The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-03-03
Chr 8utlanil Dailg Glohe.
TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 1874.
The Increase and Preservation OF
Fish and game.


MISSIONER OF VERMONT.
What have to say In the present COM
muncation concerns game and trout, for
the reason that the laws, made or to be in
voked apply to both.
The upshot of the matter of laws, enacted |
in this state for the preservation of trout,
seems to be- that these laws are rarely ex- +,
ecuted, and that, in any general sense,
they have been imperative TO the end de-
signed. 1t is notorious that trout are uetted
almost everywhere with impunty. They
are caught upon spawning beds. They are
caught in season and out of season by hook,
by snare, by nets, by lines and even in
some cases, by limeing the brooks. The
result of all of this is that but few trout are
left in the best waters, and have become so
scarce that they bring fifty cents per pound
in most of our large villages, and are not
profitable in the catching at that. Now
why is this? Our people are law abiding,
at least as much so as in any other state.
The law for preserving trout is plain and
easy to be enforced. The penalties are suf-
ficiently severe. The infractions of the law
arc notorious and easily proven. But, ex-
cept in few localities, where clubs or other
associations of private individuals are form
ed for the purpose of securing the execu-
ton of it, the law remains dead letter.
The truth is traditional, that, when
| community fails to enforce law of its own,
there is something wrong in public senti-
ment or in the law itself In the case in
hand perhaps there is something amiss in
both. Let us look at it
The provisions in our constitution affirm
ing the right of every man to hunt and fish
in his own enclosed lands, and in all public
waters and unenclosedlands, was eminently
wise and necessary in the conditions of
land ownership, and Of the people then
exstng,-a condition in which a large
part of the terrtority of Vermont was in
great land grants; and in which n large num-
Der of the inhabitants were meas ,raby de-
| pendent upon the products Of the gun, the
rod and the trap for food and revenue Be-
| sides, our state was at the time just emerg-
| ing from the domination of English law
and our civil polity was endeavoring to adapt
| that law to the new conditions of our peo-
| pie. These afIirmations of the constitution
were, in effect, those changes of the game
| laws of England, INTENDED doubtless to adapt
| those laws to the political organization then
| coming into life-to retain as much of the
| common law of England rs it was desirable
to retain--and to reject then and for the
| future, all such as was odious to the new
sense of a new pclity. There were two
| things Ia Ms E~eiish common law which
| were onJcvtio""lahla--thn dopna that ,bo
| crown owned all wild animals-and the Toi-
| icy which permitted the Withholding of great
areas of land from agricultural uses, and
from all use save the preservation of game.
The modification Of the common law, work.
ed by the constitutional provision referred
to, was the transfer of the rights of the
King to the people, and the prevention of
any appropriation of land to the mere uses
of the sportsman. BY the common law Of
England man who wanted to hunt or fish,
had to purchase that right of the King
that is, lie nd to procure license. The
constitution, by affirming the right to hunt,
fish on ones own land and upon all public
waters and uEenclosed lands, in effect con-
veyed the title in game to the citizen The
provision, declaring the right ofevery citizen
to fish and hunt in all unencloscd lands, rem
lered great preserves impossible, except al
an expense too great for use. More than this
the transfer Of the title to game was trans
To lave made the transfer by statute
would have been 10 make the title subor
dinate to legislative will. To make it Al
it was made, was to place it where the titl'
and the right it gave would be, for all time
in the near custody of the people at large.
Yet the constitutional provision is yer,
generally in so far misunderstood as to have
wrought the Inference, that in place of Sc
curing to the land owner the right to hun
on his own land and in uncncloscd land
| without license from the state, it secure
to every body the right to fish an
hunt on all lands and streams.
has unintentionaly educated the popula
mind to the idea of the indefeasible RICH
:, of every body to hunt and fish everywhere
and to the idea that, even in inclosed lands
the land owner had no authority to inter
:. diet fishing or hunting, except, as the sporl'
men injured the standing crops of grain 9
grass. How little the latter limitation {
this assumed public right is, is obvious,
every one.
The constitutional right to bear arms, HI
taught something in this direction, This
a right very commonly exercised, and
the average mind the right to hear seems
imply the right to use, and the riSl
to use, the right to shoot villa
= ever animals there are without ownel
ship, and this finally to the right to sec
them in their haunts wherever that ma
be.
TO these must be added the modified cd
UNI which additionally attaches, in II
American mind,to all game laws-un odiu
starting In inc leuuai 'yI""i'Ns va '"N N's
lish game laws, tyrannies still cXtant an
daily growing more odious where they e.
list.
A little candid consideration of tins WI
show that differences have been drawn fro
these laws, not warranted by either the lett'
or spirit of the law. The provision of Il
Vermont constitution declares, first, that
man shall have the right to hunt and fl
upon his own lands, and second upon Il
30 unenclosed lands of any other man. 1t do
d, not confer upon any man the right to hu
and fish upon any other mans enelos
lands. Nor does it confer upon anybo'
- this right absolutely and uneontr'
ledly, but subject to such reg
IL ma