Forest AND Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
TeRMS, $4 A Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 2 3, 1901. 
{ 
VOL. LVI.— No. 21. 
No. 846 Broadway, Nkw Yor 
Cbe forest ana Stream's Platform PlanK. 
*^The sale of game should be prohibited at all seasons^' 
NAILS DRIVEN IN 1901.— No. VIII. 
CONNECTICUT. 
File Niffl. 397. — For a period of two years after tlie passage of tiiis act miji 
person shalJ sell or have in possession, with intent to sell or exchange, 
any rufied ^jiouse called partridge, quail, or woodcocli. 
A CRUEL INJUSTICE. 
A CASE of terrible hardship and grave injustice is seen 
in the case of a young Cheyenne Indian named Little 
Whirlwind, now serving a life sentence in the Montana 
State Penitentiary for a murder of which he is absolutely 
^innocent. 
The facts in the case are these : About five years agO' 
;a sheep herder named Hoover was killed on the borders 
lof the Tongue River reservation in Montana. His body 
was not found for some time after hi^, death, but when 
found the indications were that he had been killed by an 
Indian. Not long after, a Chej^enne known as Stanley, 
who had served in Lieutenant Casey's company of scouts, 
and had been discharged therefrom as mentally unbal- 
anced, acknowledged to his own people that he had killed 
the white man and had done it alone. He was arrested 
and held for trial. Pressure was brought on him to 
implicate other members of the tribe in the murder. Un- 
der the belief that if a number of men were convicted 
Stanley's punishment would be lighter, some of his rela- 
tives devised a plan for implicating two other Indians 
named Spotted Hawk and Little Whirlwind in the crime. 
Spotted Hawk was first tried, and on testimony since 
proved to have been perjured, was convicted and sentenced 
to be hung. Stanley, the confessed murderer, was con- 
victed and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Little 
Whirlwind Avas convicted of murder in the second degree 
and received a life sentence. No attention whatever was 
paid to the testimon'y of a dozen witnesses to prove an 
alibi for Spotted Hawk and Little Whirlwind. 
Since the trials, the sole witness for the prosecution — 
except Stanley — has confessed that his testimony was 
perjured, while Stanley, the real murderer, died in prison, 
but before his death made a statement that he alone had 
committed the crime, and that Little Whirlwind had 
nothing whatever to do with it. 
In the case of Spotted Hawk, the Supreme Court of 
Montana decided that he must have a new trial, as he 
was convicted on insufficient evidence, and the county 
authorities, recognizing T:hat they had no case against him, 
set him free. Counsel for Little Whirlwind, however, 
had failed to take the necessai"y steps to perfect his case 
so that a new trial could be asked for, and he, an innocent 
man, is now serving a life sentence with no legal remedy 
and with no hope of regaining his freedom, except through 
a pardon by the Governor. 
The case has been investigated by the Indian Rights 
Association, by two or three of Montana's most eminent 
lawyers, and by one or two private individuals. It has 
been shown beyond the shadow of a peradventure that the 
young man is absolutely innocent. Literature giving the 
facts in the case may be had of the Association, 1305 
Arch street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
The case was presented last year to Governor Smith, a 
politician who feared to make himself unpopular among a 
certain element in Montana bitterly hostile to the In- 
dians, and he declined to act. 
In January last the matter was brought to the attention 
of the newly elected Governor, was by him received and 
its consideration promised. Governor Toole is a man of 
far greater breadth than his predecessor and one of far 
greater force. His long and creditable career in Con- 
gress justifies tlie belief that, in this matter he will not 
be influenced by the petty prejudices of a special locality 
of the great State he governs. But the case should be 
acted on. The days which pass so swiftly to men occu- 
pied in life's struggle, move slowly for him who is con- 
fined behind prison bars. It may seem natural enough to 
put over from week to week and from month to month a 
matter where the individual interested is only an Indian, 
but the injustice is not less grave, the Governor's duty to 
right a wrong not less imperative, because the man belongs 
to a subject race. 
It is but a few years since the whole civilized world was 
interested in an injustice done to a French officer, and was 
t;lamoring for the righting of his wrongs. Public opinioR 
at length brought partial relief to his suffering, and 
Dreyfus was pardoned. Little Whirlwind has suffered 
as long as the Frenchman, but he still waits for justice. 
Far away on the northern Cheyenne reservation his old 
mother, his wife and his little children cannot understand 
why the white men will not permit the return of him who 
is so dear to them, and who is known by all to be innocent 
of .any crime. 
SWEEPSTAKE SHOOTING. 
While all forms of sport which make men stronger, 
braver and physically and mentally better, both as private 
individuals and as valuable units in the social system, have 
their beneficent uses, there is no special part of them which 
is of more universal interest than sport which refers to 
marksmanship. From time immemorial, all peoples, 
whether civihzed or otherwise, have highly prized a pro- 
ficiency in the use of arms. Such denoted an enviable 
pre-eminence in the skill and usefulness of the individual 
and a further valuable quality as a safeguard for the 
community. To be eminent as a distinguished marksman 
carried with it high honors in the esteem of all nations. 
If we consider the universality of the need of marksman- 
ship, the esteem in which it is held through all history, and 
nts usefulness as a form of individual training, we observe 
xhat it possesses within itself all the essentials of per- 
manency. 
However, with a higher civilization there has been im- 
iported into the more peaceful forms of marksmanship 
contests, known as trapshooting, an element of betting, 
designated :es sweepstakes. There is by the sweepstake 
ttilius iiitrod^Ked a question as to both skill and nioney. 
In a h'xs public tournament the matter of the sweep- 
stake cawi do but little harm, for such intrinsically is a 
competilion for the prizes, and should appeal only to the~ 
test slax^ts, those who have graduated through all the 
iimteam-ediate schools, as it were. But the sweepstake of 
the public tournament is often adopted as the 
true standard for conducting the competition of the home 
cldb.. Events are arranged with entrance at a fixed 
amount, sweepstake shooting, the surplus money, after 
frayimg for the^price of targets, to be divided among the 
laigher classes or the higher guns. The average shooter 
may m?t be able to point a gun with deadly accuracy. He 
may 1)e a novice in shooting and yet be an expert in 
fignrcs.. He observes that he, as a club member, in the 
matter of sweepsltaikes is what is colloquially known as a 
"'producer." He puts up his money with a hope that the 
unexpected may happen in his behalf, while some other 
fellows or fellow puts up the money with a knowledge that 
steady skill will defeat luck in the long run. The per- 
sistency of the novice under such conditions is only a 
question of enthusiasm, of intelligence, of financial means. 
Whenever the novice as a class begins to lag, there is then 
a readjustment in Ihe way of systems for dividing the 
moneys. There are most pleasing mathematical devices 
for his consideration in respect to how he may shoot 
poorly and yet_ win. 
The ordinary club which cultivates the sweepstake as 
the true form of competition finds that after a time the 
most skillful shots have the competition to themselves. 
The novice has a thousand urgent reasons for being 
absent from the club shooting grounds. He can furnish a 
dozen at once, but the real one, the sweepstake, he very 
rarely mentions. The expert of the club, who, for the 
sake of illustration, we will assume was present regu- 
larly for the profits, also retires when the profits are no 
longer available. The club then is for a long time inactive 
or ceases to exist. This in a general way is a true history 
of hundreds of gun clubs. The sweepstake was a means 
of making the novice pay for the shooting or profit, or 
both, of others, and the novice, being a man of sense, 
Avhen the proper time arrived, quit the sport entirely. 
Even the rebuke that it is not "dead game" to refuse to 
put up his money with a certainty of losing it, in time 
fails to appeal to the novice. 
As illustrating, in a material way, what a club organized 
and conducted on true principles of sport can accom- 
plish, we may call attention to the New Utrecht Gun Club, 
which shoots weekly at Interstate Park. No sweepstakes 
are sanctioned by the club. Each competitor enters for the 
birds, and adds a small amount for the purchase of a 
trophy, which is solely intended to commemorate a test 
of skill in successful competition, and though it is" sure 
to be a work' of ^tt, i\ has no significance whatever as a 
matter of profit. If any purses are made up at all on 
matters of' shooting, they are not in the slightest degree 
club aflfairs. Their significance is purely personal. This 
is the policy of the president and active manager, Mr. 
Walter F. Sykes, and the good attendance each Saturday 
and steady growth of the club in additional to the high 
personnel of its membership are sufficient testimony to the 
soundness of the policy Avhich he has advocated and 
practiced. 
If other clubs would eliminate the sweepstake and intro- 
duce the trophy entirely, they would soon reap the benefits 
in increased prosperity. 
Of course in tournament matters other considerations 
are dominant. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
In the Iowa case of Graybill vs. Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St. Paul Railway, to recover damages for cattle killed 
at a crossing, it was shown that the engineer had neglected 
to warn the cattle by whistling; and when the railway's 
counsel contended that such warnings as were required 
by law were meant only for human beings, the court in- 
structed the jury to the contrary, saying that "the provi- 
sion is for the safety of persons and animals iiear the 
crossing and about the cross, to warn them of the ap- 
proach of the train, and to enable them to avoid injury." 
The jury found for ^.the plaintiff; whereupon- the 
company appealed to the Supreme Court, taking ex- 
ception to the instructions quoted. The Supreme 
Court sustained the lower court. Justice Sherwin 
holding that animals have sufficient reasoning power 
to recognize the locomotive whistle as a warn- 
ing of approaching danger and to get off the track to 
avoid it. The railway's attorney has filed an argument for 
a rehearing, contending that while the whistle may frighten 
cattle, it is impossible by such means to convey to them 
"information which the animals can turn to account for 
their own safety." But the common experience of loco- 
motive engineers is against the lawyer on this point. It is 
a daily occurrence on some roads for the engineer to 
whistle cattle off the tracks, and their quick recognition of 
the meaning of the warning and the prompt obedience they 
give to it negative the view that they do not understand 
it and "turn it to account for their own safety." If the 
, attorney were arguing about the hen in front of the wagon 
he might make out a case ; or about the massive cur dog 
that refuses to heed the bicycle bell ; or the bull that fails 
to interpret the wig-wags of the timid angler; but cattle 
on the track know perfectly well what the locomotive 
whistle means and govern themselves accordingly. 
Connecticut has followed the example set by Arizona, 
California, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri and Ne\^ Hamp- 
shire in igoi, and by many other States in previous years, 
in prohibiting the sale of game, and has taken the lead in a 
novel method of protection which consists in the establish- 
ment of town game preserves. This is an innovation 
which we hope to see widely adopted. The preserves 
consist of tracts of land of from 50 to 300 acres, which 
are leased by the Game Comrnissioners at a nominal 
rent, and are absolutely protected for a term of years. 
These protected tracts form game refuges from which 
the supply will certainly overflow into the adjoining terri- 
tory. We print elsewhere the full text of the law as 
affording the best explanation of the plan in its details. 
The sea lion has been popularly credited with a vora- 
cious appetite for fish, and has been regarded as such a 
destroyer of food fishes that the California fishery author- 
ities have long waged a war of extermination upon it. 
Now comes Dr. C. Hart Merriam with a strong presenta- 
tion of facts showing that the sea lion' lives principally on 
squids, and is not a fish eater. The decrease of Call-, 
fornia salmon. Dr. Merriam suggests, has been caused not 
by the sea lions, but by the overfishing by man. 
Our compliments to Paul Rush, of Ea,st Otto, N. Y., 
eighty-four years old, who "is perfectly well, can see to 
read without glasses, has always been a, famous hunter in 
all kinds of weather; and hunting has seemed to agree 
with him." Of course it has. May he live to a ripe old 
age to enjoy it. ' 
After all the gun license question in this country is 
not. Should we have the license? nor. Shall we have thg 
license? but, 'When will the license come? 
