Do not bother your legislature with a trivial bill.  Choose a cause that is worth while to grown men, and it shall be well with you.  It takes no more time to pass a large bill than a small one; and big men prefer to be identified with big measures.

Before you have a bill drawn, advise with men whose opinions are worth having.  If the end you have in mind is a great and good one, go ahead, whether you secure support in advance or not.  If the needs of the hour clearly demand the measure, go ahead, even though you start absolutely alone.  A good measure never goes far without attracting company.

DRAFTING A BILL.—­As a rule, the members of a legislative body do not have time to draft bills on subjects that are new or strange to them.  A short bill is easily prepared by your own representative; but a lengthy bill, covering a serious reform, is a different matter.  Hire a lawyer to draft the bill for you.  A really good lawyer will not charge much for drafting a bill that is to benefit the public, and grind no private axe; but if the bill is long, and requires long study, even the good citizen must charge something.

Your bill must fully recognize existing laws.  It must be either prohibitory or permissive; which means that it can say what shall not be done, or else that which may be done according to law, all other acts being forbidden.  Your lawyer must decide which form is best.  For my part, I greatly prefer the prohibitive form, as being the stronger and more impressive of the two.  I think it is the province of the law to forbid the destruction of wild life and forests, under penalties.

PENALTIES.—­Every law should provide a penalty for its infringement; but the penalty should not be out of all proportion to the offense.  It is just as unwise to impose a fine of one dollar for killing song-birds for food as it is to provide for a fine of three hundred dollars.  A fine that is too small fails to impress the prisoner, and it begets contempt for the law and the courts!  A fine that is altogether too high is apt to be set aside by the court as “excessive.”  In my opinion, the best fines for wild life slaughter would be as follows: 

Shooting, netting or trapping song-birds, and other non-game
birds, each bird                                          $5 to $25
Killing game birds out of season, each bird                 10 to  50
Selling game contrary to law, each offense                 100 to 200
Dynamiting fish                                            100 to 200
Seining or netting game fishes                              50 to 200
Shooting birds with unfair weapons                          10 to 100
Killing an egret, Carolina parakeet or whooping crane      100 to 200
Killing a mountain sheep or antelope anywhere in the U.S.         500
Killing an elk contrary to law                                     50
Killing a female deer, or fawn without horns, each offense         50
Trapping a grizzly bear for its skin                              100

For killing a man “by mistake,” the fine should be $500, payable in five annual instalments, to the court, for the family of the victim.