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. j 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER B, 1901. 
J VOL. LVII.— No. U. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York 
A MAINE "CARNIVAL." 
There has been going on in Maine what Commissioner 
Carleton terms '"a carnival of moose shooting," and he 
makes good the characterization by noting ten or more 
moose killed and presumably left to rot. This is a most 
disreputable and disgraceful sliowing. It inan.<»tes moral 
rottenness, which is a much more serious matter than 
the mere wanton destruction of game. Whether the kill- 
ing has been done by guides intent upon securing moose 
heads in advance to sell to ready-made sportsmen, or by 
visitors from out of the State, there can be no evasion of 
responsibility for the atrocities by the Maine guides. The 
system now prevailing requires a non-resident to employ 
a registered guide when going into the woods. If sports- 
men from abroad did the killing they were sportsmen ac- 
companied by guides. No sportsman would dare to kill a 
moose out of season unless he were assured that his guide 
would uphold him in the act and conceal the ol¥ense. If 
the Maine guides were as one man in a resolution that 
moose should not be killed in the close season, they could 
protect the game perfectly. So long as an unrighteous 
complicity shall exist between guides and sportsmen to 
kill game illegally, not all the detective service in Maine 
can protect the moose. 
The proposition to prohibit the carrying of firearms into 
the woods in the close season has much to commend it. 
Such a system has proved a success in Europe, under con- 
ditions where the prohibition of arms could be made effec- 
tive. It should be the rule in Atnerica, with certain modifi- 
cations, in all game country. In particular would the 
working of such a rule be beneficial as to the game fields 
near large towns. Whether or not it would prove effective 
in Maine would depend upon the practicability of en- 
forcing it. The moose and deer wilderness is a tremen- 
dous territory; something more than the existing ma- 
chinery would be required to prevent the ingress of 
visitors with firearms. Maine is no Yellowstone Na- 
tional Park, where soldiers can guard the entrances to 
it and patrol the trails and camp grounds. But even if 
not possible of enforcement with absolute thoroughness 
such a law would at least decrease the number of guns and 
rifles taken into the woods in the close season, and would 
thus in a measure accomplish its purpose. 
The most effective agency to protect the moose and deer 
of Maine would be a right sentiment on the part of the 
guides. Commissioners and guides should be in accord, 
animated by a common purpose, and working together. 
If this harmonious spirit is absent, and in its place exist 
friction and opposition, no system of laws the most string- 
ent can ever protect the game of Maine 
Why are not the Commissioners and the guides work- 
ing in harmony to make the Maine close season actually 
closed? , 
THE SITUATION IN ALASKA. 
In almost every bit of news that comes to us from 
Alaska are allusions to the absence of government there, 
and to the upsetting by the influx of civilization — so 
called — of the natural conditions which prevailed prior 
to the discovery of gold. 
We are told now that the Indians about Nome are 
likely soon to perish, for no other reason than that the 
white men, trading whisky to them, have kept them drunk 
during the season when they should be catching fish for 
their winter support, so that starvation threatens them 
during the coming season of cold. 
These Indians— who are really Eskimo — are a fine, 
frank, stalwart race, and but a few years ago were little: 
contaminated by the vices of civilization. Contented and 
happy, they lived their harmless lives under the Arctic 
circle, as they had always done, seeing no white people 
except the whalers. When the miners came among the 
Eskimo their troubles began. The white men took their 
women, and by tempting them with liquor took from them 
whatever property they had, and — what was far more 
important — took from them the energy to do those things 
that are absolutely essential to their existence. Inci- 
dentally they brought them also disease, which, within a 
year, has swept them away by thousands, and now the 
miserable remnant is threatened with starvation. 
kadiak bear, the largest of the caribou, the white sheep 
and other important and little-known species of big game 
were found there. But as Alaska became known, as trans- 
portation lines were opened and the far North became 
more readily accessible, there hurried to this distant re- 
gion not only miners greedy for gold, but hunters, anxious 
to kill the big game while it was plenty and easy of access ; 
trophy hunters, eager to secure the record head of one or 
another species of game : head himters, employed by taxi- 
dermists who engaged them to kill and send out all the 
Ing heads they could, and meat hunters, willing to earn a 
livelihood by butchering game for the mining camps. To- 
day there is being done over again in Alaska precisely 
what took place thirty years ago along the newly opened 
line of the U^ion Pacific Railroad, when hunters took con- 
tracts to furnish meat to soldier camps and tie camps for 
from 2 to 4 cents per pound, and when meat and hides and 
heads and horns were brought in by wagon loads to the 
railroad stations and shipped East. 
In those days there was practically no government in 
.the West, In these days there is practically no govern- 
ment in Alaska. A Governor there is, a good and sensible 
man, anxious to do what he can to protect those creatures, 
whether human or brute, who need protection ; but he is 
without laws, without resources and without men, and is 
helpless. 
Surely it is time that Congress should take up the ques- 
tion of Alaska and handle it with vigor. Here is a terri- 
tory equivalent in size to one-sixth of the United States 
which in practice is lawless — except so far as certain com- 
munities make laws for themselves — and in which the 
natural resources of all sorts are a prey to any one who 
may care to destroy them. The natives, the game, the 
fur, the fish and the forests, natural resources which are 
vvorth many millions of dollars to-day and, properly con- 
served, should be worth many millions annually for gen- 
erations to come, arc being wasted with a true American 
disregard for the future. 
Is it too much to. hope that the new Administration 
and the Congress which is to meet next winter will take 
hold of this subject, and try to arrest the shameful waste 
that is now going on in our northern province? 
Among the civilized communities in Alaska there is deep 
feeling over the injury done them by Congressional 
neglect. A hundred matters which are so much a part of 
civilized life as to be taken wholly for granted and hardly 
to be thought of in older communities do not exist, so far 
as Ala.ska is concerned, to the very great hardship of the 
inhabitants and the serious retardation of the develop- 
ment of the territory. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
The New York Times last week issued a handsome 
jubilee number to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary 
of its founding in 1851. The period covered by the Times' 
historical review was a momentous one for the city and 
the country; and the story as here told of the events of 
those years and of the part the Times had in them is of 
unflagging interest. From the beginning the Times has 
held a place of dignity and influence in American journal- 
ism; it has stood always for those things which make 
for good order and progress, and to-day it is second to 
none of its contemporaries in public esteem. However 
much on occasion we may dift'er with the Times in its 
discussion of the questions of the day and political policies, 
it is impossible not to have the highest respect for it as 
a clean and high-minded journal, and one of exalted 
ideals. That a newspaper conducted on the lines of the 
New York Times should be so prosperous and so power- 
ful is in itself a tribute to the character of the community 
which gives it support. 
A few years ago Alaska was a game region practically 
untouched. Among its rough mountains, in the deep 
recesses of its tangled forests, and upon its far-stretching 
tundra there existed more game and larger game than 
.^nywhere on this continent. The giant moose, the great 
The Times has given its readers a fac-simile of the 
first number, issued on Thursday, Sept. 18, 1851 ; and to 
look through the columns is to immerse - oneself in the 
New York of a half-century ago. We may read histories 
without end, but there is no history written which actu- 
ally carries us back to the time and the people as does 
an old newspaper, for here are chronicled not only those 
larger events with which the historians concern them- 
selves, and the narration of which they tell us constitutes 
history; but the trifles, the little every-day incidents and 
happenings which actually make up human life, and which 
have for us the real humnn interest the historians miss. 
The fir.st Times issue, for instance, not only reports the 
promised liberation of Kossuth by the Sublime Porte, the 
visit of the Queen to Scotland and the candidacy of the 
Prince de Joinville for the Presidency of the French Re- 
public, but it chronicles a big lobster caught at Htill, 
Mass.. weighing twenty-eight pounds; and here is an 
itenr, the like of which, we venture to say, might be found 
in a Times of any September from 1851 down to 1901 : 
Ezra tiobbins was accidentally shot dead with a rifle, by his 
son-in-law, John Roberts, in Claremont, N. IT., on Sunday. The 
jiarties were in the woods, gunning. 
Last week allusion was made to the fact that at the 
opening of the shooting season birds are often too small 
to be shot. An interesting example of this is given in a 
note from Connecticut, published this week, which tells of 
the capture there on the opening day, Oct. i, of young 
quail still in the down — so small that they could not 
even fly. As suggested by our correspondent, the killing 
of the parents of such a brood would, of course, meaii the 
death of all the young. This was, no doubt, a belated sec- 
ond brood, but there is reason to believe that such late 
broods are of frequent occurrence, and thej^' should re- 
ceive protection. The Connecticut law is admirable in 
that the season for all upland game birds opens on the 
same day, but the date of this opening is too early. The 
date of New York's opening, Nov. i, is on many accounts 
better. It is true that this date — if applied to all upland 
birds — ^cuts off a considerable portion of the woodcock 
season, but, on the other hand, the very best woodcock 
shooting usually coines between Nov. I and Nov. 15. If 
the season opens Nov. i, the late broods of ruffed grouse 
and quail have an opportunity to grow large and strong, 
and in the present days of woodcock scarcity the loss of 
a part of the shooting of that bird is not a serious matter. 
A combination of the laws of New York and Connecticut, 
as far as upland game birds go, would be very nearly an 
ideal law. This would make the general season for up- 
land game birds open Nov. i and close Dec. 31. 
The Richmond County Fish and Game Protective Asso- 
ciation, which is concerned with the game covers and 
game fishing waters of Staten Island, performed a distinct 
public service last week when its agents took into custody 
a crew of piratical Italian net fishermen. The netters had 
been violating the law with extraordinary boldness, ship- 
ping their fish to this city. People were afraid to com- 
plain of them, for the Italian poacher in this vicinity has a 
hard name for violence. The waters of Staten Island 
must be kept clear of the netters of game fish if they are 
to afford opportunities for the hook and line fisherman; 
and no one will seriously question that as playgrounds for 
the people these waters are worth more to Greater New 
York than they could possibly be if given over to the 
netters. The city needs them for the enjoyment and use 
of its citizens who cannot aflford to make distant excur- 
sions for fishing. 
Rev. C. C. Haskell, D. D., of Corry, Pa., author of 
the "New Theology," writes the New York Evening Post 
an extraordinary defense of mobs and lynchings, in which 
he says : 
We should remember that law is simply a means to an end. The 
means is law — the end is justice; precisely as medicine is a means 
to an end. The means is medicine (it may be quinine), the end is 
health. Now if we can have justice without law, we have a right 
to it, precisely as we have a right to health without the quinine. 
The Pennsylvania divine's tenets, it appears, are held 
by the game protective authorities of Illinois. In that 
State there is no law against killing or possessing quail 
(except for sale) at any time, but the game wardens are 
nevertheless arresting and fining the quail killers, and 
thus are following out in practice Dr. Haskell's system of 
securing "justice," law or no law. The "justice" is here 
all for the quail, since the victim who has been robbed of 
his money under guise of legal proceedings may hardly 
be said to have had any share in it. 
Our Chicago correspondence to-day reports that two 
Illinois men have paid fines for having had quail in 
possession, and that for this reason they question the 
correctness of the Game Laws in Brief in its statement of 
the law. The Illinois law forbids the sale, or possession 
for sale, of quail killed in the State, and it forb-ds the 
export of quail for sale. Other than these restrictions 
there is no law as to killing quail in Illinois ; the Game 
Lazvs in Brief states the law correctly. If the shooters 
referred to paid fines for having qua'l in their possession 
otherwise than for sale or xport for sale, they paid money, 
which the authorities had no legal right tp, exact fron^' 
them. 
