The Commission is perhaps the most extraordinary institution in the State. At its head is General George Stone, one-time chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. At its tail is Jake Steppacher, another one-time potent politician who has passed the days of his usefulness. Between Stone at the lead and Steppacher at the tail, is an astonishing array of formerly prominent politicians, as well as politicians who are decidedly in the present. In fact, the Fish and Game Commission is fast becoming one of the most potent adjuncts to the State political machine, that strictly non-partisan organization which guards the interests of the tenderloin, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the racetrack gamblers, their associates and allies, and which rather presumptuously assumes to be the Republican Party of California. One of the features of the session of 1909 was the keen little fight of the anti-machine members of the Legislature to restore the Fish and Game Commission to its one-time simplicity, legitimacy and usefulness, and the efforts of the machine members to prevent this. Up to two years ago, under the name of Fish Commission, the now Fish and Game Commission did most admirable work on an allowance of about $50,000. So far as the writer can ascertain, the Commission's income up to 1907 never exceeded $54,000 in any one year; usually it was a trifle under $50,000. But in 1907 a tax of $1 a year was imposed upon all citizens of California who wished to go hunting. Citizens of other States, wishing to hunt in California, are under the same law taxed $10 a year, while foreigners are taxed $25. The law provides that the income thus raised be turned over to the Fish Commission. The first year that the law was in force, the Commission received $116,579 on account of it. This, with moneys received from State appropriations, fines collected and the like, swelled the Commission's income for that year, the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, to $184,467.70, an increase of more that $130,000 from the previous fiscal year. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, the cost of conducting the Governor's office, including the Governor's salary, the salaries of his secretaries and clerks, stationery, postage stamps, secret service, everything in a word in connection with the office, was $32,377. In the same way the expense of conducting the State Controller's office was $23,417; of the State Treasurer's office, $16,751 ; of the Attorney General's office, $33,082; of the Surveyor General's office, $20,679; of the State Superintendent of Schools' office, $22,380.