stocks to such a size that frequent clean-ups have been 
necessary. The ducks sold yesterday were in fine condi- 
tion, but they had to be either sacrificed or thrown away, 
and the dealers took the former course. 
"Duck-Shooting Record Broken. — Frank Thorne, 
Frank Holcomb, M. Ellsworth, F. A. Daley and E. Bate- 
man, who shoot at Deer Island, made the biggest bag 
of ducks, Sunday, ever heard of in this section. The lake 
was skinned almost entirely over with ice. The ducks 
were driven out early in the morning and went over mto 
the Columbia. Holes were broken in the ice, and decoys 
placed out, and about 10 A. M. the ducks began coming 
back. From 10 to 12 the shooting was something won- 
derful, the ducks being anxious to get into the open water 
with the decoys. In all, 506 ducks, mostly mallards, were 
shot during the day; that is, 506 were bagged, but many 
were left on the ice which could not be retrieved, as the 
ice would not hold up a dog, and a number of wounded 
ones got away into the brush, where the minks and coons 
will attend to their cases. As usual, Thorne was high 
gun, killing about half of the 506. When he saw that 
ducks which fell on the ice could not be retrieved he shot 
so as to have his birds fall on land, and even then his 
dog was completely used up retrieving them. There were 
a great many ducks brought to market yesterday. Men 
and boys brought in sacks full of them, until no more 
could be sold. The freezing of the ponds and lakes where 
they feed is very rough on the ducks, and they soon begin 
to get thin, and if the cold lasts must either go South or 
down to the coast. There have been more ducks sent to 
this market this season than ever before, and they have 
been_ of better quality than usual, but if the cold snap con- 
continues the supply will soon be cut off. There is, how- 
ever, a large lot in cold storage, which will last for some 
time." 
Human nature is a great thing. The mart who ^readies 
usually gets himself disliked. A good many of us Hke 
to shoot, but I don't think just everybody cares to con- 
duct himself after the fashion of these Oregon fowl 
butchers. Sometimes I think the A.merican sportsman 
does not deserve any game, because he does not want to 
protect any game. 
Rapid Fire. 
A North Dakota paper, mailed me by a friend, gives 
a calm little account of sotne rapid-fire work done by 
a plain, unvarnished boy. who lived in the West, near 
Custer, and who was evidently learning how to roll a 
gun: 
"A boy twelve years old became the possessor of a 
,44cal, Winchester rifle, and placing a cigar box across 
the railroad track he began shooting at it for a mark. 
So exciting was this practice shooting that he did not 
see a hand car coming down the track, but such was 
the case, and so rapid was the working of the gun that 
he placed one ball in Mr. Englebird's shoulder, another 
ball grazed the leg of a second person, and another 
struck the tools on the car — all done while the car 
was moving the length of the cigar box," 
A Hudson Bay Knife. 
I had quite a merry Christmas this year, all things 
considered, and had occasion to reflect that I had quite 
a lot of friends on earth. One of the things that 
Santa Claus brought down the steam pipes of my flat 
was a knife. The first Christmas present that I can re- 
member in all m}^ life was that of a knife. I was then 
a beautiful boy, with trustful blue eyes and lovely yellow 
hair, I don't know how old I was, but I can remember 
it to-day. It was about the time I was wearing my 
first pair of trousers, and I was standing up trying to 
get one foot through the leg of that garment while 
I balanced on the other foot. To me entered Santa 
Claus, bearing a knife, a Barlow knife, a wonderful and 
joy-giving thing. I remember that I gasped and fell, 
giving up the attempt to negotiate the garment. From 
that time to now I presume I have perhaps had 
other knives given my by Santa Claus, but I never had 
so big a one as I got this Christmas. It was some- 
thing like a foot and a half long, and three inches across 
the blade, with a backbone like a beam and a total weight 
of a couple of pounds or so. It was in effect a regular 
Hudson Bay knife, or "Hudson Bay dagger" of the 
old buffalo days. This form of knife has been made at 
Sheffield, England, for a century or two, I presume, and 
was once a regular part of the implements of the Hud- 
son Bay man in the Northwest. It was a splendid all- 
round tool, made of excellent steel. One could cut 
down a tree with it, dig a grave with it, cut up a 
buffalo with it, or dissect his fellow man. with it, as he 
most preferred. It took the place of both butcher knife, 
skinning knife, hammer, axe and spade, and I presume 
was as useful a single tool as could well have been 
devised. The regular price which the Hudson Baj- Com- 
pany charged for this knife in the early days was twenty 
beaver skins, and it was held cheap at that. In my 
story last year of our hunt on the Blackfoot reserva- 
tion! told how our friend Billy Jackson had one of these 
old-time knives. How old it was no one knew, but it 
went far back into the buffalo days. The .steel in this 
