Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
ERMS, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 1 
Six Months, $2. J 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1899. 
f VOL. 1.1 1. -No. II. 
( No. 84<5 BRO^iJWAV, timw 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 bt 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. 
Cbe Jm%t and Stream Platform PlanK. 
"TAe sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons." 
— Forest and Stream, Feb. 3, 1894. 
CONCERNING AN EPITHET. 
The term "game hog," used as an opprobrious appella- 
tion to designate the status of him who, in the opinion of 
one or more of his fellows, kills more game than he or 
they deem to be seemly, has come into quite active use. 
As to the inelegance of it, nothing in the way of com- 
ment would serve to make it more appatent than it is. 
As to its utility, there would be much difficulty in dem- 
onstrating that it possesses any. It had its origin at a 
time when property interests in game were more or less 
loosely defined, and still more loosely guarded, so far as 
legal restrictions were concerned. There were those wlio 
sought to use contumely as a substitute for legal restric- 
tion. The man who killed, in the opinion of some other 
fellow, more game than he should have killed, was by the 
latter considered a proper subject for public execration. 
Many who were zealous in execrating the game hog, so 
called, were actuated by the best of motives. Many more 
were open to the suspicion of aiming to check others 
that they might be the gainers themselves. In any case, 
the term conveys nothing of a persuasive or convincing 
nature when used as a text or an expression of contempt. 
Its use and the intemperate language which many times 
accompanied it, were much more likely to retard the 
awakening of public opinion in favor of game protection 
than to influence it favorably. A code of ethics which 
seems to serve as a vehicle to carry an elaborate stock 
of- invective, reviling and denunciation, a reflex of the 
temper and idiosyncrasies of the individual rather than the 
zeal of a class seeking to establish a good cause, is not 
one which readily appeals to public favorable considera- 
tion. When the term "game hog" is used as a text 
wherewith to express malice, bitterness and uncharitable- 
ness, it is much more likely to prejudice the interests of 
sportsmen than to benefit them. 
The objection may be made that the use of the term - 
"game hog" and the general odium which it brought to the 
class it was intended to designate, had a beneficent effect 
in arousing public opinion and in establishing necessary 
legislation. It is a more reasonable assumption that the 
ill-tempered arguments retarded both. The gentlemen 
who took an active lead in game legislation did not pre- 
sent a bill whose substance was denunciation of the 
"game hog," nor were their arguments conducted on such 
lines. They showed that such laws were for the gen- 
eral public good. 
Much of what is intended as good effort in heaping 
disgrace on the "game hog" is ill-advised and worse 
considered. The opinion of one man is a very poor 
warrant for him to denounce his fellow who holds a 
contrary opinion. The "holier than thou" premises are 
not always the best on which to base action. The stand- 
ards of one man are not necessarily the standards of all 
other men. The amount of game which one man may kill 
with perfect propriety at one time and place may be 
wholly improper at some other time and place. Fifty 
birds in Mississippi or Louisiana in a day would be far 
less relatively than five would be in Connecticut. Fifty 
birds night serve to supply one man with an abundance of 
game; the same amount might be wholly inadequate for 
the needs of another. One man might shoot one day in 
the year and kill one hundred birds; another man might 
shoot ten days and kill ten birds on each day, so that the 
sum total which each one took was the same; yet the 
ten-bird man might feel that he was warranted in de- 
nouncing his fellow as a "game hog." A farmer might kill 
all tlie game on his own land, and if it was his opinion 
that he was doing what was right, the repetition of 
"game hog" ad infinitum would not serve as any argu- 
ment in convincing him that be'was wrong, though it 
might arouse a belief that he had reduced to possession 
what the other fellow wanted. Or, if a man who, after 
years of effort, should have a great day and actually kill 
more than was proper, why should all charity be for- 
saken? Why should so many men feel that he is proper 
prey for their intemperate denunciation? 
Aside from the restrictions imposed by the laws, the 
amount of game which a man may kill with propriety is 
largely a matter of personal opinion. Within the legal 
restrictions, the amount which he may properly kill is 
an established fact. It then is out of the realm of per- 
sonal opinion. 
The "game hog" is not in the least changed by abuse. 
If he practice what he believes to be right, abuse rather 
confirms than changes his convictions. If he knows that 
he is wrong, abuse engenders a feeling of resentment and 
defiance. The best doctrine is that of universal crood to all. 
If there; are individuals who are harmful in game destruc- 
tion, let the rnovement be toward passing the necessary 
laws and their enforcement. The bandying of names be- 
tween man and man does harm instead of good. A gen- 
eral movement toward legal restrictions which would be 
to the good of all is the proper solution of the game 
problem. Without such general public opinion, there is 
no tangible standard of guidance. Without public opin- 
ion to support it, a law is a dead letter, even if it is a 
part of the statutes. 
SALE OF FISH IN CLOSE TIME. 
A PRESS dispatch from Buffalo, N. Y., under date of 
March 8, reported that Justice Lambert, in the Supreme 
Court, had rendered a decision declaring that the New 
York law prohibiting in close season the sale of pike or 
pickerel caught outside of the State was unconstitutional. 
And it was added that under this ruling dealers would 
have the right to handle these species in the close time. 
The reported decision has of course excited much inter- 
est; for it was at once manifest that the principle involved 
in this particular fish case would apply also to other spe- 
cies of fishes and to game as well. Moreover, the de- 
cision as reported was directly opposed to that of the 
Phelps vs. Racey case in New York, the Magner case in 
Illinois, the Geer vs. State of Connecticut case in the 
United States Supreme Court, and other, by all of which 
precedents the principle has been established that it is 
within the constitutional province of the State not only 
to forbid the taking of game and fish at certain times, but 
to forbid the sale during such periods of fish and game 
taken within the State or brought into it from other 
States or from foreign sources. In view of this, it ap- 
peared improbable that Justice Lambert would have ven- 
tured any such decision as was reported. And he had 
not. 
An action was brought against the Buffalo #Fish 
Company some ten months ago by the Chief Game Pro- 
tector for the People to recover penalties for the posses- 
sion of fish in close season. When the defendants served 
their answer the People demurred to it on the ground 
that points raised in it were foreign to the allegations in 
the People's complaint. The decision just rendered is 
simply an overruling of the demurrer and puts the matter 
into condition for the People to appeal to the Appellate 
Division for the purpose of presenting the question raised 
by the demurrer to that court. 
Any declaration, then, that the unconstitutionality of the 
law forbidding sale in close season has been ruled is 
premature. More than this, there is no probability of 
such a decision being rendered. ^ the contrary, as we 
have already said, the power of the State to prohibit pos- 
session and sale in close season is one of the most firmly 
established and most widely recognized principles of 
game protection. 
ALASKA, THE ADIRONDACKS AND MAINE. 
The possession of liquor is forbidden by law in Alaska. 
When a Yukon-bound prospector reaches Skagway the 
customs officer shakes his valise to detect the presence of 
liquid within, and if the forbidden article is found it is 
confiscated and the prospector is so harried by threats 
of delay and other blackmailing devices brought to a high 
stage of perfection by the Government officials, that he 
"gives up" whatever sum will satisfy the cormorants and 
goes on his way rejoicing that he has fared no worse. 
And all the while, in the saloons of Skagway, as every- 
where else in the Territory, whisky is flowing like water, 
and the liquor traffic is open, free and boisterous. It is 
in view of such a condition of affairs that Governor. 
Brady is urging the adoption of a liquor license law for 
Alaska. A regulated traffic in liquor, he argues, would 
be preferable to the present unrestricted sale under a law 
which is not enforced. 
The most significant fact contained in the report printed 
dsewhere of an interview with Adirondack guides con- 
cerning the hounding law is that of a change of attitude 
toward the law by persons who believe in the wisdom 
of prohibiting the use of hounds, but who declare against 
a prohibitory statute which does not prohibit and because 
it does not prohibit. "We believe in forbiddin-^ hounds," 
these men declare, "but open, legalized hounding could 
not be more destructive than the hounding which is ille- 
gal, but as general as hounding before the enactment of 
the law." This is to say that the Adirondack non-hound- 
ing law is a farce, and a law Which is a farce is worse 
than no law at all. The guide who on this ground advo- 
cates a law to permit hounding simply adopts for the 
Adirondacks the argument Governor Brady makes for the 
Alaska situation. 
A third illustration of this demoralizing influence of a 
law which is not enforced is afforded by Maine, where 
the summer killing of deer is prohibited in theory, but in 
practice hosts of deer are killed every summer. The 
Maine Fish and Game Commissioners acknowledge this, 
and have proposed as a-substitute for prohibition which 
does not prohibit a license system, whereby summer vis- 
itors may purchase the legal right to do what they now 
do and would continue to do illegally.. 
In Alaska, the Adirondacks and Maine human nature is 
all of one piece. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Among recent visitors at the Forest and Stream of- 
fice was Maj. T. G. Dabney, of Mississippi, who, over 
the familiar signature of Coahoma, has an ever ready 
word in behalf of the amiable qualities of the snake. The 
word was spoken this time for the moccasin, which, Maj. 
Dabney tell us, he has found a most inoffensive serpent, 
and one which, in repeated experiments and the giving of 
much provocation, he had failed to induce to strike. 
From Quebec comes Com. J. U. Gregory, to whom so 
many American sportsmen have been indebted in years 
past for courtesies shown them in their search for Cana- 
dian fishing waters and hunting grounds. As an illus- 
tration of the growing tendency of shooters and fisher- 
men to take up preserves, Mr. Gregory reports that the 
Tourili Club, of which he was one of the founders, 
and which is made up of Canadians and Americans, en- 
joys possession of a territory which practically is bound- 
less. As we have said, Mr. Gregory has been for a 
quarter-century making pleasant the way of the sports- 
man from the United States, and he has done this largely 
through his lasting relations with the Forest and 
Stream; and that reminds us of a little angling incident 
on a Canadian river some thirty years ago. Two anglers, 
who were entire strangers, were fishing for trout from 
opposite sides of a pool, when it happened that in casting 
their lines became entangled, and a momentary embar- 
rassment ensued, i^ickly to be dissolved, however, when 
the casts were parted. One of the men was Chas. Hal- 
lock; the other was Mr. Gregory. The acquaintance thus 
begun ripened into friendship, and when, shortly thereafter, 
Mr. Hallock projected the Forest and Stream he found 
in Mr. Gregory a warm supporter of the enterprise; and 
from that accidental tangling of fly-fishing casts on a back- 
woods stream in Canada came an association which has 
endured to the present day. 
Among the multitudinous attractions New York city 
has for visitors is the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, with its superb collections. We have reason to 
suspect that the Museum is not so well known as it should 
be to many who are interested in natural history, and 
this hint will be acceptable to those who have oppor- 
tunity to avail themselves of it. 
Superintendent Colvin, of the New York State Adiron- 
dack Survey, has issued a statement, showing that the 
holdings of the State within the forest preserve are 1,058,- 
444 acres, while 20,169 acre^ have been contracted for. 
