The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1895-12-02
The SITUATION CLEARLY STATED.
The Ell Dorado Republican on the
Game Law SquabbIe.
Difference Between an Occasional
Days Hunt and Regular Shoot
ing for the Market.

Referring to our local contemporary
recent censure of the Supervisors of Ell
Dorado County for what it considers
class legislation in adopting an ordi
nance intended to break up the custom
of market hunting there, the FL Dorado
Republican says:
The Bee asserts that the clubs Of
wealthy spOrtsmen in the cities are en-
deavoring to establish game preserves
in this country after the fashion OF
Merrie England, and that by and by,
in natural sequence, we shall have
ame-keepers, penalties for poaching,
and all the other characteristics of that
kind of monopoly.
There may be and probably are some
attempts by wealthy people to control
the game of this State and others for
their own pleasure, but the value of the
game is a mere bagatelle to the people
compared with the land and water or,
in reality, the very earth itself, the ar
bitrary control OF which in the social
development becomes almost unayoid-
ably thrown into the hands of what the
Bee calls classes.
1t is questionable to say very much
about these things publicly, but it is
just as well to tell the truth occasion
ally and not assume that all undue mo-
nopOly and tyranny of wealth control
Will appear in the game laws.
The game is supposed to be the prop
erty of the whole people. The land
and water and forests of the public do
mains are also supposed to be owned
by the whole people. Suppose that
man should go upon Government land
in his capacity as owner to the extent
of his individual interests, and should
fence in tract twenty miles square
with barbed wire to mOnopolize it.
Nearly every one would consider that
he was getting more than his share of
the public property. Suppose that a
man established an immense sawmilI
in public forests and thus reaped a har-
vest of profit by devastating the prop
erty of the people. There would be COM
plant made against him. Suppose an
other man appropriates the waters Of
a stream, converting it to his own pri-
vate property and selling it at eXor-
bitant rates to the other presumed
owners There would ultimately be q
row over it.
The same ideas apply to game that
apply to other public possessions. AS
long as people have fair opportunities
to receive the benefit of their surround
ings they do not complain nor quarrel
about technicalities, but let their real
interests be encroached upon and there
practical justice and they don't care
about forms. Land, water and timber
have been appropriated wastefully and
piggishIy but there was no trouble
while there remained an abundance for
everybody In the future there viii be
a thousandfold more trouble about
these essentials to existence than the
regulation of game privileges will
cause.
AS for the game, the right and wrong
comes into the question in the amount
OF il which any man or any set of men
try to appropriate. The man who goes
out every day in the week to seize what
belongs to other people as well as him
self is a hoggish partner and deserves
to be treated as a hog. 1t makes no
difference whether he hunts for market
or hunts for pleasure. The wrong is
not in what he Is, but what he does.
If sportsmen hunted every day they
would be wronging their associates as
much as the market hunters do.
In this country, however, the sports
men are merely ordinary citizens, young
men habitually at labor, who hunt per-
haps once a week to the individual and
who try to protect the game. They are
not wealthy-most of them are poor.
The market hunters, on the other hand,
following it as a business, hunt every
day. and a dozen of them win destroy
more game in q season than all the
sportsmen of the county. AT one time
the deer of this county were slaughtered
by hundreds for their hides by this
class of men.
So far as this county is concerned, the
game laws are not an attempt to bene-
tit a class, but an attempt to prevent
the determination of the game Dy those
who care for nothing but their own
immediate profit, regardless of any
other persons subsequent pleasure or
benefit.
The arguments of the Bee would APP
ply with the same force to the killing of
fish with giant powder. catching them
with seines, or other means of rapid
determination. The general sentiment
here objects TO market hunting not be-
cause the game is sold, but because
these hunters destroy it SO rapidly.
The people generally would object to
any gun club or other organization If
its members hunted persistently and
destructively in the same way. If a
man could kill only a few fish by giant
powder, NOBODY would object to its use.
Similarly, If a man could hunt for
market without DISCRIMINATING the
game in his section, nobody wouIa try
to prevent his doing SO.