WHEN the Legislature of New York

declared that hounding deer is a relic of barbarism," and that it must not be practiced in this state for a term of five years, it voiced the sentiments of cur most thoughtful citizens. With the advancement of civilization, we have departed from many practices that were looked upon with careless eye in the days of our ancestors. Now, to the enlightened sportsman it seems strange that we should be more mindful of the physical feelings of the condemned criminal than we are in the treatment of animals we kill for sport. Yet our laws declare that there shall be no "cruel or unusual" methods used in punishing criminals. It is conceded by all that the thing we must kill, whether for sport or necessity, should be killed without unnecessary torture. What would be thought of the butcher who took delight in chasing the ox about a field before gleefully cutting its throat; or of the duck hunter whose chief pleasure lay in chasing crippled ducks over the water? As an exciting sport, hounding will have its advocates-but so will bullfighting.

Aside from the question of humanity, there is reason enough to prohibit hounding-not for five years, but for eternityfor this method of hunting deer undoubtedly hastens their destruction. As it is intended to frame all game laws so that the game supply will not decrease and extermination need not be feared, the new law should meet with commendation from all true sportsmen. The advocates of hounding claim that with the use of dogs there is no more danger of exterminating deer than by still-hunting. Argument can never settle that question, but the opinion of settlers in new countries whose food supply often depends upon the game killed, is of real value. By such men, hounding is deprecated, not for any tender feeling of mercy, but on good, sound principles of providing for the morrow. By them, hounds are used only in chasing wounded deer, while strangers who hunt with hounds in such localities usually go home without their dogs.

EVERY sportsman has seen an occas

and rotting where it fell, its remaining branches lifted as if in mute protest at the wanton destruction of nature's best gift to man, the forests. Perhaps we pass by without giving these fallen giants a thought; or when we see the huge trunk lying by its chopped stump, which show that the elements had no part in its downfall, the thoughts often arise; "Why was it chopped? What vandal did it?" Possibly a grapevine, from which a bushel or two of grapes were gathered, tells the tale; perchance a hole chopped in the trunk shows where a few pounds of wild honey were found; or perhaps the axe-marks tell the story of a coon with a twenty-five-cent hide, for which this magnificent tree was sacrificed. One tree is a small matter, so thought the vandal-if indeed he thought at all-but one tree here and one tree there, every year and in every wooded township, county and state where wild land is available, soon amount to a multitude. It takes fifty years or more to grow such a forest giant, and less than as many minutes to chop it down.

There is a close affinity between sportsmen and the woods, and to see fine trees ruthlessly destroyed is much the same as seeing game killed that cannot be used. To see forests mowed down before the hand of civilization, the lover of nature endures until he can find a remedy; but the insidious attacks of the coon hunter and the raids of the countryman in search of wild grapes or honey should not be tolerated where any sportsman's club can make its influence felt. Now that game has been depleted to such a woeful extent, every sportsman sees the necessity for protection. Had modern game laws been enacted a generation before, game would be plentiful to-day. If sportsmen do not soon arouse themselves to the crying need for the protection of our forests, we shall witness history repeating itself, and forests will be as scarce in the next generation as game is now. Every sportsman's club in the country should make some effort in this direction.

REVIEWED

By Sportsmen and for Sportsmen.

The New "Encyclopaedia of Sport."-Part I. MESSRS. G. P. Putnam's Sons have

recently issued in New York the first part of a new and elaborate illustrated Encyclopædia of Sport," which is intended to become authority. Unquestionably there is room for a good work of this kind in the realm of the sportsman, but to judge from the first part received, the present attempt to fill this "long-felt want" is too narrow in its lines to be accepted by American sportsmen. The long list of writers and editors whose names are given out as the authorities who will contribute to its pages contains few names known in America-its editors are all English and so are most of its writers. If the first part be a fair criterion, the result seems to have been much the same as when the Encyclopædia Britanica was issued. This famous work was offered extensively in America, but American men of letters soon discovered that it was too pro-English for their use.

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In the Encyclopædia of Sport" the record of the America's Cup, for instance, is minimized to a wonderful degree; the handling of football completely ignores the existence of the game as played on this side of the ocean; the sizes of shot, and the brands of powder are all given in the measures of English manufacturers; and archery, a game little played on this side of the Atlantic, is spread out to nearly seven pages with elaborate illustrations. From these few instances noted in the first part of this new work it will be seen that Putnam's Encyclopædia is hardly a universal one, and might more appropriately have been called the Encyclopædia of British Sport."

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records for each year. The season of 1896, for both baseball and lawn tennis, has been fully and accurately recorded in these two little volumes, and a devotee of either sport cannot afford to be without the yearly "Guide" to his favorite pastime. Beside the official playing rules of the games, these books contain much other valuable information, as well as the complete records of the previous year; and each is profusely illustrated with portraits of the leading players in its own branch of the sport. Columns upon columns of tabulated figures help to complete the data of 1896 baseball records, and many months of hard work have been required to make these as complete and accurate as they appear. In the volume on tennis, one of the features is a complete directory of the lawn tennis enthusiasts of the country. Only one criticism might well be passed upon this convenient little book. Its editor has included the "differential tables" for adjusting handicap odds, which is very likely to deceive the average reader into the belief that these tables are still used in American handicap tournaments, whereas they are in vogue only on foreign courts.

J. Parmly Paret.

A "Bibliography of Guns and Shooting." N the "Bibliography of Guns and Shooting," the author announces that his book will probably be of little value to the book collector; for "it was compiled for the use of a writer, not a book buyer, and is both conceived and arranged with a view to best serving the needs of the student."

As a catalogue of sportsmen's books, with brief descriptive accounts accompanying the titles of a large number of them, it is quite complete and as such will doubtless be valuable to those wishing to make a selection of books in any particular branch of gunnery or shooting. But here its service ends. It is a well-printed and neatly-bound volume of over 200 pages, compiled and revised by Wirt Gerrare, and published by the Roxburghe Press, Westminster, England. Paul G. Richmond.