Gardes-
VOL. LVI.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., DECEMBER 14, 1901.
NO. 50
Objects to Our Game Law.
Editors Indiana Fanner:
In your editorial  column* Nov.  23  you
say:     Quails and turkeys are in terror for
their lives."     "We pity the farmers who
have not posted their farms these hunting times."     "Bang, bang," is the sound
in all directions.     Cattle ami other stock
are frightened and in danger and it is unsafe for the farmer or his children to be
out of doors while the hunters are about."
(What moral right have they to be about.)
"We have a good game law  but it will
not   enforce   itself."      Good     wholesome
laws do enforce themselves; or rather they
need no enforcing. The law is good, is it?
Good for whom?     Good for hunters! Yes,
and as to enforcing it.     It was never intended by those who made it that it should
be enforced against anybody but the farmers.     Let me ask you please, What moral
force compels a farmer to post his own
farm?     What protection is it if he does?
So far as I can see from a careful study
of the law there is no protection* to the
farmer from now until the 10th of January, but the threatened flne.     Let me give
you   a   fancy   sketch   that   is   not   fancy.
(Observe  this   is  a  quotation.)      "I   live
near the county line.     I have a wood pasture one-half mile from the house.     It is
'posted/     I keep my calves aud sheep in
it.      I   go  down  twice   a   week   through
the summer to see them and talk to them.
I do not need to call them. If one of them
sees me he tosses his head high in air and
bounds away  at full  speed  to  meet me.
The balance of the herd a close second behind him.     In their eagerness to get to me
the sheep run between  my legs and the
calves come to near butting me over. But
there  are  other little  people  down  there
who are just as glad to see me nnd I just
as glad to see them, quails, 40 of them.
They flutter about me and  fly upon the
fence   or   stumps   and   by    'Bob   white"
bid  me   "good  morning"   in   a  way  that
cheers my heart.     I love them as a grandfather  loves   a  child.      But  yesterday   I
heard some one shooting down there. Yes,
a dozen shots in a few minutes.     I looked
across the field and saw my calves running and heard my sheep bawling and I
knew   there   was   trouble.        I   hastened
down   there   and   as   I  jumped   over  the
fence I saw one of my sheep lying there
with a load of shot in the jaw, one shot
penetrating  the  eye.  it  was dead.      The
woods,     and   as   I   ran     I   saw     a   calf
shooting continued.     I hastened into the
shot   behind   the   foreleg   and   the   blood
running  down  the  leg.      The   calf  died.
I got close enough to the hunters to see
ing any show of apology they deliberately
shoot under a brush heap and as deliberately pull out what proved to be the last
quail I had and put it into his game sack
along with the balance of the flock, and
instead of running away from me or making any show of apology the deliberately
sat down on a log and when I asked them
their names told me to "Go to" "Go to—"
I stopped to think a little.     Suppose I go
for an officer to arrest them.     As soon as
I get out of sight they scoot over into the
other county.     But suppose I succeed in
bringing them into court.     There are two
of them and one of me.     They swear they
were never on my premises at all and that
they killed my birds on open ground in the
other county.     But suppose  r succeed in
convicting them  and  they pay their fine.
Does that bring hack my calf, my sheep or
my birds?     O. but you could get pay for
your calf and your sheep!     Could I?     I
Conld no more prove that they killed my
calf and my sheep than I conld prove they
killed my birds.     T don't earn so much for
the calf and the sheep. I can raise others.
But the poor birds! They have killed the
last one I had, and there is none left to
start a brood. I had rather they had
killed the last cow I had. I could buy another one. I can't buy the birds. What
shall I do? What can I do?" Signed ——
Now, Mr. Editor, I ask in the name of
everything that is just and right that you
publish this letter and as I see by the
papers that Gov. Durbin has just returned from a successful hunting trip I ask
that you send him a marked copy. I do
hope he did not kill that man's calf and
his sheep. But I have no ground to hope
that he did not kill his quails, because
they say he did kill quails. Talk about
enforcing law! It is mockery and nonsense to talk about enforcing law, the
author of which never intended it should
be enforced, and if there is anything under
heaven that will make anarchists out'of
honest farmers and good citizens it is
clasa legislation and such infamous laws
as our fish and game laws. 11. 1*\ Magee.
Otterbein, Nov. 25.
—The very next letter we opened after
reading the above  was one from a  subscriber in Wells county,  which reads as
follows:
Editors Indiana Farmer:
I want to express my thanks through the
Farmer, to the members of our last Legislature for the enactment of our present
s_rame laws. The farmers now can protect
their birds and can move around over
their farms without fear of being shot by
some careless hunter. As a farmer I say
all praise to our law makers for the one
act. C. H. S.
—This shows that there are two sides
to this question from the farmer's own
standpoint.
It is very true that the present law was
enacted in the hunters' interest. They
desire to protect an«l propagate our game
birds and animals, but at the same time
we think they tried to aid the farmer in
protecting his crops and stock. The
hunters who had influence with our law
makers to enact this law were not what
are known as pot-hunters. They were
not tramps and thieves, bnt responsible
business men. for the most part at least,
ami as much opposed to the class that Mr.
Magee alludes to as he is. The law might
have been made more favorable to the
farmers, it is true, but that it was not so
made is due to the lack of interest in
the farmers themselves. If they had
shown a united preference for a different
law. or for changes in the bill that was
enacted, we have no doubt that the Legislature would have granted their request.
The farmers are too numerous and influential a class to be ignored. But according to our recollection little or nothing
was said by them regarding this bill while
it was under discussion.
What we mean by laws not enforcing
themselves is that citizens mnst sustain
them, or they are liable to become dead
on the Statute books. In this case they
should post their farms, and when violations are heard of report them to the
Game Commissioner or his deputies. In
such neighborhoods as Mr. Magee imagines farmers should combine and employ
detectives for a few weeks to look after
th.* tramp hunters and bring them to
trial. No law will be maintained if no
efforts are made to bring its violators to
account. Laws do not enforce themselves.
Take the Nicholson law in this city.
It has been notoriously and continuously
violated, and will be till the people arise
in their wrath and indignation and declare
that  it  shall  he  enforced.      So of others.
JAPANESE CURIOSITY.
A characteristic which has been potent
in the modernizing of Japan is that of insatiable curiosity, an intense desire to see
and   understand   anything   new.      While
the present day Chinese attitude is that of
contempt for any beings or institutions not
evolved in China, the Japanese are eager
to know of everything connected with our
form of civilization, and to adopt it if is
good.      Sometimes  their  great  receptive-
ness and power of imitation and adoption,
lead them to adopt innovations which they
afterward find it wiser to discard.* Hence
the accusation of fickleness.     A perusal
of Japanese history shows that the people
have ever progressed by impulses, by action  and  reaction,  and  that  in  the  end
good judgment seems to become supreme.
The foreigner traveling in Japan is soon
made aware  of the  quality  of curiosity.
On every railroad platform he is surrounded by a crowd of people who, with their
mouths as wide open as their eyes in their
effort to lose no detail of interest, regard
him slowly from head to foot, and comment  upon  him  amongst  themselves  the
while.     These people may have seen hundreds  of foreigners—they  may  see  them
every  day—but  they  continue  to  act  as
if  they  had  never  seen  one  before.      I
visited some Americans in Tokio who had
lived in  the  same  hou.=e  with  the  same
Japanese neighbors for about a year. Yet
each time that he went out to drive, the
people in the little Japanese house nearby
would  rush to their windows  and  stand
there watching as eagerly as a small Yankee at the circus.     This happened every
day.    It is always possible to tell whether
a foreigner happens to be in his garden,
for a good-sized crowd of Japanese gathered about the gate announces the important fact. I gave several talks and lectures
to  school  children   and  young  men  and
women in Japan.     They were interpreted.
I, of course, speaking in English, so that
half  of  the   address  was  understood  by
only a few.     Yet I have never seen audiences more absolutely attentive.     Not a
word was lost, and the same concentration was shown while I was speaking as
when the interpreter was turning it into
Japanese.      Little   school   children—boys
and girls—sat drinking everything in, with
their eyes popping out of their heads until
I had finished.       I nevr flattered myelf
that this was due to the fascination of my
discourse, but merely to the great curiosity
of my audience, their power of concentration and their receptivity.
Some spiders have found it a paying proposition to look like stamens and pistils of
bright-colored flowers.     There they stand
by the hour with their yellow forlegs stuck
up stiff in the air. A butterfly comes along
and alights to suck honey.    He never gets
away alive.     The resemblance is so close
that botanists are deceived.     One kind of
a spider spins a little round patch of white
silk on a leaf.     It sits in the center. The
outer edge of its body is a light, grayish
green merging into white.     In the center
of its body is a dark spot.     An entomologist was once quite curious to know what
could attract buterflies to birds' droppings.
He tried to pull one away from it.     He
found that he had made the same mistake
that the butterfly had. The reason why it
didn't fly away was that the spider had
hold of it and was sucking its blood. Some
spiders not only look like withered flowers
lying on the ground, but have developed a
perfume like jasimine.      Some  look  like
small shells,  and  one smart salticus disports herself on sunny walls and fences
after this fashion:     She walks hurriedly,
stops  abruptly,   rapidly  moves  her jaws
as if she were cleaning her front legs after
she had rubbed the dust off her  wings, only
she hasn't any wings.     Some one of the
horse flies behaving the save ways opens
conversation:     How do you do, sir? Nice
weather   we're     hav—     Help!     murder!
watch! but salticus has him all right."—
Harvey B. Sutherland, in Ainslee's.
PROFOUND CRAFT OP SPIDERS.
Then there are the spiders that do sidesteps. They must reason or some ancestor
must have reasoned for them thus. All
of our enemies figure that we will run forward. Well, I'll just fool 'em. I'll take
a hop to one side. Also when the nephila
plumipes, a big black-and-yellow person
that hangs in her web in plain sight, sees
an evil-disposed bird making for her, what
does she do? She vanishes. Run? Never.
She vanishes, I tell you. Stays where
she is, but goes out of sight. She shakes
her web so violently that instead of appearing to be a big, fat, juicy spider
there is only a blaze where she was.
Pholcus, the long-legged cellar-spider that
spins an irregular web, in similar circumstances swings its body in a circle so
fast that it cannot be seen. Orb-weavers
scatter rubbish in their webs till they look
like old things that have been up two or
three months, and then they get in line
with the chips and bits of bark that they
themselves have put there. The trick
of imitating spots on grass-stems, scales
on trees, lichens and the like, is wonderful.
WOMEN WHO ANSl| i "ADS."
"I've actually got so tha, 3- read to advertise for female empla 5 said the
manager of an art store. (•> t was possible to get through the w S- nyself I'd
rather do it than to interviews mob of female callers.                            '£•   :
rt       .
"To select a good assistant*l.ain't use to
be such a big job as it is now. For one
thing, there were not formerly so manv
triflers. You would be surprised to know
how many women answer advertisements
for help who do not want employment and
neither could nor would take it if it was
offered to them at a good salary. They
are what I call professional advertisement
answerers.
"I had occasion to advertise only last
week for a clerk, and as a protection
against these nuisances I stated that no
professional callers need apply. Yet they
came, at least a dozen of them. Fortunately I've got so I can spot them in short
notice and I don't fool away much time
on them.
"When the unqualified callers first begat:
to besiege me in such numbers I was un-
3er the impression that the regular rounders were representatives of agencies who
wished to get us on their list and furnish
iheir own applicants on commission, but
I was mistaken in this, for, while a few
of the professionals are connected, most
of them pursue the fad of their own accord. It is without doubt tho craziest
hobby womankind has ever ridden, an.l
my only hope is that they will 'soon run
down.
"A goodly percentage of these idlers are
social reformers who are bent on writing
books aud tracts and things. Somewhere
they have imbibed tbe idea that men who
employ help are regular vampires, ever on
the lookout for new victims, and their
object in visiting us is to investigate our
methods of securing clerks and afterwards
acquaint the public with our evil procedures.    .
"But I cau stand even these troublesome
spies witli even more equanimity than the
woman, who, finding time hang heavily on
her hands, tramps around from office to
office for the fan of the thing."