arket shooters. Often the migratory game was located by telegraphic
reports. Game birds were slain by the wagon-load, boat-load, barrel, and
car-load, "for the Chicago market." And the fool farmers of the Middle
West stolidly plowed their fields and fed their hogs, and permitted the
slaughter to go on. To-day the sons of those farmers go to the museums
and zoological parks of the cities to see specimens of pinnated grouse,
crane, woodcock, ducks and other species that the market shooters have
"wiped out"; and their fathers wax eloquent in telling of the flocks of
pigeons that "darkened the sky," and the big droves of prairie chickens
that used to rise out of the corn-fields "with a roar like a coming
storm."

To-day, Chicago stands half-way reformed. Her markets are open to only
one-half the game killable in Illinois, but they are wide open to all
"_legally_ killed game imported from other states, from Oct. 1 to Feb.
1." Through that hole in her game laws any game-dealer can drive a
moving-van! Of course, any game offered in Chicago has been "legally
killed in some other state!" Who can prove otherwise?

In addition to the imported game illegally killed in other states, the
starving population of Chicago may also buy for cash, and consume with
their champagne in November and December, all the Illinois doves that
can be combed out by the market-gunners.

After the awful Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, in 1903, the game
dealers reported a heavy falling off in the consumption of game! The
tragedy caused the temporary closing of the theaters, and the falling
off in after-theater suppers may be said to have taken away the
appetites of thousands of erstwhile consumers of game. Incidentally it
showed who consumes purchased game.

The people of Illinois should now enact a full-fledged Bayne law,
without changing a single word, and bring Chicago up to the level of New
York, St. Louis and Boston.

The present bag limits on Illinois game birds are fatally high. As they
stand, with 190,000 licensed gunners in the field each year, what else
do they mean than extermination? The men of Illinois have just two
alternatives between which to choose: drastic and immediate
preservation, or a gameless state. Which shall it be?

INDIANA:

Indiana should hasten to stop spring shooting.

She should enact a law, prohibiting the sale for millinery purposes
of the plumage of all wild birds save ducks killed in their open
seas