Forest AND Stream 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and 
Copyright, 1904, bv Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $3. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 190B. 
j VOL, LXIV.— No. 17, 
I No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
MINNESOTA SPIKES THE PLANK. 
We have long since come to look to Minnesota for 
expression in the statute of the advanced ideas of game 
protection; and the latest code, as it has come from the 
Legislature of 1905, admirably sustains the reputation of 
the State in this respect. 
First as to the Forest and Stream Platform Plank, 
that the sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons. 
As is well known, Minnesota was one of the first of the 
Western States to recognize the wisdom of the Plank and . 
to embody it in their game legislation. Some of the most 
noteworthy changes in the law as amended this year have 
to do with making the rule against sale more stringent 
and more difficult of evasion. As a firm and solid foun- 
dation the Legislature makes declaration in the following 
unequivocal terms of the State's ownership of the game 
and fish, an ownership which may not be alienated except 
in so far as the statute expressly provides: 
I- No person shall at any time or in any manner acquire any 
property in, or subject to his dominion or control, any of the 
birds, animals or fish or any part thereof of the kinds herein 
mentioned, but they shall always and under all circumstances be 
and remain the property of this State; except, that by killing, 
catching or taking the same in the manner and for the ptu-poses 
herein authorized, and during the periods when their killing is 
not herein prohibited, the same may be used by any person at 
the time, in the manner and for the purposes herein expressly 
authorized; and whenever any person kills, catches, takes, ships 
or has in possession, or under control, any of the birds, animals 
or fish, or any part thereof, mentioned in this chapter, at a time 
or in a manner prohibited by this chapter, such person shall 
thereby forfeit and lose all his right to the use and possession 
of such bird, animal or fish, or any part thereof, and the State 
shall be entitled to the sole possession thereof. 
The importance and working advantage of this declara- 
tion are manifest at a glance. There is no room left for 
quibbling about a "natural right" to take game, and hav- 
ing taken it to do as one may please with it. The law 
declares the game is the State's, it may only be taken 
when and how the State permits, and only for such dis- 
position and use as the State prescribes. The rest is 
simple. The State provides that it may be taken only 
for the personal consumption of him who takes it, or of 
those to whom he gives it. It may be taken only in cer- 
tain times, by certain means, and in certain amounts — not 
exceeding fifteen birds in one day, or forty-five in posses- 
sion at any one time. It may not be taken for sale, nor 
sold. It may not be held in cold storage. "The placing 
or receiving within or storage of any game bird or game 
animal or any part thereof in any cold storage plant is 
hereby prohibited and made unlawful." The Game and 
Fish Commission and the wardens are charged by the law 
with the duty of inspecting, from time to time, hotels, 
restaurants, cold storage houses or plants, and ice houses 
commonly used in storing meats, game or fish for private 
parties, for the purpose of determining whether game or 
fish are stored in them in violation of the law; and re- 
fusal to accord the officers permission to make such in- 
spection is a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprison- 
ment. Any illicit game or fish discovered is declared con- 
traband, and is to be sold to the highest bidder — but not 
for resale by him. This, by the way, deprives the hos- 
pitals and other charitable institutions of a game supply, 
which, under the old system, gave them many an unantici- 
pated game dinner; under the new rule, the money re- 
ceived for the discovered game goes into the game pro- 
tection fund. 
From this outline it will be seen that Minnesota has 
provided a system which, if enforced, will put into opera- 
tion the letter and the spirit of the anti-sale plank so 
strictly and so effectively that if there be in the principle 
all that is claimed for it, the conservation of the game 
supply may be reckoned a thing accomplished. That the 
law will be enforced there is not the slightest doubt. As 
it stands to-day, the statute is, in respect to the anti-sale 
provisions at least, a fruit of the earnest efforts of the 
game commissioners and in particular of Executive Agent 
Sam. F. Fullerton. These officials stand for the law; in 
these features it represents their views, gives them the 
more stringent regulations and the enlarged powers they 
have sought; and we may share the confidence of the 
sportsmen of Minnesota that, with the admirable statute 
now provided to work under, the game protective force 
of the State will render a service even more efficient and 
valuable than that which has been so creditable in the 
past.. ■ , , ..;-_,,.L^;^,-. — U i-w-ii-SkUS 
lOSEPH lEFFERSON. 
In the death of Joseph Jefferson the country has lost 
one of its best known and best loved citizens. People 
long since gi'ay haired remember going as children to see- 
Rip Van Winkle, and as time went on they took their 
children and their grandchildren to see the play which 
Itself never grew old, so that in fact four generations 
knew him and all felt that they knew him well. He was 
far and away the best known comedian of America; he 
enjoyed an unfailing popularity which had its perennial 
spring in the sweetness and simplicity of his nature. In 
the characters which he represented was seen the man 
Jefferson, and this simplicity and fidelity to nature won — 
as simplicity and truth always dO' — admiration, respect 
and love. 
The span of his life, seventy- seven years, is a long 
time; it covers by far the greater share of the growth 
of this country. When Jefferson was born there were 
Revolutionary veterans aplenty, and the veterans of the 
War of 1812 then were made no more of than are those 
of the Spanish War to-day. In his early days of barn- 
storming there were no railroads nor any telegraph, and 
but few of the scores of those modern appliances which 
to-day we regard ^as necessities. Rip's famous old gun 
was by no means such a curio to Jefferson's first audi- 
ences as it came to be in the later years. Much of this 
spirit of change and development and growth characteris- 
tic of the period of his life is reflected in the reminiscences 
written by him some years ago, and which have place 
among the most entertaining volumes of American auto- 
biography. 
Mr. Jefferson was one of the most versatile of men. A 
successful actor, he was also a good painter, and a most 
skillful and enthusiastic angler. Canadian Salmon waters, 
Catskill Mountain trout streams, the salt water stretches 
of Buzzard's Bay and the winter fishing grounds of Palm 
Beach, all were familiar to him. He was a keen sports- ■ 
man, realizing what sport should be, and as clean and 
wholesome in his favorite recreation as in the other ac- 
tivities of his life. Jefferson and Grover Cleveland were 
close angling friends, and it was out of the intimate 
knowledge and appreciation of one's fellow which comes 
through the character testing familiarity of the fields and 
the waters- that Mr. Cleveland said the other day : 
"All knew my friend's professional supremacy and his con- 
scientious service in professional work; many knew how zealously 
be defended dramatic art and how completely he illustrated the 
importance of its cleanliness; many knew how free he was from 
hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, but fewer knew how 
harmoniously his qualities of heart and mind and conscience 
blended in the creation of an honest, upright, sincere and God- 
fearing man. 
"I believe that in death he has reached a world where the 
mercy of God abounds, and I know that in the world of men the 
sadness of his loss will be felt the most by those who knew him 
best." 
THE EXPANSION OF TRAPSHOOTING. 
The phenomenal growth of target shooting, year by 
year, since its first humble beginnings in America as a 
form of sport, affords just ground for the trapshooter's 
heartiest felicitations. It is steadily progressive. Great 
as the support of it has been in past years, the signs in- 
dicate that the present year will far surpass, in magnitude 
and importance, the trapshooting values of any preced- 
ing year, however great they may have been. 
For the broader activities and consequently greater 
scope in recent years, much credit is due the various trap- 
shooting leagues, the State associations, and last, but not 
least, the powerful Interstate Association. Without the 
prestige and effort of these great associations, the sport 
relatively would be the local diversion of many hundreds 
of local clubs, and hence devoid of the national import- 
ance which now obtains as a consequent to general inter- 
communication and national competition. 
In the national furtherance of trapshooting interests, 
the action of the Interstate Association this year in 
broadening its scope geographically will be a beneficent 
factor, the full value of which at present it is difficult to 
compute. 
At the time of the sixth Grand American Handicap in 
June next, the Interstate Association will have given 
three tournaments under the auspices of different clubs 
in the South, after which the itinerary is westward; 
frdm Menominee, Mich., to Albert Lea, Minn., to Kansas 
City, is within the territory previously cultivated, but 
from Kansas City the Association goes to Colorado 
Springs, Colo., thence to San Francisco, Cal., where, 
Sept. 12-14, it will hold a tournament, the Pacific Coast 
Handicap at targets, under the auspices of the San Fran- 
cisco Trapshooting Association, which is likely to rival 
the older great event, the Grand American Handicap at 
Targets. 
These tournaments, conducted by an acknowledged 
masterful expert, Mr. Elmer E. Shaner, fill many needs 
as educators. They are an object lesson in the way that 
a tournament should be conducted in every particular, 
are arranged on the most rigid principles of fair competi- 
tion, and appeal to the best sportsmanship of every sec- 
tion. 
This generous expenditure of talent, time and money 
on the Pacific coast by the Interstate Association will un- 
doubtedly result in a broad, healthful boom to the sport 
in that vast section, thereby making this year a record 
breaker if the data of geographical area and extra skill- 
ful effort are a fair criteria by \?hich to make a forecast. 
While in general the trapshooting increase has been 
marvelous, there are certain State associations, in par- 
ticular the New York State, New Jersey State, and the 
Illinois State Associations which seem to have declined 
in vigor and importance, though the decline seems to 
have been at the top instead of the bottom ; that is to say, 
there is abundance of material in the way of individual 
clubs to support those State associations if they were 
organized under constitutions of oroper vitality. How- 
ever, the decay of some parts is insignificant in compari- 
son to the greater general gain. All of which denotes 
that the sport of trapshooting is inherently a beneficial 
outdoor sport, appealing to the good class of the people 
who seek wholesome pleasure and give prestige and in- 
dorsement to it by participation. 
THE PRESIDENT AND THE PEEPING TOMS. 
Mr. George Kennedy sends a feeling protest against the 
impudence of the little-minded men of yellow journalism 
who are exercising their functions as Peeping Toms and 
faking stories of the President's hunting in Colorado. 
After his four days' chasing of wolves and jack rabbits 
at Panther Springs, Okla., where the party secured 
eighteen wolves, Mr. Roosevelt went on to Colorado ; 
near the State line he was presented by the Governor 
with an official license permitting him to hunt any species 
of game ; and at Newcastle he left the railroad, to make 
camp at a point in the mountains twenty-three miles from 
the town. His companions were Dr. Lambert, Philip B. 
Stewart, in charge of the expedition, and several guides. 
It was the President's strongly expressed and altogether 
natural and reasonable desire to be permitted to go on an 
actual hunt, that is, to enjoy a genuine outing iii the wil- 
derness alone, without interlopers on the hunting range. 
"If a lot of newspaper men come into the hunting grounds 
after me," he said, "I shall have to go home." It was a 
wish which any decent man — even though a yellow news- 
paper man — might respect with credit to himself and his 
paper ; and so far as subsequent events indicate, it has 
been respected. The pretended detailed records of the 
President's Colorado hunt, such as that to^ which Mr. 
Kennedy takes exception, are merely fakes engendered of 
the imaginations of writers who, by instinct and training, 
are the Peeping Toms of yellow journalism. We do not 
imagine that the sportsman who is now enjoying his hunt 
"all by his lone" in the Colorado wilds, would give a 
second thought to these gentry — ^they may conjure up 
the wildest yarns about him in their newspaper offices, 
if only they will keep themselves away from his hunting 
grounds. , 
The exercises commemorative of the one hundred and 
twenty-fifth birthday of John James Audubon, which 
take place on Thursday of next week, are likely to draw 
together many people interested in a single subject, yet 
who occupy widely diverse walks in life. We have already 
called attention to the fact that this is probably the last 
occasion when any of the material objects surrounding 
the old home of Audubon can be seen. Even five years 
hence it is probable that the avalanche of improvement, 
so called, will have swept over the site of the old home 
and will have carried away the ancient land marks which 
bis generation had set up and cherished. 
