Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1908 by Forest and Stream Publishing Co„ 
Ferms, |4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $2. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1903. { 
VOL. LXI.— No. 12, 
No. 846 Broadway, New York 
ACCIDENTS WHICH ARB NOT ACCIDENTS. 
Year by year for many years past the number of peo- 
ale killed and maimed by careless hunters, so-called, has 
5teadily increased in the States which possess sections 
ontaining big game. Exceptional, indeed, is the big- 
pme district which has not its gruesome record of people 
naimed or killed by the armed civilized savage whose 
gluttony for blood inspired him to shoot first whether 
he subject shot at was distinguishable or not, and then 
0 determine afterward whether it was man, deer, horse, 
>r cow. 
In the aggregate the list of gratuitous tragedies result- 
Hg from wanton killings is appalling. In nearly every in- 
tance the explanatory phase of the killing is that the 
:i]ler mistook the killed for a deer. Moreover, the de- 
eased is by implication not infrequently accused of con- 
ributory negligence, if indeed he be not an accessory, 
ecause of wearing a cap or coat which in some remote 
r forced manner, resembled the form or color of a deer. 
A plea more absurd or more irrelevant in its substance, 
r more exasperating in its sombre flippanc}', can not well 
e imagined. In a way such plea is self-incriminatory; 
Dr if the killer, when in the deer country, armed and 
n killing bent, is incapable in the matter of distinguish- 
ig man from deer, then he is morally criminal in at- 
impting to hunt deer at all. 
No man, when life or death is involved, can reasonably 
r justifiably mistake a man for a deer. The plea is an 
jsurdity on its face. The fact is that, concerning the 
eer-and-man plea, the hunter shoots without determining 
efinitely what object he is shooting at. It is all done 
n presumption. 
The presumption is that, in the woods, the surround- 
igs all being suggestive of the presence of deer and the 
jsence of man, it is safe to shoot. Undoubtedly the deer 
unter has deer in his mind as a presumption. Undoubt- 
ily there is a wide difference between his idea and the 
latter of fact. Shooting as a matter of idea and shoot- 
ig as a matter of fact also are prone to result in wide 
ifferences. 
Notwithstanding the fatalities of the years resulting 
•om the criminal carelessness in the use of rifles in 
le big-game sections, they seem to have carried no ad- 
lonitory lesson. 
The present open season, recently begun, has already 
1 enactment of the old tragedy. In all its details it is 
repetition of the details which distinguish similar hap- 
mings of the past. As recounted by the daily press, the 
id happening took place at Moose Pond, N. Y., in the 
orth Woods, on September 9. Joseph Buprei', of Wash- 
:gton, D. C, and his guide, Frederic Barbour, were 
finting deer by moonlight. Buprey was stationed on the 
tore of the pond by a trail used by the deer when going 
and fro. His guide and another young man paddled 
ound the pond in a canoe seeking deer. As they ap- 
oached Buprey's stand, the splashing of the paddle 
tracted his attention. He fired and shot Barbour in 
e breast two inches below the heart. The bullet passed 
It between the shoulder blades. The deceased left a 
dew and five small children. Buprey mistook the guide 
r a deer. 
The foregoing act, if the recountal be true, hears all the 
rmarks of criminal carelessness. No doubt the offender 
profoundly grief-stricken; no doubt he deeply re- 
nts the rash shot which enacted a tragedy. But stripped 
its sentimentality, there is not a circumstance to con- 
me the rashness of it. By it a human life was lost, 
woman was widowed, a family of children were or- 
aned, and the State lost a citizen. If it were an iso- 
:ed happening it might be passed over more lightly, 
t in view of the past kilhngs incident to the open sea- 
n, it may be viewed as the beginning of the death 
t for 1903, if drastic public opinion or statute law docs 
t enforce some check. 
Nor are deer the only creatures which in the woods are 
staken for men. The daily press of Lancaster, S.' C, 
:ounts that on September 10 a squirrel hunter, accom- 
nied by his son and grandson, eight years old, were 
-lirrel hunting in Chester county. The party becanae 
r?arated. The nan fired at what he supposed was a 
-Urrel in the bushes, and, approaching the object, he 
.md his grandson expiring in death agonies. 
The daily press recently made mention of the death of 
mry Ernest, 16 years old, of Queen's Borough, L. I,, 
used by a Flobert rifle which failed to fire. Youn"- 
Ernest peered into the barrel to learn the cause of the 
misfire. The rifle discharged its load into the young 
man's eye and killed him. 
September 7, at Bellmore, L. I., Louis Grimm, of 
Brooklyn, attempted to place his gun in the bow of the 
boat butt first. The hammer caught, the gun fired, and 
Grimm's wrist was broken and his breast lacerated. He 
was taken to a hospital. 
All of which repeats and emphasizes the moral that 
men who are incompetent to handle firearms properly 
should not be permitted to use them. 
THE ADIRONDACK ELK. 
There could hardly be a more impressive commentary 
on the discussion concerning game preserves in Forest 
x\ND Stream than a recent happening in the Adirondacks. , 
Last year the Brown's Tract Guides' Association 
turned out in the Adirondacks a herd of five elk, in the 
hope that these animals would increase, and that through 
them the Adirondacks might be restocked with this great 
game. The elk did well and became very tame, and dur- 
ing the winter, spring, and summer have been frequently 
seen, but on Sunday, September 6, one of them was killed 
by a locomotive near Clearwater, and on Tuesday the 
bull and two cows were found dead at First Lake, North 
Branch, near the Bald Mountain House. Thus but a 
single elk is left, and the attempt is a failure. 
A few years since, as will be remembered, an elk that 
had been turned out into the free woods of the Adiron- 
dacks was killed. It was variously reported that the man 
who shot it took it for a deer, or that he supposed it was 
a domestic cow. Whatever may have passed through his 
mind, he killed the elk. 
This is Avhat is likely to happen whenever attempts 
are made to stock with new game sections where people 
have liberty to shoot or hunt. Human nature being what 
it is, there will always be individuals uncontrolled and 
uncontrollable, who will consider their own desires and 
follow their own impulses before thinking of others and 
their duty to their fellow men. Laws are not made to 
control the worthy, the conscientious, and the thoughtful, 
but the thoughtless, the inconsiderate, and the criminal. 
Among those who use the rifle, the shotgun or the rod, 
there are those who — if they could safely do so — would 
kill off the buffalo in a city's -park, and the manatee and 
the great trout in the New York Aquarium. 
This does not mean, necessarily, that such persons are 
criminal; they are merely intensely selfish, and to be able 
to say that they have killed an elk or a buffalo means 
more to them than to think that the people who visit the 
Bronx or the Adirondacks twenty years hence will have 
an opportunity to see many of these animals. Like the 
small boy who shies a stone at a bird's nest, they take no 
thought of the consequences which may follow the act. 
The so-called "sportsmen," that is to say, the men and 
boys who carry firearms into the woods, are by no means 
the only offenders in this respect. Often the spirit 
among the men they employ — that is to saj^, the guides — 
is as bad as can be. We knew lately of a party of boys 
under twenty in the Adirondacks who were paddled up 
to deer in summer and urged b}^ the guide to shoot the 
game. As one of the boys put it, the guide seemed to be 
really angry because he would not shoot the deer; but 
the young fellow had pluck enough to persist in his re- 
fusal. This showed remarkable character, for to resist 
the persuasion and half-veiled contempt of an older man, 
who is besides a woodsman, shows unusual strength of 
character. Not many boys have pluck enough to take so 
fine a stand. More often a boy is only too ready to join 
the guide in destroying game out of season, and subse- 
quently he and his father and mother may boast of it. 
with bated breath, as a creditable achievement. A case 
of this kind occurring this summer in Maine, where the 
law is supposed to be properly enforced, recently came to 
our knowledge. 
If, as all our correspondents agree. New York State 
should itself have a game preserve in the Adirondacks, 
this must be a real preserve, and that means an absolute 
game refuge, where no hunting shall be permitted, where 
even guns may not be carried unless they are sealed. 
Some woods visitors might be trusted to carry weapons 
through a prcserA'e, but persons so to be trusted are not 
very numergu§ arnong the rich, the poor, the ignorant, or 
the learned. Most of us need a good strong law and a 
game warden within earshot. The difficulty of detecting 
violators of the law makes a sufficient reason for the ab- 
solute prohibition of the carrying arms within any 
refuge which is to be of any practical use. In the recent 
case in the Adirondacks, the elk were protected by a 
special statute which provided a penalty of $100 for kill- 
ing one of them, as well as imprisonment for a term of 
not less than three months or more than one year; yet 
this statute was not sufficient to protect these half- 
domesticated animals, which were killed in the first week 
of the hunting season. The guides are said to have a 
clue, which may lead to an early arrest of the butchers, 
but their arrest and punishment will not restore the elk, 
and efforts to stock the free Adirondacks with game will 
never be successful until those interested begin at the right 
end instead of — as at present — at the wrong. The public 
preserve will not amount to anything until it is con- 
ducted by the officials — State or federal— in the same 
businesslike manner that the owner of private property 
conducts his preserve. 
For a period of twenty-three years the Federal Gov- 
enrment tried to protect its game in the Yellowstone 
National Park. Congress authorized the Secretary of the 
Interior to provide regulations for the preservation of 
the game, and troops were furnished him to enforce these 
regulations, but it was not until 1894, after the buffalo 
there had practically been exterminated, that an efficient 
law was enacted. Persons who are interested in the 
establishment in the Adirondacks of preserves which 
shall be pleasure grounds for the whole people, in the 
preservation of the game there, and the doing away with 
the exclusiveness of the private preserves, may well 
work for absolute prohibition of game killing in certain 
sections of the Adirondacks. 
We publish in another column a communication from 
Mr. W. E. Wolcott, Secretary of the Black River 
Association for the Protection of Fish and Game, relative 
to the occupation of State lands in the Adirondacks by 
persons who have squatted- upon them, and hold posses- 
sion withont legal title. In accordance with the statutes 
the Forest, Fish -and Game Commission is seeking to 
eject these occupants. The tenor of Mr. Wolcott's letter 
is that while these people have no legal right to their 
homes, the removing of them is likely to engender a 
spirit of resentment and revenge which would lead to the 
burning of the forests and the destruction of fish and 
game. Mr. Wolcott does not concede that the squatters 
have any rights which should be respected; but he does 
suggest that the State might be wise if it should refrain 
from enforcing its rights in the matter, because of this 
possibility of revengeful incendiarism. This, however, 
seems to us to involve a position that is untenable. How- 
ever much ground there may be for believing that the 
occupants, if ejected, would resort to the torch, we cannot 
say; but it does not seem reasonable that the State should 
be governed in its course by fear of revenge. 
Thomas Sedgwick Steele, whose name was familiar 
tc readers of Forest and Stream twenty years ago, died 
on September 11, at the age of sixty years. Mr. Steele 
was a well-known artist, who excelled particularly in the 
representation of still-life. He took up amateur pho- 
tography in the beginning of its popularity, indeed as far 
back as a time when it was necessary for the amateur 
to do his work with wet plates. In the late '70s he made 
ri trip in the Maine wilderness, which furnished material 
for a series of articles in Forest and Stream, afterward 
gathered into book form under the title, "Canoe and 
Camera." This was followed by a second volume, "Pad- 
dle and Portage." These books had wide popularity and 
were of no small influence in directing public attention to 
the. pleasures of amateur photography and of wild life in 
the wilderness. 
The Maine authorities have done one good piece of 
work in punishing the summer deer killers of Deer Pond 
camps. There is reason to believe that this poaching has 
been going on for years, and that the authorities did not 
succeed in capturing all the guilty parties implicated, 
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