Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1875-11-19


ly, interdicts the personal enforcement OF
individual rights is here inverted and
makes personal violence necessary for
the preservation of the landlords rigbs
1t is a feature which does not particuls r
ly adorn the law. To bring about the
needed legislation to remit to courts, in
practical effect, the enforcement of law
and to educe the statuary enactment to
give point and protection to an already
existing common law right, it is only
necessary to let landholders know what
these rights are, their money value and
the market for them. As the matter
now stands, anybody is practically free
to wander over anybody's land doing
damage, and the owner can only recover
for the grass downtroddeu. Even with
law sufficiently stringent to protect
game, great trouble would arise in the
execution of it from the want of police
to detect offenders. Clothe the land
holder with the consciousness of his own
ership of valuable franchise as readily
transmutable into money as his pastur-
age and he will regard any infringement
of that right as an Infringement of his
income, and you add to his desire to en-
force the law the impetus which grows
out of personal wrong. When our
farmers learn that by the common law
the hunting use of their land is theirs
already it will not take long for them so
to appreciate its value as to seek and
to seek is to have such statutory enact
ments as are necessary to make their
rights available.
The vindication of the farmers right
to the shooting and fishing on his premi-
ses is as much the interest of the sports
man as the farmer. As the enunciation
of such proposition might stir the
wrath of the whole tribe of impeeunious
pothunters and of some sportsmen, the
matter deserves consideration. In an
swer to the popular prejudice that the
right to bear arms implies the right to
shoot, the speaker referred to the condi-
ton of shooting in Germany. Here, the
condition before 1910, was the same as
in America, except that the hunting was
confined to a privileged few. The in
dignation of the land owners waxed so
hot as to bring on a rebellion, and for a
short time all game laws were repealed
The determination of the game became
so nearly complete that the present law
was passed, which allows any one pay
ing for license to shoot during certain
seasons. The late Prussian returns show
that the annual game product amounts
to something like two millions of pounds
of meat.
When | state that in Great Britain
and the Prussian States that game is
more abundant and cheaper than in New
England, and when | state that this con-
dition of things is due exclusively to the
game code, | take it that | state the
whole question and argue it. 1t remains,
however, to meet the objection of those
who fear that if game law were enact
ed in this State it could not be enforced
To say that it could not is to say that
we, as a people, have less regard for our
own interest and less respect for the law
than Britons or Germans. The farmer
would then protect his game as he pro-
tects his crops from which he receives
revenue.
The speaker then showed that it would
be for the interests of the laboring man
to have game within short distance and
obtainable by paying license, rather
than to have none short of the Adiron-
dacks or Canada as will very soon be the
case with no game law. He concluded
as follows: But" says citizen, "
don't like the idea of paying for the
right to shoot" 1t may be. Doubtless
there are to be found some persons of
peculiar idiosyncrasy who object to pay
ing for apples or even mutton and " sch
like gear" | have no doubt that many
canny Scotsman has lived to bemoan
the good old times when haunch of
mutton could be had for the starlight
lifting. But tempora mltantatr, and, as
Bill Bar says "will continue to mutan-
tur " in the right direction of security
to personal property and rights. Long
may they mutantur in this direction.
That's our gospel. 1t is the gospel of
the Magma Charta. "The gospel of per-
sonal, civil and religious liberty
CHARLES LAMBS TESTIMONY. :" The
waters have gone over me, but out of the
black depths, could be heard, | would
cry out to all those who have set a foot
in the perilous flood. Could the youth.
to whom the flavor of the first wine is
delicious as the opening scenes of life,
or the entering upon some newly discov-
cred paradise, look into my desolation,
and be made to understand what drea-
ry thing it is when he shall feel himself