Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1809, by Forest and Stream Poblkhing Co. 
TERMS, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1899. {no. 376°Bi.-OABWA7,'NE4> 
Six Months, $2. \ > » ' , 
The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertain- 
nient, instruction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications oi: 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 dub rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iv. 
Considef but the tudiment of a tall and um- 
brageous tfee^ from so minute a seed as may be 
bof ne away by every blast. 
Evelyn^ True Religion, I., 29. 
This number, which is the first of tlie fifty-third volume, 
gives occasion to remark anew on our weekly issues, with 
their never-failing supply of material which is notable 
for quantity and quality. When the Forest and Stream 
was established in 1873, it was with the first number 
pledged to a cause. "The object of this journal," wrote 
Mr. Hallock, "will be to studiously promote a healthful 
interest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects." This purpose has ever since 
been held in view. The Forest and Stream has been 
the representative organ of the field sportsinanship of the 
country. It has constituted a medium for expression of 
the sentiment of sportsmen; an advocate of their rights, 
privileges and interests. What better adjunct may be 
wished for in the make-up of one equipped for securing 
success in the various pursuits of life than that he should 
have the sportsman's taste for the outdoor life of the 
forest and the stream? and for one thus endowed how 
haply shall he supplement his outing experiences more 
profitably and enjoy ably than to have the Forest and 
Stream for his home companion? 
SAIL, SEA AND SKY. 
The condition of the sport of yachting, as known to 
the world at large at the present time, is fitly described 
by the term fin de siecle. Wherever one reads of yacht- 
ing, and it is just now impossible to pick up a paper or a 
magazine without finding some allusion to it, but one 
story is told, that of reckless extravagance in the wild 
chase for extreme speed. The side of the sport which 
is brought into exclusive prominence in thej public prints 
is hardly an ideal one— two men of vast wealth are striv- 
ing to outdo each other in a contest in which neither 
takes a personal part except to the extent of paying the 
bills, while the great body of yachtsmen look on from the 
outside as mere casual spectators. Such details as are 
deemed worthy of publication set forth how much larger 
each of the competitors is' than any previous yacht, how 
much more sail she carries, how much faster she is ex- 
pected to be, how much more she has cost and how each 
rival owner is outdoing the other in incidental extrava- 
gance^ such as the buying or building of steam yachts and 
the chartering of ocean steamers. It is impossible to read 
anything relating to the one great event about which the 
yachting of the year is centered without coming to the 
conclusion that it is money first and sport a long, long 
way afterward. 
The beautiful picture which forms our supplement this 
week bears silent but effective testimony to another side 
of the sport, which fortunately exists, though obscured 
for the time both to the general and the yachting public. 
The photograph here engraved speaks eloquently of 
the peace, the freedom and the content which are the 
natural accompaniments of the noble sport of yachting. 
The sail — that silent servant that transports man, not 
like the shuttle, thrown noisily and rapidly back and 
forth in one fixed track, but with an uncertainty of speed 
and course which are of themselves fascinating and rest- 
ful. The sea — ^the free and open pathway to all parts, the 
rest and refuge of tired man from the earliest days, but 
never so much so as now, when the whole face of the 
earth is girdled and gridironed by the express train and 
the clanging, whirring electric "trolley." The sky — 
hidden from the unfortunate dweller in the cities, or seen 
but as a narrow ribbon of blue between the deep and 
narrow walls of a great stone chasm, but to the yachts- 
man a vast hemisphere bounded only by the level sea, 
both of them free to him in every quarter. 
With every new convenience and luxury of modern 
invention comes an increasing complication of life which 
ties man more closely to a beaten track as long as he 
bears a foot on the shore, and makes still more welcome 
and grateful to him the very different life that is opened 
to him through the sport of yachting. 
Among the many attractive features of the sport, that 
of racing must always hold a prominent place; it is after 
a day of hard work with brain and hand against a keen 
adversary that the dinner on board tastes best and a 
narrow berth seems a bed of down; or after a week of 
racing that one comes back with renewed zest to the 
quieter pleasures of cruising. The tendency of the day, 
however, is to exalt racing from its true position as a 
useful auxiliary of yachting life, to the sole end and aim 
of all yachting ; and to establish the racing machine as the 
one ideal yacht, to the exclusion of the cruising craft. 
The racing is no longer a question of relative speed be- 
tween evenly matched yachts and skippers of equal skill, 
but the one end in view is the production of a single 
3'acht which shall attain a speed hitherto unknown. To 
this end all other interests of yachting are sacrificed, until 
the actual harm to the sport at large is even greater than 
the phenomenal advances in speed within the past five 
years. The sight of a modern 90-footer, at anchor or un- 
der way, is one that inspires a feeling of wonder and 
admiration at the perfection of finish and of mechanical 
detail, as well as the marvelous speed. At the same time 
the feeling is inevitable that the yachting which these 
craft are capable of is a very different sort of sport from 
that of a dozen years ago, when yachts were slower and 
less elaborate and costly, but the racing was equally as 
keen and much more general. The whole future of the 
sailing yacht hinges on the question that after five years 
or more is apparently as far from a solution as ever : shall 
j'achts be built solely for racing, or shall they be built 
for yachting and used for racing within moderate and 
reasonable limitations ? 
THE BALTIMORE GAME CASES. 
The decisions handed down by the Maryland Court 
of Appeals last week in the Baltimore game selling 
cases were precisely what were to have been looked for 
by all persons familiar with the points at issue. The 
game commission men were simply threshing over old 
straw. They had set up claims to privileges which had 
been repeatedly denied by the highest courts of several 
States, and thus they offered a new opportunity for estab- 
lishing only more firmly the principles involved. 
It was the old question of the right to sell in close 
season game imported from another State, when such 
traffic is specifically forbidden by the statutes. The par- 
ticular provision involved was one secured by the Mary- 
land Game and Fish Protective Association, in the law of 
1898, reading as follows : 
15 F. No person shall have in possession, expose for sale, sell or 
buy any of the aforesaid birds or game animals alive or dead, in 
said city of Baltimore, or in any of the aforesaid respective counties, 
during the aforesaid respective closed seasons, or dates, between 
which, in said city .or counties, it is made unlawful, by the pre- 
ceding sections of this Act, to shoot or have the same in posses- 
sion, whether such birds or game animals so had in possession, 
exposed for sale, sold or bought, shall have been shot, or in any 
manner caught or killed in that county, or in any other county 
of this State, or in any other State, Territory or country, under a 
penalty for the having in possession, exposing for sale, selling 
or buying of each such bird or game animal, similar in amount, 
respectively, to that hereinbefore made and provided for the illegal 
shooting- or having in possession of the same; bvit nothing in 
this' section or the preceding sections contained shall be so con- 
strued as to prevent any person or corporation from having in his 
or its possession, at any time, any live birds or game animals, for 
the purpose of stocking lands in this State. 
The dealers resented this restriction; they held a mass 
meeting to denounce it; formed an association to fight 
it, and carried to the Court of Appeals the test cases of 
State of Maryland vs. Stevens, and State of Maryland 
vs. Rice, in both of which the main issue was as to the 
constitutionality of the law. The familiar contention was 
made that restriction of traffic in game imported from 
another State is an interference with interstate com- 
merce, the regulation of which is by the Constitution of 
the United States intrusted exclusively to the co'ntrol of 
Congress. 
To make the test more perfect and to take advantage 
of the original package decisions, in one of the cases the 
game had been sold in the original package as received 
from another State. 
The Court sustained the findings of the lower courts as 
to the unrestricted authority of the State to adopt what- 
ever measures might be deemed necessary for the regula- 
tion of the taking and traffic in game, to conserve the 
native supply within its borders. It was hdd that the 
interstate commerce clause did not apply. 
As we have said, these decisions are but the formulating 
in Maryland of principles which have been enunciated re- 
peatedly by the courts of last resort elsewhere. One case 
notable because one of the earliest of the kind, and be- 
cause it has had a marked eflect upon legislation ever 
since, was that of Phelps vs. Racey, in New York, in the 
early seventies. J. H, Racey was a game dealer in New 
York City who had in possession several hundred quail 
in cold storage in the close season, and in violation of the 
statute. The New York Society for the Protection of 
Game, through its President, Royal Phelps, brought suit 
to recover the penalty and did recover it. The case then 
went on appeal to the highest court, which found in favor 
of the Association, and established the principle which has 
held from that day to this, that a law forbidding the 
sale of game in close time, whether the game was killed 
in the State or outside of it, is not in conflict with the 
constitutional provision that Congress alone shall regulate 
interstate commerce. The full text of the decision is 
contained in the July number of Woodcraft, as one of the 
series of "Game Law Test Cases" which is in course of 
publication in that magazine. 
In fact the precedents were all against the Baltimore 
market men. A review of the game legislation of the 
last quarter-century and of the judicial interpretations of 
that legislation and of the principles governing it for 
the same period will convince any student of the subject 
of these two facts: 
(1) That there is a growing tendency on the part of 
the legislative branch to assert the State's full control of 
game and fish and to embody in legislation a more and 
more strict exercise of such control; and 
(2) That the courts will uphold the constitutionality 
of such regulations. This is manifest in the repeated 
rulings of different States, and if one shall look to the 
Supreme Court of the United States it will be found 
there that the ruling principles have had full enunciation 
in the well-known case of Geer vs. State of Connecticut, 
the decision in which is reported in full in the April 
number of the Woodcraft Magasine. 
The basic principle is this, that the game of the State 
belongs to the State, that is to say, to the entire people of 
the State; and it is for them to say when, how and for 
what purposes the game may be taken by the individual. 
The State may further regulate the sale of game, with- 
out regard to its origin, in any way essential to the con- 
servation of its own native supply. It is said that the 
Baltimore dealers will appeal to the Supreme Court of the 
United States. We have been for some years looking 
for some public spirited dealers in game who would take 
this question to Washington. There can be but one out- 
come of such a proceeding; it will re-establish and con- 
firm the rulings of the State courts. 
The prosecutions out of which these cases grew were 
instituted by the Maryland Game and Fish Protection 
Association, through its President, Mr. Geo. Dobbin Pen- 
niman, who argued the cases with Attorney-General 
Gaither and State's Attorney Duffy. We congratulate 
the Association upon the outcome. 
It is a pleasure to record that Rhode Island now has a 
game commission, and that the Governor has named a 
board of commissioners who have the confidence of the 
sportsmen. We look for a new order of things in the 
grouse districts. The measure was introduced by Senator 
Reiner. Another excellent amendment made by the Gen- 
eral Assembly was one forbidding the sale of squirrels and 
rabbits in close season. This was the unlooked for out- 
come of an endeavor by the market men to have legalized 
the sale of all game in close season. Mr. Chas. D. Kim- 
ball, a member of the House, deserves much credit for 
his activity in opposing the dealers' bill. 
The annual meeting of the American Fisheries Society 
was held at Niagara Falls this week on Wednesday and 
Thursday. 
