Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1901, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cxs. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. j 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST S, 1901. 
i VOL. LVir.— No. 5. 
I No. 846 Bro.\dway, New 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 be 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 fcr six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
Did you tvct know of a true angler who felt 
that fiis life was rounded out, unless when his hair 
had become gray and his step less buoyant he could 
once more visit the stream he had first waded and 
where he felt the thrill which he enjoyed as he 
took his first trout with the fly? And did you 
ever notice how frequently after years of experi- 
ence he looks for the same success he enjoyed 
when a novice, and departs sadly disappointed, 
perhaps never to return? J* S* Van Cleef . 
BADLY ADVISED. 
In Illinois, as the Game Laws in Brief says, "there is no 
law as to killing or possessing quail, except that quail 
killed in the State may not be sold, possessed for sale or 
exported for sale." That is to say, one may lawfully kill 
quail at any time and may lawfully have them in posses- 
sion at any time except for purjaoses of sale. 
This unfortunate condition was brought about by the 
action of the Legislature, which in revising the law 
last winter omitted quail from the list of birds for which 
a closed season was named. This was a serious omission 
on the part of the Legislature, but in seeking to remedy 
it a grave mistake has been made by the Attorney-General 
and by the State Game Warden, acting on the Attorney- 
General's advice. In an opinion given to the Game War- 
den, the text of which is printed in another column, At- 
torney-General Hamlin finds substantially: 
1. That there is no close season for killing quail. 
2. That the law is still in force which provides that 
after quail have been killed they shall remain subject to. 
regulation by the State as to use and disposition. 
3. That the only such regulation by the State now in 
force is one which prohibits sale. 
Or, as stated in the Brief, one may lawfully kill quail 
at any time, and may lawfully possess them at any time, 
but never for sale. 
And yet in the face of these conditions, the Attorney- 
General advises the State Game Warden as follows : 
I would recommend that you instruct your deputy wardens to 
lake possession of any quail killed by any one at any such times 
in the year as in your judgment would best protect the quail in 
Illinois from destruction, and under the law, as it now stands, your 
deputies will be fully authorized to take such possession. 
In other words, there being no close season, he tells the 
Warden to make one, and to confiscate any quail any one 
may possess in that close season. This is astonishing ad- 
vice for a State legal adviser to give to an executive officer. 
Attorney-General Hamlin must know that Warden Love- 
joy cannot exercise legislative functions to create a close 
season for quail. He must know, if he has read it, that 
nowhere in "the law as it now stands" can be found a 
single word to authorize the deputy wardens to "take pos- 
session of any quail killed by any one at any such times in 
the year" as the State Warden may choose to specify. The 
onljr warrant the statute gives for seizure by the deputies 
is of game unlawfully in possession, that is to say, under 
the present law, in possession for sale; and such seizure 
may be made at any time of the year, irrespective of close 
season dates. Wardens who should take possession of 
quail because killed at a certain time would be acting out- 
side of the law. This advice of the Attorney-General, 
then, is an incitement to lawless acts, and if the deputy 
game wardens shall attempt to follow it out, they will 
probably find that they are "fully authorized" only to make 
trouble for themselves. 
Of course the opinion may be only a part of a bluff 
arranged between the State Game Warden and the Attor- 
ney-General, and promulgated for the very commendable 
purpose of protecting the gaqip. If we are to understand 
this to be so, putting aside consideration of the manifest 
want of ^ppfepjgt^ipn of the dignity of hi§ oflSce which 
would forbid the Attorney-General being a party to such 
bluffing, it is a serious question if the end justifies the 
means. Would it not have been more dignified, and in 
the end have made for respect of the game laws, if the 
Illinois authorities had accepted the quail law for what 
it was, instead of pretending that it was something else, 
which it was not? 
Mr. Lovejoy has been badly advised, and we believe that 
upon more mature consideration he will realize as much 
and will not put into operation the high-handed proceed- 
ings contemplated in his instruction to all wardens and 
deputies "to take possession of any quail killed by any 
one between the 20th day of December and the ist day of 
November of the succeeding year." The game law of 
Illinois gives him no shred of warrant for any such action, 
the opinion of the Attorney-General to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 
THE SALE OF GAME hV CLOSE TIME. 
We print the full text of the decision rendered by Judge 
Bellinger, of Oregon, in the Deininger case. Deininger, 
the manager of a fish company in Portland. Ore., was 
prosecuted for selling in the close season fish imported 
from Washington. His defense was that the Oregon 
statute forbidding the sale of game or fish from another 
State was a restraint upon interstate commerce and void. 
In the clear, concise and logical decision Judge Bellinger 
exposes the fallacy of this contention ; and in a single 
paragraph he states the principle which governs : 
The right to legislate without restraint, so far as the game within 
the State is concerned, is not questioned. When game is brought 
from another State, by whatever means, or for whatever purpose, or 
in whatever condition, it becomes, upon the moment of its intro- 
duction into the State, a part of the game of the State, and subject 
to the control of its laws. 
The decision takes its place with others as a contribu- 
tion to popular education in this field. We shall never 
come to the ending of disputes about the possession of 
game until the public shall appreciate the principle of the 
peculiar a"'! restricted character of property in game, 
whether the game be live or dead. It is to be hoped that 
before many years shall have elapsed we may have before 
the Supreme Court a case involving these points for final 
adjudication there. 
It is interesting to note in this connection, as we learn 
from Jos. B. Thompson, Esq., of this city, that Judge 
Bellinger is himself an ardent sportsman in the true sense, 
and has given much thought to these questions of game 
protection. 
- SHEEP ON THE FOREST RESERVES. 
We reported at the time it came vtp last j'ear the Cali- 
fornia case of a sheep herder named Blasingaine. who was 
prosecuted for having grazed his sheep on the Sierra 
Forest Reserve, contrary to the regulations by the Secre- 
tary of the Interior for the protection of the forests. 
Blasingame was charged with criminal trespass, and it was 
sought to inflict upon him the penalty provided by the 
act of Congress for violation of the Interior Department 
regulations gOA^erning the forest reserve. Blasingame 
made the demurrer that the regulation which he was 
charged with violating was not binding, since it was a 
rule made by the Secretary of the Interior, who was with- 
out constitutional authority to legislate in the premises. 
Judge Wellborn, of the District Court of Southern Cali- 
fornia, before whom the case was argued, sustained the 
demurrer, holding that the act of Congress conferred 
legislative power on the Secretary of the Interior and was 
for that reason unconstitutional. 
At the time of the prosecution for criminal trespass, civil 
suits also were instituted against Blasingame to recover 
damages for trespass on the reserve, and this new case 
has just been heard before Judge Wellborn on a demurrer, 
and has gone against the trespassing herder. Judge Well- 
born held that the forest reserves "were the private prop- 
erty of the National Government . in the same way that 
other land is held privately, and could be defended from 
trespass." 
The application of this principle will enable the Gov- 
ernment to protect its possessions in the forest reserves by 
invoking the trespass laws of the State in which a reserve 
is situated. The Government stands on the same footing 
with an individual l^nd owner. 
THE DYNAMITER. 
The dynamite fisherman is a constant and cpntiriuous 
pest to Michigan fishing waters, and he enjoys practical 
immunity because the punishment for dynamiting is so 
slight that it simply adds a spice of danger to the occu- 
pation without seriously diminishing the profits. The 
penalty, when an offender is caught, is a fine of $5, and 
the professional dynamiter who is detected, say once in 
twenty-five times, can well afford to pay this. It is an 
open secret that not far from Baldwin professionals have 
long made a business of dynamiting fish and shipping 
them to Chicago, and the proceeds of a single shipment of 
brook trout would pay several fines of this kind. A 
strenuous effort, was made last winter by a number of 
sportsmen of the State, and especially by Mr. Robert 
PorteoLis, of Manistee, to induce the Legislature to make 
the penalty so severe that it would deter the dynamiters ; 
but the effort failed. Once in a while, as at Baldwin 
the other day, a man is fined, but as a rule the fish 
killers have it their own way, and one stream after an- 
other is ruined. 
NO AUTHORITY. 
Messrs. Geo. B. Carpenter & Co., of Chicago, send 
us a letter from J. H. Jordan, of Camp Jordan, Eel River, 
Mexico, Ind., in which he incloses his card designating 
himself as "special correspondent representing Forest 
AND Stre.\m/' and asking to have a tent shipped to him, 'in 
return for which, he writes, "I will endorse qualities of 
same in my correspondence for the different sporting 
journals T will represent. Will send you marked copies; 
what I say will be good ad." Mr. Jordan is not a special 
correspondent representing the Forest and Stre.\m. He 
is not authorized to procure goods of any character and 
•pay for them by "lilowing them Qff" in Forest and 
Stream. No one anywhere is authorized to do this, and 
if any one claims that he is, he should be put down as a 
fraud. Manufacturers, dealers, passenger agents, hotel 
proprietors and (Hhers who receive propositions of the 
Jordan character are requested kindly to communicate 
them to this office. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
This is the proposition, whether a man is to be ac- 
counted a selfish churl who seals his lips to his brother 
sportsmen when he strikes a trout or bass find; or 
whether he shall be called a chump ii he does not keep 
quiet and reserve the good thing for himself. Of course 
one thing upon which the answer will largely depend is 
whether the find is so big that to "give it away" would 
ntean its ruin by the rush that would follow. 
S. Newton Dexter, whose death occurred at Seaconnet, 
R. L. last Saturday, was a man of large attainments in 
natural histor}- fields. He accompanied the famous Agas- 
siz expedition up the Amazon, and afterward returned td 
the same region in the interest of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution. Later he spent a number of years among the 
Indians in the West. He was an extensive traveler, and 
his life was devoted to his chosen pursuit of natural 
history study. • The Forest and Stream has in years 
past been favored with many contributions from his 
pen. 
Betting is universally condemned by the moralists, but 
we beg to be permitted to rise to defend it as an useful 
factor in the acquirement of ichthyological information. 
There are two characters whom we have come to know 
very well by correspondence, for through a long series of 
years they have been bobbing up serenely at frequent in- 
tervals and from various quarters. They are the two 
friends who bet. The bet is always about the brook trout. 
It may be a one-pound trout, or a two, three or four pound 
irout, or even in rare instances a six-pounder, or a ten- 
pounder. One friend always bets the other that there is 
no such fish, and they write for information to decide the 
bet. Now it is perfectly clear that if they did not bet 
they would never find out about the big fish, and we will 
all agree that the big trout is something well worth know- 
ing about, and as the man who acquires his knowledge o£ 
it by betting would never find out about it in any other 
way, it is a most commendable thing for him to bet and 
learn. Thus betting promotes the diffusion of a know!? 
edge of ichthyology, 1 . ' 
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