The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1912-03-28
The New Game Law.

The New Game Law.
From the New Orleans Daily Ssates.l
Now that the election is over and there
has been an opportunity for reflection,
some of the country papers, voicing the
sentiment of their people, are suggesting
that sanity ought to guide the General
Assembly in considering the game ques-
ton.
The intense feeling of the past three
years has not in any sense represented a
spirit of antipathy to the policy of game
conservation. 1t has been merely the out
growth of dissatisfaction over some of the
features of the present law and the manner
of its enforcement.
1t will be recalled that last year the law
became almost dead letter, due to the
fact that it did not have the sympathy and
support of the people.
''The hunters, the sportsmen all over
the State,'' says the Mer Rouge Democrat,
"refused to take out the license that the
law required; the prosecuting attorney
failed to prosecute and the courts refused
to charge the grand juries to indict for
non compliance with law that, through
it's non enforcement, became stencil in
the nostrils of all good men. AS a result
the law became a nullity and the game
wardens the laughing stock for all classes
Of people,
Such condition is always regrettable,
for nothing so tends to general lawlessness
and disorder as open defiance of given
statute. The symptoms are not encour-
aging when public officials in political
campaign refuse to do their duty lest they
incur public displeasure.
But bitter as the Democrat was in its
attitude toward the law it realizes the
damage wrought by its collapse and the
need for remedial legislation, in as much
as there promises to be the same nom
observance and enforcement of the law
| this year as there was last.
Pending new legislation it has issued an
appeal to hunters, to lovers of sport and to
all good citizens Of Morehouse "who do
not want 10 see the game, the fish and the
birds of the parish slaughtered out of
season" to agree among themselves not TO
kill any deer out Of the time the law allows,
not to destroy the birds during their
mating period and when they are raising
their young and not to dynamite or kill
unnecessarily the fish in the streams.
''To this end" says the Democrat, "we
Cdl ufCu oil pOlSCuS W VIC Vic low VI
nature and do it without compulsion, until
the next session of the Legislature enacts
some law that the hunters and all men
will want to see enforced.''
The Bossier Banner, one of the ablest
and most conservative of the country
journals, also sounds a note of warning
against any radical legislation that would
serve to remove protection from our fish
and game.
The real objection to the law, in its
opinion, is the warden system, and the
diversion of the funds derived from hunt.
ers' licenses to general State purposes
when there is surplus over what it costs
to run the Commission. Each parish, il
believes, ought to control the surplus o.
what it raises for the protection of game
and better system of wardens is needed
{ But the Banner is strongly favorable tt
fairly rigid regulation.
| When the Legislature takes up the ques
{ ton it will probably do so with due regard
. for the seriousness of the problem. 1t will
find the law in general based on correc
, principles. What it must do is to change
these provisions which have proven so Oh
, jectionable to the people at large and sub
stituta something that will have the mora
t support of every citizen who recognizes
that game conservation is in the interes
; Of the whole commonwealth.