Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
---^^'i^iJ^--;,Jl^^'-^-'^-\ NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1900. \ ho. mB^l:ol-.^%^''^o.. 
THE MINNESOTA PARK. 
What are the Minnesota National Park people trying 
to do? . 
They are trying to influence Congress to retain for the 
nation at large a pleasure ground covered with stately pines 
and many oaks, maples and cedars, in which are three 
great lakes— Cass, Leech and Winnebigoshish— seventy 
smaller lakes and numberless small streams, feeders to 
the Mississippi River, which latter meanders through the 
tract. The waters of this region have abounded in fish 
for thousands of years and do abound to-day. These 
woods harbor deer and moose by the thousand, and will 
do so for all time if preserved. 
The Government owns this laAd, subject to certain 
Indian rights. The lumbermen of Minnesota, through 
the efforts of certain State representatives in Washington, 
are trying to force through a measure known as the Nel- 
srn bill, which practically will rob the Indian of the 
tin-ber and then drive him off the reservation. 
The park proposition involves the taking over of the 
timber and land, at proper valuation, by the Government 
and the payment quarterly of the interest on such valua- 
tion to the Indians; the leaving of the Indians unmolested 
c-n the reservation with land allotted to them upon which 
to live. The Government, it is proposed, shall step in 
and go to the necessary expense in building roads and 
making other necessary improvements. Yearly the Gov- 
ernment, under well-known forestry rules, shall cut the 
mature timber only. This would mean a perpetual cut- 
t-ng of the timber and a perpetual replenishment. The 
natural attractions of the park, the primitive life of the 
Indian resident tribes and the magnificent fishing, all will 
tend to make this a resort second not even to the Adi- 
rondacks or Maine woods and lakes. 
In preserving these woods the Government would be 
Ijrotecting the very source of the Mississippi River — the 
reservoir, in fact — that runs through a valley to which 
it is estimated 31,000,000 inhabitants to-day are con- 
tiguous. 
BIRDS AND FEATHERS. 
A MEETING of the feather workers of New York was 
held on Friday of last week to protest against the enact- 
ment by Congress of the Hoar bird bill. This meas- 
ure forbids importation into the United States of birds, 
feathers or parts of birds for ornamental purposes or for 
any purpose except for food. The protestants prepared 
a set of resolutions setting forth the milliners' side of the 
case. It was contended that the birds of which the feath- 
ers are principally Used in millinery are barnyard fowl, 
pigeons, crows and game birds; and it was represented 
that inasmuch as fashions are constantly changing, the 
siyle which in one season demands plumes of gulls and 
egrets will in another season call for some other birds and 
so give the gulls and egrets a chance to replenish their 
stock. If, as submitted, the feathers chiefly used are those 
of domestic fowl, the millinery establishments need not 
particularly concern themselves to oppose the enactment 
of the bill, for the domestic fowl is clearly not included 
in the intent or language of the act. If, on the other 
hand, the feathers used are those of wild birds, whether 
.game or otherwise, there is every reason for the adop- 
tion of the law to discourage the destruction of these 
species for millinery supply purposes. 
A pertinent comment upon the situation is found in a 
1 eport sent to the State Department by Minister Conjer 
from Pekin. who tells us that upon a petition of the 
Society for the Protection of Game in China, sent through 
the consular body in Shanghai, the diplomatic corps unan- 
imously requested the Tsungli Yamen. as a temporary 
measure, to prohibt the exportation of pheasant skins. 
This was done because a great demand had recently- 
sprung up in European markets for their plumage, which 
increased the price in China inordinately, and the birds 
\\ ere consequently being so ruthlessly slaughtered that, 
if it were not in some way stopped, the pheasants would 
very soon have been entirely exterminated. The TsungH 
Yamen granted the request, and the necessary orders to 
the customs officials have been issued. This is under- 
stood to be onh"- a temporary expedient which m^ay serve 
until there can be prescribed and enforced some rules and 
regulations in regard to close and hunting seasons, which 
will otherwise avert the extermination of these beautiful 
birds, which are very valuable to (he Chinese and the 
foreigners living in China, btit of no great importance 
elsewhere. 
Thus in China, one of the last countries on earth we 
would look to for a lesson in game protection, recourse 
has been had to the same expedient which has proved 
the salvation of the game supply in more than one of our 
own States— the prohibition of the shipment to market. 
OUT OF PAWN. 
A CURIOUS find of ancient arms was made in this city 
the other day when a collection of unredeemed pawn 
shop pledges was brought out from a stable loft, where 
it had been gathering dust for years. When the boxes 
were opened they were found to contain articles which, 
as the tickets showed, had been pledged between tl'ke years 
1841 and 1851. It was a curiosity shop of antiques- 
clothing of styles long ago forgotten, musical in strum ex-:ts, 
mechanics' tools, household effects, and along with the 
rest no less than sixty fowling pieces. These were flint- 
locks and muzzle-loading percussion locks. Some of the 
old arms are elaborately engraved and are handsome spec- 
imens of the gunmaker's art. In their day they must have 
embodied the perfection of firearms. We may well believe 
that in the case of more than one of these pledges it was 
only some dire necessity and the cruelty of fate that 
compelled the possessor reluctantly to part with it for the 
pitiable fraction of its worth received in exchange. The 
owner of a good gun had abtnidant use for it in the 
forties. There was game galore, and one had no need to 
travel to the ends of the earth to find it. Right here on 
Manhattan Island in the middle of the century there was 
shooting on lands still wild where' at the century's close 
are blocks of houses and miles of asphalt streets. The 
unfortunate individual who pawned his shotgun in the 
forties, however lively his fancy may have been, could 
hardly have dreamed that when it should come forth 
again to the light of day, this piece of gunnery, perfect 
in its time would emerge among the sportsmen of a 
generation by whom it would be regarded only as an 
antique. Is it possible that if any of the up-to-date guns 
which are put into pawn to-daj^ — if perchance such trans- 
actions there be — shall remain unredeemed for a half 
century, they too will then come forth to be regarded as 
curiosities only and to serve for ornament and not for 
use, antiquated reminders of what the sportsmen of 1900 
were equipped with as compared witli the perfected arms 
of 1950? 
CADDIES. 
The report comes from a Connecticut town, where 
sundry factory strikes are in progress, that the caddies 
of the local golf club, having caught the infection and 
"gone out" with a demand for increased pay, spend their 
days jeering the players, who are compelled, perforce, to 
lug their own clubs and chase their own balls over the 
links. The caddy is a product of the great game deserv- 
ing of some attention. He constitutes a new element in 
the community, and is developing traits which are some- 
times the despair of parents and teachers and employers. 
It happens in numerous instances where golf gives em- 
ployment and remuneration to numbers of boys and girls 
that the employment is so congenial and the remuneration 
so generous that the children become demoralized and 
uncontrollable by ordinary methods. They persistently 
play truant, and it is simply impossible to keep them in 
school, They shirk ordinary work with contempt, be- 
cause for the service on the links they receive pay in excess 
of what could be earned at any regular occupation, and 
are given gratuities which bear no reasonable relation 
to the value of the services rendered. This is demoraliz- 
ing, because it instils in the minds of the young 
when they are at a receptive age the notion that it is 
right to get something for nothing, and the converse 
principle that it is desirable to do as Httle as possible for 
as much as possible. The system of lavish rewards for 
services rendered is such that it instils contempt for 
the hard-earned remuneration of common industry, and 
one effect of the S}''stem is to train up a class of spongers 
and paupers. It is not a wise bringing up. The teachings 
must be unlearned if the caddy is ever to get down to a 
business basis of earning a living, and if. when his caddy ap- 
prenticeship is ended, he shall reconcile himself to doing 
an honest day's work for an honest price. For the pre- 
vailing conditions the caddy cannot be blamed; it is his 
misfortune that, being young, he can knovy no better, and 
that having- in him the making of an honest man he 
should be made a parasite. 
The golf caddy is only one type of a large class of 
those whose notions of the value of their services are 
exaggerated by reason of the complaisant generosity of 
their employers. The man of limited or moderate means 
finds a growing expensiveness in sport, wherever the 
personal services of others are involved, and for this he 
has to thank his fellows who can afford to spend their 
money with a free hand. The wages demanded by boat- 
men and guides are often out of all reason; but they are 
fixed not so much by a determination of actual desert as 
by the scale of reward wealthy employers have been 
prompted to pay. If one is planning a moose hunting 
expedition into the wilds of Timbuctoo, he very likely 
discovers that the unreasonable cost of the expedition 
has been determined for him by sundry hunters who have 
preceded him, and who out of their abundance have paid 
in wages and gratuities a sum which may for him mean 
actual embarrassment. This is to make sport a luxury- 
something it should not be. 
ZONES. 
We print to-day anew a proposed system of uniforrn 
game laws to be adopted for application- to certain de- 
fined zones of latitude embracing the United States and 
Canada. This is not a novel proposition. It was sug- 
gested in 1873 by Mr. Chas. Hallock and his associates, 
who at that time involved a very complete system and 
won for it very general - approval and acceptance. The 
proposition failed then and has failed repeatedly since, 
although often brought to the front. The failure has been 
due to a lack of any competent body to put the plan into 
operation. There is no central authority which can des- 
ignate zones of uniform laws and then secure the enact- 
ment of the laws to cover the zones. It is simple enough 
to gather representatives of different parts of the country 
together in national sportsmen's conventions and to re- 
solve that for each section a certain system of seasons 
should prevail. It is quite another thing, and hitherto 
it has been proved to be an impracticable thing, to put 
the resolutions into eftect. There is little reason to hope 
for uniformity in larger degree than such as may be 
achieved with groups of adjoining States. It will be re- 
called that a few years ago an endeavor was made by 
conferences of the fish and game commissioners of the 
New England States to secure for that limited geograph- 
ical area a system of uniform seasons; but the result was 
never achieved. The North American Game and Fish 
Protective Association, which was formed in Quebec 
last winter, has, we believe, undertaken to accomplish 
something in the same direction, to make uniform the 
laws of the Provinces and States which adjoin them. 
For the most part the membership of the Association is 
made up of those who are best informed respecting the 
necessities of game legislation, and many of the members 
are in positions of influence and authority; the outlook 
for some actual attainment here is therefore unusually 
bright But as for a .system of uniform game laws cover- 
ing any large territory of the country, we believe that it 
must be counted among those things which are Utopian 
and beyond attainment. 
MASSACHUSETTS. 
We print in full as an expression of principles which 
have a bearing much wider than in their application to 
Massachusetts the able argument made by Mr. Heman 
S. Fay before the Legislative Committee ont Fisheries and 
Game in support of the bill to prohibit the sale of game 
birds. The argument is in effect a contention for the 
preservation of an article whose perpetuation is asked 
for the benefit of the people at large as against a class, 
and a small class. It has come to this in Massachusetts, 
that the continued pursuit of the partridge for the mar- 
ket has reached a point where the existence of the bird 
is imperiled. Under such conditions no expedient may 
reasonably be neglected which can change the course of 
things which threaten the extinction of the bird. All 
logic and experience point to the prohibition of the sale 
as a solution of the problem. The various facts stated 
by Mr. Fay and the deductions drawn from them are 
impossible of refutation. It is sincerely to be hoped 
that the cause which he so well represetits may prevail 
with the present Lggislature, 
