The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-10-29

OF our citizens who feel that the right of
shooting game belongs to the landholder
while 1t Is on bis land can almost be count
cd on ones fingers. The idea that you or
l have not the right, while on our neigh
bors lands, to shoot the game we find sell
dom gains lodgment In a Vermont head.
We admit the farmers right to order us
off his premises, and, II stout enough, to
drive us off II we refuse to 60 when Or
that IL he don't order us off we have no
more right TO shoot the partridges we find
there than we have ducks or chickens.
Yet such is the fact. The landlords right
however, stands In the anomalous condi-
ton of legal right the only enforcement
of which is by personal strength. That
| common precept of the law which in 80
many cases, and so wisely, interdicts the
personal enforcement of individual rights
| is here inverted and makes personal vio-
lence necessary for the preservation of the
landlords rights. 1t Is featured which
does not particularly adorn the law. To
bring about the needed legislation to remit
to courts, in practical effect, the enforce
ment of law and to educe the statu-
DRY enactment to give point and
protection to an already existing common
law right, it is only necessary to let land
holders know what these rights are, their
money value and the market for them. AS
the matter now stands, anybody is practi-
cally free to wander over anybodys land
doing damage, and the owner can only re-
cover for the grass downtrodden.. Even
with law sufficiently stringent to protect
game, great trouble would arise in the exc.
cution of 1t from the want of police to de-
tect Offenders. Clothe the landholder with
the consciousness of his ownership of a
valuable franchise as readily transmutable
into money as his posturage and he will re-
gard any infringement of that right as an
infringement of his income, and you add
to his desire to enforce the law the impetus
which grows out OF personal wrong.
When our farmers learn that by the com
mon 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 vindicaton of the farmers right to
the shooting and fishing on his premises is
as much the interest of the sportsman rs
the farmer. AS the cnunciaton of such a
proposition might stir the wrath of the
whole tribe of impecunlous pothunters and
OF some spOrtsmeD, the matter deserves
prejudice that the right to bear arms i'm
plies the right to shoot, the speaker referred
to the condition of shooting in Germany.
Here, the condition before 1910, was the
same as In America, except that the hunting
was confined to privileged few. The in
dignation OF the landowners waxed 80 hot
as to bring on rebellion, and for a short
time all game laws were repealed. The
determination of the game became so near.
ly complete that the present law was passed,
which allows anyone paying for license
to shoot during certain seasons The late |
Prussion returns show that the annual |
game product amounts to something like |
two millions of pounds of meat.
When L state that in Great Britain and |
the Prussian states game is more abundant |
and cheaper than in New England, and |
when state that this condition of things |
is due exclusively to the game code, take |
1t that state the whole question and argue |
it. 1t remains, however, to meet the Oh |
lection of these who fear that if game |
law were enacted 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
Brtons or Germans. The farmer would
then protect his game as he protects 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 a short distance and OBJ
tainable by paying license, rather than to
have none short of the Adirondacks or
Canada as will very soon be the case with
no game law. He concluded az follows:
"But, says citizen, 81 don't like the idea
of paving for the right to shoot" 1t may
be, Doubtless there are to be found some
persons of peculiar idiosYncrasy who OBJ
ject to paving for apples or even mutton
and ''sich like gear" l have no doubt
many canny Scotsman has lived to be-
moan the good old times" when haunch
of mutton oO-i1 - ~ - - '.o-s |
lifting. But tempora mutantur, and, as
Bill Bar says, twill continue to mutantur"
In the direction of security to personal and
property rights. Long may they "mutan-
tur" IN this direction. That's our gospel.
1t is the gospel of the Magma Charta. "The
gospel of personal, civil and religious lib
erty."