The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1893-02-16

that the license fee shall not be collected
if the sportsman or market hunter has an
invitation in writing from landowner
or land-Iessee to hunt in the county !
within which the landowner or lessee |
has his possessions. In both respects the
measures are aristocratic and discrimi-
mating bills. They put prohibition upon
the poor man. but give to the rich the
privilege the less happily conditioned
citizen cannot embrace.
Moreover, it is bad provision in this
that it permits one to lease single acre
or less of worthless ground and then go
into the business of issuing invitations to
hunt anywhere within the county. The
law could thus be easily eyaded by hunt
ing clubs, which could lease a six by ten
plat and give liberty to their members
which others could not have without
paying whatever license the Supervisors
choose to fix or whatever fee the club
charged for invitations"
The provision forbidding any carrier
from transporting game, dead or alive,
into or out of the State is an absurd one.
1t violates the guarantees of interstate
commerce, and, if enacted, will become
dead letter. The bills are, in short, of
those which are so severe that they over
shoot their mark, and will amount to
a means of persecution. They say
to sportsmen, residents of towns and
cities, that they shall not go out of their
counties with dog and gun. 1t puts no
check upon the market hunter, who will
pay the license, or eyade it by the device
of leasing an acre, and visit all the addi-
tional cost upon the consumers of game
food.
Every reasonable means to preserve
the game birds and animals from extinc-
ton ought to be adopted and enforced,
but mere rigor in legislation will not ac-
complish the end. Genuine sportsmen
are deeply interested in preserving game,
and really do most to effect it. But it is
against true sportsmen that these bills
bear most unjustly and severely. They
will prove no hindrance to the mark ct
hunter; he can evade their Objectionable
provisions in more ways than one. In
deed, the anti-transportation clause re-
ferred to will prove no barrier against
his shipping live game animals, since
there is no method provided of testing the
genuineness of the declaration that the
shipper can make to the effect that he is
shipping for propagation purposes. He
can insist upon his intent, and having the
game once at its destination, present
many excuses or necessities for changing
his plans.
The provisions against possessing or ex-
posing for sale or hunting or taking game
birds or animals out of season do not fall
within the objections to the bills. No one
having game interests at heart will for {
moment throw any obstacle in the way o
means employed TO preserve the game o
the State from ruthless slaughter, or tC
protect private lands from trespass, or tt
punish for the exposure of game food gu
of season OF the having of it in possession
and so on along the whole line of jus
prohibitions upon which friends o
y game preservation are agreed. But tn
laws to effect such ends should apply t
5 all alike; they should not by irritating
license laws give to the rich the privileg
of roaming over shooting ranges Will
excluding the poor. Such law reall
amounts to discrimination that will re
suit in more of trickery, deceit and eva
sion, and will do great deal toward en-
i gendering bad blood and bitterness be
|, tween the two great classes, into whic
{ John G. SAKE divided all mankind
. those who have money and those VIII
: have not.