Forest and Stream 
Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 
1909. 
VOL. LXXIII,—No. 20. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1909, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Geinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street. New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
NEWSPAPER HYSTERIA. 
The sad death of one young man and the 
serious injury of another on the football field 
have given rise to a hysterical outburst by cer¬ 
tain newspapers, the general drift of which is 
that football should be abolished. Two or three 
years ago, in response to a similar newspaper 
outcry, the game was modified in certain re¬ 
spects. 
Concerning the question as to whether foot¬ 
ball is safe or unsafe, or whether the game 
should or should not be given up, Forest 
and Stream has nothing to say; but it wishes 
to protest against the hysterical exaggerations 
of a considerable number of writers who are 
discussing a subject from one point of view 
only. 
No form of outdoor sport is free from acci¬ 
dents, since most such sports demand that the 
one practicing them shall put himself in a posi¬ 
tion of some slight jeopardy, whether by hand¬ 
ling tools which in careless or unskilled hands 
may become dangerous, by venturing on or into 
an element where he may be killed or injured, 
or by using some means of conveyance which 
may get beyond his control. Deaths from such 
^causes occur annually by scores and by hun¬ 
dreds, and are given no more prominence in 
the public prints than half a dozen lines of type 
to announce the event. By such accidents men, 
women and children are killed every day in con¬ 
siderable numbers all over the United States, 
and, unless the person killed occupies a position 
of prominence in the community, such deaths 
or injuries receive but the briefest mention. 
People of all ages and sexes perish by auto¬ 
mobile accidents, yachtsmen and canoeists are 
drowned, men and boys are killed by firearms, 
drivers are run away vyith, riders are thrown 
from their horses. Within the last year eighty- 
four people lost their lives by Alpine accidents 
in Central Europe. 
All these things are matters of common occur¬ 
rence and are treated as of little or no interest. 
That football accidents are handled by the press 
differently from the thousands of other common 
forms of injury is perhaps not so much because 
hey take place, as because they are witnessed 
>y great numbers of people. Football is a rough 
tame—a trial of physical strength between se¬ 
lected young men—and it is too much the cus¬ 
tom for the newspapers to call a football con¬ 
test a gladiatorial combat, and to describe the 
hard struggle between the teams as an exhi¬ 
bition of brutality. Football accidents taking- 
place in the view of the public, and with news¬ 
paper reporters present, furnish a subject for 
newspaper writing which is eagerly seized on, 
and such writings are enthusiastically applauded 
by readers who are uninformed and hysterical. 
That all the various outdoor sports possess 
an element of danger cannot be denied, but 
when we compare the danger to the individual 
with the enormous benefit which the race at 
large derives from the practice of these sports, 
the element of danger is so slight as to be 
wholly negligible. 
LITTLE PLUME. 
The yellowing leaves of the cottonwoods 
were softly dropping to earth through the still 
night air, when the spirit of Little Plume left 
his lodge in Two Medicine Bottom on its 
journey to the sandhills. It was very quiet. 
But a moment later the stillness was broken by 
the shrill wailings of the women, who were 
mourning for the husband, father, and brother 
who had left them; and the next day in camps 
up and down the river and on other streams all 
over the reservation there was mourning for 
the chief who had gone. 
Little Plume was a chief. As a young man he 
had been buffalo hunter and warrior, knowing 
little else than that. An orphan, he had been 
taken as a boy into the home of the great chief 
Three Suns, and by observing the acts and 
listening to the wise words of the family head, 
the thoughtful boy had chosen the right path of 
life. From his early youth he had been untir¬ 
ing in the chase, brave on the war path; but as 
he matured, he began to think of the welfare 
of his people. As the older men passed away, 
the tribe came to look more to him for advice, 
and that which he gave was always good. As 
the new conditions of civilization kept crowd¬ 
ing upon them more and more, his broad mind 
saw more and more clearly the dangers to 
which his people were exposed and the needs 
and opportunities of the new life. Did a friendly 
white man talk to him with a sympathetic heart, 
Little Plume listened carefully and questioned 
intelligently, groping among a maze of new 
ideas for such as he might apply to the situ¬ 
ation of those about him. 
In all the tribe of the Blackfeet no man was 
so generally beloved as he, and naturally so. 
because of all the Blackfeet no one had so great 
a love for the Blackfeet people. 
Of the men who during the last thirty years 
have stood out foremost before their fellows in 
the tribe, hardly any now remain. White Calf, 
and Double Runner, and Running Crane, and 
Running Rabbit, and Bull Shoe and many an¬ 
other have departed on their long journey. 
Little Plume is the last to go. 
The old-time Indians often possessed heroic 
virtues, and among these one of the most im¬ 
portant was love for their fellow tribesman. 
Sportsmen intending to visit North Carolina 
for the upland game shooting this season should 
take cognizance of the changes in the game laws 
in that State. Elsewhere in this issue a sum¬ 
mary of the new regulations will be found: 
Chiefly these provisions affect the non-resident, 
whose movements in the State will be more re¬ 
stricted than heretofore. In some counties the 
special licenses will not permit him to take game 
home with him, and a license to shoot in one 
county may not be honored in another. Again, 
a license obtained in one county will be good 
for other counties not specially restricted, and 
game may be taken out of the State by its 
holder. The only safe plan is tO’ read the new 
regulations carefully and govern oneself ac¬ 
cordingly. 
it 
In those States holding elections this year, 
the second day of November was a general 
holiday. Early rising was the rule, and after 
breakfast and a visit to the polls, there was a 
general exodus of men with guns and dogs. 
Opening day does not see more sportsmen in 
nearby coverts. On Election Day there seems 
for these men but two things to do—vote and 
get away to the woods. Trains are crowded, 
every county road is patrolled, and the crack of 
the small rifle and the louder snap of shot 
cartridges show that busy men are taking ad¬ 
vantage of the holiday to burn a little powder. 
Apparently the chestnut crop is a total fail¬ 
ure in the Middle Atlantic States this year. 
Keen was the disappointment of many a party 
of young people who fared forth into the woods 
after the heavy frosts of the past fortnight. 
The woods were never more beautiful in their 
coloring, but the sturdy old chestnuts, dying 
slowly but surely from disease, are quite barren 
of fruit. 
r 
If a non-resident wishes to take part in the 
club fox hunts now so popular in Massachu¬ 
setts, he can only do so Jegally after having pro¬ 
cured a license from the Fisheries and Game 
Commissioners at Boston. The fee is one dol¬ 
lar and the time limit on these special licenses 
is four days. 
R 
Two polar bear cubs which were taken in 
Greenland are destined to end their days far 
from home. They are now in the Zoological 
Gardens in London, but will be sent to Perth, 
in Western Australia, and installed in the Zoo¬ 
logical Gardens there. 
