Th* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Trespassers and Auto Thieves at Law 
Last week we mentioned several new bills before 
the New York Legislature this season. The follow¬ 
ing are short, yet important, so that we may print 
them in full: 
ASSEMBLY BILL NO. 438— BY MR. RETTS 
Section 1. Section 183 of chapter 647 of the laws of 
1011. entitled “An act relating to conservation of lands, 
forests, waters, parks, hydraulic power, fish and game, 
constituting chapter 0f> of the consolidated laws," as 
added by chapter 287 of the laws of 1919 and amended 
by chapter 466 of the laws of 1921. is hereby amended 
to read as follows: 
Section 183. Damaging fences or other property by 
hunters, trappers and fishermen. Any person who, for 
the purpose of or while hunting, trapping or fishing, 
shall without the permission of the owner, lessee or law¬ 
ful occupant, enter upon the laud of another, and while 
thereon shall disturb, take, injure or kill any domestic 
fowl or animal, or injure, take or remove any fruit, 
vegetables or farm produce, or cut. destroy or damage 
any bars, gates or fence, or any part thereof, or shall 
leave open any bars or gates thereon, resulting in dam¬ 
age to the owner or oceupunf thereof, shall be guilty of 
a misdemeanor, and in addition thereto is liable to a 
penalty of $50, one-half of which shall be payable to 
the owner thereof, and in addition thereto the actual 
damages, which shall he paid to the owner. 
Section 2. Such chapter is hereby amended, by in¬ 
serting therein, at the end of part three of article live, 
a new section, to be section 184, to read as follows: 
Section 184. Presumptive evidence. The possession 
of any domestic fowl or animal, or the possession of any 
fruit, vegetable or farm product by any person or per¬ 
sons having in his or their possession a rifle or shotgun, 
or who shall be accompanied by a person having in his 
possession a rifle or shotgun, shall be presumptive 
proof that such domestic fowl or animal, fruit, vegetable 
or farm product was taken iu violation of section 1S3 of 
this chapter. 
Section 3. This not shall take effect immediately. 
ASSEMBLY BILL NO. 36.7— BY MR. WEBB 
Section 1. Chapter 30 of the laws of 1909, entitled 
“An net relating to highways, constituting chapter 23 
of the consolidated laws.” is hereby amended by insert¬ 
ing therein, after section 290-b, a new section, to be 
section 290-e, to read as follows: 
Section 290-e. Revocation of registration or license 
upon conviction for stealing farm produce. In addition 
to any other powers and duties conferred upon a judge 
or magistrate by this article, the judge or magistrate 
presiding at a term or session of a Court in which the 
owner of a motor vehicle is convicted of stealing farm 
produce may in his discretion, and in cases of second 
and subsequent offenses must, revoke the registration 
of the motor vehicle of such owner by order. Such 
order also shall require that the certificate of registra¬ 
tion. and number of plates if any. be delivered forthwith 
to the tax commission. Such judge or magistrate shall 
forthwith transmit to the tax commission a copy of the 
order and shall cause a copy thereof to he served per¬ 
sonally upon the person whose certificate is so revoked. 
Section 2. This act shall take effect immediately. 
Farmers and Happiness 
As a whole our farmers are in rather a bad way. 
Although those who were not hit with the laud boom 
have done well, tenant farmers get the effect second¬ 
arily. There has never been better times for the farmer 
who took advantage of the high prices to pay off old 
debts or lay away a nest egg for future need. Wallace's 
plan to reduce the acreage of corn is all right if it would 
work. 1 have been waiting for some one big enough to 
evolve a plan whereby farmers could buy and pay for 
their homes, ns wo who started 30 years ago did. A 
minister in our town once said that the happiest man 
was he who owned a farm, and did not want to buy his 
neighbor's. 1 believe he was right. JEROME smith. 
Iowa. 
R. N.-Y.—That minister had it about right. The 
man who is constantly scheming to “get mote’’ after he 
has enough cannot buy a ticket to happiness. It is true 
that farmers who during the high wartime prices saved 
part of their income and refused to speculate, are in a 
good position today. 
New York State Grange 
The forty-ninth annual meeting of the New York 
State Grange, held in Binghamton. February 7-10. was 
a record one in attendance and interest, with good 
weather prevailing through the meeting, Bight new 
Granges were organized in 1921. making a total of 927 
in the State, with n membership of over 140,300. the 
biggest membership by far of any State. 
One of the first resolutions to lie passed was one 
endorsing the work of the State College of Agriculture 
at Cornell, and urging that the inadequate buildings be 
added to by a liberal appropriation for a building fund. 
Another one continues the 12 Cornell scholarships tie 1 
body lias maintained for some years past. Other im¬ 
portant resolutions that will do much towards shaping 
the agricultural policies of tin- State were one asking 
that more troops of State police be provided for. that 
rural sections may be better protected from thievery 
and night time robberies; asking for the enforcement of 
the law prohibiting hunting on Sundays; favoring the 
publication of a catalogue of farms in the State aban¬ 
doned or for sale, by the State Department of Farms 
and Markets (this publication was recently abandoned, 
largely because of representations of real estate 
dealers) ; favoring the use of concrete in the construc¬ 
tion of State highways; opposing the St. Lawrence 
canal project; favoring the daily reading of the Bible 
in public schools; ask more rigid enforcement of the 
prohibition law; asking the repeal of the full crew 
railroad act as a means of lessening transportation 
costs: favoring the revoking of the license of any auto¬ 
mobile driver who operates a car while intoxicated; 
favoring the pooling plan of the Dairymen's League; 
opposing the manufacture of filled milk and favoring 
tile Knight hill to legalize the purchase of new bond 
issues of Federal I.and Banks by State savings banks 
and trustees; urging the teaching of the principles of 
co-operative marketing methods in Grange meetings. 
There were several school resolutions One would 
repeal the law giving school superintendents the right 
to consolidate schools without consent of the people in 
the districts concerned. Another favored the election 
of school superintendents, instead of their appointment. 
The State Fair Commission was asked to refuse 
advertisements of oleo and filled milk in the fair cata¬ 
logue, and to refuse exhibits of these in the halls of 
the fair. The request, was also extended to county 
fairs. 
Over 600 took tin* sixth degree. The election of 
officers was accomplished iu record time, with few 
changes in the official list. National Master Lowell 
scored when he said: “Less movies on Sundays and 
more of God’s service, more of father and mother in 
the home, and a better feeling for one another.” f. 
A Farm Bureau and Auto Thieves 
I have read with interest your suggestions for hand¬ 
ling automobile thieve*, and while your method of drastic 
personal and immediate action is perhaps applicable in 
some places, I doubt its general value for two reasons. 
Iu the first place, the property owner who went after 
trespassers with a dog or gun, or used drastic methods 
in any way. might get the worse of a personal en¬ 
counter, he might inflict very serious injury and involve 
himself in a bad situation, and he might inflict .such an 
injury as would lose him the support of public opinion 
and turn support toward the trespasser. I believe that 
cases of tliis kind are not without precedent. 
I believe that we in Dutchess County have a better 
way of handling this situation. In August, James Rob¬ 
erts of Arlington. N. Y., was driving past the orchard 
of David Slighr of the town of 1,a Grange in his auto¬ 
mobile. Mr. Roberts stopped his car and he or his 
party (wife and son) took some apples from the orchard 
of Mr. Blight. The act was witnessed by Mr. Hart, a 
neighbor of Mr. Slight, and others. The matter was 
reported to the sheriff- Roberts was arrested and 
brought to trial in the justice’s court of the town of 
I.aGrangc. The jury disagreed at the first trial. After 
much stalling and many postponements, the case finally 
came to trial again late in December. Roberts was 
found guilty and was fined $35. 
The Farm Bureau followed this case from the begin¬ 
ning. giving it. tile widest possible publicity, and I thiuk 
it received not less than 30 newspaper write-ups iu the 
several papers of the comity during the period that the 
case was pending. The moral effect of this arrest and 
the wide publicity given it appears to have been excellent. 
Dutchess County farmers have had much less trouble 
from petty thieving this year (1921) than last, and we 
ascribe a large amount of credit to this case, which was 
pending iu rhe courts during the Fall and receiving fre¬ 
quent newspaper notes. 
A similar ease is now pending in the courts. A few 
days prior to Thanksgiving three hunters, in passing 
oxer a farmer’s land, shot and killed three turkeys be¬ 
longing to the owner of the land, and attempted to 
escape in their automobile, which was standing nearby. 
The act was witnessed and pursuit was taken up. The 
thieves were overtaken a few miles down the road, 
when they were compelled to stop on account of tire 
trouble. At first they denied the charge, but when 
confronted with the evidence in the form of the dead 
turkeys which they carried they admitted the shooting. 
In the meantime the sheriff’s office had been notified; 
the sheriff ordered one of hi* deputies who resided in 
that part of the county to give chase, and the deputy 
arrived after neighbors had caught the thieves. The 
men were taken before a justice of the peace in the 
town. After some conference the hunters produced 
$100. which was paid to the farmer who owned the 
turkeys; the dead turkeys were returned to him, and 
the parties interested supposed the matter was clos' d. 
The Farm Bureau directors did not approve of this 
method of disposing of cases of law violation. They 
called on the sheriff, the district attorney and the jus¬ 
tice of the Supreme Court by a petition and resolution 
to investigate the case. The justice held a public hear¬ 
ing. calling in the deputy sheriff, the justice of the 
town aud others, to be questioned. At the hearing it 
developed that the thieves had paid the $100 under 
threat that action would be brought against them. It 
developed further that the fanner who received the 
8100 had split with the deputy sheriff. The justice of 
rhe peace denied that he had acted in an official capac¬ 
ity. and admitted that no record of the case was made 
by him. It was admitted that the 8100 paid the farmer 
was considerably in excess *.f the value of the turkeys. 
The Supreme Court justice was indignant that a mat¬ 
ter of this kind should be handled in such a manner, and 
warrants were issued for the arrest of the turkey 
thieves. They are at present nr liberty, awaiting the 
action o? the grand jury. Just what will be done re¬ 
garding the matter of the farmer who accepted the 8100 
and rhe return of the turkeys, with the deputy sheriff 
who shared in the spoils, and with the justice of the 
peace who was willing to puss over such au occur¬ 
rence without due process of law, remains to be seen. 
Again we have given this incident the very widest 
possible publicity, to the end that hunters may be dis¬ 
couraged from shooting turkeys, deputy sheriffs from 
sharing in the spoils of crime, and justices of the peace 
from winking at violations of the law. 
AA’e believe that the above method of handling matters 
of this kind is correct. It is legal, it does injustice to 
no one. and by the use of publicity it secures the desired 
result of checking indiscriminate thievery. At the reg¬ 
ular annual meeting of the Dutches.* County Farm Bu¬ 
reau Association a resolution was unanimously adopted 
to the effect that the Farm Bureau Association would 
prosecute any person who might be guilty of stealing 
from the premises of a Farm Bureau member. The 
resolution further provided that regular funds of the 
organization should not be used for this purpose, but 
that the expense should he voluntarily underwritten by 
members. A guarantee of $400 was raised at the meet¬ 
ing in loss than four minutes, the same to be called for 
in sums not exceeding 810 per member should occasion 
arise. AW do not expect that it will be necessary to use 
any considerable sum of money in this work, but we 
have it pledged, and it will lie used if necessary, and 
we expect to be able to reduce this trouble to a minimum 
by the method outlined. f. n. l. 
The Wire Tag Cattle Danger 
In a recent issue you asked for -dairymen who have 
lost cattle from bag wires to write you. During the 
last year we have lost three valuable animals, two of 
which were purebred llolsteins. These animals all 
acted the same, would mope around and get thinner 
every day in spite of the best care we could give 
them. After they died, we opened all of them, and 
found in every case that one of these tag wires had 
become encased by a large pus sack in the vicinity 
of the heart. drynocit farms. 
Leonardo. N. J. 
My way to stop this trouble would be simple. Let 
the local farm organization write concerns who use 
wire tags for tying sacks that, unless they refrain from 
using these wires the farmers would refuse to buy their 
283 
feed, and then make good and not buy any. If there ia 
no organization, get up a Dtter covering this statement 
and have the dairymen in the community sign, and send 
same to different concerns using these tag wires, and 
they will get results. Six or eight years ago our mer¬ 
chants agreed to close all business, except restaurants 
and ice cream parlors on Sunday. We have 25 or 30 
stores (all foreign) that handle fruits aud groceries. 
Some of them run meat markers. They would not close. 
I then was chairman of the executive committee of our 
Commercial Travelers’ Club. The chairman of the 
Merchants’ Exchange, in talking with me one day. asked 
me what we could do to close these people. I suggested 
quit patronizing them ar all. The result was the two 
executive committees met and decided to report back to 
their respective organizations asking their members not 
to patronize any of those stores that kppt open on Sun¬ 
day. They then notified such merchants. In two weeks 
every one was closed. This would be my way if I were 
a dairyman. ‘r. n.' weaver. 
Pennsylvania. 
I saw on page 1503 about cattle killed by tag wires. 
They are a nuisance. They use twine to sew bags 
shut. Why not put. tag on also with twine? That 
would be the thing to do. The farmer would appreciate 
it. There are too many cattle killed by wire. One even¬ 
ing our cows were all right; next morning one of the 
beet was dead. We sent for the “dead-animal man.” 
and said we wanted to know what was the matter, as 
she was a healthy cow. lie found the small wire had 
penetrated her heart when she laid down in the evening. 
• >ur son had a high-priced cow. She was ailing for a 
week; would not eat. and gave no milk. She died, and 
it was found that she had been killed bv wire. A num¬ 
ber of farmers around here have had’ same bad luck. 
Lancaster Co., Pa. M. o. w. 
I see you speak of wire clasps on grain bags. You 
have the right idea regarding a law to stop the use of 
this wholesale cattle-destroyer. I have been called to 
attend a dozen eases in the last three years that were 
victims of the clasps nr wire clamps or nails. My last 
case affected this way was a young cow humped up. off 
her feed, a subnormal temperature. I diagnosed her 
case as suffering and incurable from metallic substance. 
I gave the owner no encouragement outside of cutting 
out. He later called another veterinarian, who gave a 
like opinion. _ The cow was killed, and the post-mortem 
found 13 nails.. and some 3-i. screws, which goes to 
show this metallic diet is unhealthy w. f. jones, v.s. 
Game Laws and the Cats 
We surely do approve of your stand regarding hunt¬ 
ing. What a nuisance they do make of it. and here’s 
another thing that makes me mad, and nearly everyoue 
else will agree with me. I think. Did you ever read 
the fine print ou 'lie back of a hunting license? It gives 
the hunter rhe right t" shoot any cats found in the fields 
in pursuit of game, and we all know how the cats go 
out and catch the mice in the hay-fields, and they will 
go across the fields to the neighbors’ barns also'; and 
how is the hunter going to tell whether the cat is out 
after a mouse or a bird? Gne of our neighbors had a 
beautiful Angora ear kilh-d this Summer. He was in 
their own field, right back of their barn, so close that 
thp shot rattled down right around the house. I think 
that clause in the hunring licenses is outrageous. An¬ 
other neighbor lost a white Angora cat this Summer 
and never found out where she went, but felt prettv 
sure - c. n. ' 
The statement on the hack of the hunting license 
reads as follows: 
“Help to Hold Vermin in Check” 
“A or mm destroy far more game and fur-bearing ani¬ 
mals than arc takeu by all the hunters and trappers 
Combined. Kill all you can of foxes, cats hunting pro¬ 
tected birds, harmful hawks, red squirrels, and other 
enemies of useful wild life. You will benefit both the 
game and your own sport.” 
Any hunter will take that as full permission to shoot 
any cat he may see—and many of them live fully up to 
their privilege. It would be impossible for any cat 
owner to make a case against a hunter who killed a 
cat. even if the animal were shot while it was asleep. 
Protection Against Thieves 
AA'e have had quite an "unusual” cold snap, with the 
temperature down to 20 degrees in some of the citrus 
sections. Reports from Southern California indicate 
that 50 per cent of the oranges have been frozen on the 
trees. Lemons have suffered even worse. So you see 
that the East has no monopoly on hard-bitting cold 
snaps. 
I have been much interested in your accounts of dep¬ 
redations of auto hogs. I am reminded of the epidemic 
of horse stealing which followed the close of the Civil 
War. It got so bad in Southern Illinois, where I lived, 
that. the farmers organized a Morse Thief Protective 
Association. Large circulars were printed on cloth and 
distributed among the members, to be nailed up on their 
barns. These circulars stated that the owner of the 
barn was a member of the association and that he was 
pledged to help hunt down every thief stealing a horse 
f**om ativ member of the association. A troop of riders 
was selected to serve for a stated time. The troop was 
ready to start on the trail of a thief at any time, day 
or night, and fo'low it relentlessly until he was cap¬ 
tured. My recollection is that only two horses were 
stolen from members after the organization, and the 
thieves were run down and sent to the pen. All ex¬ 
penses. including those for pursuit aud prosecution, were 
paid by the association, and were hardly felt by the 
members. The big posters were a potent warning to 
thieves, and had tm little to do with the exemption of 
the members of the association from their depredations. 
AVhy could not the farmers in the sections infested with 
these auto thieves organize along similar lines? Prompt 
arrest and vigorous prosecution of a few offenders, 
backed by a large group of farmers, would soon stop the 
lawless thieves The success of any scheme will depend 
upon the united action of a large number of farmers. 
When such is the case, not only thieves but officers of 
the law will sit up and take notice. “TFe must do it 
Ourscivcs." e. r. j. 
Berkeley. Cal. 
K. N.-Y.—That very thing has been done in several 
sections of the East, and it seems to be working out 
well. The sooner the thieves realize that the entire 
community is ready for them the sooner they will rec¬ 
ognize the rights of ownership. 
