TWO ACCUSED OF PEDDLING
LIQUOR TO INDIANS
Last Thursday evening J. O. Stevens, a white man com
monly called “Happy,” and Maria Oates, a native woman
with a white husband, were arrested charged with furnish
ing liquor to Indians. Stevens went to jail and Mrs. Oates
gave bond in the sum of $1,000 to appear before the grand
jury.
Joe Oates, Maria’s husband, is a hard-working man and
treats his wife well. It appears that he has done every
thing possible to keep her straight, but with poor success.
A few weeks ago Joe Carroll, nicknamed “Malamute Joe,”
turned up and claimed Maria by virtue of prior right based
on former relations with her starting in her childhood
days. Carroll threatened to kill Oates and is now serving
a term in jail for carrying weapons. Oates is also prosecu
tor in the present trouble.
It is alleged that Stevens was furnishing Maria with
liquor and that she in turn was giving it to natives.
DEFECTS IN REGULATIONS
FOR TAKINC OF FURS
Rabbits and birds are everywhere re
ported more plentiful than for four or
five years. This not only means a sub
stantial aid to prospectors and explorers
in the way of food, but it means a
very important increase of furs for a
period extending over about four years;
or at least fur-bearing animals will be
more numerous for about that'length of
time. The fur of interior Alaska is a
source of wealth that is mere evenly
distributed and benefits a more diversi
fied population than any other. The
natives are dependent upon it for cloth
ing and means to buy food; prospectors
eke out their grubstakes with it; a good
many white trappers look to it as their
principal source of income, and it is an
important item with merchants and
traders, enabling supply posts to be
maintained at remote points where oth-,
erwise there would be no means of ex
plorers procuring supplies.
Under a new law the responsibility of
making regulations for the taking of
fur-bearing animals rests solely with
the secretary of commerce and labor.
That official has promulgated regula
tions which are defective, and the fol
lowing statement is made in a hope that
the rules may be amended in some im
portant respects:
1. Marten, lynx, fox, wolverine, and
to a lesser extent mink and ermine be
come numerous or scarce according as
rabbits multiply, or are decimated by
disease. Two reasons account for this:
first, the fur bearers named are largely
dependent on the rabbits for food, and,
second, the parasitic disease that deci
mates the rabbits is communicated to
the animals feeding upon them, ar.d
decimates them also. The period from
maximum to maximum numerical
strength of the rabbits is about seven
years, and this is the invariable rule
with the animals feeding upon them
also. For two or three years out of
every seven rabbits are so numerous
that they are in evidence everywhere
and are a prey to men, quadrupeds and
hawks and owls, but go on increasing
enormously in spite of all the slaughter
until they are stricken with disease.
It is exactly so with the animals that
feed upon them, except that the numer
ical proportion of the latter is at all
times less. It is an interesting and
somewhat remarkable fact that the
balance in bird life is also dependent
upon the rabbits. When the number of
rabbits has become so reduced through
disease that the lynx, marten, fox, etc.,
cannot maintain themselves by hunting
them, the latter class of animals turn
their attention to ptarmigan and grouse.
While the carniverous fur bearers have
also become reduced in numbers, they
thrive on the birds and increase rapidly.
Lynx, especially, hunt for sport as well
as from necessity. In the breeding!
season it is possible for a hundred lynx !
to destroy more birds in two months
than all the human hunters in interior
Alaska would kill in a long term of
years, for the parent birds defend their
broods recklessly and all are killed.
The birds are almost exterminated in this
way, and so the endless round of nature
goes on.
2. Positive evidence on these matters
is hard to produce, but the foregoing1
statements are substantially true.
Hence it follows that should the taking
of fur actually cease for a long term—
say fifty years—no significant increase
would be brought about. This conclu
sion, however, would doubtless be wholly
and certainly partially incorrect as far
Headquarters for the Traveling Public
Pioneer and Tover Houses
Two First-class Resorts
The Rooms just fitted up and furnished at the Tower House may cost a
little more—they are certain to afford a lot more comfort
than can be had at other places.
Joe Anicich, Prop. Tanana, Alaska
THE TANANA RESTAURANT
Best Meals in the Camp
Short Orders at All Hours
Best of everything on the Market. Service unexcelled in the North
Fresh and Delicious Bread, Pies and Pastries Always on Hand
The Tanana Leader
and other papers
for sale at the
Postoffice Lobby
BARGAINS IN REAL ESTATE.-Houses
1' and cabins for rent. All kinds of real
estate for stile.—GEORGE VAUTIEF.
as beaver, otter and muskrat are con
cerned.
3. In this country men do not trap
for fur when it is unprime. It does not
pay to do so. Hence a regulation pre
scribing the time within which fur may
be taken is superfluous and of no prac
tical value.
4. Fur-bearing animals are sometimes
taken in improper season through acci
dent—as, for instance, marten caught
out of season in traps set for fox in
season. The number of accidental
catches of this kind is small; but men
making them ought neither to be placed
under the necessity of concealing the
accident nor wasting the pelt if it is of
any value—as is the case under the reg
ulations formulated by the secretary of
commerce and labor.
5. Under the regulations of the secre
tary the killing of muskrat is prohib
ited throughout the time that they can
be successfully trapped in this region.
Muskrat are largely used by natives and
whites for home consumption. They
breed rapidly and are in no danger of
being depleted.
6. In the regulations prescribed by
the secretary bear, except black bear,
wolf, wolverine and groundsquirrel are
not mentioned, and under the law,
therefore, are protected at all times.
Every kind of bear is destructive of
property and often dangerous and de
structive of human life. "There is no
profit in hunting them in this region.
Wolves are very destructive of useful
game like moose and cariboo. There
should be no closed season on any kind
of bear or wolves.
7. If the regulations promulgated by
the secretary should be enforced, or be
attempted to'be enforced, they would
cause injustice in the following particu
lars, namely:
a. The said regulations provide that
the penalties named therein might bej
imposed upon any trapper or dealer
having in possession any skin, taken in
the open season, but held for disposition
or sale in the closed season—thus, for in
stance, making it lawful to kill and
skin a land otter, mink, muskrat, mar
ten, fisher or ermine on the 31st day of
March, but laying the possessor of the
skin on the 1st day of April liable to
the severest penalties. In actual prac
tice trappers in remote regions often do
not get into the trading centers before
the middle of June. The collectors do
not usually forward the pelts to the
outside markets until well into the last
half of the summer. Very often it is to
the advantage of the trapper or dealer
to hold the skins over for a more advan
tageous market, and they ought to have
the right so to do.
b. This phase of the regulations is so
flagrantly wrong that any influential
person or firm would be able to evade
it; but at the same time an obscure
trader or trapper might be compelled to
bear the full responsibility for violating
the rules.
c. The regulations put a premium on
lawlessness and an unwarranted hard
ship on persons who respect the law.
Bear Raided Kehoe’s, Also.
A few days before William Lunn
killed the big bear at bis camp north of
town last week a bear had visited John
Kehoe’s ranch, demolished a tent and
destroyed a lot of provisions.
It is believed the brute that did the
mischief at Kehoe’s is the same that got
his quietus at Lunn’s.k
First Iditarod Liquor Case.
Iditarod Pioneer, July 24: Charged
on information by John J. Donovan,
United States deputy marshal, with
selling liquor without a license, Clara
Sherman, one of the girls of Otter creek,
was brought into town early last week
and fined $100 and costs amounting to
$37 additional.
The defendant pleaded guilty to the
charge, and the proceedings were short
and to the point.
This is the first action of the kind
brought in the district, but as near as
can be learned it is not the last, as the
government authorities contemplate a
general crusade against selling liquor in
“blind pigs” and sporting houses.