The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-04-13
GAME KILLING BY GUIDES.

An Alleged Custom Which Discredits
Amateur Sportsmen.
l see that our game papers are just
becoming aware of the fact that all
the game carried out of the State is
not shot by the hunters who claim to
have killed 1t and just now there is de-
nland that guides shall not carry guns.
Now, who is to blame for guides and
others shooting the game that would
be hunters carry home? Certainly not
the guides. No guide would ever carry
a gun If his employer did not wish him
to do so. In most cases the guide is
hired because of his ability to kill
game. And many cases i know where
the guide has not carried a gun his
employer has asked him to take his
and kill the game. A few years ago
one of our best known guides told me
that he had been guiding a sport" for
nearly a month, trying to shoot
moose, but without success Finally,
when within few miles of Northeast
Carry, which was to be the end of the
trip, they saw an old bull swimming
the river The sport fired twice, his
first shot striking about half way be-
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second striking many yards beyond.
Realizing that he could not shoot at
all, he passed the rifle back to the
guide, saying, "Shoot him." BY this
time the moose touched bottom, and
was leaping into the bush, as the
guide, by quick shot, gave him a
mortal wound, He went but few yards
and fell Then the sport" shot him
as he was dying and made great deal
of talk about the moose he had killed.
Now, who was to blame for the guides
shooting? The man who hired him,
put the gun into his hand and told
him to shoot, or the guide who by SO
doing lost his own chance to kill a
moose that season?
l think if the truth could be known
that fully half Of all the game brought
in by visiting sports" and those of
our own State who employ guides, is
either shot by guides or bought of
others who have shot it. Hundreds of
men, who represent all the professions,
go into the woods to hunt. They are
gentlemen, skilled in their various pro-
fessions, but that does not make them
woodsmen or hunters. Many of them
are skilled with a rifle, while scores
cannot, as the guides say, "hit a barn
if they are inside with the doors shut"
and a very few can go a mile in the
woods without q guide, and have any
reasonable chance of getting back
within a mile of where they started
Yet all these men will bring home their
game and many will write articles and
tell all the particulars of how they
went out alone and hot it, and often
have photographs to prove it by.
These photographs prove about as
much as Frank Stockton's negro
proved, who burned the church. He
said that as he was going to the spring
for water he saw the devil, who told
him all about how he set fire to the
church himself to stop the quarrelling,
and if they did not believe the devil
told him so he could show the very
have seen photos of moose taken
where they fell'' where anyone used
to the woods could sec that the moose
had been hauled out into some clear
ing. or old camping ground where was
a favorable chance to use a camera,
and at the same time have q back
ground of trees. L lately saw one pho
Eograph where, according to the story,
the moose had only been shot few
hours where the swollen body proved
that the moose had been dead till it
had become inflated by the formation
Of gases. In such case the meat is