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
  season.

  A Bayne law, absolutely prohibiting the sale of all native wild
  game, should be enacted at once.

  The killing of squirrels should be prohibited; because they are not
  white men’s game.

  Ruffed grouse and quail should have five year close seasons.

  The use of pump and autoloading guns in hunting should be
  prohibited.

In Indiana the white-tailed deer is extinct.  This means very close hunting, and a bad outlook for all other game larger than the sparrow.  On October 2, 1912, eleven heads of greater bird of paradise, with plumes attached, were offered for sale within one hundred feet of the headquarters of the Fourth National Conservation Congress.  The prices ranged from $35 to $47.50; and while we looked, two ladies came up, one of whom pointed to a bird-of-paradise corpse and said:  “There!  I want one o’ them, an’ I’m a-goin’ to have it, too!”

IOWA: 

  Spring shooting should be stopped, at once and forever.

  The killing of all tree squirrels and chipmunks should cease.

  All shore birds that visit Iowa deserve a five-year close season.

  Especially is the shooting of plover, sandpiper, marsh and beach
  birds, rail, duck, geese and brant from September 1, to April 15, an
  outrage.

  Iowa should prohibit the use of the machine guns, and it is to be
  hoped that she will awaken sufficiently to do so.