564 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May 3, 1913 
I Published Weekly by the 
Forest and Stream Publishing Company, 
Charles Otis, President. 
W. G. Beecroft, Secretary. W. J. Gallagher, Treasurer. 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
CORRESPONIIKNCE —Forest and Stream is the 
recognized medium of entertainment, instruction and in¬ 
formation between American sportsmen. The editors 
invite communications on the subjects to which its pages 
are devoted, but, of course, are not responsible for the 
views of correspondents. Anonymous communications 
cannot be regarded. 
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THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful in¬ 
terest in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate 
a refined taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
LICENSING FISHERMEN. 
At the first glance there would seem to be 
no reason for taxing gunners for the privilege of 
taking game and exempting anglers from simi¬ 
lar taxation. But as we were long ago converted 
to the belief that there is reason behind every¬ 
thing, except a woman’s argument, we have set 
ourself the task of discovering why it is that 
the man who packs the gun pays all the bills. 
Proceeding by a method of elimination, it is 
easy to clear the hunters of responsibility for 
placing fishermen in a class which enjoys spe¬ 
cial privilege at their expense. Much as we 
like them, we can’t believe that out of sheer 
generosity they have volunteered to establish 
hatcheries and pay wardens to increase and pro¬ 
tect the fish. On the other hand, it is even 
Iiarder to believe that the fishermen have know¬ 
ingly tried to avoid paying their own way. Just 
tell a fisherman he is being pauperized by his 
license-paying brother, and see what happens. 
There is no better sportsman than your fisher- 
vnan and fair play is the basis of good sports¬ 
manship. It is his deep-seated love of fair play 
that puts red in an angler’s eye when he finds 
some pirate cleaning out a pool with dynamite. 
No, we positively cannot believe that it is be¬ 
cause of opposition by the fishermen themselves 
that they are pot now paying for the fish which 
the States put out every year to stock streams 
for their benefit. 
This conclusion puts us in something of a 
quandary. We should naturally suppose that 
wielders of the rod would be staying up nights 
writing to the Legislature and demanding their 
right to pay for their own sport. One would 
expect them to feel toward the nimrods as the 
fellow feels toward the man who wins his 
money and won’t take it. And yet bills to create 
a fisherman’s license die because the fishermen 
don’t back them up. We can’t expect gunners 
to spend much time pushing these bills. They 
are so used to paying the freight that they don't 
particularly mind it, and then they are deterred 
from action by a certain sense of delicacy. They 
know the anglers do not realize the situation, 
and they hesitate about forcing the embarrass¬ 
ing facts upon them. So the bills just die of 
inanition. Sometimes a futile protest is heard 
on the ground that a fisherman’s license would 
be hard on the small boy with his fresh-cut pole 
and can of worms, but these can only apply to 
silly measures. Of course, exempt the boy. We 
pay for his schooling without a murmur, and 
possibly he learns as much in luring the dig¬ 
nified bullhead as he does from his books. 
Again, a misguided legislator blocks an attempt 
to put the fishermen beyond the imputation of 
sponging, because he thinks it will please his 
constituents. It may please a few fish hogs, but 
the truth of it generally is that real lovers of 
the art do not know what is going on, and 
would not thank him for his officious presump¬ 
tion that they want to let the other fellow buy 
all the time. 
And now, having clarified our ideas on this 
singular state of affairs, we see the reason for 
its existence. We are all accustomed to take it 
for granted that somebody else will see to it 
that we don’t get something for nothing. That 
has been the case of the fisherman, and, there¬ 
fore, he hasn’t thought much about the matter. 
It is time for him to assert his self-respect and 
demand that he be allowed to pay his own bills. 
Let’s have license laws, prepared and introduced 
and backed up by fishermen. Not till we do 
will the fishermen get what they want, which is 
fair play all the time. 
A PENNSYLVANIA PLUMAGE LAW. 
Something more than a month ago we called 
attention to the fact that bird protectors were 
working hard in behalf of a bill to prohibit the 
traffic in aigrettes in Pennsylvania, and that the 
millinery people were as strenuously opposing 
the bill. 
As is well known, Philadelphia has been a 
headquarters from which aigrettes have been se¬ 
cretly sold to dealers in New York, and it has 
been no secret that a trade in these plumes has 
been conducted from that center as far west as 
the Pacific coast, where traffic in aigrettes is pro¬ 
hibited. The Audubon Society has striven earn¬ 
estly for the passage of the bill amending the 
non-game bird laws of Pennsylvania in such a 
way that they shall correspond with the ad¬ 
vanced and effective laws of New York and New 
Jersey. 
It is gratifying to learn that this amended 
bill finally passed the Pensylvania Legislature 
without one opposing vote, and is now the law, 
for it was signed by the Governor of Pennsyl¬ 
vania, April 22. 
Members of the Audubon Society, of the 
Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, and espe¬ 
cially members of the Committee on Conserva¬ 
tion of Wild Bird Life, and Witmer Stone, the 
editor of The Auk, are entitled to the greatest 
credit for their efforts in behalf of this bill. 
They have their reward in its success. 
A CONTRABAND INCIDENT. 
The surprise and delight of readers of 
Forest and Stream at the publication of a new 
serial by Nessmuk is not unexpected. 
Dealing with incidents of more than sixty 
years ago—of a time when Nessmuk was a man 
in middle life, and with incidents which then 
were the most burning and vital that the United 
States had been obliged to face since it became 
a nation—of these matters it was at that time im¬ 
possible to speak without harshness. Then, and 
for many years thereafter, the bitter aftermath 
of the Civil War endured in a most unhappy 
feeling of hostility between the North and the 
South. 
Happily this state of feeling has wholly 
passed away; indeed, is almost forgotten. The 
people of the South respect those of the North 
as having expended immense blood and treasure 
for a principle. The people of the North re¬ 
spect those of the South for having done the 
same thing and much more—for having nobly 
and patiently suffered, through their women and 
children, sorrows and hardships that the North 
was not called upon to endure. The inhabitants 
of each section put forth characteristics worthy 
of the best Americans. 
Nessmuk’s story, which we are now print¬ 
ing, shows traces here and there of the angry 
feeling which once existed, and readers North 
and South will make allowance in the story for 
the mental attitude of the writer and the condi¬ 
tions existing at the time at which he wrote. 
The interest of the tale will not be affected one 
way or the other by the expression of this old 
and nearly forgotten feeling. We may feel sure 
that if Nessmuk were alive to-day, his view of 
those old occurrences would be that of the 
modern man. Our one feeling about this story 
is satisfaction that there remains an unpublished 
story by this great woodsman, which we are able 
to give to our readers. 
OHIO HAS HUNTERS’ LICENSE. 
After an annual pilgrimage to the Ohio 
Legislature for many years, the hunters’ license 
bill was passed by the present Legislature. The 
bill has always before been defeated by the 
farmers, who feared infringement on their rights. 
They opposed it again this time, and on first 
vote it was lost, but reconsideration saved it. 
Ohio hunters must pay an annual license fee 
of $1, and those from other States $15. It is 
estimated by the State Fish and Game Commis¬ 
sion that this will produce about $60,000 a year 
and will entirely support that department, soon 
to be a bureau under the agricultural commis¬ 
sion. 
Optimism. 
BY J. W. APPLEGATE, JR. 
Heavy boots, dusty trail, 
Icy creek, cold as hail! 
Mossy stones make him slip, 
Rark his shins. Catches grippe! 
Playful gnats in his eye, 
“Turkey trot,” that’s no lie. 
7'hink he cares? Not a whit — 
Ever see angler quit? 
The circulation of Forest and Stream is 
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