iter
circulated the first petition to get the law enacted prohibiting the
hounding of deer. After some years the law prohibited the chasing of
deer with dogs, but the law could not be enforced for the very reason
that these same sportsmen wished to hound deer. He would go on to the
streams where there were but few inhabitants, and hire all of the
people living in the neighborhood to take their dogs to the hills and
start them on the trail of deer. The "sportsman" would lay in ambush
and shoot the deer when they came to water, providing they were able
to see the sights on their guns sufficiently clear to get a bead on
the deer.

These "sportsmen" would pay the natives a good sum for their services
and would often buy hounds at high prices and bring them to the
locality where they intended to hound deer and pay some one living in
the neighborhood a good price to keep their dogs from one season to
another. These "sportsmen" were sure to make the constable, whose
duty it was to report this violation of the deer law, a present of a
fine fishing rod or some other article which might be a ten or twenty
dollar bill.

Now, under these conditions it was next to impossible to get any one
who knew anything about the transaction to make a complaint, or even
be a witness against those transgressors of the deer or hounding law.
But in time the law was made sufficiently stringent as to virtually
put a stop to this most cruel practice of deer hunting.

But now another bad thing came into vogue. Non-residents were allowed
to go into the woods where they would camp from the first day of the
open season for deer until the close and often some days after. Now,
"the horse has been stolen." The deer in this state are virtually
gone. "The door has been strongly locked, but it is now too late."
This game rule applies to the game fish of the state and unless there
are laws enacted which will apply more closely to the preservation of
the game birds, than a closed season and a bounty or scalp law, the
game birds will soon go the way of the deer and the game fish too.

I wish to say a word to our friends on the Pacific Coast as to the
slaughter of game and especially that of deer. I saw a slaughter of
deer in nearly all of the states west of the Rocky Mountains that was
cruel. In California, in 1904, I saw men kill deer seemingly for no
other purpose than the desire to kill, or as I put it, the desire to
murder. I saw deer killed when the slay