For considerably more than a century, the States of the American Union have enacted game-protective laws based on the principle that the wild game belongs to the People, and the people's senators, representatives and legislators generally may therefore enact laws for its protection, prescribing the manner in which it may and may not be taken and possessed. The soundness of this principle has been fully confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Geer vs. Connecticut, on March 2, 1896.
The tendency of predatory man to kill and capture wild game of all kinds by wholesale methods is as old as the human race. The days of the club, the stone axe, the bow and arrow and the flint-lock gun were contemporaneous with the days of great abundance of game. Now that the advent of breech-loaders, repeaters, automatics and fixed ammunition has rendered game scarce in all localities save a very few, the thoughtful man is driven to consider measures for the checking of destruction and the suppression of wholesale slaughter.
First of all, the deadly floating batteries and sail-boats were prohibited. To-day a punt gun is justly regarded as a relic of barbarism, and any man who uses one places himself beyond the pale of decent sportsmanship, or even of modern pot-hunting. Strange to say, although the unwritten code of ethics of English sportsmen is very strict, the English to this day permit wild-fowl hunting with guns of huge calibre, some of which are more like shot-cannons than shot-guns. And they say, "Well, there are still wild duck on our coast!"
Beyond question, it is now high time for the English people to take up the shot-gun question, and consider what to-day is fair and unfair in the killing of waterfowl. The supply of British ducks and geese can not forever withstand the market gunners and their shot-cannons. Has not the British wild-fowl supply greatly decreased during the past fifteen years? I strongly suspect that a careful investigation would reveal the fact that it has diminished. The Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire should look into the matter, and obtain a series of reports on the condition of the waterfowl to-day as compared with what it was twenty years ago.
In the United States we have eliminated the swivel guns, the punt guns and the very-big-bore guns. Among the real sportsmen the tendency is steadily toward shot-guns of small calibre, especially under 12-gauge. But, outside the ranks of sportsmen, we are now face to face with two automatic and five "pump" shotguns of deadly efficiency. Of these, more than one hundred thousand are being made and sold annually by the five companies that produce them. Recently the annual output has been carefully estimated from known facts to be about as follows:
| Winchester Arms Co., New Haven, Conn. | ||
| (1 Automatic and 1 Pump-gun) | 50,000 | guns. |
| Remington Arms Co., Ilion, N.Y. | ||
| (1 Automatic and 1 Pump-gun) | 25,000 | " |
| Marlin Fire Arms Co., New Haven, Conn. 1 Pump-gun | 12,000 | " |
| Stevens Arms Co., Chicopee Falls, Mass. 1 Pump-gun | 10,000 | " |
| Union Fire Arms Co., 1 Pump-gun | 5,000 | " |
| ------------ | ||
| 103,000 | guns | |
FOUR OF THE SEVEN MACHINE GUNS
The Ethics Of Shooting And Shot-Guns. —Are the American people willing that their wild birds shall be shot by machinery?