



Forest and Stream 
A Weekly Journal. 
GrorGE Brrp GRINNELL, President, 
346 Broadway, New York. 
CHARLES B. ReyNo ps, Secretary. 
346 Broadway, New York. 
Copyright, 1907, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Louis Drawn Spetr, Treasurer. 
346 Broadway, New York. 


Terms, $3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1.50. 
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. 
DOGS 29. OLICE AIDS. 
WE cannot measure the centuries back to the 
time when the -dog began to help man to live 
his daily life, and to take pleasure in helping 
him. First, perhaps, merely a hunting compan- 
ion, that in time of scarcity served as food, he 
became later a beast of burden and as pack 
animal, sledge hauler, and dragger of the travois 
he helped: the wild family to move its simple 
property from place to place. As time passed 
dogs came to be used in war. In modern times 
they are said even to have been used by smug- 
glers for the transport of small packages of valu- 
able property across the frontiers of European 
countries. It is easy to imagine how well dogs 
might perform such a service and how cautious 
and how alert they would be in eluding the fron- 
tier guards whom they had been taught to re- 
gard as enemies to be avoided. 
The very fact that law breakers have employed 
dogs to help them evade the statutes of the land 
may have suggested to some European chief of 
police that dogs might be used to combat crime 
and to arrest criminals. At all events this is 
reported to have been done in Europe to a con- 
siderable extent and with excellent results. 
The experiment was first tried in the Belgian 
town of Ghent which has an area of about ten 
square miles and a population of 170,000 per- 
sons, nearly half of whom are workmen. The 
town’s 120 policemen were found to constitute 
a force too small to adequately protect its con- 
siderable area, but when these were assisted by 
thirty dogs, well trained, devoted to the police, 
and absolutely indifferent to civilians, the case 
assumed another aspect. 
The most interesting thing about the training 
of the dogs as described by the Ghent police is 
that they are not devoted to the police as in- 
dividuals, but as a uniformed force. The devo- 
tion appears to be felt for the uniform, not for 
the personality that this uniform clothes. To a 
policeman in plain clothes the dogs are absolutely 
indifferent, and if ordered to attack him by a 
policeman in uniform they will obey. 
That a dog can do a vast number of things 
that a man cannot is obvious enough, and _ this 
suggests how useful an assistant to the police 
a dog may be. He can run faster than the 
swiftest human feet and can overtake and throw 
down the criminal; he can follow his track by 
scent in case he loses sight of him, can investi- 
gate dark places in which the criminal may hide, 
and notify the policeman of anything discovered 
there; he can keep up a constant noise about 
a fleeing criminal and so advise all other officers 
of the fugitive’s whereabouts; he can cover and 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST to, 1907. 
thoroughly investigate ground than ten 
officers could in the same time. 
The fame of the police dogs of Ghent spread 
more 
slowly, and after a time Frenclr officials, learn- 
ing of their efficiency, began to investigate the 
subject with the result that some of these dogs 
have been imported to Paris, 
said to have proved very useful among those 
evil doers known to the Paris police as Apache. 
where they are 
It is but a few days since a trial of these dogs 
was held in France, which is reported to have 
been very successful. 
subdued without injuring them, supposed crimi- 
nals, and also showed marvelous speed and intel- 
finding hidden the open 
The newspapers speak of the trial as 
The dogs overtook, and 
ligence in objects in 
country. 
very successful and as supporting all that has 
been claimed for the usefulness of these trained 
aids to the police. 
If all that we are told of their work is true 
the use of police dogs will spread, and they will 
become constantly a more and more efficient aid 
against crime. Not only will they become useful 
in arresting criminals, but the fact that dogs are 
employed will act as a deterrent to crime, since 
it has been found that the criminal is very much 
afraid of the dog and usually surrenders at once. 
If a time shall come when criminals understand 
that dogs are a part of the police force, and re- 
alize their efficiency, certain forms of crime are 
likely to become very much fewer or even to 
cease altogether. 
NATIONAL CASTING TOURNAMENT. 
NEXT 
fishermen of 
the fresh water 
directed 
15, all 
the attention of 
America will be 
On Thursday, Aug. 
their 
week 
toward 
Wisconsin. those 
break away from several duties 
will Racine and for 
pete in a-series of events that 
rangéd for the purpose of developing the best 
skill of the There will be for 
fly- and bait-casting, arranged after months of 
and . the 
who can 
days com- 
ar- 
meet in three 
have been 
men. contests 
careful planning, contestants will 
there from the Atlantic and Pacific 
from many inland cities and towns. 
The great tournament will be the first one to 
be held under the auspices of the National As- 
go 
and 
coasts 
Sociation of Scientific Angling Clubs, which was 
A ffi- 
members 
organized at Kalamazoo, Mich., last year. 
liated with it are all the clubs whose 
practice fly- and bait-casting. 
The growing popularity of fly- and bait-cast- 
ing, and the dissimilarity of rules, as well as 
other reasons, brought about the organization of 
a national body, and the enthusiasm with which 
it was received proved that it was needed. 
Casting was born of the desire to excel that 
is inherent in all persons skilled in any particu- 
lar thing. The angler can catch trout on a short 
line provided he places his fly lightly, but if he 
cannot cast with precision he will go home with 
VOL. LXI1X.—No. 6. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
an -empty creel. The. bait-caster who deftly 
drops his artificial minnow or spinner near a 
black bass will likely be rewarded. In neither 
style of fishing is a great length of line neces- 
sary except on rare occasions, but the skill neces- 
sary to cast a long line neatly is only attained 
fact that 
not cast properly himself can, by close observa- 
tion, point out to another person faults that must 
by practice, and it is a one who can- 
be corrected ere perfect work is possible. Hence 
the value of club practice. 
We have called casting a game, but it is more 
than that, for it gives its devotees an insight, 
obtained in no other way, into the skillful and 
intelligent use of fishing paraphernalia. It gives 
them confidence in themselves and their fishing 
kits, the 
tackle in actual fishing, while the personal ac- 
and insures use of finer and lighter 
quaintance of men with a common _ impulse 
makes friends and brothers of persons. scattered 
Furthermore, the full 
not all of 
all over our vast Union. 
meaning of the famous axiom, “It is 
fishing to fish” is now becoming better known 
in places where, in former times, “fishing,” was 
understood to be synonymous with “fish catch- 
ing.” To-day the gentle angler is not so well 
satisfied with a basket of fish of all sizes, mostly 
small, as he is at the end of a day on which he 
succeeds in matching his skill 
knowledge 
against the cunning of one or two old patriarchs 
and 
of poo! or rapid. 

On July 30 Governor Hughes signed the last 
one of the forest, fish and game bills to be acted 
This was Assembly bill 908, in- 
Mills, 
It provides that nets other than 
on this year. 
troduced by Mr. and it became law as 
soon as signed. 
scap, dip and minnow nets, when. permitted, shall 
New York State with- 
out a license from the forest, fish and game com- 
That body is given power to formulate 
the 
not be used in waters 
mission. 
such ‘rules as it may deem necessary for 
proper use of seines, fykes, pounds, traps and 
other nets. 
RZ 
AxttHouGH objections may later be raised 
against the Adirondack open deer season, which 
embraces the period Sept. 16 to Oct. 31 in- 
clusive, there are those who are pleased with 
the change that enables them to hunt during a 
part of September, whereas business engage- 
ments will keep them out of the woods later on. 
v. 
fortnight, the Saint 
lawrence in the vicinity of the Admiralty Group 
of the Thousand Islands will be dotted with the 
will 
BEGINNING to-day, for a 
canoes of Canadians and Americans who 
camp, cruise, race and fish as did the darker- 
skinned Americans on those historic waters in 
the days of old. 

