FOREST AND STREAM. 
B3S 
j Dec. 30, 1905.] 
Adirondack Deer Hunting. 
^ New York, Dec. 23 . — Editor Forest and Stream: I am 
i astonished to read that the New York Legislature is 
I in favor of a return to the barbarous and unsportsmani- 
i like custom of hounding deer in Essex county. This is 
i a matter that should interest every resident, past and 
' present, of our grand, historic, old county, and your 
( paper should publish some letters showing both sides 
( of this subject. 
1 Ibis question came up in a similar way last year 
and aroused such a torrent of indignant protest from 
sportmen all over the State that it was quickly laid 
aside. Now its hydra head appears again and its 
sponsors. . hanging on by their eyebrows, as it were, in 
their attempt to scale the battlements of intelligent 
public opinion, seek as an excuse that Essex county is 
now exempt from the State bear law, and that hounding 
of deer is allowed on Long Island. 
We all know that Essex was excepted after a long 
and bitter fight because bears were quite numerous 
there and protection to the sheep industry was urged. 
It forms no precedent for hounding deer at all. 
The slaughter and maiming of men and animals on 
Long Island under the name of sport, during the few 
days of hunting there is referred to in terms of horror 
by all good citizens, and the cellar is about the only 
.safe place for non-combatants and their families while 
Lie insane orgy rages to the merry sound of horn and 
hound. 
Our local Chapter of the K. W. Y. A. A. (Kno-what- 
u-aim-at), composed mostly of natives of Essex county 
or summer residents owning lodges there who hunt' 
deer and are bound by a solemn pledge never to shoot 
, a human being in the woods, at a meeting yesterday 
unanimously decided that each member should do all 
in his power to prevent a return to hounding deer. 
The advocates of this proposed change and the Fish 
and Game Commissioners will hear from our members. 
I believe that this is merely an expedient to determine 
the will of the people in advance of legislation upon 
the subject, and that it has the support of a few local 
I hunters or indifferent men who have not the skill or 
i patience to hunt deer like sportsmen, but who prefer 
I to shoot or club the unfortunate creatures in the 
I water when in an exhausted condition, and afterward 
L eat their flesh when unfit for human food. 
Not a single reason set forth for the proposed return 
to hounding will stand calm investigation by people 
[acquainted with the facts. Nothing can be adduced to 
I show that the county as a whole would be benefitted. 
i One result would be the driving of many deer into 
I adjoining counties, and the moose and elk, not to men- 
: tion brother Rodney West’s caribou, upon which so 
i much r.ioney has been expended, would be scattered 
: and lost. The former would keep right on to Canada 
as they did years ago. 
The fact that Essex county is rough and mountainous 
is one of the strongest reasons for maintaining it as 
a natural game refuge. There is much hounding done 
■ in certain remote but well-known sections of the 
county at present, in defiance of the law. Does any 
sane man believe that a future licensing of this butch- 
■ ery of deer would decrease the amount of hounding 
done? The deer would simply have to stand a double 
drain. 
Still-hunting and hounding do not work together 
well. After about a month of the former such deer as 
liave eluded the sportsmen who can shoot are then 
to be harried from their late reterats by dogs, driven to 
the ponds to be shot or clubbed to death and, in the 
event of escape, often to perish miserably from the 
effects of chilling after the run. 
Remember that consideration for the greatest good 
of the greatest number of the entire citizenship of our 
State should govern legislative deliberation in this 
matter. 
Our good friends and relations of the north must not 
think that they alone are interested in the preserva- 
tion and increase ' of the deer supply. No warmer 
champions of Essex county exist than those of us 
exiled here in the great city who are chained by the 
cares of business life for a large portion of the year. 
Surely, we can look upon the subject of deer hound- 
ing with as clear a vision as our brethren of the farms 
and villages in that favored section of the world. I 
am certain that the present law will be continued in 
force and, I expect, will rigidly punish all future 
violations. Peter Flint. 
North Carolina Game Conditions. 
Raleigh, N. C., Dec. 21. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
The bear hunters in Western North Carolina in the 
high mountain region are now having a great amount 
oi sport, and from Jackson county comes the news of 
the killing of twelve bears in a few days, some being 
very large specimens. Some fine ones have been se- 
cured and mounted at the State museum here, where 
the exhibit of the fauna of the State has been, made 
remarkably complete by Curator Brimley. This feature 
of the museum is found to be very instructive and at- 
tractive and the curator has promised the writer to de- 
liver a lecture there in January in the great hall in 
which the specimens are so admirably shown. 
News comes from Greensboro, which is in the center 
of the district which is so much visited by northern 
.sportsmen who for years have been leasing lands for 
hunting privileges, that prices of leases are to be ad- 
vanced. The old price has been the payment of taxes, 
amounting to about three, cents an acre annually, but 
last year some of the wealthy mien themselves offered 
an adi'ance figure, this being ten cents an acre, and of 
course they obtain leases. This news of course got 
abroad among the landowners. Many of the old leases 
expire this year, several of the lessees having lodges 
on their preserves. One man has 30,000 acres, and he 
will noiv hiave to pay $300, while formerly he paid only 
$go.. One of the large holders is Samuel Spencer, and 
his lease is expiring. He does not have a hunting- 
lodge, but uses his private car, as the Southern Rail- 
wa}' traverses his large hunting preserve. ■ W. G. 
Brokaw, of New York, two years ago bought outright 
3,000 acres of land and besides this leased about 15,000, 
in addition of which he has invested over $10,000 in a 
lodge, barns, stables, kennels, etc. Thre are over twenty 
hunting lodges in that section of the State and the 
owners spend a great deal of money. In fact, it is 
said th.at every partridge they kill costs them $10, but, 
of course, they do not mind this, money being no 
object to .such sportsmen. 
d'he writer is making arrangements for an illustrated 
lecture by Secretary Gilbert Pearson of the State Audu- 
bon Society at Pinehur.'rt sometime in January or 
.February, before the great number of wealthy northern 
people who will be at that noted resort. Pearson is 
one of the most delightful lecturers in that country, and 
has the soul of the true artist as well. 
There are some complaints by sportsmen that par- 
tridges are very hard to find. The birds are all fully 
grown now, and they stay pretty close to the densest 
cover in their vicinitjq along branches, particularly 
■where there is a good supply of bamboos and black- 
berry bushes. There are a great many hunters this 
year, and a lot of the country people shoot extremely 
well. They buy good guns and know how to use them, 
too. Birds are sold here by the killers at from 10 to 
cents, though in some cases they bring as much 
as 15 cents, and the farmers have in a good many 
cases caught on to the fact that the woodcock is an 
extra fine bird, and v/ant 20 cents for, him. This is a. 
big change from a few years ago, when they used to 
throw off the head of a woodcock in order to pass him 
off as a partridge. I can remember the time when birds 
used to sell from 5 to cents. I do not hear of 
much trapping this year, though a report comes from 
Lillington that live birds have come from there for sale, 
and I have notified Secretary Pearson about this. The 
weather has been very rough on the coast to the great 
delight of duck hunters. Fred. A. Olds. 
A Trip to North Carolina. 
Along in the late summer I was talking with one of 
my law partners about a trip to North Carolina for 
quail. As he was a North Carolinian, he at once wrote 
to Mr. Isaac Tull, of Kinston, N. C., a friend, to ask 
if he could accommodate a small party. The response 
was prompt; that the season opened Nov. i, and he 
would taks us. The party of five was soon made up, 
and on Oct. 30, we left Newark at lo o’clock at night 
with dogs and guns, and left business behind. 
Next afternoon at 3:50 we were at Goldsboro, and 
at 4:10 were on a branch railroad for Kinston. When 
we arrived at Kinston, we were met by Isaac and Ed- 
ward Tull, both college graduates and two of the best 
fellows in this world. The first thing was a trip to 
the County Clerk, who had kept his office open for us 
and gave us each a license for $50 of money of the 
realm. This officer had none of the acidity of north- 
ern office-holders, but was as courteous as he could be. 
Then we climbed into a large three-seated wagon and 
went out to the Tull homestead, some three miles dis- 
tant. Mrs. Tull met us at the door and gave us a 
hearty welcome. 
Next morning the hunting began. Twenty-seven 
coveys of quail were raised the first day, and it was 
great shooting. There were so many birds we were 
all careless, and only thirty-one birds were brought in 
that night. Each day' of shooting brought its own 
special pleasures and delights. I can see it yet, the 
pleasant days, the eager dogs, the joyous call, “Did you 
get him,” and I long to drop legal papers and go back 
and stay. Several coveys of young birds were found, 
but not shot at. 
On Saturday we had dinner at Kinston with Mr. 
Sugg, who is the Register of Deeds. We met his wife 
and son, and a delightful family they proved to be. 
Every one we met had the time for inquiries as to ouf 
visit and well wishes for our success. I cannot stop 
until I mention a barbecue, a pig roasted over hot 
coals from 6 A. M. until 4 P. M.; but when that bar- 
becued pig was in one’s mouth, the wait was forgotten. 
I can’t forget Mr. Sessons, with his kindly help, and 
“Hism,” with his unending good humor. King. 
Boston Notes. 
Boston, Dec. 23. — Editor Forest and Stream: The 
sportsmen’s show, which will open next Monday, 
promises to be excellent. One of the sights everybody 
will wish to see is the yoke of buffalo from Corbin’s 
Park to be driven by Ernest Harold Baynes. 
Several Boston gunners are reported to be securing 
immense bags of ducks at Currituck and other south- 
ern resorts, in some instances several hundred birds 
to a gun having been killed in a week’s shooting. If 
permitted to live till next season some of those birds 
would fall to New Er gland shooters. 
In Bristol county our partridges may be hunted 
until Dec. 15, and the number left at the end of 
the season in that co-nnty is bound to be very small. 
So far as the shooting season for upland birds is con- 
cerned, our North A-tileboro friends would be glad to 
have the season the same as in the other counties. 
The Eastern Massachusetts Association is to have 
another fox hunt on Dec. 30, when the members are 
notified to meet for that purpose at Wilmington. 
Central. 
National Motor Boat and Sportsmen’s Show 
New York.— EdiYo?' Forest and Stream: The National 
Motor Boat and Sportsman’s Show will open at Madison 
Square Garden Feb. 20, and continue up to and including 
March 8. This promises to be the greatest show of this 
kind ever held in this country, judging from the unusual 
number of applicants for. space, which applications in- 
clude nearly all the old exhibitors and 'many new ones. 
J. A. H. Dressel, Manager. 
Dan Claussen — Sealer. 
And never a law of God nor man 
Runs north of Fifty-three. 
That’s right, except always as to citizens of the 
United States,” said Dan Claussen as I finished the 
quotation. “There is no law up there for anybody, ex- 
cept Uncle Sam’s boys. We are obliged to rest on our 
oars and lose money while subjects of other countries 
go home with the goods all the way from Thirty-five, 
North."’ 
We were talking seals and sea otter. That is Dan’s 
business; a seal and otter hunter, one of the best in 
the North Pacific and Behring Sea, having been at it 
for over twenty years. His blue eyes are yet steady 
and keen and can distinguish a seal or otter on the 
water while his mates are uncertain and waiting for the 
report of the man with the glass. Then, too, he has 
ihe trick of the double shot and is a thorough sailor 
r.lso. That is why he can get a lay at any time for 
from $4.50 to $5 for each seal, and from $25 to $30 for 
each otter he kills. The schooner in which Dan had 
sailed for the Far North had been turned back by a 
revenue cutter, and I was up in his cosy little flat in 
Center Place, San Francisco, to welcome him home. 
Vv’e were in the sitting room; his wife was in the 
I itchen sousing the supper dishes in the hot suds in 
ihc sink, while she sang to the little ones playing on 
tin- floor. She was content, for Daii was at home; but. 
for that matter, she always knew he would return, and 
tliat confidence had brought Dan home more than once 
when his mates gave up and dropped into the sea — 
but that conies later in the story. Now, it was after 
a good supper, Dan was in a comfy chair, his slippered 
feet in anothei'. He had just finished relating an in- 
cident of liis last voyage in the now famous Carmencita, 
the crew of which had attempted to raid the seal 
rookeries on the Kormandorski, or Copper, Islands 
and had been repulsed, the Russians killing one man, 
Walter York, of Missouri, and wounding boat-puller 
Fi'iedlander. It was tlien I (luoted the couplet and he 
continued: 
"The wisdom and far-sightedness of the founders of 
this Government was not all the spellbinders would 
l.ave us believe. If John Quincy Adams had been put 
wise and not got off on the wrong foot and butted into 
the argument between Russia and England back in 1822, 
it is more than likely that now there wouldn’t be any 
modus vivendi, Paris Tribunal, Joint High Commis- 
sion, Pelagic Sealing — tommyrot and Americans might 
be permitted to take fur seals in our own seas without 
having the humiliation of seeing Canucks, Kanakas, 
Japanese, R.ussians and Britishers come in and kill 
tliem . and get away with the pelts while we are not 
even .allowed to hunt. That’s right. Every captain of 
a sealing sch.ooner has in his cabin books on the seal- 
ing industry and keeps posted right up to date on all 
that is going on in his line. Sealer.s are never in a 
hurry unless chased by a revenue cutter with a six- 
pounder mounted forward, and in the long days and 
nights up there in the heave and settle of the sea I have 
read and studied the question pretty thoroughly, and 
this is the way it figures out. 
“In 1821 Czar Paul issued a proclamation declaring 
the Behring a closed sea, a Russian sea. To this Eng- 
land objected in a way, not seriously, however. Lord 
Londonderry, the premier, sending a polite little note 
to the Czar, saying that England would rather he 
wouldn’t, or something equally as emphatic. There 
the matter rested until our John Quincy Adams learned 
what the Czar was up to, and then there was some- 
thing doing right away. John Quincy took a hand 
and sent word to the Czar that America would not 
stand for his proposition for a minute, that the Behring 
was an open sea and free water. The Duke of Welling- 
ton succeeded Lord Londonderry and backed up John 
Quincy and between them they jammed the Czar into 
admitting that his jurisdiction over the Behring Sea 
extended no further than the range of his shore cannon. 
“We bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, and in a 
j^ear or two after we farmed out the sealing privileges 
in the Behring Sea to the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany for $50,000 per year and a royalty of $2 for every 
seal killed. The rookeries were then on islands off the 
Alaskan Coast and the Prybiloff, or Seal Islands, north 
of the Aleutian chain of islands. Sealers from all over 
the Pacific flocked there and to the Rus.sian rookeries 
