yy) AUTOMATIC AUTOMATIC SHOTGUN. imposing a limitation as to the number of quail to be killed in a day, and also that they must be killed within a certain season. Mr. Hieerns. There is no question, 1s there, about the constitutionality of the law that prevents the killing of more than a certain number of quail in a day? Mr. Bover. No, sir; the Supreme Court of the United States has passed on that. There can not be any doubt about it. Now, in the headnotes of this case, which is, of course, a concise digest, it says: A county ordinance making it a misdemeanor to use any kind of a repeating shotgun or any kind of a magazine shotgun for the purpose of killing or destroying any kind of wild is in conflict with the States. Where the manifest duck, geese, quail, partridge, doves, or any other birds, fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United purpose of a county ordinance is to prevent or killing by one person of more than 25 quail, partridge, or grouse day, it is not a reasonable exercise of its police power to prohibit within The marks such limit, by the use of a repeating shotgun or magazine the taking in any one its killing, gun. CHarrmMan. Mr. ae Mr. Shields in the course of his recalled attention to certain laws of certain States and to cer- tain decisions regulating the bore and the Now, if you may “regulate the bore and weight weight of the gun. ne a gun why may you not regulate the number of shots that may be fired by a gun? It struck me that that was an important point suggested by Mr. Shields. Mr. Bovrr. I do not know that the legislation to which he has. called attention has ever passed the test of judicial scrutiny. The Cuairman. I understood Mr. Shields to cite some decision. ° Mr. Suretps. On various points, but not on that. But as a matter of fact those cases have come up. In those States regulating the bore of the gun and regulating the use of swivel guns those cases have gone into the courts. The Cuarrman. Can either of you gentlemen cite a decision on those things ? ; Mr. Bover. I have stated the facts in the case of Marshall in the United States circuit court, with respect to precisely this matter. I know of no case where the constitutional question has been raised in an act limiting the bore of a gun. I do not know that there is any such legislation. It may be so, ‘but I do not know of any case where it has passed judicial scrutiny ‘where the constitutional question has been raised. Mr. Powers. In your practice before the (eles otates circuit courts—I have no doubt that it has been larg that the different circuits in different States pee deGied ex ‘actly the same questions entirely different ? Mr. Bover. I can not recall the number of circuit judges that there are. I can perhaps answer your question best by a personal reminiscence. Some years ago I had an important litigation againsta great Pittsburg steel concern, Park Brothers & Co. I removed ae ase into the Federal court for defendant. Plaintiffs moved to remand. They first went into the State court and moved to vacate the order of removal, and in the course of my investigation of that question I found that many circuit courts of the United States were diametrically opposed to each other, as has been suggested, and that the weight of authority was in favor of removal by reason of the fact that that great justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, SHOTGUN. pass Judge Miller, of Iowa, had written a very convincing and strong opinion in favor of my contention. The question came up on a motion in the State court to vacate the order of removal. I succeeded there in defeating the application and holding the case in the circuit court. It was appealed to the general term ‘of. the Supreme Court. One of the best Judges that we have upon the bench wrote a 20-page opinion, holding, with some of the cases in the United States circuit court, that the case could not be removed. The chief judge then presiding in the court wrote seven lines on the bottom of that opinion, saying: I do removal not coneur. I think that of this case to the United the weight States of authority is in favor of the court. His associates concurred with him on that subject. Undoubtedly it is so, and if Mr. Shields in the wealth of his research has not been able to find an authority to the contrary of this which is here, the matter of Marshall, and of course with his great interest to sustain a measure of this character he would have found it and brought it here to you, if there had been any, the conclusion is that there is no such authority. And I say that he can not put his finger on the title of a case in the Supreme Court of the United States, although he has had this Marshall case before him. Mr. Powers. Is not this a case that would not be very likely Mr. Boyer. He has not been able to get a legislature to pass his bill. | Mr. Powers. I confess that I doubt the correctness of that decision. I am with you on other things, but I am not with you on that. Mr. Bover. Gentlemen may differ in regard to their construction of the Constitution of the United States, of course, but there we have a judgment. Mr. Capron. I presume that is the law now ? Mr. Bovsrr. Yes, sir; and you gentlemen are lawyers, and I presume lawyers should all bow humbly to the decision of the circuit court. Mr. Capron. If it suits them. Mr. Bover. If it suits them; yes, sir. ‘ The CuarrmMan. That is not the final judgment, you know. Mr. Boverr. If you are going to pass this “bill, then, to be perfectly consistent, and if you are going to be thoroughly in harmony with Mr. Shields on this matter, you ought to go further and stop the pernicious double-barreled shotgun. You ought to legislate out of existence the repeating shotgun, and make us, when we go into the woods, limit ourselves to a single- shot rifle. Perhaps some of us are not as good sportsmen and shots as Mr. Shields, and perhaps if we tackle a orizzly bear, if we have not a repeater we may suffer the consequences; but we may console ourselves with the thought that it is in the line of the protection of the game of the country. And let me call your attention to the fact that the game of the country is in the deplorable condition in which we find it to- day, as depicted by Mr. Shields, not because these guns have been in operation; it has not been because of this repeating self-loading shotgun that it is as we find it. That has not done it. This is a new invention. It has been on the market only