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diff --git a/old/63593-0.txt b/old/63593-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d059d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/63593-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44291 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Outing; Vol. XIII.; October, 1888 to March, +1889, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States +and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no +restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it +under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not +located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this ebook. + + +Title: Outing; Vol. XIII.; October, 1888 to March, 1889 + An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Recreation. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: November 1, 2020 [EBook #63593] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTING; VOL. XIII.; OCTOBER *** + + + + +Produced by Jane Robins, Reiner Ruf, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + ###################################################################### + + Transcriber’s Notes + + This e-text is based on Vol. XIII of the ‘Outing Illustrated + Monthly Magazine of Recreation;’ October, 1888-March, 1889. + Advertisements have been relocated to the end of the text. A few + page references in the Table of Contents have been corrected + according to the original page numbers in the magazine. Footnotes + have been moved to the end of the corresponding articles. Some + tables have been split to fit into smaller screens. + + Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been retained, but + punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected. Passages + in English dialect and in languages other than English have + not been altered. + + _Underscores_ have been used to indicate italic text in the + original; ~tilde characters~ have been applied to denote small + capitals. Bold text has been highlighted by using =equals signs=. + + ###################################################################### + + + + + ~Outing~ + + AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY MAGAZINE + + OF + + RECREATION + + VOL. XIII. + + OCTOBER, 1888-MARCH, 1889 + + THE OUTING COMPANY, LIMITED + + NEW YORK: No. 239 FIFTH AVENUE. + + LONDON: No. 61 STRAND, W. C. + + + + + ~Copyright, 1888-1889~, + + ~By the~ OUTING COMPANY, ~Limited~. + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. + + + PRESS OF FLEMING, BREWSTER & ALLEY, NEW YORK. + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIII. + +OCTOBER, 1888-MARCH, 1889. + + + AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. PAGE + + ~Amateur Photography.~ By Ellerslie Wallace. + (_To be continued._) 515 + + + ATHLETICS. + + ~American College Athletics--Harvard University.~ Part I. + By J. Mott Hallowell 233 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~American College Athletics--Harvard University.~ Part II. + By J. Mott Hallowell 301 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~American College Athletics. II.--Yale University.~ + By Richard M. Hurd 404 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~Detroit Athletic Club, The.~ + By John A. Russell 205 + Illustrations from photographs and pen-and-ink sketches + by Eugene Bauer. + + ~Jersey City Athletic Club, The.~ + By Charles Lee Meyers 445 + Illustrations by Eugene Bauer, from photographs. + + ~Progress of Athletism, The.~ (English Universities.) + By C. Turner 109 + Illustrations from instantaneous photographs. + + ~Training of a University Crew, The.~ + By Frederic A. Stevenson 57 + + + BASEBALL. + + ~Baseball in Australia.~ + By Harry Palmer 157 + Illustrations from photographs. + + + CANOEING. + + ~Damp Journey on a Down-Grade, A.~ + By Ralph K. Wing 117 + + ~Ninth Annual A. C. A. Meet at Lake George.~ + By C. Bowyer Vaux 73 + + ~Paddles and Palettes~ (Continued from Vol. XII., p. 510). + By Edward L. Chichester 46 + Illustrations by the Author. + + + CLUBS. + + ~Chicago, The Boat Clubs of.~ + By Edith Sessions Tupper 3 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~Detroit Athletic Club, The.~ By John A. Russell 205 + Illustrations from photographs and pen-and-ink sketches + by Eugene Bauer. + + + COACHING. + + ~Coaching and Coaching Clubs.~ + By Charles S. Pelham-Clinton 525 + Illustrations from photographs and old prints, and drawing + by C. Beard. Engraved by H. Pflaum. + + + COLLEGE SPORTS. + + ~American College Athletics--Harvard University.~ Part I. + By J. Mott Hallowell 233 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~American College Athletics--Harvard University.~ Part II. + By J. Mott Hallowell 301 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~American College Athletics. II.--Yale University.~ + By Richard M. Hurd 404 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~Evolution of Form in College Rowing.~ + By E. M. Garnett. (_To be continued._) 518 + + ~Progress of Athletism, The.~ (English Universities.) + By C. Turner 109 + Illustrations from instantaneous photographs. + + + CYCLING. + + ~Haunted Wheel, The.~ + By President Bates 132 + + ~How to Cycle in Europe.~ + By Joseph Pennell 511 + + ~Ladies’ Eastern Tricycle Tour, The.~ + By “Daisie” 260 + Illustrations by Eugene Bauer. + + ~Mr. Perker’s Bear, or Mr. Bear’s Perker?~ + By President Bates 328 + + ~One Man’s Work for Cycling.~ + By Howard P. Merrill 32 + Illustrations from photographs, reproduced by Kurtz. + + + FENCING. + + ~Mask and Foil for Ladies.~ + By Charles E. Clay 312 + Illustrations by Eugene Bauer. + + + FICTION. + + ~Breaking of Winter, The.~ + By Patience Stapleton 350 + + ~Critical Situation, A.~ + By S. Smith 226 + + ~Herne the Hunter.~ + By William Perry Brown 423 + + ~Ysleta.~ + By E. Hough 66 + + + FISHING. + + ~Canadian Fishing Sketches.~ II.--Spearing Fish at the + Lachine Rapids. + By Hiram B. Stephens 29 + + “~Eelin’ off Goose P’int.~” + By Scott Campbell 53 + + ~Love at Fishing.~ Poem. + By Edward A. Valentine 167 + + ~Obituary Notice of Seth Green.~ + By F. Endicott 72 + + ~Pickerel Shooting on the Marshes.~ + By O. W. Hard 203 + + ~Salmon-Fishing on Loch Tay.~ + By “Rockwood” 533 + Illustrations by J. and G. Temple. + + + FOOTBALL. + + ~Hints to Football Captains.~ + By Walter C. Camp 357 + + + FOX-HUNTING. + ~Fox-Hunting.~ A Day in the Shires. + By H. S. Pearse, “Plantagenet” 483 + Illustrations by A. C. Corbould and J. and G. Temple. + + + FRONTISPIECES. + + ~A Woodland Shot.~ October, 1888. J. Carter Beard 2 + Engraved by G. A. Greene. + + ~Washington and his Hounds.~ November, 1888. J. Carter Beard 98 + Engraved by W. H. F. Lyouns. + + ~A Pair of Poachers.~ December, 1888. 194 + Engraved by H. Pflaum. + + ~Ice Yacht “Northern Light.”~ January, 1889. 290 + Photograph by C. E. Shaffer. Reproduced by Kurtz. + + ~A Moonlight Encounter with Russian Wolves.~ February, 1889. 386 + Engraved by H. Pflaum. + + “~One Fair Pursuer goes at it where the Huntsman Leads.~” + March, 1889. + A. C. Corbould 482 + + + HORSE RACING. + + ~Plain Talk about Steeple-Chasing.~ + By C. S. Pelham-Clinton 361 + + + ICE YACHTING. + + ~Fast Ice Yachts.~ + By Charles Ledyard Norton 333 + Diagrams by the Author. + + + KENNEL. + + ~Spaniel Training.~ + By D. Boulton Herrald 494 + + + LAWN TENNIS. + + ~Lawn Tennis in the South.~ + By Henry W. Slocum, Jr. 496 + Illustrations by Eugene Bauer. + + + MISCELLANEOUS SPORTS. + + ~Coursing in Ireland.~ + By Robert F. Walsh 64 + Illustration by J. Carter Beard. + + ~Rabbit Coursing.~ + By “Sporting Tramp” 362 + + + OBITUARY. + + ~Green, Seth.~ (With portrait.) + By F. Endicott 72 + + ~Satterthwaite, Franklin.~ 168 + + + OUTDOOR LIFE OF THE PRESIDENTS. + + ~George Washington--I.~ + By John P. Foley 99 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard and F. Miranda. + + ~Thomas Jefferson--II.~ + By John P. Foley 250 + + ~Andrew Jackson--III.~ + By John P. Foley 437 + + + OUTINGS. + + ~Among the Taurus Mountains.~ + By L. B. Platt 291 + Illustrations from photographs. Wood engravings by + H. Pflaum, W. F. Lyouns, and others. + + ~How to Take a Tramp Trip.~ + By Lee Meriwether 60 + + ~On a Canadian Farm in Midwinter.~ + By W. Blackburn Harte 452 + + ~Pacific through Canada, To the.~ Part I. + By Ernest Ingersoll 141 + Illustrated. + + ~Pacific through Canada, To the.~ Part II. + By Ernest Ingersoll 217 + Illustrated. + + ~Ride to a Russian Wedding, A.~ + By C. M. Litwin 242 + + ~Visit to Death Lake, Florida, A.~ + By Lieut. W. R. Hamilton 230 + + + PEDESTRIANISM. + + ~How to Take a Tramp Trip.~ + By Lee Meriwether 60 + + + RIDING. + + ~Across Wyoming on Horseback.~ + By Lewis P. Robie 392 + Illustrations by E. W. Deming. + + ~National Horse Show, The.~ + By “Sporting Tramp” 361 + + ~Plain Talk about Steeple-Chasing.~ + By C. S. Pelham-Clinton 361 + + ~Pony Racing~ 76 + + ~Talk about the Pigskin, A.~ + By “Sporting Tramp” 17 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard and J. and G. Temple. + + + ROWING. + + ~Boat Clubs of Chicago, The.~ + By Mrs. Edith Sessions Tupper 3 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~Evolution of Form in College Rowing.~ + By E. M. Garnett. (_To be continued._) 518 + + ~Training of a University Crew, The.~ + By Frederic A. Stevenson 57 + + + SHOOTING. + + ~Pickerel Shooting on the Marshes.~ + By O. W. Hard 203 + + ~Rifle in the Sacramentos, The.~ + By William H. Johnston, Jr. 125 + + ~Russian Wolf Hunt, A.~ + By Tom Bolton 419 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard. + + ~Sport--Past, Present, and Future.~ Part I. + By Alexander Hunter 195 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard. + + ~Sport--Past, Present, and Future.~ Part II. + By Alexander Hunter 321 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard. + + ~Wild Duck Shooting.~ + By W. G. Beers 39 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard. Engraved by F. H. W. Lyouns. + + ~Winter Shooting in South Carolina.~ + By C. W. Boyd 401 + + ~Winter Shooting in Florida.~ + By F. Campbell Moller 541 + + + SKATING. + + ~On Blades of Steel.~ + By D. Boulton Herrald 435 + With illustration. + + + SLEIGHING. + + ~Sleighing.~ + By Will H. Whyte 387 + Illustrations by J. Carter Beard. + + + SNOWSHOEING. + + ~Snowshoeing in Canuckia.~ + By James C. Allan 505 + Illustrations from photographs and drawings by + J. William Fosdick. + + + TRAVEL. + + ~Among the Taurus Mountains.~ + By L. B. Platt 291 + Illustrations from photographs. Wood-engravings by + H. Pflaum, W. H. F. Lyouns, and others. + + ~Pacific through Canada, To the.~ Part I. + By Ernest Ingersoll 141 + Illustrated. + + ~Pacific through Canada, To the.~ Part II. + By Ernest Ingersoll 217 + Illustrated. + + + VERSE. + + ~Ace of Hearts, The.~ + By Edith Sessions Tupper 249 + + ~Autumn.~ + By Susan Hartley Swett 116 + + ~British Fox’s Lament, The.~ + By “Sporting Tramp.” (Amenities) 368 + + ~Californian Lyrics.~ + By Minna Caroline Smith 300 + + ~Faun Dance, The.~ + By M. E. Gorham 311 + + ~Gray Evening.~ + By Charles Prescott Shermon 216 + + ~I’m Single no Longer, You Know.~ + By S. Gove Tenney (Amenities) 560 + + ~Love at Fishing.~ + By Edward A. Valentine 167 + + ~Love Letter, A.~ + By Frank Dempster Sherman 265 + + ~Man’s Three Follies.~ + By Egbert L. Bangs 259 + + ~My Boat.~ + By Arthur Cleveland Hall 451 + + ~Night Paddle, A.~ + By M. E. Gorham 458 + + ~On the Connecticut.~ + By Lucy C. Bull 125 + + ~Outing, An.~ + By Jay Gee 429 + + ~Rainy Day, A.~ + By H. J. Livermore 71 + + ~Rondeau.~ + By Jay Gee. (Amenities) 272 + + ~She only Shook her Head.~ + By A. A. P. (Amenities) 464 + + ~Soft Light Beamed, The.~ + By Howell Stroud England 23 + + ~Sonnet.~ + By Howell Stroud England 540 + + ~Three Days’ Grace.~ + By Sarah J. Burke 403 + + ~Yachting Song, A.~ + By Clinton Scollard 28 + + + YACHTING. + + ~Cruise of the “Frolic,” The.~ + By S. G. W. Benjamin 544 + + ~Lake Champlain Yacht Club, The.~ + By Frederic G. Mather 340 + Illustrations from photographs. + + ~Memories of Yacht Cruises.~ (Continued from Vol. XII., p. 517.) + By the late Captain Roland F. Coffin 24 + Illustrations by Fred. S. Cozzens. + + ~Memories of Yacht Cruises.~ Part IV. + By the late Capt. Roland F. Coffin 430 + + ~New York Yacht Club Cruise of ’88, The.~ 148 + Illustrations by Fred. S. Cozzens and from photographs. + + ~Yacht Racing Results.~ + By J. C. Summers 73 + + ~Yachting Song, A.~ + By Clinton Scollard 28 + + + AMENITIES 80, 176, 272, 368, 464, 560 + + AMONG THE BOOKS 79, 174, 271, 367, 463, 559 + + EDITOR’S OPEN WINDOW 72, 168, 266, 361, 459, 553 + + EDITOR’S SCRAP BOOK 177, 273, 369 + + GLANCES AT OUR LETTER-FILE 466 + + MONTHLY RECORD, OUR 81, 178, 274, 371, 465 + + OUTING CLUB, THE 170, 269, 363, 556 + + PLEASURE, TRAVEL, AND RESORTS 370 + + THEATRICAL PLAYGROUND, OUR 173, 270, 366, 462, 558 + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: A WOODLAND SHOT.] + + + + + ~Outing.~ + + ~Vol. XIII.~ OCTOBER, 1888. ~No. 1.~ + + + + +THE BOAT CLUBS OF CHICAGO. + +BY MRS. EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER. + + +Chicago is singularly devoid of the presence of that species of animal +popularly known as “the dude.” In going about its bustling streets, +one remarks that the thin-legged, hollow-chested youth who is chiefly +noticeable for the height of his collar, and from the fact that the +head he carries on his stick is larger than the one he carries on his +shoulders, is seldom met. + +In place, then, of a throng of these sickly creatures dawdling +up and down and ogling the women, one sees a hurrying crowd of +broad-shouldered, athletic young men with sturdy limbs, sparkling +eyes and florid complexions. They walk, they do not saunter. As they +shoulder their way through the busy throng, one cannot fail to note +their muscular figures and supple movements. No doubt much of this +is due to their daily associations and the constant Western push for +place, but to the realm of sport must belong much of the credit, and +to constant exercise with the oar this supreme vitality is greatly +attributable. + +For many years rowing has been popular in Chicago, and the city +boasted several independent clubs, but there was no concerted plan of +action until September, 1886, when the “Chicago Navy” was organized, +which comprises all the various clubs of the city and suburban towns. +Previous to this, the active boating had been done by the Farragut, +Delaware, Pullman, Tippy-canoe, and Evanston clubs. + +The membership of the “Chicago Navy” is composed of the Iroquois, +Ogden, Catlin, Union, Hyde Park, Quintard, and Douglas clubs, in +addition to those above mentioned--twelve in all. + +The effect of this organization was at once felt, especially among +the weaker clubs, whose enthusiasm was aroused to such an extent that +they soon caused some of the older ones to look to their laurels. +While the clubs are constantly working to strengthen their respective +organizations, and while there is much friendly rivalry between +them, the ambition of all is to make Chicago the headquarters of all +the rowing associations of the West. All signs point to the speedy +consummation of this desire. From her commercial importance and central +position, from the fact that all roads lead to Chicago, she is destined +to become the centre of the aquatic sports of the West. Chicago men +have been made president and commodore of the Mississippi Valley Rowing +Association, which embraces all rowing clubs from Galveston to St. +Paul, and from Omaha to Detroit. This organization has a contract with +the Pullman Club to hold its annual regattas on Lake Calumet for the +next three years. + +[Illustration: J. F. KORF AND W. WEINAND OF THE DELAWARE CLUB.] + +The annual regattas of the “Chicago Navy” are also held on Lake +Calumet, at that remarkable town of Pullman owned by the great +sleeping-car knight. The lake is about four miles long, and the course +is three-quarters of a mile from start to turning-stake. The first +annual regatta was held July 4, 1887. + + +FARRAGUT CLUB. + +Both from the fact that it is the oldest settler, and from its record, +the Farragut Club must take supremacy. It was organized March 10, 1872, +and incorporated July 1, 1875. The fleet at that time consisted of one +barge, the _Farragut_, and the timber-house of the Illinois Central +Railroad Company was its boat-house. + +In the spring of 1873 a boat-house, which cost $350, was built at +the foot of Twenty-first Street. This was destroyed by a storm in +1874. Another was erected in its place, which was, later, moved to +Riverdale, on Calumet River, to be used for training purposes, and a +new boat-house costing over a thousand dollars was erected on the old +site. In November, 1877, this house, as well as that of the Chicago +Barge Club, in its immediate neighborhood, was completely destroyed +by storm, and only three boats were saved. The next year a two-story +brick boat-house was built at the foot of Twenty-fifth Street, costing +$4,000. The first floor was used for storing boats and the second was +devoted to social purposes. For six years it was a pleasant home for +the club. But it would seem that Fate had an especial grudge against +the Farragut, for, it becoming necessary to move the boat-house nearer +the lake to make way for the encroachments of a railroad, in the month +of March, 1883, a furious storm arose and destroyed it, with twenty +expensive boats. + +A temporary house was at once erected and new boats were purchased, and +the ambition of the club was fired rather than daunted by its repeated +disasters. It was fast outgrowing the former narrow limits of the +organization, and at this juncture its president, Lyman B. Glover, to +whom the club is more indebted than to any other one man, proposed that +they should build an elegant club-house on some eminence overlooking +Lake Michigan, and simply provide a storage for boats near the water. + +[Illustration: OGDEN BOAT CLUB.] + +This rather startling proposition speedily gained favor, and the result +is shown in the superb club-house which stands on a lofty elevation on +Lake Park Avenue, overlooking the vast expanse of the blue lake which +stretches before it. It is a model of correct and elegant architecture. +From its balconies and observatory one commands a view of the entire +city as well as the lake. Indoors it is most conveniently arranged for +the comfort and pleasure of its _habitués_, the hall and staircase +being especially beautiful. It is finished throughout in hard wood, +and its fireplaces are handsomely tiled, with the initials of the club +inserted. There are two spacious parlors, directors’ room, card-room +and billiard-room on the first floor. On the second is a large +gymnasium and dancing-hall, which is also equipped with a good-sized +stage for dramatic purposes. In the basement there is a bowling alley, +two pool tables, and various other attractions. From top to bottom +it is complete and perfect in every respect. The club-house seems to +have been a veritable _mascotte_. The limit of membership has been +raised from time to time, until now it rests at two hundred and fifty. +Socially the club is an important factor, being made up of prominent +business and professional men. + +[Illustration: STARTING FOR A PADDLE.] + +The club is well equipped with a fleet of thirty fine boats, for +the storage of which a commodious boat-house has been erected near +the club-house. This club exercises active interest in many boating +circles, being a member of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, +the Mississippi Valley Amateur Rowing Association, the Northwestern +Amateur Rowing Association, and the Chicago Navy. It has a remarkable +record, for a Western club that has no smooth water for practice, of +seventy victories, trophies of which adorn the walls of the club-house. +In 1879 and ’80 their four-oared crew--Downs, Adams, Young and +Muchmore--won several brilliant races. Their time was not beaten for +some years. In 1882, at St. Louis, McClellan, Van Schaak, Metcalf and +Berau won the four-oared race against the celebrated Minnesota crew of +St. Paul. In 1885 a great four-oared crew, Billings, Plummer, Avery and +Fowler, won eight straight races. In 1886, at the regatta of the M. V. +R. A. at Moline, Illinois, the pair-oared crew, Adams and Jennison, +defeated Clegg and Standish, of Detroit, who were the former national +champions. + +But the bright particular star of the club is the recent champion +amateur sculler, J. F. Corbet. He was formerly a member of the Pullman +Club, and won his first race under their auspices. But he has for some +time been a member of the Farragut crew, and the club is justly proud +of his great record. + +In 1886, at the Northwestern Rowing Association regatta, at Grand +Rapids, he won the senior single; time, 13m. 45¾s., two miles with +turn. At the National Association regatta, at Albany, N. Y., in the +same year, he won the trial heat; time, 8m. 46½s., one and a half miles +straightaway. In the final, he beat all but Mr. Monahan, of Albany, but +was shut out at the finish by rowboats closing in upon him. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: + + H. C. AVERY. H. P. BILLINGS. C. A. PLUMMER. M. F. FOWLER. + +THE BIG FOUR OF THE FARRAGUT CLUB.] + +In 1887 he won the senior single in the Chicago Navy, M. V. R. A. and +N. W. R. A. regattas, and at the National regatta, on Chautauqua Lake, +won not only the senior single on one day, but on the following the +final heat and the Amateur Championship of America, beating all the +scullers of the United States and Canada. To complete this record of +two years, which has never been surpassed by any amateur sculler, he +won the senior single at Lake Minnetonka regatta; time 10m. 40s., one +and a half miles with turn. + +[Illustration: CATLIN BOAT CLUB.] + +[Illustration: SOME OF THE TIPPY-CANOE CLUB FLEET.] + +Among other prominent men in boating circles who have been members of +the Farragut Club, may be mentioned W. B. Curtis, of the _Spirit of the +Times_; John Ostrom, the famous Cornell stroke and captain; and Frank +E. Yates, who was twice the national champion. + +Lyman B. Glover, who was for seven years president, and George R. +Blodgett, secretary, were presented with honorary memberships in the +National Amateur Rowing Association of France. + + +CATLIN CLUB. + +This club, so-called from its president, Charles Catlin, who is also +commodore of the M. V. R. A., though practically a new club, has done +good work and made a record for itself at its first trial. It was +founded in 1882, with a boat-house at Cedar Lake, Indiana; but last +year a commodious boat-house, with a capacity for storing twenty boats, +was built in Chicago, at a cost of $500. It is the intention of the +club to fit up the second story as a gymnasium and club-room. Reeding +and Goff form their crack team. They won the junior double in the +Chicago Navy regatta last year at Pullman, and later the junior double +in the M. V. R. A. regatta. It is an ambitious, energetic club, and +intends to do great things in future. Mr. Catlin is their main stay, +and though not an oarsman himself, is exceedingly popular with his +followers. + + +OGDEN CLUB. + +What is known as the “gilt-edged” club of Chicago, being very exclusive +in its tendencies, is the Ogden Club, so named from the first Mayor of +Chicago. Its boat-house was originally near the foot of Chicago Avenue. +But Lake Michigan, with a reprehensible disregard for the feelings of +so aristocratic a club, proceeded to wash it down as fast as it was +erected. It was finally removed to the foot of Superior Street, where +it now stands in safety. It is the largest club on the North Side, +and, as one of its prominent members expresses it, “looks more to the +social than physical status of its members.” Heretofore it has devoted +its attention to barge parties, pleasure rowing and sailing, but +proposes to give more time to racing in the future. A costly “Goldie” +rowing-machine was purchased this winter, and several new boats and +shells have been ordered. The president, Mr. James W. Scott, who is +proprietor of the Chicago _Herald_, has offered five gold medals to be +competed for at the club regatta next fall. + +Among its honorary members is Professor David Swing, the famous +preacher. A prominent active member is W. M. Le Moyne, who was captain +of the Harvard University crew in 1876-77. The club owns a number of +fine boats, including two four-oared gigs, four sailing canoes, six +shell-bottom working boats, five pleasure boats, a single-scull shell, +and a barge that will carry fifteen people. + +[Illustration: CLUB-HOUSE AT EVANSTON.] + +E. D. Neff, captain of the club, who is also secretary of the Chicago +Navy, won the single sculling race in the Navy regatta last year, +defeating a competitor who was considered invincible. He has competed +in the single sculling races this year, in the regattas of the +Chicago Navy, Mississippi Valley, and Northwestern Associations. + +There is a project afloat to issue bonds and erect a club-house which +shall cost thirty thousand dollars, and contain theatre, gymnasium and +billiard rooms, but no action will be taken until the course of the +Lake Shore Drive has been settled. + +[Illustration: J. F. CORBET, FARRAGUT BOAT CLUB.] + + +TIPPY-CANOE CLUB. + +This club is, as its appropriate name indicates, a canoeing +organization. It has a fleet of sixteen canoes, which for beauty of +model and excellence of finish compare favorably with those of any club +in the country. The captain of the club, Mr. D. H. Crane, who unites a +wide experience in boating matters with unusual skill as a draughtsman, +is the designer of these canoes. + +At the first annual regatta of the Chicago Canoe Club, in 1884, J. B. +Keogh, in the _Phantom_, of Class A, won the sailing race, and again +in 1885. In this same year A. W. Kitchin won the “paddling” races for +Classes 2 and 3, in the _Gypsy_, and in the “upset” race won again in +_The Bells_. The tandem race was won by J. B. Keogh and H. B. Cook. + +In 1885, the Chicago Canoe Club became defunct, its members joining the +Tippy-canoe, which is now the representative canoe club of the State of +Illinois. + +No club regattas were given last year, but the members carried off all +the prizes in paddling at the Navy regatta at Pullman. Later in the +season, several of the members attended the Western Canoe Association +meet at Ballast Island, and carried off many laurels. + +Kitchin won the paddling race again in the _Tippy_. B. W. Wood’s +_Vivum_ won the free-for-all “no ballast” sailing race. R. P. McCune’s +_Idler_ won the “hurry-scurry” race, as well as the free-for-all +sailing race around Ballast Island for the Nixon special prize; while +in the “Tournament,” the contest that always proves so edifying to +spectators, G. C. Messer and his partner succeeded in capsizing all who +entered the lists against them. + + +IROQUOIS CLUB. + +Organized in 1882 and incorporated in March, 1888, this club did +not escape the misfortune of many of its fellows, for in 1884 their +boat-house was blown down and washed away, and many boats and shells +destroyed. + +Nothing daunted, they erected a new home at the foot of Chicago Avenue +on the lake front. + +They own a fleet of twelve boats, one, a four-oared shell, being the +finest in the West. Their uniform is very handsome, and they have +patriotically selected red, white and blue for their colors. + +[Illustration: A RACE OF THE TIPPY-CANOE CLUB.] + +One of their single shells won two victories at Pullman last season. +They are workers, and propose to make themselves felt in the future. + + +EVANSTON CLUB. + +The preliminary organization of the Evanston Club was effected in +September, 1880, and incorporated in February, 1881. + +Their equipment is good. They own forty boats, including single shells, +double sculling boats, four-oared shells and several canoes. Canoeing +is quite as popular with them as rowing. This club holds every year +a series of local regattas which attract considerable attention, the +contestants all being members of this club. The membership numbers one +hundred and sixty-one. They possess a neat and commodious club-house, +which is beautifully situated. + +The club seems to be of a genial, social nature, and does not greatly +thirst for glory. + + +HYDE PARK CLUB. + +This club devotes its energies chiefly to sailing, and has a fleet of +thirty sail-boats, two steam launches and one cat-boat. + +[Illustration: UNDER WEIGH.] + + +QUINTARD CLUB. + +The name of this organization is derived from George W. Quintard, the +wealthy iron manufacturer of New York, and the club is composed of very +young men. It was the winner of the Cregier Challenge Cup, which was +contested for in 1886, at St. Charles, Illinois. + + +DELAWARE CLUB. + +The phenomenal record of William Weinand and John F. Korf, the champion +amateur double scullers of the country, has rendered this club famous. + +In 1883 this noted team entered the races of the M. V. R. A. and took +second place among four starters. Heartily encouraged, they worked +actively for the rest of the season, and in ’84 were entered, with +five other starters, in the junior double sculling race. They won this +race and also the senior double, winning the latter race of two miles +and turn in the fastest time on record of twelve minutes and forty +seconds. From that time they have never been beaten, and have won over +twenty-five races. The most notable of these are: 1884-85-86-87, of the +M. V. R. A.; 1885-86-87, of the N. W. R. A.; the race for the medal at +the New Orleans Exposition; the race for the National Championship at +Albany, N. Y., in 1886, and that on Lake Chautauqua in ’87. + +[Illustration: THE FARRAGUT CLUB-HOUSE.] + +By a decision of the referee, they were disqualified after winning the +latter race by forty seconds, and being dissatisfied with this result, +they are anxious to meet any amateur double sculling team in the United +States or Canada. Indeed, they challenged the famous Metropolitan +double to a race on Lake Calumet, offering to put up an appropriate +prize, and pay all the expenses of their competitors, but the offer was +declined. Few teams, it is apparent, care to meet these all-conquering +oarsmen. They will no longer be allowed to row in the races of +the M. V. R. A. and the N. W. R. A., as they, of course, prevent +competition. + +[Illustration: J. F. CORBET.] + +In future they will turn their attention to bringing a four-oared crew +to the front that shall win fresh laurels for the Delaware. + +There are only sixteen members, but they intend to become known by +works rather than numbers. + +“We have no wall-flowers,” said handsome, athletic John Korf, “but men +that are willing to try to win races.” + +The club has a fleet of thirteen boats, and a good-sized boat-house, +the second story of which is used for a gymnasium, and is well stocked +with apparatus for the development of the muscles. + + +PULLMAN CLUB. + +The history of the Pullman Club is so interwoven with that of the +Athletic Club of the place, that it requires almost a separate paper. + +There is a beautiful island of about three acres in extent lying in +Lake Calumet. This has been most handsomely laid out for athletic +sports by command of Mr. Pullman. Here is located a substantial +club-house, and here are erected two grand-stands with a seating +capacity of four thousand. + +Under these grand-stands are accommodations for thirty rowing clubs, +at the least calculation, and from them one obtains a fine view of the +regattas. + +The Pullman Rowing Association was formed in 1881, and the next year +the international regatta took place there. + +Many professional oarsmen from Canada, England and this country were +present, and the universal verdict was one of favor for Pullman’s +rowing course. + +Through the efforts of Mr. Lyman Glover, President of the Mississippi +Valley Rowing Association, that organization holds its annual regattas +on this lake, and efforts are being made to induce the Northwestern +and International Associations to do likewise. Lake Calumet seems well +adapted to aquatic sports, being a mile and a half in width by four +miles in length, and can always be depended on for smooth water in the +evening. The property of the club consists of one six-oared racing +barge, two four-oared racing shells, two single shells, two gigs, and +eight pleasure-boats. The club entered crews in the National regatta +at Detroit in ’83, and got second place among seven starters. It has +defeated the Farragut and Delaware clubs in match races. It won the +barge race and four-oared shell race at the Chicago Navy regatta of +last summer, and the four-oared junior race at the M. V. R. A. regatta +a few days later. + +Thus it will be seen that Chicago can point with pride to the +achievements of her oarsmen, and, with admirable audacity, she +prophesies greater victories in the future. + +I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Lyman B. Glover, of the +Farragut Club, and Mr. Thomas P. Hallinan, of the Catlin Club, for +their invaluable aid in procuring data for this sketch. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: A SCAMPER ON THE BREEZY DOWNS OF SUSSEX.] + + + + +A TALK ABOUT THE PIGSKIN. + +BY A SPORTING TRAMP. + + “This gallant + Had witchcraft in’t--he grew unto his seat; + And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, + As he had been incorpsed, and demi-natured + With the brave beast.”--_Hamlet._ + + +To deliberately sit down and write on the subject of riding is a +task which is attended with no slight difficulty. Such themes are +invariably hard to handle, but riding has special difficulties. Much +that is apropos and correct has been written on this most engaging +subject from the day of Xenophon onward, but it is nevertheless an +impossibility--nay, more, it is an absurdity, to suppose that rules can +be shaped by which all can regulate their particular styles of riding. +It is as futile to try to frame a code for the direction of both the +fashionable crowd of a metropolis and the ranchmen of the West as to +compare the Indian squaw, crouched on the pony that drags the “tepee” +poles, with the blithe damsels enjoying a scamper on the breezy downs +of Sussex. + +Not only do different surroundings and objects alter the style, but +Mother Nature has endowed her sons with limbs of varying shapes. It +is no more possible for the short, stout man of vast avoirdupois to +emulate the methods of a McLaughlin, a Fred Archer or a Tom Cannon, +than it is for the same person to look elegant on a ball-room floor. +“Circumstances alter cases,” and every man must adapt himself to the +saddle as best he can. + +Again, what may be a very taking display of horsemanship in Rotten Row, +or Central Park, would look sadly out of place in rounding up a “bunch” +of cattle on a Wyoming ranch. An equestrian might look very nice at a +meet of fox-hounds, about whom we entertain grave doubts whether after +forty minutes’ run across a stiff country he would be still well to the +fore. The method that in one place is a near approach to perfection is +worse than ridiculous in the other In this connection arises the fact +that, though there are many brilliant exceptions, the great jockeys of +the English flat are, generally speaking, by no means so much at home +when following hounds as when braving the dangers of Tattenham Corner. +Of course, however, it is by no means impossible, and it is often the +case, that a man can adapt his style to his immediate circumstances, +but it is rare to find a man who excels in all styles. + +Some few years ago a “Britisher,” who though young had already made +a name for himself in the noted hunting counties of Ireland and +Leicestershire, migrated to the far West to try his luck in the +ranching business. His scorn was great when he saw the unwieldy saddles +that cowboys used, and he promptly determined to keep an English +hunting saddle for his own use. His lesson was soon learnt, and after +a few “almighty croppers,” he adapted himself to circumstances and the +saddle of the country. Ere long his fame as a rider spread among the +very “broncho busters” who had laughed at him on his first arrival. +The finishing touch to his lasting renown was reached when he managed +to sit a certain animal yclept the “Camel,” which had disposed of all +previous aspirants to the honor of mounting him. + +Such cases are rare, and though some few Englishmen have acquired a +great reputation as riders in the West, the majority find that the +style to which they have been brought up stands in their way when it +comes to riding cow-ponies. Mayhap Buffalo Bill’s visit to Earl’s +Court, London, may prove to have inculcated the necessary lesson. + +One thing is very apparent to English visitors to New York, and it is +that the English seat is now the thing. By the English seat we mean +what is called, “across the herring pond,” the park seat, though we +see occasionally symptoms of the adoption of the hunting seat. But +before going farther, it would be well to say a few words as to the +differences between the two. The park seat is the dandified style +mostly taught in riding-schools. It is, however, an indispensable +qualification of any man who wishes to “show” his horse. The general +appearance is rather similar to that one may notice among the horsemen +of the Southern States. Though a difference exists, it is hard to +define, but may be summed up thus: while every Southerner seems part +and parcel of the animal he bestrides, whence comes the common dictum +that all Southerners are born cavalrymen, the possessor of a park seat, +however perfect, lacks the appearance of being perfectly at home on his +horse. The reason is obvious, viz., that the park seat is artificial, +and the rider’s attention is chiefly given to producing good action on +his hack’s part. He carries his hands high, often very high, and as he +rides he “lifts” his horse, and is answered by correspondingly high +action. The bit is often severe to further this. The rider’s feet are +carried rather wide, and all the while the calf of the leg is never +quite at rest, for while the grip of the knee is neglected, the calf +is kept continuously but gently in motion. The spur never touches the +flank, but the horse feels the necessary reminder at his ribs, and +frets and moves with vigorous action as his rider wishes. In such a +seat the foot is thrust but a short way through the stirrup, and rests +on the iron at or about the ball of the great toe. The rider has, of +course, to sit well down in his saddle, and stick to his horse mostly +by balance, as the seat-preserving grip of the knee is so slightly +maintained. + +Youatt, in his book “The Horse,” gives the following instructions +regarding the riding of hackneys: “He does wrong who constantly pulls +might and main: he will soon spoil the animal’s mouth. He does worse +who carelessly throws the reins on the neck of the horse. _Always feel +the mouth lightly_, with a simultaneous pressure of both legs. By these +means, the rider will insure a regularity of pace, and command the +safety and speed of his horse. If he depends entirely upon the feeling +of the hand, the mouth may become too sensitive, and refuse to have the +proper bearing upon the bit.... Again, if the horseman neglects the +elasticity and fine feeling of the hand, and makes too much use of his +legs alone, a callous mouth and boring upon the bit will most likely +result from the practice.... By this constant gentle _feeling_ he will +likewise be induced to carry his head well, than which few things are +more conducive to the easy, beautiful, and safe going of the horse.” + +To turn to the other style of English riding, it must be said that +here there are many variations in style. The older school adopts a +very short “leather” and feet thrust well home into a heavy stirrup, +with a tendency to disregard the smaller niceties of the art. Look at +an old gentleman nearly approaching the span of life allotted by the +Psalmist, as he makes his way to covert. If he allows his horse to go +out of a walk at all, the pace does not exceed a slow “jog” or trot, +in fact, what is called the “huntsman’s jog.” He goes along, bump, +bump, bumping, or, perhaps, for some hundred yards effecting a kind of +shuffling rise from his saddle, while his knees seem to have no grip +whatever on his horse’s sides and sway to and fro with every motion. +Probably any stranger to the country could make many greater errors +than to follow this old gentleman when hounds are running a rattling +pace with a breast-high scent, for as necessity calls, a change takes +place in his riding. See him as he lifts his flagging hunter at that +stone-wall, his grip on the saddle is wonderful and he seems glued +to it! This style is still common in England, and every man who has +hunted there will see in his mind the picture of some white-haired old +gentleman to whom this description might apply. Such men were the older +generation who were content to rise before daylight, to ride long miles +to the covert side without taking their horses out of a walk or a slow +jog, so that they might arrive fresh and fit for the day’s sport. One +may see them still, jogging behind the huntsman and his hounds, leaving +the more rapid conveyances of train or tandem to sportsmen of the +modern stamp. + +One reaches the meet, and though the time appointed is eleven o’clock +_sharp_, the master is not here yet. He belongs to the younger school +of sportsmen with whom punctuality is not one of the cardinal virtues. +But after twenty minutes, which are profitably employed in exchanging +greetings and inquiries after absent friends, he is seen in the +distance. + +Down the bridle-path he comes as fast as his smart little covert-hack +can lay legs to the ground. He is a perfect picture of the more modern +school of cross country riding. A dim suspicion crosses the mind +that he may at some period have held a commission in a crack cavalry +regiment. Decidedly there is a _soupçon_ of the military seat about +him. Stirrups long, feet thrust in to an extent half way between the +old hunting and the park style, hands kept low, sitting well down +in the saddle, very probably with only a snaffle, or, at any rate, +but a merciful double bridle, he looks as graceful a knight as ever +championed dame of old in the jousting field. + +In no costume is there such a happy blending of the dandified and +workmanlike as in a well-appointed hunting man. Nowhere is the scorn +showered on the luckless dude who has missed the workmanlike part +of his equipment so great as in the hunting-field. The top-boots +glittering in the gleam of sunshine in spite of their perfection of +fit are stout enough to keep the wearer’s feet dry, should he do such +an unlikely thing as take a walk in them on a rainy day. The spotless +leathers are warm and comfortable--the smart “pink” is a roomy and +serviceable garment. The resplendent silk hat will perhaps save the +wearer a broken neck or fractured skull ere the day’s work is done. +That milk-white scarf so neatly and dexterously tied that it also takes +the place of collar, protects the throat and chest and relieves its +wearer from the galling confinement of a collar. And the horse’s saddle +and bridle, how simple and yet how handsome! not a buckle too much, but +yet a man could rely on such work if he rode for his life. + +[Illustration: ONE OF THE OLDER SCHOOL OF SPORTSMEN.] + +The fashion for the last few years in England has been all for +plain-flap saddles, _i. e._, with no knee-rolls at all. No doubt they +look neater, and give no artificial support, making the rider rely +entirely on his own powers, but there are disadvantages. Should +a horse take it into his head to buck, or “pig-jump,” the merest +pretence of a knee-roll will save a good rider, who without it may cut +a somersault, from being taken unawares. Again, the absence of them +no doubt affects the riding somewhat, giving an increased looseness +of seat. Hence it seems a pity that the arbitrary Goddess of Fashion +should lay down a hard and fast law, instead of allowing her votaries +to follow their own inclinations. + +Another fashion which has a bad side to it, is the recent introduction +of very long-necked hunting spurs. They look very tidy and trim, with +the long, straight piece of highly-polished metal finishing off the +heel of the smart boot. Few men, however, find themselves capable of +wearing such a spur with rowels left in. The danger of cutting the +horse, most probably in the shoulder, is too great; hence has arisen +the foolish custom of making spurs without rowels, or with plain +round rowels, merely for appearances’ sake. In truth the short spurs, +with curved necks, of our fathers may not have been so effective +in appearance, but when punishment was to be given to a refractory +horse, they had the pull. With the introduction of the English method +of riding has come the adoption of the English riding-breeches for +men, and the short, safe, plain skirt for ladies. In regard to the +latter the Tramp has but little experience, and feels but slightly +qualified to speak, though in the English sporting papers he has read +vast columns of correspondence on the question from the pens of such +authorities as Mrs. O’Donoghue Power. But to any practical horseman +it must be a patent fact that the modern style is in every respect +superior to the old-fashioned. To see a lady following hounds in one +of the once fashionable flowing habits was a sight to make any one +capable of reflection shudder. Without entire knowledge of all the +intricacies of elastic loops, shot-weighted skirts, etc., one could +not but feel how impossible it was that in an accident those flowing +lengths should fall clear of a pommel, or fail in some way to entangle +the fair wearer. Even with the modern style of skirt, accidents are +rife enough. Some few years ago, while hunting in a southern county +of England, the Tramp saw a young lady, married only a few months, +dragged by her habit. Over a stone-wall flew the horse, and a battered, +life-scarred visage took the place of the bright, pretty face of five +minutes previous. One such sight is enough for a lifetime. + +[Illustration: A MODERN DIANA.] + +After all, nowadays a lady has but little more encumbrance than a man, +and who shall say modesty is in any respect violated, clamorous as +was the outcry at the first adoption of the short skirt? To watch a +beautiful woman on a fine thoroughbred, clad in a neatly-cut habit with +its plain severe folds, and the suspicion of a dainty patent-leather +jack-boot apparent, is to see God’s noblest work to every advantage. +Even the increased masculinity that fashion has dictated of late years, +is becoming, under the circumstances, and the shining silk hat, dainty +tie and collar, and trim edges of fancy work simulating the male +waistcoat, all add to the _tout ensemble_. + +The trouble with ladies in the saddle is often said--alas! with +considerable truth--to be that they are unmerciful: that to them a +horse is as an engine, bound to go at any pace desired until it is +stopped. One cannot but feel admiration when one sees a lady calmly +and dexterously manage a fretting, restless horse in a crowded ride. +Too often it is that sharp, cruel little spur beneath the habit that +is the cause. On the other hand, it is an undoubted fact that many a +horse unmanageable to the heavier hands of a man, will become docile +under a lady’s touch. Let ladies, then, remember that nature has made +them capable of more sensitive handling of the horse’s mouth than any +man, and that the horse’s mouth is more delicate and responsive than +any piano. The glory is not by needless torture and aggravating teasing +to excite the baser side of the equine nature, but to so convey to the +horse by the reins their smallest wishes that the willing beast may +take a delight in compliance. + +Men can by no means lay the sole claim in these times to workmanlike +simplicity. The ladies have adopted this as their motto. The days are +gone for trailing skirts, plumed hats, lace collars and such stagey +effects, and the modern Diana relies not on her winning feminine +graces, but her ability to rival man in his own field. + +Well does she press her claim. To see the score or so of young ladies +that follow an English pack must prove an eye-opener to those of an +older generation when riding to hounds was thought unladylike, and a +gentle palfrey of easy paces considered the right mount for the sweeter +half of humanity. Now, whether it be in Central Park or Rotten Row, +the hunting field or the road, the lady assumes the place that is her +right, if her ability equal her ambition. All lackadaisical ideas are +thrown overboard, and the best one is she who rides best. + +Nor do the ladies lack leaders in such a movement. With the Empress +of Austria showing the way across country, and the Princess of Wales +gracing Hyde Park with her presence, who shall say that bright examples +are lacking? Many more might be quoted; the Empress Victoria of Germany +was accounted a good rider in her day, and, in fact, Queen Victoria and +all her family have been fairly expert in the saddle. + +Concerning the male riding costume the Tramp has formed decided +opinions, for he has tried all shapes and kinds. His conclusion has +been that nothing equals breeches, carefully made by a good tailor. +The feeling of snugness about the knee is pleasant, and enables the +rider to get a good grip, and _feel_ his horse; with the ordinary +garments of the male biped there is a great tendency to wrinkles and +such discomforts. For hunting, the lower parts of the limbs are best +equipped in top or butcher boots, while for ordinary hacking a neat +pair of lace shoes, with gaiters cut loose in the lower part, are the +best outfit. But above all eschew hooks for the laces; nothing is more +prone to cause serious mishaps in accidents than these consolations +for the lazy. They are simply a patent invention to ensure that a foot +stuck in a stirrup may never come out of it till the owner has been +dragged or kicked to death. As to the upper part of the body, every man +should follow his own inclinations. + +In England, however, custom has made certain rules which are not to be +lightly transgressed. No man should don a black tail-coat with a low +hat, nor a shooting-jacket with a tall hat, nor a tall hat and black +coat with gaiters. In the hunting field, no man should wear white +riding-breeches and top-boots with anything but either a pink or black +tail-coat and a tall hat or hunting-cap. By the by, the hunting-cap +has almost become obsolete for any but the hunt servants, _e. g._, +huntsman, two-whips, and second-horsemen--and sometimes the master, +except in a few woodland counties, _e. g._, the Braes of Derwent, in +Northumberland. Again, no one should wear anything but white breeches +and top-boots (_i. e._, boots with tops of leather of a different +color, white, mahogany, pink, etc., as fashion dictates) with a black +or scarlet coat and a tall hat; while top-boots should not be worn with +breeches of any color but white, though, of course, plain boots (called +in England butcher-boots) may be. Such rules are, of course, entirely +lacking in any real reason, but the observance of them is almost +universal, and the effect produced is good. + +Fashion, as is her usual habit, varies every few years in most points. +The color of tops may alter, the length of spurs may vary, the correct +coat may be cut with a full skirt or a swallow-tail, but these rules +are as unchanging as the laws of the Medes and Persians. + +But leaving the mandates of the goddess who shares with Fortune the +reputation of fickleness, let us return to riding proper. It is a +common thing to hear riders, and good riders too, declare that riding +cannot be taught, meaning thereby that if nature did not intend a man +to be a finished equestrian, no practice or tuition can make him such. +This is no doubt to some extent true, but surely even a bad rider can +by determination so improve himself as to become moderately good. + +Again, ideas differ much as to the advisability of teaching children +to ride while quite young. The general opinion seems to be that +the younger they begin the better, for that, unless they happen to +meet with a serious and nerve-shaking accident, they will become +accomplished and bold riders. This opinion is, however, by no means +universal, and is not shared especially in some of the English +colonies, where a boy who rides boldly when young is regarded as likely +to “lose his nerve” about the time he reaches maturity. Whyte-Melville +gave his observation in one of his books that among the boldest riders +to hounds that he had ever seen were men who had never followed hounds +until after twenty years of age. + +Much depends on the way in which a youngster is taught. It is very +possible to make a child imbibe a hatred of the saddle which will last +him into later life. The idea, then, to be kept in mind is that lessons +should be made a pleasure, and not a torture. Begin with easily-learnt +instruction and short lessons, and the child will enjoy it. But begin +with lessons lasting till the poor little legs are aching, and the head +is muddled with complicated commands, and the youngster will regard +his teacher as his torturer. As the aptitude and capacity grows, the +lessons can be made harder and longer, till almost before the teacher +or the pupil can recognize the fact, a fair, if not a good, rider has +been turned out. + +As to the methods of teaching riding, this must be left for +riding-masters to discuss, but some few points should, I think, be +insisted on. Chief among these is that the horses or ponies on which +the pupil is mounted should be changed often. This enables him both +to learn how to handle horses with differing qualities of mouth, and +how to sit the variations of gait. The most successful results seem +to ensue where the first lessons are given on a plain saddle-cloth, +or “numnah;” and another important elementary lesson is to make the +pupil keep his toes turned up so as to harden the muscles of the inner +side of the thigh, and thus acquire a strength of grip. Snaffles +should invariably be used, to foster that great essential of a good +rider--lightness of hand. The pupil must be taught to ride by balance, +that indispensable quality without which all the grip in the world +is useless. But above all the master must see that the pupil has +confidence in him, or his best efforts will be in vain. + +Grip without balance is of no use. One often hears people say that they +ride by balance, or that they ride by grip. In reality the one is a +necessary concomitant and supporter of the other. + +Some few years ago a man with whom the Tramp was acquainted, when +slightly in his cups, undertook to go home by a short cut across +country. His attempted negotiation of a fence ended in a somewhat +ignominious “voluntary.” As he sat on the ground, he plaintively +remarked: “Old B---- says that I ride blamed well ’cos I ride by +balance. Old B---- ’s a blanked old fool. What the thunder’s the good +of balance?” And he had to a certain extent hit the point. No man in +creation can ride all the time by grip--the constant strain on the +muscles soon brings cramp. + +There is in one of England’s fairest counties a certain sporting young +squire whose grip on his horse is so terrific that to prevent galling +the animal’s sides, a space in the padding of the flaps of his saddle +is left where his knees come, with thick padding round the edges. But +even this man could not ride always by grip. + +This is demonstrated by the schooling which a recruit undergoes on +entering an English cavalry regiment. He has to ride on a “numnah” at +first, after such preliminary lessons as to how to lead a horse, etc. +Next he is placed on a “stripped” saddle, without stirrups--meanwhile +riding with only a “biddoon”--and is put to jumping obstacles some two +feet high, with his reins tied and his arms folded behind his back. If +such discipline as this is not calculated to inculcate the doctrine +of both balance and grip one can scarcely say what is. This course is +found so severe that many a man who enlists with the idea that he is a +crack rider begins to doubt it before he is through the school. + +As, however, was said at the beginning of this paper, it is impossible +to lay down arbitrary rules for all cases. Any one who has tried it can +vouch for the extraordinary difference between riding in an English +hunting-saddle and, say, a McClellan army saddle. A follower of the +old-fashioned hunting seat would be much put about to follow hounds +in one of the peaked wooden saddles, excellent in their own line as +they may be. In all truth the saddle has more to do with the formation +of a seat than is usually supposed. An uncomfortable saddle makes the +unfortunate rider twist and writhe in vain endeavor to find an easy +spot. A jogging horse that won’t walk, and an uneasy saddle which seems +to be galling one in a dozen places at once, is enough to make a man +eschew equestrianism for the rest of his life. It is a man’s fault if +he cannot find a saddle to suit him, and in selecting one it should be +remembered that as a rule the more comfortable the saddle the better +the seat. It is great folly to try to save a few pounds extra weight +at the expense of comfort. A large roomy saddle is certainly more +comfortable to a rider, and generally easier for the horse, which, +unless the work to be done is exceptionally long and wearisome, will +never notice the slight increase in weight. + +In the same way everything should be as large and roomy as possible +without being clumsy. The stirrups should be large and heavy enough to +slip easily from the feet in case of accident; the reins broad enough +to hold firmly, and the bit or bits solid enough to give the horse +something to play with. + +One thing should always be borne in mind, which, alas! people are +too apt to forget. A horse is not a machine. He is a sensible, +affectionate, willing animal, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred +wishing to do his best for one. He is, therefore, entitled to as +much kindness and sympathy as possible, and no one will be worse for +remembering the old, well-worn saying, put in the horse’s mouth: “Up +hill worry me not, down hill hurry me not, on level ground spare me +not.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE SOFT LIGHT BEAMED. + + + The soft light beamed, with glow benign, + O’er purpling hill-tops fringed with pine, + As seated snugly, side by side, + We drifted with the glist’ning tide, + Adown the classic Brandywine. + + We heard the lowing of the kine-- + We saw the trees their boughs entwine, + And o’er the meadows newly mown + The soft light beamed. + + I held her dimpled hand in mine, + And from each dainty, curving line + I read her fate--till, bolder grown, + I dared to join it with my own; + While from those eyes, so deep, divine, + The soft light beamed. + + _Howell Stroud England._ + + + + +MEMORIES OF YACHT CRUISES. + +BY THE LATE CAPTAIN R. F. COFFIN. + +Continued from page 517. + + ~Note.~--~Outing~ for November will contain a richly + illustrated article on “The Cruise of 1888,” in consequence of + which the next article by the late Captain Coffin will appear in + ~Outing~ for December. + + +[Illustration] + +In 1878 the cruises of the New York and Atlantic Yacht Clubs occurred +at the same time, and while at Greenport the Atlantic Club had a +regatta with the New York Club as spectators. The two clubs, however, +did not fraternize to any greater extent then than they do now. Both +have always inclined to conservatism, the Atlantic particularly so, and +among the list of eighteen starters in this regatta, there is not a +single New York Club yacht, and, in fact, the New York squadron was got +under weigh for New London before the Atlantic race had ended, the two +fleets meeting in Gardner’s Bay. Very many owners in the New York Club +have found it to their interest to join the Atlantic, but comparatively +few of the distinctively Atlantic Yacht Club members have joined the +New York. Still, as the years have gone by, the relations between the +New York and Atlantic clubs have become more and more friendly, and if +there is any club in this neighborhood that the old and aristocratic +club could be induced to fraternize with, it would probably be the +Atlantic. + +On this particular occasion, however, the courses of the fleets on +leaving Greenport diverged, the Atlantics going to Newport, the New +Yorks to New London. Practically, the Atlantic Club disbanded at +Greenport, only six of the yachts going on to Newport. Commodore Kane +was a great favorite at the Pequot House, and the proprietor and guests +went to the extreme of courtesy to do honor to the club while it +tarried there. This cruise, like that of the previous year, was a great +success. + +To those who know the gentlemen--the announcement of the correspondents +with the fleet on this cruise, that divine service was held on board +the _Estelle_--Mr. John Oakey officiating as chaplain, and Alexander +Taylor, Jr., and John R. Dickerson leading the choir--is an assurance +that the service was interesting and impressive. + +At this time the sloop _Thistle_, the same yacht now owned by Mr. +William Zeigler, belonged to Mr. E. C. Palmer, president of the +Louisiana State Savings Bank and a member of the Boston Yacht Club. She +was considered to be the fastest sloop in Boston. She has been much +altered since then and doubtless much improved, but she would stand no +chance at all to-day with the crack sloops of the “Hub,” which is a +convincing proof, if any were needed, that Boston yachtsmen have been +moving in the past ten years. + +The _Active_, the _Regina_ and the _Vixen_, at that time the three +fastest sloops of the New York Yacht Club, were selected to polish off +the _Thistle_ when she was encountered in the harbor of New Bedford. I +was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to sail on the _Thistle_ +during that race. The _Thistle_ was beaten, but she was miserably +equipped, not half manned, and sailed in the most lubberly manner. +In elapsed time she was only about a minute behind the _Vixen_ and +_Active_, but was beaten about thirteen minutes on corrected time by +the _Vixen_. Had she, however, been as well equipped and handled as +the New York yachts she would have beaten them, I think, and that was +the general opinion. After all, what are any of these yachts compared +with the yachts of to-day? I think that to yachts of this class we have +added at least a knot an hour in speed, and to the larger craft, such +as _Gracie_, _Fanny_, _Shamrock_ and _Titania_, fully two knots are +added, and these are, withal, safer yachts than their predecessors. + +The New York Yacht Club managed to get back from Vineyard Haven to +Newport, and then it disbanded. As usual, a race had been arranged, but +there were not sufficient entries and the thing was given up. + +[Illustration: Fred S. Cozzens. + +SLOOP FANNY, NOW THE PROPERTY OF JOS. P. EARLE, ESQ.] + +The Atlantic Yacht Club, I think, made its first visit to Black Rock +in 1879. After a rendezvous at Whitestone as usual on a Saturday +afternoon, the fleet sailed thence to Glen Cove. Next day, for a +wonder, not one of the twelve chaplains of the club was available, +and the usual divine service had to be omitted. What then were the +yachtsmen to do? Glen Cove was dreary enough, and there was a fine +breeze blowing from the southwest. At that time Mr. Fish was the +commodore, and after consultation with the owners he found that a +majority of them were in favor of disregarding the traditions of the +club as to Sunday sailing, and at noon he hoisted the signal for the +fleet to get under way. Whether or not this was its first visit to +Black Rock, I know not, but matters were found so pleasant there that +I believe it has been the rendezvous of this club ever since. The +George Hotel there is a splendid hostelry, in the season always full +of guests; the harbor, though small, is good, and the anchorage close +to the shore and handy for the embarkation of ladies. So since this +year the club leaves Whitestone on the afternoon of some Saturday and +sails to Black Rock, where on Sunday there is divine service on board +of one of the schooners, which is attended by a great majority of the +hotel guests. This service on board a flush-decked yacht enclosed with +awnings is peculiarly impressive. The Rev. Dr. Thomas has usually been +the officiating clergyman, but the club has many other chaplains that +can be called upon in an emergency. Its list of chaplains comprise the +following well-known divines: Revs. A. A. Willets, of Philadelphia, +whose club connection dates back to 1866; J. T. Duryea, D.D., of Boston +(1868); H. M. Gallaher, of Brooklyn (1868); C. H. Hall, D.D., Brooklyn +(1869); G. F. Pentacost, Brooklyn (1870); W. H. Thomas, Cambridge, +Mass., and E. Murphy, Brooklyn (1871); E. Van Slyke, Syracuse, N. Y. +(1873); H. M. Scudder, D.D., Brooklyn (1874); G. H. Hepworth, New York +(1875). For eleven years after this the club did not add to the list, +but in 1886 it elected R. Heber Newton, D.D., of New York, and its +latest addition to its chaplains was Joshua Reynolds, Jr., of Brooklyn, +elected May, 1888. + +[Illustration: Fred S. Cozzens + +SLOOP VIXEN, NOW THE PROPERTY OF W. C. LOVING, OF BOSTON.] + +The Atlantic Club has never desired to leave Black Rock sufficiently +to induce it to break through its rule with respect to sailing on the +Sabbath. After the lunch which follows the sermon, the guests find an +afternoon at the hotel on shore pleasant. For those who so desire, +there are very pleasant drives, and in the evening there is music at +the hotel and companionship sufficiently pleasant to detain the boats +at the landing to a late hour. + +Black Rock is easily accessible from the city, and guests who cannot +join on Saturday may come up by the late train on Sunday. + +In those days, nine years ago, neither the Larchmont, New Rochelle, +nor the American yacht clubs had established their headquarters on the +Sound, and possibly the rendezvous of the future when a club is about +to start on a cruise will be at one of these congenial anchorages. +The American Club, as being farthest east and as affording the best +anchorage, will doubtless be the favorite, but the Atlantic Club has +strong affiliations with the New Rochelle members and may make that +its first rendezvous in place of Whitestone, and start thence to Black +Rock. It will hardly, in any event, neglect the George Hotel, with +which so many pleasant memories are associated. + +As to this particular cruise in 1879, there is not much to tell, as it +was very tame and monotonous. The yachts on their passages from port to +port had exceedingly light airs. They visited New London, Greenport, +Newport, New Bedford, and Martha’s Vineyard, the old, old route, and +there the fleet disbanded. Why on earth cruises are not continued, +returning from this point direct to the place of departure, or making +stoppages on the way, I have never been able to discover. Bound East +there is generally no weather at all, or if there is, it is accompanied +by “dirty” weather. A beat back to Black Rock would show what the +yachts really could do. + +This was the year that Commodore Thomas had command of the New York +Yacht Club fleet, and the big _Rambler_ was his flagship. A fleet of +over twenty yachts left Glen Cove, and went to New London and thence to +the Manhansett House, Shelter Island, where a grand reception awaited +the yachtsmen. There was an illumination and fireworks in the evening, +and this was followed by a ball which continued until after daybreak. + +It is not possible, as far as I know, to vary the route, and yet I +think some change might be made. This year, as usual, the yachts +went from Shelter Island to Newport and thence to New Bedford. Here +the New Bedford people arranged a regatta that was a great success; +six schooners and six sloops starting and filling four classes. The +_Vision_ and _Niantic_ (now the _Hildegard_), at that time, were the +crack sloops of the New York Yacht Club, and their close match in +this race will be remembered by all who were present. The _Niantic_ +was sailed by her owner, the late Mr. R. M. Huntley, and was admirably +handled. + +There is no port which the yacht fleet visits where the welcome is so +cordial as in the old whaling city of New Bedford. On this occasion, +the mayor and the prominent officials visited the flagship, and +extended a welcome to all the yachtsmen. In the evening, a number of +citizens passed through the fleet with a band and tendered a serenade. +There were also fireworks and all sorts of jollifications, and all +hands left with regret the next morning. + +[Illustration: Fred. S. Cozzens + +SLOOP GRACIE, NOW THE PROPERTY OF MESSRS. FISKE BROS.] + +The reach down the Vineyard Sound, while the fleet was _en route_ +for Oak Bluffs, was one not easily forgotten. There was a cracking +breeze from the southwest and the schooner _Dreadnought_ was the +first vessel through Quick’s Hole, followed by the _Wanderer_, after +which came the _Rambler_. All three had all balloons pulling, and +the _Rambler_ easily established her claim to be the fastest sailing +vessel in the world with a free wind. She went through the _Wanderer’s_ +lee as if that vessel had been anchored, and was coming up with the +_Dreadnought_--which was doing full thirteen knots--hand over hand, +but, when just at her taffrail, the head of the _Rambler’s_ mainmast +went just above the rigging. Her racing career was over for the rest +of the cruise. She ran into Vineyard Haven to clear away the wreck +preparatory to returning to the city, and the _Dauntless_ became the +flagship, with Vice-Commodore John Waller in command. The next day the +fleet returned to Newport and disbanded. + +[Illustration] + + + + +A YACHTING SONG. + + + Keen is the clear, free air, + Sharp with a salty tang, + Far o’er the waters blown-- + Blown on the winds that fly. + Up with the topsail, there! + Gray have the shore-lines grown, + Dim where the mountains sprang + Bold, as we turned toward Skye. + + Never a flaw in the breeze, + A fair and favoring gale, + Never a guy-rope wrong, + Never a sheet awry! + Over the summer seas, + Gay as a lover’s song, + Merrily on we sail + Up to the Straits of Skye. + + Let them prate of their joy, + Footing firm on the earth; + Oh, they may prate who will, + Ours is the joy, say I! + Bliss of the buoyant boy, + Tremble and throb and thrill-- + Sound of the wild sea’s mirth, + Loud on the Strand of Skye! + + _Clinton Scollard._ + + + + +CANADIAN FISHING SKETCHES. + +BY HIRAM B. STEPHENS. + + +II. SPEARING FISH AT THE LACHINE RAPIDS. + +The Lachine Rapids are well known to many American tourists, as they +are included in a circuit of tourist travel adopted by large numbers, +viz.: from Niagara Falls through Lake Ontario, the Thousand Islands, +the Rapids of the St. Lawrence, down to the ancient city of Quebec, and +on to the mysterious Saguenay. The average tourist’s knowledge of the +Lachine Rapids is confined to the personal experience of running them +in the steamboat. But few realize that this is historic ground, trod by +“the pioneers of France in the New World;” that Champlain endeavored +to ascend these rapids in a small boat two centuries and a half ago, +and that La Salle built a fort or house here which is still standing, +though fast falling into decay. Here have been Champlain, Maisonneuve, +Frontenac, Joliette, and La Salle himself, all of whom have left their +indelible records, not alone in Canadian history, but in that of +America. + +The Lachine Rapids rush madly past, whitening with foam in their +ceaseless career. The old name of the rapids was the “Sault St. Louis.” +The Catholic mission here has been famous; it was situated on the south +shore, and has changed its home several times, till now it is located +in the Indian village of Caughnawaga. In this village lived La Salle +some twenty years previous to the “massacre at Lachine,” perpetrated by +the Iroquois on the night of the 4th August, 1689, when, in not more +than an hour, over two hundred persons were butchered. In Caughnawaga +lived Charlevoix, the author of the celebrated “Histoire de la Nouvelle +France,” and his desk is still to be seen there in the _Presbytère_. +Not many months ago, the writer was called upon by two dusky Indians, +and asked by them to translate a certain parchment. It was dated early +in the seventeenth century, written in old Norman French, and signed +“~Louis Roy~.” It was the deed of the _seigneurie_ to the +mission, which these Indians had carefully preserved, without any safe +deposit company, through all their wars and massacres, their fires and +revolts. But I am not to write historical notes and must cease, much as +the subject interests. + +Above the villages of Lachine (so named by La Salle, who thought of +going to China from this point) and Caughnawaga, the St. Lawrence is +wide and forms what is known as Lake St. Louis. This lake narrows very +much at the two villages. A few miles below, the river, taking a turn, +rushes over a bed of rocks and boulders, forming the Lachine Rapids, +and then widens out into Laprairie Bay below, and passes on more +peacefully to the good city of Montreal. + +The south shore from the Lachine Rapids down past and below Laprairie +Bay, is an excellent fishing-ground, and deserves a few notes which it +has never yet, to the writer’s knowledge, received in any important +publication. + +The fish which can be secured here are sturgeon, bass, dory, carp, and +mullet of different kinds, and the eel. There are also bream, shad, +and a fish known as the _loche_, and at times whitefish and small +perch. The Indians of Caughnawaga devote much of their time to fishing. +These Indians, by the way, have intermarried with the surrounding +French Canadians to such an extent that the blood is far from pure, if +there be even one pure-blooded Indian remaining, except an old squaw +107 years old, who still smokes her pipe and is somewhat active. But +theirs is a commercial pursuit and not for any love of sport. They +use nets principally, and in the spring spear the carp and eels in +large numbers. Apart from their fishing pursuits, their chief means of +livelihood lies in running timber rafts down the rapids. The majority +of them speak French, and some of them English. Their squaws are +engaged in the making of Indian “curiosities” for sale to tourists. + +A visit to the village is interesting in more ways than one. The +locality is not an inviting one, as it is rocky and somewhat barren, +and if the original intention in placing the Indians here was to +instruct them in agricultural pursuits, no more unsuitable locality +could have been found. They could drill, and that is all, for there +is nothing but solid rock. The houses are all of stone, as might be +supposed, with quaint little windows. In some of them the old irons +still remain, placed there in colonial days. There is one long street, +the houses being built on each side at varying distances. The church +is a plain building, very simply appointed, free from the gorgeous +elaborateness of more modern Roman Catholic churches, and contains +some curious old pictures, more curious than valuable. Last summer, +while the floor of the church was being altered, a quantity of bones +were discovered; but the Indian workmen were not disturbed, continuing +their work, and probably relaying the floor without paying any further +attention. + +The _pappooses_ are worth seeing. They are so old-fashioned and +wise-looking that one is tempted to think they are born with all the +knowledge and wisdom they ever possess, and merely require time for +the purpose of acquiring a larger growth. They never cry, and would +probably starve to death without a single whimper. With their dark +complexions, jet black eyes and severe expressions, they very much +resemble scheming imps of darkness. + +The rapids are delightful as an experience of steamboat travel, and a +more exciting episode is a descent of them on a raft of timber, and +a still more exciting and certainly foolhardy event is to run them +in a canoe, as has been done on several occasions. It is, however, +regarded in much the same light as an attempt to swim through the +Niagara rapids. It is exciting enough, and yet not too dangerous to +persons of cool temperament to take what is known as a “dug-out” and a +French-Canadian _pêcheur_ and have a day’s bass-fishing in the rapids. +The “dugout,” somewhat out of date now, is merely a log hollowed out +to form a canoe, and it is fully as treacherous as a bark canoe. No +paddle is used; a pole is the arm of progression, and it is really +wonderful with what skill one of these French-Canadian fishermen will +take you from eddy to eddy, in and out between the rocks and across mad +currents. The crude boat seems to be part of himself. Other boats are +used ordinarily of a safer description, made more like a punt, from +which one can throw a fly with some security and with little fear of +taking a “header” and being swept toward the ocean. The bass fishing is +excellent, and splendid sport can be had during the proper season. Dory +(pickerel) can be caught here with the minnow, and though they are not +game-fish, they are excellent eating. + +But _the_ sport at the foot of the Lachine Rapids is spearing fish, +_i. e._, sturgeon, carp and eels. + +In June the large red-finned carp, known locally as the “_carpes des +rois_,” weighing from three to fifteen pounds each, ascend the river; +the eels are present in large numbers, and the sturgeon come in-shore +to feed. + +A flat-bottomed boat is secured and an arrangement for the light put in +place. This usually consists of an open basket made of a few strips of +hoop-iron. In this pine and cedar knots are burned, emitting a pleasant +odor and a somewhat fitful glare over the water. Another means of +lighting is to split cedar rails in long, thin strips six or eight feet +in length, and make them into bundles, a boy in the boat holding them +at the required position over the water. The boat is allowed to float +broadside on down the river over the best places, the torch of pine +burning with its crackling noise. The spear usually consists of either +five or seven barbs and those used by the French-Canadian fishermen +are frequently made by themselves out of hammered iron, and are clumsy +instruments, which when they strike a fish sometimes almost cut it in +two. + +The best plan is to have one made out of No. 4 wire, or buy one of +the light steel spears; and with a light ash handle about one inch +in diameter and ten feet in length, an exciting time can be had, +especially if one has never been out before. One misjudges the distance +so as the boat floats on, and is fortunate if no upset occurs. A +waving weed is mistaken for a huge eel, and a frantic dart ends only +in disappointment, or an eel is thought to be a useless weed, and +annoyances ensue at the mistake. But the art or knack is soon learnt, +and then the enjoyment is keen. Round about, on the same purpose bent, +are other boats, each with their blaze of light, like some huge red +Cyclops. + +The night is dark and one floats on, darting at each successive finny +denizen, missing some and lifting many a fine fellow with the cruel +barb into the boat _sans cérémonie_. A huge eel, four feet in length, +is speared and with some difficulty hauled into the boat, and his +wriggling form gives one the shudders. + +Then a large sturgeon that appears to weigh thirty pounds is seen +lazily moving his tail and merely maintaining himself against the +current. _C’est un gros_--“He’s a big fellow,” and every one is stilled +into expectancy. The spear is held in the water till the time for +striking is come--down goes the spear, and as you press on it you feel +the points are crushing through bone and flesh and are firmly fixed. +There is a cruel joy or satisfaction as you thus fix the spear in him; +he turns, and you hold on like grim death; the boat swings end on in +the struggle; you have to go with the current and the fish, resisting +as firmly as you can. And so the struggle continues; your boatman has +been gradually poling nearer and nearer to the shore. The water is only +two feet deep here, and shouting to you to look out, the boatman is in +the water and has the sturgeon by the gills, and with a few steps is on +_terra firma_. You follow, regardless of wet feet, and find you have +speared the largest one of the season, so far. Your spear has to be cut +out, so firmly are the points imbedded, and the sturgeon’s sufferings +are over. He is weighed, and tips the scales at 65½ pounds. + +This is picturesque work--the swarthy, indistinct forms in a circle of +flickering light, looking for all the world, with their spears, like +attendants of some fresh-water Neptune. The boats float slowly down +stream, the shores are invisible in the gloom, and all is still. A +splash, and another fish is secured, and so the night draws on. There +is an end to all things, and the evening’s spearing is over. + +One drives back to the village hotel in the quaint town of Laprairie, +or else “bunks” with a friendly French-Canadian, paying him _trente +sous_ for the accommodation. In many cases no charge will be made, but +some gratuity ought to be given, and for this nothing is better than +tobacco. + +The fish congregate on these shallows as the water is not deep, and +therefore is of a higher temperature, which in the spring months +attracts them. + +An _al fresco_ lunch on one of these islands at the foot of the Lachine +Rapids is a delightful experience on a bright blue sunny day, so +happily frequent in the valley of the St. Lawrence. The rushing of the +waters and the rustling of the leaves in the trembling silver maples is +a sweet chorus of music, ever changing and ever harmonious; the _coup +d’œil_ up the rapids is unequaled in interesting beauty, and there is a +sense of communing with Nature entirely different in spirit and feeling +to that in the solitudes and hearts of the great forests. + +One reads everywhere the records of past winters and of winters to come +in the ruggedness of the entire landscape, in the hardy look of the +timber, in the robustness more than tenderness of the herbage and signs +of latent strength conserved to contend with the mighty snows. The +present is the more enjoyable by very reason of this knowledge; and the +lunch is a royal repast, made so by the royal appetite which the ozone +of the woods and waters always produces. We enjoy our lunch of fish +chowder, baked beans, strong tea, and such extras as may be in supply, +and look upon these magnificent rapids, the “last escapade” of the St. +Lawrence in its eternal march to the sea. + +I have written of the spring months and their wealth of fishing. But +there are the duck, the _outardes_ and the snipe to be shot in the +fall, when Nature is donning her winter suit and the days are getting +shorter and more sombre, when there is a change that renders one +thoughtful and pensive, except in the excitement of the chase. + +One ponders over this mighty St. Lawrence, one of the grandest highways +of the globe. “Its history, its antecedents are unparalleled. The great +lakes are its camping-grounds; here its hosts repose under the sun and +stars in areas like that of states and kingdoms, and it is its waters +that shake the earth at Niagara. It is a chain of Homeric sublimities +from beginning to end. The great cataract is a fit sequel to the great +lakes; the spirit that is born in vast and tempestuous Superior takes +its full glut of power in that fearful chasm.” + + + + +[Illustration: MAIN BUILDING OF THE BUFFALO INTERNATIONAL FAIR +ASSOCIATION.] + + + + +ONE MAN’S WORK FOR CYCLING. + +BY HOWARD P. MERRILL. + + +No man has ever given such an impetus to any recreative sport as Henry +E. Ducker has given to cycling. Almost wholly by individual efforts, he +has brought cycling to the foremost position it now holds in America. +In his own town he has raised an obscure club to a position of such +prominence as to be almost without a rival in the whole country. It +was Ducker who inaugurated the tournaments which have without doubt +done most toward giving bicycling its present pre-eminence. And it +is this same Henry E. Ducker who is now quickening the whole cycling +world by his latest and most daring project of an Annual World’s +Cycling Tournament, under the auspices of the Buffalo International +Fair Association, the first meet of which gathered in the “Queen City” +on the shores of Lake Erie, ten thousand wheelmen, besides making +the event one of the most notable in the history of cycling. But, +though his name be familiar to the whole world of sport, there is no +widespread knowledge of the individual man. + +It is, therefore, the purpose of ~Outing~ in this article to +present to cyclists and all lovers of sport a short but compendious +sketch of this giant among wheelmen. + +Henry E. Ducker was born in London, England, forty years ago, and came +to New York with his parents in 1853. In 1863 the family removed to +Springfield, Mass., where he lived until June, 1887. Early in life Mr. +Ducker learned the printer’s and bookbinder’s trade. While still a +youth he became foreman of the large establishment variously known as +the Clark W. Bryan Company and the Springfield Printing Company, and +for five or six years he was the superintendent of this establishment. +In June, 1887, he went to Buffalo to accept the superintendency of the +printing department of Gies & Co. Within the past few months he has +devoted himself entirely to cycling, and now expects to make it the +work of his life. + +Mr. Ducker, from his boyhood, has been an ardent admirer of all +athletic sports--boating, shooting, fishing, skating and baseball, but +he has a special passion for cycling. + +Mr. Ducker’s cycling career dates from May, 1880, when he purchased his +first bicycle--a “Harvard”--and in that year he rode 800 miles. In 1881 +he rode 1,183 miles; in 1882, 1,218 miles; in 1883, 1,030 miles; in +1884, 1,087 miles. Since 1884 he has preserved no records. He kept his +“Harvard” until 1883, when he changed to a “Sanspareil.” During 1885 he +again changed his machine, this time to a “Victor.” Later, he adopted +an “Expert Columbia” for his mount, which he rides to-day, and he has +in addition a Columbia tandem. Gifted with an enthusiasm as exhaustless +as his energy he quickens all with the same love for cycling that +possesses him. Thus every member of his own household has been made an +enthusiastic cycler. + +Mr. Ducker’s prominence as a cycler dates from the organization of +the Springfield club, which he, together with several other gentlemen, +called into life. + +[Illustration: HENRY E. DUCKER.] + +Every cycler in the world has heard of this Massachusetts cycle +club,[1] and its fame is due solely to the enterprise and push of its +founder. The first meetings of the club were held at his house and +were well attended. Never in the club’s history has the percentage of +attendance at club meetings been larger than during its first year. As +chairman of the entertainment committee, Mr. Ducker, in the fall of +1881, arranged with a committee from the local post of the G. A. R. +to give bicycle races in connection with the Grand Army field-day. He +supplemented these with a very successful evening exhibition of fancy +and trick riding at the local skating rink, and it was the prosperous +issue of this enterprise that started the bicycle “boom.” + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: W. M. WOODSIDE.] + +The following year Mr. Ducker was inspired with the idea of giving +a tournament, or race meeting, similar to the trotting fixtures. He +was elected president of the Springfield Bicycle Club, and after +mapping out a program, boldly announced that a one day’s tournament +would be given, at which $1,200 in prizes would be distributed. The +tournament was advertised far and wide, and wheelmen came from all +over the United States to attend this innovation in racing events. The +tournament was a grand success, and the Springfield club cleared over +$800. Record-breaking, which has always been the characteristic of the +Springfield or Ducker tournaments, dates from this event. Frank Moore, +of England, who was under the care of ~John S. Prince~, astonished +everybody by putting the mile at 2m. 57¼s., and made what was then +considered wonderfully fast time for five miles. He gave all the +starters (among them ~George M. Hendee~, in his first year of racing) +a start of thirty seconds, and broke the record of 16m. 10¾s., making +a new record of 15m. 47¾s. Moore was the lion of the town, and perhaps +the proudest moment of Mr. Ducker’s life was when he distributed the +prizes at the rink, and announced that two records had been made. The +racing was done on the mile track. + +The success of this first tournament aroused the citizens of +Springfield as much as Mr. Ducker, and the bicycle club had large +additions to its membership. Moore’s records had whetted Mr. Ducker’s +appetite, and he started to have a special racing track built. + +When the three days’ camp and tournament of 1883 were announced, +everybody was on the _qui vive_. This was the year in which “Doodle” +Robinson posed as England’s fastest amateur rider. He was, however, +pitted against Geo. M. Hendee and ignominiously defeated. Mr. Ducker +had now raised the Springfield people to such a pitch of enthusiasm +that, on the second day of the tournament, all the banks and principal +manufactories, many of the stores, and even the public schools, were +closed. Nearly every one of Springfield’s 33,000 inhabitants caught +the infection. The days of 1883 and 1884 seem almost like a dream. It +appears incredible that one man should have so completely dominated a +whole city. In those days Ducker was a king in all but the name; he had +but to express a wish and it was instantly executed. + +[Illustration: J. S. PRINCE.] + +The tournaments of 1884 and 1885 only showed slight diminution in +popularity. But in 1886, owing to the non-appearance of the Englishmen, +who had been announced, the tournament was not so well patronized. + +Mr. Ducker has been the uncompromising advocate of the rights of the +racing bicyclers. Single-handed, he gamely fought the League on the +makers’ amateur issue. He even carried the war to England and nearly +won the N. C. U. over to his standard. He has always believed that the +racing men have rights, and, therefore, has done everything to promote +their interests. The racing men, however, are not the only ones who +have been befriended by him. He is generosity personified, and though +he has been in many disputes, his bark is worse than his bite. + +The money expended in tournaments and cycle exhibitions during Mr. +Ducker’s administration in Springfield amounted to upward of $60,000. +These large expenditures have given rise to the silly charge that +Mr. Ducker went into cycle racing for the money to be made out of it. +How far from the fact this imputation lies may be judged by this. The +Springfield Bicycle Club, on one occasion, after a very profitable +meet, presented Mr. Ducker with five hundred dollars in recognition of +the time and labor expended by him in behalf of cycling. On his removal +to Buffalo he was presented with a dinner set of 150 pieces, and these +are the only two instances in which he “made” anything. His work was +for the club, and not for himself. If there was any profit, so far as +he was concerned, it went into the club’s treasury. + +[Illustration: W. A. ROWE.] + +Mr. Ducker attributes his success in promoting tournaments to the +cordial and unqualified support of the Springfield Bicycle Club. +Whatever he suggested was cheerfully carried out, and whatever work +he laid out was taken up with a will and faithfully performed. An +indefatigable worker himself, he influenced others to perform herculean +tasks. Without the Springfield Bicycle Club Mr. Ducker’s fame would +probably not be as widespread as it is, and without Ducker the +Springfield Bicycle Club would not to-day rank as the leading cycle +club of the country. The one was the indispensable complement of the +other. + +[Illustration: + + R. JAMES. F. WOOD. E. P. BURNHAM. +] + +Mr. Ducker is essentially an originator. Whatever tends to make a +successful race meeting when traced back, nine times out of ten, will +be found to have its impetus from him. The arranging of programs, track +building, timing, scoring, novelty races, all bear his stamp. Everybody +concedes that the Springfield tournaments were models; everything was +managed with clockwork precision, and rarely was there a hitch in the +program. So great was their reputation that Mr. Ducker has often been +called upon to furnish details and even personal assistance for other +meetings, and he has received letters asking advice from Switzerland, +Germany, and even Australia. His motto has always been: “The best is +none too good,” and as a result of strict adherence to that rule, the +Springfield track holds to-day a large proportion of the existing +records. + +His ideas on track building were the result of personal observation +and study. Good side-paths in the country were the means of awakening +and guiding his attention. It occurred to him that if a path could be +built of nearly the same materials, the problem of good tracks would +be solved. That he successfully followed up this idea as well as the +accuracy of his reasoning, the Springfield track, and, more recently, +the Buffalo track indisputably prove. + +In 1885 and 1886, Mr. Ducker was chief consul of the Massachusetts +division, L. A. W., and his work in that office speaks for itself. He +was also for two years a member of the racing board of the L. A. W., +and representative for Massachusetts. He was for five years president +of the Springfield Bicycle Club, of which he is a life member; he is +a member of the Massachusetts Bicycle Club of Boston, the Ixion Club +of New York City, the Ramblers of Buffalo and the N. C. U. of England. +In connection with the Springfield tournaments, Mr. Ducker founded +the _Springfield Wheelmen’s Gazette_. It was intended at first only +as a tournament “boomer,” but it made such a hit, that he yielded to +the public demand for its permanent publication. Upon his removal to +Buffalo, the _Gazette_ was sold to Darrow Brothers, of Indianapolis. +While in Mr. Ducker’s control it was a crisp, sparkling sheet, and +commendable from a literary standpoint. He was also the publisher and +editor, in connection with Henry Goodman, of “The Wheelmen’s Reference +Book.” + +Mr. Ducker’s cycling correspondence is simply enormous. His private +office is the headquarters for cycling information of every kind, and +in Springfield it was constantly besieged by newspaper men. + +Until within a few months, Mr. Ducker has worked regularly at his +business, consequently his cycling work has been done after business +hours. He is of medium height and inclined to stoutness. He is of light +complexion, with sandy, curly hair and heavy imperial and mustache. +Nature has not endowed Mr. Ducker with a very good voice, having +oversupplied him with tones of the upper, entirely to the neglect +of those of the lower register. But his voice is no handicap to his +ability to talk. He is an enthusiastic conversationalist, and can +convert the most skeptical to his optimistic way of thinking. + +For the past few months, Mr. Ducker has given his entire attention to +the World’s Tournament at Buffalo, which is his latest project. The +management of the Buffalo International Fair Association, recognizing +Mr. Ducker’s abilities, secured his services by most liberal offers of +support. And Mr. Ducker’s first official act was to appoint his friend +G. M. Hendee as starter. + +A full report of events as they shall become a matter of record in +connection with the Buffalo meet, will appear in later issues of +~Outing~. + +It now remains for us to recall a few of the names of the noted cyclers +who, under the management of Mr. Ducker, visited Springfield during his +prominent connection with the cycling history of that most noted of +American cycling clubs. + +In the year 1886, W. A. Rowe defeated George M. Hendee and Fred Wood, +of England, for the world’s championship. Rowe is, of course, very well +known to the cycling world by his wonderful record, holding as he does +all from a ¼ mile to 22 miles. These have been, however, made at record +trials, _i. e._, against time and not in races. Recently Rowe visited +England, but he has twice been unsuccessful in holding the title of +the world’s champion as against Richard Howell. + +M. V. J. Webber, or “Alphabet” Webber, was one of the fast English +amateurs who raced at Springfield in ’85. He made 21 miles within the +hour during a race. It was a 10-mile race, but he was anxious to keep +on, and was allowed to do so with the result above mentioned. He has +been off the path since his return to England. + +[Illustration: G. M. HENDEE.] + +George Weber was America’s champion Star rider, but he died in ’85. He +was a plucky rider, and though he did not secure many first places in +track riding, he was unconquerable in road racing and hill climbing. He +won the great 100-mile road race in the spring of ’85. + +[Illustration: HAMPDEN PARK, IN SPRINGFIELD, MASS.] + +Richard Howell, of England, professional, is undoubtedly the world’s +champion. Indeed, he has for a long time been called “King of the +Wheel.” His recent defeats of Rowe have put his right to the title +beyond dispute. He has rarely been beaten and is a marvelous rider, +having a spurt that cannot be approached. He was the first to do a mile +in 2m. 31 1-5s. It was a trial against time and was made just after the +’85 tournament at Springfield. + +Percy Furnivall, while on the path, was England’s fastest amateur +rider, holding the amateur championship of England for two years. He +raced at the ’85 Springfield tournament and won every event in which he +started. He was to have raced against Hendee, at that time America’s +champion amateur, but Hendee was “spilled” and prevented from racing. + +R. A. Cripps was another English amateur who raced at Springfield in +’85. He was first-class as a tricycle rider. + +Another English professional of note who has appeared on the +Springfield track is Fred Wood. He was formerly Howell’s great rival. +In ’86, Wood was the only scratch man in a mile handicap at Hartford, +and won, his time being 2m. 33s., the fastest mile ever made in a +_race_ in America. The race was run on a trotting track, and if it had +been the Springfield track the time would have been nearer 2m. 31s. +Wood made 2m. 35s. at Springfield the following week. + +E. P. Burnham is what is known as a “luck” rider, for in several races +he has been first through accidents to others. He is, however, a good +rider, and very hard to beat on a tricycle. He has been off the track +for two years. H. G. Crocker is a _protégé_ of Burnham, and is one of +America’s best riders. + +William M. Woodside is known as the Irish champion, and is a member of +W. J. Morgan’s American Racing Team. Woodside has sometimes been styled +the champion of America, but has never really held the title. He is +best known by his having done so much “donkey work” in races, _i. e._, +he has set the pace for others and thus sacrificed his own chances for +a position. He is a professional rider. + +John Shillington Prince is also a professional. He was the first to +put the mile record down to 2m. 39s., which performance was shortly +afterwards equaled by Sanders Sellers, the fast English amateur, who +defeated Hendee in 1884. Prince has also posed as America’s champion +rider. He formerly gained much prominence when he was racing against +John Keen, England’s old war-horse. + +Of course, numerous other prominent riders have taken part in the +Springfield tournaments. Lewis B. Hamilton was a very popular amateur, +and was known as the Yale College rider. Robert James, professional, +and Reuben Chambers, amateur, are Englishmen who have appeared several +times. In ’85, R. H. English performed as an amateur, but is now a +professional, while at the same time W. A. and G. H. Illston, both +amateurs, were in America for the Springfield tournament. Space fails +us to mention all the prominent riders whose names have been on the +programs of the Springfield tournaments, but the few we have mentioned +will convince the unprejudiced reader of the omnipotence in the +bicycling world of Henry E. Ducker. + +[Illustration] + + + [1] An article on this club appeared in ~Outing~, Vol. II., page + 337. Another is now in preparation.--~Ed.~ + + + + +WILD DUCK SHOOTING. + +BY W. G. BEERS. + + +[Illustration] + +Among the memorable events of my youth I can scarcely recall any rival +to the days spent on foot and in canoe hunting wild duck. It was the +master passion of the boyhood of many I know, becoming in later years +a passion to master. It was the acme of enjoyment in the days when +one was light-hearted and _débonnaire_, and went whistling through +birthdays with that enviable serenity so few of us manage to retain. + +Wild duck! With the last fall of leaves and the first fall of snow, +their quack was music to the ear. Steeped to the lips in classics, one +wondered if there were no duck on the coast of Campania, that Tiberius +tired of the pleasures around him and sighed in vain for more; or +if there were none in Assyria, that Sardanapalus sought to have new +amusements invented; or if there were no real ones where Loelius and +Scipio made them on water with flat stones. + +The first wild duck one kills, like first love, or one’s first +proof-sheet, causes a sensation that is never duplicated. The history +of its mysterious and ecstatic thrill through the veins, its wild +rush through the soul, never knows a repetition. The duck may be in +the “sere and yellow,” stricken in years, scraggy on the crown, weak +in the wings, tough to your teeth as parchment--aye, indeed, with one +foot in the grave and the other shot off, and have long ago ceased to +scud between earth and sky for mere fun--just as the first love may +have been nearly old enough to have been your mother, and with no more +love in her eyes than an oyster; or as the first proof-sheet may have +been an immature production to which you are now thankful you did not +append your name. But in the heyday of life a vivid imagination throws +a halo around our achievements, and though other duck, like other love, +may turn out more “tender and true,” yet there lingers about the memory +of the first experience an inexpressible charm which no gross soul can +know. + +I do not think I shall ever forget the first wild duck I shot. It +was impressed upon me in a manner too striking. During the school +holidays a few of us undertook to dispose of our superfluous energy by +a pedestrian pilgrimage around the Island of Montreal, and as a dose +for the game we might encounter, we managed, by coaxing a big brother, +to muster a single-barreled gun and liberal supply of ammunition. +There was a strong suspicion of rust down the barrel, and a disabled +look about the hammer, but the owner declared it was good enough for +boys, with that sublime faith manifested by watermen who let boats to +inexperienced lads, that Providence takes special care of people who +cannot take care of themselves. A well-worn inscription on the butt was +ominously deciphered as “_Memento mori_.” I’ve seen more defective guns +since--but they had burst. + +[Illustration: MALLARD DUCK (ANAS BOSCHAS).] + +We started from the Place d’Armes, and when we reached “the Cross,” at +Hochelega, held a council of war about loading the gun, as a scared +squirrel had just darted under a fence and roused our thirst for blood. +Opinions conflicted as to whether the powder or shot should be put +in first, as one dogmatic adventurer, whose experience in squibs and +fire-crackers entitled him to respect, declared with the positiveness +of error that the shot should have the preference. Better reasoning, +however, prevailed, and to make assurance doubly sure, down went a +double charge of powder. “It’s not near full yet,” sneered young +Dogmatism. I hoped not; but to make assurance trebly sure, up came +the flask again and down went more powder. I remember one of the +group, whose characteristic caution provoked us throughout the trip, +suggested mounting the gun in an embrasure in the fence, laying a train +of powder to the nipple, and testing its safety at discreet distance; +but there was a display of fear in the proposal that we, as of Saxon +blood, could never countenance, and so we strangled it at birth. It is +a memorable fact, that may go some way to sustain the belief that I +have mentioned above, that, as if prompted by instinct, the gun refused +to go off on several occasions, in spite of repeated cleanings of the +nipple, coaxing with grains of powder and fresh caps. We were unable +to “distill the soul of goodness” in this apparently evil and obdurate +circumstance; so the charge was withdrawn, the barrel cleaned, and to +make assurance quadruply sure, the powder was poured down with even +more liberality than before. + +The third day we reached the upper end of Ste. Anne’s, near the old +French fort. At that time the village was even a quieter spot than +now, where never a speculator had looked with greed upon the soil; +its greatest stir made by the visits and voices of the boisterous +voyageurs; its rapids sacred to the memory of the poet Moore, and the +soft refrain of his “Canadian Boat Song.” Moreover, its surroundings +made it a perfect paradise for wild duck. + +We were marching along, when some one’s sharp eyes espied a solitary +black duck feeding close to the shore, about thirty yards away. +Suddenly it rose with a frightened flutter. With considerable +difficulty I had managed to cock my gun. I raised it to my shoulder, +with a strong fear that it would go off, and an inward prayer that it +wouldn’t, took accurate aim by pointing in the direction of the bird, +and shutting my eyes--with the Latin inscription brought at that moment +vividly before me, as if the letters had elongated from the butt to the +barrel--I thought of my past sins and pulled the trigger. + +[Illustration: EIDER DUCK (SOMATERIA MOLLISSIMA).] + +Once I participated in a railroad accident when a locomotive almost +telescoped our car; but it was an insignificant impression to the +condensed crash and astonishing concussion that followed the snapping +of the cap. As if weary of well-doing, the old gun went off with a +vengeance, blowing the stock off the barrel with a retrograde movement +that met my shoulder on the way with a deliberate intention to +dislocate, sent the hammer into the air, singed the hair from around +my eyes closer and more speedily than I have ever been professionally +shaved on my chin, and gave the trusting hand that was supporting the +barrel a shake of extreme familiarity--a left-handed compliment--that +was reflected up my arm and down the spinal column until it bred my +deepest and most heartfelt contempt. Like Richard, when about to fight +for his kingdom, I was depressed, and + + “Had not that alacrity of spirit + And cheer of mind that I was wont to have.” + +After having carried that gun round the island for three days, sparing +no pains to keep it dry, to oil its rusty barrel and wash its musty +stock, I felt it had been an ungrateful companion, undeserving of the +personality with which we had almost invested it, and, to use a modern +metaphor, that it “had gone back on me.” It evoked on my part an _et +tu, Brute_! sort of feeling. As I looked at it in silent woe, lock, +stock and barrel lying in bits, I felt sore enough at its conduct to +have given it a retributive kick, and sent it into the river, but the +kicking capacity of my legs had been too materially weakened by the +last kick of the gun. + +Gun gone to glory, vision of some one’s big brother with possible heavy +fist and inevitable “good, round, mouth-filling oath,” hand, head, and, +indeed, all my anatomy aching, there was a consolation that poured +metaphorical oil on my wounds and alleviated the pangs of pain--I had +shot the duck! + +You won’t find wild duck at Ste. Anne’s to-day, except some stray ones +of over-curious trait, who refuse to be advised by their experienced +friends. You’ll be lucky if you hit upon a spot within thirty miles of +Montreal where you do not find “pothunters” by the dozen--that New +World species of the _genus homo_ who should have lived in Arcadia, +where they would certainly have utilized their propensity to good +purpose by driving away the birds which haunted Lake Stymphalus, +without the brazen clappers of Vulcan or the arrows of Hercules. + +For short holidays, one of the most popular localities, and therefore +one which has been well spoiled, was in the vicinity of Carillon Bay. +You may enjoy a varied autumn vacation by taking the steamer _Prince +of Wales_ at Lachine, landing at Carillon, and staging about twenty +minutes to the beautifully situated village of St. Andrews. There beg, +buy or borrow a dug-out canoe, small enough to be concealed in cover, +and paddle down the charming North River, with its picturesque rocks +and pretty shadows, until you cast anchor at the portage of the Presqu’ +Isle. Here you will find remnants of old camp-fires, plenty of free +fuel, hay-stacks in the vicinity to make your bed, and elderberries +ripe in September, luscious in October, waiting in thick and tempting +clusters to be eaten on the spot, or taken home and made into wine. +Pitch your tent at this point, and portage your canoe through the +narrow strip of loose soil and water to some convenient slip in what is +called “The Bay.” You fasten a stout stick through a rope or chain on +the nose of the boat, and two getting abreast of it where the portage +is heavy, or at each end with outstretched arms where the water is +deep, you have quite an enjoyable tug, while the novelty of being up +to your knees in mud and water, without getting wet if you wear “beef” +moccasins, or a delicious indifference to wet feet if you do not, gives +you a sensation of “roughing it,” that not even the pain you’ll get +across your shoulders can make you impugn. + +The Bay, which is two miles across, is picturesque, and, were it not +getting too well known, a glorious place for duck. From it you see +St. Placide, about seven miles away, its church spires gleaming in +the sunshine; and nearer, Presqu’ Isle Point, Borwash Point, Point de +Roche, Coon’s Point, Jones’ Island, and Green Island--between which and +the end of the Presqu’ Isle you can see any vessels that pass up and +down the Ottawa River. Mount Rigaud--mysterious hill, with its “Lake of +Stones”--rises to the west, while the few farms and houses of the Bay +settlement lie on the uplands to the north. Over the islands the smoke +of steamers miles away may be seen, and the plash of the paddle-wheels +heard like the distant “rat-tat” of kettledrums. + +The most unique echo I know in Canada follows your shot in this Bay, +and is one of the “lions”--a roaring lion at that--of the place. It +travels in tremulous waves of sound across the water, lurks for a +moment in the bush of the Presqu’ Isle, then shoots out abruptly on the +other side and flies over the Ottawa to strike Mount Rigaud, where it +reverberates from hill and dale, now to the right, now to the left, in +a mysterious prolonged monotone, as if at hide-and-seek in the “Lake of +Stones.” Then it returns with a scared suddenness, only to fly back in +broken flutterings of sound, from crag to crag, from haunt to haunt, +again to be repeated, like frightened deer, chased and cooped up on +every side, with no escape, till, after several such re-echoes, it +calms to a lullaby, and dies away on the distant hills. A marsh fringes +the Presqu’ Isle, and on its borders are many good feeding spots for +the duck. The grass of the marsh is mowed with scythes and heaped in +large stacks, which you can mount to spy for duck that may be feeding +among the lily stalks--though, if your experience is limited, or your +vision none of the best, you will often be puzzled to know whether the +moving objects are lily stalks or duck. + +For many years, a few Canadians of French descent, the inheritors of +the old voyageur-sportsman spirit of the _ancien régime_, who dread +legitimate labor with all their hearts, but love harder work that +smacks of adventure, have camped in the vicinity of the Bay, trapping +musk-rats, catching fish or shooting duck and snipe. The veritable +chief of the clan bears the martial name of “Victor,” and is a +character in his way. I first saw him with his breeches rolled above +his knees, loading his gun in the marsh. Nature evidently made him +in haste, for there is an unfinished look about his face, and enough +indentations around his head to give a phrenologist the blues. His nose +is mostly nostril, and fiery enough to make the nose of Bardolph look +pale, while his eyes are black as a sloe and piercing as a falcon’s. +Though he can neither read nor rhyme, he has a taste in common with +Byron--he hates pork and loves gin. When he swears--and then he best +pronounces English--spiders feign death, and his dog turns his tail +between his legs and moans. He is said, like sheep, to undress only +once a year. When he changes his clothes the very pores of his skin +open themselves in mute astonishment. If you can hire him by the day +as your “Man Friday,” it will add very much to your sport, for he is a +walking map of the haunts of duck, and has a perfect genius for waking +them up. He will steal with his canoe through the marsh wherever they +can go, quietly as a snake in the grass, until he is within gunshot of +his game. To crown all, he is the presiding genius of _bouillon_; and I +canonize him for this, if for nothing more. + +Have you ever tasted _bouillon_ made in camp? It is not “fricasseed +nightmare,” _mon ami_. It is more savory than tongue of lark or +peacocks’ brains, or other rarest dish that epicures of ancient Rome +ever compounded. Yes, it even throws the wild boar of Apicius or the +roast pig of Charles Lamb into the shades of unpalatableness. You take +water, fish, musk-rat or squirrel (in lieu of beef), potatoes, onions, +butter, pepper and salt, and boil them all together in a pot, in the +open air, over a glowing wood fire. Pour off the soup, and you have the +nectar of the gods; the balance is a dish I would not be ashamed to +set before a hungry king. I would not give one sip of _bouillon_ made +by Victor for a bottle of the wine in which Cleopatra dissolved her +precious pearl. + +But where are the wild duck?--for this seems all digression. Ah! there +they come, with the flutter of wings which starts something of the +same sort in your heart, their long necks stretched out, following +their leader in Indian file, or wedged together like the Macedonian +phalanx, or spreading out when they come nearer in _échelon_ or +like skirmishers, as if knowing the risk of receiving your shot in +close column. You lie low, concealed by the long stalks of the marsh +grass--the point of your canoe hidden by the house of a musk-rat. What +a quiet few moments as they come within range! You can almost hear +your heart beat. Gun at full cock, nerves steady as a rock, ducks +coming straight to their fate--look out! Forty yards off, up goes gun +to shoulder in a twinkling, eye following the game, a gentle pressure +of the trigger--deftly, as if all your care and coolness had been +concentrated for that instant in your right forefinger--down drop the +legs of a duck, denoting mortal wound, off goes your dog at a plunge, +back in boisterous haste and trembling, with a frothy mouthful which he +drops at your feet with an almost human sense of importance, and an +expressive wag of his tail that quivers delicious delight from every +hair! If a “fellow feeling” does not make you “wondrous kind” to that +dog--if you do not realize the touch of nature that Darwin declares +makes you kin--if, after his companionship, you are not sparing in your +chastisement, generous with your pats, and loath to treat him like a +dog, you must be a brute, beneath the stature of a trained retriever, +and unworthy to have the meanest and most mongrel cur whine at your +grave. + +Education has ennobled your dog. His senses have gained a keenness +you may envy, while more eloquence and gratitude is gestured from his +tail than can be uttered by many a human tongue and eye. I will not +question the propriety of Solomon’s instructions in training a child, +but I protest against its applicability to a dog. A dog that has been +bullied into obedience possesses the same sort of training as a boy +who has been whipped into morality. They both become white-livered; +the dog carries his tail between his legs, and so would the boy if he +had one. You may have seen a hot-tempered drover beat an obstinate cow +in unsuccessful attempts to make it move, while another simply twisted +its tail, and at once stimulated its muscles of locomotion. If you have +to chastise a dumb brute at all, you may as well do it mercifully, and +on the Italian system of penmanship--the heavy strokes upward and the +light ones down; specially so with a dog you wish to be your companion +in hunting duck or partridge. + +If you have done much duck-hunting you will have discovered that within +rifle-range of civilization the instinct of duck is surpassingly keener +than outside the pale. In spite of the “blue unclouded weather,” soft +calm on the water, and stillness in the air, you cannot catch them +asleep any more than a weasel. If you would get within range of them +at their feeding-ground you must slip slyly and softly. They sniff +gunpowder in the air, and know it from the smell of burning bush. +Victor vows they know an empty cartridge-case or gun-wad a mile away. +You cannot make them believe your canoe is a musk-rat house, however +you try. You cannot put an empty calabash on your head as they do in +China, and wade among them, so as to pull them under the water and +secure them by a strap. You may fool a Chinese or a Hindoo duck in that +way, but not a Canadian. They will play in the water twenty yards +away when you have not a gun; but they know the difference between the +barrels of one peeping from a marsh and the grass stalks or lilies, +better than many people know the difference between a duck and a crow. + +[Illustration: WOOD DUCK (AIX SPONSA).] + +There is at least one virtue displayed by enthusiastic hunters of +duck--it is that of patience. You may not get a shot for days, or even +catch a glimpse of a bird, except your tame decoys, and be tempted to +waste a cartridge for change on a stump or a branch; but it is not all +monotony, sitting quietly in your camp or in your canoe, or paddling +through the marsh, and, Micawber-like, waiting for “something to turn +up.” There is a physical and intellectual enjoyment, if you have the +capacity to take it in--a pleasant antithesis to the excitement of a +shot. If you’re in camp it is expended in a hundred ways. If you do +nothing more than lie on your back, with your arms under your head for +a pillow, and look up through spreading branches of trees, gorgeous +with autumnal tints, into “the witchery of the soft blue sky”--if you +only let your mind lie fallow, and your hard-worked body feel the +luxury of a genuine rest, it is not time misspent. Toward the close of +day the duck exercise their wings and take their supper, and you may +then get some good shots. If you are in your canoe waiting for their +appearance, I commend to you the magnificent sunset for which the Bay +is famed. + +Flocks of blackbirds whiz and whir over your head in wild _abandon_, +as if conscious they were not in danger; the melancholy “too, too, +too, to-o-t” of the owl is heard in the woods, as if it were mourning +for Minerva; kingfishers flutter in one narrow compass of mid-air +over their prey, as if trembling with apprehensive joy, and shoot +down suddenly like meteors to seize the unsuspecting minnow below; +the “schayich” of the “ritualistic” snipe is heard as it rises from +the bog in graceful evolutions and gyrations a _danseuse_ might envy; +the incense of autumn is borne to your nostrils; a _conversazione_ +of swallows is going on throughout the bush near by, while a perfect +tempest of twitter rages on a tree-top. Is it love, jealousy or +scandal, is it an Œcumenical Council to proclaim the infallibility of +the kingfisher or the peacock, or are they only scolding their young +ones to bed? + +To complete the delight of your senses, you will be sure to add to your +knowledge of entomology the penetrating fact that, though the black +flies have absconded, the marsh in autumn is “the last ditch” of the +mosquito. Here it conjugates the verb “to bite,” in all its moods and +tenses, until the frost-king subdues its ardor, or the dragonfly saves +the frost the trouble. It does not interest you to know that its wings +vibrate three thousand times a minute, and that with these and the +rapid vibrations of the muscles of its chest it produces its soothing +sound. Its sting is certainly very complex and attractive under the +microscope--not so under your skin. You may be ever so gallant, and +yet be unable to pardon the fact that only the female mosquitoes bite. +You may be reduced to believe with Gay’s fable of the man and the flea, +“that men were made for fleas (or mosquitoes) to eat.” The mosquito +is far too insinuating in its manner. It depresses one’s mind, but it +elevates one’s body. When you’re sitting in your canoe on the _qui +vive_ for a shot, its familiar evening hymn is heard in a halo of +buzzing around your head. Sting first, like a sapper with his heel on +his spade in the trenches in the face of the enemy, it digs into you +with a perseverance worthy of a nobler aim. A summer’s sucking has not +satiated the thirst of the seniors, while the junior cannibals are +eager to try their stings; but the weather has curbed their power if +not their desire, and you may slap them into eternity with comparative +ease. If there is no food for powder in the air, You can live in hope +and wish there was, or you can meditate on your sins, or, what is +more popular and pleasant, the sins of your friends and enemies; but +it somewhat disturbs the equanimity of your thought and humiliates +your dignity to find a corduroy road of mosquito bites on the back of +your neck, and suddenly to realize that the last of the Mohicans is +determined to “play tag” with the tip of your nose, or to say its +vespers vigorously in the hollow warmth of your ear. + +If you’ve never shot wild duck, at least you’ve eaten them. Charles +Lamb may extol roast pig, but, as Victor says, “Pigs can’t lay eggs, +nor can dey fly.” I doubt if the genial essayist ever ate wild roast +duck, done to a turn, with sage dressing, plump bellies and legs +trussed, hung for a day or two before being dressed, well basted while +cooking, and sent to table hot, with apple sauce. Plutarch says that +Cato kept his household in health, when the plague was rife, by dieting +them on roast duck. Can anything be finer than the mellow sniff that +steals up the nostrils from a tender roasted one, that you’ve shot +yourself? + +The end of the hunting season is the ducks’ Thanksgiving Day. What +tales they must hiss and stories they must quack of shots escaped; and +of nervous marksmen down whose very gun-barrels they stared and quacked +out defiance. How the veterans of the season must brag, and the Gascons +of two put on airs, and be envied as the heroes of many battles! How +they must raise their wings and show their scars, and be looked up to +as ducks of valor and experience! + +[Illustration] + + + + +PADDLES AND PALETTES. + +BY EDWARD L. CHICHESTER. + +Concluded from page 510. + + +A few miles below Seneca Falls the river forks. One branch, flowing in +a northeasterly direction, is used as the canal; the other, probably at +one time the only course of the river, turns southeast toward Cayuga +Lake. A loose pile of rocks, forming an irregular wall, keeps the water +from entirely forsaking the commercial channel, but enough gushes over +and through the barrier to form a very respectable stream that eddies +off between its own banks with a kind of jolly flow of freedom, like a +boy escaped from school. + +On reaching this fork, we lifted the canoes over the obstruction and +joined our fortunes with the runaway, much preferring its adventurous +course to the one laid down by the State. + +Large trees hung over the water, and an occasional rock or snag, +crowned with a matted mass of eel-grass that floated back on the +surface like a mermaid’s hair, lifted its head in front of our bows +and seemed to rush toward us. The stream, though far from being rapid, +was at first swift enough to give us plenty of occupation to avoid +obstructions, but, like some people, gained both breadth and repose as +it neared its end. + +The village of Cayuga is built on a gentle slope near the foot of +the lake by that name. A railroad passes through the place and turns +abruptly west, carried over a mile or so of water on a trestle. North +of the trestle extends the foot of the lake, very shallow here, and +full of weeds that end in a bank of cat-tails, stretching away toward +Montezuma. The outlet cuts a broad swath in the flags and winds slowly +northward, now widening into a reedy lake and again narrowing, till the +current becomes perceptible enough to bend the rushes at its sides. + +As we glided quietly along our course through the outlet, an occasional +duck darted among the rushes, or a big blue heron lifted himself from +the water and flew slowly overhead, preserving his air of dignity in +spite of the long, bare legs sticking out behind. Bass and sunfish, +lying close to the surface, shot away from our bows, streaking the +water with little wakes. As the day advanced, we looked anxiously about +for a place to camp, and at last came to an island that lifted itself +like a whale’s back from the surrounding swamp. + +To be sure, it was rather bare--a stony ridge, growing mullen stalks +and teasels, and inhabited by some retired army mules, whose gaunt +forms stood black against the sky; but it was a relief to see something +higher than the flags, and we gladly landed at the first opening and +pulled the boats well up on the shore. + +We had a visit here from a genuine son of the soil, if such a country +could be said to possess a soil. He sauntered down to the camp before +we were well settled for the night, and frankly gave us his opinion of +the boats and our other belongings. + +He was a queer youngster, not more than fourteen years old, with +innocent blue eyes and the modest air of a little child when he asked +questions, but changing instantly to the most reckless braggadocio when +he referred to his own experiences. He was born, he said, at Montezuma, +pointing to a distant spire, and hoped some day to jump from the +Brooklyn Bridge. It has been a query in our minds ever since, whether +the mere fact of being born on a flat would gender such ambitions. + +Below this island the stream flows under the aqueduct of the Erie +Canal, and putting waterproof blankets over our heads we shot under +a dripping arch, coming out dry, but with decks glistening with the +shower-bath. The river widens here, becomes very shallow, and at last +spreads out in all directions like a huge Delta. It was often difficult +to find the current, and the air seemed loaded with the heaviness of +the swamp. + +Acres of water-lilies spread before us, small flowers of a waxy +whiteness gleamed among patches of sagittaria, and the interminable +walls of reeds were weighted down with a plant resembling the hop-vine, +and bearing clusters of pink blossoms, that added their perfume to the +heaviness of the air. + +[Illustration: + + A bit of Clay +] + +[Illustration] + +Slowly we worked our way through this strange region, the paddles +after every stroke coming up laden with dripping plants, while we were +kept anxiously alert lest we should lose our way in the labyrinth. +We occasionally stood up in the boats in vain efforts to see where +we were. At one spot the _Sybaris_ moored herself in a lush mass of +lily-pads and grasses, from which the soft mud oozed as her keel +pressed it down, while Simpson, who had been exerting himself manfully, +ceased his efforts in disgust. I took advantage of his experience to +avoid the slough, and as I paddled past, heard him remark, as if to +himself: “Query, is this land or water?” + +But, like Bunyan’s pilgrims on the enchanted ground, we “made a good +shift and wagged along,” and before night struck a _State ditch_--not +a canal, but a broad channel dug to drain the region--a channel with a +current that bore us along with scarcely an effort on our part. + +We were glad enough to escape, even through a ditch. This was our last +day spent in a swamp, for the country soon became more broken, the +water clearer, and the air lost its malarial heaviness and blew fresh +over green hills. Even the mosquito stayed behind. + +One evening Simpson was sitting by the fire, having arrived at a good +camping-place and put the _Sybaris_ in order for the night before I +had come up. He was frying potatoes, holding the spider in one hand +and running his eye over a letter that had reached him through the +Weedsport post-office. He had laid a stone on the letter to prevent +its being blown away, and occasionally his eye would wander from the +closely-written page to the graceful lines of the canoe, whose jauntily +striped tent was flapping back and forth in the breeze. + +In addition to these occupations he was singing something about his +“Bonny over the Ocean,” and his voice, which is not unmusical, came +floating up to where I had moored the _Rena_, and was trying to catch a +sunset effect. The musical cadence fell in with the place and hour, and +I found myself humming the air while I worked; but suddenly it stopped, +and I paused a moment in my drawing, thinking I heard thunder. + +Certainly there was a roar, though there was no sign of a storm +overhead. I put my sketch under the deck, pushed off the boat, and +paddled down toward the camp. + +On rounding a point I caught sight of Simpson, running toward the water +with the _Sybaris_ clasped in his arms. She would weigh fully ninety +pounds with her tent and bedding, and I was astonished to see him lug +her along in that reckless manner; but in a moment a bull tore through +a hedge and bore down upon him. The canoeist had a good start, and in +another moment had run into the river, plunged head-first into the +boat, leaving his heels sticking out from under a torn tent-flap as he +floated away, while the bull stopped short on the shore, pawing and +bellowing. + +[Illustration: Entrance to Montezuma Swamp + +Cross Lake] + +When my friend’s head emerged from the cockpit the boat was some rods +away, and the bull had turned his attention to the potatoes. It was +only by means of a red Jersey flaunted on the end of a paddle that the +animal’s attention was diverted from the camp long enough to rescue the +duffle. I diverted him, as Simpson flatly refused to again assume that +rôle. + +Nothing was injured but the letter, which had been trampled in the mud. + +I naturally felt elated at escaping with so little loss, but Simpson +was grumpy all the rest of the evening. + +From Weedsport to Cross Lake the Seneca River winds through a rich, +rolling country, and we were delighted with views of farm-yards with +weather-beaten barns and stacks of grain. Fine cattle stood in shallow +places in the stream, chewing their cuds and lazily switching of the +flies, and herds of colts tossed their heads and galloped away as we +came suddenly upon them. A settlement of old houses clustered about +the end of a bridge bore the name of Mosquito Point. Though the place +provided us with excellent bread and butter, we did not want to remain +there, notwithstanding the inhabitants stoutly asserted that the +village bore a misnomer. “It’s nawthin’ to Montezumy,” remarked one +gray-bearded citizen, whom we took for the oldest inhabitant, and we +believed him. They told us a legend here of the Great Swamp. + +The story ran, that a single pair of mosquitoes had their abode there, +and these specimens were so large they would devour an Indian without +taking the trouble to peel off the canoe, much as a pig would eat a +beech-nut. In time, the tribes grew restive under this annoyance, and +organized a grand hunt, which resulted in the destruction of their +enemies; but while rejoicing over the victory, myriads of a smaller +breed rose from the carcasses, and have infested the country ever since. + +One of the pleasantest spots along the whole course of the Seneca River +is Cross Lake, a beautiful sheet of water crossed by the stream. Here +we remained some time. The camp was made on a gravelly beach not far +from the village of Jordan. The scenery had that peculiar quality found +in an uneven, partially cleared country. + +It composed well. + +Some buttonwood grew near us on a side hill. A strip of swampy shore +stretched away to the south, and above us some bars, opening through a +rickety fence overhung with bushes, led into a pasture beyond. + +[Illustration: “ASTRIDE THE DECK.”] + +The owner was going to fix the fence, but had not “got round to it.” +We were glad he had not. Early in the mornings we were awakened by +the shrill cries of the tip-ups that fed in the marshy spots with +the woodcocks and schytepokes, the last-mentioned a brown-backed, +wading bird, resembling at a distance a crook-necked squash on stilts. +Simpson was fond of shooting at this fowl with his revolver, for, +though holding the views promulgated by the Audubon Society, he said +he had not signed the pledge to abstain from wearing the feathers of +non-edible birds--“besides,” he argued, ignoring this point to make +another, “we could eat a schytepoke.” We did not try it, however, +mainly because he never hit one. + +On the last night of our stay here we neglected to button down the +tents and were well-nigh drowned out by a storm; but the rain ceased +with the first streak of dawn, and the grand panorama that was +disclosed as we stepped out into the fresh wind was worth hours of +discomfort to witness. The clouds, though still black and threatening, +were whirling off in ragged masses, and the lake stretched a steely +gray plain, seamed with the dark lines of its waves, and reflecting the +first dull glow of the morning. + +The freshness of the air and the sense of conflict felt in a storm +made one want to shout, while the wild grandeur awed one to silence. It +did not clear until late that afternoon, and the wind that blew all day +in wet gusts carried us swiftly down the river. + +We found the current more rapid as we advanced, and the stream wound +between rocky and, at times, precipitous banks. + +At one point a blasted oak stood white against the forest behind, and +then flashes of sunlight lit up stretches of stony pasture or revealed +the wet roof of a barn hidden among the trees. As we bowled along under +full sail, I let out the trolling-line and captured some fine black +bass and a pike before we reached Baldwinsville, eight miles away. + +Onondaga Lake empties into the Seneca River through a narrow outlet, +scarcely a mile long, and when we reached the mouth of this stream we +turned and paddled against the current. As we entered the lake the city +of Syracuse loomed in sight, looking a smoky purple in the distance. + +On the left rose the high chimneys of the salt-works of Liverpool, +making the village look like a huge burying-ground dotted with the +monuments of a former industry. We secured supplies at this place, and +wandered through some of the buildings, now falling to decay. + +In some places nature had tried to soften the outlines of ruin with +grass and creeping vines; but tall brick chimneys do not readily lend +themselves to decoration, and there is something in rusting machinery +that reminds one of unburied bones, a kind of skeleton in chains doomed +to be a blot on the landscape so long as the gallows stands. + +Half a day’s paddle from the lake brought us to the village of Clay, or +New Bridge, as it is commonly called. This place was old and ruinous, +but presented a most picturesque aspect as we came suddenly upon it, +perched on the hillsides on either side of the river. + +The unpainted houses, stained a dingy gray by the weather, were +embowered in thick masses of apple and plum trees, and down by the +water stood a forsaken warehouse with a sunken canal-boat before its +doors. We spent a Sunday within a mile of the town, and rainy weather +kept us some days longer in the vicinity, so that we had a fine +opportunity to study the old place. “God forsaken,” the farmers called +it. It was a sort of supply depot for passing canalers and certainly +not a flourishing port, but perhaps possessed an artistic interest in +proportion to its ruin. + +“If you want any good eatin’ apples, you’ll find ’em under them trees, +an’ there’s green-corn in the garden beyond; help yourselves.” This +hospitable remark was made by a farmer who came to see our sketches, +and it was accompanied with a handful of ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. + +[Illustration: “LANDED FOR SUPPLIES.”] + +This sort of open-handedness had become a feature of the cruise, and +on our last day on the river we gave a lock-tender a goodly supply of +superfluous vegetables. In fact, our living expenses were made so small +by the bounty of the people on whose land we camped, that we felt like +distinguished foreigners who had been given, not the liberty of the +town, but of the whole country. + +A few miles below Clay the Seneca unites with the Oneida River, the two +forming the Oswego at Three River Point, and by following this broad +stream we reached the milling town of Phoenix. We were delayed here by +a short portage, but again in the canoes the stream carried us on, now +heaving under the boats as its deep volume eddied over hidden rocks, or +spreading out into placid stretches that seemed to have no perceptible +current. + +At one point we were whirled through an eel-weir rift and well +spattered with spray; and again, while passing under a bridge, a sunken +pier caught one of the canoes as a submerged monster might snatch a +fly, but fortunately with no damage to the boat. A muskrat, drawing a +long line across the stream, ended it suddenly with the quotation mark +of his tail as our bows came almost on him. Then the river grew broad +and still, and paddling on we entered the canal at Fulton. I had an +embarrassing adventure here. I had landed for supplies, and was again +getting into the boat that lay some four feet below, when the uneasy +craft slipped under the docking, carrying my feet with her, leaving me +hanging by the elbows and shouting for Simpson, who was some distance +away. + +The muddy water of the canal never seemed less inviting than during +those anxious moments, as I hung with my arms gradually slipping, +certain, if the _Sybaris_ did not come quickly, of going in head +foremost. But fortunately she came quickly and I was rescued dry. + +Below Fulton lies the historical spot known as Battle Island, the +theatre of some exciting events of the war of 1812. Near this island +the river is obstructed by a dam, and here we lowered the boats over +with ropes. + +The _Sybaris_ went first, and, once over, shot off through a stretch of +rapid water. + +Simpson, in his efforts to guide her, broke his paddle, and was +obliged to jump overboard in order to keep her off the rocks. He came +back dripping to help me with the _Rena_, and told me exactly how to +steer when I was cast adrift; but in rapids a little experience is +certainly worth more than a good many directions; and once started I +found it useless to try to recall a word he had said. The sensation of +being carried through a rift is certainly peculiar. With the attention +so closely exerted to avoid danger, the boatman has no opportunity to +watch the shores, and, as the Irishman expressed it, “see himself go +by.” On the contrary, he must fix his gaze forward, and soon has the +feeling of standing quite still, while the rocks bob up in front of him +and rush at his boat. As I whirled along, a formidable line of boulders +rose at my left and swung steadily around to embrace me. Work as I +would, they came nearer and nearer, then there was an ominous grating, +a rattle of iron (I carried the pots and kettles), and the _Rena_ +stuck fast, with the water surging and boiling round her. I expected +she would roll over, but she lay wedged just where she struck, and +observing there was no change, I pulled off my shoes, and, taking hold +of the combing, raised myself out, and sat down astride the deck just +back of the cockpit. + +[Illustration: “NOT EXACTLY A PADDLE.”] + +I had not calculated the effect of this change of position on the +boat, for her stern dropped instantly, and rearing like an impatient +sea-horse she dashed forward, while I clung on as well as I could, +feeling like an amateur Neptune, or “a water imp,” as Simpson said. But +I was really a little nervous at the time and much relieved to reach +still water in safety. + +Lower down we landed, and my friend mended his paddle, and then +stretched himself out in the sun and read “Lorna Doone” till his +clothes were dry. Then we went on--gliding under overhanging trees, +passing bare sand-banks crowned with sumac, and catching glimpses +of little gullies full of poplars, and fence corners yellow with +golden-rod. Some houses and barns strung along the hill-top marked the +outskirts of Bundy’s Corners, and later we heard the roar of a fall, +down at Minetto. + +When we reached this village we found another high dam with a wooden +apron below. + +We inquired particularly about the channel: Was it deep under the +dam? Did boats ever go over?--Questions the people who came down to +see the canoes answered readily. It _was_ deep on the other side, and +_flat-bottom_ boats _had_ gone over. “Then we can go,” said Simpson, +and pushed off with his paddle. + +I followed, and we skirted the upper edge of the dam, cautiously +working across the river. The water overflowed the obstruction in one +thin sheet, and fell spattering among piles of ugly-looking stones, +until we reached the extreme east end; here a breach had been made and +a heavy stream poured itself through, tumbling into a great white, +seething pool some ten feet below. We landed and surveyed the place +thoroughly, then removed the sketches, together with a pail of milk and +some eggs from the _Sybaris_, when Simpson entered the boat, worked a +few rods back, and rested on his paddle. + +Slowly the little craft moved forward, then her speed increased as +she felt the resistless drawing of the current, and in a moment her +delicate bow was trembling on the brink. She seemed to hesitate an +instant--then plunged! + +As her keel struck the apron she turned on one side, and the same +instant the rudder bearings caught some obstruction and whirled her +bottom up. A dark hull and a weather-stained felt hat bobbed about, +making two blots in the white foam that swirled and tossed under the +fall; then the hat moved toward the boat, and in less than a minute +Simpson’s broad shoulders emerged, hauling the _Sybaris_ toward the +bank. Two fishermen, catching caddice-worms for bait a short distance +below, hastened to the rescue, and came up in time to help in bailing +out; and before I was ready to follow with the _Rena_ the canoe +was again afloat, uninjured, but with a slightly damaged cargo. I +considered the situation very carefully, and in view of the fact that +it was late in the afternoon and the only spare dry suit of clothes +between us was stowed in my boat, decided, for Simpson’s sake (who, I +remembered, had a slight cold), to go round through the canal. + +I did so, and the fishermen carried my craft down to the river. + +This caution on my part proved quite unnecessary, so far as Simpson +was concerned. I left him an hour later, clad in my best suit and with +sails unfurled to dry; but the wind gradually drew the boat off, and +when he discovered her she was well out in the river. Of course, in the +absence of the other canoe, there was nothing to do but run for it, and +when I returned it was to find him steaming by the fire. We stayed in +this, our last camp, for some time. It was only four miles from Oswego, +and we lingered, reluctant to leave the river we had followed so long. +In the cool evenings we would sit by the fire and watch its flickering +blaze reflected in the water, or strolling along the shore would +startle the fish that had come up into the shallows. + +The season was approaching Indian summer, and all nature seemed hushed +and expectant. Some mornings the sun rose in a burst of splendor, +converting the whole earth, wet with dew, into a vast sparkling mirror. +Again a bank of fog made it seem as if our point were the end of the +earth, projecting into space, till the light in the east glowed through +and showed us the forms of trees and houses looming up like phantoms +across the river. A kindly old man living near often came to see us, +and seating himself on a camp-stool would give long accounts of the +country in the early days. But one morning we pushed off and took our +last voyage on the Oswego, drifting down through its broad mouth into +Lake Ontario, where, putting the canoes on board a steamer, we sailed +for Charlotte. + +The passengers were most of them from the Thousand Islands, one of +those well-mixed companies. There was the jaunty girl who read a +novel all the way, and actually looked stylish in a hat as forlorn +as Simpson’s. And the aggressive old gentleman with convictions, who +hammered his theories of government into the self-satisfied senator +from Maryland--the latter a large English-looking man, with sandy hair, +a tweed suit and green necktie, who listened with an air of amused +patience. + +The lake was very quiet, and the steamer left a long, shining wake in +the greenish-gray expanse, while the smoke rolled back till it settled +into a haze on the darkening horizon. + +Gradually the colors faded from the sky. The groups on deck drew their +wraps about them and moved closer together. It grew quite dark, then a +bell clanged--we moved slower. + +Lights flashed, people started to their feet. We had reached Charlotte, +and our cruise was over. + +[Illustration] + + + + +“EELIN’ OFF GOOSE P’INT.” + +BY SCOTT CAMPBELL. + + +A large dory, old and weather-beaten--as weather-beaten as the +sunburned faces of the three fishermen who sat motionless upon the +thwarts--it was a mud-stained, patched old hulk, battered by hard +knocks, scraped by harder rocks, beaten by harsh waves. Three men sat +silent, thoughtful, absorbed, with grim countenances portraying sombre +reflections; a little child--a boy of scarcely ten years--seated alone +in the bow, his small brown hand clutching the rail on either side; a +child with a round, rosy face, and great dilating blue eyes, opened +wide, and a timid, awe-impressed look--all floating upon a wide creek +of placid water, unruffled by a breath. All slowly, silently drifted +on the ebbing tide, out toward the broader waters of the distant bay, +down toward a long, low, narrow point of mainland--Goose Point--which +stretched out into the sea like a huge index finger directing attention +to the thin silver crescent of the new moon, hovering for one last +moment on the western horizon. + +The tide had well-nigh ebbed; the dusk of the early evening was fast +fading into darkness; the cooling dampness of the summer atmosphere had +begun to gather in the form of dew. + +Almost motionless the cumbrous boat floated upon the surface of the +sluggish and devious waters; from the unplied oars, extended to either +side, silver drops now and then fell to disappear into the darker +depths below. A solemn silence reigned--a silence unbroken save by the +faint, dull, far-away note of the frogs from the distant meadows, or +the cry of some night-bird wafted over the marsh-land. + +The moon slowly sank from the view of the silent sitters; the narrow +line of quivering, silvery light disappeared from the surface of the +waters; one by one the stars came out in the cloudless heavens. The +child in the bow of the boat, awed by his sombre surroundings, awed +by the death-like silence, awed by the faces before him, gazed mutely +aloft at the star-lit dome above him. + +At length the impressive silence was broken. + +The child started quickly, and his eyes were turned from the heavens +to gaze at the grizzled, wrinkled neck and broad back of the speaker. + +“So thet wear the vardict, wear it, Nathan?” The tone was solemn--as +solemn as the expression upon the aged face of him who asked the +question; and the hands which held the oars were raised till the broad, +dripping blades again parted the dark waters. + +The man addressed selected a long, wriggling worm from a rusty tin pail +between his feet, and calmly wound it with a piece of strong thread +upon the “eel-bob” in his hand. + +“Aye, thet wear the vardict, Abram; he air to be detained pendin’ the +investigation.” + +“Pendin’ the investigation,” slowly repeated the other, dubiously. “An’ +what might be the ackerite meanin’ o’ thet, Nathan?” + +“Well, ez nigh ez I can come to’t, he air to be jailed till the woman +be found, or suthin’ definite larned consarnin’ her.” + +“And thet wear the decision at the perliminary examination, wear it?” +asked the third man, speaking now for the first time. + +“Aye, it wear, Seth.” + +There was another spell of silence. Abram Skellet, who held the oars, +pulled one sturdy stroke, which sent the heavy boat away from the dark, +thatch-grown mud-bank it was approaching, out into the deeper water of +the creek; and again they floated silently on toward the low point of +land, which, in the increasing darkness, now appeared only as a dim +irregularity in the line of demarcation between the sea and sky. + +After a few moments-- + +“What wear the evidence, Nathan, agin’ the man?” asked Seth Skellet, +dangling an “eel-bob,” composed of a round ball of mingled thread and +worms, over the side. + +“It wear bad--’tarnel bad; though the man mout not be guilty for +all o’ thet, ez he wear not seen to do the woman any harm; an’ the +evidence air all what they call suckumstantial. Thus it wear, in a +nutshell: night afore last he wear seen to meet her on the old bridge +ez crosses the herrin’-brook, beyond the parsture to the suth’ard o’ +Parson Greenleaf’s ten-acre lot. She wear obsarved to be waitin’ there +for a long time afore he come--John Jenkins’s son seen her; an’ bein’ +supplied with more natural curosity than air gen’rally ’lowed to a +male, an’ wonderin’ what she wear doin’ out there all alone, he kind +o’ hung round to see. She mout hev been there a half-hour, when Paul +Gramley come hurryin’ across the fields an’ jined her. They hed some +sharp words--leastwise so young Jenkins says; an’ arter awhile they +walked off together. Thet air nuthin’ in itself; any two air prone to +hev hard words at some time or ’nuther; but, ez ye all know, the next +mornin’ the parson’s darter, Hetty Greenleaf, wear missin’, an’ a sarch +high an’ low didn’t reveal her. Then young Jenkins come to the front +with his story; an’ on the strength o’ thet Paul Gramley wear arrested +an’ examined, bein’ ez it wear that he wear the last pusson ez is known +to hev seen her.” + +“It hev a dark look, Nathan,” remarked Seth, as the narrator paused +long enough to dip into the rusty tin pail for another worm. + +“Aye, it hev so. But Paul Gramley declares thet he left her not a +hun’ed feet from her own door, an’ jest ez the village clock wear +strikin’ nine. An’ he swears thet the last he see of her she wear +movin’ slowly toward the house; but the parson, on the other hand, +claims thet she wear not in the house arter seven o’clock--an’ the +parson’s word air ez reliable ez the gospel. An’ thet air the evidence +agin Paul Gramley; an’ he air detained pendin’ the investigation.” + +“Ez I obsarved afore, it hev a dark look,” muttered Seth, shaking the +water from his “bob,” and turning in his seat to gaze earnestly in the +direction of the Point, toward which they were drifting. + +“Nathan, what air your opinion?” asked Abram Skellet, leaning upon the +oars. “You air putty well acquainted with young Gramley.” + +“Aye, Abe, so I be; for he hev boarded at my wife’s house ever since he +come to this ’ere town, twelve months agone. He air a hot-headed young +buck, an’ one ez is prone to gay company, an’ the like o’ thet; but, +harkee to me--he hev a heart in his bosom ez big ez the heart of an ox, +an’ ez soft ez a woman’s; an’ he loved Hetty Greenleaf; every throb o’ +thet great heart o’ his beat for her; an’ the man ez says he harmed a +hair o’ her head, lies, boys! I tell ye, he lies! for I know ’twan’t +in him!” + +And the wrinkled old man, loud in his vehemence, brought his brawny +fist down upon the thwart beside him with a blow that made the old boat +quiver from stem to stern. + +And the eyes of the child opened wider. + +“What do Paul Gramley say hisself?” asked Seth, with a nod of approval. + +“Nary a word, save to say that he air innocent o’ meanin’ her harm. I +know how he loved her, lads, for I hev obsarved him, when he thought +he wear alone by hisself; all the love in his heart wear given to her. +He air a stranger among us, an’ little enough we know about him or +his; but when a man hev lived under my roof for a year, I calkerlate +thet I larn suthin’ about him; an’ I tell ye, boys, thet Paul Gramley +air a better man to-day than them ez hints at him ez Hetty Greenleaf’s +murderer--if so be she air dead, which no one knows. He wear a +young man yesterday, full o’ life an’ hope; to-day he air old an’ +broken--more so than years o’ wind and weather would a done; for his +heart air turned to ice--an’ I know it.” + +“Wear he home night afore last?” + +“He wear--about midnight; an’ he says he wear walkin’ alone by the +sea-shore, arter he left her. I believe him!” + +The old man made the assertion as if he wished to hear no opposition; +and for a few moments they floated on through the silent night. All +three men were gloomy and thoughtful, for Paul Gramley was a favorite +with all who claimed his acquaintance. + +“Pull on your right oar, Abe.” The command came in a low tone from Seth +Skellet’s lips. “We air too nigh the flats for the best o’ the eels. +Steady--that’ll do. Youngster, drop over the anchor.” + +The child in the bow moved again, and taking a large stone from the +bottom of the boat, dropped it over the side. It fell with a splash +into the black waters; the cumbrous craft rocked to and fro, swayed +here and there, then swung in toward Goose Point, and finally came to +rest. + +“Youngster, light the torch.” + +The child searched in his pocket till he found matches, and taking a +pitch-pine brand from beside him, applied the fire. The wood spluttered +and crackled and burst into a flame. + +“Here, change seats with me.” + +Mutely the child did as he was bidden, and took his place upon the +seat which the oarsman had occupied. + +“Now, hold the light out over the water--and hold it still.” + +Without a word the child obeyed; and fixing himself as comfortable as +was possible, gazed from one to the other of those about him, then down +upon the water, where the three balls of mingled, tangled thread and +worms bobbed up and down upon its surface in the light of that flaming +torch. + +A weird scene to those wondering blue eyes. + +The glories of the soft summer night were lost upon him; the enchanting +stillness of the breathless heavens had no charm; the tranquil sea, +dark mirror of a myriad of burning stars, claimed not his attention. +His one hand held the blazing brand out above the black waters; upon +his other rested a chubby chin, close to the boat-rail; and his eyes +were fixed upon the circle of bright light cast by the flaming torch--a +circle fading away in the near distance, till its circumference was +lost in dim and dark shadows. + +The faces of the three men were grim visages, now clearly defined, +white and ghastly, now faint and spectre-like, as the smoking flame +rose and fell. + +For a long time there was silence. Despite the gloom that was on them, +the three men were pursuing an habitual occupation--“Eelin’ off Goose +P’int.” + +About the bobs, which rose and fell on the water, dark, writhing +objects came and went, now plainly seen, now lost again; and ever and +anon a white hand would jerk a bob from the surface, and take therefrom +one, and sometimes two, of the slimy, wriggling forms and cast them +into a basket. + +Then a faint ejaculation would escape the lips of the child; he would +look up for a moment at the struggling, squirming creatures; then turn +his intent gaze back again on the waters. + +“What air your opinion ez to where she mout be, Nathan?” asked one of +the fishermen, who could keep neither mind nor tongue from the subject. + +“Wal, thet air hard to tell. She mout hev left town, but, in thet +case, some one or nuther would likely hev seen her; she mout hev met +with a mishap ez yit undiscovered. There air many things ez could hev +happened.” + +“She mout be in trouble,” ventured Seth, timorously; “though thet air +not likely, bein’ ez how she air a parson’s darter,” he added, half +apologetically. + +Nathan bowed gravely, to Seth’s surprise; and, after a moment, said +slowly: + +“Parson’s darters air human, the same ez the rest o’ we worms o’ the +airth. Seth, ye hev hit the nail o’ my own idee on the head. They hev +passions, godly or ungodly, an’ air ez prone to yield ez the weakest +among us. She wear in love with Paul Gramley, and he wear in love with +her; there air no doubt o’ thet. Whate’er may be the outcome o’ thet +love, or the obstacles agin it, I know not. But this ’ere I believe, +she hev left the town alive, or else she air in it--wal, if she air in +it, God knows how she be!” + +And the child heard, but he did not understand. + +“Ye do not think he harmed her?” + +“I hev said my say on thet p’int,” replied Nathan, gravely. “Men air +not prone to harm those ez they love with all their soul. It air my +opinion she will be found afore many days--God knows where, or how.” + +The eyes of the child were fixed upon the grim waters. Without +comprehending the meaning of what he heard, he was impressed by their +solemn tones and miens, and a tremor ran through his slender frame, and +a chill, like the chill that curdles young blood at ghost-legends told +in the twilight. + +And he thought he observed a strange change in the waters, whereon he +was gazing; he imagined he saw in the depths a white, ghastly face--the +face of a woman, with wide-staring eyes, and parted lips where the +teeth could be seen, and long, dishevelled hair, in which the green +sea-grasses were intertwined. He thought that the deathly face, with +its awful, fixed smile, was rising toward his own so close to the +water--rising, as if to press those cold, chilled lips to his--rising, +nearer and nearer, till the staring eyes were close to the surface, +where the hair and grasses now floated. + +His hand clutched harder than ever the flaming torch; he was frozen +by fear; he was chilled into silence; he saw, as one sees in a dream, +vaguely and doubting, for in all of his experience he never had seen +such an apparition as that which now appeared in the waters. + +A wild, hoarse, terrified cry broke the tranquil stillness of the +night, and resounded far over the sea; the old boat quivered and +trembled as the man in the bow suddenly sprang to his feet. + +“’Fore God! what is that?” + +“What?--Ha! Reach me the hook--there! by ye feet, Seth! Air ye turned +into stone, man? It air the hand o’ God, raisin’ the dead out o’ the +depths, and sendin’ a light through the darkness!” + +But Nathan himself was obliged to get the boat-hook, for Seth Skellet +was palsied. + +And the child’s blue eyes, not wondering, but terrified now, saw the +three men lift the cold, dead form into the boat and lay her dripping +before him; and the torch fell from his grasp and its flame expired, as +her life’s flame had, in the black, choking waters. + +Through the darkness they rowed to the shore--an hour of darkness, when +it seemed that even the stars were dimmed and withheld their accustomed +light--an hour of darkness, while the child stared, fascinated, at the +void eyes, which were staring at him, and his innermost soul shrieked +in fear for _it_ to move and ease the horrible spell that held him. + +“Youngster, run to the village store an’ tell ’em we hev found it.” +They were hoarse words from Seth Skellet’s lips, spoken as she was +borne, by strong, tender hands, away from the rippling waters that sang +upon the beach, and laid upon the grass-land which her feet had often +trod. + +And the child obeyed; turned and fled, across fields and meadows--fled +from that awful presence, which, to him, was and was not--fled, and +paused not till he stood in the village store, where some half-dozen +loungers were sitting. + +And one man there was who saw in the terrified face the shadow of +death; and he cried: + +“My life! my Hetty!” + +“Dead! drowned!” gasped the child. And he saw the man--tall and grand, +with curling hair and warm, dark eyes--spring to his feet, with a cry +of anguish; saw him grasp the clothing above his heart, then reel, +totter, and fall--fall, as if shot, face downward upon the floor. + + * * * * * + +A few days after, the boy heard the bells tolling; saw a sorrowing +throng pass through the village street; followed, and saw two forms +laid near together in a quiet corner of the country churchyard. He +heard the weeping people speak of love, of retribution, of mercy; heard +them speak of a wife, _his_ wife--who had been thought dead, but lately +discovered--discovered, when _his_ love was another’s; heard them speak +of a heart, _his_ heart, broken by anguish; heard them speak of a +child, _his_ child and _hers_--a child, who had died when _she_ died. + +And the boy heard, but he did not understand. + + * * * * * + +Do not ask me where Goose Point is, nor in what year these foregoing +episodes occurred, for I would prefer not to tell you; but, hearing +with the ears of a child, seeing with the eyes of a child, I relate +their sadness in the language of a man; for their impressive stamp, +undimmed by time, is still vivid upon the tablets of my memory. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE TRAINING OF A UNIVERSITY CREW. + +BY FREDERIC A. STEVENSON, + +Captain of the Yale Crew, ’88. + + +Very few among the many thousands who witness the annual boat race +between the universities of Yale and Harvard on the Thames at New +London, appreciate what the preparation for that event means. Of +course, nearly every one has heard that the crews have been in +training, and from the newspaper articles that come thick and fast +about the time of the race, has formed certain vague and often +erroneous ideas as to how that training is effected. + +The winning crew is most elaborately praised: their stroke was +perfect, their backs rose and fell in unison, they worked like a +piece of well-oiled machinery. On the other hand, the losing crew is +characterized in terms no less strong: their work was ragged, such a +man in the boat gave out, the men were not properly trained. Thus, by +reading the usual newspaper reports of a race is the general idea of +a boat race and the work required for it formed. How well the average +correspondent can be relied on for authentic and accurate information +was well illustrated this year at New London. The day before the +Yale-Harvard race, one paper published an article praising the Harvard +stroke, speaking of “the perfect stroke of the Harvard eight.” The +result of the race entirely changed the tone of the next article. The +same paper then described the same stroke of the same crew, thus: “The +rowing was of the most ragged kind, and their style abominable.” This +was scarcely true and was most certainly very unjust. It would surely +have been impossible for a crew to go backwards to that extent in a +single day. The fact is that both articles were greatly exaggerated, +the first as badly in one direction as the second was in the other. + +Let us see if we cannot come right down to hard facts concerning +training and ascertain what it really means in the case of a university +crew. + +One race is but just over when the work for the next begins. The +summer’s work, however, is mainly confined to the captain, for he must +during that time make a careful study of the manner of coaching, of +the theory of the stroke, and of the styles of rigging a shell, in +preparation for the year’s work. Then, too, the truly enthusiastic +oarsman endeavors as much as possible to improve during the summer, +mainly in getting thoroughly acquainted with the feeling and motion of +the water. + +But now autumn is with us again, the university is open, and once more +another college athletic year is begun. The first event in the rowing +department is the fall regatta. In this only the class crews take part, +and the training is short and not so severe as in the spring. But +these fall regattas, unimportant as they may seem to an outsider, are +really a great factor in the university crew work, and should never be +neglected. + +The class crews are the main feeders of the university crew, and it is +all-important that they should get as much practice as possible, so +that they be taught the regular university crew stroke. The members of +the past year’s crew act as coaches. This is doubly advantageous, for +it both instills the right principles into the crew, and teaches the +coach not only to think about the stroke and to see faults, but also +to learn how they may be corrected, which is of immense advantage to +him when his own work begins. + +After the class races the men start work for the university crew. The +captain selects from the class crews the men whom he considers fitted +to train. To this number are added some who, though they may never have +rowed, yet seem to have in them suitable material, and the old crew men +who are not playing football. The work is light, consisting of a daily +short row, and lasts only so long as the water is open. + +After the Christmas recess, the real work begins. All through the fall +the “weeding-out” process has been in operation. Now the ranks are once +more filled, mainly with those who have been playing football during +the fall, so that the number of candidates who begin the real training +will be between twenty-five and thirty. Now is the time, therefore, +to ask the questions of what does the training actually consist? what +are the requirements for a crew man? and how are the standards of +excellence to be applied? + +We will consider first the training itself. The work will take from +two to three hours a day. During the winter, the men assemble at the +gymnasium at some fixed hour; their clothes are quickly changed, +knickerbockers, running shoes and “sweaters” being substituted, and +the work of the afternoon begins. After a few moments’ work in the +gymnasium, a short run is taken, outside if the weather permits; if +not, inside on the canvas-covered track. A distance of five or six +miles is covered at a pace varying from a fast walk to a sharp trot, +according to the fancy of the captain. On the return to the gymnasium, +after cooling off somewhat after the run, the men in a body go through +a series of exercises designed to limber up the rowing muscles. +Then the men are taken in squads of eight and set to work on the +rowing-machines, or, what is far better, in a tank. A well-built tank +is as much superior to the ordinary rowing-machine as the modern racing +shell is to the old-style racing boat. + +A few words will describe a tank. The only one that I know of is at +Yale, and is used by the university crew in their winter work. A wall +a little over three feet in height encloses a space about fifty feet +in length to thirty feet in width in the basement of the gymnasium. +The bottom and sides are cemented and it contains water to the depth +of about two feet. A barge, securely fastened at both ends, lies in +the water. This is of full size and regularly rigged to suit the men. +The blades of the oar have to be either of less width or have a hole +cut in the centre of the blade to diminish the great pressure. The +tank is arranged so as to accelerate the current of water as much as +possible as it is driven by the oars. This current is guided by means +of the curved corners of the tank and by partitions running parallel +to the barge over which the shank of the oar passes. By the stroke, +the water is driven toward the stern outside the partition, _i. e._, +in the channel farthest from the boat, and flows back toward the bow +on the inside. These side partitions come just above the surface of +the water, while a partition about two-thirds as high as those at the +sides runs beneath the boat and practically divides the tank in half, +giving two distinct and separate circular currents. The theory is that +the oarsman’s strength is expended in driving the water round where +ordinarily it is used in sending the boat ahead. + +The crew is now seated in the boat, oars in hand, ready for the real +work of the afternoon. The captain or the “coach” stands on the edge of +the tank. At the command “Get ready!” off come the “sweaters,” and the +men come up into position ready for the catch. The coach runs his eye +quickly along the boat, straightens up the men, and satisfies himself +that everything is right. The rowing is now begun and lasts from a half +to three-quarters of an hour. The coach goes completely round the boat +on the edge of the tank, correcting faults, explaining points, often +stopping the crew, and making individual men practice certain difficult +points. At the close of this work the men take a shower-bath, and after +being rubbed down are ready, with hearty appetites, for the supper at +the training table. + +Such is the general afternoon’s gymnasium work during the winter. When +spring comes, the tank gives way to the harbor and the gymnasium to the +boat-house. Then the entire time is spent on the water, and the men are +carefully watched by the coach from a steam launch. + +The question of the selection of the men is the most difficult point +that the captain and coach have to decide. Of course, certain physical +traits are essential for a crew man, and he must have perfectly sound +heart and lungs. This must be decided by a doctor’s examination. He +must be tough, strong and enduring, and this is shown by the work he +can stand. + +But more is required for the modern university crew man. The day of +“beef” and mere strength is past; for rowing has kept up with the +times and it is now the era of skill in rowing. Brain-work is just +as necessary in crew-rowing as muscular exertion. Neither is of use +without the other, the two carefully combined give the winning crew. +So nowadays the crew candidate has to undergo a mental as well as a +physical examination. In passing judgment on these qualifications the +greatest care must be used. Only those men can be selected in whom not +only the captain and the coach, but every man in the boat has full +confidence. This man may not always be the most skillful individual +oarsman, but the fact that the ideal is a _crew_, and that eight must +be chosen who will work as one man, must constantly be kept in mind. +How can a crew row a hard race when there is a feeling that there is +one man in the boat whose “sand” will give out when the final test +comes? Every good crew man must be an enthusiast, a hard and faithful +worker, a conscientious trainer, and a man who feels at all times that +the honor and glory of his university are entrusted to his care. + +Too much stress cannot be laid on the subject of harmony in a crew. All +must work with the same will, with the same ideal in view. Often a man +must take the coach’s word for what seems to him in his inexperience +like a fatal blunder. Where there is mutual confidence between crew +and coach, a strict adherence to what is believed to be the right +principles, and honest, faithful work, defeat will come but seldom, +disgraceful defeat never. + +Such are the men who make up the university crews of to-day. How these +men are regarded in college may be judged by a remark made this year by +the Dean of Yale. He said, “The rowing men are the best class of men in +college, the men with whom the faculty have the least trouble.” + +In conclusion, I would like to say a word in reply to the oft-repeated +question, whether it is beneficial to take part in college athletics. +If I may be permitted to express an opinion after four years of +rowing, I will most certainly answer, yes, for that branch of college +athletics builds a man up physically as every one admits. It does not +prevent a man from standing well in his studies. The men who are most +relied on in a crew are, as a rule, those who make a good showing in +the recitation room. The training a man undergoes as a member of the +university crew sends him out into the world not only with a sound, +healthy body, but also with the habits of regularity, promptness, +obedience, self-control and self-restraint thoroughly ground into him; +in short, with all the personal characteristics that combine to make +a successful man fully developed. I have never found a crew man who +regrets the time and labor he gave to it. Every one loves it with an +affection that only a crew man can understand, and looks back upon it +as one of the most pleasant as well as most profitable parts of his +college course. + +[Illustration] + + + + +HOW TO TAKE A TRAMP TRIP. + +BY LEE MERIWETHER. + +Author of “A Tramp Trip; or, Europe on Fifty Cents a Day.” + + +[Illustration] + +When I wrote my book I did not imagine any one would care to take a +Tramp Trip except on paper, hence the brevity of the chapter on “Hints +to Tramp Tourists.” The publication of each new edition, however, +brings forth letters from young men in all parts of the country +requesting further hints and suggestions as to the manner in which +one should set about taking a pedestrian tour, not on paper, but _in +propria persona_ among the people of Europe, as I did. These letters +of inquiry have become altogether too numerous to permit individual +replies. I shall, therefore, try to answer them here, and give, as +briefly as I can, an outline of the way to plan and carry out a +pedestrian trip through Europe. + +The first thing, of course, is to decide on the countries to be +visited. “If I cannot see all Europe, which portion shall I see?” +Undoubtedly, Italy, by reason of its history, ruins, art, scenery, +and picturesque people, stands first of all. My own preference would +then take me to Switzerland, next to Germany, then to France, Austria, +Hungary, and so on, to the far East. England I place last on the list, +because, in comparison with the other countries mentioned, it is almost +like America. When I landed at Folkestone after a year on the Continent +and in Asia Minor, the English faces, English language, English cities, +all seemed American--they were so much more American than any of the +things I had been accustomed to. To the student always, and to the +traveler, if fresh from America, England is novel and interesting. +But it is not half so novel or interesting to the mere sightseer as +Continental Europe, hence it stands last on the list. + +Assuming that the candidate for pedestrianism agrees with me as to +beginning his tour in Italy, the first step should be to familiarize +himself with Roman and Italian history. He who has read Tacitus and +Gibbon will look with far greater profit and pleasure on the palace of +Nero, the Caprian villas of Tiberius, the rugged walls of Stamboul, +than will a stranger to those authors. As to language, the better the +tourist’s command of Italian, the greater his profit and pleasure; +but he need not be discouraged if without such command, for Italian +is not difficult. A few months’, or even a few weeks’, study of the +grammar, capped by a three-weeks’ voyage to Naples or Palermo in an +Italian steamer, surrounded by Italians, will enable the traveler to +“get along” fairly the first day he lands; and as he proceeds on his +tour, being careful to avoid American consulates and tourists’ hotels +where English is spoken, he will find his command of the language equal +to all ordinary occasions. The dialects in the Neapolitan states, in +Tuscany, Venice, etc., differ one from the other, but not so much so as +to embarrass the traveler who has followed the course indicated above. +He will, unless deficient in acquiring languages, find after the course +I have mentioned that he knows enough to make himself fairly understood +in Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, or any other Italian city. + +Many people have an idea that French is the most essential language for +the traveler in Europe. It is for all except the tramp traveler. In +Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey--in short, in any part of Europe, +French is spoken in your five-dollar-a-day hotels, but in workingmen’s +inns it is of little use outside France and French Switzerland. The +most important languages for the _tramp_ traveler are Italian and +German. German, of course, is all that is needed in Germany, Austria +and German Switzerland; in addition it will often be found serviceable +in Belgium, Western Russia, Sweden, and in the southeastern European +States, as Hungary, Servia, Bulgaria and Roumania. Italian is of use, +not only in Italy, but all along the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar +to the Bosporus, and even in the Black Sea ports of Russia, where +Italian commerce has made the people familiar with Italian sailors +for centuries past. My guide and interpreter in Constantinople was a +young scamp of a Turk, who had picked up a colloquial knowledge of the +language from Italian sailors. + +It is far more difficult to acquire German, and unless the tramp has +some previous acquaintance with that language, I fear he will fare +badly in the Fatherland. I was fortunate in having some knowledge of +German, acquired by long residence with a German family in America. But +for this I do not think my tramp through Germany and Austria would have +been half so enjoyable and profitable as it was. + +As to outfit, little can be said more than is already said in the final +chapter of my book. A knapsack can be bought for two dollars; into +this pack a change of underclothing, a woolen shirt, a note-book, and +a few etceteras, and you are ready for the trip. It is not advisable +to carry fire-arms. The most serviceable weapon is a heavy club or +walking-stick. The possession of a revolver may incur untold trouble in +an Italian _dogana_, and is really of no use, since no one is in the +least likely to attack so shabby a person as the tramp tourist becomes +after a voyage in the steerage across the Atlantic. + +The tramp tourist, not having and not requiring much money, need not be +bothered with letters of credit or bills of exchange. Bank of England +notes can be bought in New York for from $4.84 to $4.90 the pound, +according to the rate of exchange. Buy about a hundred Italian lire +($20.00) for immediate use, and put the rest of your funds in English +bank notes, which, for safe keeping, should be buttoned or sewed in +some well-secured inner pocket. These notes can readily be exchanged +anywhere in Europe for the money of the country in which you happen to +be, and as several hundred dollars value can be carried without even +making a lump in the pocket, they form a convenient and reasonably safe +way of carrying one’s funds. + +Having arrived at Naples, Palermo, or some other Italian city, the +reader of my “Tramp Trip” will, nine chances to one, say something not +suited to polite society, and not flattering to my veracity. For, +notwithstanding my repeated expositions of Italian trickery, the tramp +fresh from America will overlook some loophole, and the first days of +his arrival, before he is taught by his own experience as well as by +mine, will in all probability be charged, or rather overcharged, as +much as though he were going first-class, with glasses slung over his +shoulder and a red guidebook in his hand. I recall one of my first +experiences in Naples. At a restaurant, before taking a seat, a certain +sum was stipulated upon for a dinner. When it came to settling, the +Italian charged just double the amount agreed on--_perche_? “Because,” +and the rogue shrugged his shoulders as he said it--“because, signore, +you took _two_ pieces of meat instead of one.” + +Of course it was a mere cheat, but what can you do? At first you pay, +as I did; later, when you see such things are going to occur, not once +but twenty or a hundred times a day, you lay down the right sum and +walk off. + +The tomb of Virgil is a few yards without one of the gates of Naples. +Within the walls cab drivers are limited in their charges by a +tariff--without, they charge what they like, or what they can get. I +knew this, and so when I started for the poet’s grave, I bade the Jehu +stop just inside the gate, where I meant to get out and walk the few +yards to the tomb. But when we reached the gate Jehu drove on through, +despite my remonstrance, saying he wished to let his horse stand +outside in the shade of the wall. On this slight ground he built an +outrageous charge, four times as much as the tariff rate to the gate. +When he had driven me back to the city and I offered him the correct +fare, he fumed like a Turk, swore he would have me arrested, that he +had taken me into the country, into the _campagna_, and that he didn’t +mean to let himself be cheated by a base foreigner. And all the while +he danced and jumped about me, shaking his fist like a madman. When +my curiosity was satisfied, I threw the right fare, one lira, on the +ground, and walked off. Instantly there was a transformation that would +have done credit to a veteran comedian. The cabman, seeing I did not +mean to be cheated, ceased his fierce antics, stooped and picked up the +silver, and waved me an “addio” with a smile as pleasant and as fresh +as a May morn. + +In Vienna I stepped into a money-changer’s to buy Turkish money. +“Wait a few minutes,” said the manager, “I must send to the Börse to +see what the exchange is to-day.” I took a seat. In ten minutes the +money-changer came to me with the Turkish gold, and I rose to go. But +in passing out the door a man stopped me and demanded a gulden. “For +what?” “I went to the Börse to find out the exchange.” His going to +the Börse was none of my affair; I refused to pay him forty cents for +running the money-changer’s errand. Then followed a curious scene. +The man threatened to invoke the power of the entire Empire unless he +received his gulden. I told him to invoke. An excited crowd began to +gather and block the narrow street. + +“Young man, you are wrong,” shouted one in the crowd. “He went to the +Börse; you must pay him.” + +“The law is on his side; you will have to go to jail,” shouted another. +Whereupon I sprang on a box that stood in front of the money-changer’s +window, and harangued the crowd in the best German I could command. I +told them I was traveling to see strange sights; that nothing would +interest me more than an experience in a Vienna jail. “That,” I said, +“will be something to tell my countrymen and make them stare. Come, I +am ready; take me to jail.” + +The man who wanted a gulden looked puzzled, but finally made up his +mind to brave it out. Summoning a gendarme, he made his complaint, and +I was placed under arrest. Away we went, followed by a hooting, jeering +crowd, some of whom tried to shake my determination by shouting out the +horrors of an Austrian dungeon. But the gulden not being forthcoming, +there was no change in the line of march, and at length we brought up +at the police station. Here the accuser spoke to me in a low tone, +and said if I would pay half a gulden he would withdraw his charge. +No. Well, ten kreutzers, five--anything, and finally nothing! For, +unwilling or unable to deposit the necessary security for the costs of +the case should he fail to prove his charge, he at length strode away +sullen and furious because he had failed either to frighten or to cheat +me. + +I mention these incidents that the reader may understand what +fifty-cents-a-day traveling means. The majority of tourists would +have paid that gulden, and other similar guldens, and thus run their +expenses up to five or ten dollars a day. Perhaps they would rather it +should be twenty dollars than go through such scenes. It all depends +upon one’s “point of view,” as Henry James says. For my part, I +refused to pay that cheating messenger not so much to save my gulden, +as for the sake of the scene. That surly, disappointed churl, the +mob, the scene at the station before the stern gendarmes afforded me +more enjoyment than I could have bought with twenty guldens. I would +advise none to take a tramp trip who cannot, if necessary, enter such +scrimmages with a feeling of positive delight. If you have not that +disposition--if you cannot enjoy this close contact with and study of +the lower classes--stay at home, else will your trip be one not of +delight, but of petty humiliations and counting pennies. + +One of the most frequent questions put to me by my inquisitive +correspondents is: “How is it possible to find cheap lodging-places the +_first_ night in strange cities? and if you don’t find them, if you +must go, even temporarily, to a first-class hotel, how is the per diem +to be kept within fifty cents?” + +The reason this question is so often asked is because the writers +have never been to Europe, and have never traveled as tramps. They +are thinking of their occasional trips to New York or Philadelphia, +when, with a heavy valise in their hands, they are compelled to go +straightway to an hotel. Different is it with the tramp tourist abroad. +He has nothing but a cane in his hand; his knapsack now fits like +another garment, and is unnoted. So accoutred, he arrives in town, +walks about, sees the sights, and when he sees also the legend “_casa +locanda_” over a door, he stops to investigate. If prices do not suit, +off he goes again, looking until he finds one that does suit. When +that is done he will do well, in stipulating a price, to say over and +over again, “_Tutti compresso_”--everything included--else will he be +obliged to pay not, indeed, more than the five soldi agreed on for the +room, but twenty, thirty, one knows not how many soldi more for the +candle, or the furniture, or the soap, or the water and towels, or +_something_ that was not agreed on. In Verona, home of Juliet, I had +a pitched battle (of words) with a landlord who wanted to charge two +lire (forty cents) extra for the candle, when I had bargained for the +room “_tutti compresso_” for _una mezza lira_ (ten cents). But for that +magic phrase he might possibly have succeeded in his demands--possibly +only, for I had then been in Italy some months, and was not so easily +“squeezed” as the day when first I stepped on her historic soil at +Genoa. + +A question sometimes asked is, whether one could work one’s way should +funds give out. I think not. In the first place, labor is so poorly +paid; in the second place, a foreigner could scarcely get work at any +price. I met a Philadelphia cigarmaker in Italy. He had tried in vain +to secure work at his trade--in vain, because he was not a member of +the necessary guilds, or unions. At home he could travel to his heart’s +content, finding work in New York as well as in San Francisco, in St. +Paul as well as in New Orleans. But in Europe he could not get a chance +to make even the forty cents a day that European cigarmakers are able +on the average to earn. It is the same with other trades. I advise the +pedestrian, therefore, not to depend in the least degree on making ends +meet by work anywhere in Europe. + +In Eastern Europe pedestrianism is not advisable; the roads are poor, +the villages often few and far between. West of Vienna there are few +districts where the traveler will fail to find excellent roads and +villages every few miles. Indeed, except in places like the Black +Forest in Germany, the Higher Alps in Switzerland, the Pontine Marshes +in Italy, you no sooner leave one village behind you than another +appears in sight before you, so there need be no anxiety about being +overtaken at night “in the woods.” + +Baedeker’s Guide-Books are, in my opinion, the best. Besides much +historical information, they contain minute maps and directions as to +finding one’s way about a country. So minute and accurate were the +directions in the Handbook for Switzerland, I was able to find my +way over the most solitary mountain paths without other aid. Meier’s +Guide-Books are cheaper than Baedeker’s, and almost if not quite as +good, but they are printed only in German. Baedeker should be bought +in New York, and carefully studied on the voyage across the Atlantic. +It will prepare the traveler for many necessary details which would +otherwise be learned only by troublesome experience. Be sure to cover +the Baedeker with a quiet-colored cloth or paper, else will its flaming +red binding betray that you are a tourist, and involve you in all of a +tourist’s troubles. + +These few hints will, I hope, suffice to start the traveler on his way; +and in concluding I can make him no better wish than that he may derive +as much enjoyment from his journey as I did from my “Tramp Trip.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +COURSING IN IRELAND. + +THE “ENCLOSED” MEETING ON THE MOURNE MOUNTAINS. + +BY ROBERT F. WALSH. + + +In the autumn of last year, I was enjoying a holiday at Rostrevor, in +County Down, Ireland. One bright morning a friend woke me early and +proposed a visit to the Mourne Park Coursing Meeting. + +Two hours later we were “on the ground” in Lord Kilmorey’s beautiful +park on the Mourne Mountains. On the road from Rostrevor we had met +numberless sporting people, and men, women and children of all sorts +and conditions on their way to see the fun. I must say the variety of +class that comprised that living stream was almost outrivaled by the +variety of modes of conveyances. Everything, from the common “butt” +or cart, drawn by an old horse whose visit to the tannery was almost +due, to the coach-and-four of the Earl, was brought into requisition to +carry these lovers of sport. There were lords and beggarmen, betting +men and priests, ladies and work-girls, old and young, athletes and +cripples. It was a curious crowd, but most good-humored. All seemed +determined to enjoy their drive through the beautiful scenery of Mourne +and to forget care while the deity of the leash catered for their wants +and amusement. On the ground were collected several thousand pleasure +seekers and sporting men, and about two hundred and fifty beautiful +greyhounds, well cared for and covered with heavy “clothing.” Some of +these dogs, I was told, were worth from $5,000 to $10,000 each, and +many of them had been brought from England and Scotland. + +On a gentle slope of the mountain there is a large meadow walled in +on two sides. One end is fenced, but the bottom is open and partly +secured so as to allow the hares to get away from the dogs if they are +lucky enough to reach this “escape.” At the other end of this large +field (nearly half a mile away) there is a V-shaped fence with several +sliding shutters at the bottom. About twenty yards from the point +of this V (in the field) is a screen made of branches, behind which +the “slipper” stands with the brace of dogs ready to be slipped from +the leash when a hare is driven through one of the shutters I have +described. + +Some days before the meeting, several hundred hares are driven from +the mountains into the shrubbery or “enclosure” directly behind the +V-shaped fence. This enclosure is about forty acres in extent, and when +the sport begins, the hares are collected near the shutters. + +When the dogs are handed over to the slipper and all is ready, the +“slip-steward” signals to the beaters and opens one shutter, which is +immediately closed again when a hare appears. Then begins the fun. The +hare is allowed nearly one hundred yards start before the dogs are +slipped. When the slipper is certain that both dogs have sighted their +fleet-footed prey, he pulls the string and off they go. Picture two +beautiful dogs, with straining necks, careering headlong after a little +hare which knows they are seeking her death. On they go at almost +lightning pace, and as they near the hare, one shoots ahead and makes +a drive at the “quarry”; but “puss” is too cunning and suddenly turns +from her pursuers. Then the dogs get closer and closer. Sometimes one +leads, sometimes the other; but puss doubles as often as they get close +to her “scut,” and so the hunt continues until the death or escape of +the hare. + +The onlookers are breathlessly intent as they watch and count the +“points” scored by each dog in the course. Then, finally, madame +escapes or one dog “drives” right into her and kills; or, perhaps, in +her endeavor to turn from the leader, she is caught and killed by the +dog behind. + +At the Mourne Park Coursing Meeting, I learned that it was not always +the dog which killed that won the course. It was explained to me in +this way: The “run up” to the hare, that is, the first dog that “turns” +or causes her to swerve to one side or other, counts one or two points +according to whether the hare is turned on the inside or outside of the +line of the course. Every turn after this counts one point. + +A “go-by,” that is, where the second dog passes the first by one clear +length after the first turn, counts two, and the death counts one point +off the other dog’s turn, or two off the turn of the dog that kills. +In this way, a clever dog may often beat a much faster one, as was the +case when Snowflight won the Waterloo Cup--“the blue ribbon of the +leash.” The “Cups,” “Plates,” or “Purses” are all run off in ties. The +names of all the dogs entered for each stake are placed in a hat the +evening before the meeting, and are drawn out one by one. The first and +second drawn run the first course, and so on until the entire number +are drawn. Then, as is the case in most games or sports where matches +are contested for in ties, the winner of the first course runs against +the winner of the second, the winner of the third against that of the +fourth, etc., until only two dogs remain. And then is run the final +tie, on the result of which, in an important meeting, many thousands of +pounds are bet. + +The sport seemed to me to be much more exciting than horse-racing. +I noticed also that the betting fraternity have much more scope for +their “trade” at a coursing meeting than on a race-course. Along the +fence were hundreds of “book-makers” placing their bets and incessantly +yelling their changes in “the price” of each dog as the vagaries of the +hare made it more difficult to decide which would win. + +But the principal betting takes place on the evening before the +meeting, when the “draw” has been arranged. The chairman (usually a +nobleman and president of the club) calls out the names of each dog. +Then _vive voce_ bets are offered and taken, and repeated by the +chairman, first at “long odds” on the chance of an individual dog +winning the stake, and afterwards on the individual courses. The “long +odds” betting ranges from even money on a favorite to five hundred +to one against an outsider or unknown contestant. The betting on +the individual courses is, naturally, much closer. At meetings like +Waterloo, Gosforth Park Gold Cup Meeting, or at Epsom, where the prize +for the winner has often been $50,000--upwards of $1,000,000 change +hands on the different results. Report says that ten times that amount +has been invested about the Waterloo Cup, months before the meeting +takes place. + +In my description of the sport I have almost forgotten to tell the +impression it produced on me. It is truthfully this: I was fascinated +by its excitement and uncertainty, and so thoroughly pleased was I with +my first day’s coursing that I traveled many a mile to be present at +other meetings before I left the Green Isle. + +[Illustration] + + + + +YSLETA. + +BY E. HOUGH. + + +I. + +’Pache and I were tired. There was not any question about that. Fifty +miles since morning, without getting out of the saddle, either one of +us--though ’Pache always tried to get out of the saddle every morning, +and sometimes nearly did. + +’Pache was my horse. At least he was before Bill Stitt’s gang stole +him. Now, why did they ever steal ’Pache, I wonder? The ugliest horse +on earth without doubt, the dirtiest clay-bank that ever was, and the +most simple, ingenuous, unexpected, naïve bucker! But ’Pache had the +black streak down his back which plainsmen prize; and for a long goer +he was hard to beat. Farewell, ’Pache! God bless you, you miserable +india-rubber demon, wherever you may be now! + +’Pache and I were tired. No question of it. And hungry? ’Pache took +a piece out of my leggings once in a while, to testify to that. And +thirsty? Yes, pretty thirsty; but we knew it was forty miles between +water-holes, so we loped on, heads down, joints loose; loppity-lop, +loppity-lop, loppity, loppity, lop, lop, lop. + +’Pache struck a trot at the foot of the long climb up the Sierra +Capitan divide. In and out among the cañons, winding around where it +was easy to get lost--for by only one combination of these cañons was +it possible for a horseman to cross this divide--and going up all the +time. ’Pache coughed; it sounded dull. I tried to whistle; it sounded +as small as a cambric needle. + +The black piñon hills hustled and huddled and crowded up together, +frightened by the threatening fingers of the Capitans--a lonesome +range, the Capitans--a lonesome, waterless range. Spirits and demons +in these hills, said the natives. The biggest cinnamon bears on earth +in them, said the hunters, and black-tail deer so old they wore +spectacles; and elk, and maybe plesiosauri and mastodons, for aught I +know. + +Tradition said there was a lake of water up on top of the highest peak. +Tradition said you could find pieces of smoky topaz up there as big as +your fist. Tradition said there was a cave over in the middle of the +range, painted blue inside, and walled up in front, and with the whole +interior covered with strange characters. Tradition said that one Señor +José Trujillo had found, not far from this cave, a large piece of stone +covered with sign-writing no one could read--a second Rosetta stone. +Tradition said that Señor Trujillo dwelt in a little _placita_ hidden +somewhere back in the Capitans. + +’Pache and I topped the divide. Did anybody say we were tired? Did any +one believe that for a minute? That was a mistake. Why, when you throw +off this chrysalis of pain and grief, when you drop your poor, sad +mockery of a body, and pull up over the Range, you’re not going to be +_tired_, are you? Are they tired on Pisgah? Are wings going to be tired +like legs and arms and brains? No. Because--well, ’Pache knew that much. + +A soft breeze from the south reached us upon the crest, and at its +touch there hummed through ’Pache’s head the words of Goethe’s song in +“Wilhelm Meister,” + + “Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht;” + +and the refrain, + + “Kennst du das Land?” + +And, verily, the Italy for which Mignon sighed might have been this +that lay before us, stretching on and on in long lifts and falls of +hills and valleys; in architecture of the ribs of eternity; in color +the sum of Nature’s grand and simple touch. You can’t mix that! You +can’t paint in royal purple, argent and aurum run together in one +liquid, unburning fire! Take it up on a knife-blade, and perhaps it +wouldn’t drop off. It wouldn’t run. But spread on by the brush of +the Eternal hand, mellowed in the middle distance, softened in the +background by the rays of the evening sun--there was color, above art, +above description, above talk, above thought almost, fit to make ’Pache +and me despair. + +Off in the other direction, to the northwest, stretched the black +foothills, and beyond them the brown and level plains, waterless, +endless. That way--home lay that way, once. But if ’Pache and I should +gallop night and day, we wouldn’t be as far as we see, and we wouldn’t +have reached the nearest water-hole. + +Tired? Why, we were on the crest of the divide, on the uplift of the +earth, above the earth and its ailments. I could feel ’Pache’s wings +under the saddle-flaps! + +And ’Pache lifted up his head, whereon the mane was lightly blowing, +and pitched his ears forward and neighed loud and cheerily. And some +Valkyr steed behind a flat rock heard him and laughed at him, and so +did another, and so did many others; and spirits came out and jeered at +’Pache, and small demons afar off mocked at him, and trumpet-calls for +the assembly of the spirits of the mountains echoed and called back to +us, fainter and fainter, passing on to the regions of the inner range. + +They might have had the Holy Grail in there in those wild heights, +those spirits of the Capitans. I do not know. There might be better +than ’Pache and I to send for it! + +Down the long reaches on the other side we rattled, in and out, +loppity, loppity, loppity; down into cañons which grew darker as the +sun went down. ’Pache didn’t mind it now. He knew where he was, and +into his wise, yellow head came visions of a pint of hard, blue Mexican +corn, and a whole _rio_ full of water. Happy ’Pache! + +But what made the creature stick his ears forward so, and throw +his head up, and look around at me out of the corner of his eye? +Anything to make a fellow hitch his belt around a little? Ah! There +it was. Piñon smoke! The faint, pungent odor came up the cañon quite +unmistakably now, and ’Pache and I knew that someone had gone into +camp down on the _rio_, more than a mile below. We had expected to +camp there that night ourselves, though it wasn’t plain what we’d +have to eat, outside that one pint of Mexican corn, unless Providence +should favor a pin-hook, or send a cotton-tail our way. So ’Pache and I +scrambled up out of the cañon, at a shallow place, and reconnoitered a +bit. + +Greasers--a man and a boy--a bull-team--empty--going home from the Fort. + +’Pache turned up his nose in disgust. How he did hate Greasers! + +We scrambled back into the cañon, and came down the trail on a run, in +great style, to show the Greaser outfit that, though we had traveled +far, there was still some life in us. ’Pache stopped short at the edge +of the wagon, and fell to stealing corn, while his rider threw the +bridle down and advanced to the campers, saying, “_Como l’va?_” + +“_Como la va, Señor?_” said the elder Mexican; and soon he added, +seeing that I did not ride on, “_Que queres?_” + +“_Quero comar_,” said I, briefly and to the point--which is to say, “I +want to eat.” + +“_O, si, muy bien!_” said he, smiling gravely, and with a real dignity +handing me the camp frying-pan, and then poking the embers up around +the coffee-pot. They had just finished their supper. + +What there was in that frying-pan I never knew. I only know there was +less when I got through than when I began. I dared look at it only +once, and then saw a greenish-looking semi-liquid which would have +done to tell fortunes over. I suspect _chili verde_ and sheep; maybe +cotton-tail, perhaps flour--_possibly_ onions. + +After supper I led ’Pache down to drink. He would have died of thirst +before he would have left off stealing corn. It was a matter of +principle with him! + +It was a beautiful place, this wild little mountain spot, and the big +clumsy _carro_ and the broad-horned oxen hardly detracted from the +picturesque, neither did the half-wild teamsters who lay stretched out +on the ground. The stream, troutful and delicious, poured melodiously +by, just big enough to hold one-pounders. The cañon walls swept +widely out into a perfect amphitheatre, back of which rose the solemn +Capitans, now of a wondrous, mournful purple in the dying sunlight. +The evening chill was coming on. The big stars were showing. The _rio_ +babbled vaguely, whispering of cold, black mountain depths beyond; +grieving, maybe, that no man had ever been found good enough to attain +the Holy Grail. + +Alone, ’Pache and I would not have been lonesome. We would have lain +down there with our one blanket and slept the sleep of the ingenuously +wicked, as calmly as two babes. But now the two-legged gregariousness +came out. The Greasers were yoking up their cattle. They were going to +pull out. It would be lonesome. We would go too. + +No, it didn’t matter where. The trip to the Fort might wait. _Mañana. +Poco tiempo._ After a while. What was the difference? + +I approached the elder Greaser, as with much liquid, beautiful Southern +profanity he labored with his lead yoke. I did not offer him money +in return for his supper, for I knew he would not take it under the +circumstances. There are a few gentlemen in the mountains, though they +are mostly getting killed off. + +“_Yo vamos_,” said my Mexican, smiling and showing a good set of teeth. + +“_Quantos milas a placita?_” (How many miles to the village?) I asked, +boldly, guessing that he couldn’t be far from home, since he was +starting out with a full team at that time of day. + +“_Sies_,” said he, soberly and politely, as one who says, +“Good-evening.” Indeed, he soon added, “_Adios!_” + +But I made _mille gracias_ for my supper, and begged a thousand +pardons, too. And could I not accompany him to the _placita_? Consider, +it was late, it was far to the Fort; I had no _serape_. Moreover, I was +most anxious to learn of one Señor José Trujillo, who had found a stone. + +The Greaser brightened up, smiled, and said that though there was not +Señor Trujillo, there were plenty of stones in the _placita_, which, +_por Dios!_ I might buy. Stones through which one could barely see; as +well as some of blue. _Oh, Si._ I might _vamos tambien_. + +These half-savage hill people are not fond of having Americans come to +their villages; but they cannot resist the fascination of exchanging +smoky topaz and turquoise for silver _pesos_. I said nothing further, +but set out with my new companions, not caring much how far we went, or +where. One leaves his senses at the edge of the Capitans. + +We pulled down along the _rio_ a half mile or so, half in half out +of the water, slipping on the stones, swishing in the stream which +whispered up to ’Pache and me not to go on, and clanking over stones +which sent up dull, grating objurgations at us through the water. Then +we left the stream and entered a black-mouthed cañon which tunneled +sharp north, right into the Capitans. + +The wonderful Southern moon swam stately up the blue sky and silvered +the hills above us, and once in a while shed its light into the cañon. +The bull-team plodded and coughed. The big _carro_ creaked and groaned. +The Greaser swore musically. + +The moon climbed higher; lit up the cañon, glorified the peaks beyond, +softened and melted the rocks along the trail into white, trembling +heaps of silver. I dismounted from ’Pache, and tied him at the end of +the _carro_. As a matter of courtesy, I hung my belt and .45 over the +pommel of the saddle; but, as a matter of fact, I kept a tidy .41 in +its usual dwelling-place. In case of any foolishness, I thought the +.41 would do. It is always well to be polite; but it is always well +also to have a reserve fund when you are dealing with human nature, +Greaser or white, in mountains or city. + +“_O toros_, sons of infants of sin, name of the devil and twelve +saints, bowels of St. Iago, can ye not _vamos_, then? It is late. +_Vamos_, refuse of the earth, _vamos_!” + +I inferred that my host was a domestic sort of Greaser. I heard him say +that their being so late would cause the _madre_ to be in wonder. And +the boy replied, “_Si; y Ysleta._” (“Yes, and Ysleta also.”) + +Ysleta? What a pretty name! Then I laughed and winked at ’Pache. +Ysleta would be thirty years old, and would weigh 230 pounds. Bah! You +couldn’t fool ’Pache and me! + +We groaned into the placita somewhere before midnight. ’Pache sat up +all night and stole corn, but I rolled in under the wagon, dead tired, +and was asleep in a minute. + + +II. + +I awoke in Palestine. + +There was the broken, bare-hilled country I had seen in the pictures +pored over when I was a child. There were the short, black, scrubby +trees, just as I had pictured them on the Mount of Olives. There were +the low, flat-roofed, earth-covered houses. There were the flocks, +attended by the shepherds. There was Esau, shaggy, swart and fierce. +And there--why, _buenas dias_, Rebecca! But who would have expected to +see you at the well so early in the day, Rebecca? + +_Olla_ on her head, the Mexican girl walked down to the well. Walked, +did I say? We have but the one word for it. It means, also, the stumpy +stumble of our deformed American women. Let us say that this girl did +not walk, but swam upright over the ground, as angels do in a fairy +spectacular, with a wire at the waist, scorning the ground. + +At the well the girl rested the big jar on the curb, and stood looking +toward the east, falling into poses of pure grace and beauty as +naturally as a shifting scene of statuary--the poses of a noble, grand +and normal physical life, ripe and untrammeled for centuries. That they +were not poses for effect, or at least for the spectator under the +wagon, was very plain, for when I crawled out and appeared, the girl +screamed, left her water-jar, and ran into the house near by. “So, this +is Palestine,” thought I. “I wonder where is Jacob?” + +The inhabitants of the little placita, fifty or sixty in number, +perhaps, turned out _en masse_ to see the _Americano_. Doubtless there +were those among them who had never before seen a white man. I do not +think curiosity was altogether mingled with approbation, though no +positive distrust was shown beyond a black look or two. + +It was not altogether a comfortable situation. I could assign, even to +my own mind, only the flimsiest reasons for my intrusion; and it did +seem almost as much an intrusion as if I had forced my way into a home +uninvited. I sighed at my own foolishness, made my morning salutations, +bought three pieces of turquoise, and then coming swiftly to the point, +said I was hungry. ’Pache didn’t say anything. He wasn’t hungry. He bit +an occasional piece out of an unwary dog, but he just did that for fun. +He wasn’t hungry. + +With that grave courtesy which is coin sterling the world round, the +centuries through, these simple people asked me into a house, invited +me to sit upon a sheepskin mat, and brought me what they had. + +After breakfast I found that the little crowd had dispersed, though +where they went was not apparent. Many of the men, Italian fashion, +followed the business of wood-cutting in the hills, and quite a little +troop of pannier-laden burros could be seen moving down the trail bound +for the Fort with their big burdens of piñon wood. + +I wandered about the little place, which soon sank into apathy again, +and approached several houses under pretense of wishing to buy some +smoky topaz. As I stopped at the door of one I heard an exclamation-- + +“Ysleta! _el Americano_.” + +I waited at the door till I was invited by a stout and wrinkled dame to +enter. I did so, and found two other women within; one a young woman of +no especial noteworthiness; the third--Ysleta--the most beautiful woman +I ever saw or expect to see. She was the girl at the well; the Ysleta +spoken of by my companions of the night before. + +Where this girl got her wonderful dowry I do not know. Beauty is not +common among the lower caste Mexicans, though good eyes, hair and teeth +are the rule. Yet here was a beauty faultless at every point, a royal +beauty which would have become a queen, and with it the queenly grace +and superiority which beauty arrogates as of right unto itself, no +matter who may be its possessor, or in what land it may be found. And +well it may. There is nothing really nobler than a grand human form, +just as God thought it. Conscious of the sins of our ancestors still +alive in our own misfit forms, we are ashamed and humbled before the +fruit of unhurt nature, and we reverence it, appeal to it, almost dread +it. + +But if Ysleta knew, consciously or unconsciously, that she was +beautiful, she was as yet unspoiled by flattery, and, moreover, there +appeared in her air a certain humility, a gentle dependence. Advanced +thinkers among women will labor a long time before men cease to love +this in a woman--no matter what they may theoretically conclude. +Taken as she was, this half-wild creature would cause in New York or +Washington society a stir which no “professional beauty” has ever yet +approached. + +Seated on the floor, clad in the lightest attire, Ysleta was a model +such as painters do not often find. It seems to me almost sacrilege +for a man ever to attempt a description of a beautiful woman. It isn’t +quite right. There is something wrong about it. Especially is it wrong +where justice is impossible; and that is the case here. I know that +the girl’s hair was very long and silky, quite free from the usual +Mexican coarseness, and her eyes were very clear and soft. Her half +sitting, half reclining position showed every supple line of a perfect +figure: such a figure as in three generations would make reform schools +needless, churches only half so needful, and doctors a forgotten thing. + +Ysleta sat on the floor. In her arms she held a young child. As the +stranger entered, she, with some slight confusion, started and turned +half about, looking up with wondrous, wondering eyes. But in a short +time she was again absorbed in the infant, which she now rolled and +caressed as if it were a kitten, and now regarded thoughtfully, with +a wondering, puzzled look, half awed, and with so great a mother-love +shining in her eyes as made one almost hold his breath. Ysleta left me +to the others. What time had she for aught else in life, when here, in +her arms, was this strange and most wonderful gift--moving, living, +crying, laughing? + +Ysleta held up the child before her face. In her gaze was all the +melancholy of youth, all the infinite sadness and mystery of love, +and all the immeasurable tenderness of the maternal feeling. The poor +girl’s face was so tender, so innocent, so dependent! I think the +Recording Angel has more than one tear for Ysleta’s fault. With face +illuminated she gazed at the child. Her eyes softened, swam, fairly +melted--nay, they did melt. + +“_Muchachito!_” she murmured; “_muchachito mio! Ah, carissimo mio! +Americano mio!_” + +“My American!” Then Ysleta broke into a storm of sobs, and rocked her +boy in her arms, with a big cry for something which she didn’t have. + +Perhaps the sight of a white face, even though that of a stranger, +touched some tender spot. As quickly as I could, and with a feeling +that Providence hadn’t got all the kinks out of the world yet, I went +away. + +This is Ysleta’s story, as her father, the _carretero_, told me. + +“It was one day at the _fiesta_ in the large town. Ysleta had not been +from the _placita_ before that day. + +“Ysleta had not made any sin, but she felt sad, as if she had made +a sin. Therefore she went to the _padre_. The _padre_ was busy with +others, richer, and Ysleta must wait. Ysleta had not made any sin, but +she was sad. She stood at the door of the church. All was new to her. +She was afraid. + +“There came to Ysleta, so she has said, an _Americano_. He was not as +the men of this country. His skin was white, his hair yellow, his eyes +blue. Ysleta thought he was more than a man. Perhaps he was less than a +man. She loved him, doubtless. Such things are. Why? _Quien sabe?_” + +“Was Ysleta married to _el Americano_? Señor, I am a man of travel and +of knowledge. I have been twenty _leguas_ from this spot. Therefore, it +is plain that I know easily what marriage is. But Ysleta--Ysleta is a +hill girl. It is not alike. I asked of Ysleta if she was married, and +she said, ‘_Si_,’ for that she loved, and would love no other. Is that +marriage? Who knows? I believe Ysleta thinks so. + +“There is no mother here who loves a child as Ysleta loves hers. It is +not good, so much to love. But Ysleta loves no man. ‘I am _esposa_,’ +says Ysleta. + +“_El Americano?_ It is not known. He disappeared. He never came back. +Ysleta has of him a picture, not painted as the saints in the church +are painted. And she has a paper; but what the paper may say we do not +know here. He is gone. And Ysleta grieves. And because Ysleta grieves +and will not love any young man, the young men will kill you to-night, +since you, too, are _Americano_.” + +“Thanks!” said I, as this last information was calmly conveyed. +“Thanks, awfully; but, excuse me, I believe I will _vamos_. Sorry to +inconvenience your young gentlemen, but really--!” And I exchanged a +glance of intelligence with ’Pache, who nodded and winked in reply. + +I gave my watch-chain to Ysleta and the little fellow; and which +admired it more I could not say. I further divided my few _pesos_ among +the simple folks, and rode away with such store of smoky topaz that I +wouldn’t have liked a hard run down the cañon with it behind the cantle. + +I rode away, thinking of the most beautiful woman I ever saw; perhaps +the saddest, also. Poor girl! Born to a wealth the wealthiest woman on +earth would envy, she was a beggar in happiness. A child of nature, a +creature of the outer air, an Undine-woman of the hills, she suffered +and lost her simple joy forever, when, at the touch of what we call +a higher civilization, she felt the breath of what we call a higher +love, and groaned at the birth in her heart of what we call a soul. +As in some quiet court, sheltered from every wind, and turned always +to the rays of the stimulating sun, some rare fruit, waxy-cheeked and +tender, ripens and swells into full perfection, knowing no reason for +its access save the unquestioned push of nature’s hand--as this fruit +shrinks and shivers at the breath of a fence-breaking northern wind, so +Ysleta, thoughtless as a fruit, as ripe, as sweet, as soulless, shrank +and shivered at the marauding breath of feelings new to her--the breath +of the mystery and the sorrow of a lasting love. I wondered about this. +I wondered about it one day as I rode up where, morning, noon and +night, spring, summer and autumn, the broad, white, snowy arms of the +undying Holy Cross lie stretched out on the Sangre de Christo range. I +wondered if those arms didn’t stretch over the poor hill-girl as much +as over the _Americano_ who, with tinkling spur, and light song on his +lips, rode out through the hills, up through the cañons, up to the +gate of the little valley--Launcelot bringing the curse to the Lady of +Shalott! + +“’Pache,” said I, “I’m disgusted. What does all this civilized life +amount to? It only brings curses with it. Let us go into the hills. Let +us run wild, and never be heard of again. Let us forget a world whose +business it is to forget us as fast as it can. Come. There are two of +us. We’re not afraid. What do you say? Shall we go back?” + +But ’Pache shook his head. + +I yielded with a sigh; and so I went on out through the Capitans, +overruled by ’Pache. I don’t believe ’Pache liked the Mexican corn. + +Out from the Capitans, which still rose grim, mysterious, silent, +unexplored--out from the spirits which guard the Holy Grail. ’Pache and +I couldn’t find it. I think--I feel sure--that no man will ever find +it. But I believe that if Ysleta came and sought it, the demons and +spirits of the Capitans would cease mocking, and stand hand on mouth. I +believe the wide gates would open; that the white-garmented angels of +the inner shrine would draw back to let Ysleta by, and that the Grail +would glow red and pure and warm to let itself be taken in her hand. + +’Pache and I went down the cañon; heads down; loppity-lop, loppity-lop. +’Pache, you clay-colored, india-rubber angel, God bless you, wherever +you are! + + + + +A RAINY DAY. + + + The clouds have darkened down again, + And all the world is sad with rain, + As if the dead of many years + Were all awake and shedding tears. + Before the window-pane I stand + And gaze upon the reeking land, + Till I am cold and damply blue, + Dejected quite, and shivering too. + Roll up, thou blesséd luxury, + Thou ample arm-chair made for me! + Roll up before the open fire, + Whose merry flames leap high and higher. + I’d rather watch these devils play, + Than see the angels weep all day! + Bring me my pipe, whose ample bowl + Is filled with that which cheers the soul; + Soft comfort’s very essence lies + In the weed which only fools despise! + Bring, too, a glass with taper waist, + Broad, shallow, and demurely chaste; + Meet vessel for the quickening wine + That knoweth not chill sorrow’s brine! + The clinging smoke curls lovingly + About, as if caressing me; + And with a most entrancing pop, + The wine flows forth with gems atop, + Which, sparkling, burst in tiny spray + As if small sprites were there at play. + The dreary drip I cannot see-- + I sip my “Clicquot” cozily, + And need no further joy than this, + Together with my meerchaum’s kiss. + The weather’s just as bright for me, + As if the sun were high and free! + So what care I for all the rain? + I’m happy till it shines again! + + _H. J. Livermore._ + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Open ~Window~.] + + +~Outing~ begins another volume under the most favorable +auspices. The twelfth volume inaugurated many changes. Baseball was +made a feature, the Records were restored, the art work was greatly +improved, the variety of each number became the object of special +study, and so the volume grew in improvements with each successive +issue from April to September. The present number speaks for itself. +~Outing~ does not make fair promises simply to break them. +Its present management believes in the performance rather than +in the pledge. When the changes were inaugurated last spring, no +startling announcement heralded a new era. The improvements were not +even pointed out from month to month. The remarkable superiority of +~Outing’s~ constituency over that of general sporting papers is +an acknowledged fact. Our readers exact a high standard of excellence, +and ~Outing~ proposes to reach that standard. + +The rapidly growing interest in sport and athletics broadens the field +for ~Outing~ considerably. Clubs are organizing daily, and it +is difficult indeed to serve all sections of this vast and growing +country as well as all the rest of the English-speaking world without +neglecting here and there, at times, this or that particular sporting +body or game--but in the end ~Outing~ will cover the field, +and no organization entitled to representation in this magazine shall +long have reason to complain of neglect at the hands of a management +determined ere another volume is begun to have all fair-minded people +acknowledge as the ~World’s~ best illustrated magazine of +recreation, our own beloved ~Outing~. + + * * * * * + +~Outing~ is delighted to find its esteemed contemporary, the +_Canadian Sportsman_, so thoroughly appreciative of the excellence +of the August number as to reprint entire the article “A Rare Fish” +under the _original_ title, “The Famous Winninishe.” Unfortunately, +the _Canadian Sportsman_ forgot to tell its readers that the article +originally appeared in the pages of ~Outing~. + + * * * * * + + +THE RICHMOND BICYCLE TOURNAMENT. + +The bicycle tournament to be given at Richmond, Va., under the auspices +of the Old Dominion Wheelmen, October 23d and 24th, promises to be an +interesting affair. The races will be on a new half-mile track, now +being laid by the Mechanical and Industrial Exposition of Old Virginia. +The program of races, eighteen in number, is varied and includes nearly +all classes of bicycle riding. The prizes are sufficiently tempting +to attract all lovers of the wheel, professionals as well as amateurs. +Entries must be made to Alexander H. Meyers, 601 East Broad Street, +Richmond, Va., on or before October 20th. + + * * * * * + + +BOWLING. + +The bowling season began last month. Although it has hardly yet got +into full swing, the indications are that bowling is increasing in +popularity. The outdoor season of all kinds of sports just now drawing +to a close has been remarkably successful. It is a healthy sign that +gentlemen, and, for that matter, gentle women are becoming more and +more impressed with the necessity of taking exercise. No better +stimulant can be indulged in than a half-hour’s exercise in a good ball +alley and a tussle at bowling. + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: SETH GREEN.] + +Seth Green, whose name will be associated with pisciculture as long as +the artificial reproduction of fishes is known, died at his home in +Rochester, August 20, in the seventy-second year of his age. + +To those who knew personally, as the writer did, the strong, rugged, +gray-headed and grizly-bearded man, whose appearance seemed to +indicate a longer life of usefulness, the announcement came like +a shock. But it had been known to others for some months that the +grand old “Father of Fishes,” as he was sometimes called, was lying +hopelessly ill, and that his precious charges at Caledonia Springs--the +little fishes--would know him no more. Mr. Green had from his early +youth the tastes of the sportsman, and, with the proper education, +would have made a great naturalist. He had great powers of observation; +even in ascertaining such minutiæ as whether fishes can hear. + +In 1864 Mr. Green bought a piece of property at Caledonia Springs, near +Rochester, and his success in raising trout there was so great as to +lead many others to embark in the business in different parts of the +State. Dr. Theodatus Garlick had preceded him in the successful raising +of trout, but not to a sufficient extent to detract from Mr. Green’s +fame as a great trout breeder. + +As a pisciculturist, however, Mr. Green will be best remembered for +his discovery that the eggs of certain sea fishes, particularly the +shad, require a continuous motion of the water to prevent the eggs +from adhering to each other. The floating shad-box which bears his +name, was the result of this discovery. Although it was superseded by +the invention of Mr. Fred Mather, and later by the hatching jar of +Colonel McDonald, Fish Commissioner of the United States, the credit +of the discovery belongs to Mr. Green. Mr. Green was at one time Fish +Commissioner of the State, with the Hon. Horatio Seymour and the Hon. +R. B. Roosevelt. Of late years, however, he had been Superintendent of +the State Fish Hatchery at Caledonia Springs. + +He was a voluminous writer on the subject of fishes. He edited the +Angler’s column of the _American Angler_, and wrote, in conjunction +with Mr. Roosevelt, a charming little book called “Fish Hatching and +Fish Catching.” + + ~F. Endicott.~ + + * * * * * + + +YACHT RACING RESULTS. + +Whether yachting is an expensive pastime or not, it certainly is +popular and growing in favor every year. The waning season of 1888 +shows a marked increase in the American pleasure fleet over that of +1887, with a proportionate number of new yacht owners--not all owners +of new yachts, however, for there are plenty of old ones fast enough +and shapely enough to satisfy the average business man, who does not +care to order a new boat. So versatile are our yacht designers and +builders of the present day, that one can have his order filled at +short notice for a sloop or schooner, while just as fine a cutter of +the most pronounced type may be had without crossing the Atlantic. + +Although the first half of the season gave us but little racing worth +chronicling, the latter half, beginning with the New York Yacht Club’s +cruise, gave promise of some lively work, and, what is better, some +surprising results. + +It is an acknowledged fact among yachtsmen who witnessed the races for +the Martha’s Vineyard cups, and the two following, where the schooners +_Sea Fox_, _Sachem_ and _Grayling_ did such remarkably close sailing, +that it was the finest schooner racing for the distance ever seen in +these waters. Moreover, the victory of the old cutter _Bedouin_ over +the new sloop _Katrina_ has brought the “keel or centreboard, cutter or +sloop” question to the front again, with odds a good deal in favor of +the cutter. + +The events of the cruise have shown us that there is quite as much +genuine sport in schooner racing as there is in big sloop contests, for +two new schooners, the _Alert_ and _Sea Fox_--the first a heavy keel +cruising boat, the second a light centreboard craft, built for racing +purposes--have, by their recent performances, shown themselves to be +very dangerous antagonists to their class rivals. The _Marguerite_, +_Elma_, _Enone_, _Tampa_, and other new schooners of this year, have +not been entered with the crack yachts of their class, so no fair +estimate can be formed of their stability or speed, but among the +new sloops and cutters the results have been very satisfactory. The +_Puritan_ and _Mayflower_ have fought it out nobly to windward and +leeward, the _Genesta’s_ rival proving more than a match for the +_Mayflower_ under some conditions. In the smaller classes, the old +sloop _Bertie_ easily disposed of her class-mates, and, the _Pappoose_, +that famous little cutter from Boston, outsailed everything in her +class in all conditions of weather. + +The season thus far has given the sloop men and the cutter men plenty +of food for thought, and the results bring them back to the question, +“Will the English challenge for the cup next year; and if so, with what +yacht?” + +It is safe to say that an International contest for the Cup in 1889 +is a certainty, and that a compromise cutter of Watson design, and +one that will sail in our 60-foot class, will be the challenger. Mr. +Ralli’s _Yarana_, for instance, the handsome cutter that ever since her +_début_ last spring has been winning races from the _Patronilla_ and +the famous _Irex_, might, if she were sent over, prove a good match for +our _Shamrock_, _Titania_, or _Katrina_. Of course we believe that when +Burgess or Carey Smith or Ellsworth are called upon to design a sloop +to beat the world, each of them will produce something very fast, but +it is nevertheless a fact that Watson’s latest production has all the +beauty of the _Thistle_, with none of her faults, and plenty of speed +both to windward and before it. So if the public have been disappointed +because they saw no international race this season, they may be sure of +one next that will amply repay them for waiting. + +With commendable enterprise, the New York Yacht Club has decided to +have a fall race every season. The first one will be sailed late in +this month, when strong breezes and fine racing may be looked for; at +any rate, it will bring together most of the new and old fliers, and +probably give us better results than the spring regattas have. + + ~J. C. Summers.~ + + * * * * * + + +CANOEING. + +THE NINTH ANNUAL A. C. A. MEET AT LAKE GEORGE. + +Canoe building is becoming quite as much a science as yacht building. +The boat that won nearly all the sailing races and made the highest +record ever attained at an A. C. A. meet was built by the same man +who turned out Dr. Rice’s paddling canoe, which won the paddling +championship--Ruggles, of Rochester. M. V. Brokaw, of Brooklyn, who +sailed the _Eclipse_, did excellent work, but no better than Paul +Butler, who sailed canoe _Fly_ beautifully. Never before has so fine +a lot of canoes been at the meet and sailed in the races. A large +proportion of the canoes that entered the races were well built, +perfectly finished, smooth, clear and clean, and very lightly, yet +strongly, rigged. The influence of Mr. Barney’s success in canoe +_Pecowsic_ in 1886 and 1887 was very clearly seen in the rigs at the +meet this year. It will be remembered that the _Pecowsic_ had five +sails, all of different sizes, laced to the masts, incapable of being +reefed, only two of which were used at one time, or in one race. The +power of the wind at the start governed the selection of the two most +fitting for the particular day. Once started in the race, no changes +could be made. Many canoes this year carried the standing rig, notably +_Eclipse_. The standing rig is a bad thing, more especially if the +sail cannot be folded up easily and stowed, as was the case with many. +Butler and the Lowell men had by far the best sails in camp--reefing +sails, well cut, neatly bent, all of one piece of cloth, with no bites +in them, so the muslin spread a perfectly smooth surface to the wind +when flattened down by the sheets for work, on trim and scientifically +shaped spars. + +One lesson Mr. Barney taught the canoeist which has come home very +forcibly to the many, and will not soon be forgotten--the very great +advantage of lightness in masts, spars and rigs generally, as well as +in the canoes themselves, especially lightness aloft. A very general +movement in this direction has set in, and many very clever devices +were noticeable at the meet to gain this point without loss of strength. + +The perfect sailing canoe and rig have not yet been made. The +improvements and progress each year only serve to put the goal still +higher and keep showing larger possibilities all the time. Methods of +building have been wonderfully improved, and the metal fittings that +are now used are marvels of mechanical skill. The secret of it all is +the very great rivalry in canoe sailing, and the many minds continually +working out improvements to attain greater speed. + +The racing this year in some ways, was a marked advance over that of +last year--the boats of the fleet sailed better. No one has yet equaled +R. W. Gibson’s sailing at any A. C. A. meet--that was true science. +Butler did the best sailing this year, and showed a knowledge of the +finer points in making and rounding buoys without loss of time, headway +or a foot. Brokaw sailed wonderfully well and showed pluck in the heavy +weather. Where there was luck he had it--as in the cup race, when +Butler led, and the wind fell to a breeze best suited for the sails +Brokaw had; and again, in the Barney cup race, when he caught up to +and passed the _Jabber_ in _If_ by a lucky fluke, _If_ lying becalmed +all the time, or nearly so. Brokaw is one of the very few strong men +and good paddlers who does any sailing. This fact gave him a chance to +accomplish what has never been done before--win the highest possible +number of points on the record. He first won the unlimited sailing +race (3 miles) in a fleet of thirty-three canoes, twenty-one of which +completed the course. He scored ten points for this. Next he won his +class paddling race (Class IV.), beating four others. His luck helped +him here also. His boat in beam was 29¾ inches, the very lowest limit +in the class; but, more than this, both Dr. Rice and Johnson (the best +paddlers in the A. C. A.) raced in Class III., so he did not have to +meet them. In the combined race (1½ miles paddle, 1½ miles sail) there +were six men against him, and he won by strong paddling, quick work in +hoisting and stowing sail, and fast sailing with no luck or flukes. +Three races, ten points each, thirty points. The second man on the +record was E. Knappe (Springfield, Mass.), three races, 16.95 points. +The third, fourth and fifth men, all prize winners, got, respectively, +15.50 (Leys, Toronto), 14.60 (Patton, Yonkers), and 13.70 (Quick, +Yonkers) for two races each. + +The Lowell men won the club race, securing the club championship flag, +and they well deserved it. Seldom has a meet witnessed such excellent +boats, plucky sailing, and genuine club fellowship as existed among its +members. Butler won the club race in _Fly_, and took the individual +prize. He won the same race last year, when no prize was given to the +winner, and when his men did not give him the support they did this +year, for the club flag then went to Brooklyn. + +A tournament was added to the program at the meet and greatly +interested the spectators, canoeists and visitors to the camp; also a +tug-of-war--four men in two canoes, paddling in opposite directions, +with the boats securely tied together, end to end, with a stout rope. + +Walter Stewart, who came from England to race for the Trophy, and take +part generally in the meet, did not win a race. He is the holder of the +Royal Canoe Club championship challenge cup, won on Hendon Lake, both +in 1887 and 1888. His canoe _Charm_ beat Baden-Powell and other English +canoeists in each race. In 1886, when Stewart was out here before, +it will be remembered Powell came with him, and defeated him in the +sailing races. Stewart entered three record races, won 13.35 points, +and thus got sixth place, missing the fifth record place (and prize) +only by 35-100 of a point. Before returning to England he will sail +again for the New York Canoe Club challenge cup on New York Bay, now +held by C. Bowyer Vaux. + +No review of the canoe meet would be complete without a mention of the +paddling done by Dr. Rice, who won the championship flag. He proved +conclusively that fast paddling can be done gracefully, and without +any body or back movement. His arms alone do the work, while he sits +firmly on the seat with his back well braced. Johnson paddled the class +races, sitting high up in his boat, as usual, and with his old-time +reach forward at every stroke. Rice, however, beat him. In the mile +championship race, Johnson paddled standing up, a feat never before +seen at an A. C. A. meet, though it is not unknown in Canadian races +when the double paddle is used. As the race was down the wind this may +have been a slight advantage. Rice and Knappe won the tandem race in +fine style against three other crews. They paddle in the same manner, +keep perfect time, and work like machines, so regular is their stroke. + +One feature of the camp must not be overlooked. The men seemed to think +much more of dress than is usual at the meets, no doubt on account of +the many ladies who camped on what in former years was known as Squaw +Point. The nearness of hotels made it very easy for lady visitors to +appear in camp daily, and during the racing days they were everywhere. + +As a Canadian commodore was elected for 1889, the next meet will be +held on the St. Lawrence, or somewhere in Canada once again. + + ~C. Bowyer Vaux.~ + + * * * * * + + +THE POLITICS OF CYCLING. + +~Outing’s~ mission is to entertain and instruct, to elevate and +encourage legitimate outdoor sport and recreation, to the end that the +manhood and womanhood of its clientèle may benefit thereby in mind and +body. + +Occupying this high place, and having selected this noble part as our +particular field of enterprise in the world, we have always deemed it +best to take little active, and positively no partisan, interest in the +politics of the League of American Wheelmen. We are content to leave +the exclusively cycling press in undisputed possession of that field +which treats of League offices and the doings of League officials. + +Sometimes, when scanning the brilliant editorials of our weekly cycling +contemporaries, we have grown envious and have been sorely tempted +to take a hand and out with our opinions. The legislative wisdom +that bristles on our pen point, however, has been restrained by the +knowledge that we appear before the wheel-world but once a month, +when the question under discussion has often been disposed of by the +weeklies before we go to press. + +We, along with all who have the best interests of cycling at heart, +have been greatly interested in the arguments, pro and con, concerning +the new League constitution. As we are minded to jot down these few +remarks, there lies before us copies of the _Wheel and Cycle Trade +Review_ and copies of the _Bicycling World and League Bulletin_. +Apropos of the subject under discussion there is, to say the least, a +“friendly difference of opinion” between them. + +“Rings,” “wire-pullings,” “gangs,” etc., are openly talked of, and +dark hints lurk between lines and words. Some of the remarks and +insinuations indulged in are refreshingly frank, and yet the impression +is left, that the pens of the writers have been held under restraint, +so as not to reveal the depth of their inmost thoughts. It is, or +appears to us to be, almost a case of “you have” and “we swear to you, +by all that’s holy, we have not--so there!” not to say “you’re another!” + +It is in such moments as these that ~Outing~ takes unto itself +much solid comfort in the reflection that, as a non-combatant and a +mutual friend and well-wisher, it can take the non-partisan stump and +out with a word or two of timely wisdom to the rank and file of the +League, whilst the rival champions are fighting it out. + +Whether ringsters, wire-pullers and gangs have really taken possession +of the politics of the L. A. W. is a matter that every member of the +organization should judge for himself from the evidence advanced. The +League is not made up of children, nor of dotards, but, for the most +part, of intelligent young men capable of knowing their own minds and +forming their own opinions. + + ~Thomas Stevens.~ + + * * * * * + + +BASEBALL. + +The League pennant race during August was made intensely interesting +to the New York patrons of the game by the continued success of the +New York team, and the fact that they finally gained the lead during +that month. The falling off in the Detroit team was also a noteworthy +feature of the month’s campaign, while Chicago, too, lost their +previous winning pace. The surprise of the month was the brilliant +rally made by the Boston team after their demoralizing experience of +July. Chicago went to the front in May, after Boston’s April spurt, +Boston being second and New York third. By July Detroit had pushed +Boston to third place, while Chicago still kept in the van, New York +having dropped to fourth position. Before the end of July, however, +New York had not only taken Detroit’s place as third in the race, but +by the end of the month they had reached the front and had pushed +Chicago back to second place. The last week in August saw New York +at the head of the list with a percentage of .663 to Chicago’s .579 +and Detroit’s .527, Boston being fourth with .516, and Philadelphia +fifth with .500, the other three being entirely out of the race. The +last week in August, however, saw Boston rally for a higher position +in brilliant style, three straight victories over New York at the Polo +Grounds being one of the noteworthy events of the month, no other club +having been able to win three straight games from the New York team +during the season before this. This left September’s campaign the most +interesting of the season, as on the games of that month would depend +the virtual settlement of the championship question, though the season +would not end until the middle of October. The fact that New York would +finish its season at home, from September 28th to October 16th, greatly +favored the anticipations of the club, and the close of August left +them confident of ultimate success in winning the pennant. + +A feature of the early Fall campaign in the League arena was the +contrast between the Boston club’s record of victory and defeats +in July, and their August record. During July the Boston team lost +seventeen games out of twenty-two, while in August--up to the +30th--they had won fifteen out of twenty. New York’s records in June +and that in July were almost as striking in their contrast. In June +that club’s team only won thirteen games out of twenty-three, while +in July they won eighteen out of twenty-three. On the other hand, +the falling off in the play of the Chicago team in July as compared +with their June record was equally surprising; as in June they won +fourteen games out of twenty-two, while in July they lost fourteen out +of twenty-three. But the worst series of defeats of the season was +that sustained by the Detroit team in August, when they lost sixteen +games out of twenty-two, after winning fourteen out of twenty-four in +July. These changes are all in accordance with the uncertain character +of the national game, which gives it much of its attraction to our +chance-loving sporting public. + +In the American arena the contest for the pennant still being confined +to the four leading teams of the St. Louis, Cincinnati, Athletic and +Brooklyn clubs, lost much of its interest to the metropolitan patrons +of the game, owing to the unexpected collapse of the Brooklyn team, +which, from its occupancy of first position on July 15th with a +percentage of .676, with St. Louis second with .639, and Cincinnati +with .600, fell within one month to fourth place. By the last week in +August they had only a percentage of .585, while the Athletic team +had worked itself up ahead of Cincinnati into second place with a +percentage of .625, Cincinnati being third with .608, and St. Louis +first with .701, with a fair promise of ultimate success in winning +the pennant. The New York League team, when they themselves took up +their leading position, had hoped to see the Brooklyn team keep pace +with them so that the two might eventually compete for the world’s +championship honors, as they well knew that in such a series of +contests the Brooklyns would draw thousands of spectators where the St. +Louis would only attract hundreds. It is almost a certainty that St. +Louis will win, while the struggle for second place will be between +Brooklyn, the Athletics and Cincinnati, the other four being completely +out of the race. Bad management lost Brooklyn the chance of winning the +pennant, as they unquestionably had the material at command to have +kept the lead. + + ~Henry Chadwick.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~The Outing Club.~] + + +THE OPEN GAME SEASON IN CANADA. + +The season for shooting woodcock in Canada commenced August 15th, and +birds may now be shot till the 1st of January. Grouse, pheasants, +partridges, snipe, rail, golden plover, ducks of all kinds, and all +other kinds of water-fowl, excepting geese and swan, may also be +lawfully killed from the first of September until the first of the +year. The open season for geese and swans runs from September 1st to +May 1st. The quail season does not begin until October 15th, and quail +must not be killed after December 15th. The deer season begins October +15th and ends November 20th. Moose, elk, reindeer or caribou are +protected entirely until the year 1895. + + +PONY RACING. + +A sport which has attained great dimensions in England of late years, +and has to some extent been popularized in America, is pony and +galloway racing. It is, in fact, this sport which has revived the +word “galloway,” which was falling quite out of use, and never seen +except occasionally in an auctioneer’s catalogue. The word is defined +by “Stonehenge” as applying to “full-blooded ponies which are bred +in the south of Scotland and which show more Eastern blood than the +Highlanders.” He goes on to say that they “seldom exceed fourteen +hands, and are described as possessing all the attributes of a clever +hack.” That the sport has a real use no one can doubt, for the breeding +of ponies had become an industry sorely in want of an impetus, which +it now has in the extra inducements offered to breeders by the high +prices obtainable for really speedy animals. In proportion to size, a +pony is a better animal than a horse, and can do far more work “for +his inches.” The improvement of speed and better development of the +various breeds is therefore a highly desirable object. The sport is +a great favorite among military men in India, and, according to all, +it is a truly wonderful sight to see what welter weights a small pony +will carry without apparent distress. In America the recruits for +the sports of the East, whether racing or polo, are largely obtained +from the West. From the improved stock which is now brought in large +quantities to New York and other eastern towns every year, judicious +selection can obtain really first-class material. Though the ponies +are usually “in the rough” when they arrive, careful handling and good +stable management will soon reduce them to such shape that, were it not +for the tell-tale brand on the quarters, no one would recognize them as +specimens of that much-maligned class, “cow-ponies.” + + +FROM KANSAS ON A WHEEL. + +Mr. Elmer E. Junken, of Abilene, Kansas, has made a long ride on a +52-inch “Expert” Columbia. He left his home May 16th, and arrived in +this city August 18th. He traveled the whole distance on his wheel, and +with the exception of being sunbrowned and travel-stained, appeared +nothing the worse for the wear and tear of his journey. The route +lay through Kansas City, St. Louis, Ill., along the National Road +to Terre Haute, Indianapolis, Richmond, Ind., Springfield, Dayton, +Columbus, Cleveland, O., along the Ridge Road to Buffalo, through +Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, the Mohawk Valley to Albany, thence through +Pittsfield, Northampton, Ware, Worcester to Boston and to New York. The +journey was made for pleasure and sight-seeing, and for this enjoyment +Mr. Junken covered over two thousand miles. The roads he describes as +variable, and he gives credit to Ohio and Indiana for having the best. +His outfit consisted of a change of underwear, a serviceable cyclist’s +suit, and a rubber coat. Mr. Junken will make the return journey home +partly on his wheel, with an occasional lift on the cars. + + +MANHATTAN’S VICTORIOUS ATHLETES. + +The Manhattan Club team returned from England, August 12th, after an +absence of ten weeks, during which time its members won a half dozen +championships in the national games at Crewe and the international +games in Dublin. The team, when it went away from here, consisted of +G. A. Avery, T. P. Conneff, H. M. Banks, Jr., and Frederick Westing, +who were joined on the other side by Thomas Ray and C. V. S. Clark, +English resident members of the club. From Queenstown Conneff went to +Belfast, and won the four-mile Irish championship run. From that time +the team’s career was a series of victories. The men went into training +at the grounds of the London Athletic Club, and soon had themselves in +excellent trim. Besides winning his four-mile race, Conneff won the +English one-mile and the international one-mile championship races. +He also beat Carter in a five-mile match race. Thomas Ray won the +pole-vaulting championship, and Westing carried off the honors in the +100-yard race at Crewe, besides winning at the international races in +Dublin at the same distance. Westing’s time in the latter race was +ten seconds. Clark, another member of the team, completed the list +by winning the seven-mile walk at Crewe. Gold medals were awarded in +each event. Westing has challenged Great Britain for the 100-yard +championship of the world, the race to take place on the Manhattan +Athletic Club’s grounds. Messrs. Ritchie and Woods have accepted the +challenge. A similar challenge by Conneff for the mile championship has +been accepted by Messrs. Hickman and Leaver. When these championship +events come off they will excite great interest. + + +THE TRIP OF THE CHICAGO BALL-PLAYERS. + +The Australian tour of the Chicago Baseball Team, which is now in +everyone’s mouth, is a novel scheme, the credit of which is due to Mr. +Leigh S. Lynch, the well-known theatrical manager. During his travels +in Australia Mr. Lynch perceived how great was the love of outdoor +sports displayed by the Anglo-Saxons of that rising young continent. +He also noted the complete ignorance of baseball which prevailed. The +outcome of his observations was the undertaking of the Australian tour +by Mr. A. G. Spalding. Mr. Lynch was dispatched to make arrangements, +and on his return in the spring the work of organizing two teams was +undertaken. Not content with instructing the people of Australia in +the art of baseball, Mr. Spalding has determined to take with him men +capable of playing cricket and football also. The work of selection has +resulted in the choice of the following teams: A. C. Anson, (captain), +E. Williamson, F. Pfeffer, T. Burns, J. Ryan, F. Flint, M. Sullivan, +R. Pettit, M. Baldwin and T. Daly, and this team is to be known as +“The Chicagoes.” The second bears the name of “The Picked Club,” and +comprises: John M. Ward (captain), M. Kelly, Boston; F. Carroll, +Pittsburgh; M. Tiernan, New York; Wood, Philadelphia; E. Hanlon, +Detroit; Fogarty, Philadelphia; Comiskey, St. Louis; while it is hoped +that the services of Caruthers, of Brooklyn, and McPhee, of Cincinnati, +will also be secured. John A. Rogers, of the Peninsular Cricket Club +of Detroit, has been made captain of the cricket team. All players +are bound by strict contracts as if they were playing in a league or +association club. + +After a series of farewell games in America, beginning in October at +Chicago and continuing in Milwaukee, Des Moines, St. Paul, Minneapolis, +Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, Stockton, Los Angeles and San Francisco, +they will embark on November 17 at the last-named place. S. S. +_Alameda_ has been chartered, the owners agreeing to do the trip in +twenty-five days. The foreign campaign will begin at Honolulu, where +two games will be played, one with a local club, the other between the +two teams. It is hoped that King Kalakaua will honor the field with his +august presence. The first antipodean city visited is Auckland, then +Sidney, and hence the route lies to Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and +other cities. Altogether it appears likely that the tour will prove a +phenomenal success. + + +POLO. + +The season of outdoor sports is once more on the wane, and soon the +morning papers will no longer teem with reports of sports of every +kind, from the baseball which interests all, down to the small and +ragged urchin who can scarcely toddle, to aristocratic polo, with its +select clique of followers. Each has its own field to fill, but to each +is vouchsafed the mission of strengthening and filling with robust +health the systems of its votaries. + +Polo is, and except under very exceptional circumstances always must +be, the game of the rich. Unless it be in a community where each man +has for part of his stock-in-trade horses and ponies, none but the +wealthy can afford to keep the necessary ponies, and none but they care +to run the risk of damage to their stock involved in this sport. In +its original home, India, its nimble exponents certainly often manage +with but one pony each, but the result of this appears in the way in +which English officers, inferior in skill, by the superiority of their +horseflesh, succeed in beating the native players. + +In its limited circle Polo has, however, taken firm root, as the +papers testify, and though the crack players are not elevated to the +questionably pleasant position of popular heroes, to be lauded to the +skies one day, and the next hissed and hooted, they are to a few +select admirers little short of demi-gods. In spite of the ardor, +however, with which this game is now pursued in America, competent +judges dare to hint that it has not yet reached the English standard. +Again, it is sure that in England there are few who can emulate the +dexterity of the natives of India. In the American game, a certain lack +of vigor in the strokes is especially noticeable, and but few seem to +have mastered the difficulties of the sweeping overhand stroke. + +With such a basis as the game has attained, it is only a matter of time +and practice for a high pitch of excellence to be reached. Let us hope +that in the course of but few years the exponents of this fine and +manly sport may become masters of all the skill they can desire. + + +RETURNING THE BALL IN LAWN-TENNIS. + +A correspondence which has been going on in the columns of the English +sporting paper, _Land and Water_, has elicited the following remarks +from the editor, which seem to contain such an important point that +they are well worth reproduction: + +“The majority of gentlemen make their best drives by taking the ball +when near the ground. This is undoubtedly the best way to ensure +accuracy and certainty, combined with severity; but it has the +disadvantage of giving the opponent plenty of time to get into position +and recover his composure. Besides accuracy and severity, rapidity of +return is a very important factor against the best players, who all of +them possess great aptitude in covering the court. The deadliness of +the volley, of course, lies in the fact that the ball is returned so +soon after it has passed the net, calling for redoubled exertion on +the part of the muscular and mental faculties employed. What applies +to the volley also applies to the ground-stroke, and players who +recognize this in practice endeavor to return the ball with as little +delay as possible, when circumstances are favorable, as is generally +the case with high-bounding second services, when the ball is taken at +elbow-height, and even higher. With beginners and indifferent players +no practice is more to be condemned than that of running in to meet +the ball, and in doing this lies the secret of the failure of so many. +But if one watches the play of those at the very top of the tree he +will find that they never lose an opportunity of getting at the ball as +soon as they can safely do so. Mr. H. F. Lawford is especially good at +this tactic, and he has explained in print that he considers the time +gained to be more than a recompense for the risk run of losing some of +his accuracy. Mr. E. Renshaw takes the ball, under the circumstances, +overhanded; but both Miss L. Dod and Mrs. Hillyard (to mention only +the case in point) manage to get over it, returning it at great speed. +To take the ball in this way with proper effect is difficult of +accomplishment, which is the reason why we mention the circumstance.” + + +THE AMERICA’S CUP ONCE MORE. + +The prospects are that next season will see another comer from across +the ocean in American waters to offer battle for the America’s Cup. The +new visitor will probably be Mr. Paul A. Ralli’s new cutter _Yarana_, a +vessel designed by G. L. Watson, the designer of the famous _Thistle_ +and the almost equally well-known _Irex_. The _Thistle_ we know from +her performances in American waters last season; the _Irex_ we only +know from her honorable record in British contests. The _Yarana_ is +a cutter 66.08 feet long on the load water line, and has a 14.08 feet +beam. Her draft is not given. This craft has been in all the principal +British regattas since her _début_, May 22d, in the Thames Yacht +Club event, and her performances have all come up to her designer’s +expectations. In fifteen matches with the _Irex_--and the _Irex_ is +one of the crack yachts of old England--the _Yarana_ won nine and the +_Irex_ four. Two of the races must not be taken into account, as the +_Irex_ ran aground. Last year the _Thistle_ had nine to her account +against the _Irex_, but when it is remembered that the small boat is +not put on an equal footing with the large sloop by any rule of time +allowance now in use, the record of the _Yarana_ may be fairly said +to prove that Mr. Watson has improved on his previous creations. If +the _Yarana_ comes here she will be welcome as a visitor, and equally +welcome as a challenger for a trophy which has a reputation the world +over. The advent of a smaller boat competing for this much-valued prize +will prove beneficial. It will create more interest among yachtsmen +generally, as it will give a chance for the smaller boats to enter the +lists. The owners of the _Shamrock_, _Titania_ and _Katrina_ have great +faith in their craft. Possibly they might have a chance next season to +measure speed with the new Britisher. Let us hope so; and may the best +boat win, be she American or English! + + +AMATEUR OARSMEN AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION. + +Henry W. Garfield, President of the National Association of Amateur +Oarsmen, in the annual communication to the organization, thus +discourses on rowing matters in general and what constitutes an amateur: + +The conditions which brought the National Association into being may +be well known to some, but are hardly appreciated by those boating +men whose interests in aquatic sports commenced at a later date. In +1872 there was in the United States no generally accepted definition +of an amateur oarsman, and the constant formation of new clubs, and +consequent increase in racing, made the adoption of some uniform +definition eminently desirable. A convention of boating men was +accordingly called to meet in New York city, and then and there was the +National Association of Amateur Oarsmen organized. In the following +year its first regatta was held in Philadelphia. The merits of the new +definition were early seen, and the value of its Laws of Boat-Racing +soon recognized, until both have since been generally adopted and +followed by every amateur rowing association and club. + +When, however, the Association attempted to enforce its rules and to +discipline offenders, it was for several years sturdily opposed by +powerful clubs from one or two localities. The attempt was made to +prejudice the minds of some by alleging that your Executive Committee +had in several instances misused its great powers for the punishment +of those who were personally inimical to some of its members, or +seemed dangerous antagonists of their clubs. But the gentlemen to +whom you delegated authority had full confidence that their laborious +and, at first, thankless efforts, would in due season be appreciated, +and so they patiently bided their time. We feel that whatever errors +of judgment your successive Executive Boards may have committed, +the work the Association has accomplished through them is generally +recognized. We believe the Association to be worthy the hearty +loyalty and undivided support of every section. Under its fostering +care and encouragement other associations have sprung up and grown to +vigorous strength, both in the East and the West. In their prosperity +we cannot but rejoice, and we have always found in them important and +influential allies, ever willing to assist in any movement tending to +advance our mutual interests, the promotion of rowing among amateurs. +It still continues important that some central authority should +adjudicate disputed cases, conduct annual meetings for the decision of +championships, revise laws when desirable, and endeavor not only to +retain the results of a persistent and long continued warfare for the +purification of aquatics, but to still further advance the lines, so +that in every State may be seen an increase in the number of active +boating men, assured that they will be asked to compete only with their +equals. + +As a further step in this reform we have taken pleasure in following +your mandate of a year since, and have submitted to the clubs for +action here tonight an amendment to Article III. of the Constitution, +reading as follows: + +We further define an amateur to be one who rows for pleasure or +recreation only, and during his leisure hours, and who does not abandon +or neglect his usual business or occupation for the purpose of training. + +Of course, it is not by this intended to forbid legitimate training +during vacation periods, or to exclude those who, more fortunate than +their fellows, have a competency and can devote time to training +which, in the case of others, would be irregular. It is intended +to reach men who (to the detriment of legitimate amateur sport and +the discouragement of those rising oarsmen who, following business +pursuits, have limited opportunity to practice) spend a whole summer +on the water and are undesirable participants at nearly every race +meeting. Their number is not so large, but the injury they are able to +accomplish is unquestionable. The interpretation of the law must be +left to the discretion of prudent men, and if your present Board does +not merit your confidence in this particular, we would gladly give +place to worthier men who do. + + +THE BUFFALO DOG SHOW. + +One of the attractive features of the Buffalo Exhibition was the Dog +Show. Much interest, from the time it was first announced, was felt in +its success. The National Dog Club, at the meeting of its executive +committee, voted to give fifteen bronze medals as special prizes +for the best American bred dog or bitch of the following breeds: +Mastiffs, St. Bernards, deerhounds, English setters, Irish setters, +Gordon setters, pointers, toy dogs, sporting spaniels, pugs, collies, +fox-terriers, greyhounds, bull-dogs and terriers (except fox-terriers). + + +HOW CROWS EAT FISH. + +The _Allgemeine Sport Zeitung_ published a letter from a correspondent +recently which gave a curious account of the manner in which crows +eat fish. He stated that during a visit to the country for sporting +purposes he found the estate largely under water from long-continued +rains. At the edge of the retreating waters were large flocks of crows +engaged in eating the half-stranded fish fry. They evidently did not +confine their attentions entirely to the small fry, for he found the +skeleton of a trout which must have weighed a pound at least, picked +quite clean. + + + + +[Illustration: ~Among the Books~] + + +We are pleased to call the attention of our readers for once to a book +which will actually fill a gap in the literature of athletic sports. +It is the second volume of the ~Outing~ Library of Sports, +“Janssen’s American Amateur Athletic and Aquatic History. 1829-1888.” +(New York: ~Outing Co.~, 239 Fifth Avenue.) As Mr. Janssen says +in the preface, on undertaking the work of compilation, he planned +a small pamphlet. The result has, however, spread it to a portly +volume required by the real extent and scope of the subject, and we +have before us a book that will have a larger circulation and prove +of greater value than any other contribution to athleticism. In the +opening of the book are given the champion and best amateur records of +America and England, and these are supplemented on the last page by +the records of 1888, bringing the book down to the moment of going to +press. In all other respects the same thoroughness characterizes the +work, and every one who inspects the book will agree with the author in +saying that “if any organization, record or champion has been omitted, +it has simply been from either lack of reliable information, or for +want of interest on the part of those communicated with.” The volume is +such that no athlete will be without it. It is indispensable as a book +of reference, but it is also a book worthy of diligent study. + +A book which should be on the shelves of every sportsman, is “Names and +Portraits of Birds which Interest Gunners,” by Gurdon Trumbull. (New +York: Harper & Brothers. 1888.) The best explanation of the purport of +the book is found in the continuation of the title, “with descriptions +in language understanded of the people.” The author’s method is to +give the scientific name of a bird, and describe its appearance, +measurements, habitat, etc., with illustrations of male and female, and +then to give the ordinary name applied, locally or otherwise. The sole +disappointment in connection with the volume is to find that the birds +mentioned are only those of the eastern half of the United States. + +We note with pleasure that Messrs. Macmillan & Co. have published a +cheap edition of that most excellent novel, “Mr. Isaacs,” by F. Marion +Crawford. It is a great blessing to the public to be able to obtain +such literature at a moderate rate, instead of having to weary brain +and eye with badly-printed “penny awfuls.” + +Another book which has become accessible to the traveler by land or +water, is Andrew Carnegie’s “An American Four-in-Hand in Britain.” (New +York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.) In connection with recent events, it is +just now of special interest. + +Marvelous as every one knows the improvements to be that have been +effected in the illustrative art of late years, nobody will see the +photogravure series issued by Messrs. Nims & Knight, of Troy, N. Y., +without genuine delight. In them one would say that the limit has +been reached, for anything more delicately beautiful in this line of +illustration is inconceivable. Four of the series are from photographs +by S. R. Stoddard, and each one of them is as near perfection as +possible. + +“Lake George Illustrated” is described on the title-page as a book of +pictures. This is, we think, too much modesty, for such are the powers +of the reproductive process used that this and each volume possesses +the charms of a perfect sketch-book. Not only are the views of the +lovely scenery exquisite, but the decorative efforts to complete the +pages are most beautiful in result. A second of the series is “The +Adirondack Lakes,” and this is in no whit inferior. Except one saw the +exquisite delineation of details due to photography, he would imagine +that the lovely effects produced were in sepia by a master hand. With +eager avidity, every lover of the beautiful in nature will turn to +the rest of the series. The next is “The Adirondack Mountains,” and +again wonder arises at the effects produced. Especially beautiful are +the effects of water, which show a delicacy and truth to nature most +fascinating. In the fourth of the series to which Mr. Stoddard’s name +is attached, “The Hudson River,” we have a succession of lovely views +of the grand river from its source to its mouth. + +In “Bits of Nature,” Messrs. Nims & Knight have published ten gems of +the photogravure process. Of these the pick seems to us to be the view +in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, in which the light and shadow effects and +the water are very charming, while in the illustration entitled “Road +to Grand Hotel,” the effect of the rugged bark on the tree in the +foreground is beautifully reproduced. In the smaller series, “Corners +in the Catskills,” we have some lovely pieces of Nature. + +In the “Log of the _Ariel_,” illustrated by L. S. Ipsen, the same +publishers have reproduced in most artistic form the log of a trip on a +steam yacht on the Gulf of Maine. The illustrations are clever, and the +whole is produced with exquisite taste. + +~Messrs. Nims & Knight~ have also published a volume of poems, +“The Two Voices: Poems of the Mountains and the Sea,” selected by John +Chadwick, which is a fitting handbook to go with the above volumes. It +contains choice morsels of poetry culled from the best sources. + +Worthy of mention among its host of contemporaries, is the midsummer +number of _The Richfield News_. While professedly “devoted to the +interests of American summer resorts,” it possesses a genuine interest +for a wide circle of readers with its chatty, pleasant style. The +general appearance of the paper and its illustrations is most +wonderfully effective. We are looking forward with pleasure to the +early reappearance of its twin sister, _The St. Augustine News_. + + + + +[Illustration: AMENITIES.] + + +[Illustration: HOW BASEBALL WILL PROBABLY BE PLAYED 100 YEARS HENCE.] + +[Illustration: ~Cabby~ (_who has been paid his bare fare before +hiring_): Bring yer box in? What, I leave my young ’oss a-standin’ ’ere +of hisself!--(_with determination_)--No, I can’t leave my cab! Spozin’ +he runs away, ’oos to pay for the damage, I should like to know?] + + + + +[Illustration: ~Our MONTHLY RECORD~] + + + ~This~ department of ~Outing~ is specially devoted to paragraphs + of the doings of members of organized clubs engaged in the + reputable sports of the period, and also to the recording of the + occurrence of the most prominent events of the current season. On + the ball-fields it will embrace _Cricket_, _Baseball_, _Lacrosse_ + and _Football_. On the bays and rivers, _Yachting_, _Rowing_ and + _Canoeing_. In the woods and streams, _Hunting_, _Shooting_ and + _Fishing_. On the lawns, _Archery_, _Lawn Tennis_ and _Croquet_. + Together with Ice-Boating, Skating, Tobogganing, Snowshoeing, + Coasting, and winter sports generally. + + Secretaries of clubs will oblige by sending in the names of their + presidents and secretaries, with the address of the latter, + together with the general result of their most noteworthy contests + of the month, addressed, “Editor of ~Outing~,” 239 Fifth Avenue, + New York. + + +TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + _All communications intended for the Editorial Department should + be addressed to “The Editor,” and not to any person by name. + Advertisements, orders, etc., should be kept distinct, and + addressed to the manager. Letters and inquiries from anonymous + correspondents will not receive attention. All communications to be + written on one side of the paper only._ + + +AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. + +~The~ Hartford Camera Club had an agreeable outing in August +over the Meriden, Waterbury and Connecticut River Road. The club +frequently makes trips of this character. Among those who participated +in the excursion were: James B. Cone, president; Mr. and Mrs. E. M. +White, Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Hickmott, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Kinney, Mr. +and Mrs. F. O. Tucker, Mr. and Mrs. A. F. Woods, Mr. and Mrs. F. A. +Thompson, Henry Fuller, Lawrence Cody, W. G. Abbott, A. L. Butler, J. +C. Hill, H. O. Warner, C. F. Butler, T. S. Weaver, Miss Helen Cody, +Miss Abbott, Miss Sarah Green, Miss Mary Green, Miss Harbison, Miss +Weaver, Mrs. W. P. Marsh and Misses Mills, all belonging in Hartford. + +The Meriden party who accompanied them were: Mr. and Mrs. Geo. +Rockwell, T. S. Rust, C. S. Perkins, G. L. Ellsbree, A. Chamberlain, +Rev. A. H. Hall, A. S. Thomas, J. M. Harmon, G. A. Fay, E. Miller, +Jr., Dr. Mansfield, Supt. Crawford. A pleasant stay at Highland Lake +was made, and several pretty views were taken of the scenery in the +neighborhood. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fifth annual convention of the Photographers’ Association +of Canada was held in the rooms of the Ontario Society of Artists, at +Toronto, Canada, July 31 to August 2. Among the exhibits the following +were noteworthy: C. A. Tenjoy, of Collingwood, fine large pictures and +cabinets; S. J. Dixon, of Toronto, large prints of unusual merit; S. +D. Edgeworth, of St. Louis, a fine collection from various sources; +W. F. Johnson, of Pictou, a large exhibit of excellent work; R. D. +Bayley, Battle Creek, Mich., fine cabinets; Guerin, of St. Louis, +some splendid work in cabinets. H. Barraud, of London, Eng., had a +fine exhibit, also his relative and namesake, of Barrie, Ontario. E. +Poole, of St. Catherine’s, had one of the largest exhibits and of the +first order. Brockenshire, of Wingham, also exhibited some very fine +bromides and enameled pictures. T. J. Bryce, of Toronto, exhibited a +number of large, fine Rembrandt effects and some excellent cabinets. +E. D. Clarke, of Guelph, showed colored bromides that called forth +much admiration. Poole and Robson, of Port Perry, also had a good +exhibit. William Davison, of Brampton, exhibited a number of pictures. +W. Mecklechwaite, of Toronto, also had a very good exhibit. Zybach, of +Niagara Falls, Ontario, had a magnificent exhibit of large photographs +of the Falls, both in winter and summer. + + +ATHLETICS. + +~The~ Board of Managers of the Amateur Athletic Union held +a meeting at the new club-house of the New York Athletic Club, on +Travers’ Island, August 25. A resolution intended to put a stop to any +conflicting claims to athletic jurisdiction in the United States, and +to prevent any minor organizations from holding championship field +meetings, was passed. The resolution unanimously adopted by the board +is as follows: + + _Resolved_, That any amateur athlete competing in any open amateur + games in the United States not governed by rules approved by the + Amateur Athletic Union shall be debarred from competing in any + games held under the rules of the Amateur Athletic Union. This + resolution shall take effect immediately. + +This wholesale legislation was deemed necessary on the part of the +board, and it is thought it will be productive of perplexing results. +The Manhattan Athletic Club of this city, it is said, will virtually +be the only sufferer by the new arrangement, as it is the only club +hereabouts giving games under rules other than those approved by the +union. It will be compelled either to recognize and adopt the rules of +the union, or to create a new field of athletics, as far as its track +members are concerned. Of these the Manhattan Club has about fifty, +and as it is supposed they will not submit to being debarred from the +privileges of competing in games given by the various clubs in and +around New York, the club, it is asserted, will have to adopt the +union’s rules. The Manhattan Club, it is claimed, is leaning too far +toward professional methods. + +The Board of Managers also considered the case of the Staten Island and +the New Jersey athletic clubs, each of which advertised a carnival of +athletic sports for Labor Day, Sep. 3. The Staten Island Club was shown +to have the right to the day by reason of priority of announcement, +and the New Jersey Club was censured for choosing a date that directly +conflicted with that of a sister club in the union. + +The Investigating Committee reported on the cases of J. Cunningham +and P. Cahill. Cunningham was disqualified by a unanimous vote, and +Cahill’s case referred back to the Committee, with instructions to +investigate his fight with Robinson. The board decided to investigate +the amateur status of E. Hickey and J. J. Sampson, both of whom are +under suspicion. + +The delegates at the meeting were: President, Harry McMillan, of +Philadelphia; secretary, Otto Ruhl, of New York; treasurer, Howard +Perry, of Washington; Jas. E. Sullivan, of New York; F. W. Janssen, of +Staten Island; Edward Milligan, of Philadelphia; W. O. Eschwege, of +Brooklyn. John F. Huneker, of Philadelphia, represented the Detroit +Athletic Club, and Daniel G. French that of Chicago. + + * * * * * + +~William J. M. Barry~, of the Queen’s College Athletic Club, +Cork, Ireland, holds the world’s championship in throwing the 16-lb. +hammer. August 11 he succeeded in putting the hammer, on his fifth +throw, the unprecedented distance of 129 ft. 3¼ in. G. M. L. Sachs, +C. C. Hughes, and L. E. Myers were the judges of the performance. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Orange Athletic Club will hold an athletic meeting October +6, and one and two mile bicycle races will be prominent features. The +meeting is open to all amateurs, and some of the best athletes in the +country are expected to compete. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Philadelphia Clan-na-Gael Association held its annual +games at the Rising Sun Park, Philadelphia, August 13. It is estimated +30,000 people witnessed the games. The events resulted as follows: + +Putting the 16-pound stone--George Ross, 44 ft.; J. A. MacDougall, 43 +ft. ½ in.; P. J. Griffin, 41 ft. 9½ in. + +Standing long jump--John F. Hartnett, 13 ft. 6 in.; P. J. Griffin, 12 +ft. 9½ in.; Con. J. Sullivan, 12 ft. 6 in. + +150-yard dash--First, S. J. Farrell, 16s.; second, M. C. Murphy; third, +Thos. Aitken. + +Throwing 16-pound hammer--J. A. MacDougall, 100 ft. 2 in.; Philip +Cummings, 99 ft. 4½ in.; George Ross, 89 ft. 7 in. + +Running long jump--Con. J. Sullivan, 20 ft. 9 in.; David Ader, 20 ft. +8½ in.; Wm. Henderson, 20 ft. 4 in. + +Members’ 150-yard dash--First, John Flynn, 17½s.; second, Philip +Cummings; third, Patrick Lyons. + +Throwing 56-pound weight, between legs--Philip Cummings, 26 ft. 10 in.; +John A. MacDougall, 25 ft. 2 in.; P. J. Griffin, 25 ft. 1 in. + +Half-mile race--First, S. J. Farrell, 2m. 10s.; second, E. Case; third, +T. C. Riordan. + +Running hop, step and jump--Con. J. Sullivan, 46 ft.; William +Henderson, 45 ft. 8 in.; Thomas Aitken, 45 ft. + +150-yard sack race--First, John Cahill; second, William Irvine; third, +Thomas Aitken. + +Putting 63-pound weight--George Ross, 22 ft.; Patrick Lyons, 21 ft. ½ +in.; Philip Cummings, 21 ft. + +Standing high jump--P. J. Griffin, 5 ft. 6 in.; John Hartnett, 5 ft. +5¾. in.; Archie Scott, 5 ft. 5 in. + +Three standing jumps--P. J. Griffin 39 ft. 6 in.; John F. Hartnett, 38 +ft. 9½ in.; Archie Scott 36 ft. 9 in. + +150-yard dash, boys--First, Thomas Pierce; second, Thomas Harrington; +third, William Washington. + +Half-mile dash, members--First, John Lyons, 3m. 28s.; second, P. Lyons; +third, Lawrence O’Dea. + +Running high jump--Thomas Aitken, 5 ft. 10 in.; second, 5 ft. 9 in., +tie between Archie Scott and William Henderson. + +Throwing 56-pound weight, for height--Philip Cummings, 13 ft. 9 in.; J. +A. MacDougall, 13 ft. 8¾ in.; third, George Ross, 13 ft. 6 in. + +Running high jump, amateurs--First, J. E. Terry, Schuylkill Navy +Athletic Club; second, William Haar, Turner’s Club, Philadelphia. + +One-mile race, amateurs--First, W. H. Morris, colored, Young Men’s +Christian Association, 5m. 20s.; second, Thomas Crawford, Caledonian +Club. + +Putting 16-pound shot, amateurs--James Kane, Jr., Schuylkill Navy +Athletic Club, 35 ft. 1 in.; J. K. Shell, same club, 34 ft. 8¾ in. + +Standing hop, step and jump--John F. Hartnett, 35 ft. 7 in.; Archie +Scott, 35 ft. 3 in.; P. J. Griffin, 34 ft. 1½ in. + +One-mile race--First, E. Case, 4m. 48s.; second, James Grant; third, T. +C. Riordan. + +Pole vault--Archie Scott, 10 ft. 1 in.; Thomas Aitken, 10 ft.; William +Henderson, 9 ft. 11 in. + +Hitch and kick--George Slater, 9 ft.; Archie Scott, 8 ft. 11 in.; +Daniel Aider, 8 ft. 10 in. + +Three standing jumps, members--Lawrence O’Day, 35 ft. 11½ in.; P. +Lyons, 34 ft. 5 in.; Philip Cummings, 34 ft. 2 in. + +150-yard hurdle race--First, M. C. Murphy; second, P. J. Griffin; +third, Archie Scott. + +Throwing 56-pound weight between legs, members--Philip Cummings, 25 ft. +9 in.; John O’Day, 23 ft. 8 in.; P. Lyons, 22 ft. 4 in. + +Five-mile race--First, James Grant, 28m.; second, Edward Case; third, +T. C. Riordan. + +The final heat of the tug-of-war was won by the Napper Tandy Club--John +McLean, F. Corrigan, William Reed, Joseph Hughes, Hugh Scullen, Harry +Kearney, F. Mullen, E. E. Hackett, John Dillon and Frank Coxe. The +prize was $500 and an emblem. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Pavilion Pastime Club--another notable addition to +Brooklyn’s large list of outdoor societies--was organized last month +with the following officers: Dr. H. O. Rockefeller, President; Messrs. +J. A. Cruikshank, vice-president; A. H. Weston, secretary, and Charles +E. Bevington, treasurer. A Governing Committee was formed by the +election of Messrs. Webster, Pattison and Hollister, Mrs. Weston, Mrs. +Bevington, and Misses Nellie Molloy and Phœbe Crawford. + +Suitable grounds have been obtained on Arlington Avenue and Jerome +Street, directly opposite the headquarters, and the work of leveling, +grading, rolling and enclosing is now in progress at a cost of several +hundred dollars. + +Lawn tennis, archery, croquet and other games and sports are to be +indulged in during the summer, while later on lacrosse, football, and +later still tobogganing will be introduced. The club-house is now +crowded with working paraphernalia, and it is the intention of those +in charge to increase the initiation fee to $10. + + * * * * * + +~The~ American Legion of Honor held its decennial celebration, +August 29, at the city Colosseum in Jones’ Wood, New York City. About +10,000 people were present during the day. The athletic games, which +were the chief attractions of the day’s festivities and for which +handsome prizes were provided, resulted as follows: + +100-yard run--T. J. Lee, first; E. C. Bauman, second. Time, 10 4-5s. + +Half-mile run--A. Bair, first; W. F. Beck, second. Time, 2m. 20s. + +One-mile “Go-as-you-please”--F. Howell, first; T. Curran, second. Time, +9m. + +100-yard three-legged race--J. J. O’Brien, champion light weight +wrestler of America, first; T. Gillan, second. Time not taken. + +Half-mile run, for members’ sons under sixteen years of age--W. E. +Garrity, first; P. Fanning, second. Time, 2m. 30s. + +One-mile walk--S. F. Moen, first; J. J. Barker, second. Time, 8m. + +High jump--D. J. Cox, 5 ft. 5 in., and B. Kline, 5 ft. 3 in. + +Broad jump--T. J. Lee 17 ft. 4 in.; W. R. Hooper, 17 ft. + +Tug-of-war, four each side--Won by the Turn Verein Society’s team. + +Five-mile “Go-as-you-please,” for professionals only--I. E. Regan, +first; P. J. McCarthy, second. Time, 27m. 30s. + +The judges were Thomas Namack and Gus Guerrero. P. J. Donough was +referee. + + * * * * * + +~The~ programme of events proposed for international competition +by the team of the Gaelic Athletic Association, who are to visit this +country shortly, is as follows: 100, 220, 440 and 880 yards and one +mile races, 120 yards hurdle race, running long jump, running high +jump, running hop, step and jump, standing hop, step and jump (or +three leaps instead), with weights; standing long jump, with weights; +throwing 14-pound weight, under Gaelic A. A. rules; putting 16-pound +shot, 7 ft. run, no follow; pushing 56-pound weight from shoulder, G. +A. A. rules; throwing 16-pound hammer, G. A. A. championship rule, +unlimited run and follow, and American style. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Orange Athletic Club has finally determined upon October 6 +for the date of its fall games. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Executive Committee of the National Association Amateur +Athletes of America decided to postpone the Championship Meeting +announced for September 15th to October 6th. + +It will be held on that date, at the Manhattan Athletic Club Grounds, +Eighth Avenue and 86th Street, New York City. + +This postponement will enable the athletic team from England and +Ireland, which is expected to arrive in New York about October 1st, to +participate, and will make the meeting an international one. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Staten Island Athletic Club had a great celebration Labor +Day. The attendance exceeded expectations. The first event was the +final tennis contest in singles and doubles. Mr. J. W. Raymond, of the +Twenty-third Regiment Tennis Club, won the singles, by defeating J. C. +Elliot. In the doubles, E. P. McMullen and C. Hobart beat Elliot and +Smith. + +One hundred and twenty yards run--The starters were M. W. Ford, S. I. +A. C.; R. T. Hussey, S. I. A. C.; M. Bishop, S. I. A. C.; S. Toch, S. +I. A. C.; George Popham, S. I. A. C,; S. E. Corbett, S. I. A. C.; H. W. +Partridge, S. I. A. C., and F. A. Errington, S. I. A. C. The final heat +was won by Ford in 12 4-5s. + +Half-mile run--Won by W. T. Thompson, in 2m. 5s.; Stewart Barr, second. + +Running high jump--R. K. Pritchard and M. W. Ford, each cleared the bar +at 5 ft. 10¼ in. in the running high jump. Pritchard won by a toss. + +Weight throwing--C. A. J. Queckberner won, covering a distance of 26 +ft. 4¾ in., beating his best previous record 1½ inches. + +Two-mile bicycle race--Won by A. B. Rich, in 6m. 58 1-3s. + +Running broad jump--Won by A. A. Jordan, 21 ft. 11 in. Mr. Ford, 21 ft. +7 in. + +Two hundred and ten yards run--Won by W. C. Dohme, 21 3-5s. + +One-mile steeple-chase--Won by W. T. Thompson, in 4m. 50 3-5s. + +Lacrosse game--This match between the Staten Island team and the +Druids, of Baltimore, was won by the Staten Islanders. Result, 7 goals +to 2. + +Eight-oared shell race--Six boats competed in this race. The course was +one mile straightaway, and resulted in a dead heat between the Passaic +and the Schuylkill Navy Crews. Time, 5m. 28½s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first fall field-meeting of the New Jersey Athletic Club +was held on September 3 at Bergen Point. It was successful and the +attendance was large. The events were as follows; + +One hundred yards run (handicap)--Forty starters and seven trial heats, +winner in each heat and winner in second men’s second trial running +the final. Won by Charles Hagemeyer, P. A. C.; in 10½s.; H. Luersen +second. + +One-mile bicycle race (novice)--Won by F. N. Burgess, of Rutherford, in +3m. 9 4-5s.; M. S. Ackerman, of Plainfield B. C., second. + +One-mile walk--Won by W. R. Burkhard, P. A. C., in 6m. 28 4-5s.; W. F. +Pohlman second. + +Three hundred yards run (handicap)--Three trial heats, first and second +in each in final heat. Won by C. Devereux, M. A. C., in 33s. A. W. S. +Cochran, N. Y. A. C., second. + +Eight hundred and eighty yards run (handicap)--Won by J. A. Byrne, P. +A. C., in 1m. 58 4-5s.; F. J. Leonard, B. L. C., second. + +Relief race (one hundred yards, each man carrying his mate half the +distance)--Won by C. T. Wiegand and F. H. Babcock, N. Y. A. C., in 20 +2-5s.; J. T. Norton and A. F. Copeland second. + +One-mile bicycle handicap--Won by E. P. Baggot, N. J. A. C., in 3m. +1-5s.; L. H. Wise, L. I. W., second. + +Two hundred and twenty yards (handicap hurdle, first and second in each +trial in final)--Won by F. H. Babcock, N. Y. A. C., in 27s.; E. A. +Vandervoort, M. A. C., second. + +One-mile run (handicap)--Won by P. C. Petrie, O. A. C., in 4m. 38 +4-5s.; A. S. McGregor, Brighton A. C., second. + +Potato race (10, two yards apart)--Won by W. H. Roberts, B. A. A., in +51 1-5s.; J. Nurberg, P. A. C., second. + +Quarter-mile run (club championship)--Won by A. D. Stone, in 58s.; H. +H. Hatch second. + +Mile bicycle race (club championship)--Won by W. H. Caldwell, in 3m. +3s.; S. B. Bowman, second. + +Senior four-oared shell race (one mile with turn)--Newark Bay course of +N. J. A. C.--Won by Varuna B. C., Brooklyn, in 4m. 15s.; New Jersey A. +C. second. + +Tandem paddling--Won by F. A. Beardsley and Alexander Oliver, in 4m. +19½s. + +Single paddling--Won by Thomas Garrett, in 4m. 38½s.; F. A. +Beardsley second. + +Hurry-skurry race--Won by Alexander Oliver, with J. P. Wetmore second. +No time. + +The prizes were valuable gold and silver medals. The Pastimes carried +off the banner, scoring 24, or ten more than the next highest club--the +New York Athletic Club. + +In the baseball contest, the Hilands, of Philadelphia, were whitewashed +by the New Jersey Athletic Club, who scored three runs and played an +errorless game. The home club gave a hop in the evening at the La +Tourette House. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual fall games of the American Athletic Club took place +September 1, at the baseball grounds of the old Metropolitan Club. The +track was new and slow. + +There were over sixty entries in the hundred yards dash. The final +winners in this event made a magnificent struggle, all coming in in a +bunch with R. T. Hussy, of the Staten Island A. C., first, in 10 2-5s.; +C. Wood, of the New York, second, and L. Oppenheimer a close third. + +The 300-yard handicap was run in three heats, with a final dash for the +winners. W. S. Dingwell came in first, in 33 3-5s., with Thomas Namack +and C. Devereux a close second and third. + +The one-and-a-half-mile race was uninteresting. It was won by W. H. +Pohlman, who received a handicap of a minute and twenty seconds, in +11m. 46s.; E. D. Lange second. + +The 220-yards hurdle race was amusing, inasmuch that the leader left +the hurdles down for his followers. W. Schwegler won, in the slow time +of 28s.; C. T. Wiegand and G. Schwegler second and third. + +M. Mundle won the half-mile run, in 2m. 35s.; F. J. Leonard second, and +J. S. Paxton third. + +The one-mile novice race was won by W. R. Hooper, with W. J. Carr +second, and H. L. Spencer third. + +The one-mile run was won by J. T. McGregor, with 100 yards start, in +4m. 37s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ New Jersey Athletic Club, of Bergen Point, N. J., has +now over 500 members, and gives promise of becoming one of the +largest athletic clubs in the country. Its features embrace baseball, +bicycling, rowing, yachting and canoeing, to which lawn tennis, +lacrosse, gymnastics, etc., are to be added. The grounds of the club +are located on Avenue A, in the city of Bayonne. + + +BASEBALL. + +~The~ close of the August campaign in the League championship +arena left New York well in the van, with Chicago a good second and +Detroit third, Boston being fourth. August proved to be a disastrous +month for Detroit, while it was the very reverse for Boston. Pittsburgh +made a good rally in August, in the hope of getting a position in +advance of Boston; but the latter’s recovery from their temporary +demoralization put an end to that. Chicago fell back somewhat during +August, and New York’s successful career was checked, but not to any +damaging extent. Philadelphia more than held its own and improved its +position, while Washington managed to push Indianapolis into the last +ditch. The first two weeks of September saw several important changes +made in the positions of the contestants. During this period the +Eastern teams began their last tour westward, and while New York held +its own well, Boston fell off badly, Detroit pushing the Bostons back +to fourth place after they had lost third a week before. Indianapolis, +too, reversed positions with Washington, the latter being forced into +the tail-end place. Chicago began a good rally to overcome New York’s +lead, but it was too heavy up-hill work for them. The full record up +to the 10th of September left the eight clubs occupying the following +relative positions: + + A: New York. + B: Chicago. + C: Detroit. + D: Boston. + E: Philadelphia. + F: Pittsburgh. + G: Indianapolis. + H: Washington. + I: Victories. + J: Possible victories. + K: Played. + L: To play. + M: Per cent. of victories. + + ------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+---+---+--+---- + ~Clubs.~ |A |B |C |D |E |F |G |H || I | J | K |L | M + ------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+---+---+--+---- + New York |--| 4| 8|12|14| 7|13|11|| 69|103|106|34|.651 + Chicago | 8|--|10| 9| 8| 9|12| 6|| 62| 93|109|31|.569 + Detroit | 5|10|--| 5| 7| 9|11|10|| 57| 91|106|34|.538 + Boston | 8| 7| 6|--| 6| 5|10|15|| 57| 89|108|32|.528 + Philadelphia| 5| 5| 5| 9|--|12| 7|10|| 53| 88|105|35|.505 + Pittsburgh | 3|11| 7| 7| 4|--|13| 6|| 51| 85|106|34|.481 + Indianapolis| 4| 5| 8| 4| 4| 6|--|10|| 41| 70|111|29|.369 + Washington | 4| 5| 5| 5| 9| 7| 4|--|| 39| 72|107|33|.364 + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+---+---+--+---- + Games Lost |37|47|49|51|52|55|68|70||429| | | | + ------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+---+---+--+---- + +The American pennant race, which during the summer promised such an +interesting contest between the Athletic and Brooklyn teams, at the +finish had its aspect materially altered by the result of the August +campaign, during which the Brooklyn team lost so much ground that they +were driven from first place down to fourth. During early September, +however, they rallied successfully to recover a portion of their lost +ground, and by the 10th of that month they had got back to third place, +and were pushing the Athletics for second place. + +In the interior, the St. Louis team had almost secured a firm grasp of +the pennant, they being ten victories in advance of Brooklyn and nine +ahead of the Athletics, which team occupied second place, Cincinnati +falling off badly in September. By the 10th of September, too, +Cleveland had got ahead of Baltimore, and Louisville was being pushed +into the last ditch by Kansas City. + +The Eastern teams began their last Western tour in September, and on +the result of that tour would depend the championship. Before the +middle of September, the St. Louis Club began making arrangements to +take part in the World’s Championship series of 1888, so sanguine were +they of ultimate success in the race. But “there is many a slip between +the cup and the lip” in baseball contests. Here is the full record up +to September 10, inclusive. + + A: St. Louis. + B: Athletic. + C: Brooklyn. + D: Cincinnati. + E: Cleveland. + F: Baltimore. + G: Louisville. + H: Kansas City. + I: Games won. + J: Per cent. of victories. + K: Possible victories. + L: Games played. + M: Games to play. + + ------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+----+---+---+-- + ~Clubs.~ |A |B |C |D |E |F |G |H || I | J | K | L |M + ------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+----+---+---+-- + St. Louis |--| 8| 7| 6|14|11|12|12|| 70|.673|106|104|36 + Athletic | 6|--| 7|10| 8|11|13|12|| 67|.644|103|104|36 + Brooklyn |10| 8|--|11|11| 7|11| 8|| 66|.595| 95|111|29 + Cincinnati | 7| 6| 5|--| 8|12|11|11|| 60|.571| 95|105|35 + Cleveland | 3| 6| 4| 6|--| 7| 9| 9|| 43|.413| 79|104|36 + Baltimore | 4| 4| 7| 5| 7|--| 8| 9|| 44|.405| 76|108|32 + Louisville | 2| 4| 6| 3| 6| 9|--| 9|| 39|.364| 72|107|33 + Kansas City | 2| 2| 9| 4| 7| 7| 4|--|| 35|.333| 70|105|35 + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+----+---+---+-- + Games Lost |34|37|45|45|61|64|68|70||424| | | | + ------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--++---+----+---+---+-- + + * * * * * + +~In~ the amateur arena, the contests between the four clubs +of the New York Amateur League are the only events worthy of special +mention. The addition of the Orange Athletic Club, of Rosewell, N. +J., to the League has harmonized things since the New Jersey Athletic +Association took their team out of the League, and the new member has +done some good work in the field this past month. The Staten Island +Athletic Club nine is thus far in the van, with the Staten Island +Cricket Club team second, and that of the Brooklyn Athletic Club third. +Here is the record to August 31. + + A: Staten Island A. C. + B: Staten Island C. C. + C: Brooklyn A. C. + D: Orange A. C. + E: Victories. + F: Games played. + G: Per cent. of victories. + + --------------------+--+--+--+--++--+--+---- + ~Clubs.~ |A |B |C |D ||E |F | G + --------------------+--+--+--+--++--+--+---- + Staten Island A. C. |--| 3| 7| 3||13|17|.813 + Staten Island C. C. | 2|--| 4| 2|| 8|14|.571 + Brooklyn A. C. | 0| 2|--| 3|| 5|16|.312 + Orange A. C. | 2| 1| 0|--|| 3|11|.272 + +--+--+--+--++--+--+---- + Defeats | 4| 6|11| 8||29| | + --------------------+--+--+--+--++--+--+---- + +~Note.~--For report of the A. C. A. Meet see Editor’s Open +Window. + + +BOWLING. + +~The~ semi-annual meeting of the Progressive Bowling Club was +held on August 12, in the Y. M. H. A. Hall, Plane Street, Newark, N. +J. The following were elected officers: Leon M. Berkowitz, president; +Philip Bornstein, vice-president; Harry Leucht, secretary; Nathan +Straus, financial secretary; E. Schloss, treasurer and assistant +captain; D. R. Block, captain; M. Mendel, scorer. + + +CANOEING. + +~The~ interest in canoeing is on the increase in Maine. The +number of canoes afloat in the neighborhood of Bath has increased +from eight in 1887 to nearly thirty at present. The Star Canoe Club, +recently organized, has the following list of officers: Captain, W. B. +Potter; mate, H. O. Stinson; secretary and treasurer, H. H. Donnell; +steward, C. B. Coombs. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Washington Canoe Association, which is composed of the +Washington and Potomac Canoe Clubs, gave a complimentary “Camp Fire” +to its many friends on the night of Thursday, August 22. The usual +success of the association’s entertainments was quite eclipsed on this +occasion. The grounds selected were in a half-cleared glen on a wooded +side of Arlington Bluffs, and a vastly pretty picture was presented +by the white tents and pretty lanterns among the trees, while in the +midst a giant bonfire lit up the surrounding shadows. The weather was +all that could be desired, and a pleasant breeze obviated the too great +heat of the huge fire. The trip to the rendezvous on the steamer was +delightful, and the supper provided was all that could be desired. +After the meal fun reigned rampant, and what with songs, stories and +music, the party passed a delightful evening. At length the return trip +was reluctantly begun, and the eyes of the returning merry-makers, on +approaching the Canoe-house, were greeted with the pretty sight of that +structure illuminated throughout with lanterns. + + * * * * * + + +CRICKET. + +~The~ Arapahoe Cricket Club is the title of a new club recently +organized in Denver, Col. Its officers are David D. Seerie, president; +Robert D. Macpherson, field-captain; Robert Findlay, secretary and +treasurer. + + * * * * * + +~Two~ cricket matches were played at Central Park on Saturday, +August 18; one between the New Yorks and Cosmopolitans, and the other +between the Amateur League and the Claremont Cricket Club of New +Jersey. In the first named match, Mr. Hammond, of the New Yorks, was +severely hurt. The Cosmopolitans won by a score of 56 to 36. In the +other match, the New Jersey visitors defeated their opponents with +ease. The Claremonts scored 50, while the Amateurs were only able to +make 13 runs. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Manhattan Cricket Club gave the Kings County Club a +terrible thrashing at Prospect Park on August 18. After putting the +Kings County out for 41 runs, the Manhattans ran up 189 for five +wickets. J. G. Davis, 69, not out; M. R. Cobb, 40, and G. Robinson, 30, +hit very hard for their runs, especially the latter, who made a hit for +seven. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Albion Cricket Club easily defeated the Brooklyn Club at +Prospect Park, August 18. The scores were: Albion, 111 runs; Brooklyn, +22. Only one inning was played. + + * * * * * + +~Two~ teams, composed of junior members of the Seabright Cricket +Club, one under the captainship of Mrs. Herman Clark and the other +headed by Miss L. Shippen, played a match at Seabright, August 18. Mrs. +Shippen’s side won by a score of 116 to 107. Mrs. Clark distinguished +herself by making a fine hit for three runs in her score of seven. Miss +Shippen made four runs in good form. + + * * * * * + +~A record-breaking score~ was made at Boston in September by the +Longwood Club Eleven, in their match with the Thornton Club Eleven, of +Rhode Island, the score of the Longwood’s first innings reaching the +unprecedented figures of 412, the largest single innings score yet made +in America. A feature of the innings was George Wright’s individual +contribution of 120 runs, the highest score ever made in a match in +Boston by any one individual cricketer. Of the Longwood Eleven in this +contest, nine of the batsmen contributed double figures, Mudie’s 47 +being the next best score to George Wright’s. No less than 376 runs +were made off the bat, the extras being 36. There were 758 balls bowled +by the eight bowlers of the Thornton Eleven during the four and a half +hours the Longwoods were at the bat, Asling being the most successful +bowler of the visiting eleven, he taking 5 wickets for 77 runs. On the +other side, Chambers took 7 wickets for 7 runs, and George Wright 1 +wicket for 9 runs, the Thornton eleven being disposed of for 18 runs +only. The full score of this remarkable game is appended. + + LONGWOODS. + + Caton, b. Asling 39 + G. Wright, c. and b. Asling 120 + Bixby, c. and b. Asling 6 + Chambers, c. Vine, b. Asling 12 + S. Wright, b. Guy 1 + L. Mansfield, c. R. Beastall, b. Guy 24 + H. C. Tyler, b. R. Beastall 34 + Mudie, b. Dove 47 + F. Mansfield, c. North, b. Asling 30 + Burton, not out 31 + Hubbard, run out 32 + Byes, 19; leg byes, 11; wides, 4; no balls, 2 36 + --- + Total 412 + + +THORNTONS. + + Oborne, b. Chambers 4 + Guy, b. Chambers 2 + Dove, c. G. Wright, b. Chambers 2 + North, b. G. Wright 0 + Asling, b. Chambers 1 + Collett, c. L. Mansfield, b. Chambers 6 + Burton, b. Chambers 0 + C. Beastall, c. G. Wright, b. Chambers 1 + R. Beastall, not out 0 + Vine, did not bat 0 + Davidson, did not bat 0 + Byes 2 + -- + Total 18 + + +BOWLING ANALYSIS. + +LONGWOODS. + + Balls. Maidens. Wickets. Runs. + + Dove 194 5 1 85 + R. Beastall 96 1 1 50 + Guy 96 2 2 50 + North 78 1 0 47 + Asling 168 3 5 77 + Oborne 90 3 0 38 + Vine 24 0 0 14 + C. Beastall 12 0 0 15 + +Guy bowled 3 wides and Asling 1, and the latter and North each bowled a +no ball. + + +THORNTONS. + + George Wright 24 1 1 9 + Chambers 24 0 7 7 + +~The~ return match between All Canada and the Gentlemen of +Ireland took place at Toronto, September 1. It resulted in a draw, but +slightly in favor of the Canadians, who scored 172 to their opponents’ +65 for seven wickets. The Irish distinctly wished it to be understood, +however, before playing the return game, that it was simply a “scratch” +game, and the result either way would not have counted in the record of +the tour. Stratton, Saunders, Jones and Gillespie all played well for +their runs, especially the first named, who played with great judgment. +Ogden, near the call of “time,” bowled with great effect. The fielding +was sharp and clean. The Irishmen did not, however, play with much +spirit, but went in for hit or miss style, and in this manner lost +seven wickets for 65 runs, when stumps were pulled. + + * * * * * + +~Two~ teams of the juniors of the Seabright Cricket Club played +an interesting match, September 1. Mrs. Herman Clark captained one and +Miss G. Shippen the other. Mrs. Herman Clark’s team won by a score of +213 to 212, with two wickets to spare. Mrs. Clark played an excellent +innings. + + +CYCLING. + +~The~ Capital City Bicycle Club was organized recently +in Trenton, N. J., with a membership of twenty active racers. +The following officers were elected: President, Frank S. Warren; +vice-president, Charles D. Gandy; secretary and treasurer, Schuyler C. +Fell; captain, Howard M. White; lieutenant, George Watson. + + * * * * * + +~About~ a dozen members of the Orange Wanderers left the +club-house at 6.30, August 18th morning for a run to Greenwood Lake, +which they reached about noon. The rest of the day was passed in +fishing, bathing and boating. Early in the evening they started for +home, part of the trip being made by moonlight. + + * * * * * + +~On~ the quarter-mile cinder track of the New Jersey Athletic +Club at Bergen Point a series of prize bicycle races, open to all +amateurs, and to be contested four successive Saturdays, were begun +August 18. W. H. Caldwell, New Jersey Athletic Club; S. B. Bowman, +New Jersey Athletic Club, and Hudson County Wheelmen, and J. E. Day, +Hudson County Wheelmen, all started from the scratch in the first +event, distance one mile. Caldwell led throughout, and won by nearly +one-eighth of a mile. Time, 3m. 6s. Day never challenged Bowman for +second place. In a two-mile race, S. B. Bowman and Capt. E. P. Baggott, +of the Hudson County Wheelmen, started from the scratch. Baggott set +the pace for the first mile, making the distance in 3m. 19s. Bowman +then went to the front and won by five yards. Time, 6m. 24¼s. The +last quarter was made by Bowman in 42¼s. + + * * * * * + +~A Bicycle~ meet of importance was held on the track of the +Imperial Trotting Horse Company, Chadinka Grounds, Moscow, Russia, July +11. The festival was opened by a parade, in which twenty-three bicycle +and tricycle riders appeared in racing dress. The score was as follows: + +One-mile race (for amateurs who have never won a prize)--H. Davis, 1st; +L. E. Barusdin, 2d; M. W. Nowomlinsky, 3d. Time, 3m. 54½s. The track +was soft, and through this slow times were made. + +One-mile tricycle race--N. P. Oboldnew, 1st; S. W. Dokutschaew, 2d. +Time, 5m. 39½s. + +Six-mile race--F. W. Bjeloussow, 1st; M. W. Nowomlinsky, 2d. Time, 27m. +10s. + +One-mile safety race--K. Kossonrow, 1st; D. G. Engel, 2d. Time, 4m. 47s. + +Two-mile race--F. Zemlicka, 1st; F. F. Schukow, 2d. Time, 7m. 16s. + +One-mile tricycle race (ladies only)--E. L. Zemlicka, 1st; A. A. +Skworzowa, 2d; A. S. Sosnina, 3d. Time, 8m. 35½s. + +One-mile championship race--F. Zemlicka, 1st; H. Davis, 2d; M. +Nowomlinsky, 3d. Time, 3m. 38s.--_Cyclist._ + + * * * * * + +~A Bicycle Tournament~ was held at Riverside Park, Binghamton, +August 2, which resulted as follows: + +Half-mile, scratch--W. W. Windle, Lynn, 1m. 18s; J. F. Midgley, +Worcester, second; E. E. Budd, Elmira, third. + +One mile, novice--C. J. Iven, Rochester, 3m. ¼s. Chas. Perley, Deposit, +second; L. E. Edgcomb, Cortland, third. + +One mile, State championship--W. S. Campbell, Niagara, 3m. 16 2-5s.; H. +C. Hersey, Elmira, second by a long way; E. Budd, Elmira, third. + +Two miles, 6.45 class--C. J. Iven, Rochester, 6m. 21¼s.; W. E. McCune, +Worcester, second; E. L. Shefter, Williamsport, 0; E. Budd, Elmira, 0. + +Half-mile heats between Mesdames Von Blumen and Oakes.--Heat 1--Von +Blumen first, after a desperate struggle. Time, 1m. 51s. Heat 2--Von +Blumen first; Oakes nowhere. Time, 2m. 1½s. Heat 3--Von Blumen +first; Oakes, 0. Time, 1m. 52¾s. + +Half-mile, junior club wheel championship--W. Loveland, 1m. 43¼s.; +W. Schultz, second; F. Newing, 0; H. Nicholl, 0. + +One mile, scratch--W. Windle, 2m. 52¼s.; W. S. Campbell, second; J. F. +Midgley, third. Won easily. + +One mile, Binghamton club wheel championship--F. S. Cox, 3m. 20s.; J. +Cutler, second; A. French, third; S. W. Newton, fourth. + +Three miles, handicap--W. Windle, scratch, 8m. 57¼s.; J. F. Midgley, +second; J. Cutler, third. Handicaps not reported. + +One-mile safety race--J. B. McCune, 2m. 53¾s.; J. F. Midgley second. + +One-mile team race--Windle and Midgley, of Worcester, first. + +One mile, consolation--C. J. Connolly, Rochester, 3m. 8¾s. + +The judges were S. B. Vaughn, Kingston, Pa.; Geo. A. Jessup, Scranton, +Pa.; W. H. Stone, Binghamton Wheel Club. Timers, W. D. Cloyes, +Cortland, N. Y.; H. C. Spaulding, Elmira, N. Y.; W. J. Stephenson, +Binghamton, N. Y. Scorers, C. C. King, Pittston, Pa.; M. C. Craver, +Binghamton Wheel Club; and the referee, Henry E. Ducker, Buffalo, N. Y. + + * * * * * + +~The~ programme of races for the Bicycling Tournament at +Richmond, Virginia, October 23 and 24, will be as follows: + + +FIRST DAY. + +One-half mile, novice, open, value of two prizes, $40. + +Two miles, amateur, “Rovertype Safety,” open, one prize, gold watch and +chain, value $75. + +One mile, professional, open, one prize, $100 in cash. + +One mile, Virginia Division L. A. W., championship, two prizes, valued +at $50. + +Two miles, team, lap (three men each team), open, three medals, valued +at $50. + +One-half mile, without hands, open, one medal, valued at $25. + +One mile, tandem tricycle handicap, open, two prizes, valued at $60. + +One mile, Old Dominion Wheelmen, championship, one prize, valued at $20. + +One-half mile, consolation, one prize, valued at $25. + + +SECOND DAY. + +One-half mile, novice, Virginia Division L. A. W., two prizes, valued +at $50. + +One mile, amateur handicap, open, prize, Star or Crank racing machine. + +One-half mile, ride and run, amateur, open, two prizes, valued at $40. + +Three miles, professional, lap, one prize, $100 in cash. + +One mile, team, lap (teams of three men each, Virginia Division L. A. +W. only), one prize, consisting of three medals and a cup, valued at +$65. + +One-half mile, steeplechase (any kind of a wheel), two prizes, valued +at $35. + +One-half mile, amateur, open, gold watch, valued at $75. + +Three miles, Virginia Division L. A. W., championship, two prizes, +valued at $50. + +One-half mile, consolation, one prize, valued at $20. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Huntington, L. I., Bicycle Club races took place August 3, +and resulted as follows: + +Half-mile dash--F. G. Brown, K. C. W., 1m. 29¼s. W. T. Murphy, K. C. +W., second. + +One mile, novice--F. W. Lincoln, Mercury W. C., 3m. 14s.; Frank Asbury, +Q. C. W., second. + +Two miles, 6.45 class--H. P. Matthews, B. B. C., 7m. 2½s.; H. +Quortrop, Q. C. W., second. + +One mile, open--F. G. Brown, K. C. W., 4m. 3½s.; H. B. Matthews, B. B. +C., second. + +One mile, Huntington Club championship--S. C. Ebbets, 3m. 21½s.; Chas. +B. Scudder, second. + +Three miles, handicap--H. P. Matthews, B. B. C., 25 yards, 12m. 12s.; +W. T. Murphy, K. C. W., 25 yards, second. + +One mile, consolation--J. G. Ebbets, Huntington B. C., 3m. 37½s.; J. +Magee, Q. C. W., second. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Seventh Annual Tournament of the Toronto Bicycle Club took +place on the Rosedale grounds, August 13--weather fine, wind fresh, +track in fair condition. The summary is as follows: + +One mile, green; first round--First heat, J. H. Gerrie, W. B. C., 3m. +5 1-5s.; R. S. Peniston, W. B. C., second; B. W. Woods, W. B. C., +third; W. J. Moody, W. B. C., fourth; H. Wood, T. B. C., fifth. Second +heat--G. C. Willmott, T. B. C., 3m. 21 2-5s.; J. A. Knight, St. Louis, +second by two lengths; C. W. Hurndall, T. B. C., third; A. Bryant, T. +B. C., fourth. Final heat, first three in first heat and first two in +second heat to start--Gerrie, 3m. 18 3-5s.; Woods, second by ten yards; +Knight, third by a yard; Willmott, fourth; Peniston did not finish. + +Half-mile--W. Windle, Lynn, Mass., B. C., 1m. 21 2-5s.; W. S. Campbell, +Niagara Falls, N. Y., second; L. B. Cooper, Belleville, third; W. M. +Carman, Norwich, fourth. + +Two miles, club--W. M. Carman, Norwich, 6m. 33s.; M. F. Johnston, +second, by three yards; F. J. Whatmough, third, by ten yards. + +Fancy riding--N. Campbell, Niagara Falls, did many difficult feats, and +rode a quarter of a mile on one wheel in 1m. 5 2-5s. + +One mile, handicap--W. Windle, Lynn, Mass., scratch, 2m. 56 4-5s.; W. +S. Campbell, Niagara Falls, N. Y., twenty yards, second, by ten yards; +B. Woods, W. B. C., 150 yards, third, by three yards; L. B. Cooper, +Belleville, forty yards, fourth; W. A. Lingham, Belleville, forty +yards, fifth; F. Midgley, Worcester, Mass., fifty yards; C. R. Fitch, +Brantford, fifty yards, and W. M. Carman, Norwich, seventy-five yards, +did not finish; F. J. Whatmough, T. B. C., seventy-five yards, fell. + +One mile, 3.20 class--W. H. Brown, W. B. C., 3m. 15 2-5s.; W. M. +Carman, Norwich, second, by two lengths; W. A. Lingham, Belleville, +third, by half a wheel; C. R. Fitch, Brantford, fourth. + +Five miles--W. Windle, 15m. 52 2-5s.; W. S. Campbell quit at 4½ miles; +C. R. Fitch quit at half a mile. + +Quarter-mile combination race--The competitors drew their bicycles 110 +yards, rode with one foot 110 yards, lifted them over a hurdle, pushed +on one wheel and then on two wheels to the finish. C. W. Hurndall, 1m. +12½s.; A. G. Peacey, second; C. J. Lowe, third; G. C. Willmott, fourth; +R. T. Blackford, fifth; A. Bryant, sixth. + +Three-mile roadster race--F. Midgley, Worcester, Mass., 9m. 58 +2-5s.; J. H. Gerrie, W. B. C., second, by 200 yards; W. A. Lingham, +Belleville, third, by twenty yards; J. A. Knight, St. Louis, fourth; L. +B. Cooper, Belleville, did not finish. + +One mile, Safety machines--M. F. Johnston, T. B. C., 3m. 11 2-5s.; +T. Fane, W. B. C., second, by fifty yards; R. S. Peniston, W. B. C., +0; W. J. Moody, W. B. C., 0. F. Midgley wished to ride a Springfield +roadster, and, though ruled off by the referee, started and finished +first. + + * * * * * + +~The~ widespread influence of cycling is well shown by the +publication _La Révue du Sport Vélocipédique_, the official cycling +organ of France. It is a brightly conducted paper, and will do much to +advance the cause of wheeling among our French brethren. + + * * * * * + +~The~ tournament at the Buffalo Exposition proved very +successful. It commenced September 4th, extended over several days, +and closed on the 10th. H. E. Ducker officiated as general director; +Howard P. Merrill, referee; T. J. Kirkpatrick, George R. Sidwell, W. S. +Bull, Charles H. Potter, Harry H. Hodgson, C. H. Luscaub and Charles A. +Payne, judges; George M. Hendee, starter; J. H. Isham, C. H. Kimball, +W. N. Watson and H. D. Corey, timekeepers. The following is a record of +the races: + +One mile, tandem, professional--F. W. Allard and Jack Lee, England, +first, in 3m. 16 3-5s.; Jules Dubois, Paris, France, and W. F. Knapp, +Denver, Col., second, by twenty yards. + +One mile, amateur, novice--Kenneth Brown, Cambridge, Mass., first, in +3m. 3 3-5s.; Robert W. Jameson, Rochester, second, by two lengths; W. +B. Milley, Buffalo, third; F. N. C. Jerauld, Niagara Falls, fourth. + +Ten miles, L. A. W. championship--Will Windle, Millbury, Mass., first, +in 31m. 37 1-5s.; H. R. Winship, Chicago, second, by fifty yards. + +One mile, professional--H. G. Crocker, Newton, Mass., 10 yds. start, +first, in 2m. 43 2-5s.; W. F. Knapp, Denver, Col., 20 yds., second, by +thirty yards; Sidney Eastwood, Denver, 100 yds., third. + +One mile, amateur, 3.10 class--Bert Myers, Peoria, Ill., first, in 2m. +54 4-5s.; A. C. Barker, Pittsburgh, second, by thirty yards; E. O. +Rasicoe, Woodstock, Ont., third. + +Two miles, amateur, N. Y. State championship--W. S. Campbell, Niagara +Falls, first, in 6m. 22 2-5s.; H. J. Hall, Jr., Brooklyn, N. Y., +second, by five yards; C. J. Iven, Rochester, third. + +Three miles, amateur, tandem--W. E. Crist and P. S. Brown, Washington, +D. C., first, in 9m. 48 2-5s.; A. C. and W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., +second, by fifty yards; C. P. Adams, Springfield, and H. E. Ducker, +Jr., Buffalo, third. + +Two miles, professional (rovers), handicap--F. W. Allard, Coventry, +Eng., 10 yds. start, first, in 6m. 20s.; Jack Lee, Nottingham, Eng., +scratch, second, by three feet; George Seymour, 150 yds., third. + +Three miles, team race--This was between teams representing Buffalo and +Rochester. In the first mile, Charles P. Forbush, of Buffalo, took a +header and broke his wrist, in consequence of which the race went to +Rochester by default. + +One mile, tandem--A. C. and W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., first, in +3m. 1-5s.; H. J. Hall, Jr., Brooklyn, and R. H. Davis, Cambridge, +Mass., second, by twenty yards; P. M. Harris and Val. H. Muller, New +York, third. + + +SECOND DAY, SEPT. 5. + +Two miles, novice--Kenneth Brown, Cambridge, Mass., first, in 6m. +25 2-5s.; F. M. Brinker, Buffalo, second, by a yard; W. B. Milley, +Buffalo, third; Robert W. Jameson, Rochester, fourth. + +Half-mile, special unicycle--W. H. Barber, Rochester, first, in 2m. +22s.; Marshall, second. + +Half-mile, professional--W. F. Knapp, Denver, first, in 1m. 23 4-5s.; +William A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., second, by six inches; Ralph Temple, +Chicago, third; H. G. Crocker, Newton, Mass., fourth. + +Five miles, N. Y. State championship--W. S. Campbell, Niagara Falls, +first, in 18m. 26s.; H. J. Hall, Jr., Brooklyn, second, by thirty +yards; Theodore W. Roberts, Poughkeepsie, third, three yards away. + +Three miles, professional--William J. Morgan, Chicago, 400 yds. start, +first, in 9m. 5s.; H. G. Crocker, Newbury, Mass., scratch, second, by +twenty yards; Ralph Temple, Chicago, 60 yds., third; William A. Rowe, +Lynn, scratch, fourth. + +Three miles, amateur (rovers), roadster--R. H. Davis, Cambridge, Mass., +150 yds., first, in 9m. 57 4-5s.; P. J. Berlo, South Boston, 160 yds., +second; W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., 150 yds., third. + +One mile, team race--Chicago Club won, with 20 points; Washington Club, +second, 10; Rochester Club, third, 6. W. H. Van Sicklen, Chicago, was +first home, in 2m. 58s.; H. K. Winship, Chicago, second, by three feet; +W. E. Crist, Washington, third. + +Five miles, tandem, professional--H. G. Crocker and Robert Neilson, 120 +yds. start, first, in 16m. 20 1-5s.; J. Dubois and W. F. Knapp, 300 +yds., second, by ten yards. + +Five miles, tricycle, L. A. W. championship--W. E. Crist, Washington, +D. C., first, in 21m. 47s.; Fred Foster, Wanderers’ Club, Toronto, +Ont., second. + +Two miles, tandem, open--A. C. and W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., +first, in 6m. 51s.; R. H. Davis, Cambridge, Mass., and H. J. Hall, Jr., +Brooklyn, N. Y., second, by thirty yards; P. M. Harris and Val. H. +Muller, New York, third. + +One mile (rovers), professional--F. W. Allard, England, scratch, first, +in 3m. 4 3-5s.; Jack Lee, Nottingham, Eng., scratch, second, by three +feet; Jules Dubois, Paris, France, 40 yds. start, third. + +One mile, amateur, handicap--H. L. Kingsland, Baltimore, Md., 70 +yds. start, first, in 2m. 47 2-5s.; Bert Myers, Peoria, Ill., 100 +yds., second, by three yards; H. R. Winship, Chicago, Ill., 100 yds., +third; N. H. Van Sicklen, Chicago, Ill., 90 yds., fourth; Will Windle, +Millbury, Mass., scratch, fifth. + + +THIRD DAY, SEPT. 6. + +Three miles, L. A. W. championship--Will Windle, Millbury, Mass., +first, in 9m. 27s.; A. E. Lumsden, Chicago, Ill., second, by thirty +yards; H. R. Winship, Chicago, third. + +Two miles, amateur (rover), open, road wheels--H. R. Davis, Cambridge, +Mass., first, in 6m. 59 3-5s.; P. J. Berlo, South Boston, Mass., +second, by twenty yards; W. E. Crist, Washington, D. C., third. + +Five miles, amateur, 16.00 class--A. C. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., first, +in 17m. 50s.; W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, second, by half a length, +the latter having three broken spokes in his wheel; S. W. Merrihew, +Wilmington, Del., third. + +One mile, tandem, professional--H. G. Crocker and Robert Neilson, +scratch, first, in 2m. 58 3-5s.; Jules Dubois, Paris, and W. F. Knapp, +Denver, 50 yds. start, second, by ten yards; F. W. Allard and Jack Lee, +England, scratch, third, thirty yards away. + +Half mile, amateur, tandem--A. C. and W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., +first, in 1m. 26 2-5s.; R. H. Davis and H. J. Hall, Jr., Brooklyn, N. +Y., second, by thirty yards; W. E. Grist and Phil S. Brown, Washington, +D. C., third. + +One mile, amateur--Will Windle, Millbury, Mass., first, in 3m. 5s.; +Fred Midgley, Worcester, Mass., second; William J. Wilhelm, Reading, +Pa., third. + +Five miles (rovers), professional--F. W. Allard, Coventry, Eng., +scratch, first, in 17m. 51 1-5s.; Jack Lee, Nottingham, Eng., scratch, +second, by a foot; H. G. Crocker, Boston, Mass., 40 yds., third, by +over two hundred yards. + +Two miles, amateur--H. R. Winship, Chicago, Ill., 250 yds. start, +first, in 6m. 9 3-5s.; A. E. Lumsden, Chicago, 175 yds., second, by +thirty yards; A. C. Banker, Pittsburgh, Pa., 250 yds., third. + +Three miles, tricycle, professional--Jack Lee, Nottingham, Eng., first, +in 12m. 7 3-5s.; F. W. Allard, Coventry, Eng., second, by twelve feet; +H. G. Crocker, Newbury, Mass., third, ten feet behind. + +One mile, championship of Buffalo--W. B. Milley, Buffalo, first, in +3m. 22 1-5s.; F. M. Brinker, Buffalo, second, by thirty yards; J. B. +Milley, Buffalo, third. + +On the fourth day, September 7, there was a run from Buffalo to Niagara +Falls. On the fifth day, the track races were postponed on account of +the weather, but the road race took place as follows: + +One hundred miles, on the road, Erie to Buffalo--Frank M. Dampman, +Honeybrook, Pa., first, in 9h. 52m. 29 3-5s.; Frank McDaniels, +Wilmington, Del., second, in 9h. 55m. 23 4-5s.; Frank G. Lenz, +Pittsburgh, Pa., third, in 10h. 4m. 44 4-5s.; G. A. Tivy, St. Louis, +Mo., fourth, in 10h. 8m. 21 3-5s.; S. W. Merrihew, Wilmington, Del., +fifth, in 10h. 10m. 52 4-5s.; Roy S. Blowers, Westfield, N. Y., +sixth, in 10h. 25m. 45s. The start was made in the midst of a severe +rain-storm, the roads were bad all the distance, and the contestants +suffered greatly from the weather. + +On Monday, Sept. 10, the races were ridden on the one-mile trotting +track, which, though heavy, was not as soft as the cycling track. + +One mile, tandem, open, road wheels only--W. E. Crist and P. S. +Brown, Washington, D. C., first, in 3m. 46s.; A. C. and W. D. Banker, +Pittsburgh, Pa., second, by thirty yards; R. H. Davis, Cambridge, +Mass., and H. J. Hall, Jr., Brooklyn, third, a length away. + +Half-mile, amateur--Will Windle, Millbury, Mass., first, in 1m. 22 +3-5s.; W. S. Campbell, Niagara Falls, second, by thirty yards; A. E. +Lumsden, Chicago, Ill., third, two yards away. + +Two miles, professional--W. A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., scratch, first, in +5m. 54 3-5s.; Ralph Temple, Chicago, Ill., scratch, second, by a yard; +H. G. Crocker, Newton, Mass., scratch, third, by five yards; W. J. +Morgan, Chicago, 250 yards start, fourth, a length behind. + +Ten miles, amateur--A. E. Lumsden, Chicago, Ill., 400 yards start, in +32m. 15s.; H. R. Winship, Chicago, 600 yards, second, by twenty yards; +W. J. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., 600 yards, third, beaten off. + +One mile, tandem, amateur--A. C. and W. D. Banker, Pittsburgh, 120 +yards start, first, in 2m. 47s.; P. M. Harris and Val H. Muller, New +York, 300 yards, second. + +One mile, amateur--E. O. Rasicoe, Woodstock, Ont., first, in 3m. 2s.; +Bert Myers, Peoria, Ill., second, by a yard; C. J. Iven, Rochester, N. +Y., third, by the same distance. + +One mile, tandem, professional--H. G. Crocker, Newton, and R. Neilson, +Boston, Mass., scratch, first, in 2m. 56 1-5s.; J. Dubois, Paris, and +W. F. Knapp, Denver, 30 yards start, second, by five yards; F. W. +Allard, Coventry, and J. Lee, Nottingham, Eng., third. + +One mile, amateur, open--Will Windle, Millbury, Mass., first, in 2m. 58 +4-5s.; W. J. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., second by five yards; W. E. Crist, +Washington, ten yards off. + +One mile, professional (rovers)--Jules Dubois, Paris, France, 40 yards, +first, in 2m. 51 3-5s.; F. W. Allard, Coventry, Eng., scratch, second, +by two yards; Jack Lee, Nottingham, Eng., scratch, third, ten yards +behind. + +One mile, amateur, consolation--E. P. Cochran, Leroy, N. Y., first, in +3m. 9s.; C. J. Connelly, Rochester, second, by five yards; R. T. M. +McLaren, Adams, third, one hundred yards away. + +Professional races for the world’s championship--First heat, three +miles: H. G. Crocker, Newton, Mass., first, in 11m. 7 2-5s.; W. A. +Rowe, Lynn, Mass., second, by three yards; W. F. Knapp, Denver, Col., +third, close up. Second heat, five miles: W. A. Rowe first, in 18m. 43 +1-5s.; H. G. Crocker second; Robert Neilson, Boston, third; W. F. Knapp +fourth. Ralph Temple finished first, but was disqualified for fouling +Rowe. Final heat, one mile: Rowe first, in 2m. 52 3-5s.; Crocker +second, by five yards; Knapp third, twenty yards behind; Neilson fourth. + + +FOOTBALL. + +~The~ last of the football games was played August 18, between +the St. Paul and Thistle clubs of Minneapolis, and resulted in a +victory for the latter by eight goals to one. This finished the series +and gave the pennant or Shaw cup to the Thistles. The teams were as +follows: _St. Paul._--Goal, J. A. Jenkins; backs, L. Owen and A. +McCulloch, “captain;” half backs, J. Wilson, J. Brown and S. L. Titus; +forwards, L. A. Shirley, W. Pollock, G. Douglas, C. Murphy and J. B. +Darling. _Thistle._--Goal, J. Henry; backs, K. Henry and Wm. Pringle, +“captain;” half backs, Andrew Gray, D. McMillian and A. Richmond; +forwards, G. Anderson, J. H. Barry, J. McKendrick, J. Emslie and R. H. +Teeple. Below is given the summary of the four clubs belonging to the +“Twin City Hall Association”: + + _Played._ _Won._ _Lost._ + + Thistle 5 4 1 + St. Paul 5 3 2 + Tam O’Shanters 2 0 2 + North Star 2 0 2 + + _Goals scored._ _Lost._ + + Thistle 23 4 + St. Paul 11 8 + Tam O’Shanters 1 7 + North Stars 0 16 + +~The~ football season in New England opened at Fall River, +Mass., with an exhibition game between the Rovers, who hold the +championship of the American Association, and the Olympics, who hold +the local Bristol County championship. The match was finely played, and +the Rovers won, 1 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ announcement comes from London that the Canadian football +team, September 1, defeated the County Antrim Irish team in a match by +six goals to two. + + +KENNEL. + +~President Belmont~, of the American Kennel Club, at a meeting +of the club recently, appointed a committee, consisting of C. J. +Peshall and A. P. Vredenburg, to draft a circular to be sent to all +breeders of the country. The object of this document is to set forth +the history of the A. K. C., its aims and also its ineffectual attempt +to consolidate all existing registers into one stud-book, and to +explain and thoroughly set forth the meaning and animus of its enemies +who are working against it. + + * * * * * + +~The~ third annual bench show of the American Fox Terrier Club +was held at Saratoga, August 22, 23 and 24, and in point of quality +excelled its predecessors, though the number of entries was not as +great as that of the preceding years. The following is a list of the +awards: + +Champion Dogs--1st, the Blemton Kennel’s Lucifer (as _in præsenti_, by +Splinter, out of Kohinoor); 2d, the Blemton Kennel’s Bacchanal (by the +Belgravian, out of Bedlamite). + +Champion Bitches--1st, the Blemton Kennel’s Rachel (by Result, out of +Heather Bell); 2d, the Blemton Kennel’s Diadem (by Dugdale Joe, out of +Diamond Dust); V H C, the Blemton Kennel’s Marguerite (by Brokenhurst +Spice, out of Daisy). + +Open Class--Dogs--1st, the Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Rubicon (by +Regent, out of Rachel); 2d, the Blemton Kennel’s Dusky Trap (by Dusky +Splinter, out of Spider); 3d, Mr. Jno. E. Thayer’s Raby Mixer (by +Raby Mixture, out of Richmond Olive Bud); 4th, Mr. Jno. E. Thayer’s +Reckoner (by Regent, out of Nita); V H C, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton +Volunteer and Blemton Coronet, Mr. Jno. E. Thayer’s Luke; H C, T. L. +Drayton’s Blemton Sentinel; C, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Volunteer, H. +P. Frothingham’s Mugwump and Clarence Rathbone’s Beverwyck Tippler. + +Open Bitch Class--1st, the Blemton Kennel’s New Forest Ethel (by +New Forest, out of Auburn); 2d, Jno. E. Thayer’s Richmond Dazzle +(by Raby Mixture, out of Richmond Puzzle); 3d, the Blemton Kennel’s +Blemton Consequence (by Result, out of Diadem); 4th, Jno. E. Thayer’s +Princess (by Venetian, out of Lurette); V H C, Jno. E. Thayer’s +Fraulein Mixture; H C, the Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Dahabiah; C, Mr. C. +Rathbone’s Blemton Arrow. + +Dog Puppies--1st, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Rubicon (by Regent--Rachel); +2d, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Coronet; 3d, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton +Volunteer; V H C, reserve, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Grumbler; V H C, +Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Calculus; V H C, Mr. F. Hoey’s---- by Lucifer, +out of Regent Virtue; C, Jno. E. Thayer’s Hillside Monk. + +Bitch Puppies--1st, Blemton Consequence (by Result, out of Diadem); 2d, +Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Rainbow (by Regent, out of Rachel); 3d, H. P. +Frothingham’s Fidget (by Faust, out of Blemton Lottery). + +Novice Class--1st, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Rubicon (by Regent, out +of Rachel); 2d, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Coronet (by Result, out of +Diadem); V H C, reserve, Jno. E. Thayer’s Princess, Blemton Kennel’s +Blemton Calculus and Blemton Rainbow; H C, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton +Dahabiah; C, H. P. Frothingham’s Mugwump and Blemton Lottery, Jno. E. +Thayer’s Raby Chance, R. S. Ryan’s Linden Splint and Fred Hoey’s---- +(by New Forest, out of Regent Virtue). + +Selling Class--1st, Blemton Kennel’s Blemton Grumbler (by Lucifer, +out of Garuma); 2d, Jno. E. Thayer’s Sly Mixture (by Mixture, out of +Shame); V H C, Blemton Pepper. + +Wire-haired Champion Class--1st, Mr. Samuel Insull’s Bristles (by +Pincher, out of Squish). + +Open Dogs--1st, Jno. E. Thayer’s Dare Devil (by Surprise, out of +Vixen); 2d, Jno. E. Thayer’s Rat Trap (by Surprise, out of Vixen); V H +C, Samuel Insull’s Pinwire. + +Puppies--1st, Charles W. Cornwell’s Miss Bristle (by Broxton Tantrum, +out of Champion Bristles); other prize withheld. + +Welsh Terriers--1st, Mr. Prescott Lawrence’s Which; 2d, Mr. Prescott +Lawrence’s T’other. + +Irish Terriers--Dogs and Bitches--1st, Mr. Thomas Wise, Jr.’s, Badger +Boy; 2d, Mr. Thomas Wise, Jr.’s, Gypsy Maid (by Dushing, out of Gypsy +Girl); 3d, Mr. Thomas Wise, Jr.’s, Gypsy Girl; H C, Mr. Thomas Wise, +Jr.’s, Dan. + +English Terriers--Mr. O. H. P. Belmont’s Diamond Spark (by Diamond, out +of Juno); 2d, Mr. O. H. P. Belmont’s Lonely (by Spring, out of Lady +Florence). + +Bedlington Terriers--Dogs and Bitches--1st, Mr. E. D. Morgan’s Tees +Rock. + +Hard-haired Scotch Terriers--1st, Mr. E. D. Morgan’s Highland Laddie +(by Charlie, out of Flossie). + +Dandie Dinmonts--1st, John H. Naylor’s Cromwell (by Shern, out of Queen +of the Border). + +Bull Terriers--1st, W. F. Hobbie’s Cairo (by Champion Max Marx, out of +Champion Mistress of the Robes); 2d, W. F. Hobbie’s Bonnie Princess (by +Silver King, out of Kettering’s Maggie); V H C, George House’s Duchess +of York and Grabbler; C, Frank F. Dole’s My Queen. + +Bull Terriers under 30 lbs.--1st, Frank F. Dole’s Nell Bright (by +Bendigo, out of Daisy); 2d, Frank F. Dole’s Sensation (by Bulrush, out +of Fancy); V H C, Marion Randolph’s Peggy; H C, Fannie W. Ogden’s Gypsy. + +Puppy Class--1st, Fannie W. Ogden’s She (by Grabbler, out of Gypsy). + +Rough-coated Toy Terriers--1st, withheld; 2d, Frank F. Dole’s Napper +(by Little Wonder, out of Bella). + +Selling Class, any variety except fox terriers--1st, F. F. Dole’s Nell +Bright; 2d, John H. Naylor’s Cromwell. + + * * * * * + +~John S. Wise~, President of the Richmond, Va., Bench Show, +writes that the entries for the October fixtures will be large. The +entries of fox hounds will be particularly large. + +The Virginia A. M. & T. Exposition offers the following special prizes +for the best kennel, to consist of not less than four, and at least two +kennels to compete, each kennel to be owned by one exhibitor. + +Class A--For best kennel English setters, $25. + +Class B--For best kennel of pointers, $25. + +Class C--For best kennel of collies, $25. + +Class D--For best kennel of fox hounds, not less than six, $25. + +They also offer the following specials: + +Class E--For the best setter dog or bitch of any breed in the show that +has run in a field trial, $20. + +Class F--For the best pointer dog or bitch in the show that has run in +a field trial, $20. + +Class G--For the best blue-mottled fox hound dog or bitch exhibited, +$20. + +The American Fox Terrier Club offers: + +Class H--For the best exhibit of fox terriers, $20. + +A Friend of Beagles offers: + +Class I--For the best brace of beagle bitches, owned by one exhibitor, +$25. + +The American Gordon Setter Club offers: + +Class K--A special prize of a solid piece of silver, valued at $25, for +the best Gordon setter dog or bitch in the show, $25. + +The Collie Club of America offers: + +Class L--Its club medal, or $10 in cash, for the best collie bred and +owned by a resident of any Southern State, Maryland included, $10. + + +LACROSSE. + +~The~ deciding game in the series for the championship of the +National Amateur Lacrosse Association of Canada was played in Montreal, +August 18, by the teams of the Shamrock and Brockville clubs, the +former winning by a score of three goals to one. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Brooklyn Lacrosse Team played the Jersey City Club at +Oakland Park, Jersey City, August 25. Each side made two goals in a +contest lasting over an hour. + + +LAWN TENNIS. + +~The~ Lawn Tennis Tournament at Narragansett Pier, August 4th, +resulted as follows: Preliminary Round, singles--W. R. Weeden beat +Elliott, 6-3, 8-6; F. Hill beat H. C. Phillips, 6-1, 6-2; F. Warren +beat S. Smith, 6-3, 6-2; R. B. Hale beat F. Keene by default; E. T. +Lynch beat J. Weeden by default; H. W. Slocum, Jr., beat S. M. Colgote, +6-0, 6-1; M. Graham beat A. O. Taylor by default. First round, Weeden +beat Hill, 6-3, 6-2; Hale beat Warren, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1; Slocum beat +Lynch, 6-0, 6-0; J. A. Ryerson beat Graham, 6-1, 6-1; C. A. Chase beat +T. S. Tailer, 6-2, 6-0; O. S. Campbell beat L. Saltus, 6-2, 9-7; H. +Post beat E. Wilbur, 6-0, 6-0; Q. A. Shaw, Jr., beat J. Bryant, 6-0, +6-2; C. E. Smith beat W. Billings, 6-0, 6-1; D. G. Snow beat J. S. +Brown by default; P. V. Lansdale beat W. Smith, 6-0, 2-6, 6-0; L. H. +Dulles beat S. P. Griffin, 6-3, 6-4; A. E. Wright beat W. R. Graham, +6-0, 6-3; H. W. Cozzens beat G. H. Gilman, 6-1, 9-7; H. A. Taylor beat +J. Colgate, 6-0, 6-4; S. Hodge beat T. J. Stead, 11-9, 6-3. Second +round, Slocum beat Ryerson, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3; Shaw beat Post, 7-5, 4-6, +6-0; Smith beat Dulles, 6-2, 6-1; Wright beat Cozzens, 6-1, 6-1; Snow +beat Lansdale, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1; Hale beat Weeden, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4; Chase +beat Campbell, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3; Taylor beat Hodge, 7-5, 6-3. Third +round, Slocum beat Hale, 6-1, 6-3; Smith beat Snow, 7-5, 7-5; Taylor +beat Wright, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3; Shaw beat Chase, 6-2, 6-4. Fourth round, +Slocum beat Shaw by default; Taylor beat Smith, 6-1, 6-1. Final round, +H. A. Taylor beat H. W. Slocum, Jr., 6-4, 8-6, 7-5. Second prize: H. +W. Slocum, Jr., beat S. Colgate, 9-7, 6-1. Preliminary round, mixed +doubles, Miss A. Robinson and Mr. H. Taylor beat Miss M. Colby and +Mr. S. Colgate, 6-3, 6-4; Miss E. C. Roosevelt and Mr. O. Campbell +beat Miss Satrope and Mr. Post, 7-5, 7-5; Miss G. W. Roosevelt and Mr. +Wright beat Miss Lynch and Mr. Garrett, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. First round, +Miss Roosevelt and Mr. Campbell beat Miss Roosevelt and Mr. Wright, +6-3, 6-3; Miss Robinson and Mr. Taylor beat Miss Stoughton and Mr. +Slocum, 6-3, 6-4. Final round, Miss Roosevelt and Mr. Campbell beat +Miss Robinson and Mr. Taylor, 6-2, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. In the final, for +second prize, Miss Robinson and Mr. Taylor beat Miss Roosevelt and Mr. +Wright, 6-4, 8-6. + +The ladies’ singles were won by Miss A. Robinson defeating Miss E. C. +Roosevelt in the final round with the greatest of ease, 6-0, 6-1, 6-0. +The second prize was won by Miss E. C. Roosevelt over Miss Colby, 6-2, +6-1, 6-0. + + * * * * * + +~Cooperstown, N. Y.~, August 15.--The third annual Lawn Tennis +tournament was given on the courts directly back of the Cooper House. +None of the “cracks” were entered, as in previous years. In the final +round of the gentlemen’s singles, Mr. R. M. Wright defeated R. R. +Perkins, 7-5, 8-6, 6-3. In the gentlemen’s doubles, H. C. Bowers and +H. G. Trevor were victorious over their opponents, C. Metcalf and J. +McKim, defeating them easily in three straight sets, 6-3, 6-1, 6-1. + + * * * * * + +~Greenwich, Conn.~, August 16.--The tennis courts at Greenwich +were crowded on the above date by spectators who had come to witness +the second annual lawn tennis tournament of the Greenwich club. The +fair sex never played better, and fairly outdid themselves. Miss +Rathborne and Miss Mason won the ladies’ doubles, receiving two very +handsome lace pins. In the singles Miss Moore easily defeated all her +opponents and received first prize, a handsome silver bangle. + + * * * * * + +~Bar Harbor, Me.~, August 16.--In the final round of the +gentlemen’s singles, Morton S. Paton, of New York, defeated L. Bonsai, +6-3, 6-2, 6-4, and challenged R. L. Beeckman, winner of the cup last +season. On the following day the match was played, resulting in a +victory for Mr. Beeckman. The score stood 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. This makes Mr. +Beeckman the holder twice in succession, and if he succeeds in winning +it a third time next season the cup will become his own property. The +gentlemen’s doubles, which were handicap, were won by Paton and Robbins +over the Cushman Brothers by the following score: 5-7, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. + + * * * * * + +~The~ tournament to decide the Lawn Tennis championship of the +United States for singles, at Newport, R. I., August 20, resulted as +follows: Preliminary round, singles--H. W. Slocum, Jr., beat C. A. +Chase, 4-6, 6-2, 1-6, 6-2, 6-3. First round, J. S. Clark beat F. L. +V. Hoppin, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2; J. Dwight beat F. W. Taylor, 6-3, 6-1, +6-2; E. Tuttle beat C. E. Stickney by default; C. P. Wilbur beat C. +Beatty, 6-3, 6-3, 9-7; O. S. Campbell beat W. Waller, 7-5, 6-3, 6-2; +M. Fielding beat Fiske Warren, 6-1, 6-2, 6-3; A. E. Wright beat G. +F. Brown, Jr., 6-2, 6-3, 6-3; G. W. Lee beat A. R. Weeden, 6-4, 7-5, +6-2; P. S. Sears beat W. L. Jennings, 6-2, 6-3, 6-2; B. B. Lamb beat +A. L. Rives, 6-1, 6-2, 6-1; H. A. Taylor beat F. Kellogg by default; +R. B. Hale beat G. M. Brinley by default; A. L. Williston beat V. G. +Hall, 6-4, 6-8, 7-5, 3-6, 6-2; J. A. Ryerson beat A. Hubbard, 8-6, 6-3, +3-6, 6-0; P. S. Presbrey beat T. S. Tailer, 19-21, 8-6, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. +Second round, Dwight beat Tuttle, 6-1, 6-0, 6-1; Campbell beat Wilbur, +6-2, 6-1, 6-3; Wright beat Fielding, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-1; Sears beat +Lee, 6-2, 6-0, 6-1; Ryerson beat Lamb, 6-2, 6-0, 3-6, 11-9; Taylor +beat Hale, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1; Williston beat Presbrey, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4; +Slocum beat Clark, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. Third round, Campbell beat Wright, +4-6, 6-3, 1-6, 8-6, 6-2; Sears beat Ryerson, 5-7, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2; Taylor +beat Williston, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5; Slocum beat Dwight, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0, 6-3. +Fourth round, Slocum beat Campbell, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4; Taylor beat Sears, +5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2. Final round, H. W. Slocum, Jr., beat H. A. Taylor, +6-4, 6-1, 6-0. By defeating Mr. Taylor, this makes Mr. Slocum the +champion of America, since Mr. Sears was prevented by sickness from +defending his title. In the consolation prize, F. L. V. Hoppin won over +W. L. Jennings in the final, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2. And this ended one of the +best tournaments ever held on the Casino grounds. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Rochester Lawn Tennis Club held its annual open tournament +Tuesday, September 18, and the following days. The prizes offered +were as follows: First prize, singles, value, $100; second prize, +singles, value, $40; first prizes, doubles, value, $60; second prizes, +doubles, value, $30; first prize, singles, veterans’ class, value, $30. +Entrance fees for singles, $3; for doubles, $4 for the two players. +The veterans’ class was open to players forty years of age and over. A +bisque was given for every two years over forty-five. The rules of the +U. S. National Association governed the games. Wright & Ditson’s balls +were used. Except in the finals, matches were the best two in three +sets. In the finals, the best three in five. All sets were deuce and +advantage. David Hoyt was chairman of the tournament committee. + + * * * * * + +~Lenox, Mass.~, September 4.--The Annual Lawn Tennis tournament +of the Lenox Club was won by L. A. Shaw, Jr., defeating W. E. Glyn, +the English player. In the finals the score stood: 5-7, 6-0, 8-6, 6-2. +Mr. Glyn before his defeat was looked upon as a sure winner, since on +the previous day he had defeated with such ease P. S. Sears (younger +brother of the champion), who is considered a better player than Mr. +Shaw. In the final doubles, P. S. Sears and L. A. Shaw, Jr. won over +their opponents, Fowler, a lad of only sixteen, and his partner, Mr. +Worthington, by the score of 6-1, 6-3, 7-9, 6-1. The second prize in +the singles was captured by Mr. Glyn, who defeated Mr. Trevor, 2-6, +6-1, 6-2. Both the courts of Miss Furniss and the one at the Lenox +Club-house were used. Among the numerous spectators who applauded +were Prince Henri d’Orleans, Count Artchot, Count Sala, and other +distinguished guests of the cottagers, including Admiral Temple. The +tournament was, without doubt, the best ever given. + + * * * * * + +~All~ the blue blood of Newport collected at the Casino, +September 1, to witness a court tennis match between Mr. Foxhall Keene +and O. M. Pettitt, and Boakes, the Canadian champion, and Hickey. +There was a splendid contest and some good play. The winners gave half +thirty. Keene and Pettitt won, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. + + +POLO. + +~The~ Polo grounds at Newport, R. I., were filled with +carriages, September 1, to witness the last match for the Handicap Cup. +The blues were S. S. Sands, Jr., J. L. Kernochan, Thomas Hitchcock, +Jr., and W. K. Thorne, Jr. The yellows were H. Keene, A. Belmont, +Jr., S. Mortimer and E. C. Potter. Three innings were played. Keene +and Belmont for the yellows and Hitchcock and Kernochan for the blues +scored one each in the first. In the second innings Kernochan and +Hitchcock each scored for the blues and Mortimer for the yellows. In +the third innings Mortimer scored after a well-contested game. The +yellows won the match. + + +ROD AND GUN. + +~The~ recently elected officers of the St. Lawrence River +Anglers’ Association, are W. W. Byington, president; H. S. Chandler and +Garanca M. Skinner, vice-presidents; W. H. Thompson, secretary, and R. +P. Grant, treasurer. An executive committee of twenty-one members was +also named. The object of the association is the prevention of illegal +net-fishing so threatening to the permanence of the St. Lawrence River +as a fishing resort. + + * * * * * + +~The~ last copy of the London _Field_ received tells of great +but lawful slaughter of game throughout Great Britain during the second +week of August. At Hunthill, Forfarshire, 279 brace of grouse were +killed by six guns, and at the same place on the next day 265 brace +were killed by five guns. An average of a half of 106 birds to a man +for a day’s shooting would be considered remarkable good luck in any of +the older parts of the United States. + +The next largest bag reported was at Retreats, in Forfarshire, when, on +August 13, 207 brace were killed by five guns. + +The subject of limiting by law the number of grouse which a man may +kill in the course of a season or in the course of a day, and also of +limiting the shipments of grouse by express companies in some such +way as deer are now controlled, has been freely discussed in many +associations of sportsmen, but nothing has come of it. If some one +should bring in a few bags such as those reported in England, there +would be a renewal of the discussion that might lead to a change of the +present law. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Cumberland Valley Game and Fish Association, of +Mechanicsville, Pa., recently elected the following officers for the +year: President, A. G. Hade; secretary, Robert Wilson Short; treasurer, +Jess D. Muller; executive committee, A. B. Rupp, F. S. Mumma and John +S. Weaver. The association has in course of construction a club-house, +which, when finished, will excel any building of a similar organization +for completeness, etc. The members of the association have, during the +past three months, placed 50,000 brook trout fry in the trout streams +of Southern Pennsylvania. + + +ROWING. + +~A match~ between four-oared crews, representing the Bradford +and Riverside Boat Clubs, the latter being the champions of the New +England Amateur Rowing Association, was decided on the three-mile +course on the Charles River, August 11. Weather pleasant, water +rough. Time, 21m. The opposing crews were made up: Riverside--William +Kivlin (bow), William Balmer, Thomas Riley, Eugene Sullivan (stroke). +Bradford--John Cumming (stroke), J. D. Ryan, D. H. McPhee, Joseph +Skelton (bow). The Bradford won easily with fifteen lengths to spare. +Time, 21m. + + * * * * * + +~A single-scull~ race, open to members of the New York Athletic +Club, for the Osborne Trophy, was rowed over the new course near +Travers Island, August 25. The contest resulted in a victory for F. +McDougall, with F. Rodewald second and R. W. Rathborne third. + + * * * * * + +~The~ third annual regatta of the Long Island Amateur Rowing +Association came off at Bowery Bay, L. I. Course, a not guaranteed mile +and a half straightaway. Weather lowering, wind fresh, water lumpy. The +following is the record: + +Single-scull gigs--G. Freeth, Varuna B. C., 10m. 54s.; A. P. Walker +second. + +Junior single-scull shells--J. M. Douglas, V. B. C., 10m. 29s.; R. +Hillman, Nautilus B. C., second; G. S. Muhling, V. B. C., and M. D. +Hettrick, U. B. C., quit at a half-mile. + +Senior four-oared shells--Seawanhaka B. C., A. Rave (bow), J. J. +Fogarty, R. H. Pelton, C. G. Ross (stroke), 8m. 24s.; Varuna B. C. +second. + +Four-oared gigs, with coxswains--Nautilus B. C., S. Manly (bow), +C. Sutton, L. M. Mullaney, D. Voorhees (stroke), J. Schallenberg +(coxswain), 8m. 43s.; Varuna B. C. second; Seawanhaka B. C. third; +Ariel B. C. fourth. + +Junior four-oared shells--Nautilus B. C., A. S. Oswald (bow), A. +Petersen, H. S. Ayers, A. Hillman (stroke), 8m. 37s.; Pioneer B. C. +second, and Varuna crew third. + +Double-scull shells--Varuna B. C., G. E. Laing (bow), T. Heild +(stroke), first; Nautilus B. C., A. H. Beckwith (bow), B. J. Johnson +(stroke) second. + +Senior single-scull shells--A. Rave, S. B. C., first; J. F. Hettrick, +N. B. C., finished first, but was disqualified for fouling Rave; G. +Freeth, V. B. C., did not go the correct course. + +Eight-oared shells, with coxswains--Passaic B. C., H. P. Cashion +(bow), A. J. Stephens, J. Chambury, B. Van Clief, Jr., C. A. Lunjack, +F. Freeman, J. Weldon, M. Quigley (stroke), E. L. Rodrigo (coxswain), +first; Union B. C., P. Schile (bow), J. W. Bell, R. Haubold, G. W. +Kuchier, E. Weinacht, M. B. Kaesche, G. W. Eliz, R. Schile (stroke), +H. Roche (coxswain), second, by half a length; Nonpariel R. C., G. +Bates (bow), J. Hannon, J. M. Miller, W. Talbett, T. F. Wade, H. C. +Boedecker, J. Canavan, I. Maas (stroke), H. W. Nelson (coxswain), +third, by half a length; Pioneer B. C., A. Kuhn (bow), M. Muldener, R. +Whitney, W. A. Boger, J. F. Caldwell, W. Tucker, T. Sanderson, W. Zaiss +(stroke), G. L. Thatcher (coxswain), fourth, by a length; Atalanta +B. C., A. Davenport (bow), O. Fuchs, M. Lau, W. H. Van Milligen, J. +Mullen, W. Lau, E. H. Patterson, B. Jackson (stroke), E. P. K. Coffin +(coxswain) fifth. + + * * * * * + +~The~ second annual regatta of the Duluth Boat Club took place +at Duluth, August 18, with the following results: + +First race, pleasure boats, for Bement cup, between B. F. Myers, John +Chisholm, Duncan McLeod, W. E. Perry and Tom Moore; Myers and Chisholm +won by a length and a half; Perry and Moore second. + +Second race, single-scull--H. Pearson and W. B. Silvey; won by Pearson +by one length. + +Third race, four-oared--first crew, F. D. Banning (stroke); W. B. +Silvey, third; H. W. Pearson, second; H. L. Mahon (bow). + +Second crew--Dean Burke (stroke), F. A. Lewis third, McLeod second, W. +B. McLean (bow). Won by first crew with 15 seconds handicap. + +Fourth race, single-scull, for novices, between J. L. Hopkins, Raymond +Moore, W. B. McLean. Won by Moore, with Hopkins second. + +Fifth race, double-sculls--J. L. Hopkins and H. S. Mahon; H. D. Pearson +and Raymond Moore. Won by Pearson and Moore. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Chicago Navy held its second annual regatta on Lake +Calumet, at Pullman, Ill., August 11. Course, one and a half miles and +return, except for the canoe races, which were one mile straightaway. +The day was cool and the water rough. The following is the summary of +the events: + +Junior four-oared shells--Pullman Athletic Club Crew No. 1, Wm. Fleeman +(bow), L. Haas, A. Banderob, Wm. Henderson (stroke) defeated Crew No. +2, same club, who swamped. + +Tandem canoes, one mile--Tippy Canoe Club, A. W. Kitchen and W. M. +Dunham, first; Pappoose Canoe Club, R. P. McCune and W. B. Lavinia, +second; Social Athletic Club, A. Gundelach and F. J. Essig, third. + +Double-scull training boats--Delaware Boat Club, John F. Korf and +William Weinand, first, in 11m. 10s.; Pullman Athletic Club, Harvey +Madden and Ed. Fraser second, in 11m. 41s. + +Class B canoes, one mile--Wm. M. Dunham, Tippy Canoe Club, first; R. P. +McCune, Tippy Canoe Club, second. + +Single-scull training boats--Wm. D. Hills, Ogden Boat Club, first, in +12m. 52s.; Elmer E. Beach, Delaware Boat Club, second; T. W. Reading, +Catlin Boat Club, third; Edwin D. Neff, Ogden Boat Club, fourth. + +Senior four-oared shells--Farragut Boat Club, G. B. Jennison (bow), H. +C. Avery, Ed. Hunter, Chas. G. Plummer (stroke), first, in 10m. 18s.; +Pullman Athletic Club, J. M. Price (bow), J. Henderson, Ed. Fraser, +Harry Madden (stroke), second, in 10m. 26s. + +Senior double sculls--Delaware Boat Club, E. C. Goff, William Weinand +(stroke) rowed over alone. + +Junior single sculls--E. C. Brown, Farragut Boat Club, first, in 12m. +9s.; W. S. McDowell, Iroquois Boat Club, second, in 12m. 10s.; Ed. +Fraser, Pullman Athletic Club, third; Harry Madden, Pullman Athletic +Club, fourth; L. M. F. Whitehead, Iroquois Boat Club, fifth. + +Class A canoes, one mile--A. W. Kitchen, Tippy Canoe Club, first; A. +Gundelach, Social Athletic Club, second; Will Lavinia, Pappoose Canoe +Club, third; F. J. Essig, Social Athletic Club, fourth. + +Senior single sculls--John F. Corbett, Farragut Boat Club, scratch, +first, in 13m. 5s.; W. S. McDowell, Iroquois Boat Club, 15s. start, +second, in 13m. 20s., actual time. + +Upset canoes, 150 yards--P. M. Cune defeated A. Gundelach. + +Four-oared gigs--Union Boat Club, S. P. Avery (bow), F. C. Avery, G. A. +Wheeler, Wm. Avery (stroke), F. Avery (coxswain), first, in 10m. 43s.; +Catlin Boat Club, H. C. Michaels (bow), C. T. Goff, H. A. Cronin, T. +W. Reading (stroke), H. P. Hallinan (coxswain), second, in 10m. 53s.; +Delaware Boat Club, J. J. Cummiskey (bow), J. F. Reedy, L. Zimmerman, +M. Hartnett (stroke), A. J. Pedersen (coxswain), third; Pullman +Athletic Club, J. Dunner (bow), J. Allen, J. W. Walpole, T. Chadwick +(stroke), W. McDonald (coxswain), fourth. + +Tub race--G. B. Jennison, first; A. T. Fake, second; Guy McLean not +finishing. + +Referee, E. M. Schenck; timekeepers, W. F. Fowler, E. D. Neff and T. +P. Hallinan; judges, L. B. Glover, G. A. McClellan and George Lunt; at +turn, Fred Wild and C. B. Beach. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Institute Boat Club, of Newark, held its tenth annual +regatta on the Passaic River, September 1. The distance in all the +races was a mile straightaway. + +The single-scull race was won in 8m. 59s. by F. Colburn. + +Three crews were entered for the double-scull gig race, which was won +in 10m. 50s. by the crew composed of James T. Smith, T. Crane and P. +O’Toole. + +The six-oared gig race had two entries. It was won in 7m. 22s. by J. +Monahan, J. J. Kelly, J. Behan, H. Hoey, W. Dempsey, O. F. Conlon and +J. H. Knowles. + +J. J. Kenny and E. J. Carney won the double-scull shell race in 7m. 32s. + +There were five entries in the swimming race, which was won by P. J. +O’Toole. The officers of the day were F. R. Fortemeyer, referee, and F. +P. Crane, judge at the finish. + + +SWIMMING. + +~The~ annual contests for the amateur swimming championship of +the United States took place August 25, on Long Island sound, under the +auspices of the New York Athletic Club, in front of that organization’s +new home on Travers Island. The weather and water conditions were +favorable. The result of the contests were as follows: + +100 yards--Herman Braun, Pastime Athletic Club, first, in 1m. 16 1-5s, +thus beating the American record for the distance; H. E. Touissaint, +New York Athletic Club, second, close up, the finish being the same as +it was last year. + +One mile--Herman Braun, Pastime Athletic Club, first, in 26m. 57s.; +William Brice, West Side Athletic Club, second, in 28m. 11s.; F. T. +Wells, New York Athletic Club, third, in 28m. 16s. Braun led from the +start. + + * * * * * + +~Jack Williams~, the Canadian natator, August 12, swam down +the Mississippi River from Alton, Ill., to St. Louis--twenty-five +miles--with his hands strapped to his sides and his legs bound +together. The current was running at the rate of three miles an +hour, and he accomplished the journey in a little over eight hours, +propelling himself by working his legs, and swimming the entire +distance on his back. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first swimming tournament of the Young Men’s Christian +Association took place on the Harlem River, September 1. Captain +Connell, of the Dauntless Boat Club, acted as referee. + +The first was the half-mile race for members, and brought out the +following: W. Kennell, N. Johnson, C. Curtiss and F. C. Schwartz. +Kennell won easily in 14m. 41s.; Johnson second. + +For the mile race only three competitors put in an appearance: Chas. +Holdeman, a one-legged man; C. Bell, Pastime Athletic Club, and R. +Ruhl. The race was virtually a walk-over for Bell, who made the mile in +27m. 14s.; Holdeman second in 28m. 21s. + +Nine men competed in the 100-yard swimming race. At the word “Go” all +dived simultaneously. Al Cammacho cut out the work, with W. C. Johnson +second, and the rest strung out in a straggling line. Cammacho won, +after a hard struggle with Johnson, in 1m. 17 2-5s. + + +TRAP. + +~The~ New York Suburban Shooting Grounds Association is a +corporation recently organized under the laws of the State of New +Jersey. At a recent meeting it elected the following officers: +Charles Richards, president; August Schmitt, vice-president; Charles +M. Hathaway, treasurer; O. E. Morton, secretary. Board of directors: +Charles Richards, August Schmitt, Charles M. Hathaway, O. E. Morton, +Charles Tatham, Hugh O’Neill, Charles B. Reynolds, J. P. Dannefelser +and David Ellis. The grounds of the club are located at Claremont, N. +J., on the Central Railroad of N. J., close by the depot. It takes but +eighteen minutes to reach them from the foot of Liberty Street. + +This association is not a club in the ordinary sense of the word, +but a business enterprise, which the originators believe is certain +of success from the start, as it is a well-known fact that there are +thousands of gun owners in this city alone who have no convenient place +to shoot, and who for many reasons do not care to join an ordinary +gun club, where, in most cases, a few ruling spirits monopolize all +the prizes, and make their expenses in shooting sweepstakes at the +cost of the majority who are less proficient. It is believed that +these grounds offer special inducements to the beginner and to those +who wish to improve themselves in marksmanship. It is the object of +this association to elevate the standard of this sport, and make +trap-shooting one of the popular amusements of the day. + + +YACHTING. + +~The~ Larchmont Yacht Club gave its annual oyster-boat regatta +August 18. It came off with its usual success. The following is the +official summary: + + CLASS 1--CABIN SLOOPS OVER 35 FEET. + + _Start._ _Finish._ _Elapsed._ _Corr’d._ + H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + Watson 12 30 33 5 44 20 5 13 47 5 12 17 + Lizzie D. Bell 12 28 34 5 47 11 5 18 37 5 13 22 + C. D. Smith 12 34 34 6 11 02 5 36 28 5 36 28 + + CLASS 2--CABIN SLOOPS UNDER 35 FEET. + + Jennie Baker 12 29 44 5 55 00 5 25 16 5 19 16 + Allie Ray 12 30 31 5 57 12 5 26 41 5 24 26 + Bertha 12 28 39 5 59 52 5 31 13 5 31 13 + Lucy Neal 12 30 47 6 14 10 5 43 22 5 40 16 + Alice B. 12 29 40 6 18 29 5 48 49 5 42 57 + Maggie Holly 12 28 45 6 22 26 5 53 41 5 43 56 + + Annie K., 12 33 38, Puritan, 12 29 33, and Eliza Bird, 12 29 57, + did not finish. + + CLASS 3--OPEN SLOOPS OVER 30 FEET. + + Loon 12 32 20 6 19 28 5 47 08 5 47 08 + + CLASS 4--OPEN SLOOPS UNDER 30 FEET. + + Jennie A. Willis 12 36 33 5 59 25 5 22 52 5 19 15 + Addie B. 12 36 44 6 03 10 5 26 26 5 21 11 + Delphine 12 31 53 6 02 33 5 30 40 5 26 10 + Minnie S. 12 31 42 6 02 00 5 31 18 5 27 18 + Emma C. 12 30 15 6 02 50 5 32 35 5 27 50 + Florence May 12 28 52 6 02 40 5 33 48 5 33 48 + + Georgie B., 12 29 44, Curlew, 12 32 11, and Frou-Frou, 12 36 05, + did not finish. + + CLASS 5--CATRIGGED BOATS. + + Joke 12 32 05 6 27 48 5 55 43 5 43 58 + Fannie M. 12 32 24 6 50 28 6 18 04 5 57 19 + Barthenia 12 28 27 6 49 09 6 20 42 6 20 42 + + * * * * * + +~The~ Cape Cod Yacht Club sailed the sixth race of the club +off Orleans, August 11, in a light southeast wind. The courses were +triangular 6½ miles for first and second classes and 4⅞ miles for +third class. There were fifteen entries, and the winners were _Madge_ +in the first class, _Mischief_ in the third class. The second class is +to sail over again August 18. Summary: + + FIRST CLASS. + + _Actual._ _Corr’d._ + H. M. S. H. M. S. + Madge, Cummings & Howes 1 43 23 1 21 21 + Percy Allen, F. S. Allen 1 46 20 1 22 27 + No Name, A. Lake 1 57 54 1 32 07 + Fawn, J. Smith 2 08 01 1 46 55 + + SECOND CLASS. + + Mystery, George Dinnell 1 56 23 1 27 20 + Leola, L. E. Nickerson 1 58 00 1 29 20 + Pemigewassett, W. M. Crosby 2 11 17 1 30 34 + Carrie L., George Clark 2 08 15 1 36 46 + + THIRD CLASS. + + Sachem, A. A. Hurd 1 41 42 1 18 55 + Mischief, E. Snow 1 46 17 1 29 00 + Prince, P. Doane 1 54 38 1 33 59 + Susan, J. Ryder 2 15 53 1 42 59 + Rob Roy, H. Hewins 2 09 49 1 43 20 + Tempest, E. Smith 2 11 39 1 46 40 + + Una, George Paxton, withdrew. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual regatta of the Jersey City Yacht Club was sailed, +August 18, in a light southerly breeze. The course was from a line +between the judge’s boat and Bedloe’s Island; for class A to and +around buoys 11 and 16 and return, keeping buoys on the port hand; for +classes B, C and D, to and around buoy 15 and return, finishing at the +club-house; for class E, to and around Ellis’ Island, twice over the +course, and class F, to and around Robbins’ Reef bell buoy and return. +The time allowance was one minute to the foot. The chief interest +centred about the _Naushon_ and _Gertrude_, but they were not able to +finish. The following table gives the result: + + CLASS A. + + Gertrude, 1 53 50, and Naushon, 1 55 00, did not finish. + + CLASS B. + + _Start._ _Finish._ _Elapsed._ _Corr’d._ + H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + Eleanor 12 41 00 5 26 20 4 45 00 4 42 50 + Mary 12 44 00 5 35 00 4 51 00 4 51 00 + + CLASS C. + + Knight Templar 12 45 06 4 02 00 3 17 54 3 17 54 + Psyche 12 52 35 5 37 00 4 45 25 4 41 25 + + CLASS D. + + Bessie 12 43 00 4 03 10 3 20 10 3 20 10 + Jessie G. 12 41 05 Did not finish. + + CLASS E. + + Emma 12 17 00 1 53 00 1 36 00 1 36 00 + May E. 12 16 00 1 55 00 1 39 00 1 37 00 + + CLASS F. + + Alanta 2 25 30 3 30 00 1 04 30 1 04 30 + Fannie 2 25 00 Did not finish. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Newark Bay Yacht Club had an interesting race August 13. +The course was a triangular one, twice round, making ten miles in +all. There was a strong northwest wind blowing and a chop sea on. The +following is the official record of the race: + + CLASS 4. + + _Start._ _Finish._ _Elapsed._ _Corr’d._ + H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + + Lizzie V. 3 19 04 4 57 30 1 38 26 1 37 31 + Ada B. 3 16 30 4 56 00 1 39 30 1 37 50 + Smuggler 3 15 00½ Disabled. + + CLASS 5. + + Annie C. 3 18 00 5 03 20 1 45 20 1 45 20 + Daisy 3 17 18 5 07 48 1 50 40 1 48 36 + Gala-Water 3 17 00 5 08 02 1 51 02 1 51 27 + Juliette 3 15 00 Withdrew. + + The Smuggler led round the course first round, when she was + disabled, and had to give up. + + * * * * * + +~Sixty-four~ boats started in the third open regatta of the +Beverly (Mass.) Yacht Club, sailed off Marblehead, Mass., on August +25. At the start the wind was light and unsteady from the south. The +performances of the yachts were but ordinary. The winners were: Second +class, J. Bryant’s _Shadow_; third class centreboards, C. C. Hanley’s +_Mucilage_; third class keels, H. Babson’s _Mignon_; fourth class +centreboards, C. L. Joy’s _Sea Bird_; fourth class keels, Hall and +Johnson’s _Thelga_: fifth class centreboards, F. L. Dunne’s _Mabel_; +fifth class keels, C. H. W. Foster’s _Mosca_; sixth class, H. M. +Faxon’s _Rocket_; jib and mainsail class, G. Hutchins’ _Eureka_. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Canarsie Yacht Club held a race from off their club-house, in +Jamaica Bay, to Rockaway Inlet buoy and return, August 25. The weather +was fine, with a fairly good west wind, and the half dozen boats +participating made excellent time over the course. They turned the +outer mark in the following order: _Birdie W._, _Kate_, _Lizzie R._, +_Belle_, _Americus_ and _Klam_. They retained these positions all the +way home, the _Birdie W._ taking the prize of $50 and 25 per cent. of +the sweepstakes. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual regatta of the Corinthian Yacht Club, of Boston, +took place August 18, off Marblehead. The winners were: special class, +E. C. Neal’s _Magic_; first class keels, W. P. Fowle’s _Saracen_; first +class centreboards, C. C. Hanley’s _Mucilage_; second class keels, +Everett Paine’s _Brenda_; second class centreboards, Aaron Brown’s +_Black Cloud_; third class centreboards, W. Abbott’s _Coyote_; fourth +class keels, Rufus Benner’s _Vesper_; fifth class centreboards, W. P. +Tave’s _Alpine_. + + * * * * * + +~The~ American Yacht Club, of Newburyport, Mass., held a second +open regatta on August 14, the courses being respectively fifteen, +twelve and eight miles. Results: First class, _Mignon_ first, in 2h. +44m. 12s.; _Hazard_, second, 2h. 49m. 2s., corrected time. Second +class, _White Cloud_ first, 2h. 29m. 58s., corrected time; _Climax_ +second, 2h. 31m. 26s. Third class, _Alpine_ first, in 1h. 36m., +corrected time; _Pert_ second, 1h. 40m. 6s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual fall regatta of the Larchmont Yacht Club took +place September 1. A light wind prevailed at the time of starting, +but dark clouds in the southeast looked as though they held more +wind than water. The breeze continued to freshen, and before eleven +it looked as if it would remain. The wind, however, disappointed all +expectations, and after enticing the fleet over the starting-line left +the yachts to finish in the “doldrums.” The following is the award of +the regatta committee, announcing the winners. In class E, the schooner +_Agnes_ won; in class 4, the _Mischief_ or _Anaconda_, subject to +remeasurement; in class 7, the _Baboon_ first and _Nymph_ second; in +class 8, _Iseul_ beat her competitors; class 9, _Amazon_ captured the +prize; class 11, _Lackshmi_ won; class 12, _Sirene_ was a victor, and +in class 16, _Ione_. + + +ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + [_This department of_ ~Outing~ _is devoted to answers to + correspondents seeking information on subjects appertaining to all + sports._] + +_Fox-terrier, Brooklyn._--There is no great difficulty in removing +warts from a dog’s eyelids. Take a forceps and a sharp penknife; then +raise the wart with the forceps and cut out the wart, afterwards +touching the wound with nitrate of silver. The other question is more +difficult to answer, for, without seeing the dog, it is hard to say +whether he is suffering from distemper or not. Your safest course is to +consult a good veterinary surgeon. + + * * * * * + +_Transatlantic, Washington, D. C._--All kinds of cures have been +suggested for sea-sickness, and in cocaine the doctors seemed to +think they had found the long-sought relief. Nothing, however, to the +best of our experience, can equal good champagne and cracked ice as a +preventive. The _Perrier-Jouet_ of Messrs. Du Vivier & Co., 49 Broad +Street, New York, and the _Great Western Champagne_, sold by H. B. Kirk +& Co. (see page xv.), are wines we can heartily recommend. + + * * * * * + +_Druid, Cleveland, O._--There is to be an International University +boat-race next year between England and America. The details are, we +believe, not yet settled; but it is much to be hoped that the winner of +the Yale-Harvard race will meet the winner of the Oxford-Cambridge race. + + * * * * * + +_Amphibious, Long Branch._--You will find that the unpleasant condition +of your skin and head, which you describe, is undoubtedly the result +of too much salt-water bathing. This is best remedied by taking +fresh-water baths, and using a soap of good hygienic properties, such +as Packer’s Tar Soap. You can obtain this at most druggists’, or if +not, from the Packer Mfg. Co. + + * * * * * + +_Sportsman, Baltimore, Md._--We think you will find that the prejudice +against machine-loaded cartridges has entirely vanished from the +public mind. This has been in a great measure brought about by the +excellence of the Peters cartridge. It is agreed now that for pattern, +penetration, and absence of recoil this cartridge is unexcelled, +while, whatever may be the chemical constituents of the Peters wad, +no cartridge loaded with black powder leaves the barrel so clean and +unfouled. In every respect it compares more than favorably with the +hand-loaded crimped shell. + + * * * * * + +_Sprinter, Detroit, Mich._--C. H. Sherrill, New Haven, Conn., on June +15, 1888, made a record of 15s. for 150 yards, and on the same day, 25 +4-5s. for 250 yards. These are, we believe, the latest amateur records +for those distances. The Secretary of the Chicago Amateur Athletic +Association is George L. Wilson, 241 Lake Street. + + * * * * * + +_Horse-master, Charleston, S. C._--The breast-strap is seldom used in +England in place of the collar. It is in some measure no doubt due to +the fact that English people use much heavier vehicles than are in +vogue in America. With at all a heavy weight, the breast-strap confines +the shoulders. + + * * * * * + +_Tennis Enthusiast, Boston, Mass._--(1) H. W. Slocum and Howard A. +Taylor are graduates of the rival Universities. Mr. Slocum graduated +from Yale in the class of ’83, and Mr. Taylor from Harvard in ’85. (2) +Mr. Taylor is the junior by some three years. (3) Mr. Taylor plays with +his left hand. + + * * * * * + +_G. B. T., Fellowcraft Club._--Fishes Eddy is on the New York, Ontario +& western Railway, 154 miles from New York, with two trains each way +daily. It has one small hotel. It is located on the East Branch of the +Delaware. The country is wild, mountainous, and abounds in game both +large and small--deer, black bear, partridge and woodcock. The trout +fishing in the small streams and lakes is excellent. Guides can be had +for about $3.00 per day. + + * * * * * + +_A. L. M., Boston, Mass._--The recent high commendations given to +Californian brandy by the medical journals would seem to point to its +decided superiority to French products. The brand which we should +specially recommend to your notice is the Royal Grape Brandy, furnished +by the California Vintage Company, 21 Park Place, N. Y. + + * * * * * + +_Bird Hunter, Washington, D. C._--Audubon explains the “drumming” of +the cock pheasant as follows. After telling how the bird struts and +plumes itself on some decayed trunk, he continues: “The bird draws the +whole of its feathers close to its body and, stretching itself out, +beats its sides with its wings in the manner of the domestic cock, but +more loudly, and with such rapidity of motion, after a few of the first +strokes, as to cause a tremor in the air, not unlike the rumbling of +thunder.” Indeed, this seems to be the only method vouchsafed by nature +for the cock to summon his mate in the early spring, during the period +of incubation. + + * * * * * + +_Amateur Photographer, Albany, N. Y._--You can procure the outfit you +require from the Rochester Optical Company, who are perfectly reliable +dealers. + + +PRINCETON HEARD FROM. + +~The~ following communication from W. L. Hodge, of Princeton, is +given a place in ~Outing~ with a view to making as perfect as +possible the data of college baseball. No intention to do Princeton an +injustice was intended by Mr. Chadwick, whose interest in the progress +of the game with which his name is so honorably associated is now as +great as it was in years gone by when the game and the veteran were +younger. ~Outing~ is ever ready to correct an error as well as +to vindicate the truth. + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~: + + ~Dear Sir~,--I have just this moment finished reading an + article in the August number of ~Outing~ entitled “Baseball + in the Colleges,” by Henry Chadwick, and beg leave to correct + several mistakes which he makes, and by which he does Princeton + gross injustice. At the close of the article he gives a summary of + the championship matches played between 1880-88, inclusive, and + says Harvard won the championship in 1882. Now, if he will refer + to his tabulated summary, he will find that instead of Harvard + winning the championship in that year, she was third in the race, + winning five and losing five games, while, if I remember rightly, + Princeton and Yale tied for the championship, and Yale won the tie + game played in New Haven. Yale has never lost the championship but + once, and that was in 1885. Again, he says that Princeton was third + on the list during the whole period from 1880 to 1888, inclusive. + Now, if Mr. Chadwick will refer to his summary once more, he will + see that Harvard has held that honorable position quite as often + as Princeton, for in 1888 Princeton was a close second, tried for + second place in 1881, and won the second place in 1882 and 1883, + Harvard being a bad third. In 1885 Princeton and Yale tried for + second place, and Princeton won the “play-off” game at New Haven by + the score of 15 to 13. I simply mention these facts to do Princeton + justice. + + Yours, + ~W. L. Hodge~, Princeton, ’88. + + * * * * * + +~As~ we go to press we hear with great pleasure of the victory +of our lawn tennis correspondent, Mr. V. G. Hall with his partner Mr. +O. S. Campbell in the double championship tournament at Staten Island. + + +OUR PREMIUM. + +=~Outing~ readers, not regular subscribers to the magazine, +will find it to their advantage to consult the advertising pages xx. +and xxiv. Subscribers to other publications should consult our Clubbing +Rates on p. xx.= + + * * * * * + +=During the approaching Australian Baseball Tour (see advertisement +page), Mr. Harry Palmer, the noted baseball writer, will act as the +special correspondent of OUTING. Mr. Palmer will accompany the party +throughout the trip, from October 15, the date of the start, and +will regularly send full and interesting accounts, to appear in the +different issues of OUTING. We feel sure that our readers will take a +keen interest in these articles. In OUTING for November will appear an +article by him giving the intended program of the teams as they proceed +on their long westward journey, besides many interesting details of the +personnel of the party.= + + + + +[Illustration: + + Painting by J. Carter Beard. Engraved by W. H. F. Lyouns. + +WASHINGTON AND HIS HOUNDS.] + + + + + ~Outing.~ + + ~Vol. XIII.~ NOVEMBER, 1888. ~No. 2.~ + + + + +OUTDOOR LIFE OF THE PRESIDENTS. + +BY JOHN P. FOLEY. + +[Illustration] + + +I. ~George Washington.~ + +The great cities have not yet given the country a President. From +Washington to Cleveland the chief magistrates have all come from great +Southern plantations, lonely Western farms, rural towns or villages, +scattered up and down the Republic. The early Virginia Presidents were, +as a rule, more fortunate in the circumstances of their birth than +any of their successors. Washington’s infant eyes opened amid scenes +of rare natural beauty. The home of his parents was on the banks of +the Potomac, one hundred miles below Mount Vernon. It was a large, +comfortable cottage, filled with all the luxuries which a wealthy +planter of that period could command. From its lawn could be seen a +wide expanse of the majestic river, ten miles broad at that point, and +on the opposite shore the forest-crowned hills and plains of Maryland. +Thomas Jefferson was born on the handsome estate of his father, in +Albemarle County, part of which he afterward inherited. Madison’s +father, too, was a large landed proprietor, the owner of slaves, and +the possessor of a fortune sufficient to gratify his ambition. James +Monroe was equally fortunate. His father lived in a fair Virginia home, +surrounded by all the semi-feudal splendor of that distant slave era. +To complete the group of the Revolutionary Presidents the name of John +Adams must be added. In his youth his prospects in life were as cold +and hard as his native New England hills. His father was poor, and +had to strain every pecuniary nerve to send him to Harvard College. +When he left that institution he was compelled to earn his living as a +teacher. The story of the deeds of these five men in the cabinet, the +field, and the halls of legislature has been written by many pens and +told in many tongues. Their fame is one of the precious inheritances of +the Republic whose foundations they so materially helped to lay, and +to whose magnificent structure of popular government they contributed +perhaps more than any other five leaders and statesmen of the +Revolution. But it is with their private home life, and that of their +successors, we are now concerned. + +Washington is the most stately figure in our history. It requires +an effort of the imagination to think of him except, as it were, in +full-dress. He is ever the commander-in-chief, mounted on a spirited +war-horse; serene in the hour of victory; undaunted in adversity; +full of hope and confidence when all others are in gloom and despair. +Again, we love to picture him as the majestic President, ceremonious +as the most imperial of monarchs, provoking the harsh criticism of +enemies by what they termed his mimicry of foreign potentates--of +the English court and king whose political fetters he had shattered. +And, still again, he towers up in our imagination as the American +Cincinnatus, laying down the sword and the sceptre, retiring from +the pomp and power to which he had been so long accustomed, to his +picturesque home in the Virginia woods, leaving behind him an example +of lofty patriotism without a parallel in all human annals. But there +was another Washington whom we seldom see except in stray glimpses, +when the curtain rises before the scene is fully set, or when the side +wings hitch and halt in their grooves. His biographers tell us that +his military propensities were early developed; that when a boy he was +in the habit of forming his school companions into military companies, +who paraded, marched, and fought mimic battles, and that he showed +his genius for command by being always the leader of one of the rival +parties. He was fond of athletic amusements; of running, jumping, +tossing heavy bars, and other feats of agility and strength. “Indeed,” +says Mr. Sparks, “it is well known that these practices were continued +by him after he had arrived at the age of mature life.” + +[Illustration: WASHINGTON SKIPPING THE ROPE FOR EXERCISE.] + +This story is told of him while he was commander-in-chief of the +Continental armies: Colonel Timothy Pickering, to whom Washington was +very much attached, had a negro body-servant named “Primus.” Washington +visited Pickering’s quarters one day, and found him absent. + +[Illustration: WASHINGTON GIVES THE COLT HIS FIRST LESSON.] + +“It does not matter,” said General Washington to Primus, “I am greatly +in need of exercise, and you must help me to get some before your +master returns.” + +Under Washington’s directions the negro tied a rope to a neighboring +tree, about breast high, and Primus was ordered to stand at some +distance and hold it horizontally extended. Washington ran forward and +backward for some time, jumping over the rope as he came and went, +until he expressed himself satisfied with the exercise. It is said +that he frequently visited Primus and amused himself in this primitive +fashion. + +He learned fencing when he was quite young; his teacher being an old +soldier who had seen service with his brother in the Indies. His +stone-throwing feats across the Rappahannock, over the Palisades, and +to the top of the Natural Bridge in Virginia, are mentioned by nearly +all his biographers. Charles W. Peale, the artist, tells us that when +he was at Mount Vernon in 1772, painting Washington’s picture, he saw +him toss a bar very much farther than the most athletic and expert of a +number of young men who were, on one occasion, testing their strength +in that way. He was then forty years old, and proudly remarked, “You +perceive, young gentlemen, that my arm yet retains some portion of the +vigor of my early days.” He was a good wrestler, and many stories of +his prowess in this respect are told. + +[Illustration: LORD FAIRFAX’S COTTAGE.] + +General Washington was a splendid horseman. There was no animal he +could not master, and he never lost his seat in the saddle. The +well-known hatchet dialogue between his father and himself is suspected +to have no better foundation than the imagination of the Rev. Mr. +Weems. The following incident in his young life, and the subsequent +interview between his mother and himself, rest on more substantial +historical data: Lady Washington owned a fine span of gray horses, in +which she took very great pride. One of them had never been broken +to the saddle. It entered into the heads of some young friends of +Washington to give the colt his first lesson in this particular +branch of his education. The animal resisted their efforts, and would +not allow any one of them to mount him. George, although one of the +youngest of the party, managed to pacify the terrified creature and +to bestride him. Then came a battle royal between horse and boy. All +the animal’s efforts to free himself from his rider were vain, and +he started to run. Washington gave him free rein. The horse never +stopped till he fell prostrate beneath his young master. George, as +may be imagined, was very much alarmed at what had occurred, but he +immediately told his mother. “I forgive you,” she replied, “because you +have had the courage to tell me the truth at once.” + +Washington loved a good horse, and long before the war of the +Revolution his blooded stock was not inferior to any in the country. +Fox-hunting was one of his favorite amusements, and at the “meet” +few of his planter friends and neighbors were better mounted than he +was. All his hunting paraphernalia was imported from England. His +costume was made by the best tailors in London. It consisted of a +blue cloth coat, scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, with velvet +cap, and admirably became his splendid form and figure. He usually +rode a large, fiery animal of great endurance, called “Blueskin.” +The names of some of his other horses were “Chinkling,” “Valiant,” +“Ajax,” and “Magnolia.” “Will Lee,” his huntsman, was famous through +the province as a daring rider. “Mounted on Chinkling,” we are told, +“this fearless horseman would rush through brake and tangled wood in +a style at which modern huntsmen would stand aghast.” Washington’s +kennel was an excellent one. When a mere boy he rode to the hounds +with Lord Fairfax, who brought a pack from England, the only one, it +is said, in the country at the time. Washington, therefore, knew what +a good pack should be, and “it was his pride,” says Lossing, “to have +it so critically drafted as to speed and bottom that, in running, if +one leading dog should lose the scent another was at hand immediately +to receive it, and thus, when in full cry, to use a racing phrase ‘you +might cover the pack with a blanket.’” Here are the names of some +of the dogs: “Vulcan,” “Ringwood,” “Singer,” “Truelove,” “Music,” +“Sweetlips,” “Forester” and “Rockwood.” Lafayette sent Washington some +hounds after the close of the war, but he had then given up hunting. +Previous to that he hunted in the season two or three times a week. +He is candid enough to admit, in his correspondence and diary, that +the foxes nearly always escaped, but he philosophically consoled +himself with the reflection that the main end in view--excitement and +recreation--had been achieved. + +During the Presidency he sometimes drove six horses to his carriage +in New York and Philadelphia. His servants wore livery, for which +Tom Paine bitterly attacked him, and he was often accompanied +by outriders. George W. Parke Custis, his adopted son, in his +“Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington,” gives an interesting +account of the management of the stables when the seat of government +was at Philadelphia. “The President’s stables,” he says, “were under +the direction of ‘German Tom,’ and the grooming of the white chargers +will rather surprise the moderns. The night before the horses were +expected to be ridden they were covered entirely over with a paste, +of which whiting was the principal component part; then the animals +were swathed in bed-cloths and left to sleep upon clean straw. In the +morning the composition had become hard, and was well rubbed in, and +curried and brushed, which process gave to the coats a beautiful glossy +and satin-like appearance. The hoofs were then blackened and polished, +the mouths washed, the teeth picked and cleaned, and the leopard-skin +housings being properly adjusted, the white chargers were led forth +for service.” When Washington rode out he was always accompanied by +his servant “Bishop.” This was his favorite exercise in New York and +Philadelphia while he was President. He sometimes walked, however, +and around the Battery, then a fashionable promenade in New York, and +now given over almost entirely to immigrants from all quarters of the +world, was the direction he most frequently took in this city. He +frequently drove and rode what was then called the “fourteen miles +around.” This route was up the old King’s Bridge road to McGowan’s +Pass, at 108th Street, thence across on a line with the Harlem River to +Bloomingdale, and down on the west side of the island to the city. + +[Illustration: MOUNT VERNON.] + +Fowling was another favorite amusement of the first President. His own +estates and the country around them abounded in game of all kinds. A +century and a half ago, and, we suppose, long before that time, the +waters of the Chesapeake were the resort, as they are now, of the +incomparable canvas-back and other wild-duck. Tradition has it that +Washington was a good shot. He knew the favorite feeding-places of +the finest flocks, and he could steal a march on them as secretly +as, in after years, it was his wont to surprise the fortified camp +lines of the British redcoats. Although Washington loved to follow +his own game-birds and bring them down when he could, he rigorously +prohibited other people from breaking in on his preserves. His +principal biographer has preserved a story from oblivion which +illustrates his sentiments in this respect together with his personal +courage and resolution. A lawless person was in the habit of crossing +the Potomac opposite Mount Vernon in a canoe, and, concealing himself +in the woods, filling his game-bag at Washington’s expense. Repeated +warnings to desist were sent him, but, poacher-like, he was a believer +in the doctrine that game is common property and belongs to him who +can capture it. Washington was determined to stop the raids upon his +birds, and the poacher’s end at last came. Hearing a shot one day, and +suspecting who had fired it, Washington mounted his horse and rode in +the direction of the sound. The poacher discovered his approach, and +had time to enter his canoe and push a few yards from the banks before +the master of Mount Vernon appeared in view. When Washington, with +anger in his eye, became visible, the poacher raised his gun, cocked +it, and took deliberate aim. Washington did not betray the slightest +sign of alarm or timidity. He strode into the water, seized the canoe +and pulled it ashore. Disarming his antagonist, Washington gave him +so severe a chastisement that he never again ran the risk of meeting +a similar reception. Washington in the latter part of his life was +something of a fisherman. There is an entry in one of his diaries, +while the Federal Convention was in session in Philadelphia, telling +of a fishing party near Valley Forge. While President, he also drew in +a codfish with his own hand on the fishing banks off Portsmouth, New +Hampshire. + +[Illustration: WASHINGTON CHASTISING THE POACHER.] + +No one of the presidents lived so much in the open air as Washington. +With the exception of the eight years in the Presidency, he was almost +constantly in the field, the woods, the wilderness, or the farm. His +first occupation was that of a surveyor, upon which he entered when he +was sixteen years of age. During his last summer at school he amused +himself by surveying the grounds around the school-house. The adjoining +plantations then became the field of his experiments, and their angles +and boundaries were all marked down by him with the most minute +detail. At this time he thought of going to sea. His brother Lawrence +obtained a midshipman’s warrant for him, but his mother objected, and +an admiral, perhaps, was lost to the navy of the English king whose +most famous general he was destined to defeat. He then received a +commission to survey the western lands of Lord Fairfax. This led him +across the first range of the Alleghany Mountains into the wilderness. +He was accompanied on this expedition by George, the eldest son of +William Fairfax. They endured much hardship and privation, but the +trip, in all probability, was the means of laying the basis of the +splendid physical health which Washington enjoyed all through life. The +country was almost uninhabited. The dwellings, mere huts at the best, +were few and far apart. Storms very often swept away their tents, and +frequently they were compelled to sleep with no roof except the skies. +Three years, the severe winter months excepted, were spent in this +work, which, like everything Washington undertook, was well executed. +His success led to promotion. He received an appointment as official +surveyor, which enabled him to make his entries in the county offices. +The lands surveyed lay on the south bank of the Potomac, seventy miles +above the present Harper’s Ferry. Washington did not foresee that in a +short time he would have an opportunity to turn to very great advantage +in the public service the knowledge he was then acquiring of this +comparatively unknown region. But, nevertheless, the French-Indian war, +in which he bore so conspicuous a part, was not far distant. In 1751, +the western boundaries of the colony of Virginia were so harassed by +the Indians that measures had to be adopted for their protection. The +country was divided into districts, to one of which Washington was +appointed inspector with the rank of major. He was now a soldier. In +1755, when he was only twenty-three years of age, the command of the +Virginia troops was given to him. He resigned his commission in 1758 +and the following year he was married. + +Washington was barely twenty-seven years old when this interesting +event took place, and when he may be said to have settled down to +lead the life of a country gentleman. He was in every sense of the +term what is called a favorite of fortune. Rich, honored, loved, +married to a beautiful woman of distinguished family and large wealth, +the possessor of a splendid estate, which he had just inherited, of +handsome person and superb health, with more fame than falls to the +share of most young men at his period of life, a keen relish for the +good things of the world with the means to obtain and the capacity +to enjoy them--the prospect before him was, indeed, an alluring one. +Mount Vernon was one of the loveliest homes in the country and the +landscape around it unrivaled on the continent. Through its hospitable +gates came the governors and leading men of old colonial Virginia as +the friends and guests of its master. Gay hunting parties, with hounds +and horns to rouse the fox in his hill-side cover, gathered on its +spacious lawns. Stately dames talked over the latest society gossip +from the colonial capitals and across the seas on its broad verandas +and under its overarching trees. To speak of more material things, +there was a small army of slaves to employ, to clothe, to feed, to +watch and to attend, for Washington was one of the most humane of +masters. Thousands of broad acres awaited cultivation and improvement, +while flocks and herds innumerable claimed protection from winter +storm and summer heat. Into this manifold life, with all its cares +and responsibilities, Washington entered with the keenest zest. His +ambition in a public way seemed to have been satisfied with the fame he +had won in the French war. But, whatever may have been his thoughts or +aspirations, he set himself to the task of cultivating and adorning his +property. Mount Vernon consisted of five farms, each one of which had +its own appropriate set of laborers under the direction of an overseer. +Washington visited them all daily and gave instructions for the day +following. He was one of the most methodical of men, rising at a +regular hour in the morning, and retiring at a fixed time at night. He +loved his stock, and paid particular attention to their comfort. Prize +cattle shows and exhibitions had not then come into fashion. If they +had existed at the time it is very certain that the name of the young +soldier-planter would have headed the lists of exhibitors, and that he +would have filled Mount Vernon with cups and premiums testifying to +his pre-eminence as a breeder. He had an attachment even for the lower +animals, and never destroyed life when there was no necessity for it. A +gentleman, who at one time lived in his family as secretary, tells us +that, as he was walking one day with Washington in his grounds, a snake +of a harmless species started up in front of them. The secretary lifted +his heel to crush the reptile, when Washington caught his arm and +exclaimed, “Stay, sir! Is there not room enough in this world for you +and that harmless little reptile? Remember that life is all--everything +to the creature--and cannot be unnecessarily taken without indirectly +impugning its Creator, who bestowed it to be enjoyed with its +appropriate pleasures through its own natural term of existence.” + +He was the model farmer of his time. Though not a student in the +ordinary acceptation of the term, he read a good deal on agricultural +and kindred subjects, investigated the nature and character of his +soils, and grew his crops on a scientific basis. Fond of flowers and +trees, he was never weary of ornamenting his estate with the choicest +specimens, native and foreign, that he could find. Life for him had +flowed along in this tranquil way during a period of fifteen years when +the first mutterings of the Revolutionary storm were borne to Mount +Vernon. He was as eager to do battle for the rights of his country as +any gentleman within the boundaries of the thirteen colonies. The war +came, and he was chosen commander-in-chief. Before he departed for the +scene of operations in New England, he gave his superintendent minute +instructions in regard to the management of his property while he was +absent. During the progress of the long struggle, he corresponded +with him as frequently as possible, and an immense number of letters, +written from the camp and his ever-shifting headquarters, many of them +before and immediately after important engagements, attest the deep +interest he took in the smallest matter connected with his beloved +home. The manager is told what crops to sow in different fields; the +precise spots on which young trees of different families should be +planted, and what old and decaying ones should be cut down. We can see +in these curious and interesting letters how deeply he was attached +to every animate, and indeed inanimate, object on his estate, and +how he yearned to be restored to them. Only once in the long eight +years did he visit Mount Vernon. He was then on his way to lay siege +to Cornwallis at Yorktown, and finally receive the sword of the best +English general in America. To describe his outdoor life while in the +army would be to re-tell the story of the Revolution. + +At last the end came, and the foremost commander of his age, the +liberator of his country, was again a private citizen and a country +gentleman. Mount Vernon had suffered severely from his long absence, +for his instructions had been imperfectly carried out. The soil was +in many places exhausted by successive crops of tobacco, while the +necessity for extensive repairs confronted him on every hand. He was +fifty-one years of age. The work of restoring his estate to its former +splendid condition was at once begun. He plunged into agriculture +with all the ardor of his youthful days. In a letter to Lafayette, +he describes his feelings at this time. “At length,” he writes, “I +am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and, under +the shade of my own fig-tree, free from the excitement of the camp +and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those +tranquil enjoyments of which the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of +fame, the statesman whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent +in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin +of other countries (as if this globe were insufficient for us all), and +the courtier, who is always watching the countenance of his prince in +hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have very little conception.” +Troops of friends and admirers visited him in his retirement and were +entertained in a most hospitable manner. + +In the autumn he began on a systematic plan to renovate his worn-out +fields; each parcel of land was numbered, and the precise crops to +be planted in it were set down several years in advance. This method +proved so successful that he adhered to it during the remainder of +his life. He next turned his attention to his grounds. Early in the +spring he began with the lawn. To it he transferred the choicest +trees in his forests, setting them out with evergreens and flowering +shrubs intermingled in such a manner as to produce the most pleasing +effect. The removal and replanting of each one received his personal +attention, and from day to day he watched them with the greatest +solicitude, keeping in his diary the record of their life or death. +Next came the replenishing of his orchards and gardens. Fruit-trees of +rare and valuable varieties were procured at whatever cost. Flowering +shrubs were planted in abundance--in fact, nothing that could add +to the beauty and decoration of Mount Vernon was left undone. The +pruning-knife now took the place of the sword, and he never tired of +wandering among his plants, cutting away useless branches and shoots +which marred their beauty or hurt their growth. There was no law on the +statute book against foreign contract labor, and he imported skilful +gardeners to enable him to carry out his plans of improvement. His +habits were most regular. He was out of bed with the sun, and the hours +until breakfast were passed in his study, writing letters or reading. +Breakfast over, his horse was ready at the door to take him on the +round of his farms. If his guests wished to accompany him, or to make +excursions into the surrounding country, horses for them also were led +out. Returning from his fields, he again shut himself up in his study, +where he remained until three o’clock, when dinner was announced. The +remainder of the day and evening was given to his guests until ten +o’clock, when he retired. + +The repose of this fascinating life was not destined to be of long +duration. With the close of the war the young confederacy found +itself confronted with new difficulties and dangers. To meet them, +and bring order out of the political chaos, there assembled that +body of patriotic and illustrious men who, as the result of their +deliberations, gave the world the constitution of the United States. +Washington presided over their deliberations, and, in due time, his +election to the Presidency followed. It was hard to be compelled again +to leave Mount Vernon and to abandon all his cherished plans for its +improvement. This entry is found in his diary in the summer of 1789: +“At ten o’clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life and +to domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious +and painful emotions than I have words to express, set out for New +York, having in company Mr. Thomson and Colonel Humphrey; with the +best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to +its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations.” He was +loath to leave home for many private reasons, chief among which was +his desire to pursue the system he had matured for the improvement of +his estate. Since the war he had procured from England the best works +on agriculture, and was impatient to put his ideas and theories into +practical operation. Now all had to be given up, at least for four +years, when, he hoped, the term of his second servitude in public life +would come to an end. But what was to be done in the meantime? The seat +of government was hundreds of miles away, and roads next to impassable +except at certain seasons of the year, made communications tedious and +difficult. He did the best thing possible, namely, to appoint a manager +and leave with him instructions in writing for his guidance. + +These instructions throw a strong light on the character of Washington, +a light for which we might search in vain among the many volumes of +his State papers, public addresses and private correspondence. His +dearest interests were involved in the management of his property, and +he naturally wrote with a freedom, directness and emphasis concerning +it which he scarcely could have employed on any other occasion. In +these simple memoranda, made when he was on the eve of assuming the +highest honor his country could confer--an honor all the greater +because of the transcendent ability and character it was supposed the +position demanded--we can see, that while the world was ringing with +the fame of his achievements, his innermost thoughts were occupied +with those beloved fields on which he had lavished so much care. He +intended that everything should run along in his absence precisely as +if he were present. There is a military ring in the following sentences +which reveals the old commander-in-chief: “One thing I cannot forbear +to put in strong terms. It is that whenever I order a thing to be +done it must be done; or a reason given at the time, or as soon as +the impracticability can be discovered why it cannot be done, which +will produce a countermand or a change. But it is not for the person +receiving the order to suspend or dispense with its execution; and, +after it has been supposed to have gone into effect, to be told that +nothing has been done in it; that it _will_ be done or that it could +not be done--either of these is unpleasant and disagreeable to me, +having been all my life accustomed to regularity and punctuality. +Nothing but system and method are required to accomplish any reasonable +requests.” Due notice that he will expect every man to do his duty at +Mount Vernon while he is in New York is given as follows: “To request +that my people must be at work as soon as it is light; work until it is +dark, and be diligent while they are at it, can hardly be necessary, +because the propriety of it must strike every manager who attends to +my interests, or regards his own character, and he, on reflecting, +must be convinced that lost labor is never to be regained.” His plan, +or system, was very comprehensive. It contained instructions what to +plant and where to plant it, not only for the year but for many years +in advance. Every one of the five overseers was required to make a +minute weekly report concerning the operations on the farm he had in +charge. This was given to the manager and by him sent to the President. +The work performed by the laborers and their condition, whether ill or +well, were to be noted. The slightest incident or accident connected +with everything on the estate--the stock, the crops, the trees, the +fences, the farming implements--was to be made known to him. And, no +matter how public business pressed, time and opportunity were found or +made, during all the eight years of the Presidency, to consider and +attend to the affairs of Mount Vernon. Each weekly report was closely +examined and answered, sometimes at great length. + +[Illustration: “STAY SIR! DO NOT KILL THAT REPTILE.”] + +This extract from one of his communications shows how closely he +watched his slaves and how well he was acquainted with them personally: +“What sort of sickness is Dick’s that he should have been confined +with it for weeks? And what kind of sickness is Betty Davis’s that it +should have a similar effect upon her? If pretended ailments without +apparent causes or visible effects will screen her from work, I shall +get no service out of her, for a more lazy, deceitful and impudent +huzzy is not to be found in the United States than she is.” In another +letter, he refers to a young negro whom he wished to have trained as a +house-servant. “Put him in the house,” he says, “give him good clothes, +so as to make him self-respecting, and a stout horn comb. Make him comb +his hair, or wool, so that it will grow long.” + +What a many-sided character Washington possessed! No President ever +held the helm of state more firmly than he did during those eight years +while the young Republic was beginning its career as a nation. The +ablest men in our history as a people were then in public life, but he +was the master of them all. He was supreme in a cabinet containing two +men of such vast acquirements as Hamilton and Jefferson, and he ruled +them as completely as he governed “Dick” and “impudent Betty Davis” +down at Mount Vernon. + +The summer months were usually spent on his estate, though not +invariably. During the Presidency, he traveled a good deal in different +parts of the country--Long Island, the Eastern States, and down South +and out West. No man of his time probably knew the geography and +topography of the country better than he did. As we have pointed out, +the French-Indian war led him across the Alleghanies, and he twice +again visited that region, less known then almost than the middle of +Africa is to-day. He explored the middle of New York with De Witt +Clinton, penetrated to the very centre of the Dismal Swamp, and took +the field once more when the Whisky Insurrection broke out. + +After the expiration of his second term, he again returned to the +banks of the Potomac and resumed the occupations he laid down eight +years before. Writing to a friend soon after his arrival, he tells +him that he “began his daily course with the rising of the sun and +first made preparations for the business of the day. By the time I +have accomplished these matters breakfast is ready. This being over, I +mount my horse and ride around my farms, which employs me till it is +time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss to see some strange +faces, come, as they say, out of respect for me.” The farm was over +eight thousand acres in extent, and these rides averaged twelve or +fifteen miles in length. This description of Washington at the time was +given by young Custis to a gentleman who had inquired for him: “You +will meet with an old gentleman riding alone, in plain drab clothes, a +broad-brimmed white hat, a hickory switch in his hand and carrying an +umbrella with a long staff which is attached to his saddle-bow. That +person, sir, is General Washington.” Another call to duty came in the +threatened war with France. Washington was made lieutenant-general, but +the storm soon blew over. + +He was now sixty-eight years old, and the end of all was coming. He +rode out as usual one morning in December, caught cold, and died in a +few days. The trees he planted in his youth bend above his grave on the +banks of the Potomac. + + + + +THE PROGRESS OF ATHLETISM. + +BY C. TURNER. + + +[Illustration] + +Athletism is one of the distinctive forces of the nineteenth century, +and of all the forces, acting upon the social, moral and physical life +of the century, it is probably destined to be the most permanent in its +effects. No impulse has had a swifter or a wider scope. While other +forces of aggregation have welded together peoples having a common +ethnological origin into a nation, such as Italy, and consolidated +independent states into a system, such as Germany, it has been +the function of athletics to unite in a common interest the whole +(Anglo-Saxon) world. America and Australasia have felt its influence, +and passed under its discipline, in no less degree than the scattered +colonies and dependencies of “Greater Britain.” Remarkable as it may +at first sound, it is true, that no fact to-day “flashed round the +girdle of the globe” would excite so widespread a curiosity, or so much +personal interest, as that an amateur athlete had succeeded in covering +one hundred yards of space in one second less than the recorded time of +the great classic contests of the century. + +[Illustration: THE HURDLE RACE AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY.] + +In the United Kingdom, Ministries may come and Ministries may go, +Governments may wax and wane; such news will interest few but the +inhabitants of Great Britain. In America contests of deep interest +may rage round a Presidential Election and rend public opinion, but +the very knowledge of the contest will be confined largely to the +American continent. The fiercest controversies in science and religion +may rise and subside, the whole current of ecclesiastical thought may +change, whilst the “Tracts for the Times” will remain a mere phrase to +the millions who are keenly alive to the more cosmopolitan questions +involved in athletism. On the remote sheep-farms of Australia, in +the cattle ranches of Texas, on the pampas of South America, amongst +the snows of the Himalayas, round the kraal fires of Southern Africa +and in the busy marts of China and Japan, there will be auditors who +will gather with keener interest to hear of the battles of pluck and +endurance by the Isis and the Cam than would be displayed about any +contest for dominion among the powers of the world. In the island home +of its birth, and the land of its most earnest adoption, no system of +news, in its ingathering and dispersion, is so regular, systematic and +universal, or so anxiously scanned as the sports of the Queen’s Club +Grounds, or the progress of the baseball nines of New York, Boston or +Chicago. It puts into operation a system as perfect and as rapid as if +the fate of nations hung in the balance. + +[Illustration: WINNING THE HUNDRED YARDS.] + +Whence is all this? Partly, it may be, that the subject dealt with +and the competitors involved touch the most abiding and deep-seated +instincts of our common nature, carrying us back, by their very +mention, to those halcyon days when we too marked the scudding form or +joined in the thrilling race. + + “Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise; + We love the play-place of our early days, + The scene is touching, and the heart is stone + That feels not at that sight, and feels at none,” + +sang one of our early English poets, and again: + + “The pleasing spectacle at once excites + Such recollections of our own delights, + That, viewing it, we seem almost t’ obtain + Our innocent, sweet simple years again.” + +But how came the natural aptitude and expertness of the Saxon in +outdoor sports to be so totally obliterated, as undoubtedly it was, +up to within the past forty years? That England, above all, with her +old Viking blood, should have lain torpid and effeminate; that that +“hard gray weather,” which, as Kingsley says, “makes hard Englishmen,” +should have become barren in results, is one of the most puzzling +facts of a now happily remote past. It was not ever thus; the early +poets teem with allusions to training and skill in manly sports and +outdoor pastimes, but the records of the eighteenth century as surely +point to their almost universal eclipse. Read Cowper’s “Timepiece,” +written in 1783, and more especially his “Tirocinium; or, a Review of +the Schools,” written in the following year. What a picture do they +present! The tavern and the play-house, cards and the race-course, +license and riot, fill the terrible picture of the youth of the period, +the product of the school and college. Study languished, emulation +slept, and virtue fled, is his uncontested verdict. + + “See womanhood despised and manhood shamed, + With infamy too nauseous to be named; + Fops at all corners, ladylike in mien, + Civeted fellows, smelt ere they are seen. + Else coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue + On fire with curses and with nonsense hung, + Now flush’d with drunkenness, now with excess pale, + Their breath a sample of last night’s regale, + Designed by nature wise, but self-made fools; + All these, and more like these, were bred at schools.” + +[Illustration: THE TRINITY HALL CREW, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY.] + +It certainly is a picture which, thank God! could not be painted now. +Nor could it be written of the well-to-do youth of the nation, as +was written by South and quoted by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary in +illustration of the word “athletick”--“strong of body, vigorous, +robust,” that “seldom shall we see in rich families that athletick +soundness and vigor of constitution which is seen in cottages where +nature is cook and necessity caterer.” The youth of “rich families” +have now, happily become the very pink of the “strong of body, +vigorous, robust,” and a practical refutation of such an opinion, in +every English-speaking land. + +[Illustration: WINNING THE HIGH JUMP.] + +It was fitting, though singular, that the revival of outdoor sports, +which received its first check from the narrow fanaticism and +repressive bitterness of the puritanical period, that saw Beelzebub in +the quarter-staff and Satan in a foot-race, should have received its +first impulse into new life largely from the disciples of “Muscular +Christianity,” of whom Canon Kingsley may perhaps be taken as the +type. Yet so it was; they fanned into life the embers in which still +burnt the hidden fire, and rekindled the dormant passion for rural +sports into more than its old vigor with a new purity and with a force +which, ere half a century had passed, was to restore athletism to its +legitimate sphere throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. + +Many other things combined to help the movement. Not the least of these +was the dawning belief that Juvenal’s oft quoted “_mens sana in corpore +sano_,” contained a fallacy, and that the healthy body must precede +and render possible the healthy mind. This doctrine, in “the forties,” +was feebly struggling for recognition, but is now recognized as lying +at the very root of social and moral regeneration. England’s danger +in the period of the Crimean war, tended to turn the minds of men to +the seriousness of our national position, and to the advantages of +systematic training to resist hardship. The volunteer movement, with +its platoon exercises and its outdoor drills, often on the old “Butts +Green,” which the wisdom of our forefathers had provided for their day +and generation, drew further marked attention to physical training. All +this tended to create in the rising generation an inclination to return +to our older, more natural, and more healthful custom of outdoor life. + +Whatever were the causes, and whether this enumeration of them +be either accurate or complete, certain it is that in the early +“fifties” athletism took a new and marked departure. As was natural, +that departure received its concrete form in the two ancient English +universities “where students most do congregate.” In athletics it can +with truth be said, “the boy is father of the man.” + +For all the higher interests of athletism this was fortunate. In those +two centres the young plant was at least in a soil with materials for +its growth, and in an atmosphere where its grosser forms could scarce +take root, and where that parasite, the professional blackleg, could +certainly not develop. Thus it has transpired that those concomitant +evils which at one time threatened even the existence of cricket have +been kept from the field of amateur athletics. The watchful eye, the +timely warning, the friendly aid of authority, which, without crushing, +silently regulated the mode and conduct of these sports, has enabled +them to spread a beneficent and not a corrupting influence. That there +were evils, inherent, latent, and which might have become powerful, all +will admit; that they were surely and deeply rooted and ineradicable +was the fear of many; that they showed a tendency at first to develop +is a matter of record, but that they no longer affect athletism, where +it is conducted by gentlemen for gentlemen, is equally certain and +satisfactory. + +That the development of athletism, regulated and purified as it soon +became, was a distinct advance on the antecedent pastimes is perfectly +clear. Athletics soon obtained a recognition and a warm welcome from +the public. Let those who are old enough cast back their minds thirty +years and recall the scenes of brutality which filled the columns +of public newspapers, the very existence of which is now almost +forgotten. Turn even to the _Times_, and it will be found that in that +exclusive journal and great reflex of the age, “prize fighting” holds +quite a significant space. But the work unostentatiously begun in the +universities, and spreading to the schools, was preparing a public +which would become interested in the more scientific development of the +human frame for higher and nobler purposes. + +To Oxford belongs the honor of initiation in the Athletic Club of +Exeter College founded in 1850. Five years later the sister university +followed Oxford’s example; but, as is her habit, though slower to +the influence of innovation than Oxford, when once she has accepted +an idea, she makes more rapid progress. St. John’s College led the +van; Emmanuel, and one by one the rest, followed. So rapid, indeed, +was the development, that within two years the whole of the seventeen +colleges and halls were ready for a “federation,” and in 1857 the first +intercollegiate sports were held. Three years after, Oxford, too, was +ready for its extended sphere, its “United States” constitution. + +Naturally, the existence of these two friendly yet rival corporations +led to a trial of strength between them. Cambridge challenged Oxford +to a friendly tournament, and in 1864 the first of those since famous +meetings of the students of the two universities was held. Nothing can +be more significant of the then position of athletism than the manner +of its announcement. In an obscure corner of the _Times_, crushed +almost out by the more engrossing incidents of the German-Danish war +and of the American Rebellion, still may be seen the two small lines +announcing: “Athletic Games.--The athletic games between Oxford and +Cambridge will take place on the 5th March at 12 o’clock.” But small as +was the space, it was a clear indication that athletism had become a +subject of national and not entirely of local interest. From this event +may be measured all the subsequent career. “The events took place in +Christ Church new cricket ground, in the presence of a vast number of +persons, including many of the college authorities, and some hundreds +of ladies, who took a very keen interest in the proceedings,” says the +_Times_. But even more interesting is the fact that at the baptism of +these inter-university sports there should have been the sponsorship of +official recognition. Of the two judges, one was the Rev. A. H. Faber, +of New College, Oxford; the other was the Rev. H. Mortimer Luckock, of +Trinity College, Cambridge (now Canon of Ely Cathedral), whilst the +office of referee was filled by the Rev. Leslie Stephen. As Oxford “had +gathered there her beauty and her chivalry” as spectators, so amongst +the competitors were no mean representatives of the universities at +their best. Oxford had her Gooch and Darbyshire, and Cambridge that +very paragon of all graceful power, C. B. Lawes (who has since enriched +sculpture by so much that is admirable in art). What son of Cambridge +who saw Lawes is ever likely to forget him? He was a sight for the +gods!--a very athletic “Admirable Crichton.” + +Emulation and imitation, that sincerest form of flattery, quickly +produced followers; the flame which the universities had lit, raised +to a beacon’s height by the _Times’_ reports, spread like a wildfire. +Trinity College, Dublin, Eton College and Wellington, before the year +was out, appeared in the lists, and were quickly followed by those +nurseries of the universities, Harrow and Winchester, Rossall and +Cheltenham, Westminster and Charterhouse, whilst Sandhurst and Chatham +added to the list the military students, and the “United” Hospitals the +students in medicine. Nor was the agitation confined to one side of the +Atlantic, for within an extremely short period, the foundation of that +now world-renowned association, the New York Athletic Club, was laid. + +Is it to be wondered at that this sudden, simultaneous, and widespread +movement should have raised grave apprehensions, and anxious, if not +bitter, critics? The first warning voice was raised against the alleged +existence of gambling and against the debasing influence of money +as prizes. It is singular to remember, under present circumstances, +the fact, which has almost passed from memory, that at the first +inter-university sports the prizes were given in money. Nor was the +friendly yet apprehensive critic alone in the field. Mr. Wilkie +Collins, the novelist, with less knowledge and more animus, mixed gall +and wormwood with his criticism and produced in his “Man and Wife” a +caricatured monster so overdrawn as to be, fortunately, ineffective. +Even so good an authority as Mr. Leslie Stephen was apparently ranged +against the child of his adoption (for he was the first referee); but, +as a matter of fact, he was merely tempted to use the athlete as a +“bogey” to frighten “the characteristic doctrine out of the university +Tory;” but having to invoke a “bogey” for his purpose he was compelled, +by the exigencies of the case, to draw the university athlete in +language more forcible than elegant. This having served its purpose, +may now well be charitably consigned to oblivion. The Hon. Edward +Lyttleton, following suit to Mr. Stephen, urged the aid of “variety in +education” as a corrective to the engrossing attractions of the sports. +The fears which haunted Mr. Lyttleton, and still find expression, were +born of a too contracted view of the facts. To him, the enervating +effect was its growing popularity. He saw the increasing multitudes +flocking once a year to see the public exhibitions, in which but few +students competed, and he forgot the thousands who plodded, day after +day, month after month, through the weary details of practice, for the +development of their frames, or in private contests. + +Nor were the tutor, the schoolmaster and the novelist alone in their +onslaughts; a far more dangerous attack came from certain medical men, +of whom Dr. Richardson may be taken as the type. To them the athlete +was a man doomed to a premature decay, a broken and exhausted wreck. +Budding athletism had the good fortune to secure, in Dr. E. Morgan, +of Manchester, a champion whose exhaustive labors and conclusive +deductions from authentic facts, made short work of the adverse theory, +and established, beyond future cavil or dispute, that the death rate +amongst those who had passed the most trying ordeals was 30 per cent. +lower than the national average. + +The combination of assaults on lines like these, and the anxieties +generated in maternal minds, led the university authorities +to discourage the spirit of rivalry which, it was feared, the +inter-university contests might develop to excess. Cambridge was +staggered, in 1867, by an official prohibition against the Oxford and +Cambridge sports taking place within the precincts of the university. +No other step could so certainly have produced the very results which +it was aimed to prevent. Driven from Cambridge, where the contests +might long have continued comparatively subordinate, under the +immediate guardianship of the official eye, they were forced into the +extended, and by no means preferable, area of the London world, of +which they have since formed an important annual fixture. + +Athletism rose triumphant over these as over the many other +difficulties and dangers which surrounded its early path. The +varying “uses” of distant and conflicting schools were reconciled, +the barnacles of corruption cleared off, and the authority firmly +established of that great central governing body the Amateur Athletic +Association. + +Cambridge, which by its early example did so much to popularize +athletics, has had a long succession of faithful, loyal and patriotic +sons to carry her colors through many a hard-won fight and many +a stubborn fray. Who that has seen her career through the past +quarter of a century cannot recall, with all the glow of rekindled +satisfaction, her champions, from the day, in 1865, when R. E. Webster +(now the learned attorney-general) twice lowered Oxford’s colors +by defeating the Earl of Jersey for the mile in 4m. 44¼s. (on a +slow, wet ground) and for the two miles in 10m. 38½s. down to W. C. +Kendall’s exciting “odd event” jump this spring? Between these dates +what memories crowd the scene! Pitman and Ridley, Churchill and R. H. +Macaulay (now head-master of Rugby), who covered the quarter of a mile +in 1881 in 50 1-5s.; I. L. Stirling, “three stride Stirling,” of 1870, +over his 120 yards and 10 flights; A. B. Loder, who, in 1876, plucked +the honors from Upcher, the very classic of the hurdlers, in 16s.; S. +Palmer, lithe as a leopard, who, in 1883, carried the “light blue” +through in the same time; phenomenal E. J. Davies, short and spare of +build, who, with his second thrust in midair, covered 22 ft. 10 in. in +the broad jump; F. B. Roberts, who, in 1886, covered 21 ft. 9 in., and +W. C. Kendall’s winning jump of 1888; W. W. Hough, lean and light of +foot, who put the three miles behind him in 15m. 1 1-5s.; the mighty +hammer throws of G. H. Hales, in 1876, 138 ft. 3 in. and E. O’F. Kelly +putting the weight--these and hundreds more flit across the mind. + +And who that has seen thirty generations--for each year brings its new +generation--of under-graduates “strip” can have failed to recognize a +distinct, general improvement in the average physique, in build, in +carriage, and even in the quality and condition of the flesh. It is +undoubted and palpable even to the casual eye, and it has, singularly +enough, within the past few months, received confirmation from an +authority anything but casual. Dr. Sargent, of Harvard, in his +“Physical Proportions of the Typical Man,” has proved with mathematical +accuracy and from reliable and exhaustive measurements, that “man +cultivated both in mind and body along the lines of least resistance +shows that the tendency of the race is to attain the perfect type, the +order of growth is regular towards it.” Nor is it necessary at this day +to elaborate the point that this physical advance is not only no injury +to, not only compatible with, but a promoter of moral and spiritual +benefits, as well as a direct aid to withstanding the wear and tear +of modern business. The Universities’ missions to South Africa and +China, abroad, Toynbee Hall, the White Cross Society, and other like +efforts at home, are a standing testimony on the one hand, while on the +other the presence “thick as autumn leaves in Vallombrosa” of old-time +champions in the high offices of state and in every walk of science, +art, enterprise and commercial life, is a ready and complete answer. + +An author, whose modesty conceals his name, but whose good sense +justifies the quotation, has well summed up the situation. “Athletism +may not have crowned all its votaries with the laurels of social +heroism, but it has disseminated a thoroughly healthy and energizing +taste among our young men. It has taken them away from the smoking and +the billiard rooms at unreasonable hours and stamped out that physical +and moral malady, which was once powerfully described by the author of +‘David Copperfield’ as the ‘dry-rot in men.’” + +In her physical training of the youth of the nation, those “trustees +for posterity,” may its motto long express the universal verdict +“_Floreat Cantabrigia_.” + + +~Comparative Table of Amateurs’ Records.~ + + ===============+==============+================+============== + | Oxford and | Oxford and | London + | Cambridge | Cambridge | Athletic + | Inter- | Inter- | Club, + | university, | university, | 1886. + | 1864. | 1888. | + ---------------+--------------+----------------+-------------- + 100 Yards Flat | 10½s. | 10 4-5s. | 10s. + 120 Yards, and | | | + 10 flights | | | + of hurdles | 17½s. | 17 1-5s. | 16s. + Quarter Mile | | | + Flat | 53s. | 51 2-5s. | 49 4-5s. + Half Mile | | | 1m. 59s. + One Mile | 4m. 56s. | 4m. 29 2-5s. | 4m. 25 2-5s. + Two Miles | | | + Three Miles | | 15m. 28 1-5s. | + High Jump | 5 ft. 5 in. | 5 ft. 10¼ in. | + Broad Jump | 18 ft. 0 in. | 20 ft. 10¾ in. | + Putting the | | | + Weight | | 37 ft. | + Throwing the | | | + Hammer | | 93 ft. 10 in. | + ---------------+--------------+----------------+-------------- + + ===============+===============+===============+================ + | New York | Harvard | Cambridge + | Athletic | Champions’ | Champions’ + | Champions’ | Times. | Times. + | Times. | | + | | | + ---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------- + 100 Yards Flat | 10s. | 10s. | 10s. + 120 Yards, and | | | + 10 flights | | | + of hurdles | 16 1-5s. | -- | 16s. + Quarter Mile | | | + Flat | 47¾s. | -- | 50 1-5s. + Half Mile | 2m. | | 1m. 56 2-5s. + One Mile | 4m. 30s. | 4m. 36 4-5s. | 4m. 25 3-5s. + Two Miles | 9m. 38s. | 10m. 7s. | + Three Miles | 14m. 50 3-5s. | | 15m. 1 1-5s. + High Jump | 5 ft. 11 in. | | 5 ft. 10½ in. + Broad Jump | | 21 ft. 7½ in. | 22 ft. 10¾ in. + Putting the | | | + Weight | 44 ft. 9½ in. | | 39 ft. 1 in. + Throwing the | | | + Hammer | 119 ft. 0 in. | | 138 ft. 3 in. + ---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------- + + + + +[Illustration: AVTVMN] + + + Shrill cocks salute the tardy dawn + That glimmers o’er the landscape blurred; + Somewhere upon the barren lawn + Is piping one lorn little bird-- + A robin red-breast, loath to leave, + Although he only stays to grieve. + + The thresher’s flail rings clear and loud + All day long from the open barn; + The pigeons on the rafters crowd, + Torn is the spider’s silvery yarn. + The frosts have left their ghostly prints + Upon the meadow’s russet tints. + + Beneath the sunset’s lurid light, + The pinewood holds its plumes of black-- + The pilot moon brings in the night, + His white boat in a windy track-- + One tall, far spire across the land, + In warning lifts a fiery hand. + + November, born to poverty, + The winds are mournful with her prayer; + A vagrant, pleading charity, + And yet her hands are always bare; + And still within her clouded eyes + Are lurking dismal prophecies. + + Too late for Autumn’s golden wealth, + The harvest-dance, the merry stir; + Too soon for Winter’s lusty health, + And yet our fond hearts welcome her; + For ’tis her cold breath that first lights + The happy household fire o’ nights. + + _Susan Hartley Swett._ + + + + +A DAMP JOURNEY ON A DOWN GRADE. + +BY RALPH K. WING. + + +Time was when a trip into the woods meant “roughing it.” Nowadays it +may mean anything. An arm-chair in the stern of a skiff, propelled by +a backwoods laborer, who lugs your boat from one lake to another over +the highways of such travel--this is the ordinary type of the modern +Adirondack voyage. The tourist languidly views the scenery through his +eye-glass, and returns to his city friends to rapturously descant upon +the perils and hardships undergone, and the bravery required for a +sojourn in this “uncombed” region. + +We had never taken an outing in such a manner. It was our intention to +“do” the North Woods on business principles, take a tent, shun hotels, +keep away from the usual paths of travel, carry our own canoe, do our +own paddling, and, in fact, get the real benefit of genuine wild life +in wild places. + +Our canoe was at Blue Mountain Lake; and thither Will Maynard, my chum, +and I made the thirty-mile stage ride from North Creek, the terminus +of the railway. We reached the lake in the afternoon; and desiring +to avoid the necessity of stopping over night at any of the hotels, +we immediately looked around for a wagon to start us on our way. Our +objective point was Rock Lake, about seven miles from Blue Mountain +Lake, and a mile off the regular road. This pond gives rise to the +Rock River, which flows into the Indian River, which again makes a +junction with the upper Hudson far back in the remote wilderness. These +water-courses we desired to follow, and continuing on the Hudson River +to a few miles below the village of North Creek, portage over into +Schroon River, from which Lake George, our ultimate destination, could +easily be reached. + +Good luck brought us an empty returning wagon, and it was soon engaged. +About sunset we were landed at an inn at a point a mile and a half from +Rock Lake. We discussed the feasibility of packing our boat and luggage +this distance over a trail not too good and entirely unknown to us, +before darkness settled down. Meanwhile we ate our supper, and then cut +the Gordian knot by hiring two backwoodsmen to help us. + +As, lagging somewhat behind our guides, we emerged from the end of the +path we met them returning noiselessly, motioning to enjoin silence. + +“What is it?” we whispered. + +“Hist! Keep quiet. There’s a bear about the camp. Perhaps we can get a +shot.” + +We tiptoed after them. They had their rifles and I my revolver. The +fading light glimmered faintly across the lake and over the open, +swampy margin. We peered eagerly through the gloaming; but, strain eye +and ear as we might, we scanned the landscape in vain. Bruin wisely +concluded not to do battle at such great odds against him. A few shots, +that provoked hollow, lonesome echoes from the wilderness, we fired in +the direction in which the bear had last been heard. + +We turned to look at our surroundings. On the verge of the woods, a few +hundred yards from where the path terminated at the lake, was a very +small log cabin, with one window, breast high, and a low door. This was +to be our quarters for the night. Our friends, quickly starting a brisk +fire at the front, sat down for a few minutes’ chat before they began +their dark, and, to less practiced persons, uncertain journey home. +We took occasion to glean all the information we could regarding our +proposed route. Great were our astonishment and dismay at their replies. + +“Well,” remarked one, “when I hear’n that you fellows were going down +the Rock and Cedar rivers, I just said right out loud to myself, ‘They +can’t do it.’ Do you know how far you will get to-morrow if you begin +work early in the morning and work all day just as hard as you can? +You won’t go no farther than six miles below--to where the Cedar River +comes in. There ain’t enough water, and it’s rough and rocky all the +way. When you get down to Cedar River there be some still water; but it +is all filled up with logs. There isn’t no paths, and the woods be too +thick for you to carry your things around any of the bad places. You +will have to drag your boat over the rocks a smart bit of the way, and +you stand a mighty good chance of getting it smashed.” + +“Would you advise us to take our outfit back to the road and wait for +some team to take us to North River?” we inquired. “The water is deep +enough there, is it not?” + +“I wouldn’t say what I think you ought to do ’cept as you ask it. We +ain’t trying to frighten ye; but I don’t think any of the boys livin’ +up this way, unless they had a blamed good reason, would think to try +what you said you wanted to do. It’s too late to get back through the +woods to-night. I would stay right here on this pile of balsam boughs +in your shanty till morning, then carry your things back to the road, +and wait until an empty wagon comes your way. But we’ve got to get +home, so good-night!” + +Maynard and I built up the fire with green wood to make smoke and drive +off the insect pests, universal in these dense woods; and each crawling +into his sleeping bag, made by sewing several blankets together, slept +until long after sunrise. + +I stepped over to a little brook that dashed by our camp to take my +morning’s wash. A large flat stone was lying in the middle of the +stream. On this I stood, and while making a liberal lather, discovered +on another rock only three feet away a big green bullfrog, staring +at me with a fixed, immovable, owl-like gaze. After several efforts, +which did not seem to alarm him in the least, I finally succeeded in +landing some soapsuds in his eyes. This made him relax sufficiently +to wink violently two or three times, but not enough to change his +posture or the glassy gleam of his optics. With no better effect I +again anointed him, but the third time I gave him such a nasty dose +that he deliberately waddled down to the water, put his head under, and +removed the objectionable foreign substance. Then he ambled back to his +old roost, composedly resuming his position in a way which seemed to +say, “Keep it up if you want to; it don’t hurt me any.” I laughed till +I was tired, and left this genuine humorist of nature in undisturbed +possession. + +After breakfast we very leisurely carried our canoe and equipment back +to the road. We reposed under the trees, waiting for “something to turn +up,” but as hour after hour slipped by, we found it very monotonous. We +had almost reconciled ourselves to staying where we were for the night, +when with joy we saw a wagon coming our way. + +The driver, who intended to make an all-night journey to the railroad +terminus, was an employé of one of the Blue Mountain Lake hotels. +He was a native of the district, well versed in all the stories and +traditions of the wilderness, and was evidently glad of an audience. He +told of the last of the Indians in that region; of the deer and bear +that had been shot at different points as we passed; the uselessness +of attempting to farm on the rocky precipitous slopes; and, now that +the section was open to competition with the products of more fertile +localities, the dependence of the inhabitants on the summer tourists. +Despite the talk, the banter, and the songs, our not over-soft seats on +the bow of the canoe and the sides of the springless wagon became no +easier. As the result of our two days’ severe work and the lateness of +the hour, we would find ourselves dropping off into a short doze, to +awake just in the nick of time to avoid falling out of the wagon by a +desperate grab at the first available support. The small hours of the +morning overtook us: still the wheels rolled on in their dusty course, +still the horses trotted down a decline to toil panting up the crest +of the next hill; still the dim shadows ahead would, as we approached, +disclose the faintly outlined forms of rocks, stumps and trees; still +the mountains bathed their feet in the fogs of the valley and in their +sable garments draped the scene in mourning. Soon black, threatening +clouds shut out the small remnant of light that the giant mountains +failed to obscure. Presently we heard a deep muttering, as if these +Titans roared in anger to each other, then the illuminating flashes, +as if they exchanged shots with one another, proclaimed more certainly +than a weather bulletin that it would become moist in our vicinity. +Rubber coats afforded us as good protection as could be expected in the +postures we were obliged to assume. + +But soon the stars reasserted their sway; then the first glimmer of the +river, as after its long _détour_ through the virgin forest, it once +more approached the highway, could be caught through the trees from the +hill we were descending. Then a house or two appeared, and we rattled +up in front of the inn at North River, a hamlet about six miles above +North Creek, the terminus of the railroad. + +Very thankful we were to see a light burning. Our elation was but +short-lived, for we were told that every room in the house was +occupied. We were, however, more prepared for emergencies than the +ordinary traveler, and carrying our blankets into the barn, we were +easily convinced, and not for the first time, that a haymow has its +advantages as a sleeping-place. + +Before launching next morning we repaired to the only store in the +place to make a few purchases. In this remote country store, surrounded +by a well-nigh uninhabited and inaccessible region, we did not expect +to find anything to remind us of the teeming marts of trade from which +we had recently come. Judge then our surprise when upon entering the +place we found the proprietor cornered by the everlasting, ubiquitous +drummer. This particular specimen was not carrying a general line, +but was a specialist, traveling for a soap powder. I expressed my +astonishment, and was informed by the storekeeper that there had been +already ten salesmen in there that day. Probably these fellows had an +idea that in a place so remote from the ordinary routes of travel, if +the storekeeper wanted anything in their line, he would take a large +amount. Be that as it may, it furnished a striking illustration of +American business enterprise. + +In the store was a child, not over three years of age, complacently +smoking a full-sized cigar. This was the proprietor’s son, and it +seemed to give the father much pleasure to exhibit the little wretch’s +accomplishment. “He uses tobacco just like a man,” he beamingly +remarked. “He takes to it naturally. He chewed a piece of my fine-cut +before he was out of the cradle, and he is now never without a cigar, +pipe, or quid. He can take his little toddy, too, without winking, +just like his old man,” and the unnatural parent fairly gloated over +the precocious depravity of his offspring. It must be said, though, in +favor of this “infant prodigy,” that he seemed to survive the treatment +with remarkable success. A sturdier young sinner, with rosier cheeks, +would be hard to find. + +Directly across the road, opposite the hotel and the few houses +comprising the hamlet, flowed the river, which at this point was much +contracted, booming and roaring for half a mile in a not insignificant +rapid. As soon as it became noised about that we intended to embark +at the head of this, the place was on the tiptoe of expectation. The +inhabitants were accustomed to nothing but rowboats, and could not +appreciate the advantages possessed by a canoe in lightness and in +the ability of the occupant to see his course as he proceeds, so +many skeptics were found. As we loitered about, making purchases and +getting things in shape, the number of doubters increased, some of them +being unkind enough to hint at a lack of “sand” on the part of “them +city dudes.” This was our first rapid of the season, and it must be +confessed that as we shoved off we did not feel exactly stiff in the +knees. + +We made directly for the centre with our quickest, most powerful +strokes, and sooner almost than thought itself the banks were whizzing +past us, and we were plunging in the midst of the foam and the billows, +dodging the rocks as they sought our frail craft, and zigzagging from +one side of the stream to the other in quest of a channel. We had +hardly time to get frightened, hold our breath hard, and receive a few +dashes of spray before we found ourselves in comparatively smooth water +at the foot of the run. + +The distance to North Creek, six miles, was, in the high state of the +river, very easily and most enjoyably made. The sun was shining, the +water clear, the current swift but free enough from dangerous stretches +to allow us to give our full attention to the charms of the landscape, +rendered doubly attractive by the rain of the previous night. The road +ran close to the river. The driver of a conspicuous red wagon, drawn by +a team of spirited horses, going in our direction, became filled with a +desire to show us the greater expedition of his method of travel. With +this end in view he lashed his horses up hill and down, speeding them +to the best of his ability. Not being in the racing mood, we enjoyed at +our leisure his manifest desire to leave us in the lurch, finding that, +aided by the swift water, we were able to keep the lead by the exercise +of only ordinary effort. + +In less than an hour we had traveled the six miles to North Creek. +While there it rained heavily, to the relief of my chum, who utilized +the time by flirting with the pretty post-mistress. Female charms +must always be recognized as dangerous, especially when placed in the +vantage-ground of a post-office. Owing to the indiscretion of Uncle Sam +in placing this maiden in a position to practise her seductive wiles +on my susceptible friend, our departure was delayed till late in the +afternoon, so bringing upon us a catastrophe before the day was done. + +Although it was five o’clock before we started, we judged from the +quick and easy run that we had already made, that the ten miles to +Riverside, the point at which we intended to leave the Hudson, could +readily be made before darkness overtook us. The road had now turned +off from the river, and for the nonce we plunged once more into the +primitive wilderness. + +Forests overhung the water on both banks, and no landing for our boat, +much less a camping-place, could be found. This deprivation of a last +resort, obliging us in any case to continue, we soon found to be a +most serious matter. Rapids began to be frequent, presenting many +undesirable features. Angular boulders of immense size threatened to +monopolize the current at these points, while we were forcibly reminded +of that great feature of the Hudson, the lumber traffic, by enormous +piles of logs. These had drifted on the rocks in the freshets, and +had been left high and dry far above us, blockading the channel and +shutting off the view of what lay before us. Our hands were in now, and +recking little of what was concealed, we plunged boldly in, paddling +fast even in the swiftest water, and trusting to experience and +intuition to get us through. + +The mountain air grew cool in the lengthening shadows; but coats, vests +and hats were thrown aside. Amidst the boom and surge of the rushing +water, one interval of white, foam-crested waves succeeding another in +almost unbroken succession, we shouted to each other in the din and +plied our paddles from side to side, now backing with heavy stroke or +desperately shoving ahead on the opposite quarter. Our blood was on +fire with excitement and the spirit of battle pervaded every nerve. + +The rocks thickened, the current quickened. White water appeared at +the beginning of a bend, and we made right for it with the confidence +born of recklessness. As we slid on to the dancing billows, we were +coolly discussing the relative merits and demerits of decked and open +canoes for running rapids, when on turning the point such a sight +was presented as made even our madcap hearts pause in their tattoo +against our ribs. For half a mile extended a toboggan slide of water, +with all element of smoothness omitted. Rocks were piled in confused, +broken heaps as in the crater of a volcano; and between, round and +over them rushed and plunged, like an aqueous cannon-ball, the deep +contracted, resistless tide. No escape: the alternatives were to +get through on our muscle or die game. We became self-possessed from +desperation. Onward and downward, like a descent into a maelstrom, we +dived and tossed. To attempt to shape our course to suit ourselves +was almost useless: the depth and volume of the narrowed flood was +too great. Suddenly the broad stream became a funnel, and tumbling +down a miniature cascade of some three feet, swept over a partially +submerged flat rock a few yards below the middle of the plunge. Toward +this we were irresistibly drawn. The bow of the canoe was higher than +the stern when we dived down the incline, so the prow glided over +the obstruction, the bottom gave a sharp rasp, and the stern was +lifted high upon the rock. At once we shoved our paddles against the +unyielding surface to push off ere our predicament was made worse. The +boat would not budge; the water was driven hard against it, threatening +by its force alone to tear the wood apart; the craft, balanced nicely +on the end of its heel, tipped violently with the slightest movement, +several times admitting water. + +We calmly discussed the situation. There seemed to be little hope for +us. Maynard was in the stern, I in the bow. In a hoarse, deliberate +voice, he said, “If we capsize here we are both lost. I am going to +attempt to get out on the rock and pull her loose. If I succeed you +will go down alone, stern first, but you may get through all right. It +is our only hope.” + +Carefully rising, gathering his strength, he made a leap. He landed +on the rock. Pressing his foot against a projection, by a succession +of powerful efforts he got the boat loose, and before it had time to +take the momentum of the water and be swept from his hands, he made +a desperate grab at the gunwales as far forward as he could reach, +drawing himself off of the stone and out of the water, and resumed his +paddle before the canoe had a chance to drift broadside. + +The sweat of exertion and terror stood out on our brows--but the worst +was over; a few more vigorous strokes and we floated where we might +again feel moderately secure. + +The sun was just sinking. We thought anxiously of camp, and to our +great relief, a house appeared. It must be near Riverside, so we +landed. The dwelling was close to the bank, and a few cultivated fields +lay around it, another habitation appearing in the distance. With +these exceptions all was wild. However, a glorious blaze on the beach +soon dried our wet garments. The moon was full, and as no signs of +human proximity were visible, by its light we proceeded to investigate +the house. A tumble-down fence and a rankly overgrown garden betokened +a neglect which was soon explained by a deserted home. We shoved our +dark lantern through all the windows, and being satisfied that the +house was vacant, and we would not be disturbed, we produced our +bedding and wrapping ourselves up on the porch were soon lost in our +dreams. So ended an eventful day, the scenes of which in our slumber +were re-enacted with terrifying variations. The house, fences, trees, +moon, and the solid earth seemed to have an insecure, tumbling, +rolling tendency; and as the roar of an actual rapid below where we +landed filled the air and was echoed to our sleeping ears, one of us, +as a corner of a blanket covered his mouth, would fancy that he was +taking his last plunge into the cold, hurrying waters, and wake with a +suffocating gasp. + +The dawn found us stirring. It ushered in a day so full of queer +circumstances as to seem like a chapter from “Alice in Wonderland.” +After a breakfast of dried beef, bread, hot chocolate and oatmeal, +which we thoroughly appreciated, our first solicitude was to find +a wagon to convey our canoe to Loon Lake, via which and its outlet +we intended to reach the Schroon River. This was an occasion of the +mountain coming to Mahomet; for we had hardly finished our breakfast +when three men bent on a swim, and attracted by the revolver practice +in which we had been indulging, made their appearance. Living at a +distance from any improved road, they had no wagon suitable for our +purpose, but a neighbor who was to be found nearly a mile across +country, might be able to satisfy our wants. Maynard made the quest; +and after an hour or so of weary waiting, beguiled by the conversation +of the granger delegation, I spied a box lumber wagon coming slowly and +carefully through the fields. The duffle and the light little boat were +soon aboard and snugly lashed down. + +Now began a journey of seven miles by land, requiring as much care, +but lacking the excitement of the previous day’s river trip. We took +turns walking, the man on foot keeping behind to see that the craft +did not lurch over to one side so that the delicate cedar would be +chafed against an uneven board or protruding nail. Listening to our +driver, alternately trudging and riding, picking berries, telling +stories, singing and declaiming, we made our portage. Along the borders +of Loon Lake we passed for about half a mile to a spot where our guide +informed us we could obtain a meal. Carrying our outfit down to a +beautiful sandy beach, and leaving all ready for a launch, we stormed +the house. Though it was in the afternoon, the prospect of earning a +little money was sufficient inducement to these frugal folks to quickly +produce a dinner in which that inevitable last resort of a remote +farmhouse--fried pork--largely figured. + +We swept rapidly through the lake, a small body of water. Paddling down +the narrow outlet, we soon reached the dam, which marked its terminus. +A boom of logs on the near side of the structure, and the lack of an +available place to land after the obstruction was passed, said plainly +to boatmen, “No thoroughfare.” We dragged the canoe through a clump +of willows uncomfortably close to a pig-sty, and much to our chagrin, +frightened away two pretty girls who stood farther down on the path. +We were soon at the dam, only to find by glancing below that the +water supplied to the mills on the brook down which we had expected +to float had been almost entirely shut off. We were in a quandary +how to proceed. Inquiring, we learned that a mile below the stream +received a tributary, and that beyond the junction we would probably +find water enough to float. We tried the Adirondack plan; and one of +us shouldering the boat and the other carrying as much as he could of +what remained, we let down bars and climbed fences, cutting across +fields in approved style, to strike the road at the most direct point. +Perspiring, but persevering, we pushed on. The sky now began to darken. +A thunder-storm was evidently rapidly approaching. + +A desire for sleeping under a wooden roof took possession of us. +Carefully concealing the canoe in the bushes by the brookside, we made +for a farmhouse near by. We had taken a solemn oath not to sleep in +beds. To get the concession of spending the night in the barn, we used +diplomacy. After telling who we were, what we were doing, where we were +going, and producing our canvas “Saratoga” in proof of our statements, +we would say, “If you will allow us to sleep in your barn we will not +smoke nor light any matches,” that being the regulation bugbear of the +average farmer. Generally, as in this case, the granger had become +intensely interested in our adventurous journey by field and flood, +and would warmly press upon us the hospitalities of his home. This +invitation we invariably declined. + +“At peep of dawn we brushed, with hasty steps, the dews away,” and +trudging across the meadow, found the small stream now deep enough +for our purposes. We moved slowly through beautiful, fresh meadow +land along the winding stream, the water clear as the air above it, +and varying from five to fifteen feet in width, and of a depth just +sufficient for our purpose. The bottom was covered with sawdust from +the mill, over the yielding beds of which, as occasion required, we +could easily pole our craft. The banks were now open and lined with +rushes, ferns and sweet-smelling grasses, and again rose crested with +thickly crowded trees, overhanging and enclosing the thread of silver. +The brook was in charming harmony with our diminutive bark, affording +us uninterrupted enjoyment. + +Continuing several miles in this manner, making, it is true, slow but +delightful progress, we arrived about dinner-time at Chestertown, +a village which, though ten miles from any railroad, is surrounded +by beautiful drives, and is on the turnpike to famous Schroon Lake, +and other of the less wild and most fashionable resorts of the +Adirondacks. It is itself possessed of several fine hotels, containing +not a few rich city people, who are content to spend their summers +in simply breathing the pure air of this region, and occasionally +making a carriage excursion to some of the fine fishing ponds in the +neighborhood. + +We saved the time necessary for preparing food by making a savage +inroad on a civilized hotel dinner, much to the terror of the other +guests and the holy horror of the landlord. I believe we paid before +sitting down, otherwise, judging from the merits of the case, we should +have left with purses as light as our meal had been heavy. + +The stream now led through the village, and we were viewed by the +inhabitants with as much curiosity as if we hailed from the spirit +world. After flattening out for several low bridges, and posing as the +“only greatest show on earth,” we found ourselves once more free from +the confines and criticism of people and society. + +Then we immediately found ourselves surrounded by thick woods. +Occasional open vistas showed gently rising hills clothed in harmonious +proportions with timber and pasture, and disclosed a fine perspective +of lofty mountains in the background, marking the untraveled +wilderness. The forest continued for a number of miles--in fact, until +we emerged into the Schroon River. Occasionally a duck would fly up +just out of reach of the eager revolver, or an animal of some kind +would manifest itself by scurrying off through the thick undergrowth +before we had a chance to get a glimpse of its form. + +Suddenly we came to an obstruction which occupied a large part of the +small stream, and though in an alluvial bottom appeared to be a large +rock. As we came up with it, to our unbounded surprise this boulder +became endowed with motion, and resolved itself into a turtle of huge +dimensions. In spite of a shot fired excitedly with rather uncertain +aim, it managed to disappear in the water. Although the stream was +so shallow, a thorough probing of the bottom failed to reveal the +hardshell’s retreat. + +Higher ground on the immediate banks of our brook, and a rift which +obliged us to wade and float the canoe, warned us that we were nearing +the Schroon River. This was entered so very abruptly that we at first +supposed it to be a sudden lake-like expansion of the diminutive creek +which we had been following. + +The Schroon is known among the lumbermen as “Still River,” to +distinguish it from the Hudson. At first it seemed to justify this +local designation. It flowed sluggishly, the banks were of a rich, +loamy soil, and immense forest trees grew close to the water’s edge, +or had been undermined by the erosion of the light earth by the +slow-moving current. + +Soon we were undeceived. An ominous thunder broke upon our ears, at +first nothing but a murmur, then for a while it was lost altogether, +only to grow louder as we turned a favoring bend, until finally the +heavy, sustained roar warned us that we were getting dangerously near +to a genuine cataract. We landed, forced ourselves through the impeding +fringe of thick, young growth, and carefully making our way out in +the stream on a succession of half-submerged rocks, found the fall to +be about eight feet high. The descent was at somewhat of an angle, +and at one place, a few feet wide, there seemed to be enough water to +float a steamboat. But so great was the force, and so problematical our +ability to shape our course over this particular spot, and the memory +of our recent narrow escape so fresh in our minds, that after due +consideration we wisely made a portage. + +The sun was now throwing his copper-colored lance of light upon the +tops of the highest hills. Another mile was made, a large lumber mill +was discerned, and pulling out on to a closely cropped meadow at the +foot of a loudly-talking rapid, we prepared to spend the night. The +air was mild. We determined to dispense with a tent, and pulling our +blankets closely round us, lulled by the silvery gurgle of the rushing +water close by our heads, we slept as birds must sleep after a day’s +free flight into the untrammeled recesses of the air. + +A quarter of a mile carry, a brief sojourn at a store which we found +locked, and the proprietor at work in an adjoining field, and once more +we started on to turn the leaves of the book of fate. The river now +showed constant current, and the landscape much diversity and beauty. +Again the low, portentous monotone of a waterfall caught the ear. This +one, like that of the day previous, was just possible, but not very +inviting. It consisted of three low falls, not far apart, and, though +the volume of the water was ample, the sinuosities of the channel, and +particularly the sight on the rocks at the foot of the third, of a +skiff crushed to the fineness of kindling wood, sufficed, not, perhaps, +to dampen our ardor, but to prevent it from getting dampened. + +After hauling our things around, we had barely paddled away from the +all-pervading din, when, as that sound grew less, the noise of another +rush of water took its place. This, as we advanced, possessed the air, +and disclosed its source in an apparently unbroken line of white water. + +We were by this time rather ashamed of having backed out so frequently. +A man whom we saw just at that moment was interrogated with regard to +what lay below. + +“I calkerlate you fellows can’t run it,” he drawled, “leastwise in that +bit of a thing. The big lumber skiffs do sometimes go to pieces down +thar. No, they ain’t no falls,” he added in a reply to our inquiry, +“but you be like to find two miles of as stiff rapids as you ever see.” + +Rather than undertake such a long, laborious carry, we determined to +take our chances. The morning was now well advanced, and the sun so +warm that we could dry our things that might get wet. Elevating all our +belongings above the bottom of the canoe, so as to get them out of the +way of the waves we anticipated would wash in, and lashing everything +firmly into position, we headed with misgiving hearts directly for the +most available opening. + +What a glorious run that was! A storm at sea, with massive walls +of mountainous waves making clean breaches over flooded decks, a +cavalry charge, the rattle of musketry, the groans of the wounded +and the dying, the shouts of the attacked and of the assailants, the +impetuous momentum of the gigantic missile of flesh and blood--all +these might seem tame to those who have been through them, as they +lose themselves in the ecstasy of the wild rush over foam-crested +billows and the plunge down the rock-studded declivity with a speed too +great to realize. The waves bounded in fine style. Half way down we +encountered an eddy, and taking advantage of it, ran the boat up to the +rocky shore, and clinging desperately, made a hasty inspection of our +condition. + +We were kneeling in water. Where was the sponge? It was not to be +found. It must have been left at the head of the rapid. While Maynard +held the boat I made my way at my best speed to where we recollected +having landed. Although walking my fastest, it took me twenty minutes +to go and return. The passage by water had occupied hardly two. We +accounted ourselves most fortunate in getting as far as we had. I +wielded the stern paddle, and it was agreed that, upon my saying left +or right, as the case might be, Maynard was to paddle on the side +indicated. Shoving off, we were at once in the fray again. The earth +and everything solid seemed to reel and revolve. The waves of rapids +are not uniform undulations--they roll and curve in all directions. As +we were thrown high into the air, twisted sideways or backwards, jerked +hither and thither, shot forward into a yawning depression, nothing +seemed stationary--we had apparently nothing by which to be guided. + +Instead of our going toward the rocks they appeared to be moving, +like spent cannon-balls, right up stream. We dodged these to the +best of our ability. The fun waxed fast and furious. The immediate +surroundings, the channel just ahead, and the course far below, had +all to be considered at once. The combination had to be worked like a +mathematical puzzle, but it must needs be solved instantly. The mental +and physical acrobatics proved nearly too much for me. I could not +speak my own name. I wanted Maynard to make certain moves, but was +utterly unable to utter the words--I could not tell left from right. + +My companion remembered our understanding. Until told, he did not +intend to make a stroke. We whizzed straight for a rock. I could not +avoid it unassisted; and Maynard, not knowing my intentions, did not +try to keep off. Luckily, it was of a gentle slope, and not much above +the surface, so the canoe, instead of hitting it a fair blow, was +simply lifted clean out of the river by the tremendous force of the +current and launched in the water on the lower side of the obstruction. +A few more spasmodic strokes, a little more spasmodic steering, and we +found ourselves out of the vortex. The river that erstwhile shook its +rumpled mane in anger, looked with eyes of gentle peace again. We swept +through a narrow channel past a beautiful island, and, turning a bend +at its foot, found ourselves in a gentle current, and in the bright +sunshine of a pastoral scene, the angry roar of furious waters replaced +by the sweet melody of birds. + +“You fellows did pretty well to come out of that all right,” said a man +who had come up behind us. “It’s no fool trick to get through there. +Last summer there was a young millionaire blood that came up from +Warrensburg, just for the fun of running these rapids. He had a fine +cedar boat that cost him considerably over $100, and he was skillful +enough to go to everlasting smash just a half mile above here.” + +After a hearty dinner we spent the afternoon in getting through some +minor rapids, eventually, just at dusk, pulling out to portage round +a bit of water that was absolutely impassable. Our route lay over a +hill, on the crest of which we paused to drink in the inspiriting scene +made by the river as it leaped, bounded and reverberated through the +perpendicular cañon at our feet. A house, a green meadow with a barn in +the centre, made the end of the carry a most inviting spot for camping. + +The next day was one of hard work. We had reached the quiet part +of Schroon River. The shores were now entirely alluvial. The valley +broadened and the stream wound in and out in snake-like curves. +Trees, swamps and sand-bars constituted the scenery. The banks were +uniformly low, and any mile, like one of a block of city houses, was a +counterpart of every other. + +We had been afloat that morning at seven o’clock. By unremitting labor, +at eleven ~A. M.~ we had covered the distance of twenty-two +miles to the village of Warrensburg. This beautiful place lies +scattered in wide, shaded avenues, fine houses and attractive gardens +close along the river, as if fearful lest the stream in its winding +course might escape from those who prize it so highly. + +Our trip was now practically ended. Lake George lay but six miles to +the eastward. At the lower part of the village, a few miles before the +Schroon joins the Hudson, is a rapid with an ugly reputation. We were +anxious to stir our blood once more by a farewell wrestle with the +river demon that had been so long slumbering. Engaging a conveyance +to meet and carry us from the foot of the rapids to Lake George, I +put the canoe upon my back, and marching ceremoniously through the +business thoroughfare, a crowd followed us to the huge wood-pulp paper +mill, at which point began our half-mile run. Well-nigh unanimous was +the testimony regarding our inability to do what we had announced. An +ominous shaking of all heads proclaimed that it was generally expected +that we stood a better chance of getting to the bottom of the river +than the bottom of the rapid, and made us feel half fool and half +hero, filling us with a strong desire to act the part of neither by +taking the land route out of the difficulty. However, having committed +ourselves, we threw the town and people over our shoulders by slipping +out into the stream. It was like a salmon ladder--all zigzag. We had a +very good aquatic representation of broncho riding: + + A forward plunge, + A sidelong lunge, + A dash, a splash, + A just-missed smash; + The paddles fly, + The waves run high. + The end is reached + Without a breach. + We pull ashore, + Our journey’s o’er. + + + + +[Illustration] + +ON THE CONNECTICUT. + + + Delicious is it, of a day in fall, + Your native river to be drifting down, + To turn your back upon the clumsy town, + That is so crooked and so stiff withal + That to the water’s edge it scarce can crawl; + While like a child that in its mother’s gown + Takes refuge, comforted from soul to crown, + Betwixt green bank you slip and gray stone wall; + Past here a plume and there an entire patch + Of golden-rod submerged or islanded, + Past many a bit of color hard to match, + But which the swift stream tempers to its mood, + To bind it all together with a thread + Of its own weaving, as a poet would. + + _Lucy C. Bull._ + + + + +THE RIFLE IN THE SACRAMENTOS. + +BY WILLIAM H. JOHNSTON, JR., U. S. A. + + +There has been so much said and written of hunts phenomenally +successful and so little of those phenomenally unsuccessful, that it +occurs to me to record a few memories of a recent hunt of the latter +class, a hunt which could by no charitable figure of speech be termed +successful. It has, however, left recollections to be cherished with +pleasure, as the sailor looks fondly back to a storm outridden, or the +soldier to an engagement won. + +From our little fort on the Rio Grande, but a few yards from sunny +Mexico and its tropical climate, the distant mountains to the +northeast, crowned with snow, were until this hunt a fairyland. Beyond +their confines all the wonders and delights of a Northern winter might +be found--and perhaps more, for snow and ice and frost, glaciers +perhaps, and slides, almost within the tropics, were indeed loadstones +to the adventurous and curious. All these “delights” of a Yankee +Christmastide we found, and this is the way it happened. + +Late in November Mr. X. and I were granted leave of absence for +twenty days for the purpose of hunting. Several days were devoted to +preparations for the expedition, which promised as much success and +glory, content and happiness, as the average candidate for office and +solicitor of votes. Sufficient guns, knives, ammunition and general +hardware were procured to establish ourselves in business, as my cook +expressed it, “on an expensive scale,” while our provisions, clothing, +bedding, tents and equipage would have kept a polar expedition in +comfort for years. We had to travel more than one hundred miles over +sand-flats before reaching the first water--the Sacramento River--so we +deemed it wise to go prepared to live on our mess-chest rather than “on +the country.” + +The first wagon, called through courtesy and time-worn custom an +ambulance, carried us, with two soldiers, a driver and a cook, and +“Grover Cleveland.” The last mentioned name refers, by the by, not to +the Commander-in-chief of our Army and Navy, but to a dog of the setter +type and lazy variety, who, though of good blood, from want of training +was only valuable as a watch-dog. If he should not prove of much use +in hunting deer or retrieving a few elk, it was thought he might scare +away wolves, “lions” and wildcats, or do noble service with the lizards +and field mice scented on the way. In the hope that he might not care +for all the interior of the wagon, we threw into it a general stock +of rifles, shot-guns, ammunition, canteens, belts, field glasses, +overcoats, etc. Our hope was vain. Grover could cover more territory +than a litter of less distinguished dogs. Changing base frequently +from our shoulders to the doorstep, and from the front seat to the +lunch-basket, he was very largely an element of the party. Two men rode +on the heavy wagon, loaded down as it was with grain for eight mules, +two barrels of water, tents, bedding, rations and camp implements. + +With as much noise as possible we drove through the main streets of the +little city adjacent, to excite the envy of those at home. We moreover +procured a few delicacies for our mess until the skies should rain +venison steaks and turkey giblets. + +Even on dress occasions Texas is not intensely interesting. For scenery +one could as well go to sea. Indeed, the endless “flats” so abundant in +its western portion, seemingly bounded by watery limits--mirages--might +well be thought oceans by travelers more than half sober. Their vast +expanses are covered with sand and dry bunch-grass or cactus, with +occasional patches of a few miles of alkali or gypsum. On our first +day the sand came almost to the wagon’s hubs, and in six hours we had +gone only eighteen miles. The first camp was dry--quite so, as most +of the water hauled had leaked, and the rest had been given to the +mules, though the animals could live without it for three days. For +fuel we had “soap weed,” the fibrous root of the cactus, called Spanish +bayonet, which we gathered near camp. Its odor is disagreeable, and +food cannot be broiled over it, but in a Sibley tent stove it “comes +out strong” for warmth and comfort. With a supper characteristic of a +soldier’s prodigality on ration day, pipes, cards and chips, we were +able to forget even the ills of Texas sand for an evening. The city +tenderfoot wedded to sheets and pillows knows not the solid comfort to +be found in a bed of blankets under canvas and in the sand. Nothing +more delightful can be imagined than waking before daylight, after an +eight hours’ sleep, to hear the camp-fire puffing and cracking and the +fresh meat broiling and sizzling over the coals, as the cook prepares +a starlight breakfast. Here is a perfect cure for dyspepsia, and no +charge is made for the prescription. + +We commenced our second day’s march without a drop of water, while +the coffee that morning, either because of a surplus of sediment or +scarcity of dilution, would have surprised the average boarding-house +customer by its strength. But during the morning we found hope and +water at once and in a barrel. A label attached warned off all poachers +in this language: + + “Tip Whyo owns this. + Let it alone, + Dam yer soles. + By order of the V. C.” + +Trusting to luck and the absence of Mr. Whyo and the V. C., we sampled +his water; so did the mules, and we now look suspiciously at persons +likely to bear such uncanny names. + +At noon we came to some bare rocky peaks on both sides of the road, +and finding some stagnant rain-water at the base of one, camped. These +were the Hueco Tanks. Any shallow rock that will hold rain-water is +called in this country a tank. It may be only a few inches deep and +fewer feet in circumference, but it is a tank. From the level of the +plain to the height of two hundred feet we discovered numerous tanks, +some holding soil and good water. The summit of each great mass of +boulders was capped with a stone monument to indicate to travelers +the presence of water. As on the same day we had to dig up mesquite +roots for fuel, we realized the truth of the proverb, that in Texas +one climbs for water and digs for wood. With great care and labor we +scooped up enough stagnant rain-water to fill our kegs, and next day +resumed the drive, with sixty-five miles still between us and the +Sacramento. The country improved, grass in tufts succeeding the sand, +and rolling prairie, called “jumps” by the natives, following level +deserts. At Owl Tanks the water had gone, so we depended upon our kegs +again, with green grass and soap-weed for the fires. No game had come +to cheer us, but the blue outline of the wooded Sacramento was dotted +with white patches of snow, and we could almost scent the victims of +our guns. On the fourth day we came to the foot-hills and walked ahead +of the teams to keep deer and elk from the mules and to learn the way. +Our road, on which we had not met a single team since leaving the +vicinity of El Paso, had dwindled to a mere cattle trail, and at times +this scattered into several, each leading up a different cañon. It was +absolutely necessary to cross this first range to reach the river--the +only permanent water in the country. + +At dark we came to the river. It should have been labeled, for only +a shrewd detective would have believed that the dry line of rocks at +the bottom of the cañon had ever seen water. After the fashion of most +rivers in this portion of our prairie land, the Sacramento had sunk in +a few miles above its “mouth,” if such eccentric streams may have a +mouth, possessing a range of ten miles or more. + +However, we found a well, a house, and some log fences. So, with water +from the first, wood from the last, and hay from the barn, we camped +with all the comforts of the season. Finding no one at home, we excused +the host and helped ourselves. “Home” was a log cabin by the side of a +hill, but in the choice language of Lincoln County (we had then reached +New Mexico), it became a “chosy,” from the Spanish _casa_, a house. +When its owner, Mr. Shorthorns, a typical cowboy, appeared, we took him +in to supper, and gained his good will and permission to help ourselves +to everything in sight. If soldiers ever neglect such an invitation, +they must be quite unworthy of their calling. I think Sacramento +fences will average less in height than was once fashionable, and that +potatoes and turnips will be scarce for a season. But I can testify +that no “slow deer” (calves, sheep and goats), were killed by our +party. + +Shorthorns assured us that in the Piñon country turkeys grew on the +trees, deer ranged with cattle, and elk were lassoed for sport and +released. We dreamed of game all night, and imagined ourselves climbing +the ladder of fame over the backs of monster bucks and sailing through +life on turkey wings and elk antlers. + +Next morning we chose an objective in the Piñons and entered the +theatre of war. + +At daylight Mr. X. and I, followed by the light wagon, with a teamster +and cook, our blankets, mess-chest and a keg of water, led the attack. +“Grover Cleveland” was scout, and his black and white hair was ever +seen where snow-birds and robins, lizards and rabbits, were thickest. +We on foot as the vanguard preceded the light wagon up a cañon toward +Piñon Tanks, while our heavy troops--that is, the heavy wagon--remained +at the “chosy.” + +At noon we had walked eight good country miles, and established our +first foothold in the enemy’s territory. Not satisfied, we left the +cook in command of the garrison (four mules and the dog), and selecting +divergent lines of operations, reconnoitred the hostile country. In +military parlance, this country was close--close in all possible +constructions of the expression. The stunted piñons were close to +the ground and to themselves, ravines and draws were quite numerous, +thorns, cactus and sharp rocks were uncomfortably close to one’s feet +and shins, and after walking on a seemingly straight, though really +circuitous course, one would turn up close to camp. Each column of +troops--or troop--carried a rifle, shot-gun, two ammunition belts, and +enough implements to care for the dead and wounded of the enemy. Each +column advanced and retreated, marched and countermarched, deployed +and rallied, charged and halted, and when at dark all assembled at the +base of operations for rations and rest, the enemy seen consisted of +one jack rabbit, at which I had almost fired, and one “sign.” This word +is here inserted to indicate the professional training of our troops. +Always used in the singular, it means the mark of anything sought--in +this instance, a deer’s footprint. Had Longfellow been versed in +mountaineer dialect, his great men might leave sign, rather than +footprints in the sands of time. + +But if we could not hunt, we could certainly eat. As we rallied +about our Chief Commissary, and toasted bacon on long switches, +drinking coffee right from the coals, we agreed that dining was our +favorite occupation. Our fire would have filled a fair house, and was +replenished at intervals by entire cedar trees, shooting flames up high +into the stars, apparently, and defying the deer and elk. We had heard +that game would approach a bright fire by night, so we rather hoped to +see pairs of anxious eyes peering through the trees. If they did, it +must have been after we retired. To retire meant literally to bivouac. + +It was grand to sleep, wrapped in blankets and tent-flies, with one’s +feet to a roaring fire, gazing at the same stars which shone down upon +countless deer, elk, lions, wolves, and so on. It was a little less +grand to wake in the night with a chill, and to renew the fire with a +piñon tree. And it was far from grand to wake at daylight and find the +fire quite out and frost all over our blankets. + +Sunrise found our expedition of the day before on the march. Game +has never been hunted with closer adherence to all the rules and +superstitions, yet two-thirds of our force failed to establish even a +speaking acquaintance with the animals which we had been led to believe +existed in such abundance. The other third, Mr. X., saw two deer, but +as he had been accustomed to shooting game in the same county only, he +did not hit either. So we changed base to the river within striking +distance of Shorthorns’ fence-rails and hay. + +In the evening, at the chosy, we heard just why we had missed the +game, which was attending a political convention up at the summit. +So the cowboys all said, and cited numerous “sign” pointing in that +direction as their authority. Resolved to attend this convention and +exert a little “influence” upon its members, we started next day with +both wagons and all our troops and camp followers for the summit, +twenty-five miles northwest of Shorthorns’ place. + +This was an operation unexcelled in the military annals of Dona Ana +County, and occupied two days. The road, whenever we found it, followed +the river--either a bank, a bluff, or the bed of the river--losing +itself in water a few feet deep occasionally, and reappearing on a +hillside a mile or two farther. We crossed the eccentric little stream, +which is sometimes ten, sometimes thirty miles long, and always greater +as one approaches its source. The two-thirds of a crossing was made +when our heavy wagon slipped off a hillside into the water, and Mr. X. +and the men had to dig and swear it out. Being ahead as advance guard, +and a novice in profanity as well, I escaped this duty. The experience +gained was something remarkable. We cut down trees frequently, took +down log fences, and (were anyone in sight) put them up again, broke +and mended each wagon daily, and lost a mule. We tried to lose the way, +but the cañon’s sides were so steep that it was impossible. + +As we ascended the stream, cedar and piñon were succeeded by pine and +quaking asp, and snow, first in patches, then covering the ground, +appeared. Wherever the cañon was wide enough, some enterprising +mountaineer had enclosed a few acres, and as the little garden thus +formed received the alluvial deposit of the hillsides, grain and +vegetables had been cultivated successfully and extensively. + +At the summit, nearly ten thousand feet above sea level, we found snow +so deep that we took possession of Shorthorns’ summer residence, a +log-hut twelve feet square. As we had cached our grain at the lower +ranch, we helped our mules to Shorthorns’ hay and settled down for a +week’s good hunting. The hut had been plastered with adobe, but this +was so conspicuous by its absence that innumerable holes rendered +the building capable of defense by musketry, and promised unwelcome +draughts at night. + +We hunted all that afternoon, tramping about in snow several inches +deep, but my bag contained only one squirrel, while a teamster reported +the slaughter of one squirrel and “about” two jays--from which we +gathered that he had killed one and missed another of those carrion +birds. And we had now consumed eight days of our leave! + +At night Shorthorns turned up rather unexpectedly, and as I saw no +blankets on his saddle, I had “many a doubt, many a fear,” which were +vividly recalled when he chose me for his bed-fellow. Tradition says +that a cowboy can pull his hat over his eyes and sleep oblivious of the +weather. As I woke several times that night on the floor and saw my +host snugly tucked up in my bedding, I weaken on tradition and call for +more valuable testimony. + +My heart ceased beating for a whole second when next morning, charmed +with our fare and my bed, Shorthorns offered to accompany us on the +hunt and back to El Paso. The pleasure of hunting lost a little of its +lustre, and we were one more step removed from Paradise. + +One day at the summit Shorthorns promised to show me game. I thought it +must be time, so saddled a little buckskin mule and rode out with him. +It was as cold as Christmas, and had I been alone I should have chosen +a later hour and a milder day. But with the honor of the entire army +resting on my shoulders I did not complain of frosted toes and aching +fingers. I rode in the rear that he might not notice my squirms of +anguish, and when he ventured the opinion that it was “right peart,” I +nonchalantly kicked the mule’s ribs and said nothing. What could I say, +when my teeth played a reveille and tattoo and fire alarm all at once? +Doubtless he suffered as much as I and had the same pride in concealing +it. + +The first sign was a homesteader’s, two logs across two others--all on +snow a foot deep. A notice on a pine-tree adjacent stated that this was +the foundation of a house and claim to 160 acres under the homestead +law. Two witnesses vouched for this claim, though quite unnecessarily, +as no sane man would live at that bleak place, and deer and elk, +despite their reputed domesticity, are not given to jumping homesteads. + +We saw several sign, and trailed all morning on foot or mule-back. At +noon we struck it rich. I didn’t see the riches, but Shorthorns did, as +he ordered a dismount to fight on foot. We tied the animals in a little +aspen thicket, and my guide sent me in one direction, while he chose +the deer trail, with a little advice about springing a cross fire on +the buck. I wondered why I had been sent in an opposite direction from +that taken by the deer, but when presently I heard Shorthorns shoot, +I saw the reason. Abandoning my course, I rushed toward the location +of the shots, plunging through snow to my boot-tops. I heard him shoot +again, and pushed ahead to obtain a shot on my own account. + +I found the tracks, and for a mile Shorthorns trailed the deer and I +trailed Shorthorns. + +Receiving no encouragement, and yielding to hunger and fatigue, I +followed the trail back to the animals in order to get to my lunch. +This consumed much time, as the woods were so full of an undergrowth of +shin oak, called there “shinnery,” that it was very difficult to find a +way, or to follow it when found. + +After calling to my guide in vain, I mounted the mule, slung my guns +over my shoulder and led the pony with one hand, following the tracks. +The finest prescription for dampening the ardor of a sportsman is to +require him to try what I did that day. Even in light doses it works +like a charm. It dampened not only my ardor but also my feet, and--when +my saddle turned and I landed in a snowdrift--my head and arms too. +After various accidents and involuntary dismounts, I lost all desire +for venison and wanted to go home. + +Playing horse-holder for a cow-puncher was not my ideal sport. + +Then the mule cut his foot and refused to be comforted; so I mounted +the broncho and led Buckskin. This arrangement was worse. Whenever we +came to a log, Broncho would take it as a circus horse does a hurdle, +but Buckskin would stop short and almost wrench my arm from its socket. + +Sometimes the beasts decided to take different sides of a tree, and +I was powerless to prevent them. Overhanging boughs would brush me +from the saddle as Buckskin jumped under them, or deluge me with snow +as he ran against them. All this time I had to follow the footprints +of my escort--the man who had promised to show me game. At sunset I +gave it up and returned to the main cañon to wait for him. Tying the +animals, I built a huge fire as a beacon and ate Shorthorns’ lunch. At +dark I fired my rifle three times as a signal, and later he appeared, +though without any deer. He claimed to have seen them, but of course +had some good excuse for not shooting one. Excuses all the way from +poor ammunition to tenderness of heart, are as thick in that country +as “leaves in Valombrosa.” Mr. X. had not even had the excitement and +happiness (?) of trailing a deer--or a cowboy. + +Besides a few snipe killed at a swamp called by Shorthorns a “cineky,” +from the Spanish _sieneca_, we still depended upon Uncle Sam’s +subsistence stores for our daily bread. + +Preferring hunting to mule whacking, I one day tramped all over the +mountain tops, and halting for lunch at the _rincon_ (Spanish for inner +corner) of the range, enjoyed some of the finest scenery outside a +modern theatre. Here the ground fell precipitously for several hundred +feet, and at a height of 9,000 feet I could look down upon several +neighboring ranges. Peaks and ranges that from the plains seemed +mountains, were now but ant-hills and ploughed furrows in an otherwise +velvet carpet of rich brown. The Guadaloupe range, covered with snow +and ice, was a vast iceberg, beyond what my friend Shorthorns called +the “mirredge.” The distant Rio Grande was plainly visible, and one +could fancy smoke rising from the site of El Paso, more than a hundred +miles to the south. A gypsum formation, called the White Sands, covered +miles of the prairie, and from my lofty position resembled a sea lashed +to foam. + +It was beautiful, but it was not game. + +One Saturday night, a fierce rain-storm added to the complications. +It came to stay, too. All day Sunday we could do no more than hug the +chosy fireplace and tell lies about former hunts. One newspaper was +found, and we read an account of a polar expedition’s suffering. We +feared we should need a few points before escaping from our situation, +and studied “Grover Cleveland’s” ribs and hams, and our well-oiled +hunting-boots, and wondered how long canine steaks and leather soup +would prove palatable. As no abatement of the storm came at night, we +reached the good resolution stage and agreed never to do ever so many +things. + +On Monday it cleared slightly, and we lost no time in packing up and +moving to a lower altitude and milder climate. Going down the cañon, +ropes were tied to the wagons, and all hands lowered each in turn over +the dangerous places. With an abrupt descent, our teams made good time, +and we were proud of the veteran manner in which our wagons shot down +the cañon with the reckless abandon of mountain trains. On the way, +we bought a side of fresh pork, and it was surprising how game it did +taste when seasoned with jelly and a good appetite. + +That night, while camped on the way to Shorthorns’ place, something +dropped. It was snow. Early in the morning, the cook lighted a fire +in our tent and said it was cold. We thought so too, and as we dug +our clothing from drifts inside the tent, we wished the author of +“Beautiful Snow” could have a little of it in his. We washed our faces +in the beautiful white article and looked at the weather. The animals +were tied to the wagons only a few feet from our tent, yet so fierce +was the storm, that we could hardly see them. Breakfast that morning +was light--all except the bread--as Sibley stores are not intended +for cooking, and no fire could live outside. We devoted the day to +shoveling snow from the tents, feeding the fire and wondering how the +deer and elk enjoyed the weather. Our curiosity on this score, however, +was not sufficient to lure us from shelter. + +Next morning, cold and still snowing. Peeping out at daylight, I saw +only three mules. Strange the others should have deserted us! But they +were trailed through the snow and recovered. To keep warm we had to +remain in bed. Wood was too scarce and too wet to waste for other than +cooking purposes. + +In the afternoon we gave in, and with superhuman efforts packed the +wagons and pushed ahead toward the foothills. Game had now become a +question of secondary consideration. + +The wagons ploughed through snow to their hubs, and we walked to avoid +a sudden immersion in a drift. + +Once more near Shorthorns’ many supplies, we camped to spend our last +day in rest, before returning to the post. + +At dark mine host, who had ridden off to look for his stock, came into +camp with a deer across his saddle. The lucky cowboy, who cared nothing +for sport, had ridden right over four deer, and, as he was always +armed, had killed one. To see our whole party, from Mr. X. to the +junior teamster and “Grover Cleveland,” gather about this interesting +spectacle, would have proved the condition of our game-bag. The venison +was given to us, and as we had as little pride as game, we accepted it. +It proved that there was, or had been, one deer in the country anyhow. + +On this, our last day of grace, Shorthorns and I rode out to continue +the motion. The weather had moderated, and being in the foothills, +snow was only of depth sufficient to facilitate trailing. When I least +expected it, of course, my guide bleated as a fawn, and I saw a great +buck jump from under a piñon. We both fired and the deer dropped, but +limped off at a lively gait. Of course, my bullet went off to meet the +moon, while Shorthorns’ cut several legs and pierced the intestines of +the buck. At least, so the modest cowboy told me. Just which intestine +he did not say, though with a frontier veracity he would doubtless have +deposed to it, if asked. We could easily follow the trail by the blood +on the snow, and found several places where he had lain down to rest +and bleed. At one such halt Shorthorns dismounted, and, giving me his +bridle, ran on to finish the buck. + +But I was not to be taken in in that manner again. Tying the animals, +I outran him, and found him hot on the trail. His welcome was not as +cordial as it might have been, but together we chased the wounded buck +over hills and cañons, in snow and mud, through brush and over stones +and cactus, for five miles, finally losing his trail in that of four +others almost at the prairie’s edge. Shorthorns showed me four black +spots on a hillside, distant several hundred yards. He called them +deer, but they might have been calves, goats, sheep or dogs for aught I +knew, and I had lost some confidence in his veracity since gaining his +acquaintance. Still I thought that if the black spots should wait long +enough, or if they could be lassoed and tied, I might make it lively +for at least one of them. So we sneaked and sneaked and sneaked. Almost +within range we halted, drank some melted snow from a tank, took some +cartridges in the left hand and instinctively fingered the triggers +of our rifles. It became intensely interesting. I could smell venison +steak broiling, and began mentally to distribute deer hams and saddles +to our less fortunate friends at the post. + +Just below where the black spots should be we ascended the hillside, +cautiously stopping just this side of the summit; we had seen no deer +and none were in sight. Black spots? Yes--lots of rocks; but whether or +not there had ever been deer there, I must not say, as I may wish to go +there again, and Shorthorns is a good shot. + +On the weary tramp back to the animals, I heard my guide repeat his +little fawn solo in a minor key and saw him fire at two does that +seemed to spring from a hole in the ground. Then followed one of the +grandest displays of firearms--if not of marksmanship--known to Fourth +of July celebrations. + +Each fired as often as his rifle permitted, and if we did not hit +either doe, we at least scared them well for the next sportsmen. + +Shorthorns explained that if his first cartridge had not snapped, he +would have pierced the upper right-hand corner of the first doe’s +heart, and the sixth rib and left lung of the second doe. If you don’t +understand how this could have been, draw a plan, or let Shorthorns +draw it for you in the sand, and it will at once assume the perspicuity +of all hunting stories. + +It was late when we found our animals and ate lunch, and when we +returned to camp our record consisted still of one wounded buck and +four black spots. Mr. X. had hunted quail near the ranch and killed +more than a hundred, many others having been wounded and lost. We +regretted our soaring ambition for large game, which had deprived us of +much real sport. + +Early next morning, with Shorthorns’ deer, Mr. X.’s quail, some ancient +elk horns picked up by one of the men, and a small allowance of bacon +and hard bread, we commenced our return drive. + +Only one incident of importance marked our progress homeward. This was +on Sunday, and assumed the form of a sick mule: one more variety of +experience for us. + +Every driver of large teams has a favorite animal upon whom he vents +all his anger or affection. The pet of our ambulance team was a large +black wheeler which the driver called “Bill.” No matter which mule +lagged, the crack of the whip was accompanied by vigorous advice to +Bill, and the driver’s sentences and oaths were liberally punctuated by +blows upon poor Bill’s hide. Bill stood this seventeen days and then, +without warning, dropped in harness. + +Having thus asserted his independence, he swelled up, not with pride +alone, but with wind also, and though we took him from harness, jumped +on his ribs, rolled him and rode him, and performed other kind offices +dear to a sick mule, Bill lay on his back, kicked his heels in the air +and looked unhappy. So I undertook to lead his muleship to camp--ten +miles ahead. A teamster followed, lashing Bill into a trot to prevent +him from lying down, while I, giving the mule the road, stepped along +the side over cactus and mesquite bushes. He would stop to roll +occasionally. On one such roll the soldier tried to help Bill, and +grasped his off forefoot with great familiarity. In a second the man +was seen flying over cactus stalks, propelled by a kick in the shin. He +rode after that, and no longer rolls sick mules. + +After a while we decided to give Bill a dose. Mr. X. emptied a bottle +of choice pickles and mixed a drench of salt and water. Then came the +circus. As there were no trees in the vicinity we were obliged to +administer the drench on the ground. One man held the halter-strap, +another knelt on Bill’s shoulder to hold him down, a third held the +bottle, and a fourth held the mule’s tongue and opened his mouth. At +the critical moment, when Bill’s cavernous mouth opened, we had to +dash the bottle’s contents into it, hold his nose, finger his throat, +look out for his heels, hang on to the halter-strap and seek safety in +flight. This dose was repeated many times, once or twice successfully, +while its possible sameness was relieved by acrobatic exercises by a +soldier on the mule’s ribs. At times we moved him a short distance +towards camp. + +Then, as evening approached, we tied a rope to the strap, started Bill +by twisting his ears or threatening as a dose, and passed the rope +to Mr. X. in the ambulance. The buckskins were whipped into a canter +and Bill towed along to camp. As I rode on the step to catch the rope +should the mule drop, Mr. X. looked through the rear window and gave +bulletins of his symptoms. + +In camp Bill was tenderly wrapped in canvas and fed on gunpowder, salt +and soap, with a little grain to prevent the formation of extravagant +tastes. + +On the last day of our leave we drove through El Paso, not triumphant +exactly, nor with undue pride, but by as quiet a route to the post as +we could select. + +Parties desiring to hunt in the Sacramento Mountains will consult their +best interests by calling upon us for information. Anyone wishing to +establish a hardware store may buy of us sufficient ammunition to stock +his business for years. + + + + +THE HAUNTED WHEEL. + +BY PRESIDENT BATES. + + +The great house of Dalrymple & Dalrymple went down and left no wreck +behind--not even the heap of “dust” that so often remains concealed +under the débris of a commercial crash. If a great brick block had +suddenly collapsed with a roar and rumble, and, after the dust had +blown away, there was not so much as a cellar to show where it had +been, the ruin could not have been more strangely complete. It was as +if the great business--capital, credit, stock, connections, goodwill, +everything--had blown away like a fog and left no vestige. Even the +great sign, whose gilded letters used to stretch clear across the tall +front of the store in the middle of the block, was painted over in less +than a month with the less fashionable, but perhaps as useful, legend, +“Juggers & Wesch, Flour and Feed.” And the plate-glass windows, that +for so many years displayed the most fashionable fineries, were now +devoted to dusty bags of bran and barrels of cornmeal, beans and oats. + +It was not a great failure either--only $30,000. Nobody lost much. The +Dalrymples sold everything, after the fashion of the honest merchants +of the elder time, and nearly paid all their debts. They were only +$30,000 to the bad--merely a descent from wealth and ease to poverty +and $30,000 less than nothing. And it was not their fault. Their +misfortunes began in the failures of others, and ended in their own. +The Dalrymple brothers, everybody said, were left with their honor +unimpaired. But everybody did not add the unhappy facts that they were +left with honor alone past the age of active life, from long ease unfit +to begin a new struggle for existence, bankrupt both physically and +mentally as well as in fortune. + +The bachelor Dalrymple went away to California, where a relative +offered him an asylum. + +James Dalrymple looked about for awhile vainly for something to do, +and then died out of a world that had no use for him. His wife, aged +fifty-five, and his daughter, aged eighteen, had a hard time of +it--poor souls! Luckily the daughter was a business woman. She had +often aided her father as his amanuensis. She knew how to use those +modern instruments of commerce, the typewriter and short-hand. She +could make out a bill, keep accounts, and write a terse, polite, clear +business letter. She had been a society belle, but she had imbibed +mental solids from natural taste. She was not too proud to walk with +quiet strength on the bottom level, no matter how proudly she had +walked at the top. So she sought and found employment, and kept her +mother and herself in two or three rooms of a small cottage on an +unfashionable street. With all the airs and graces and pretensions of +wealth she put away also all the old loves and friendships. She thought +they did not keep the true ring of heart soundness. She became simply +Dibble & Dribble’s typewriter. + +A lady she was, every inch of her--accomplished, refined, gracious, +charming, beautiful; not a fine lady; merely a poor young woman, +without piano, wardrobe or “style.” She became only a straightforward, +faithful, hard-working, modest business girl, known as Miss Dalrymple; +for she was, after all, a little sensitive and proud, and permitted few +except her mother to call her by her beautiful and stately old name of +Daphne Dalrymple. + +By and by, in spite of her fine physique, she fell ill. Overwork in +the hurry of the spring trade, unhealthful quarters, lack of generous +food, damp, cold, miserable weather, worry of mind and exhaustion +of body, all combined to bring her down with typho-malarial fever. +Her employers, appreciating her value to them, permitted her salary +to run on, and almost forgave her for being ill when she was most +needed, on condition that she employed another girl, less efficient, +but ambitious, to attempt to fill her place, and largely fall short of +doing so. + +Typhoid fevers disorder the brain. The sick girl was seized with +strange and vivid fancies. She longed for outdoor air and exercise. +If she could only ride out again as she used when she was an heiress, +upon her dainty tricycle, she knew she would soon be well and strong. +But her wheel had disappeared with her piano and all the rest of the +wreckage. So she lay fevered and in pain, and fancied herself following +and hunting it down, she knew not where, and taking possession of it +wherever found, and enjoying it. By some strange divination, she saw +its owner--a young man--and grew familiar with his appearance in her +sick fancy, even to the details of his dress. But, strangely, she could +never hear the vision, though she knew by intuition and by his actions +what he said sometimes. For more than a week these phantasms held her +mind, to the alarm of the doctor, who pronounced her disease morbid and +obstinate, and felt grave doubts of the result. + +Then a strange thing happened. An unknown young gentleman called at +the cottage door and insisted upon being admitted to see her, and his +claims were backed by the doctor. + + * * * * * + +David Dewness was one of the most popular members of the bicycle club. +When he first joined the club there was an amiable freshness about him +that the club wits soon educated into an amiable ripeness. He was a +fellow that would bear cultivation. He could take or give a joke with a +pleasantness that disarmed everybody. But with his other qualities was +a sweet obstinacy in certain directions. Nobody could ridicule him out +of doing a kindness, however great the apparent folly. He would laugh +as merrily as any of his critics over the foolishness of some of his +good actions; but he would persist in doing them just the same. + +Moreover, David carried what the club men called a level business head. +In the club business affairs his judgment commanded respect. He earned +a fair salary in a commission house, and was much trusted by the firm. + +There was one of his investments, however, that the firm laughed at. +Having saved a couple of hundred dollars about the time Dalrymple & +Dalrymple failed, Dewness bought of that wreck forty acres of wild +land, situated in the wilderness of mountain and swamp of the Upper +Peninsula of Michigan, and nowhere near any of the then known mines. +To be sure, the price he paid was only one hundred dollars; but his +employers told him he might as wisely have thrown his hard-earned +dollars into the river. David merely replied that he had always longed +to be a landowner, and he had never had a cheaper chance to become one. + +The truth was that he had once visited that region, and there he had +heard an iron-mining explorer, while intoxicated, declare that he +positively knew that there were rich beds of ore in the township +where this forty acres lay. If iron should be discovered anywhere near +his forty acres, he could sell at a large advance. Perhaps it might +be found on his forty acres. In that case his fortune would be made. +He knew the explorer to be one of the most expert and reliable of his +strange class, and at the same time one of the most close-mouthed. Men +of wealth believed the fellow to be full of valuable secrets; but he, +like others, hoped that some day, in spite of his reckless gambling +and drinking, he should possess means to use some of his secrets for +himself, and not be forced to sell them for the advantage of others. +David shrewdly thought he had surprised one of these secrets, and his +hundred-dollar purchase was simply gambling on a frail chance. It was +not much to lose; it might be very much to keep. So he kept it and his +own counsel. + +David had one foible--a common one. Like many a young man, he believed +himself in love with a pretty girl, when he was really only in love +with the idea of being loved. May Bentley was _piquante_, saucy, +friendly, and heart-free. She liked David much, tyrannized over him +more, was his good comrade always, and really loved him no more than he +did her--that is, not at all. She simply loved having a lover--some one +whom she could command and the other girls admire. Thus, there being +no real and deep feeling between them, they got on admirably together, +and were quoted by the aforesaid “other girls” as “just too happy for +anything.” And yet the “other girls,” and likewise the club, very +clearly knew that there wasn’t anything substantial in the supposed +loves of Dewness and May Bentley. Though excellent friends, they would +never be anything more, unless they should both make a dreadful mistake. + +Being an enthusiastic wheelman, David often wished that he possessed a +tricycle, upon which May could ride. What a pretty picture she would +be, and what a charming companion! he on his bicycle and she on a +tricycle, at the club “ladies’ runs.” + +One day a dealer offered him a charming lady’s tricycle, nearly new +and of an excellent style, for the low price of seventy-five dollars. +Its owner must have money at once. Dewness looked it all over, and was +satisfied that he could resell it for at least a hundred, and bought +it. And presently he was enjoying the longed-for companionship of Miss +May on his excursions, to the envy of various club men and ladies. +Besides, he had bids for the tricycle of over a hundred dollars; but he +held out for a higher price, at least for the time. + +One evening, just after sunset, David’s tricycle stood waiting for +him in the street in front of the Bentley home. Miss May had been +out with it, and Dewness, after riding his bicycle home and eating +his supper, had returned, chatted and laughed awhile with May, and +was then to ride home on the tricycle. As he walked down the path to +the gate, still smiling at a joke that the vivacious girl had played +on him, he suddenly saw a young woman sitting on his tricycle. Her +face was partly turned from him, but the graceful pose of her figure, +the proud carriage of her head, and a certain noble and womanly life +that seemed to pervade and radiate from her presence, struck him as +something rarely charming. She was the most vividly distinct of any +object visible in the uncertain twilight. And yet there was that about +her singularly indistinct. + +Mr. Dewness is one of those happily rare men who possess the feminine +faculty of seeing what a lady wears. But, unaccountably, he could not +tell whether this young woman, who had so coolly taken possession of +his tricycle, was dressed in a gray wheeling costume or a dark walking +dress. He had stopped suddenly on first seeing her, and now he put +both hands on his knees and stooped to get a better view. No use. Her +costume seemed to fluctuate, so to speak, alike in colors and style. + +But what business had she to be there at all? She certainly was not one +of the club ladies, but a stranger. No one he knew possessed, or could +possibly assume, that graceful air, or that noble womanliness. + +He walked a little nearer. As he did so the figure grew indistinct. +Nearer yet. She seemed to fade like the delusion of a magic glass. He +stooped down; he stretched himself up on tiptoe--the effect was the +same. He passed through the gate, and stood within a dozen feet of the +machine. There it stood, waiting for him, motionless and untenanted, +just as a respectable Boston-bred tricycle, with ball-bearings and a +front-steering handle-bar, ought! + +There wasn’t a woman anywhere in sight within a block! + +Mr. Dewness whistled the first two bars of “Sweet Little Buttercup” +very softly, with his hands thrust into his pockets and his feet +planted apart. Then he stopped and reflected a full minute. Then he +suddenly cocked his hat back so as to give it a bold, semi-piratical +rake, walked up to the machine and put one hand upon the nearest +handle, gave it a smart jerk, brushed the other hand across the saddle, +as if feeling to see if there was any obstruction there, and began +to whistle “I’m a Dutchman” with a fierce and ear-piercing emphasis. +Nothing coming of this, he rather gingerly slid into the saddle and +melted into the twilight of the distant street. + +Two days later, David called again at the Bentley’s to invite Miss +May to take a spin with him. May and her mother were sitting upon the +piazza. David approached and saluted the ladies, and asked the girl +to go for a ride. She greeted him coldly, and declined, to his great +surprise. Her manner made him ask for an explanation. + +“Who was the lady you took out yesterday?” she asked. + +“Nobody. I did not go out yesterday,” he answered, with evident +perplexity. + +“Who was the girl I saw sitting on your tricycle in front of the store, +waiting for you?” + +“You didn’t see any girl on my tricycle. When?” + +“Last evening, just after supper, I passed the store. The tricycle +stood in front of it, and there was a young lady sitting on it, waiting +for you to come out. I was going to stop for you, when I saw you had +her company, and came home.” + +“Why, you are surely mistaken! There was nobody there!” + +“Didn’t you have the tricycle there?” + +“Yes. But there was no lady there.” + +“Perhaps you mean to say I can’t see, sir! There _was_ a young lady +sitting on it and waiting for you to come out.” + +David thought for a minute, with an air of embarrassment that confirmed +her suspicions. Then he slowly and reluctantly, and yet with evident +anxious interest, asked: + +“How did she look? Did you see her face?” + +“No: she kept her face turned away from me, as if she didn’t wish me +to know her. She was a handsome girl, I should judge; but she acted as +though she was ashamed of herself.” + +This with a cutting severity that, however, failed to wilt the +offending David. On the contrary, it only seemed to increase his +anxiety. + +“How was she dressed?” he demanded. + +“Dressed? As though that made any difference! Well”--seeing that David +really expected an answer--“she wore a gray riding-suit.” + +“Gray?” + +“No; now I think, it wasn’t a riding-suit. It was a black +walking-dress.” + +“Sure it was a black walking-dress?” + +“Pshaw! Who cares how she was dressed?” + +“I do. I want to find out who, if anybody, took the liberty to occupy +my trike while I wasn’t present.” + +“It was strange; but, really, I don’t know how she was dressed. I +thought at first that she wore a gray riding-suit. Then, when I looked +again, I thought it was a black street-dress.” + +“What did she wear on her head?” + +“A gray riding-hat with a feather. No; it was a bonnet.” + +“A hat? A bonnet?” + +“Well, no. She was bare-headed, with thick brown hair.” + +“Bare-headed? in the street!” interrupted Mrs. Bentley. “Why, May!” + +“Well, mother, she had on a hat with a feather when I first saw her, +half a block away. When I looked again, a little nearer, I thought it +was a bonnet. But when I came quite near, she was bare-headed. She had +large brown eyes, anyway.” + +“Brown eyes?” + +“Well, hazel.” + +“But you said she kept her face turned away from you, as if not wanting +to be known.” + +“So she did. She didn’t look at me; still, I knew she had big +brown--hazel--eyes.” + +Mrs. Bentley laughed. + +“Come, child! you are not very ingenious in making up a story to bother +Mr. Dewness.” + +Mr. Dewness, however, did not laugh, or seem at all relieved. + +“Did you leave her sitting there?” he asked. + +“I leave her? No, sir; I went about my business, and she went into the +store after you.” + +“Did you see her go into the store?” + +“No. But when I came quite near she was gone. Where else could she go?” + +“May,” said David, earnestly, “there was no person there! No young +woman nor anybody else came into the store. I left the wheel standing +not over ten minutes, and then came out and rode it home. Come, now, +you are mistaken; let us go for a spin in the park.” + +“No, sir! You accuse me of telling a--a fib. I won’t have anything to +do with a man who doesn’t believe my word! I know what I saw with my +own eyes. While you have a girl come to visit you at the store, after +business hours, you needn’t come to see me, Mr. Dewness!” + +“Come, come, May, you are too hasty,” interrupted Mrs. Bentley. “You +haven’t heard what Mr. Dewness has to say,” looking at the young man +inquiringly. + +“Mr. Dewness has nothing to say--just look at him, mother!” + +Poor David really had nothing to say. His face was enough to convict +him. It wore an expression of bewilderment, very like that of a person +who was wondering how it could have been found out, and not at all the +injured surprise of an innocent party. + +“Well, sir; well,” said May. + +No reply. + +“Can’t you explain this” (hesitating for a mild word) “mistake?” asked +Mrs. Bentley. + +David sighed hopelessly. + +“I can’t say any more than I have, Mrs. Bentley. There was no lady +there! Miss May was mista--deluded in some strange way.” + +Mrs. Bentley rose in stately fashion. + +“I fear she was, Mr. Dewness! Good-evening, Mr. Dewness! Come, +daughter!” + +The pair went into the house, leaving poor David staring after them, +and twirling his cap in his hands. After they had quite disappeared, he +remarked, softly and solemnly to himself: + +“The dickens!” + +He twiddled his cap some more, and let it fall. Then he picked it up +and dusted it off, vacantly. Then he clapped it on the back of his +head--“devilish” (as the Arkansans say)--and walked out of the gate +whistling with a fiercer but melancholy emphasis his favorite air of +“I’m a Dutchman,” mounted his wheel and rode away pensively, but with a +“devilish” jauntiness. + + * * * * * + +Two days later Mr. Dewness was found by several of the clubmen in one +of the city parks about sunset, walking behind his empty tricycle and +pushing it along the smooth paths. Occasionally he took a short run and +sent it rolling a long way by a vigorous push. He had set up the screw +of the steering head so that it would not turn easily, but would run +straight. His actions were exactly as though there was some invisible +person on the saddle whom he was pushing about out of pure kindness. +The serious courtesy of his manner in this apparently ridiculous +proceeding attracted attention, but nobody ventured to question +him--a liberty his grave but somewhat menacing demeanor to those who +approached distinctly repelled--until his club comrades appeared and +fell to jeering him. To them he paid not the slightest attention for +some minutes, but continued his strange occupation. But after a little, +as if the imaginary occupant of the tricycle was gone, he stopped it, +loosened the steering-head, mounted the saddle and rode about with +the club as jolly as usual, but wholly impervious to their gibes and +questioning. + +The truth was, he was becoming well acquainted with the ghost that +haunted his tricycle. He had seen her presence several times every day. +His fixed and curious attention had noticed that she seemed anxious to +make the wheel move. She seemed to push vainly upon the treadles. + +David was probably not at all braver than anybody else in the presence +of the supernatural. But to him this apparition was not--never had +been--supernatural. He knew very well that it was a phantom, and not +composed of flesh and blood; but he was confident that it was the +phantom of some real person. To his consciousness it was a shadowy +disembodiment of a real woman, how explicable or inexplicable was of +small consequence. Enough that it was some one who evidently appealed +to him for a kindness. He knew that nobody except himself saw this +person--knew it by their actions. He could not see her himself except +when at a distance of at least several feet. Upon a near approach she +took refuge in invisibility. But every day he could approach a little +nearer before she vanished, as if she trusted him more and more. But +she did not permit him to see her face until he bethought himself of +pushing the wheel, so as to give her the motion for which she seemed to +long. + +Then, when he gave it a careful start and permitted it to run by +itself, she turned her face over her shoulder, and smiled her pleased +thanks back at him. At first the face was indistinct and evanescent. +But it was growing more fixed, confident and clear. It was a +handsome--a noble face. He should recognize it anywhere. Its first +wistful, half-doubting expression of appeal was becoming reassured, +serene, and confidently friendly. + +Face and figure gradually took possession of his fancy. There was +something about this shadow-woman that touched his enthusiasm of +benevolence--a strong point in his character. He was sure that this was +a woman in trouble, needing help, longing for sympathy, companionship +and kindness--a woman isolated and weary of sorrow and struggle. He +loved to help the helpless. From loving to help to loving the helped is +an easy transition. The shadow-woman filled him, not with the desire of +passion, but with the gentle affection which is the deepest root of the +truest love, only the later flower of which is passion. + +Thus far, beyond a natural curiosity, he had not cared to search +for the living woman, whom he felt certain existed somewhere near +him. Still her influence quite drove out of his mind every idea +of being a lover of May Bentley, or aught toward her more than a +pleasant acquaintance and friend. He now saw their relations in their +true aspect. He should always admire and like May Bentley, but the +shadow-woman was one whom it would be a perpetual delight to know, +serve and protect. + +On Saturday morning two gentlemen called at the store and inquired for +David Dewness. Finding him, they inquired if he owned the southeast +quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 21, town ---- north, of +range ---- west. He stared. Then, remembering his forty acres, he begged +them to wait a moment, while he got his deed. + +Yes, he owned it. + +“What do you hold it at?” + +“I have not thought of selling.” + +“Will you take twenty for it?” + +Twenty dollars an acre, he thought. There must be some discovery on +or near it. He reflected a moment. If it was worth that, there would +certainly be other offers pretty soon. They wanted the refusal for +twenty-four hours, inquired curiously about the title, and finally went +away, first giving him one hundred dollars for the refusal for one day. + +Three hours later another party called and wanted the land. Being told +of the refusal given to the first comers, this party asked the price +offered, and being told, exclaimed: + +“Twenty thousand dollars! Why I’ll give you fifty, and one thousand for +the refusal, if you will agree to sell to me for that price if they do +not bid higher.” + +David refused. Before night two other parties wanted it, and were +deferred. + +The next day they all called nearly together and began bidding for it. +Meanwhile David had not only thought it all over, but had taken shrewd +counsel. He positively refused to sell at any price. He would lease the +forty acres for a term of years to the highest bidder. The result was +that before night he had leased it to one of the parties, who agreed to +pay a royalty of forty cents per ton for all ore mined and sold, with +the further agreement that not less than twelve thousand five hundred +tons per year should be mined and sold for a term of twenty years, and +$5,000 bonus was to be paid in advance. + +But this party insisted that there was a weakness, if not a defect, +in the title that must be cured. The title ran through the firm of +Dalrymple & Dalrymple, but the signature of Mrs. Dalrymple was lacking, +and though her husband had never been sole owner, the title would be +made perfectly secure by a quit claim from her, and any heir direct who +might ever claim through her. + +This put Dewness upon a search for Mrs. Dalrymple. While going about +the city on this search he met, in crossing one of the parks, his +quondam flame, May Bentley, riding with young Oriel Pilaster, Jr., upon +Pilaster’s new tandem. + +Oriel Pilaster, Jr., was the proudest young man in the city that day. +He was proud of having been recently admitted to partnership with his +father, the noted architect. He was proud of his fine new tandem. He +was proudest of all of having, as he fondly believed, “cut out” David +Dewness with the pretty and _piquante_ May Bentley, whom he had long +admired at a distance. He was about to pass his supposed rival with a +smile and nod of lofty triumph when, to his extreme consternation and +chagrin, Miss May put on the brake hard and brought the machine to a +standstill, at the same instant calling out: + +“Mr. Dewness! David!” + +David instantly went to her, hat in hand, and she smiled her very +friendliest smile, and put out her hand, which David shook frankly. + +“Excuse me a minute, Mr. Pilaster,” she said to that shocked youth, “I +want to say a word to Mr. Dewness.” + +So saying, she alighted nimbly, took David’s arm, and walked a few +steps away, coolly leaving young Pilaster a statue of petrified chagrin +seated on a tricycle, in full view of all the park loungers. That +amazed young gallant was at first half inclined to ride off in a huff, +but he wisely concluded that his best plan was to try and look just as +happy as though this was exactly what he had all along been expecting, +and wait until he knew the reason. + +As soon as they were a little out of hearing, May volubly explained: + +“I know who she is, David! It’s all right! The nicest girl! If you’d +only said who it was I shouldn’t have cared. But, dear me! what a fool +I was to quarrel with you, anyway! Because, you know, really and truly, +you and I don’t care a button for each other except as friends, and it +was nonsense to pretend anything else. Why, she’s just the girl that I +should pick out for you! I half thought I knew her all the time, though +she kept her face away from me. But the instant it flashed upon me--why +I couldn’t mistake her for anybody else if I tried! Come, shake hands +again over it!” + +David shook hands again with a great pretense of enthusiasm. Then he +calmly asked. + +“Well, who do you think she is _now_?” + +“Why, Miss Daphne Dalrymple, of course. Ah, you needn’t try to fool me +any longer!” + +David started in evident astonishment. + +“Miss Daphne Dalrymple!” + +“Yes; Miss Daphne Dalrymple, Dibble & Dribble’s typewriter. We used to +be great friends; but, since the Dalrymples failed, she has dropped +out of sight of her old friends, and is quite distant. But I love her +dearly all the same, and I hope you will persuade her to come and see +me. Now do. Good-bye! I expect Mr. Pilaster is angry clear through by +this time.” + +Mr. Dewness led her back, and thanked her earnestly, wished Mr. +Pilaster a jolly time, and went off rapidly in the direction of Dibble +& Dribble’s, while May proceeded to restore Mr. Pilaster’s spirits by +explaining with a simulated sigh: + +“Well, there! that is probably the last _I_ shall see of Mr. Dewness. +He’s gone mad for a pretty girl, and I’ve been sending him straight to +her. Mr. Pilaster, I’m too good. Here I go, like a fool, and send away +a good friend, merely because he thinks he’ll be happier with another. +But a girl is alway foolish to permit a man to be her friend; he is +sure to desert a mere friend to run after the first pretty face that +catches his fancy.” + +Mr. Pilaster warmly defended his sex, and especially himself as one +who would never prove a deserter, with such appearances of success as +fully restored his pride, and filled his artful enchantress with almost +irrepressible chuckles. + +Dibble & Dribble received Mr. Dewness’s inquiries with cold civility. +Miss Dalrymple was ill they believed, had been absent from her desk +more than a fortnight. Perhaps the errand-boy could give him her street +and number. The errand-boy, being called, did so with an evident +interest in Miss Dalrymple. He said that Dr. Pulse’s office was right +on the way, and perhaps Mr. Dewness had better see him before calling. +Mr. Dewness did so, and the doctor accompanied him to the house. + +Mrs. Dalrymple at the door reported her daughter better. She was +sitting up in a rocking-chair with a shawl about her. The moment they +entered the room her eyes were fixed upon Dewness, and her thin face +lit up with a smile of pleased welcome. She paid no attention to the +doctor, and did not wait for David to be presented, but offered her +wasted hand eagerly to the young man, as to a well-known friend, and +said, with a sick woman’s child-like trustfulness: + +“You have come! I knew you would! Did you bring the wheel?” + +David took her hand with a grasp of warm friendliness, and a look of +gentle and kind sympathy, as he answered: + +“Not now. If the doctor says you are well enough to go out a few +minutes in the afternoon, I will bring it, and you shall have it every +day.” + +He, too, spoke as to a familiar friend, while he noted how wan and +frail she appeared, and yet how beautiful and strong of body and soul +she would be in health. Her mother interposed, saying: + +“Why, Daphne, dear, I did not know you were acquainted.” + +The girl colored faintly, but David answered, with one of his frank, +straight looks in the eye: + +“We are not old acquaintances, Mrs. Dalrymple, but, if you will allow +me to say so, Miss Dalrymple has no truer friend than me.” + +The sick girl’s eyes filled with tears, through which she smiled upon +him. + +“This is the gentleman who bought your tricycle, then, that you have +spoken of so often this week. But, my dear, I thought you did not know +his name.” + +“I fear, madam,” said David, “that she didn’t quite catch my name when +we were made acquainted,” and he turned such a droll look upon the girl +that she laughed the first merry laugh heard in that room in a long +time. + +Then David turned the conversation by asking the doctor if he thought +Miss Dalrymple was well enough to ride out once or twice a day, say, +up and down the block, if he pushed the wheel, and saw that she did +not exert herself. The doctor thought that five or ten minutes of very +gentle exercise in the open air every day, morning and evening, after +breakfast and after tea, would do her great good. But it must be only +on clear, sunshiny days, and she must not be out after sundown nor +before the air was dry and warm in the morning. + +“Then,” said David, turning to the girl, “may I come this afternoon?” + +“If you will. How good you are! And I do so long to go out, and to get +well!” + +The tears came into her eyes again, as she looked gratefully at David. +But she was sick and weak, and intensely weary of being so, and also +more or less _exaltée_ from the effects of medicine and illness. David +smiled upon her with kind cordiality, as he said: + +“Well, then, we’ll have you well and strong again in a little while. +Trust the doctor and me.” + +Then he turned to her mother and explained his errand about the land. + +“I bought it at the Dalrymple sale for one hundred dollars. I wish to +dispose of it now. You have no real claim, but you could annoy the +owner by setting up one, and compelling him to perfect his title in +court. In order to save any trouble I propose to buy it over again of +you at the regular price for wild land--two dollars and a half an acre. +That is, I will pay you one hundred dollars for your signature to this +quit claim,” showing it, “and if you suppose you have any real rights, +I will accompany you to any lawyer you may please to select, and pay +for his opinion.” + +Mrs. Dalrymple had some business knowledge, and remembered the land +which her husband had taken for the firm on a bad debt, together with +a horse which she used to drive. Her husband had often laughingly +said that the horse was about as worthless as the land. She therefore +cheerfully signed the deed, as also did Daphne; and Mr. Dewness +insisted upon paying them the one hundred dollars, first going to +fetch a notary to take the acknowledgment. + +In their situation this money seemed almost a restoration of wealth, +and Daphne once more said to Mr. Dewness, “How good you are!” with a +fervor that was worth a great deal more than the money. He took his +leave with a light heart, and he left light hearts behind him. + +The money that he paid to the two desolate women did more than relieve +their immediate needs--it lifted off their hearts the depressing +influence of fear for the future. It restored their courage. If Daphne +should lose her situation with Dibble & Dribble, this would last till +she could get another. When Dewness had gone they kissed each other and +wept softly together. + +Then Dewness’s call had done the girl a world of mental and spiritual +good. He had said very little, but his cheerful, sunshiny temper, his +kindly interest, his quick sympathy and gentle courtesy were more +blessed than the money. No doubt the pride that had caused her to +retire from the society of her old friends upon her fall in fortune, +and resolutely accept the position of a working-girl, was morbid in +part, because she did not replace her former friends among the rich +with new acquaintances among the lowly. + +Youth cannot bear isolation. Solitude is for age, full stored with +memory, knowledge and mental resources. Youth cannot bear it and +preserve mental or spiritual health; youth must have companionship, +sympathy and friendships. + +Under incessant toil and loneliness the high courage of the girl broke +down when illness fell upon her. She was, therefore, in the very best +mood to accept this new friendship and society, as a prisoner accepts a +release from prison. + +For the first time since she had fallen ill, she lay down and slept the +dreamless, wholesome, restoring sleep of returning health, ate with a +slight but real relish, and when Mr. Dewness called, after supper, she +looked marvelously brighter and better. + +With what delight she greeted her lost wheel, when, carefully wrapped, +they placed her upon its familiar saddle! How keenly she relished the +balmy outdoor air of the quiet, maple-shaded street! With what sweet, +womanly childishness she laughed at David’s gentle pleasantries! It was +only a few minutes, for David was very careful to take her in before +she was tired, and then he hastened away and presently returned with a +boy bearing a tray on which were luscious ripe strawberries, a little +pitcher of fresh cream, sugar, three or four big juicy oranges, a lemon +and ice-cream. She was permitted by the doctor to eat just a taste +of the berries and a teaspoonful of the cream, while David and Mrs. +Dalrymple and the doctor ate to keep her company. And then David went +away, and she slept like a tired child. Sometimes how very little makes +a great happiness! + +The ghost having become alive, the rest of the story almost tells +itself. How they plighted their troth and named the day; and how +the wedding was one of the happiest the club ever attended, and +everybody said they were the most suitable and loving pair ever joined +together--all these items the reader can imagine. + +But the mystery remains to be cleared. One evening while the house was +not yet complete, the two lovers sat together in the moonlight, talking +over, for the twentieth time, their strange experience, when David said: + +“After all, Daphne, there is one thing that puzzles me more than all +the rest. I never could tell, when I saw your ghost, exactly what you +wore.” + +Daphne blushed celestial fire, and hid her face with her hands, peeping +through her fingers shyly at David, and wondering to see him evidently +seriously in earnest. + +“You seemed to me,” continued David, not noticing her confusion, “at +one moment to be in a gray riding-habit, but the next moment you wore +your black or brown walking-dress, and when you faded out of sight, +my last vision of you was in some sort of white robe. Now, how do you +account for that?” + +“Then I never appeared to you except in some dress? You could see me +only in some dress, David?” + +This timidly, and watching his face narrowly. + +“Why, of course not,” said honest David, opening his eyes wide with +surprise, “only I couldn’t ever quite make it out.” + +She laughed softly and blushed vividly. + +“Well, David--now you are in earnest?” + +“Of course I am. Why, what’s the matter?” + +“You know I was half delirious with the fever?” + +“Yes.” + +“And I longed to take a ride on my--your--wheel. How I did long to get +out of that stuffy little room! It seemed to me that if I could find +my wheel, and take a run in the pleasant outdoor air, it would do me +so much good! Well, it seemed to me that I went out and wandered about +the city till I found it. It was in front of Miss Bentley’s. And I saw +you, and I knew by your face that you would be kind and lend it to me, +because I was ill. Of course, when I found it, I bethought me that I +should have a riding-suit, and I seemed to be clothed in the gray dress +I used to wear. How funnily you acted! Do you remember stooping down, +with your hands on your knees, to look at me?” + +David grinned. + +“That alarmed me a little, and when you came closer I walked away, and +I remember changing my dress to a walking suit. And sometimes my mind +changed from one to another, and I always seemed to myself to wear +whatever I thought of. But, after you were so kind, and took so much +trouble to push the tricycle about for me, and I saw you wanted to help +me, out of pure sympathy, I ceased to be afraid of you, and got quite +familiar, and--and--” + +“Well. And what?” + +“I was sick in bed, you know, when I had those strange dreams.” + +“Yes, of course.” + +“And, of course, I wasn’t wearing any dress in bed.” + +“Of course not.” + +“Well--now, don’t you laugh.” + +“I won’t.” + +“Some of the last times--after I wasn’t afraid of you any longer--I +forgot.” + +“You forgot what?” + +“Why, I forgot to walk away in my street-dress and go home. I seemed +to drop right out of the saddle and my riding-dress into my night-robe +and my bed in the little room at home all at the same time, and without +first going away from you.” + +David laughed heartily in spite of his promise not do so. But it was +such an honest laugh that it reassured her. + +“And you were afraid that I saw the ghost longer than I +ought?”--chuckling. + +“Ye-es,” hiding her blushing face against his shoulder. + +“Well, darling, I didn’t. You vanished, I thought, like an angel in a +white cloud; but I never dreamed it was merely like a sick girl in her +white robe.” + +He laughed again until she slyly reached up and gave one of his ears a +pinch that changed his laughter into a howl. + + + + +TO THE PACIFIC THROUGH CANADA. + +BY ERNEST INGERSOLL. + + +PART I. + +One hundred years ago, “through Canada to the Pacific” was first +achieved by Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Making his way in a birch canoe +from Montreal up the Ottawa and connecting rivers to Lake Huron, he +came to the Sault Sainte Marie. Then followed hundreds of miles of +paddling along the homeless shores of Lake Superior until civilization +was seen again at Fort William on the northern shore. Yet that was +only the real starting-point. Here Mackenzie began one of the most +adventurous and productive explorations of that era, when the world +was busy with exploration. Through rivers, ponds, and portages to Lake +Winnipeg, across it and up the Saskatchewan, he pursued a well-defined +route of the Hudson Bay Company’s _voyageurs_. But finally he reached +even the fur-trader’s frontier, and pushed forward into a region never +then penetrated by a white man. He came to the Peace River and began +its ascent. It led him into, and guided him through, the mountains. At +its sources he found water flowing westward, and through weeks of hardy +adventure traced this river or that until he scented the salt breezes, +and looked abroad upon the Pacific--the first man to cross Canada! + +That is only a century ago; yet when you place Mackenzie’s canoe beside +our transcontinental railway train, the contrast is as wide as between +the first and last page of history; but put the courage of the old +fur-trader beside the pluck which built this railway, and the extremes +meet again. + +The transcontinental trip by the Canadian Pacific Railway, then, is +the subject of this article. We shall not precisely follow Mackenzie’s +devious route, but shall touch it here and there, and see all the way +the same kind of things that he saw. + +Let us, first of all, have a clear understanding of what this journey +is to be. + +The Canadian Pacific is the largest railway system on the continent, +yet there is none so little known to the general public in the United +States, and none so widely misapprehended. It lies wholly in Canada. +From Quebec it follows the St. Lawrence to Montreal, and then the +Ottawa to the capital of the Dominion. From Ottawa it directs an +almost straight course to the northernmost angle of Lake Superior, +and skirting its shore for a hundred miles, strikes west to Winnipeg. +Thence it crosses 900 miles of prairie, enters the Rocky Mountains 150 +miles north of the United States boundary, and forcing its way through +250 miles of magnificent highlands, descends to the Pacific coast near +the mouth of the Fraser River. + +This main line is 3,070 miles in length, and reaches from ocean to +ocean. Its through trains do not change their sleeping-cars all the +way. An English family bound for China need make only two changes of +conveyance between Liverpool and Hong-Kong--one at Montreal from the +steamer to the cars, and another in re-embarking at Vancouver, the +Pacific terminus. This is a notable advantage over the pieced-up route +through Europe or the United States. + +Yet this main line is only the _stem_ of the great system. One +side-line goes to Boston. Two others communicate with railways in New +York State, at Brockville and Prescott, on the St. Lawrence. Short +branches reach a dozen towns in Quebec. Westward, Montreal and Ottawa +are connected with Toronto, whence branches ramify through all Ontario. +Lake Huron is reached at Owen Sound, whence a line of ocean-like +steamships on the Great Lakes is sustained. From Sudbury, a station +443 miles west of Montreal, a branch runs along the northern shore of +Lake Huron to Sault Sainte Marie, where it is joined by a bridge over +those historic rapids with two new American lines--one to Minneapolis, +and another to Duluth. In Manitoba, branches penetrate all the corners +of that rich wheat-growing province. Thus, the total length of its +railways approaches 5,000 miles, and a year hence will be increased +by a direct line to St. John, N. B., and Cape Breton, to connect with +especially swift steamers, forming a new Atlantic ferry and carrying +England’s Oriental mails. Yet, as has been said, few Americans know or +realize these important facts in Canadian progress. + +[Illustration: “SMOKING IN A SNUG CORNER.”] + +The new station in Montreal, whence we take our departure for the +transcontinental journey one summer evening, is a magnificent piece +of architecture. It stands just at the corner of Dominion Square, +where the first strains of the band concert are calling together the +loitering, pleasure-making crowds which twice a week throng its gravel +walks or lounge upon the turf of its green parterres. + +Out from the station stretches a series of broad stone arches, carrying +the tracks upon an elevated way that reminds one of London, to the +outskirts of the city, and into the quaint French villages named by +pious founders after some Ste. Rose, Ste. Therése, or St. Phillipe, or +other revered personages of the olden times. + +We go to sleep, and do not know when Ottawa, Canada’s pleasant capital +and lumber market, is passed at midnight. We are oblivious to this and +all the world besides until a cheery call of “Breakfast-time, sir!” +rouses our energies, and we peep out of our window to find ourselves +rushing through a dense green forest, still glistening with the night’s +dew. Then the breadth of Lake Nipissing opens like a plain of azure +amid the green woods, and we halt at North Bay, where a road from +Niagara Falls and Toronto terminates and makes a junction with ours. +We step out and take a run up and down the long platform. The sunlight +seems unusually bright and clear, the breeze from the lake is “nipping +and eager”--everything and everybody has an air of alertness and glee +which is inspiriting. We have slept well--we are wide awake; this +balsamic odor of the woods is appetizing--we are hungry. The dining-car +is therefore doubly inviting. Its furnishing is in elegant taste; its +linen white as the breaking of the lake-waves; its silver glitters in +the sunlight; on every table is a bouquet of wild flowers, masking a +basket of fruit. There are tables for two and tables for four. One of +the latter holds a family party--father, mother and two young ladies, +Vassar girls, perhaps. We seat ourselves opposite, and as the train +moves smoothly on, eat and talk with a gusto forgotten since last +summer’s outing. + +Our _vis-à-vis_ at table proves to be an official of the company, who +knows the whole line, as he says, “like the book.” He is going clear +through to attend to matters on the western coast. This is great luck, +for he seems quite as willing to answer our eager questions as we are +to ask them. He is intensely interested in this great achievement, +as is everybody connected with it, and wants us to become equally +enthusiastic. + +“This ought to be a good region for fishing,” we suggest, looking out +upon the beautiful lake whose rocky shores we are skirting. + +“Excellent,” the official agrees, as he quarters his orange. “Lake +Nipissing abounds in big fish, and so does French River, its outlet +into Lake Huron. I have had capital sport at the end of the steamboat +pier at North Bay, ‘whipping’ with a rod and spoon for pike, bass, +pickerel, whitefish, etc. Sometimes muskallonge weighing forty or fifty +pounds are caught by trolling from a boat.” + +“How about trout?” + +“Well, if you’re bent upon trout, and don’t want to go up to the +Jackfish or Nepigon River (which we shall cross to-morrow morning), +your best plan is to go to Trout Lake and down to the Mattawan. Trout +Lake lies four or five miles inland, behind those hills, where the +scenery is exceedingly beautiful and the fishing practically untouched. +In the lake itself are huge bass, pickerel and muskallonge. I know of +one caught there by a lady, which weighed thirty-five pounds. Down to +the lake, through tortuous, shady ravines, come cataract-rivers filled +with untroubled trout. You can get a boat at a settler’s, or take your +own and camp where you please, and fish in a new place every day all +summer. Then from Trout Lake you can run a canoe down through a chain +of lakes into the Mattawan River. Each of these lakes and streams +has plenty of fish of several kinds, and charming camping places. +The Mattawan carries you into the Ottawa, which you can descend in a +boat--fishing all the way--to the St. Lawrence.” + +“That’s an alluring story,” we say. + +“It’s literally true; and in the fall and winter, sport with the gun +is equally good. Moose, caribou, and deer are plentiful, and the town +of Mattawan forms an excellent outfitting place for a shooting trip. +Indian and white guides can be got who know the country, and the many +lumberers’ roads and camps facilitate the sport. New Brunswick used to +be the best place for that sport, but now this part of Canada is far +more accessible and convenient.” + +At noon we come to Sudbury, where extensive mines of copper and gold +are worked, and a brisk village is growing up, with some farming and a +great deal of lumbering in the neighborhood. Here branches off the new +“Soo” route to St. Paul. + +All the afternoon we run through forested hills, the line bending +hither and yon to avoid rocky ridges and crystalline lakes, cutting +athwart promontories, and bridging ravines. Here and there are +extensive tracts of arable land, but little agricultural settlement can +be expected in these forests as long as the rich prairies westward, +all ready for the plow, are only half-tenanted. Yet the cabins of +settlers, who are part farmers, part lumbermen, part trappers, and part +“Injun,” are scattered all along the line; and every hundred miles +or so we encounter a railway “divisional” station, where there are +engine-houses, repairing shops, and the homes of the men employed on +that section of the line. + +In the evening, groups gathered in our brilliantly-lighted palaces--for +every one had become acquainted, like a cozy ship’s company at sea--and +whiled away the time with books, story-telling and whist. The Vassar +girls, the Official and the Editorial _We_ had a grand game, closing +with a tie at eleven o’clock. Just then we were at Missanabie, where +you might launch a canoe--“that frail vehicle of an amphibious +navigation,” as Sir George Simpson styled it--and run down to the +fur-famed-- + +“Beware of puns!” cried Miss Dimity Vassar. + +--Michipicoten, in Lake Superior; or, with a few portages, glide +northward to Hudson’s Bay. + +Bidden to be awake early, at six next morning we were astir, and, lo! +there was Lake Superior. All day we ran along its shores, here taking +advantage of a natural terrace or ledge, there rolling with thunderous +roar along some gallery blasted out of the face of the gigantic cliffs +whose granite bases were beaten by the waves; next darting through a +tunnel or safely overriding a long and lofty bridge, beneath which +poured some wine-colored torrent. This is daring and costly engineering. + +Always high above the water, which sometimes dashes at the very foot +of the trackway, and sometimes is separated from us by barriers of +vine-clad rock, the eye overlooks a wide and radiant scene. A line +of distant and hilly islands cuts off this interior part (Nepigon +Bay) from the open lake; and as we swerve hither and yon in our +rapid advance, these islands group themselves into ever changing +combinations, opening and closing lanes of blue water, displaying +and hiding the silvery horizon, letting passing vessels appear and +disappear, and taking some new charm of color with each new position. + +Nor was this all. Cliffs and shore are grandly picturesque in form, +brilliant in color, and constantly varied. After we had reached +Jackfish River--a famous fishing-place--and the gaudy overhanging +cliffs had been left behind, the lake began to be hidden by a line of +trap-buttes, masked in dense foliage; and these beautiful table-lands +lasted all the way to the crossing of the Nepigon, where again we were +face to face with Nepigon Bay. You may say later that the scenery +of the Rocky Mountains is better than this morning ride along Lake +Superior; but you will not forget, nor be willing to omit it, all the +same. + +[Illustration: INDIAN TEPEES.] + +Nepigon River, up which we have a long view, is the prince of +trout-rivers, and at the railway station canoes, camping supplies and +Indian crews are always obtainable. Think of brook-trout weighing five +or six pounds, to be caught, and bass and whitefish and what not in +plenty besides! + +That afternoon we passed Port Arthur, a town of 3,500 population, on +Thunder Bay, and the port for the fine Canadian Pacific steamers, which +present an alternative summer route between the East and West by way +of the lakes, Owen Sound and Toronto. Five miles farther on we came to +old Fort William, now a growing village and grain port. Here, on the +fertile flats of the Kaministiquia, more than two hundred years ago, +was planted an Indian trading-post, which a century later became the +headquarters of the great Northwest Fur Company, and then an important +post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to which, after years of warfare, +the Northwest corporation finally capitulated. Some of the storied old +buildings, to which a whole magazine article might easily be devoted, +still stand, but they are overshadowed by the railway shops and +warehouses, the huge elevators and coal-bins, which here, as at Port +Arthur, testify to an enormous shipping traffic. + +For four hundred miles west of Fort William, where we bid good-bye +to Lake Superior, the road passes through a wild, rough region of +rocks and forest, reticulated with lakes and rivers. It is the most +unattractive piece of country on the whole line, but it abounds in +minerals, and supplies the treeless region beyond with lumber. Near its +eastern border, at Rabbit Mountain, exceedingly rich silver mines are +worked. The Lake of the Woods, in the centre of this tract, is a very +beautiful spot, and one whose water-power supplies many large mills. + +Morning found us among open groves and thickets--the fringed-out +western edge of that almost continental forest which sweeps behind +us to the Atlantic, and northward until it half envelops Hudson’s +Bay. Finally even this disappeared in an expanse of verdant turf--the +prairie of Manitoba,--its perfectly level horizon broken only by the +tall buildings and steeples of the city of Winnipeg. + +Winnipeg stands at the point where Red River receives its largest +western tributary, the Assiniboine. It has been the site of an Indian +trading post, and the centre of the “Red River settlements” for almost +a century; but until ten years ago it was nothing more. Then it +sprung at one bound, amid an ecstasy of speculation, into a city. It +had a hard time after this injudicious exuberance began to subside; +but it survived, and now Winnipeg is as well founded, and growing as +healthfully, as is Denver or Omaha. The town has ridiculously wide +streets, which it cost a fortune to pave with cedar blocks, and which +make the really tall and fine business buildings look dwarfed. There +are several expensive churches, hundreds of elegant residences, and +some stately public buildings. The width of the streets; the great +number of vacant lots, due to the large expectations of the “boom” +period, which spread the town beyond all reason; and the use of +cream-colored brick and light paint in the buildings, give to Winnipeg +a singularly pale and scattered appearance, likely to diminish in the +eyes of a casual visitor the city’s real wealth and importance. + +[Illustration: THE VIEW FROM THE HOT SPRINGS, BANFF, LOOKING DOWN THE +BOW.] + +“While you would find here in Winnipeg,” says our _cicerone_, as we +sat smoking in a snug corner, “if you studied the matter a little, the +key to much that you will see beyond, you must look beyond for the +key to much you will see in Winnipeg. Situated just where the forests +end and the vast prairies begin, with thousands of miles of river +navigation to the north, south and west, and with railways radiating in +every direction into the wheat lands of all Manitoba, like spokes in a +wheel, Winnipeg has become, what it must always be, the commercial +focus of the Canadian Northwest. Looking at these long lines of +warehouses filled with goods, and these twenty miles or more of railway +side-tracks all crowded with cars, you begin to realize the vastness of +the country we are about to enter. From here the wants of the people in +the west are supplied, and this way come the products of their fields, +while from the far north are brought furs in great variety and number.” + +[Illustration: NEARING THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.] + +The surrounding prairie is absolutely flat, and was the bed of a +prehistoric lake--the last remnant of the waters that once covered +the whole interior; and as we race across it we can picture how +the wavelets rose and fell before the ancient wind by noticing the +olive-and-gray ripples that flow over the long grass under this noonday +breeze. Here and there cattle are standing up to their bellies in the +lush meadow. Far off to the southward a dark line indicates the fringe +of trees along the Assiniboine. Nothing else breaks the verdant flats +that sweep around us save the track and the telegraph poles, straight +as a ray of light behind and ahead to their vanishing points on each +horizon. After a while habitations and farms grow more numerous, for we +have imperceptibly risen to a region lighter in soil and formerly held +at a cheaper price than the speculative tracts near the city, whose +owners have seen settlers go steadily past them. + +The centre of this is the far-scattered town of Portage la Prairie, +an old landing-place of the _voyageurs_, who here loaded their +boat-cargoes into carts and carried them across to Lake Manitoba, there +to be re-embarked for the long canoe voyage inland. Here are now great +wheat elevators and mills, and hence a railway has pushed 250 miles +northwestward, to continue nobody knows how much farther. Brandon, +seventy-five miles beyond, is a wide-awake, handsomely built young city +on the Assiniboine, sustained by an immense agricultural environment. +In regard to this let me quote somewhat from a standard work on the +prairies: “Leaving Brandon, we have fairly reached the first of the +great prairie steppes, that rise one after the other at long intervals +to the Rocky Mountains; and now we are on the real prairie, not the +monotonous, uninteresting plain your imagination has pictured, but a +great billowy ocean of grass and flowers, now swelling into low hills, +again dropping into broad basins with gleaming ponds, and broken here +and there by valleys and by irregular lines of trees marking the +watercourses. The horizon only limits the view; and, as far as the +eye can reach, the prairie is dotted with newly made farms, with great +black squares where the sod has just been turned by the plow, and +with herds of cattle. The short, sweet grass, studded with brilliant +flowers, covers the land as with a carpet, ever changing in color +as the flowers of the different seasons and places give to it their +predominating hue.... Here is produced, in the greatest perfection, +the most famous of all varieties of wheat--that known as the ‘hard +Fyfe wheat of Manitoba’--and oats as well, and rye, barley and flax, +and gigantic potatoes, and almost everything that can be grown in +a temperate climate.... Three hundred miles from Winnipeg we pass +through the famous Bell Farm, embracing one hundred square miles of +land. This is a veritable manufactory of wheat, where the work is done +with almost military organization--plowing by brigades and reaping by +divisions. Think of a farm where the furrows are ordinarily four miles +long, and of a country where such a thing is possible! There are neat +stone cottages and ample barns for miles around, and the collection +of buildings about the headquarters near the railway station makes +a respectable village, there being among them a church, an hotel, a +flour mill, and, of course, a grain elevator, for in this country these +elevators appear wherever there is wheat to be handled or stored.” + +The fertile, pleasantly habitable region of the Canadian West is a +triangular region with a base 800 miles in width east and west, and a +northern limit marked by the forests beyond the Saskatchewan. Between +these forests and the Rocky Mountains the arable country extends +almost to the borders of Alaska, and through it are scattered trading +stations and small settlements among a peaceful and semi-industrious +Indian population. The climate is dry, yet the rainfall (except in the +southwestern part) is quite sufficient for agriculture. The winters +are rigorous, but not so long as those of Quebec, and the snowfall +is light. Wheat, oats, barley and vegetables grow to perfection even +farther north than the Peace River valley, in latitude 56° to 57°--the +parallel which in the east passes just north of Labrador. Settlement on +these fine prairies (which are often bushy, and show no sage-brush and +little alkali) is only a decade old, yet last year there was produced a +surplus for export of twelve million bushels of wheat alone. + +Not far beyond the Regina wheat plain, which is about 1,800 feet above +the sea, the altitude is abruptly increased by a rise to the top of the +_Coteau de Missouri_, where the average of elevation is 3,000 feet. +Here the climate is drier, and grazing becomes the principal industry, +especially toward the foothills, where enormous herds of horses, cattle +and sheep are pastured. Of this great and growing business Calgary is +headquarters. + +Only ten years ago this was the home of millions of buffalo, whose +trails and wallows mark the surface in every direction; but not a bison +is now to be seen within a long distance northward. The prairies from +Regina westward are dotted with lakes, generally of fresh water, are +well grassed, and broken by wooded eminences. The elk and mule-deer are +still common, and in the autumn immense herds of antelope, migrating +southward, are still to be seen from the car windows. Around the lakes +crowd countless wild fowl at all seasons, while flocks of prairie +chickens whirl away on each side at our approach. In the seasons of +migration geese and ducks are here in myriads. + +We cross the South Saskatchewan near some extensive coal mines, and +toward evening of Friday (we left Montreal on Monday night and Winnipeg +on Thursday morning) we catch our first brief glimpse of the Rockies--a +serrated white line notching the sunset horizon. To-morrow morning we +shall awake within their glorious gates. + +[Illustration: STONE POGAMOGGANS OF THE CANADIAN SIOUX.] + + + + +THE NEW YORK YACHT CLUB CRUISE OF ’88. + + +The annual cruise of the New York Yacht Club grows in importance with +increasing years. From the organization of the club, far back in the +forties, its history has been a progressive one. Its vessels have won a +reputation for their fleetness the world over; members have attracted +the attention of all aquatic sportsmen who love + + “A wet sheet and a flowing sea, + And a wind that follows fast;” + +and the club pennant of the red cross, with the single star sparkling +like a gem in its deep azure field, is known in every harbor of the +maritime world. Well may the members of this famous old club look back +upon its record with pride, and well may Elbridge T. Gerry, the present +commodore, rejoice in his proud position as commander of as magnificent +a fleet of pleasure boats as ever sailed the waters blue of old ocean. + +Great strides have been made, since the establishment of the club +in 1844, not only in the sport of yachting, but in all things else +besides. It probably never dawned upon the vision of Commodore Stevens, +in those early days, when from his quaint little castle on the point of +rocks overhanging the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, looking out on the +waters of the Hudson, as they rolled on to the Narrows and out into +old ocean, that the club would make so proud a mark in the history +of a pastime which the lovers of daring deeds so fondly cultivate. A +great city has grown up since then all around him; buildings now occupy +the space where, in those early American yachting days, leafy groves +afforded shade to yachtsmen, and long lines of wharfs take the place of +the gentle grassy slopes, kissed by the waters of the Hudson. All is +changed since then. Even the old club has undergone a transformation. +The fact, however, remains that the keystone of its success, the +brightest gem in its diadem of honorable record, is that which was won +in ’51, when Commodore Stevens’s _America_ sailed away from the whole +fleet of English yachts and carried off the Queen’s Cup. + +This aquatic feat did much to permanently establish yachting in this +country. It was a surprise to the well trained, brave and skillful +sailors of the tight little island that Yankee sailors, after an +ocean voyage, should beat them in their own waters. But they took the +_America’s_ victory in good part, and though it was a difficult pill +to swallow, they got it down with a smile, for your true Englishman is +always manly. + + “Yankee Doodle had a craft, + A rather tidy clipper, + And he challenged, while they laughed, + The Britishers to whip her; + Their whole yacht squadron she outsped, + And that on their own water; + Of all the lot she went ahead, + And they came nowhere arter.” + +From those early days in the fifties, until the war broke out the New +York Yacht Club grew strong in membership and vessels. Its cruises and +its regattas became popular, the latter especially, for they served to +afford a pleasant day’s amusement to people who enjoyed a holiday on +the water. Many of our best known men and grand old merchant princes +were devoted yachtsmen. What cruise was complete without rare old Moses +Grinnell on board some one of the flyers of days gone by? When the war +broke out, did not many of these same yachtsmen lend a hand in the +struggle for the Union? If we mistake not, James Gordon Bennett put +his vessel, the _Rebecca_, into commission, and did service himself +on board, off the Southern coast. Hundreds of other instances might +be cited to prove the patriotism, daring and pluck of “the men who +went down to the sea in ships,” even though these ships were pleasure +craft, and the men who sailed them simply on pleasure bent. + +When “the cruel war” was over there came renewed interest in yachting. +Then the challenges from the other side were received. English +yachtsmen looked with longing eyes across the ocean and declared their +readiness to do battle for the possession of the _America’s_ cup. +With the true spirit of sportsmen American yachtsmen met their Island +brethren with equal ardor to defend the possession of the prize--the +greatest yachting trophy of the world. + +The races in which the _Cambria_, _Livonia_, _Genesta_, _Galatea_, +_Thistle_, _Columbia_, _Sappho_, _Puritan_, _Mayflower_, _Volunteer_, +etc., took part, are too well known to the readers of ~Outing~ +to require more than a mere passing notice. These contests form proud +chapters in the history of the club of which Elbridge T. Gerry is +commodore. + +No less important pages in its history are the great ocean races, in +which the _Vesta_, _Fleetwing_, _Dauntless_ competed, the _Dauntless_ +and _Cambria’s_ ocean race, and again, the race in midwinter between +the _Coronet_ and _Dauntless_, when the Atlantic was in its most angry +moods. The famous schooner _Sappho_, owned by William P. Douglass, +ex-vice-commodore of the club, was another fair skimmer of the briny +deep that carried the burgee of the club with honor in any and every +contest in which she was entered in home or foreign waters. And so the +list might be strung out in a magnificent array of the names of those +white-winged beauties of the sea that muster in the roll of Commodore +Gerry’s fleet. + +For the nonce, let us turn from the past and look upon the present. +Let us survey the fleet of this season as they came together in the +harbor of New London, on the morning of August 9. Never did the famous +old rendezvous present so brilliant an aquatic spectacle. The event +was ushered in with a clear, bright blue sky. As the day grew older +the scene grew in activity. Fifty-three sailing yachts and twenty odd +steamers responded to the sunrise gun, and sent aloft the club signal +to kiss the breeze that stole out from the southwest almost as gently +as summer zephyr laden with the odor of the sea. It was not the piping +breeze loved so well by your true yachtsman, when close-reefed sails +and housed topmasts are the order of the day. At 10.47 the preparatory +gun was given from the flag-ship _Electra_; ten minutes later the +signal gun to start. And what a busy scene presented itself! With +anchors weighed and all sails set, the magnificent fleet began to move +out of the harbor into the waters of the ocean, with the _Puritan_, +true to her record, showing the way over the line, closely followed +by the _Grayling_, _Troubadour_ and _Sea Fox_. It was in this way the +annual cruise began. + +As the squadron passed the flagship _Electra_, a beautiful picture +was presented to the eye. The wind being light, the yachts had all +available sails spread, and the view at the start was of an almost +solid mass of canvas. + +Before going further it will be well to give an explanation regarding +the races that took place from New London to Newport, from Newport +to Vineyard Haven, from Vineyard Haven to New Bedford and thence to +Newport. + +[Illustration: DEAD BEFORE THE WIND.] + +A feature of past cruises has always been this racing from port to +port. Until this year, however, the arrangements in connection with +it have been eminently unsatisfactory, both as regards methods of +starting and the way in which a large yacht arriving first at the +common destination would be disqualified on time allowance and the +victory awarded to a smaller vessel. The methods of former years +having then proved inefficacious in deciding the actual merits of +the competing boats, Commodore Gerry, Vice-Commodore C. H. Colt and +Rear-Commodore E. D. Morgan resolved this year to present prizes to +that yacht in each of the eleven classes which made the best record in +the runs from port to port. These prizes consist of handsome lamps of +solid silver resting on ebony stands. On one side is an inscription +of the names of the donors, while on the other the New York Yacht +Club flag is represented. All the eleven prizes are exactly alike. A +novelty of the trophy is the fact that the lamp may be lifted from its +receptacle, when the stand forms a handsome cup with two handles. These +prizes did much to stimulate the energies of the captains, and some +fine races resulted. + +Twenty minutes instead of the usual ten were allowed as starting time +in these contests. Soon after the fleet had started the wind gradually +died away, and for half an hour the water was scarcely ruffled, but +the Commodore’s proverbial good luck did not desert him long. Soon +sufficient breeze returned to carry the yachts bowling merrily into +Newport harbor. The following table tells the story of the day’s run: + + FIRST CLASS SCHOONERS--THIRTY-FIVE MILES. + + _Elapsed_ _Corr’d_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ _Time._ + NAME. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + + Ambassadress 11 06 00 5 33 35 6 27 35 6 27 35 + Dauntless 11 09 33 4 42 37 5 33 04 5 33 04 + Norseman 11 05 25 4 52 05 5 46 40 5 45 31 + Palmer 11 12 54 4 32 05 5 19 11 5 15 34 + Wanderer 11 09 45 5 10 55 6 01 10 -- -- -- + Alarm 11 06 00 4 48 30 5 42 30 -- -- -- + + SECOND CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Intrepid 11 09 45 4 46 27 5 36 42 5 36 42 + Gitana 10 56 00 4 43 40 5 47 40 5 46 26 + Montauk 11 09 45 4 29 05 5 19 20 5 16 40 + Columbia 11 13 30 4 52 58 5 39 28 -- -- -- + + THIRD CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Sea Fox 11 01 12 4 10 52 5 09 40 5 09 40 + Sachem 11 09 45 4 19 20 5 09 35 5 07 49 + Troubadour 11 00 40 4 24 19 5 23 39 5 21 18 + Varuna 11 03 04 5 11 30 6 08 26 6 05 52 + Miranda 11 07 58 4 26 14 5 18 12 5 15 26 + Grayling 11 00 40 4 24 25 5 23 45 5 18 50 + Atalanta 10 56 30 4 44 33 5 48 03 -- -- -- + Elma 11 12 30 3 40 33 5 28 03 -- -- -- + + FOURTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Marguerite 11 02 07 5 51 45 6 49 38 6 49 38 + Iroquois 11 05 03 4 21 48 5 16 45 5 15 36 + Magic 11 08 35 4 44 29 5 35 54 5 33 44 + Halcyon 10 56 00 4 38 18 5 42 18 5 40 42 + Princess 11 16 10 5 29 23 6 13 13 -- -- -- + + FIFTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Harbinger 11 11 32 5 03 14 6 51 42 -- -- -- + Triton 11 09 40 5 28 27 6 18 47 -- -- -- + Lotus 11 17 00 5 05 14 6 48 14 -- -- -- + Azalea 11 14 38 5 37 52 6 23 14 -- -- -- + Lydia 11 12 08 5 28 27 6 16 19 -- -- -- + Whim 11 06 00 5 32 40 6 26 40 -- -- -- + Clio 11 17 00 5 50 37 6 33 37 -- -- -- + + FIRST CLASS SLOOPS. + + Volunteer 11 08 54 4 21 32 5 12 38 5 12 38 + Mayflower 11 50 20 4 16 03 5 10 43 5 09 56 + Puritan 11 02 07 4 08 39 5 06 32 5 03 14 + + THIRD CLASS SLOOPS. + + Katrina 11 12 30 4 26 42 5 14 12 5 14 12 + Bedouin 11 05 03 5 35 55 6 30 52 6 29 23 + Fanny 11 05 15 4 20 12 5 14 57 5 11 28 + Pocahontas 11 01 30 4 47 04 5 45 34 5 34 34 + Nonpareille 11 09 45 5 36 43 6 40 58 -- -- -- + Huron 11 11 00 4 52 18 5 41 08 5 34 04 + + FOURTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Hildegarde 11 03 53 4 27 02 5 23 09 5 23 09 + Dare 11 10 27 5 52 02 6 04 55 6 00 00 + Medusa 11 10 50 5 21 24 6 10 34 6 02 22 + Whileaway 11 06 00 4 35 17 5 29 17 5 22 52 + Thistle 11 09 45 5 12 45 6 03 00 -- -- -- + + FIFTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Athlon 11 14 08 4 50 25 5 36 17 5 36 17 + Cinderella 11 09 40 5 54 04 5 44 20 5 43 36 + Gaviota 11 15 31 4 54 06 5 38 35 5 37 28 + Bertie 11 08 22 4 47 11 5 45 49 5 40 55 + Concord 11 11 00 5 51 17 6 40 17 6 34 17 + + SIXTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Regina 11 05 30 5 07 00 6 01 30 -- -- -- + Nymph 11 08 56 5 27 47 6 18 51 -- -- -- + Crocodile -- -- -- 5 13 25 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Iseult -- -- -- 5 01 40 -- -- -- -- -- -- + + ~Winners~--First class schooner--Palmer; second class + schooner--Montauk; third class schooner--Sachem; fourth + class schooner--Iroquois; fifth class schooner--Lydia. First + class sloop--Puritan; third class sloop--Fanny; fourth class + sloop--Whileaway; fifth class sloop--Athlon; sixth class + sloop--Regina. + +In the evening red lights were burned on the yachts, lighting up the +harbor and producing a fine effect. + +The next day, Friday, August 10, the race for the Goelet cups took +place over the Sow and Pigs course, off Newport Harbor. At 10.20 the +preparatory gun was fired, there being at the time a light northerly +wind. Ten minutes later the starting signal was given, and the +_Volunteer_ crossed the line in the lead, with the _Mayflower_ second. +Then came the _Miranda_ leading the schooners, followed by the _Sea +Fox_ and _Sachem_. At West Island Light the _Volunteer_ had established +a lead of half a mile with the _Mayflower_ still second, followed by +the _Palmer_, _Sea Fox_, _Puritan_, _Sachem_ and _Katrina_ in the order +named. + +At the Sow and Pigs lightship the order was somewhat changed among the +leaders. The _Sachem_ had taken the lead and the _Mayflower_ had tailed +off. The order and time as the yachts rounded the lightship were as +follows: + +_Sachem_, 3.27.33; _Volunteer_, 3.37.32; _Sea Fox_, 3.43.15; _Puritan_, +3.45.58; _Miranda_, 3.48.26; _Grayling_, 3.49.07; _Katrina_, 3.49.51; +_Iroquois_, 3.50.30; _Palmer_, 3.51.27; _Troubadour_, 3.53.22; +_Mayflower_, 3.53.32; _Dauntless_, 3.55.46; _Montauk_, 3.56.36; +_Magic_, 3.59.00; _Ramona_, 3.59.30. + +The _Katrina_ had the race in hand at this point, and she increased +her lead to the Hen and Chickens. During this run of four miles, the +_Katrina_ gained three minutes on the _Volunteer_ and _Puritan_, +proving herself to be a remarkably fast boat. Just as the boats reached +the Hen and Chickens buoy the wind dropped again, shifting round to the +southwest. The time at this mark, so far as taken, was as follows: + +_Sachem_, 4.40.03; _Volunteer_, 4.44.49; _Sea Fox_, 4.48.36; _Puritan_, +4.51.00; _Grayling_, 4.52.01; _Katrina_, 4.52.38; _Miranda_, 4.58.21; +_Mayflower_, 4.58.53; _Iroquois_, 4.59.33. + +The _Katrina_ was 5m. 44s. ahead of the _Volunteer_ by corrected time +at this mark. The _Sachem_ and _Volunteer_ having rounded the mark some +four minutes ahead of the next boat, the _Sea Fox_, had an immense +advantage by the shift of the wind, which came just after they turned +the buoy. + +It was now a beat to windward to Brenton’s Reef and the finish line. +The wind freshened and hauled more to the westward and became a good +steady breeze. The _Sea Fox_ in this beat pointed very high--her +pointing was something remarkable. The time at the finish was as +follows: + + _Elapsed_ _Corr’d_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ _Time._ + NAME. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + + Volunteer 10 30 57 6 52 32 8 21 35 8 21 25 + Sachem 10 32 09 7 12 57 8 40 48 8 27 48 + Grayling 10 33 40 7 19 34 8 45 54 8 29 22 + Katrina 10 33 17 7 19 49 8 46 32 8 35 10 + Puritan 10 32 47 7 15 35 8 42 48 8 39 07 + Sea Fox 10 31 58 7 23 34 8 51 26 8 40 23 + Mayflower 10 31 51 7 33 05 9 01 14 9 00 21 + +_Miranda_, 10.31.53; _Palmer_, 10.32.25; _Montauk_, 10.32.40; +_Troubadour_, 10.32.52; _Intrepid_, 10.33.32; _Magic_, 10.33.49; +_Dauntless_, 10.34.25; _Elma_, 10.36.00; _Iroquois_, 10.36.38, and +_Ramona_, 10.40.00; not timed. + +In the schooner class, the _Sachem_ won the cup, beating the _Grayling_ +1m. 36s. on corrected time. In the sloop class, the _Volunteer_ won, +beating the _Katrina_ 13m. 44s.; _Puritan_, 17m. 31s.; _Mayflower_ 38m. +46s., corrected time. _Katrina_ beat both _Puritan_ and _Mayflower_. + +On Saturday, August 11, a start was made for Vineyard Haven, Martha’s +Vineyard. Once more every yacht was accurately timed from Newport, this +being the second of the runs from port to port for the class prizes. + +[Illustration: SEA FOX--OWNER, A. CASS CANFIELD, ESQ.] + +Again did the _Puritan_ take the lead at the line, closely followed +by the _Lydia_, _Clio_, _Montauk_ and _Volunteer_. Everything went +smoothly till the _Mayflower_ and _Grayling_ came along, and then +occurred the only accident or collision of the cruise of ’88. +Immediately after crossing the line the _Mayflower_ was directly behind +the _Grayling_ and was sailing a trifle faster. Almost before any +one realized that an accident was about to happen, the _Mayflower’s_ +bowsprit caught the end of the _Grayling’s_ mainboom. This of itself +was nothing serious. The sloop _Regina_ was, however, right ahead of +the _Grayling_, and by the _Mayflower_ pressing upon the _Grayling’s_ +boom, the latter’s stern was pushed to windward, her bow swung off, and +in a moment her big bowsprit struck the _Regina’s_ mainsail just abaft +the mast. The little sloop keeled over to starboard, when her topmast +snapped, and the rigging came rattling down on her deck. Three of the +guests on board the _Regina_ became excited, and jumped overboard, and +then immediately started to swim for the boat which they had just left. +Lines were thrown from the _Grayling_ and caught by the swimmers, but +the big schooner did not lose her headway, and the men grasping the +rope were towed through the water. + +[Illustration: I have the honor to remain, Elbridge T Gerry, Commodore +N.Y.Y.C.] + +The _Electra_, _Grayling_, and _Mayflower_ soon had boats out, the +_Electra’s_ gig being first. By the time the excitement had subsided +all the yachts had crossed the line, and the faster boats were rapidly +moving to the front. Soon the _Volunteer_ passed the _Puritan_ and took +the lead, which she kept until almost to the line, only to be defeated +by the _Puritan_, after having victory apparently within her grasp. +The way in which Commodore Forbes regained the lead was a clever piece +of work. The _Volunteer_ was leading and was encountering a strong +head tide; but the _Puritan_ and others were rapidly overtaking her, +not being bothered with the tide, while they had the full advantage of +the wind. The _Puritan_ was soon equal with the leader, and though not +gaining, was gradually working toward the shore away from the current. +Meanwhile the _Volunteer_ had dropped anchor, not being able to make +any headway. As soon as the _Puritan_ came near the shore and out of +the strong current, she slowly moved toward the line, and crossed it a +victor. The results of the day’s run were: + + FIRST CLASS SCHOONERS. + + _Actual_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ + NAME. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + + Norseman 10 46 06 7 58 00 9 12 54 + Palmer 10 47 07 7 59 45 9 12 38 + Alarm 10 47 35 8 13 50 9 26 15 + Dauntless 10 49 25 8 16 20 9 26 55 + Wanderer 10 51 00 8 41 00 9 50 00 + Ambassadress 10 51 35 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Ramona 11 00 00 7 51 15 9 51 15 + + SECOND CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Montauk 10 41 58 7 55 30 9 13 40 + Gitana 10 44 00 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Columbia 10 46 17 8 02 58 9 16 41 + Intrepid 10 47 35 -- -- -- -- -- -- + + THIRD CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Troubadour 10 43 30 8 34 30 9 51 00 + Sea Fox 10 43 47 7 21 17 8 37 30 + Sachem 10 44 43 7 23 45 8 39 02 + Miranda 10 45 15 7 31 23 8 46 08 + Grayling 10 48 08 7 21 17 8 33 09 + Varuna 10 51 00 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Elma 10 58 55 7 53 40 8 54 45 + + FOURTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Iroquois 10 43 16 7 30 43 8 47 27 + Halcyon 10 45 00 8 06 25 9 21 25 + Marguerite 10 47 35 8 37 00 9 49 25 + Magic 10 49 10 7 53 00 9 03 50 + Clytie 10 51 00 -- -- -- -- -- -- + + FIFTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Lydia 10 41 15 8 36 15 9 55 00 + Clio 10 41 41 8 35 00 9 53 19 + Harbinger 10 45 48 8 11 11 9 25 23 + Lotus 10 57 00 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Whim 11 00 00 -- -- -- -- -- -- + + FIRST CLASS SLOOPS. + + Puritan 10 40 53 7 14 25 8 33 32 + Volunteer 10 41 58 7 22 45 8 40 47 + Mayflower 10 48 08 7 49 22 9 01 14 + + THIRD CLASS SLOOPS. + + Pocahontas 10 42 40 8 12 35 9 29 55 + Katrina 10 42 40 7 52 23 9 09 43 + Huron 10 44 28 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Bedouin 10 48 08 7 26 52 8 38 44 + Fanny 10 50 37 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Vision 10 54 22 8 34 30 9 40 08 + Nonpareille 10 54 49 8 44 25 9 48 36 + + FOURTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Whileaway 10 45 48 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Hildegarde 10 47 55 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Thistle 10 48 08 8 26 00 9 37 52 + Medusa 10 49 35 8 40 00 9 30 25 + + FIFTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Athlon 10 44 32 8 05 06 9 20 34 + Bertie 10 45 48 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Cinderella 10 47 35 -- -- -- -- -- -- + + SIXTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Crocodile 10 44 28 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Regina 10 46 40 -- -- -- -- -- -- + Nymph 10 52 20 8 08 58 9 16 38 + + ~Winners~--Schooners--First class, Alarm; second, Montauk; + third, Grayling; fourth, Iroquois; fifth, Harbinger; Sloops--First + class, Puritan; third, Bedouin; fourth, Medusa; fifth, Athlon; + sixth, Nymph. + +[Illustration: ELECTRA, THE FLAGSHIP--OWNED BY COMMODORE E. T. GERRY.] + +During Sunday the fleet lay at anchor in Vineyard Haven. At a meeting +of the captains, held on board the flagship _Electra_, it was decided +to abandon the cruise to Marblehead for this year and to accept the +offer made by the Newport citizens, of cups, to be sailed for over +the Sow and Pigs course before the cruise terminated. It was also +decided to go to New Bedford on the day after the race for the Martha’s +Vineyard Cup, and then from New Bedford to go to Newport and sail the +race for the cup offered. + +Monday, August 13, was the day set for the race for the Martha’s +Vineyard Cup, but after the flagship _Electra_ had taken her position +ready for the start the Regatta Committee decided to postpone the race. +On Monday, therefore, the yachts lay anchored in Vineyard Haven, while +their owners enjoyed themselves at Cottage City. + +[Illustration: IROQUOIS--OWNER, T. JEFFERSON COOLIDGE, ESQ.] + +On Tuesday, the day was clear and bright, with a wind strong and fresh +from the southwest. It was an ideal yachting day. The result was the +finest race of the cruise. + +The prizes were a series of valuable cups offered by the citizens +of Martha’s Vineyard, as follows: $250 for keel schooners, $250 for +second-class centre-board schooners, $200 for third-class centre-board +schooners, $250 for first-class sloops, $200 for second-class sloops, +$150 for third-class sloops, $100 for fourth-class sloops and $100 for +fifth-class sloops. + +The course gave a beat to windward of eighteen nautical miles to and +round a stakeboat off Gay Head and return to starting line off Cottage +City. + +The starting signal was given at 10.10, and the _Puritan_ was again +first over the line. The _Alert_ was next, closely pursued by the _Sea +Fox_ and _Grayling_. General Paine was aboard the _Alert_, and it was +generally believed that his presence did not keep her back at all. + +The wind increased shortly after the start, and soon a heavy sea came +rolling in from the eastward, striking the big sloops first. The +_Puritan_ was still leading, but the _Mayflower_ seemed to make better +weather of the seas, and soon passed to leeward of the _Puritan_. + +About the same time the _Grayling_ ran through the _Sachem’s_ lee, and +the _Sea Fox_ was holding a splendid wind and going fast through the +water. She was to the windward of both the _Sachem_ and the _Grayling_. +Soon after the start the schooner _Palmer_ carried away her fore +gaff, but she held on under whole mainsail, fore topsail and jib. +The _Grayling_ and _Sachem_ had it hot for a while on the starboard +tack; the _Sachem_ got a little the best of the bout. The _Alert_ now +hoisted a small maintopmast staysail and came along at a slashing pace, +apparently outsailing all the schooners. The first mark of the course +to be turned was the bell buoy off Nobska Point, which was turned by +the leaders as follows: _Puritan_, 11.17.30; _Mayflower_, 11.18.45; +_Sachem_, 11.21.10; _Sea Fox_, 11.22.05; _Alert_, 11.25.00; _Grayling_, +11.29.00. + +On the way from Nobska Point to Gay Head the wind rather moderated, +topmasts were sent up, and reefs shaken out on most of the boats. The +time taken at Gay Head stakeboat was as follows: _Puritan_, 12.42.50; +_Mayflower_, 12.47.00; _Sachem_, 12.50.30; _Alert_, 12.52.22; _Sea +Fox_, 12.53.26; _Grayling_, 12.58.32; _Miranda_, 1.01.45; _Montauk_, +1.14.00; _Iroquois_, 1.06.30; _Katrina_, 1.09.55. + +It was a free wind from Gay Head to the finish off the Sea View House +at Cottage City. All the yachts sent their kites up soon after turning, +and all made splendid time. The _Alert_ was at a great disadvantage +here in not having any spinnaker or balloon topsails on board, so that +the _Miranda_ was able to overhaul her. The race between the _Sea Fox_ +and _Sachem_ was most exciting and very close; the _Katrina_ also +pulled up on the _Bedouin_, but not enough to save her loss outside. +The _Grayling_ did not do as well as usual in this home run; she was +outsailed by both the _Sachem_ and _Sea Fox_. The finish line was +crossed in the following order: _Puritan_, _Sachem_, _Mayflower_, _Sea +Fox_, _Alert_, _Grayling_, _Miranda_, _Montauk_, _Iroquois_, _Bedouin_, +_Katrina_, _Intrepid_, _Troubadour_, _Hildegarde_, _Halcyon_, _Bertie_, +_Athlon_, _Vixen_, and _Usher_. + +The following tables show the result: + + FIRST CLASS SCHOONERS. + + _Elapsed_ _Corr’d_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ _Time._ + NAME. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + Alert 10 10 44 2 21 32 4 10 48 -- -- -- + Intrepid 10 11 43 2 44 14 4 32 31 4 30 10 + Miranda 10 11 45 2 27 55 4 16 10 4 05 14 + Palmer 10 17 58 Did not finish. + Ramona 10 10 24 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + + SECOND CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Sea Fox 10 11 23 2 20 08 4 09 45 4 08 23 + Grayling 10 11 25 2 26 23 4 15 03 4 10 34 + Sachem 10 11 48 2 17 08 4 06 20 4 04 33 + Montauk 10 13 23 2 29 46 4 16 23 4 16 23 + Troubadour 10 15 00 2 47 20 4 32 20 4 28 47 + + THIRD CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Iroquois 10 12 10 2 34 12 4 22 02 4 22 02 + Halcyon 10 14 59 3 10 38 4 55 39 4 54 54 + + FIRST CLASS SLOOPS. + + Puritan 10 10 16 2 12 58 4 02 42 4 00 07 + Mayflower 10 13 14 2 17 44 4 04 30 4 04 30 + + SECOND CLASS SLOOPS. + + Bedouin 10 11 25 2 37 39 4 26 14 4 24 43 + Katrina 10 14 26 2 42 37 4 28 11 4 28 11 + + THIRD CLASS SLOOPS. + + Hildegarde 10 14 11 3 09 43 4 55 32 4 55 32 + + FOURTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Bertie 10 13 41 3 26 42 5 13 01 5 07 59 + Athlon 10 20 00 3 59 45 5 39 45 5 39 45 + + FIFTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Vixen 10 16 30 4 01 30 5 45 00 -- -- -- + Hesper 10 16 48 4 03 47 5 46 59 -- -- -- + Thistle 10 16 54 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + +Winners and prizes: _Alert_, $250; _Sachem_, $250; _Iroquois_, $200; +_Puritan_, $250; _Bedouin_, $250; _Hildegarde_, $150; _Bertie_, $100, +and _Hesper_, $100. + +On Wednesday morning the fleet started for New Bedford. The wind was a +regular sou’wester, and fast time was made. + +The preparatory signal was given at 9.50, and ten minutes later the +starting gun was fired. The race abounded in exciting manœuvres, and +much good seamanship was displayed. It was a grand sight to watch the +_Sea Fox_, _Grayling_ and _Sachem_ contesting for first place, and so +close together were they at the finish that all three crossed the line +within one minute. + +The following table shows the actual results of the race: + + FIRST CLASS SCHOONERS. + + _Elapsed_ _Corr’d_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ _Time._ + NAME. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + Ramona 10 04 30 3 40 45 5 36 15 5 36 15 + Palmer 10 20 00 3 54 04 5 34 04 5 31 59 + Intrepid 10 02 56 3 42 42 5 39 46 5 37 21 + + THIRD CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Grayling 10 00 56 3 03 07 5 02 11 4 58 38 + Sea Fox 10 01 21 3 02 18 5 00 57 5 00 57 + Sachem 10 02 15 3 03 09 5 00 54 4 59 27 + + FOURTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Iroquois 10 01 21 3 26 15 5 25 54 5 23 54 + Halcyon 10 02 09 Did not sail the course. + + FIFTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Lydia 10 02 59 5 09 23 7 08 24 -- -- -- + Clio 10 01 21 4 07 14 6 05 53 -- -- -- + Harbinger 10 00 38 Did not sail the course. + + FIRST CLASS SLOOPS. + + Puritan 10 00 35 3 03 40 5 02 05 4 59 26 + Mayflower 10 02 19 Did not sail the course. + + THIRD CLASS SLOOPS. + + Pocahontas 10 02 52 3 56 20 5 53 28 Not meas. + Katrina 10 07 00 3 14 37 5 07 37 5 07 37 + Bedouin 10 05 24 3 13 13 5 07 49 5 06 13 + Fanny 10 11 27 Did not sail the course. + + FOURTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Hildegarde 10 10 12 4 06 30 5 56 18 5 56 18 + + FIFTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Athlon 10 04 00 4 48 52 6 44 52 6 44 52 + Bertie 10 01 16 4 35 10 6 33 54 6 28 43 + Cinderella 10 01 31 4 39 56 6 38 25 6 37 39 + Concord 10 04 12 Did not sail the course. + + SIXTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Nymph 10 03 53 Did not sail the course. + Pappoose 10 04 30 5 07 31 7 03 01 -- -- -- + + ~Winners~--First class schooners, Palmer; third class + schooners, Grayling; fourth class schooners, Iroquois; fifth class + schooners, Clio; first class sloops, Puritan; third class sloops, + Bedouin; fourth class sloops, Hildegarde; fifth class sloops, + Bertie; sixth class sloops, Pappoose. + +In the evening a meeting of the captains was held on board the +_Electra_, after which a reception was given to the captains and their +guests by Commodore Gerry. On Thursday the fleet remained in New +Bedford harbor, and on signal all hands “dressed ship,” and the quaint +old harbor, with its whaling vessels along the docks, presented a very +pretty sight. During the afternoon cutter, gig and dingey races were +rowed. In the evening the visiting yachtsmen and their friends were +received by the local club. + +When the preparatory signal was given on Friday morning for the final +run of the cruise, the wind blowing fresh from the southwest, caused +most of the yachts to house topmasts and tie two reefs in their +mainsails. The _Grayling_ crossed the line first, followed closely by +the _Puritan_ and _Lydia_. The great surprise of the day was the way +in which the _Mayflower_ “walked away” from the _Puritan_ and all the +others. + +After the finish the yachts continued into Newport harbor. The results +of the day’s run were: + + FIRST CLASS SCHOONERS. + + _Elapsed_ _Corr’d_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ _Time._ + NAME. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + Palmer 10 23 52 3 14 18 4 50 26 4 47 37 + Intrepid 10 22 13 3 20 24 4 58 11 4 53 37 + Dauntless 10 22 13 3 42 25 5 20 12 5 20 12 + Ramona 10 31 29 4 35 22 6 03 53 6 03 04 + + THIRD CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Sachem 10 23 00 3 06 08 4 43 08 4 43 18 + Miranda 10 33 17 3 26 20 4 53 03 4 51 11 + Grayling 10 21 07 Did not finish. + + FOURTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Iroquois 10 24 20 3 34 35 5 10 15 5 10 15 + + FIFTH CLASS SCHOONERS. + + Clio 10 22 20 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + Lydia 10 21 15 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + + FIRST CLASS SLOOPS. + + Mayflower 10 23 17 2 30 04 4 06 47 4 06 47 + Puritan 10 21 12 3 03 48 4 42 36 4 40 40 + + THIRD CLASS SLOOPS. + + Bedouin 10 25 45 3 12 26 4 46 41 4 45 32 + Katrina 10 23 55 3 10 55 4 47 00 4 47 00 + + FOURTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Hildegarde 10 21 45 3 59 54 5 34 09 5 38 09 + + FIFTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Bertie 10 22 29 4 07 19 5 44 50 5 41 03 + Cinderella 10 24 30 4 27 44 6 03 14 6 02 40 + Athlon 10 22 29 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + Active 10 32 55 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + + SIXTH CLASS SLOOPS. + + Papoose 10 25 29 4 41 22 6 15 53 -- -- -- + Nymph 10 27 05 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + Kelpie 10 35 00 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + + ~Winners~--First class schooners, Palmer; third class + schooners, Sachem; fourth class schooners, Iroquois; first class + sloops, Mayflower; third class sloops, Bedouin; fourth class + sloops, Hildegarde; fifth class sloops, Bertie; sixth class sloops, + Pappoose. + +On Saturday and Sunday the yachts remained in the harbor, and their +owners spent the time in Newport. + +On Monday, August 20, the 50-mile race for the cups offered by the +citizens of Newport was sailed, but the wind being very light the event +caused much disappointment. The run was to be before the wind, and so +the big sloops lowered their spinnaker booms as they came toward the +line. The _Puritan_ crossed first, and next came the _Fanny_, noted +for her light-weather qualities, then the _Dauntless_, followed by the +_Alarm_, _Hildegarde_ and _Volunteer_ in the order given. + +The _Volunteer_ gradually gained on the leader, passed her adversaries +one by one, and shortly before rounding the stakeboat was first. The +wind was light, and variable all day, and died out at most inopportune +times. The _Volunteer_ alone crossed the finish within the time limit. + +At colors on Tuesday the fleet was formally disbanded, and so ended the +very successful cruise of 1888. + +[Illustration: SACHEM--OWNERS, MESSRS. C. D. OWEN AND JESSE METCALF, +PROVIDENCE, R. I.] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +BASEBALL IN AUSTRALIA. + +BY HARRY PALMER. + + +~Note.~--~Outing~ gladly places at the head of this article the +portrait of Mr. A. G. Spalding, the projector and promoter of the +American Baseball Tour to Australia.--~Editor. + + +[Illustration] + +“Ho, for Australia!” + +What a world of pleasant memories the thought must awaken in the heart +of every one who has plowed the depths of the broad Pacific; past the +land of the Kanakas and the dominion of King Kalakaua; on through the +Samoan group, to the shores of New Zealand; finally, under the light of +the Southern Cross, to drop anchor in the harbor of Sydney, the most +wonderful natural harbor in the world. + +Just at present Australia and the Australians are objects of special +interest to a large majority of Americans. Next to home, young America +loves nothing so well as the national game of baseball. Popular +enthusiasm aroused by the game is a matter for wonder to all people +not Americans. This arises from the fact that in no other country is +baseball so thoroughly practised or understood. The probable reason +why England, Canada, Australia, and other countries, with their innate +love for sports and athletics, have not become enamored of the game, is +that our best exponents find America too attractive and profitable a +field, from a professional standpoint, to find time or opportunity for +introducing the pastime into other lands. Other considerations operate +against the scheme of a mission of instruction. The expense of taking +two selected teams abroad, the possibility of meeting unfavorable +weather, accidents to players, and numberless other obstacles, +would occur to the mind of any ambitious baseball manager who might +contemplate such a scheme. + +An invasion of foreign territory was, however, made in 1875. The Boston +and Athletic teams, embracing many of the leading players of that +period, went to show the Englishmen the game of baseball as played in +America, and to play cricket with them. + +In connection with that tour of ’75 Mr. A. G. Spalding, then the +hard-working young pitcher of the Boston Club, was a prominent figure. +Now, the same man, having become the head of the great mercantile house +that bears his name, is, with the same spirit, about to introduce the +game into a land ten thousand miles away. Bold as is the enterprise, +the man who has undertaken it has not only the nerve and courage to +carry it out, but also the ability to make the venture successful in +every sense of the word. That the Australians will be afforded the +opportunity to see the attractive features of the game demonstrated to +the best possible advantage, is assured by the make-up of the visiting +teams. If the Australian people admire a game in which skill, training, +endurance and daring are requisite qualifications, they will be +staunch admirers of America’s national game before the teams have half +finished their tour. + +Twelve months ago no plan of the tour had been formulated. In January +of the present year it was for the first time seriously contemplated. +At that time Leigh S. Lynch, a gentleman widely known, and of long +experience in amusement enterprises, met Mr. Spalding, and the subject +of an Australian baseball tour, once broached, was seriously and fully +discussed. The greatest obstacle that had heretofore existed, viz., +the want of a capable and experienced associate in the venture, was, +to Mr. Spalding’s mind, overcome by the advent of Mr. Lynch. Almost +immediately the two began to make arrangements for the tour, on which +they had with little hesitation decided. Captain Anson was interested +in the project, and together with Messrs. Lynch and Spalding, +entertained the view that there was but one policy to adopt if success +was to be attained. It must be an undertaking on a large scale. Money +would have to be expended without stint, and all chances taken of the +venture proving financially successful. In spite of their broad-minded +view of the case, and though the limit of expense for the trip was +placed at the liberal figure of $30,000, the venture has grown with +each month since its inception until it has attracted the attention and +awakened the interest of every lover of sport in England, America and +Australia by its magnitude. + +In February Mr. Lynch started for Australia, and on his arrival +promptly secured the sole right to use the cricket grounds at Sydney +and Melbourne for baseball games during the winter of 1888-9. Before +returning to America he announced the contemplated tour to the press +of these cities. Much to his gratification, the news awakened marked +interest. + +[Illustration: + + JOHN M. WARD. LEIGH S. LYNCH. A. C. ANSON. +] + +Hitherto baseball has never been introduced in Australia in such a +form as Americans know. Some few of the American residents in the +larger cities have played it in amateur fashion, but never have two +professional teams, such as these comprising the National League, +crossed bats upon Australian soil. It is, therefore, evident that the +tour will be watched with interest in America, while the reputation +of the Australians as lovers of all kinds of sport, together with the +attractive character of baseball, seem to promise the awakening of no +small degree of enthusiasm among them. + +In America baseball has surpassed in public favor horse-racing, aquatic +and field sports of every character. Its growth has been one of nearly +twenty years, and with each succeeding year it has commanded an +increase in public patronage, until it has beyond all question become +the national game of Americans. + +[Illustration: THE CHICAGO TEAM. + + MARTIN SULLIVAN. F. N. PFEFFER. JOHN K. TENER. + MARK BALDWIN. ROB’T PETTITT. THOS. P. DALY. + JAMES RYAN. E. N. WILLIAMSON. THOS. BURNS. + A. C. ANSON, CAPTAIN (SEE PAGE 158). +] + +[Illustration: THE ALL-AMERICAN TEAM. + + EDWARD HANLON, DETROIT. JOHN HEALY, INDIANAPOLIS. + M. J. KELLY, BOSTON. + JAMES G. FOGARTY, PHILADELPHIA. M. J. TIERNAN, NEW YORK. + H. H. SIMPSON, NEWARK. + J. A. DONNELLY, WASHINGTON. F. H. CARROLL, PITTSBURG. + GEORGE A. WOOD, PHILADELPHIA. + JOHN M. WARD, NEW YORK, CAPTAIN (SEE PAGE 158). +] + +In America there are two prosperous leagues, or associations, of +professional baseball clubs, known as the National League and the +American Association. These organizations are each composed of +eight clubs, each club being located in one of eight cities, which +comprise the circuit of each organization. Each organization has its +constitution and by-laws governing the affairs of each and every club +in membership, and each organization has its prearranged schedule of +games, which are played during each season. According to the schedule +of 1888, each team was scheduled to play 140 games during the +season--seventy at home with visiting teams, and an equal number +abroad, or ten games on the grounds of each competing club--the seasons +at home and abroad being so arranged as to give lovers of the game +two or three weeks of continuous ball playing, and then a like period +of rest. It is needless to say the return of the home team is made +the occasion of a great outpouring of people and a hearty reception +in each city of the circuit, while its fortunes in other cities are +eagerly followed by its friends at home. The daily press of the country +devotes columns of space in each issue to the victories and defeats on +the “diamond,” and in nearly all of the larger League and Association +cities the evening papers issue an extra edition containing the +accounts of the afternoon’s games. These find a large and ready sale, +not only in the cities where they are published, but each outgoing +train bears its package of “extras,” which are waited for by crowds of +expectant and impatient watchers at every station. + +No attempt has been made in these lines to color the picture. Public +enthusiasm in America over the national game is something more than +the cleverest pen could depict. From day to day the relative standing +of the teams in the championship races is stated in tabulated form at +the head of the baseball column of every reputable American daily, +and the slightest change in the positions of the teams in the race is +sufficient cause for exultation in the home of the fortunate team, and +for a corresponding degree of depression in the home of the team that +has been supplanted in its position. The position of a team in the race +is determined by the percentage of the games it has won, the percentage +being determined by dividing the number of games won by those played. +Thus a team may have won 51 games and lost 47, consequently it has +played 98. Now, divide 51 by 98, adding to the dividend three ciphers, +and for a quotient you have .520, which would be the percentage of +games won to the number of games played by that team. + +The theory of the game of baseball is in itself simple. It is that +two contesting teams must endeavor to send the greatest number of men +around the circuit of the bases under prescribed rules within a limited +number of innings. That is the cardinal point in the theory of the game. + +Now, as to the rules and requirements to which players must adhere in +attempting to make the circuit of the bases, and the means by which +they can be prevented. + +Each team must invariably consist of nine men, and the game must be +played upon a regularly marked or laid-out field, as illustrated upon +page 165. + +The field, it will be seen, consists of a continuous runway, these +runways being clay-covered paths, laid out in the shape of a huge +diamond. At each corner of the diamond is a basebag of canvas filled +with sand or other material, and strapped securely to the ground. + +Now, to the average American youth, the duties of the players in +two contesting ball teams, and their positions upon the field, are +known in a general way. There are many spectators, even in America, +however, who, if asked to explain the simplest points in a game, +would find themselves lamentably ignorant upon the subject. Baseball +correspondents, writers, professional players and rule makers, probably +because long experience has made them thoroughly familiar with the +rules and terms of the national game, have fallen into the use of +technicalities, that in many instances cause the game to seem intricate +to the uninitiated. In truth, however, the game’s greatest charm is +its simplicity, combined with the manifold opportunities it offers for +brilliant and daring work by the players. A simple description of the +cardinal points in the game, therefore, divested of all technical terms +that cannot be plainly defined, will, perhaps, aid many a reader in +America, as well as in other countries, to understand baseball, where +the simple reading of the professional playing rules, framed by the +rules committee, would mystify rather than inform a reader not already +familiar with the game. + +Let it be understood, therefore, that the basebags are known as first, +second, third base and home plate, first base being the first bag to +the right of the batsman as the latter faces the pitcher. The distance +between bases is ninety feet. The players are known as pitcher, +catcher, first baseman, second baseman, short-stop, third baseman, +right fielder, centre fielder, and left fielder. The pitcher (or +bowler) stands in the centre of the diamond, within prescribed lines +four feet wide by five feet four inches long, known as the pitcher’s +box. The forward line of the pitcher’s box is fifty feet from the +home plate, which the pitcher faces when ready to deliver the ball, +and beside which the batsman stands as he faces the pitcher. Behind +the home plate stands the catcher, it being his duty to receive the +ball from and return it to the pitcher, should it not be batted by the +batsman. Just behind the catcher stands the umpire, who is expected +to judge every ball pitched and every play made during the game, his +decision being final in every instance. At first base stands the first +baseman, and at second base stands the second baseman. The short-stop +is stationed midway between the second and third basemen, in or near +the runway, and the third baseman at third base. These four men +constitute the “infield” of the team. Facing the diamond, and stationed +from 100 to 125 yards from the infield, are the right, centre, and left +fielders. These men constitute the “outfield” of the team. + +The choice of going to bat or to the field for the opening innings of +the game is optional with the captain of the home team--that is, the +team upon whose grounds the game is being played. Should he decide +to send his men to the field, he stations them as above indicated, +while the nine players of the opposing team take their seats upon the +visiting players’ bench. These players go to bat in the order in which +their names appear upon the score card. When the fielding team has +taken its position, the first batsman of the opposing team steps to +the plate, and others follow him in regular turn, until three batsmen +have been retired by the efforts of the opposing fielders. Then the +positions of the teams are reversed, the side which was at bat going to +the field, and the side which was doing fielding duty coming in to take +their turn at bat in regular order. When three of the second team’s +batsmen have been retired, or put out by the efforts of the opposing +fielders, the innings is ended, each team having sent three or more +men to bat, and each having had three men retired. Nine such innings, +requiring from one hour and a half to one hour and fifty minutes of +play, constitute a game, and the team which has scored the most runs +wins the game. Should rain, or any other cause, stop the game before +five full innings have been played, however, the game must be contested +over again before it can count in a championship record. + +When the batsman steps to the plate he is expected to hit the ball so +that it will pass the intercepting fielders, and go to such distance +in the outfield as will enable him to reach first base before the ball +can be returned to the fielder stationed there. If he can reach second +or third base, or make the entire circuit of the bases before the ball +has been intercepted by any one of the infielders, or before it has +been captured by an outfielder and returned to the infield, so much the +better, for the base-runner’s object is to ultimately make the circuit +and touch the home plate, by which he scores a run for his side. To +put a batsman out, a fielder must catch the batted ball before it has +reached the ground, or must recover it in time to throw it to the base +for which the base-runner is making, before the base-runner reaches it. + +The pitcher is required by the rules to pitch the ball _over the plate +and between the knee and shoulder of the batsman_. Each time he tries +and fails to do so the umpire calls “ball,” and upon five such balls +being pitched, the batsman is entitled to take first base. When three +_fair_ balls have been put over the plate, however, and the batsman has +failed to hit them, the batsman is _out_, whether he has struck at the +ball or not. For each fair ball the umpire calls “strike.” + +From the home plate along the runways to and past first and third +bases, are drawn two chalk lines. These are known as foul lines, and +any ball batted outside these lines is called a foul ball, and does +not count against either the pitcher or batsman unless it should be +caught by a fielder before touching the ground, in which case the +batsman is out. Very frequently a swiftly pitched ball is struck at by +the batsman, who fails to correctly judge it, and the ball being just +grazed by the bat, shoots into the catcher’s hand. This is called a +“foul tip,” and puts the batsman out. + +When the innings begins, and there are no base-runners on bases, the +catcher usually stands well back from the plate and takes the ball on +the bound, so as to save his hands as much as possible. When three +balls or two strikes have been called by the umpire, however, or when +a batsman has succeeded in reaching first base on a hit, or by other +means, the catcher puts on his protecting mask and pad and stands close +up behind the batsman, taking the balls as they come over the plate. +This is done that he may more quickly take advantage of any opportunity +that may offer to put the batsman out, or retire the base-runner, who +may already have reached first base. + +There are many terms applied to the different plays in a game of +baseball, which, as a rule, are but imperfectly understood. The writer +has known a spectator who, though familiar with the make-up of every +ball team in the League and Association, was so ignorant of baseball +parlance as to call a “foul tip” a “fly,” an “out” from second to +first baseman a “sacrifice,” and a “wild pitch” a “wild throw.” An +understanding of all the terms used in connection with the game is, of +course, not requisite to a reasonably clear conception of the points +therein, yet ability to designate a play and a player’s position +correctly, is positively necessary in scoring. + +A careful perusal of the following terms and their meaning will greatly +help the uninitiated to follow the playing and grasp its significance: + +A Batsman is the player who stands at the plate for the purpose of +hitting the ball. A Base-runner is what the batsman becomes after he +has batted the ball. A Fielder is any one of the nine players opposing +the side at bat. A Coacher is one of the players belonging to the +side at bat, who takes up his position near first or third base, and +advises, or coaches, the base-runner. The Battery--A term usually +applied to the catcher and pitcher. The Back-stop--A term sometimes +applied to the catcher. The Infield--A term applied to the first, +second, third baseman and short-stop. The Outfield--A term applied to +the right, centre, and left fielders. A Strike--A strike is called +when the ball has passed over the home plate, between the knee and +shoulder of the batsman, whether he has struck at it or not; three +strikes send the batsman to his seat. A Ball--“Ball” is called by +the umpire when the ball delivered by the pitcher has passed above +the shoulder or below the knee of the batsman, or has gone wide of +the plate; five balls so delivered entitle the batsman to take his +base. A Foul Hit--Any hit which sends the ball outside of the foul +lines. A Fair Hit--Any hit which sends the ball across the diamond so +that it will land inside the foul lines. A Fly-ball--A ball hit into +the air and caught by a fielder before it touches the ground; such a +catch retires the batsman. A Liner--A ball batted straight across the +diamond toward any infielder. A Grounder--A batted ball which strikes +the ground inside the diamond. A Wild Pitch--An unsteady delivery +of the ball by the pitcher which passes the catcher, and permits a +base-runner to advance a base. A Passed Ball--A ball which bounds +from the catcher’s hands on coming from the pitcher, and permits a +base-runner to advance a base; each base-runner may start for the base +ahead of him on a passed ball or wild pitch, and hold it, provided he +reaches it before the catcher recovers the ball, and sends it to the +fielder at the bag for which the base-runner is making. A Muff--The +failure of a fielder to hold a fly or thrown ball after it has fairly +struck his hands. A Fumble--The failure of a fielder to quickly +handle and throw a batted ball to the base for which the base-runner +is making. A Steal--Frequently a base-runner will start for the base +ahead of him immediately upon the pitcher’s delivering the ball, and +depending upon his sprinting ability for success; if he succeeds he +may be said to have stolen a base; if he fails, through the catcher’s +receiving the ball and throwing it to the fielder at the base for which +the base-runner is making, the latter may be said to have been put out +on an attempted steal. An Error--When a fielder fumbles or muffs a +ball, or fails to stop a batted ball which it may be fairly presumed +he _could_ have stopped, or when he in any way fails to make the play +he might and should have made, he has been guilty of an error, and is +charged with the same in the score. A Wild Throw is a ball thrown over +the head or out of reach of the fielder to whom it is directed, thus +permitting a base-runner to gain a base. A Base Hit--A base hit is a +ball so batted toward fair ground that the opposing fielders cannot +reach it before it strikes the ground, or so that they cannot recover +it in time to throw it to the base before the base-runner reaches +there; a base hit may be for one, two, three, or four bases, according +to the distance to which the ball is batted. A Single is a base hit +upon which the batsman reaches first base, usually referred to as a +_safe_ hit. A Double is a hit upon which the batsman reaches second +base. A Triple is a hit upon which the batsman reaches third base. A +Home Run is a hit upon which the base-runner makes the entire circuit +of the bases. A Double Play is a play by the fielders which retires +two men simultaneously. A Triple is a play that retires three men +simultaneously; for instance, a double play may be made thus: with a +base-runner on first base, the batsman sends a grounder to the second +baseman; immediately the ball is hit, the base-runner on first starts +for second and is touched out by the second baseman as he passes him, +and then the second baseman quickly throws to first base, the first +baseman receiving the ball before the base-runner gets there, thus two +men are retired; should the first baseman, after putting his man out at +first, then throw to the home plate in time to shut off a base-runner +running in from third base, it would be a triple play. A Slide--When +a base-runner sees that there is a chance of the fielders getting the +ball to the base for which he is making before he gets there himself, +he will plunge head first, or feet first, for the bag, sliding over the +ground upon his stomach or back, a distance of ten feet or more to the +base; this is called base-sliding, and is a reckless and daring feature +of the game that invariably arouses much enthusiasm in America. A Balk +is any motion made by the pitcher as though he intended to deliver +the ball, but made for the purpose of deceiving the base-runner; a +balk advances a base-runner a base. A Blocked Ball is a ball batted +or thrown into the crowd; in case of a “block” the base-runner may +continue on around the bases without being put out until the ball has +been returned to the pitcher’s box. Hit by Pitched Ball--When a batsman +is hit by a pitched ball he is entitled to his base then and there. A +Sacrifice Hit--A fly-ball (usually to the outfield) so batted as to +retire the batsman but assist a base-runner on first, second, or third +base to reach the base ahead of him. + +To return, however, to the Australian expedition. The tour is now +begun, and the party of ball players is this month _en route_ to +the Pacific coast by slow stages, in order that the teams may play +exhibition games in the more populous cities between Chicago and San +Francisco. There are among them twenty-two ball players--including +Captains Ward and Anson--half a dozen representatives of the leading +newspapers of the country, OUTING’S special correspondent, and quite +a number of tourists who have taken advantage of the opportunity and +the reduced rates to make the trip. In addition to these there are: +President Spalding and family, Mrs. John M. Ward, _née_ Helen Douvray, +the well-known actress, and Mrs. Anson. The journey is performed in two +special cars, with hotel and sleeping accommodations, these cars going +through to San Francisco. As to the program of the party from the time +of leaving Salt Lake City, it was admirably outlined to the writer by +Leigh Lynch before his departure for Australia in September to prepare +the way for the teams at points between Chicago and San Francisco, at +Honolulu, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, and other points in New Zealand +and Australia which the teams will visit. Mr. Lynch’s present trip is +the fourth he has made, and his knowledge upon every point of interest +connected with the present tour is complete. + +This was his plan of campaign: “Our design is that the teams shall +separate at Salt Lake City, the All-American team, under Ward’s +management, proceeding direct to San Francisco, where a series of +games will be played with the San Francisco ball clubs. The Chicago +team, under Anson’s management, will, on the other hand, go up through +Oregon and Washington Territories to Portland, Seattle, Spokane Falls, +and other points, afterwards going south from Portland, where it will +join the All-American team. Two exhibition games will be played by +the combined teams in San Francisco before sailing. The sailing hour +is fixed for two ~P. M.~, November 17; but I shall endeavor to +arrange with the steamship company to defer it till eight o’clock, +so that we may play our farewell game the day we leave. Many of the +players have already visited San Francisco, consequently they will not +care to do much sight-seeing. + +“After leaving San Francisco, the trip will, however, be replete with +interest for the party. From the time the _Alameda_ passes through the +Golden Gate, we shall have a continuous voyage of seven days before we +strike land. These seven days will constitute a sort of preparatory +period for what is to follow, and every member of the party will want +to get his sea-legs as soon as possible. Our steamer, the _Alameda_, +is the best equipped boat in the line, of 3,200 tons measurement, and +provided with electric lights, baths, and every convenience of a modern +house. The table is excellent, and the officers considerate and kind in +every way. + +“A voyage across the Pacific is rarely attended by such rough weather +as one encounters upon the Atlantic, and as a rule the great ocean is +true to its name. On board ship every possible method is adopted to +pass the time. There is music and dancing on the deck, and the ordinary +ship’s games, while nothing is more delightful than to lie back in +a blanket-covered steamer-chair and gaze at the seemingly boundless +ocean stretching away on every side. The fragrant breezes of the South +Pacific fan the brow, and the light from a gorgeous moon and a million +stars flood the deck and sails of the ship which is steadily plowing +along through the billows of the mightiest stretch of water upon the +globe. Nowhere can one so truly realize the grandeur and the immensity +of nature as on the Pacific Ocean. + +“At Honolulu the tourists will see with surprise the high state of +civilization and cultivation encountered on every hand. Honolulu is +upon the island of Oahu, and has a population of about 25,000 people, +including whites, natives, and Chinese. The harbor is natural, and +the city very handsomely constructed. The public parks are among the +most beautiful in the world. The trees and shrubberies at night blaze +with incandescent electric lights, and colored fountains play, while +the walks are ornamented at every turn with artistic statuary. The +royal band, which gives concerts nightly at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, +is without doubt one of the best I ever heard, and I have heard the +bands of every civilized nation. The drives surrounding the city are +naturally beautiful and are admirably cared for. The Kanakas are a +remarkable and interesting race. Their skin is dark, not unlike that +of the American Indian, the features small and regular, and the hair +straight and luxuriant. They are excellent swimmers, and invariably +surround every steamer that touches at Honolulu, eager to exhibit their +skill for the most trivial recompense. + +“We stop at Honolulu between twelve and fifteen hours, and play two +games of ball--one between the Chicagos and All-Americans, and the +other between the Chicagos and the local Honolulu team, which, by the +way, is very good. I shall endeavor to arrange so that King Kalakaua +may witness both games, and think I shall be able to do so, for he is +very fond of athletics. + +“Seven days after leaving Honolulu we stop at Tutuila, in the Samoan +group. It is distant about 2,000 miles from the Hawaiian capital, +and nearly as far south of the Equator as Honolulu is north. Twelve +hundred miles from Honolulu our ship crosses the Equator, and Neptune +is invariably received with due honors upon every boat that passes the +line. + +“Six days after leaving Tutuila, where our ship stops only two or three +hours, we reach Auckland, the capital of New Zealand. There we stop +about ten hours and propose to give the inhabitants a game of ball. +Auckland is a pretty provincial town, of about 40,000 people, built in +the English style. The cricket grounds are among the finest I ever saw. + +“From Auckland we go to Sydney, and there our Australian tour proper +commences. So much has been said of the cities of Sydney and Melbourne +that the less I say now, perhaps, the better. + +“When we leave America we shall leave not far from midwinter. When we +arrive in Australia we shall arrive in midsummer, for our December is +their July. So it will be necessary to the comfort of every member of +our party to dress for the trip just as though they were providing for +an approaching summer at home. A steamer coat may be a good thing to +carry with one, as the nights are at times chilly. + +“As to the program of the ball teams in Australia, that I cannot give +you definitely now. Suffice it to say, however, that our teams will +stand ready to meet Australian cricket elevens or football teams at +any city they visit, and that as a result of their visit baseball will +be better known, and probably better liked, by the Australian people +when we bid farewell to Sydney. There will be ball games in Sydney, +Melbourne, Adelaide, Bathurst, Ballarat, and every other point that we +can visit to advantage. As to the recreative features of the trip, I +feel sure they will be taken care of. Australians are a generous and +hospitable people, and the visiting teams will doubtless become well +acquainted in every city they visit. Of course we shall have a kangaroo +round-up, while there will be many interesting and novel sights to +entertain our party from the time we arrive on the continent until we +leave it.” + +[Illustration: A BASEBALL TEAM IN POSITION ON THE FIELD.] + +To Mr. A. G. Spalding, the principal baseball legislator in America, +and the head of the Chicago Club, is due the credit of the enterprise. +His pluck, money and position made the project feasible. + +To Leigh Lynch, the business manager, is due the credit of having +perfected all details, a duty for which his long experience as an +amusement enterprise manager fully qualifies him. For nine years he +was associated with Mr. A. M. Palmer as business manager of the Union +Square Theatre, New York City, afterward becoming acting manager of +Niblo’s. During the winter of 1887 he assumed management for Mrs. +Langtry. He has traveled all over the globe; is familiar with the +peoples of all countries; is well informed upon any topic, and is +possessed of influential friends in every civilized nation. Both in +capability and experience Mr. Lynch is a valuable ally to Mr. Spalding. + +As to the players, they will form representative teams in every sense +of the word. The Chicagos, under the captaincy of Anson, embracing +the flower of the regular team’s talent, will go as a well trained, +thoroughly drilled body of ball players, capable of putting up as +strong, finished, and brilliant a game of ball for the edification +of the Australian people as Americans have ever had the privilege of +witnessing. Anson, Pfeffer, Williamson and Burns will certainly be +as representative an infield as Pettitt, Ryan and Sullivan are an +outfield. Baldwin and Tenner, with Tom Daly and Frank Flint to hold +down their delivery, can without doubt ably illustrate the points in +battery work. All are gentlemanly, experienced, and capable men, and +can as a body, and individually, scarcely fail to prove a credit to the +game and to America upon the coming trip. + +The All-American team, traveling under the captaincy of John M. Ward, +the popular and intelligent ex-captain of the New Yorks, is composed +of men picked from the ranks of the representative ball teams of +America. They have been chosen not only for their proficiency as ball +players, but because of their clean professional records. Kelly, Wood, +Fogarty, Hanlon, Carroll, Tiernan, and the balance of the players who +compose the All-American team, are all capable of coping with Chicago, +so as to give all who witness the coming games abroad some admirable +illustrations of America’s National Game. + + +THE UNIFORM OF THE TEAMS. + + CHICAGO. + + Light gray shirts and knee breeches, with black stockings, caps and + belts; black letters across the breast, ~Chicago~. + + ALL-AMERICAN. + + White flannel shirts, knee breeches, with blue stockings; blue + letters across the breast denoting the home club of the individual, + thus, ~New York~, etc.; caps of blue and white flannel; + belts of white duck, covered with American flag of silk draped + round waist and knotted on left hip. + +[Illustration] + + + + +LOVE AT FISHING. + + + Put one arm here, and with the other fling + The silken string, + Steel hook, and gadfly bait into the cool, + Transparent pool, + And drive love’s prattle tiptoe ’cross the lip, + Or let it turn to language-gaze, and sip + Its honey from a stillness. Watch the dip + And glimmer of the cork, and how they slip-- + The scarlet fish--below the water, like + The thoughts that strike + Athwart the mind. How else could lovers wish + Than thus to fish? + Though I have cut no strand of yellow hair + To spin my silken cord from what you wear, + In long warm tresses over face, to stare + Through quaintly; nor a golden hook to snare + The water’s fruit! or more than this cool nook, + With that one look + Between the willow branches at the sky + From where we lie, + Edged round with ribbon grasses tangled in + The lover’s knots, as if they meant to win + Love hither by a meaning that is kin; + For nature holds love’s thought and origin! + + That bird dropped down upon the pool’s near hem + Like a red gem, + Shook off the hand; and left a vision glint, + That faint song-print-- + Just gone.... Mark how the fishes flit and chase, + Lit to a passion, ’cross the water’s face-- + So like the minutes moving in the space + Of this one day. What are the words they trace + Therein?... That bird flew to its nest just now + Upon the bough. + The stooping sun trails long red fingers through + The grass. The dew + Slips off the willow leaves. It cannot be + The day is over, and the fish still free-- + Except the fish of happiness that we + Have caught; with love’s gold ring for you and me! + + _Edward A. Valentine._ + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Open ~Window~.] + + +Franklin Satterthwaite, a genial sportsman, a good fellow, and a +journalist whose pen ofttimes described the sports and pastimes +he loved so well, died September 16, at his home in Newark. Mr. +Satterthwaite was among the best known writers on field sports in this +country. He was the son of John B. Satterthwaite, who married Miss +Duane, a daughter of the celebrated W. J. Duane, Secretary of the +Treasury during Andrew Jackson’s presidency. Franklin Satterthwaite +was brought up in Philadelphia. The name of Franklin descended to him +from his great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin. He had a wide circle +of friends. His place will be missed among the men who love outdoor +sports, for Franklin Satterthwaite was not only an enthusiast in their +pursuit, but his ready pen never flowed so freely as when recounting +some exciting or interesting adventure of flood or field. May his name +continue as green in the memory of those who knew and loved him as the +sod which covers his grave! + + * * * * * + +THE DISSENSIONS IN THE ATHLETIC WORLD. + +It is a matter for regret, that just at this season the National +Amateur Athletic Association and the Amateur Athletic Union should be +at daggers’ points with each other. It is to be deplored particularly +now, when a visiting organization is here, three thousand miles from +home, to engage in contests for championship honors. That the main +object the two great organizations of amateur athletes have in view is +praiseworthy is not for a moment put to question. It is to be presumed +that both are influenced by a similar idea--the purification, or +the attempted purification, of the athletic arena from the taint of +semi-professionalism. + +Young men who interest themselves in outdoor amusements belong to +one of two classes--the amateur or the professional. Strange as it +may seem, it is not so easy to draw the line between the two. The +gentlemen, however, who are in a position to pilot the course of the +great athletic bodies, and frame the rules for their government, +certainly ought to be able to discriminate. A man who interests +himself in athletic sports is either an amateur or a professional. He +either goes in for pastime or sport; for the love of it, or for the +gain it affords him; the badge or medal for the one--the purse for +the other. The lines between these two are so strongly marked that a +blind man can feel them. There is, however, a class of men who have +crept into the amateur ranks which requires careful watching. We refer +to those who are neither amateurs or professionals, but for want of a +better designation may be classed as “professional amateurs.” These +men will not enter the professional arena for purses, but they do +not hesitate to become members of amateur clubs under questionable +conditions. Men who devote nearly all their time to training on the +cinder track, on the river, on the bicycle path, or in the baseball +field, and who do not pay club dues, or who have their club dues paid +for them, are tainted with the worse taint of professionalism. To +pit one of these men against the amateur enthusiast, who goes in for +outdoor sports for the pure love of them, is manifestly unfair. He has +no chance to distinguish himself, if he feels so inclined, against +such odds. It also discourages other younger amateurs from making a +trial in the public contests. To protect the honest amateur athlete, +the genuine lover of sport, against the tricksters who, under the +guise of amateurs, do nothing else but hang about club-houses, and +who are encouraged because they are “smart”--“smart” in more senses +than one--is an accomplishment worthy of any great body. If this is +the knotty problem which lies directly at the base of the difficulty +between the two great central bodies of American amateur athletes, it +ought not to be a difficult one to solve; but on the other hand, if it +is a desire on the part of one to carry out a policy of rule or ruin, +the sooner an understanding is arrived at the better. We have invited +both the National Association and the Amateur Athletic Union to state +their cases fairly in the pages of ~Outing~, and we await their +action without further comment. + + * * * * * + +THE FOOTBALL SEASON. + +The season of football just inaugurated gives every evidence of being +an active one. The interest in the game has increased to such an +extent in the last few seasons that the sport has rapidly advanced to +a leading position among the outdoor amusements of this country. The +recent victories of the Canadian team in England and Scotland, too, +have given an additional impetus to the game with the sturdy young +men across the border. If the promise of the preliminary preparations +produce good fruit the present season of football here and in Canada +will be a most exciting one. + + * * * * * + +THE CLOSE OF THE YACHTING SEASON. + +The season of the year is now with us when the yachts comprising the +American pleasure fleets go out of commission. With topmasts housed, +sails unbent, and running gear coiled away below, they will lie up in +winter berths until May, 1889. + +Now, therefore, is the time to ask: “What has the season of 1888 +done for yachting in America?” and ~Outing~ answers, “Much.” +True, we have had no international race, but what of that? When our +friends in England are ready to challenge, we are ready to build, and +meanwhile the interval has been profitably spent on both sides of +the Atlantic. The Englishmen have been building boats to beat their +previous productions. And so have Americans, with very satisfactory +results. Our keel boats have done well, but the centreboards have done +better. It has been a lively season, with more events and better racing +and cruising than any previous. New boats have broken old records, +and two important features have been developed, _i. e._, schooner +racing, and “class racing.” At no time in the past ten years has there +been such interest in the former class of sport, while the results +of the latter were shown in the recent races off Larchmont. There +half a dozen boats of almost equal dimensions--_Pappoose_, _Baboon_, +_Nymph_, etc.--contested, and the results proved that it is not only +more interesting to the spectator, but also very satisfactory to the +yachtsmen whose boat has too often been hampered by being compelled to +sail in annual races in a class with others nearly double her length. +Class racing should be encouraged in New York waters, as it is in +Boston and on the Lakes. + +There has been much said this season about a summer club-house down the +bay for the New York Yacht Club, but nothing definite has been done +toward securing one as yet. It appears very necessary that the premier +club of America should have an anchorage and house somewhere near the +point from which their races are started. The club that has shown the +most enterprise this year is the Larchmont. They have not only provided +themselves with what may be justly termed the most perfectly appointed +club-house in the country, but by inaugurating the class-racing spoken +of, and encouraging the sailing of small boats by Corinthian crews, +they have made themselves deservedly popular among all classes of +yachtsmen. Boston, Marblehead, Hull, Beverley and Dorchester as usual +wind up the season with the longest roll of events to their credit. +It seems curious that our New York yachtsmen do not join and organize +a Yacht Racing Association, by which the time allowances, and other +racing details, might be governed. The Eastern Association, that meets +in Boston, have all the principal clubs on their roll, and they have +done much good work since they started. + + ~J. C. Summers.~ + + * * * * * + +THE EXPENSES OF THE KENNEL. + +Few but those who are intimately acquainted with the minutest details +of keeping and training thoroughbred dogs can estimate the vast amount +of time, labor and money expended nowadays on the canine race. This +time, labor and money all go for the improvement and elevation of the +dog, for scientific breeding, and preparation for shows and field +trials. + +With the daily increase of bench shows, we witness quickly growing +extravagance in the prices paid for high-class dogs, and see money +spent with a freer hand for dog furnishings and kennel accommodations. +Dog furnishings alone, including such articles as collars of all +grades, blankets, muzzles, leads, chains, snaps, swivels, couplings, +etc., etc., and kennel fixtures, from dog-houses and porcelain-lined +food-pans down to brushes, combs, dog-soap, and multitudinous patent +medicines for every ailment, employ hundreds and hundreds of people of +both sexes throughout the year, and these industries are undoubtedly on +the increase. + +As to prices paid for dog-flesh, we can cite a few, some of which have +come under our personal notice. For instance, it is well known that the +owner of the pointer dog Beaufort could have found a purchaser for him +at any moment at a figure somewhat better than a thousand dollars; in +fact, it is understood that that figure was about the price paid for +him when little more than a pup. Another instance is the sale of the +liver and white pointer Robert le Diable, at the New York show a year +ago, for one thousand dollars. Again, we have the huge St. Bernard +Rector, sold by Mr. E. R. Hearn to Fritz Emmet, bringing four thousand. +Then, in the case of the English pointer Graphic, twenty-seven hundred +was the cost of his transfer from one gentleman’s kennels to another’s, +and the instance of the collie Bendigo, at the Westminster Kennel +Club’s show last spring, bringing a thousand and a half in cash, +showed how much his present owner wanted him. Now comes the latest +thing in this line. That great and noble St. Bernard, loved throughout +England, and for whom at his departure from his native place children +wept and people of maturer years grew sad, has come to us--we refer to +that grand dog Plinlimmon. Much ink was wasted and many offers made +before his recent owner could be induced to part with him; at last the +climax was reached, however, when a most luring and seductive bait of +_one thousand pounds_ was offered, which sealed the good dog’s fate. +He is in this country now, having lately arrived on the _Britannic_. +Mastiffs, too, have been bringing long prices, with spaniels (the black +variety) and setters, some of these kennels being worth a small fortune +in themselves. So, with new additions every month to the list of shows, +dog interests increase and values enhance, until well-bred specimens +may be seen at every hand where formerly mongrels predominated. + + ~Nomad.~ + + * * * * * + +FENCING. + +With the return of cold weather, fencing comes once again to the +fore. Indeed, fencing is growing more popular every year. We remember +the time--and that not many years ago--when there was but a single +professor of the art in New York, and a pretty poor one at that. Now, +fencing academies are cropping up in all parts of the city. Fencing +clubs are numerous and well attended. The two leading ones are the +Knickerbocker and the Fencers’ Club. The two great athletic clubs of +New York encourage fencing by devoting large and convenient rooms +for _salles d’armes_, and giving valuable prizes to the winners of +contests. The Manhattan has secured the services of Professor Louis +Rondelle, the able and courteous master of the Knickerbocker. They +promise magnificent fencing rooms in their new building, which will be +the finest in America. + +~Outing~ would like the secretaries of all the fencing clubs to +report about the doings of their fellow-members. We will also furnish +all desired information about fencing and fencers. An article on +“Fencing for Ladies,” by Mr. Eugene Van Schaick, the author of “A Bout +with the Foils,” and “A Bout with the Broadsword,” will be published in +one of the early numbers of ~Outing~ for 1889. + + + + +[Illustration: ~The Outing Club.~] + + +REVIVAL OF A FINE OLD ENGLISH GAME. + +The average young Canadian is more devoted to outdoor sports in all +kinds of weather than his American neighbor. Even those among the +Canucks whose hair is silver-sabled, as well as they whose locks are +sable-silvered--to quote a phrase from that delightful old boy, the +Autocrat, of Boston, as true a sportsman as ever breathed or wrote--are +more devoted to almost all kinds of vigorous exercise, driving, +perhaps, excepted, than those who live in the dominions of Uncle Sam. +Not only do cricket, baseball, tennis and curling find thousands of +enthusiastic players in Canada, but shinty, golf, and bowls have their +adherents. The game last mentioned has of late taken an extraordinary +hold in Ontario. Its great recommendation is that it is found to give +just the degree of exercise in the open air to make it especially +agreeable to those of middle age or to those + + “Whose age is as a lusty youth, + Frosty, but kindly.” + +Lawn bowls resembles curling somewhat. In fact it consists in trying +to do on level grass what it is the object of curlers to accomplish on +smooth ice, _i. e._, to get one side’s bowls near a central object and +to cut out those of the other side. Another point of resemblance is +that the “in-turn” or “out-turn” of the curling-stone is initiated by +the “fore-hand” or “back-hand” bias of the _lignum-vitæ_ bowl. There +is, however, no sweeping at bowls, so that the assistance, real or +imaginary, toward the progress of a stone that a roaring and perspiring +curler derives from his efforts with the broom, is denied to the bowler. + +In former days the game was played, in Canada, at least, with balls +much biased, so as to draw as much as six to ten feet in a run of +sixty. The best players in Scotland, however, have discarded these +extremely weighted bowls. The Pioneer rink of Toronto was the first +to import bowls of the best Glasgow make, notwithstanding that a very +fair article is made in Canada. Since Scotland has been mentioned, it +may be as well to say just here that a correspondent, Mr. Samuel Gunn, +of Glasgow, a fine bowler, and an undeniable Scotchman, inveighs, in +a recent letter, against those who term bowls an English game, and +declares that Scotland is its great exemplar to-day. This probably may +be the case; but even Mr. Gunn will admit that the cyclopedias call it +“a British game,” and they are not particular to say anything about +North Britain either. He should also remember that in the fine picture +illustrative of the game in the time of Elizabeth, it is Sir Francis +Drake and a group of Englishmen whose game upon an English green was +sought to be interrupted by a messenger bringing tidings that the +Spanish Armada was in sight. + +Be it Scotch or English, it is a good game. + + +IS HE A 9 4-5 MAN? + +The St. Louis _Globe-Democrat_ writes in the following way of the +performance of Schifferstein, the Californian sprinter: + +“At the meeting of the Missouri Athletic Club, at St. Louis, September +9, the feature of the day was the performance of Schifferstein, the +Californian, in the 100-yard race. He won away off in the world’s +record time of 9 4-5s. The amateur record is 10s., and the Californian +lowered this. The professional record of 9 4-5s. is held by H. M. +Johnson, who was one of the timers. The performance will go on +record, and Schifferstein will receive a handsome medal for lowering +the record. There can be no doubt of the performance, as he beat +Joe Murphy, who is a 10¼. man, three yards. In the second heat +Schifferstein, O. J. Fath and Geo. M. Fuchs, of the M. A. A. C., and +Eli Thornish, of Chicago, competed. Schifferstein raced away from +his field in the first fifty yards, and won easily by four yards of +Thornish, second. Time, 13 1-5s. The Californian has the easiest of +styles. He much resembles Sherrill, the champion, in his style of +movement, and does not seem to exert himself a bit when in motion. He +will win the national championship. In the final heat a good start was +effected, but Schifferstein opened up a big gap on his field in the +first fifty yards as before. Murphy then held him even, but could not +gain an inch, and the Californian won by three yards in the record time +of 9 4-5s.” + + +A PLEA FOR THE WHEELMEN. + +As the days shorten, and the hours available for outdoor exercise grow +fewer, more wheelmen are anxious to use the daylight they have at their +own disposal for a reinvigorating run. No city is better provided with +an exercise ground for cyclers than is New York with her beautiful +park; but, nevertheless, there is a hitch. As things stand at present, +one has, in order to reach the park, to take a car from the business +parts of the city, and undergo all the tedium of the trip; then, +hastily donning cycling clothes, take a hasty spin, a hurried bath, +and resuming the garments of every-day life, run the risk of cold or +pneumonia by taking a car down-town while still warm from the vigorous +exercise. + +The Board of Aldermen were apparently filled with good intentions, and +went so far as to lay down in Madison Avenue, from Twenty-third to +Thirty-second Street, a pavement which seems calculated to fill every +wheelman’s heart with joy. This pavement is not the ordinary asphalt +used for streets, but has an admixture of sand, which prevents extreme +slipperiness. So far so good; but there remains the long stretch from +Thirty-second to Fifty-ninth Street, over which no wheelman dare +attempt to ride, and so many a man who pines for the refreshing run of +an hour or so on his wheel is deterred by the thoughts of those trips +on the cars and the other attendant discomforts. Surely the Board of +Aldermen will take pity on such a good (and influential) class of +citizens, and shortly remedy this real and considerable grievance. + + +A MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. + +At the present time, when the inevitable effect of the actions of +so-called “trout-hogs,” dynamitards, and pot-hunters is evoking so +much attention, the report that on August 30 Lord Walsingham killed +in one day to his own gun, 1,058 head of grouse, on his small moor at +Blubberhouse, Yorkshire, has attracted no slight attention. The feat, +if such it can be called, was undertaken with a view to eclipsing +the former record made by Lord Walsingham in 1872 of 842 head, on +which performance no great reliance has ever been placed. The new +and gigantic record is, however, undoubtedly authentic. The bag was +made between 5.15 ~A. M.~ and 7.30 ~P. M.~ and twenty “drives” were +made, which occupied seven hours and a half. During the last half hour +(_i. e._, from 7 to 7.30) fourteen birds were killed, during the walk +home, and by deducting these it is found that 1,044 were killed in 449 +minutes, or nearly 2⅓ birds per minute. Once three birds were killed at +one shot, and three times two birds at one shot. Lord Walsingham was +the only person to fire, and used four guns, and employed two loaders. +In this particular case, so far was the ground from being completely +“shot out” that the reports say that two guns could readily get from +150 to 200 brace per day for two or three days during the next week +over the same ground. + + +A BELLED BUCK. + +The New York _Sun_ recently published a letter from Alex. Moss, of +Madoc, Miss. Mr. Moss writes: “A day or two ago I killed a deer, a +buck, the largest ever seen in this country; gross weight, 347 pounds. +The horns three inches from the head were 1¾ in. in diameter. There +were six points on one horn and seven on the other--thirteen points. +Around the neck of the deer was a bell attached to a wire rope. On +the inside of the bell was plainly engraved: ‘J. S. Dunn, Lansing, +Mich. June (or Jan.), 1881.’ The wire rope had been spliced in sailor +fashion, and was no doubt done before it was put on the deer, and +allowances made for the neck growing. There was but a small portion +of the material of which the rope was made left, save the wire. It +was very tight around the deer’s neck, and the hair was white where +the rope touched. The bell had no clapper, and was made of brass and +copper.” + + +A DRINK FOR CYCLISTS. + +A writer in the _Bicycling World_ calls attention to a well-known +injurious habit of wheelmen, as follows: + +“The pernicious habit of imbibing large quantities of water at every +stopping-place, so common among inexperienced wheelmen, not only +aggravates the thirst, but, by promoting excessive perspiration, +exhausts the rider. It is the perspiration that evaporates as fast as +it appears, and not that which runs off the skin, that diminished the +heat of the body. If the rider resists this desire to drink, the water +for perspiration is taken from the fat--which is the dead weight--and +he is benefited by the decrease in his avoirdupois.” + +While the fault and result are very much as outlined above, the +writer has failed to point out any remedy. A certain amount of liquid +to assuage thirst must be taken by riders, and at the same time +nourishment and mild stimulation are often essential. A harmless +and satisfactory combination of all these may be secured by adding +to a glass of milk a tablespoonful of Jamaica rum, and nothing +but beneficial results will be secured, even if used in excess of +moderation. + + +HINTS TO NEW YORK SPORTSMEN. + +The query has more than once been put to ~Outing~: “Where can +one obtain good shooting within Too miles of New York?” In reply, we +wish to give the following advice to men who, while keen on sport, have +not the time to seek it far afield. + +In the first place, good shooting, with a variety of game (one +correspondent mentions rabbit, quail, grouse, partridge, etc.), cannot +be obtained within too miles of the city. + +The rabbit, or American hare (_Lepus sylvaticus_) can be found +everywhere outside and sometimes inside city limits. He seems to be +a “pariah and an outcast” among sportsmen, although rabbit shooting +with a couple of good dogs on a brisk, frosty morning, is a sport +by no means to be despised. Rabbits are protected by the game laws +during the close season. Quail (_Ortex Virginianus_, or, according to +many ornithologists, _Perdix V._), are in many places still further +protected by farmers upon whose lands they breed, most of the stubble +fields being posted to keep off intruders. The right of shooting in +such cases is reserved for themselves, or for city friends visiting +them in the fall, although we have known of cases where the farms were +posted so that the farmer’s boys might eke out a few pitiful pennies by +snaring the birds for market. Good rabbit and fair quail shooting may +be had early in the season on the line of the Southern Railroad of New +Jersey, particularly in the neighborhood of Tom’s River. Also on Long +Island, from South Oyster Bay eastward. + +Ruffed grouse (_Tetrao umbellus_), improperly called “partridge” +in the Eastern and some of the Middle States, and as improperly +termed “pheasant” in the South, may still be found in fair numbers +among the wooded slopes and swales of Sullivan County, N. Y., and +Pike County, Penn. But the class of sportsmen whom we are specially +addressing should try that migratory bird, the woodcock, finest of +all our birds of the fall flight, the English snipe, most luscious of +all for the table, and the shore birds, or _Limicolæ_, a large class +comprehending the curlews, marlins, plovers, tattlers and sandpipers. +It is unnecessary to say that, except with shore birds, good dogs are +essential to success. + + +A WORD TO LAWN TENNIS PLAYERS. + +Lawn Tennis has, within late years, taken so prominent a place in the +list of our outdoor amateur sports that it behooves those who feel an +interest in its future progress to guard well against the introduction +of the semi-professional element. This influence has done much to +injure and retard the growth of many outdoor amusements. It threw back +amateur rowing for years, and at one time brought the open regattas +into such ill-favor that it was feared that rowing would fall back +into the position it was in before the establishment of the National +Association of Amateur Oarsmen. Even after the establishment of that +organization, it required the closest attention on the part of the +executive committee of the association, with so active a man as Henry +W. Garfield to keep it clear from the snags that beset it. It would +be well for the lovers of lawn tennis to take this matter seriously in +hand and take a lesson from the course laid down by the amateur oarsmen +to keep the pastime clear from professional amateur players of this +delightful outdoor amusement. + + +CYCLES IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY. + +Mr. J. H. Block, of Moscow, who has been instrumental in obtaining the +introduction of cycles into the Russian army, thus explains how he was +able to bring the measure about: + +“I was very kindly received,” says Mr. Block, “by the +Commander-in-Chief here, and he took the greatest interest in all +I had to say about cycling. An official test has been made here +between a cyclist and a grenadier on horseback. A despatch of great +importance had to be taken to a small town thirty-five miles outside of +Moscow, and an answer to be received from there. One of our best and +most ardent bicyclists, Colonel Firsoff, who is fifty years of age, +undertook to start off with the grenadier at the same time, and try to +receive the answer, and come back in less time than the horseman would. +This he achieved in the best possible manner. He came back four hours +sooner than did the grenadier, and it created quite a sensation. Since +that time we have had very long and continuous conversations about +this matter, and after two months, the official introduction has taken +place.” + + +THE HEROINE OF A YACHTING ACCIDENT. + +A narrow Escape from drowning, and, at the same time, an admirable +instance of the value of coolness and presence of mind in the face of +danger is thus recorded by the Hamilton, Canada, _Spectator_. It gives +an account of the rescue of Mr. Bunbury, of Hamilton, and his daughter. +After showing how a passing vessel noticed the capsized sloop, the +_Spectator_ goes on to say: + +“Captain Irving was notified and got his glass set upon the object. He +informed the passengers who had called his attention to it that it was +a yacht on her side with two persons clinging to it. The steamer was +headed for the yacht, and in a short time was alongside it. Then it +was found that Miss Bunbury’s yacht had upset. The two passengers were +picked up, and the young lady was rigged out in dry clothes and made +comfortable. She did not appear to be the least bit concerned about the +upset. ‘We were just three-quarters of an hour in the water,’ she said, +looking at her watch, as she was lifted on deck. + +“Mr. Bunbury had seen the squall coming, and was going to take in some +of the canvas when the squall struck the boat. ‘Let go everything,’ he +cried to his daughter, ‘and jump into the mainsail.’ The young lady +obeyed with a promptness that perhaps saved her life. In a moment the +boat was on her side, with the sail flat on the water, and the young +lady on the sail. She picked herself up and stood on the centreboard, +hanging on to the deck with both hands. The yacht was low in the water, +and to raise it Mr. Bunbury dived into it and threw out the ballast. +The young lady stood in the water up to her waist, while Mr. Bunbury +was up to his neck, and when the boat lurched--a small sea having come +up in the meantime--his head would go right under water. + +“The young lady was made quite a heroine of by the passengers of the +_Macassa_. She certainly deserves great credit for her pluck and +presence of mind. Thomas Costen, one of the _Macassa’s_ deck hands +jumped into the water and assisted in getting the young lady and Mr. +Bunbury on board. The yacht was afterward towed in by a steam launch.” + + +FISH LIVING IN HOT WATER. + +There is a pond on the hay ranch at Golconda, which is fed by the +waters from the hot springs. This pond has an area of two or three +acres, and the temperature of the water is about 85°, and in some +places, where the hot water bubbles up from the bottom, the temperature +is almost up to a boiling point. Recently the discovery has been made +that this warm lake is literally alive with carp, some of which are +more than a foot long. All efforts to catch them with a hook and line +have failed, as they will not touch the most tempting bait. A few of +them have been shot, and, contrary to the general supposition, the +flesh was hard and palatable. How the fish got into the lake is a +mystery unsolved. Within too feet of it are springs which are boiling +hot, and the ranchers in the vicinity use the water to scald hogs in +the butchering season. + + +CARP FISHING. + +The New York _Herald_ recently gave some advice to a correspondent who +inquired as to the best method of getting some carp-fishing, which is +so practical that it will bear repetition. It says: “At Little Falls, +N. Y., you can obtain boats, although carp may be caught also from the +shore. Carp may be taken in large numbers anywhere within ten miles +above Little Falls. There is no law protecting carp, and they may be +taken whenever and wherever anybody can find them. Use No. 3 or 4 hook, +and fish on the bottom. Let the fish get a good hold before striking, +as carp take the hook like suckers. They are often caught on worms used +in fishing for other fish. If nothing but carp are wanted, a better +bait is made of dough, mixed with cotton to keep it on the hook, or +boiled peas.” + + +BOAT-RACING IN THE DARK. + +A number of times during the past rowing season we noticed that +unsatisfactory results were reached at the conclusion of a regatta, +which anything like thoughtful management might have avoided. In two +or three instances which might be called to mind, contestants were +summoned to the starting-line at so late an hour that the shades of +evening had fallen on the water. To start a boat race under such +conditions is not only absurd and ridiculous, but fraught with danger +to the men engaged in it, not to say anything of the numberless +disputes likely to arise regarding the final result. In the first +place, the referee cannot discharge the duties of his office properly +if he is unable to see what is going on between the contestants, or how +can a judge at the finish determine who crosses the line first when it +is absolutely impossible to see distinctly three boats’ lengths ahead +of him? In the Bowery Bay, a place that may become popular for racing +with rowing men, and in the waters about the Staten Island Athletic +Club’s boat-house, occurrences similar to those above referred to had +practical illustrations within the past few weeks. In other sections +of the country the practice of delay in starting boat races at an hour +later than announced has become a positive nuisance. We propose to +watch all sins of this kind in the future, and place the blame of such +mismanagement where it belongs. + + + + +OUR THEATRICAL PLAYGROUND. + + +The theatrical season in New York opened auspiciously about the first +of September, and up to the present time shows no sign of in any way +not keeping up to its early promise; and this despite the fact of +an exciting presidential campaign, when mass meetings, torch-light +processions and brass bands in the streets furnish all the elements of +a free show outside the theatres. As a rule, a presidential year--at +least the few weeks of the canvass preceding the election--seriously +effects the attendance at all places of amusement. The past few weeks, +however, seem to prove an exception. And no class of entertainment, so +long as it is good, appears to be singled out for preference. + + +FAREWELL, WALLACK’S! + +Colonel McCaull, with “Boccaccio,” easily led the comic opera patronage +at Wallack’s. It was the best performance of the opera ever given in +the city. Comedy and song are so happily blended in the work that +it requires actors and singers to present it properly, and McCaull +gave both. “Boccaccio,” by the McCaull Opera Company, will pass into +the dramatic annals of this city as the last performance given in +Wallack’s. October 6 Wallack’s ceased to exist, and a name which for +more than a generation was a household word throughout the country +passed away into a memory and becomes a tradition. + + +MEMORIES OF HOME. + +As a contrast to the rollicking fun of comic opera let us see how +the Academy of Music is doing with “The Old Homestead.” Here is a +medley--it can hardly be called a play--which savors so strongly of +country life that one almost feels the breath of the new-mown hay, +or the genial warmth of a happy hearthstone while witnessing Den +Thompson’s performance. It is a touch of nature, and thousands throng +into the Academy to feel its influence. + + +A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK. + +When young Sothern, at the Lyceum, came upon the stage as _Lord +Chumley_, an indistinct something or other flashed through the minds +of old theatre-goers. It was impossible at first to tell what produced +that feeling, but as the play unraveled itself, and Mr. Sothern warmed +to his work, it seemed as if the spirit of the elder Sothern animated +the younger, and _Lord Chumley_ was a blood relative of the lamented +_Lord Dundreary_. As was the case with _Dundreary_ so it was with +_Chumley_--both sprung into popularity in a night. As in Laura Keene’s, +crowds were drawn in days gone by to see the father, so now at the +present day throngs fill the pretty Lyceum to look upon the son. + + +NOT OF THE FIRST WATER. + +The handsome Broadway Theatre reopened with “The Queen’s Mate,” and +the opera was followed by “The Kaffir Diamond.” Notwithstanding the +admirable manner in which the drama was mounted and the magnificent +performance of Mr. Aldrich as _Shoulders_, it failed to meet with +public approval. The play is not a good one. It has some strong points +and good situations, but it drags in places. It is claimed it will +make a good road show. It may, but I doubt it. “Mr. Barnes of New York” +succeeded “The Kaffir Diamond” on October 15. + + +CAB, SIR? + +Edward Harrigan opened his theatre with another of those local +admixtures which he calls “Waddy Googan.” _Waddy_ is a hack driver, and +Mr. Harrigan draws him to life, and places him in scenes and situations +so faithfully true that the theatre is unable to accommodate his +patrons. “Waddy Googan’s” run promises to be a long one. + + +A SUCCESSFUL WRECK. + +William Gillette has made another success with “A Legal Wreck.” When he +first produced it at the Madison Square he did not expect it would do +more than fill out a part of his season there. Its success, however, +was such that the piece will hold possession until the 10th of this +month, when A. M. Palmer’s company returns to begin the regular winter +season. + + +JULES VERNE’S STORY IN TIGHTS. + +At Niblo’s Garden “Mathias Sandorf” came in with the season, and +brought a flock of the prettiest ballet girls that ever adorned Niblo’s +stage. “Mathias Sandorf” was said to be written by Jules Verne. M. +Verne may have written it, but the people who filled the theatre at +every performance lost all recollection of the story in the bright +smiles and entrancing movements of the fairies of the ballet. Some +managers have a weakness for the antique in the selection of their +coryphées, but the rare experience of E. G. Gilmore and Bolossy Kiralfy +teaches them that the young have much more attractiveness in the +present day. + + +UP-HILL WORK. + +J. M. Hill has produced a play called “Philip Herne” at the Fifth +Avenue Theatre. It was written by Mrs. Mary Fiske, a very bright +writer, and a lady well known in journalistic and theatrical circles. +“Philip Herne” has not yet come up to its manager’s expectations. The +play has all the advantages of a good cast. After a four weeks’ run at +the Fifth Avenue it went up to the Standard for a five weeks’ stay. +Mr. Hill is a very plucky manager, and is not afraid to meet defeat. +Sometimes he even turns defeat into victory. Who can tell? “Philip +Herne” may yet result in the victory Mr. Hill believes it capable of +achieving. + + +THE FASCINATION OF IMPROBABILITIES. + +J. Wesley Rosenquest, one of the most enterprising and intelligent of +our younger managers, has now two theatres to guide instead of one--the +Bijou Opera House and the Fourteenth Street Theatre. At the latter +place of amusement, Cora Tanner has made the success of her career in +“Fascination.” “Fascination” is a comedy, written by Robert Buchanan, +and is about as improbable a story as one can listen to. But what of +that? The people throng to see the play, or Cora Tanner, or both; and +in this way stamp its improbabilities with the brand of success. + + ~Richard Neville.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Among the Books~] + + +For a writer of books on sporting subjects one qualification is +absolutely indispensable if the result is to be a success, and this +is that the author shall have his heart thoroughly in his work. In no +other class of literature is the lack of such a qualification made so +palpable to the reader. In “Wild Fowl Shooting” (Chicago: Rand, McNally +& Co., 1888) Mr. William Bruce Leffingwell shows his love and knowledge +of sport in a way which will give his work a high place in sporting +literature. From the first to the last chapter the book is nothing if +not practical, and the information is pleasantly interspersed with +anecdotes and stories in such a way that the veteran will read with +amusement and interest, and the tyro will gather instruction and +pleasure at the same time. The scientific portions which are gleaned +from the best sources are not unduly obtrusive, though of sufficient +length to give any information required. The volume has the additional +advantage of being illustrated. + + * * * * * + +It is not often that the writer of a book of travel gives such thorough +attention to his subject as did William Eleroy Curtis (New York: +Harper & Brothers, 1888) in “The Capitals of Spanish America.” In his +position as Commissioner from the United States to the Governments +of Central and South America, the author had an opportunity which he +improved fully and with profit. President Arthur’s unsigned letter, +sent after his death, accepting the dedication and consenting to write +the Introduction, is an interesting memento. The accounts given by +the author of the cities and peoples he visited are full of life and +interest, while more serious points are by no means neglected. But +even the dry facts are so pleasantly discussed in chatty fashion and +interlarded by anecdote and tale that no dry bones are left. The book +is very profusely and, for the most part, handsomely illustrated. + + * * * * * + +Realistic fiction has in the last two years gained a strong foothold in +this country. To-day twenty good writers might be named with whom this +tendency has become a characteristic. There is undoubtedly an American +school of fiction building up which will become distinctive of our day +and country. But “Len Gansett,” by Opie P. Read (Boston: Ticknor & Co., +1888), is hardly calculated to reflect credit on this school. Realism +is not all-sufficient, but must be ably seconded by literary merit to +meet with general approbation. The plot of this work is so poor that +one wonders at the finish why it should have ever been introduced. +The characters are weak and quite devoid of originality, while the +charms and picturesqueness which might have been introduced into such +surroundings are conspicuous by their absence. + + * * * * * + +There are books that win favor by their very name. “Chris,” by W. +E. Norris (London and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1888), is a volume +that has more than a name to make a way for it. From the moment that +one picks up this novel, one becomes intensely interested in the +fortunes of the wayward heroine. The interest acquired in her various +entanglements is almost personal, and when she is delivered from the +clutches of the unscrupulous Val Richardson, one breathes a sigh of +relief. Some of the prettiest touches are in connection with the +faithful Peter, and when the faithful canine friend meets his untimely +end, entire sympathy is felt with Chris in her wild and erratic +flight. The characters are well drawn, though there is a tendency to +overcoloring in some; but in spite of the interest of the book the plot +can hardly be designated as original or deep. + + * * * * * + +Universal as has been the baseball mania, it is an astonishing fact +how little literature has sprung up in connection with the game. This +is well shown in the introduction to “Hygiene for Baseball Players,” +by A. H. P. Leuf, M.D. (Philadelphia: A. J. Reach & Co. 1888)--a work +which, though unpretentious in appearance, is a most valuable and +timely publication. It discusses at considerable length the “physiology +and philosophy of curve-pitching,” and, as might be gathered from its +name, “the diseases and treatment of ball players.” In addition, the +relation of human anatomy to the methods of play, proper exercises for +players, and numerous other bearings of the game are fully discussed. +Illustrations amplify the merits of the text. + + * * * * * + +A manual that will surely prove of real use to the yachtsman and +canoeist is Captain Howard Patterson’s “Canal Guide” (New York +Navigation School, New York). As the author truly remarks, it opens +up a comparatively new field to yachtsmen, and offers a change to +the annual cruise along the same coast line. The instructions given, +and tables of depth of water, width of locks, etc., seem to be very +complete and to furnish all necessary information. + + * * * * * + +Carp culture has of late come into much prominence among the +pisciculturists of America. A valuable text-book on the subject reaches +us, entitled, “Practical Carp Culture,” by L. P. Logan (Youngstown, +O.: _Evening Herald_ Print, 1888). Every feature of the industry is +fully discussed, and both those who intend to engage in it, and those +who take an interest in it as a measure of public utility, should +study this little work. Rather more care in preparation might have +been advantageously expended on the preparation of the volume, as in a +preface of thirty-seven words there are two spelled wrongly. + + + + +FUN FROM THE WHEEL. + + +~College Professor~: Mr. Wheeler, can you give me a definition +of a philosopher? + +~Mr. Wheeler~ (_A racing man, with a grudge against the +handicapper_): A philosopher is a fellow who starts from scratch with +a man ten seconds faster than he is, just to show the handicapper how +little he knows about his business. + + * * * * * + +It is said to be a poor rule that does not work both ways. Messrs. +Salmon Bros., of Denver, are trying to introduce the Fly Cycle Co.’s +wheels to American riders. A fly has long been the bait used to land +salmon, but this is the first case on record where the salmon has +reversed this order of things, and himself used the fly for bait. It +would seem odd to ask the rider of one of these machines what machine +he rode, and have him reply a “fly-wheel,” wouldn’t it? + + * * * * * + +“I understand Headerboy has grown wealthy of late,” remarked the old +member of the Whangdoodle Wheelers to the club captain. + +“Yes, he’s making about fifty dollars a week now.” + +“Doing what? Why he can’t even ride a wheel without falling of.” + +“That’s just it.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Why, you see, he carries two or three accident insurance policies, +rides a fifty-four-inch wheel when he measures for a fifty inch, so he +has only to ride and take headers, to combine pleasure with profit.” + + * * * * * + +It is said that Kluge, the well-known racing man of the Hudson County +Wheelmen, owes his success upon the road and path to his profession as +a paper-hanger. It teaches him to thoroughly “size up” the abilities +of his opponents, and thus defeat them by taking advantage of their +weaknesses. + + * * * * * + +RACING TERMS AND DEFINITIONS. + + First--Adam. + Last--Cobblers. + Wins--Four aces. + Loses--A bluff when called. + The Field--Potter’s. + Beaten--A drum. + They’re off--Lunatics. + A False Tart--A mud pie. + A Driving Race--Trotting. + The Rail--A scolding wife. + Left at the Post--The starter. + A Foul--A duck-er chicken. + The judge’s Stand--On their feet. + Dead Heat--110 degrees in the shade. + A Tie--A four-in-hand. + A Handy-“capper”--A bunco steerer. + The Home Stretch--The one to get your hat on the morning after + an evening with “the boys.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: AMENITIES.] + + +[Illustration: THE CLOSE OF THE SEASON.] + + + + +Editor’s Scrap Book + + +The boy who was “kept in” after school hours for bad orthography, and +thus prevented from taking his place in the afternoon baseball match, +explained to his captain that he was spell-bound. + + * * * * * + +~Excited Farmer~ (_to man with fishing tools_): Look here, you +can’t catch fish in this stream! + +~Piscatorious~: That’s all right. I won’t catch anything. I +belong to the Washington Baseball Club.--_Puck._ + + * * * * * + +~Woman~ (_to tramp_): If I give you a nice dinner will you help +me put up some patent self-rolling window curtains? + +~Tramp~: No, ma’am. I’ll saw wood, carry in coal, or dig post +holes, but I wouldn’t help a woman on window curtains if she gave me a +Delmonico spread.--_New York Sun._ + + * * * * * + +_Ocean_ gives up the following as fun when it states that a vessel +resembles a prisoner when she is put in the dock, a witness when she is +bound to a-pier, and a judge when she makes a trial trip. This little +joke from the _Ocean_ comes to us with the antique flavor of a chestnut. + + * * * * * + +~Larry~: Your governor said last night, Jack, that he was not at +all satisfied with the result of your last year at college. + +“Well, by George! I got on the eleven, and pitched for the nine, and +won first in the singles. What on earth does he want?” Such is _Life_. + + * * * * * + +“You should be a baseball player,” said the beetle to the spider. + +“Why so?” inquired the latter. + +“You’re so good at catching flies.” + +“True, but I’d fall a victim to the fowls.” + +And he went behind the bat.--_Exchange._ + + * * * * * + +Harvard _Lampoon_ informs its readers that “one of the girls, who pays +part of her tuition by chasing the hens out of the Annex Garden, is +thinking of entering the sprint races of Mott Haven next year, because +she is such an adept in the ‘running shoes.’” + + + + +A BALLAD. + + + The shades of night were falling fast, + As from the tennis grounds there passed + A youth who bore his head with pride, + Because, there, walking by his side, + Was Imogene. + + His step was light, his eye was bright, + His heart was thumping at the sight + That lit his soul with love’s bright beams, + And fired his brain with glorious dreams + Of Imogene. + + In cottage homes they saw the light + Of household fires gleam warm and bright; + But while the silvery moonlight shone, + He much preferred it out alone + With Imogene. + + “Beware the pass,” the old man said, + “’Tis dark within the woods ahead.” + He answered boldly, “Never fear, + For dark is light when she is near-- + My Imogene!” + + “Oh, stay,” the maiden said; “inside, + The parlor door is open wide.” + He spoke no word; his eyes aglow + Were to his comrade whispering low, + “Dear Imogene.” + + He sat him down beside his love, + And spooned until papa above + Grew weary, and a step o’erhead + Gave rise to sudden, anxious dread + In Imogene. + + “Beware the baseball bat of pine-- + Beware my papa’s number nine!” + This was the maiden’s last good-night; + He answered as he shot from sight, + “Dear Imogene!” + + --_Life._ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Our MONTHLY RECORD~] + + + ~This~ department of ~Outing~ is specially devoted to paragraphs + of the doings of members of organized clubs engaged in the + reputable sports of the period, and also to the recording of the + occurrence of the most prominent events of the current season. On + the ball-fields it will embrace _Cricket_, _Baseball_, _Lacrosse_ + and _Football_. On the bays and rivers, _Yachting_, _Rowing_ and + _Canoeing_. In the woods and streams, _Hunting_, _Shooting_ and + _Fishing_. On the lawns, _Archery_, _Lawn Tennis_ and _Croquet_. + Together with Ice-Boating, Skating, Tobogganing, Snowshoeing, + Coasting, and winter sports generally. + + Secretaries of clubs will oblige by sending in the names of their + presidents and secretaries, with the address of the latter, + together with the general result of their most noteworthy contests + of the month, addressed, “Editor of ~Outing~,” 239 Fifth Avenue, + New York. + + +TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + _All communications intended for the Editorial Department should + be addressed to “The Editor,” and not to any person by name. + Advertisements, orders, etc., should be kept distinct, and + addressed to the manager. Letters and inquiries from anonymous + correspondents will not receive attention. All communications to be + written on one side of the paper only._ + + +ATHLETICS. + +~The~ fifth competition for the Linten and Scheiflin medal in +the Brighton Athletic Club took place on the grounds at Pennsylvania +Avenue, September 15. The results were as follows: + +100-yard run--E. U. Torbett, 5 yds., 1st; W. J. Carr, 2 yds. Time, +11½ sec. + +High jump--D. J. Cox, 5 ft. 3 in., 1st; W. J. Carr, 2d. + +Half-mile run--W. J. Carr, 25 yds., 1st; A. C. Macgregor, 12 yds., 2d. +Time, 2 min. 25 sec. + +Broad jump--W. R. Hooper, scratch, 1st, 19 ft. 4¾. in.; H. H. Petit, +2d, 15 in., 18 ft. 11 in. + +Hop, step and jump--W. B. Dunlap, 8 in., 1st, 38 ft. 5½ in. + +One-mile run--G. U. Forbell, 110 yds., 1st; A. C. Macgregor, 25 yds., +2d. Time, 4 min. 25 sec. + + * * * * * + +~In~ the long-distance throwing match at Cincinnati, September +19, for the prize money of $100 offered by the Cincinnati Club and the +_Enquirer_ diamond locket, Harry Vaughn’s record was broken by Stovey +of the Athletics. He threw the ball 369 feet and 2 inches. Tebeau tried +to beat it, but only reached 353 feet. Ned Williamson may make a trip +here to see if he can go ahead of the best record. Corkhill has not yet +thrown. + + * * * * * + +~Of~ the eleven records broken last May at Worcester, Mass., +five are held by the students of Dartmouth. + + * * * * * + +~The~ formal opening of the New York Athletic Club’s grounds +at Travers Island, took place September 22. The twentieth annual fall +games of the club also took place. The day was all that could be +desired. + +Very little was done toward beating or even approaching previous +records, the only exception being in putting the sixteen-pound shot, +which Mr. George R. Gray managed to cast 44 ft. 5 in., some six +inches beyond the existing limit, and Mr. W. L. Condon throwing a +sixteen-pound hammer a distance of 117 ft. 9½ in., topping the +previous “high-water mark” by some nine feet or more. + +The 100-yard run was won by A. F. Copeland, in 10 2-5 secs. Fred +Westing second. + +The one-mile race was won by G. G. Gilbert, in 5 min. 10 4-5 sec. +Second, W. F. Thompson. + +T. P. Conneff came in first in the 880-yard run, with C. M. Smith a +close second. The 440-yard run was won by J. P. Thornton, in 53 1-5 +sec., A. W. S. Cochrane bringing up close in the rear. Fred Westing +succeeded in getting first place in the 220-yard run, in 23 4-5 sec., +A. W. S. Cochrane again a close second. + +A. F. Copeland distinguished himself by winning two hurdle races, the +first, 120 yards, in 17 3-5 sec., and the second, 220 yards, in 27 3-5 +sec., C. M. Smith being second in the first and C. T. Wiegand behind +the winner in the second race. + +Mr. Copeland jumped into further fame by covering 22 ft. 0¾ in. in the +running broad jump. This was the fourth prize captured by Mr. Copeland. + +T. P. Conneff again showed his heels to his competitors in a five-mile +run, beating Mr. S. T. Freeth, who came in second, over one-fifth of a +mile. The time was 27 min. 4 4-5 sec. + +A number of the solid men of the New York and other clubs then +struggled with a 56-pound weight, which Mr. Condon, who had broken the +record with the 16-pound hammer, succeeded in throwing 26 ft. 6¾ in. +A. J. Queckberner just missed this mark by three-quarters of an inch. + +Not much was done in the way of pole vaulting. G. P. Quinn managed +to clear 10 feet after repeated trials. The record for this event is +11 feet 5 inches. In the running high jump, M. W. Ford, S. I. A. C., +cleared 5 feet 10 inches. C. T. Wiegand and R. K. Pritchard managed to +lift themselves 5 feet 3 inches in the high jump. + +In the aquatic sports the first event, the junior singles, had the +following starters: D. G. Smyth, A. W. Lublin and M. J. Austin. Austin +won by a length, Lublin spoiling his chances in the race by capsizing. + +The second race was for eight-oar shells, handicap. The Rathborne crew +allowed the Freeman crew twenty seconds start, the Rathborne eight soon +overhauling the other crew and winning easily. + +“Jack” Lambden, the pride of the New Rochelle Rowing Club, sized up C. +P. Psotta, the amateur champion, and concluded he’d stay out of the +senior single race. F. G. McDougall thought it worth the trial, but +Psotta was too much for him, winning the race easily in 7 min. 10 sec. + +The pair-oared gigs event had four entries, but only two starters +appeared, the crews being: E. Wrinacht, bow; J. Cremins, stroke, and D. +G. Smyth, coxswain. W. O. Inglis, bow; E. J. Giannini, stroke, and G. +D. Phillips, coxswain. The Phillips crew won. Time, 7 min. 55¼ sec. + +The double-sculls had four entries and three starters, as follows: +J. H. Miller, bow; F. H. Romain, stroke. G. D. Phillips, bow; P. W. +Rathbone, stroke. F. J. McDougall, bow; J. M. Austin, stroke. As the +boats neared the half mile two fishing boats ran across the course, +which threatened disaster to all three of the racing boats. A new start +was made, when McDougall and Austin won the race by a length. + +The four-oared shells had three entries, and was among the most +interesting events of the day. The Devlin crew were looked upon as sure +winners, but to the surprise of everybody the Cremins crew won by two +lengths, after an exciting and closely contested race. The time was not +taken. + +Music was furnished by the Davids Island Military Band. The grounds +were illuminated at night, many of the visitors staying until a late +hour. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Manhattan Athletic Club completed its annual members’ games, +postponed from September 8, at the grounds, Eighty-sixth Street and +Eighth Avenue, September 15. A feature of the afternoon was the +presentation of a handsome gold watch to Fred Westing, by G. L. M. +Sachs, for having made ten seconds in a 100-yard run in England, and +having been the first American to win an English championship prize at +that distance. Westing had just concluded a trial to break the record +at seventy-five yards, 7¾s., when he was given the timepiece. He failed +to break the record in his trial, doing the distance against a strong +breeze in a shade worse than 7 4-5s., which, under the circumstances, +was highly creditable. Another feature of the day was the running of T. +P. Conneff, who, without anyone to “run him out,” did 9m. 44 1-5s. for +two miles, or about 6¼s. worse than the American record, and 2m. 6s. in +a half-mile run. The results of the events were as follows: + +100-yard run--Final heat, A. F. Copeland (1½ yds.), 1st; C. Giet (8½ +yds.), 2d; time, 10 3-5s. Two trial heats were run last Saturday. + +Two-mile run against the record of 9m. 38⅜s., made by E. C. Carter, +N. Y. A. C. The trial was made by T. P. Conneff, who had as pace-makers +Messrs. Adams, Cooper, Devereaux, Wieners, Bogardus, Giet and Banks. +He failed in his attempt, but broke records at 1⅓ miles, 1⅝ miles and +1¾ miles. His time for intermediate distances was, one-quarter, 1m. +7s.; one-half, 2m. 19 1-5s.; three-quarters, 3m. 32 4-5s.; mile, 4m. 48 +1-5s.; one and one-third miles, 6m. 27s.; one and five-eighths miles, +7m. 55s.; one and three-quarters miles, 8m. 32 4-5s., and two miles, +9m. 44 1-5s. The best previous record at one and one-third miles was +6m. 38s., by E. C. Carter; at one and five-eighths miles, 8m. 39 2-5s., +by W. G. George. There was no previous record in America for one and +three-quarters miles, but in England W. G. George ran the distance in +8m. 8 1-5s. + +Sixteen-pound hammer--F. V. Lambrecht (scratch) 1st, 107 ft. 10 in.; G. +A. Whith, 2d. + +120-yard hurdle race--A. F. Copeland (scratch), 1st; Z. A. Cooper (16 +yds.), 2d; time, 16 2-5s. + +Half-mile walk against Murray’s record of 3m. 2 2-5s.--E. D. Lange, 3m. +10½s. + +Running broad jump--Z. A. Cooper (4 ft.), 1st, at 18 ft. 6¼ in.; A. F. +Copeland (scratch), 2d, at 21 ft. 6 in. + +350-yard run--J. C. Devereaux (16 yds.), 1st; H. M. Banks (scratch), +2d; time, 39 4-5s. + +Quarter-mile run--Z. A. Cooper (40 yds.), 1st; G. A. S. Wieners, Jr. +(40 yds.), 2d; won easily in 53 3-5s. + +Half-mile run--T. P. Conneff (scratch), 1st; F. A. Ware (36 yds.), 2d; +won in a walk in 2m. 6s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Staten Island Athletic Club is considering the +advisability of sending a representative lacrosse team to Europe next +spring. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the annual election of the Olympic Athletic Club, of San +Francisco, Cal., September 3, the following officers were elected: +President, Wm. Greer Harrison; vice-president, R. P. Hammond, Jr.; +treasurer, H. B. Russ; secretary, W. E. Holloway; leader, Geo. Dall; +directors, A. C. Forsyth, E. J. Molera, A. R. Smith, B. Baldwin, E. A. +Rix, Alfred B. Field. Ground for the new club building will be broken +very soon. Among the novelties of its construction will be a cinder +track on the roof. + + * * * * * + +~The~ second annual field day of the Y. M. C. A. of Pittsburgh +was held September 22, at the Exposition grounds, Allegheny. A +good-sized audience was present, and considerable dissatisfaction was +manifest over some of the decisions. Geo. E. Painter acted as referee; +B. G. Follansbee and Alfred Reed were the judges. The results: + +100 yards (novice)--1st prize, silver goblet; 2d, tennis racket. Won by +Frank J. Kron in 11 sec., with E. E. Hughes 2d. + +100 yards (junior)--1st prize, silver pitcher; 2d, tennis coat. Won by +R. M. Trimble, Sanford B. Evans, 2d. + +100 yards (handicap)--1st prize, gold medal; 2d, steel engraving. Won +by F. J. Kron (7 yds.), Harry Tinker (5 yds.) 2d. Time, 10¼ sec. + +Walking match, one mile--1st prize, silver goblet; 2d, an album. Won by +C. V. McLean in 7m. 52s., R. L. McLean 2d. + +Standing high jump--1st prize, silver-headed cane; 2d, library lamp. +Won by Joe Boggs, who cleared 4 ft. 6½ in.; Belitz was second with 4 +ft. 2 in. + +220 yards (handicap)--1st prize won by D. H. Barr, in 23s.; H. A. Davis +2d. + +Putting the 16-pound shot--1st prize, pair gold sleeve buttons; 2d, +traveling set. Won by S. E. Gordon, who threw 34 ft. 10 in.; J. H. +Nicholson 2d. + +440 yards (handicap)--1st prize, gold medal; 2d, pair Indian clubs. Won +by H. A. Davis (20 yds.), in 55 sec.; W. H. Beazell (scratch) 2d. + +Running high jump--1st prize, medal; 2d, tennis shoes. Won by Brown, +who cleared 5 feet 4½ in.; Pitcairn was 2d. + +Throwing the baseball was won by E. F. Schaffer, who threw 99 yds. 1 ft. + +888 yards (handicap)--1st prize, gold chain; 2d, running shoes. Won by +W. H. Beazell (scratch), in 2m. 12½s.; John McGren (40 yds.) 2d. + +Pole vaulting, won by Professor Speer, with S. E. Gordon 2d. + +In the hurdle race, H. C. Fry, Jr., beat N. S. Campbell and others. + +The day’s sports ended with a three-legged race, which was won by D. +A. Barr and W. J. Barr in 12¾s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ teams representing the Gaelic Athletic Association, which +sailed from Queenstown, Ireland, September 16, arrived in this city on +the 25th. The names of the Irish athletes are J. S. Mitchell, J. C. +Daly, Pat Davin, P. O’Donnell, W. Real, D. Shanahan, J. McCarthy, M. +Connery, J. Connery, W. McCarthy, T. J. O’Mahoney, W. Phibbs, T. M. +O’Connor, J. Mooney, P. Looney, D. Powers and P. Keohan. The hurlers +are G. Burgess, P. P. Sutton, J. Furlong, J. Hayes, Frank Coughlin, +James Royce, P. J. Molohan, P. Fox, M. Curran, J. Dunne, J. Nolan, J. +Cordial, P. Meleady, P. Davin, P. O’Donnell, T. O’Grady, I. O’Brien, +J. Stapleton, T. Ryan, W. Prendergast, J. McCarthy, M. Connery, J. +Connery, D. Godfrey, J. Mooney, P. Looney, D. Power, J. Coughlin, +M. Hickey, and several others. It will be seen that several of the +hurlers are also members of the team that will take part in the track +and field events to be held during their stay here. President Maurice +Davien, Treasurer R. J. Frewen, and Honorary Secretary W. Prendergast, +of the Central Council of the G. A. A., accompany the team. John +Cullinane, agent in advance, will have charge of the arrangements for +the exhibitions proposed to be given by the Irish athletes in this +country and Canada. The hurlers will appear in Irish costume--knee +breeches, stockings, and shoes--and one team will wear bright green +jerseys, marked with an Irish harp, while the other will wear orange +and red jerseys. A game of football will be played. It is not a brutal +exhibition, such as the Rugby rules bring out. In the Irish game the +football cannot be lifted from the ground with the hands, and there is +no throttling. + +The Gaelic Association consists of 2,000 Irish athletic clubs, +representing 20,000 members. The team consists of fifteen athletes who +were winners in the contests in Ireland in August last. Thirty-five are +hurlers. They are of all professions and business connections. Maurice +Davin, the president, with one hand has thrown a 16-pound hammer 131 +ft. 3 in. Pat Davin has a record for a standing high jump of 6 feet +2¾ inches, beating Page’s record. J. S. Mitchell has a record in +throwing the 16-pound hammer of 136 ft. 1½ in. Mitchell has run in +4m. 36s. on a bad track. Pat Keohen has a record of 13 ft. 3 in. in +a standing jump, beating Ford’s record. There is no captain in the +ordinary acceptation of the term. + + * * * * * + +~The~ exhibition games given by the members of the Gaelic Society +athletes, at the Manhattan Athletic Society, on September 29, were +mainly for the purpose of introducing the visiting Irish athletes. +The first event was a 100-yard dash, four starters, won easily by J. +J. Mooney in 10 2-5s., with J. McCarthy second. The second event was +a three standing jump contest, three trials, won by P. Keohan, who +made 34 ft. 4 in. His two competitors were J. Connery, 33 ft. 4½ in., +and J. McCarthy, 32 ft. 5½, in. Keohan’s first jump was 34 ft. Keohan +then tried one standing jump with weights, covering 11 ft. 7 in. An +interesting event followed, a 120-yard hurdle race, with seven jumps. +The competitors were T. J. O’Mahoney and D. Power. O’Mahoney led, but +at the last hurdle was caught in splendid style by Power, who came in +ahead in 19 4-5s., only two feet in advance of his opponent. T. J. +O’Mahoney, who, in Ireland, is called the Rosscarberry Steam Engine, +ran 440 yards in 56s., easily beating M. J. Curran. W. Phibbs and W. +McCarthy ran a half-mile race, keeping neck and neck nearly all the +way, Phibbs winning by a few inches in 2m. 23½s. The high jump was +won by T. M. O’Connor, who cleared 5 ft. 8½ in. Throwing the 16-pound +hammer excited great interest. The contest lay between J. S. Mitchell, +a man of classic proportions and immense strength, and Dr. J. C. Daly, +a big man, of great girth, weighing 300 pounds. After two trials each +the 16-pound hammer handle broke and an 18-pound one was procured. +Mitchell won with 118 ft. 11 in., Daly making 106 ft. 1 in. The record +in this country for the 16-pound hammer is 129 ft. Mitchell has now +established a record for the 18-pound. The broad jump was won by D. +Shanahan, who covered 20 ft. 7½ in., J. Mooney coming second, with +19 ft. 9½ in. The two giants, Mitchell and Daly, next entered on the +trial of slinging the 56-pound weight. Each man threw by slinging the +weight around the head in the first trial and in the second standing. +Mitchell’s record is 35 ft. by “following” his throw. He won the +straight throw from the shoulder, covering 30 ft. 10½ in. Dr. Daly +threw 30 ft. 5 in. P. Rooney won the running hop, step and jump with +44 ft. 7 in. The last event previous to the hurling match, which was +greatly enjoyed, was throwing the 14-pound hammer. Mitchell’s record is +158 ft. He threw it 157 ft., and Dr. Daly, 155 ft. 10½ in. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fifth annual championship meeting of the Amateur Athletic +Association of Canada was held on the grounds of the Montreal Athletic +Association, September 29, before 3,000 people. The games were not well +managed, and frequent delays brought on nightfall before the programme +was finished. The following is a summary of the games: + +100-yard run--F. A. Westing, M. A. C., New York, first; time, 10 1-5s. +V. E. Schefferstein, O. A. C., San Francisco, second; A. F. Copeland, +M. A. C., New York, third. + +Putting 16-pound shot--G. R. Gray, N. Y. A. C., first, 42 ft.; C. A. +J. Queckberner, S. I. A. C., New York, second, 39 ft. 4½ in.; F. L. +Lambrecht, M. A. C., New York, third, 38 ft. 6 in. + +Half-mile run--J. W. Moffat, M. A. A. A., Montreal, first; time, 2m. +3 4-5s. G. Tracey, Halifax, N. S., second; C. M. Smith, N. Y. A. C., +third. + +Three-mile walk--C. L. Nicholl, M. A. C., New York, first, 22m. 44s.; +E. D. Lange, M. A. C., New York, second; H. Wyatt, Brickfield Harriers, +England, third. + +Pole vault--H. H. Baxter, N. Y. A. C., first, 10 ft. 3 in.; L. D. +Godshall, M. A. C., New York, second, 10 ft.; G. P. Quinn, M. A. C., +New York, third, 9 ft. 6 in. + +Two-mile run--T. P. Conneff, M. A. C., first; time, 10m. 10s. P. D. +Skillman, N. Y. A. C., second; G. I. Gilbert, N. Y. A. C., third. + +220-yard run--A. F. Copeland, M. A. C., New York, first; time, 23½s. +A. W. S. Cochrane, N. Y. A. C., second; W. C. White, M. A. C., third. + +Throwing 56-pound weight--C. A. J. Queckburner, S. I. A. C., New York, +first, 25 ft. 3 in.; G. R. Gray, N. Y. A. C., second, 22 ft.; F. L. +Lambrecht, M. A. C., New York, third, 21 ft. 9 in. + +Running high jump--M. W. Ford, S. I. A. C., New York, first, 5 ft. 5 +in.; C. T. Wiegand, N. Y. A. C., and V. E. Schifferstein, O. A. C., San +Francisco, tied for second place at 5 ft. 3 in. + +One-mile run--T. P. Conneff, M. A. C., New York, first; time, 4m. 32 +3-5s. G. M. Gibbs, Toronto A. C., second; P. D. Skillman, N. Y. A. C., +third. + +Running broad jump--A. A. Jordan, N. Y. A. C., first, 20 ft. 5 in.; +William Halpin, O. A. C., New York, second, 19 ft. 11½ in.; A. F. +Copeland, M. A. C., New York, third, 19 ft. 10 in. + +440-yard run--W. C. Dohm, N. Y. A. C., first, 51½s.; G. J. Bradish, +N. Y. A. C., second; J. P. Thornton, N. Y. A. C., third. + +Throwing the 16-pound hammer--C. A. J. Queckburner, S. I. A. C., New +York, first, 98 ft. 11½ in.; L. L. Lambrecht, M. A. C., 93 ft. 8 +in.; G. R. Gray, N. Y. A. C., third, 74 ft. + +120-yard hurdle race--A. F. Copeland, M. A. C., New York, first, 16 +2-5s.; A. A. Jordan, N. Y. A. C., second; H. S. Young, M. A. C., New +York, third. + + +BASEBALL. + +~In~ the metropolitan amateur arena, the Staten Island Athletic +Club’s nine bore off the championship of the Amateur League; the Staten +Island Cricket Club’s nine being second; the Brooklyn Athletic Club’s +team third, and that of the Orange Athletic Club fourth. + + * * * * * + +~The~ struggle for the championship of the American Association +arena was virtually settled by the first of October in favor of the +St. Louis club, leaving the Brooklyn and Athletic clubs to contest for +second position, as Cincinnati’s place as fourth was settled before the +end of September. When our table was made up, on September 7th, the +record stood as follows: + + A: St. Louis. + B: Athletic. + C: Brooklyn. + D: Cincinnati. + E: Baltimore. + F: Cleveland. + G: Louisville. + H: Kansas City. + I: Games Won. + J: Per cent. of victories. + + ------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + ~Clubs.~ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H || I | J + ------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + St. Louis |-- |10 |10 | 9 |14 |16 |15 |14 || 88 |.693 + Athletic | 7 |-- | 8 |10 |13 |10 |15 |14 || 77 |.611 + Brooklyn |10 |10 |-- |11 | 9 |13 |13 |11 || 80 |.606 + Cincinnati | 7 |10 | 6 |-- |14 |10 |16 |13 || 76 |.589 + Baltimore | 6 | 5 | 8 | 6 |-- | 8 |11 |11 || 55 |.423 + Cleveland | 4 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 8 |-- | 9 |10 || 48 |.393 + Louisville | 2 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 9 | 8 |-- |10 || 44 |.341 + Kansas City | 3 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 8 | 9 | 6 |-- || 42 |.336 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + Games lost |39 |49 |52 |53 |75 |74 |85 |83 ||510 | + ------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + +It will be seen that the St. Louis club had a winning lead over a month +before the close of the season, while it was a close contest for second +place between the Brooklyn and Athletic clubs to the last. The contest +in the American arena was settled simply by superior club management. + + * * * * * + +~The~ interest in the League pennant race for 1888 culminated +during the first week in October. That week’s play virtually gave +the championship to the New York team. The contest for third place, +however, remained unsettled up to the last week of the season, it +being a triangular fight between the Philadelphia, Detroit, and Boston +teams. In the contest between the four Eastern teams and their Western +adversaries, New York led Philadelphia by a percentage of .603 to +.594, Boston being away behind. In the fight between the four Western +and the four Eastern clubs, Chicago led Detroit by a percentage of +.592 to .522, Pittsburg being a poor third. Last year, with Detroit as +the pennant winner, Philadelphia came in second, and Chicago third, +while New York had to be content with fifth place. This year New York +stands first, and Chicago second, while the other three--at the time +our record was made up--were fighting for third place; Philadelphia +and Detroit being tied for third place with a percentage of .524 each, +while Boston stood fifth with a percentage .523. It will be seen that +the contest was close and exciting up to the very last week of the +season as far as the struggle for third position was concerned. Here is +the record in full up to October 8th: + + A: New York. + B: Chicago. + C: Detroit. + D: Philadelphia. + E: Boston. + F: Pittsburgh. + G: Washington. + H: Indianapolis. + I: Games Won. + J: Per cent. of victories. + + --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + ~Clubs.~ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H || I | J + --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + New York |-- | 8 |11 |14 |12 | 9 |15 |13 || 82 |.651 + Chicago |11 |-- |10 | 8 |12 | 9 |11 |14 || 75 |.573 + Detroit | 7 |10 |-- |10 | 8 |10 |10 |11 || 66 |.524 + Philadelphia | 5 | 8 | 6 |-- |10 |14 |10 |13 || 66 |.524 + Boston | 8 | 7 |10 | 9 |-- | 7 |15 |11 || 67 |.523 + Pittsburgh | 5 |11 |10 | 6 | 8 |-- |10 |14 || 64 |.500 + Washington | 4 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 5 | 0 |-- | 8 || 46 |.357 + Indianapolis | 4 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 6 |12 |-- || 46 |.354 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + Games lost |44 |56 |60 |60 |61 |64 |83 |84 ||512 + --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + + * * * * * + +~In~ the minor Leagues the success of the Syracuse club in +winning the International Association’s championship was the event of +the month of September, and the same month saw the Newark club win the +championship of the Central League. + + +BOWLING. + +At the annual meeting of the Pui Knight Bowling Club, the following +officers were elected:--Fred Manners, president; W. A. Tompkins, +vice-president; Lyall Hutchings, treasurer; Austin Baldwin, secretary; +John Coutrell, captain. + + +CANOEING. + +The annual regatta of the Philadelphia Canoe Club took place on the +Delaware River on the afternoon of September 21, and consisted of +sailing, paddling, tandem paddling, and upset races. The entries in +the sailing race included the _Alys_, W. S. Grant, Jr.; _Water Witch_, +J. S. Warr, Jr.; _Antic_, Francis Thibault; _Lassie_, Harry La Motte; +_Lelange_, Dr. T. S. Westcott; _Avocett_, A. S. Fenimore; _Florence_, +J. A. Inglis; _Nenemoosha_, S. H. Kirkpatrick. The start was made at +2.30 o’clock from the club-house at the foot of Second Street, Camden, +and the course was around the south end of Petty’s Island, returning +around the north end to the club-house, a distance of six miles, the +second-class boats having a time allowance of eight minutes. The _Water +Witch_ was the first to cross the line in 1h. 2m. 48s.; the _Antic_ +second, the _Nenemoosha_ third. The _Alys_ met with an accident, and +did not finish. In the paddling race, distance over 1½ miles, the +_Imp_ won in 11m. 22s., _Avocett_ second, _Impetuous_ third, _Chromo_ +fourth. Grant and Warr, in the _Water Witch_, won the tandem race, with +Kirkpatrick and Inglis in the _Nenemoosha_, second, and Westcott and +Wray in the _Lelange_, third. The course for the upset race was around +a stake-boat and back to the slip, a distance of 300 yards. The entries +were: Messrs. Grant, Fenimore, Kirkpatrick and Warr. The former was an +easy winner. The judges were: W. J. Haines, Francis Thibault and J. +A. Inglis. The presentation of the prizes took place at the Colonnade +Hotel, at the club meeting on Monday, September 30. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Fall Regatta of the Yonkers Canoe Club took place +September 22. The attendance was large, and the balcony of the +club-house presented a very gay appearance. At 2.30 ~P.M.~ +promptly, the start for the first race was made, and a dozen canoes +of rigs of various kinds--leg-o’-muttons, mohican, gunter and +lateen--undertook the hard task of crossing the line against the ebb +tide and north wind. The _Stranger_, Mr. Everett Master, and the +_Caona_, Mr. Grant Edgar, took the lead, and the former won the prize +of a silk banner. Unfortunately, the lack of wind prevented the sailing +of any more races. Four canoes competed in the single paddling race, +and H. La Motte, of Philadelphia, won the prize of a pair of paddles. +In the tandem paddling race there were five entries, and after an +exciting race, unfortunately marred by some fouls, Messrs. Master and +Reeves, in the _Stranger_, won by half a length. J. W. Simpson won +the paddling upset race, and also finished first in the hurry-scurry, +but with the spirit of a true sportsman, conceded the prize to Mr. +Palmer, of the Ianthe Club, who rounded the buoy far ahead. Owing to +wrong instructions as to the course, he went much out of his way, but +finished a good second. Both gentlemen were, however, given prizes. +The final event, a water tournament, was won by Messrs. Master and +T. Simpson. The day was wound up by a pleasant entertainment at the +club-house in the evening. + + +CURLING. + +The Grand National Curling Club of America met in its twenty-second +annual Convention at Adelphi Hall, Seventh avenue and Fifty-second +street, New York, September 19. In the absence of President Gen. John +McArthur, of Chicago, the vice-president, George Grieve, of New York, +occupied the chair. David Foulis, of New York, secretary, reported +that the association now numbers thirty-nine clubs, eleven of which +are in New York city. Six new clubs were received, as follows: Lodi, +of Wisconsin; Heather, of Philadelphia; John o’Groat, Excelsior, and +Temple of Honor and Temperance, of New York, and Long Island City, of +Long Island City. These officers were chosen: President, George Grieve, +New York; vice-presidents, Major John Peattie, Utica; John McCulloch, +St. Paul, Minn.; chaplain, William Ormiston, D.D., New York; Secretary +and Treasurer, David Foulis, New York. The next convention will be held +in Albany. + +The delegates to the convention were afterwards entertained at a +banquet at the Adelphi Hall on the evening of the same day. + + +CYCLING. + +A series of races between wheelmen took place on the closing day of the +State Fair at Philadelphia, September 13. The crowd of spectators was +large, weather fine, track fairly good. Summary: + +One mile, Pennsylvania Club championship--E. I. Halstead, first, in 3m. +37 2-5s.; C. L. Leisen, second, in 3m. 40s. + +Three miles, L. A. W. State championship--E. I. Halstead, Pennsylvania +Bicycle Club, first, in 10m. 8 2-5s.; F. M. Dampmann, Honeybrook, +second, in 10m. 9s. + +One mile, South End Wheelmen--J. J. Bradley, first, in 3m. 30s.; E. J. +Kolb, second, in 3m. 31 1-5s. + +Quarter mile--E. I. Halstead, Pennsylvania B. C., first, in 40s.; S. +W. Merrihew, P. B. C., second, in 41 1-5s.; M. J. Bailey, Century +Wheelmen, third. + +One mile, open, 3.20 class--S. W. Merrihew, Pennsylvania B. C., first, +in 3m. 9 3-5s.; William Taxis, second, in 3m. 9 4-5s.; W. I. Grubb, +Pottstown, third. + +One mile, novice--H. D. Ludwig, first, in 3m. 21s.; Clarence Elliott, +Wilmington, Del., second, in 3m. 22 3-5s. + +Half-mile--E. I. Halstead, New York Athletic Club, first, in 1m. 26 +2-5s.; M. J. Bailey, Century Wheelmen, second, in 1m. 26 4-5s. + +One mile, championship Century Wheelmen--M. J. Bailey, first, in 3m. 45 +2-5s.; R. L. Shaffer, second, in 3m. 45 3-5s. + +Two miles, lap--E. I. Halstead, New York A. C., first, in 6m. 35 1-5s., +scoring 23 points; F. M. Dampmann, Honeybrook, second, 18; S. W. +Merrihew, Pennsylvania B. C., third, 11. + +One mile, match, tandem tricycle--Louis A. Hill and John G. Fuller +defeated John A. Wells and Samuel Crawford in 3m. 47 2-5s. + +One mile, 3.00 class--W. I. Grubb, Pottstown, first, in 3m. 10s.; S. W. +Merrihew, Pennsylvania B. C., second, in 3m. 10 3-5s.; J. J. Bradley, +South End Wheelmen, third, in 3m. 11s. + +One mile, match--H. I. Halstead and John G. Fuller, on a tandem +bicycle, defeated John A. Wells and Louis A. Hill on a tandem tricycle. + +One mile, championship of Philadelphia--H. I. Halstead, Pennsylvania B. +C., first, in 3m. 25 2-5s.; L. J. Kolb, South End Wheelmen, second, in +3m. 26s.; M. J. Bailey, Century Wheelmen, third. + + * * * * * + +~Robert Ruck~, of the Rambler’s Bicycle Club, of Cleveland, +O., attempted to excel the State road record for twenty-four hours, +190 miles, credited to E. J. Douhet, of the same club. He started at +midnight, September 15, riding from Monumental Square to Painesville +and return, 60 miles; to Elyria, 26 miles; to Dover, 12 miles; back to +Ridgefield, 8 miles; to Cleveland, 22 miles; back to Dover and return +to Cleveland, 28 miles. The last trip to Dover was made in rain, and +over bad roads, which decided Ruck to abandon his task, with a record +of 156 miles to his credit. He will try again. + + * * * * * + +~The~ New Jersey Division, L. A. W., held their annual meet +and races at Roseville, N. J., September 21 and 22. All the clubs in +the State were represented. Over five hundred wheelmen were present. +The management was in the hands of the Orange Wanderers. The events +resulted as follows: + +One mile, bicycle, championship of the State--Sidney B. Bowman, Jersey +City, first, in 3m. 30 2-5s.; E. P. Baggott, Jersey City, second, in +3m. 31s.; C. E. Kluge, Jersey City, the favorite, third, he being out +of condition. + +One mile, handicap, championship of Passaic County Wheelmen and C. +A.--W. E. Shuit (scratch), first, in 3m. 49s.; Charles Finch, 90 yds. +start, second, in 4m. 3s.; B. F. Spencer, 50 yds., third. + +One mile, safety tandem bicycle, handicap--L. H. Johnson, Orange, and +W. H. Caldwell, Elizabeth, riding an Invincible Premier roadster, 50 +yds. start, first, in 4m. 1 1-5s.; Louis A. Hill and E. I. Halstead, +Philadelphia, on an Ivel racing machine, (scratch), second. + +One mile, bicycle, championship of Elizabeth Wheelmen--W. H. Caldwell, +first, in 3m. 36s.; L. E. Bonnett, second, in 3m. 39 2-5s.; A. T. +Downer, third. + +One mile, bicycle, handicap, Orange Wanderers--Amzi T. Todd, 125 yds. +start, first, in 3m. 47 4-5s.; Fred Brodesser, 175 yds., second, in 3m. +48 4-5s.; Charles A. Lindsley, 150 yds., third. + +Two miles, bicycle, State championship--E. P. Baggott, Jersey City, +first, in 7m. 39 2-5s.; F. N. Burgess, Rutherford, second, in 7m. 40s. +None of the other starters finished the distance. + +One mile, bicycle, championship of Hudson County Wheelmen--S. S. +Bowman, 35 yds. start, first, in 3m. 30 3-5s.; Fred J. Guhleman, 75 +yds., second, in 3m. 32 2-5s.; J. E. Day, third. + +One-third of a mile race--E. I. Halstead, Philadelphia, first, in 59 +4-5s.; W. H. Caldwell, Elizabeth, second, in 1m. 2s.; W. F. Pendleton, +third. + +One mile, championship of Plainfield B. C.--M. S. Ackerman, first, in +3m. 58 4-5s.; Van Buren, second, in 4m. 1 2-5s. + +One mile, consolation--A. Zimmerman, first, in 3m. 56 1-5s.; F. N. +Burgess, second, in 4m. 1½s.; A. C. Jenkins, third. + +One mile, tandem tricycle--Sidney B. Bowman and W. H. Caldwell, first, +in 5m. 13 1-5s.; C. E. Kluge and L. H. Johnson, second, in 5m. 54 1-5s. + +Hill climbing, Eagle Rock Hill, one mile--Fred Coningsby, Brooklyn +Bicycle Club, first, in 7m. 43s.; C. L. Leisen, Pennsylvania Bicycle +Club, Philadelphia, second, in 8m. 17s.; Edgar Decker, Orange +Wanderers, third, in 9m. 15s. The winner rode a Victor Safety. + + * * * * * + +~The~ meeting held at the Park, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., September +21 and 22, proved a success. There was a large crowd of people present +each day. The following is the summary: + +One mile, novice, amateur--H. D. Betts, Poughkeepsie, first, in 3m. +16s.; E. T. Van Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, second, by four lengths; +Jesse Colwell, Rochdale, third. + +One mile, amateur--John Van Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, 50 yds., first, +in 2m. 57¼s.; Theodore W. Roberts, Poughkeepsie, scratch, second, by +ten lengths; W. H. Boshart, Poughkeepsie, 130 yds., third. + +One mile, professional--Robert A. Neilson, Boston, Mass., 50 yds. +start, first, in 2m. 46s.; W. F. Knapp, Denver, Col., 30 yds., second, +by a scant length; W. A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., scratch, third; H. G. +Crocker, Boston, 20 yds., fourth. + +Five miles, amateur, open--William I. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., first, +in 16m 29¾s.; Ludwig Forster, Hartford, Conn., second, by fifteen +lengths; W. E. Crist, Washington, D. C., third; Theodore W. Roberts, +Poughkeepsie, fourth. + +Three miles, professional--William F. Knapp, Denver, Col., 70 yds. +stare, first, in 9m. 20s.; William A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., scratch, +second; H. G. Crocker, Boston, 50 yds., third; Robert A. Neilson, +Boston, 110 yds., fourth. + +One mile, amateur, open--William I. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., first, in +3m. 5s.; W. E. Crist, Washington, second; Ludwig Forster, Hartford, +Conn., third. + +One mile, tandem, professional--Robert A. Neilson and H. G. Crocker, +Boston, scratch, first, in 3m. 15¼s.; W. J. Morgan, New York, and T. W. +Eck, Minneapolis, 150 yds. start, second, by ten lengths. + +Two miles, amateur, 6.20 class--Ludwig Forster, Hartford, Conn., first, +in 7m. 2¾s.; John Van Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, second, three +lengths away; H. Von der Linden, Poughkeepsie, third, close up. + +One mile, professional, open--William A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., first, in +2m. 41 3-5s.; H. G. Crocker, Boston, second, close behind; W. F. Knapp, +Denver, third, half a length away. + +One mile, amateur, championship of Dutchess County--John Van +Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, first, in 3m.; Theodore W. Roberts, +Poughkeepsie, second, by half a length; H. Von der Linden, +Poughkeepsie, third. The winner bestrode a heavy roadster, which makes +his performance the more creditable. He is a very promising rider, and +with careful training should not fail to make his mark. + +Two miles, teams--William I. Wilhelm, Reading, first, in 2m. 51½s.; +John Van Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, second; Theodore W. Roberts, +Poughkeepsie, third. + +Two miles, professional--William F. Knapp, Denver, Col., first, in 6m. +1¾s.; W. A. Rowe, Lynn, scratch, second; H. G. Crocker, Boston, third; +R. A. Neilson, Boston, fourth; W. J. Morgan, N. Y. City, fifth. + +One mile, amateur, 3.20 class--E. T. Van Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, +first, in 3m. 15s.; Ludwig Forster, Hartford, Conn., second; Carl +Kroeber, Yonkers, N. Y., third. + +Half-mile, professional--H. G. Crocker, Boston, first, in 1m. 19¾s.; +W. F. Knapp, Denver, second, Robert A. Neilson, Boston, third. + +One mile, amateur, 3.00 class--John Van Benschoten, Poughkeepsie, +first, in 3m. 17¼s.; H. Von der Linden, Poughkeepsie, second. + +Five miles, amateur, 16.00 class--W. E. Crist, Washington, D. C., +first, in 18m. 28¾s.; Ludwig Forster, Hartford, Conn., second. + +Three miles, professional--W. F. Knapp, Denver, first, in 9m. 31½s.; +W. J. Morgan, New York, second. + +Three miles, professional--William A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., first, in 9m. +31½s.; W. F. Knapp, Denver, Col., second; William J. Morgan, New +York, third. + +Two miles, amateur, open--W. E. Crist, Washington, D. C., first, in 6m. +½s.; William I. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., second. + +One mile, consolation, amateur--E. Winans, Poughkeepsie, first, in 3m. +26¼s.; Carl Kroeber, Yonkers, second. + + * * * * * + +~The~ grand meeting at Charter Oak Park, Hartford, Conn., +September 13, 14, under the auspices of the Hartford Wheel Club, was a +great success. The track was in good order. The strength of the wind +prevented any record-breaking on the first day. On the second day W. +E. Crist, of Washington, and R. H. Davis, of Harvard, made a mile on +a tandem safety in 2m. 44½. Ludwig Forster, of the Hartford Wheel +Club, won six of twenty races among the amateurs. + +One mile, novices--E. A. Tucker, Meriden, first, in 3m. 2½s.; G. A. +Pickett, New Haven, second, by eight yards; D. C. Shea, Hartford, third. + +One mile, professional championship of America--William A. Rowe, Lynn, +Mass., first, in 2m. 50¾s.; Ralph Temple, Chicago, Ill., second by less +than six inches. + +One mile, amateur, open--Will Windle, Millbury, Mass., first, in 2m. +56s.; J. F. Midgley, Worcester, second by three yards. + +Two miles, amateur, 6.10 class--Ludwig Forster, Hartford, first, in +6m. 11¼s.; George Smart Hartford, second, by eight feet; S. J. Steele, +Bristol, Conn., third. + +One mile, amateur, Rover type, R. D. safety--W. E. Crist, Washington, +D. C., first, in 2m. 55¾s.; Robert Davis, Rome, Italy, second by two +yards; William Harding, Hartford, third. + +One mile, Columbia Cycle Club handicap--F. B. Covell, 90 yds. start, +first in 3m. 6s. + +Five miles, lap, professional--W. A. Rowe won the first lap, H. G. +Crocker the second and third laps, and W. F. Knapp the two following +and first money; Crocker second, Rowe and Ralph Temple dividing third +money. + +Two miles, amateur handicap--Ludwig Forster, Hartford, 130 yds. start, +first, in 6m. 50s.; P. S. Brown, Washington, D. C., second; Harry +Kingston, Baltimore, third. + +Three miles, amateur, State championship--Ludwig Forster, Hartford, +first, in 9m. 34s.; William Harding, Hartford, second, close up; H. C. +Backus, New Haven, third. + +One mile, tricycle, amateur--W. E. Crist, Washington, D. C., first, in +3m. 9½s.; Robert Davis, Rome, Italy, a Harvard student, second by +three yards. + +One mile, 3.00 class, amateur--Ludwig Forster, Hartford, first, in 2m. +52½s.; H. C. Backus, New Haven, second; G. I. Whitehead, Hartford, +third. + +One mile, professional handicap--W. F. Knapp, Denver, Col., 30 yds. +start, first, in 3m. 34¼s.; Jules Dubois, Paris, 90 yds., second; W. J. +Morgan, New York, 120 yds., third. + +One mile, amateur, Rover type, R. D. safety, handicap--Robert H. Davis, +Rome, Italy (scratch), first, in 2m. 46s.; William Harding, Hartford, +50 yds. start, second, by six feet; P. S. Brown, Washington, 100 yds., +third. + +One mile, Hartford Wheel Club, handicap--Ludwig Forster (scratch), +first, in 2m. 50s.; F. L. Damery, 120 yds. start, second, by a wheel; +D. C. Shea, 150 yds., third. + +One mile, amateur handicap--S. J. Steel, Bristol, 100 yds. start, +first, in 2m. 45¼s.; W. I. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., 40 yds, second; P. S. +Brown, Washington, 75 yds., third. + +Three miles, professional, lap--W. F. Knapp, Denver, Col., first, in +10m. 30s.; W. A. Rowe, Lynn, Mass., second; Ralph Temple, Chicago, and +H. G. Crocker, Boston, dividing third money. + +One mile, amateur State championship--Ludwig Forster, Hartford, first, +in 3m. 32¼s.; H. C. Backus, New Haven, second, by two yards. + +Five miles, amateur lap--P. S. Brown, Washington, first, in 15m. +27½s.; W. E. Crist, Washington, second; W. J. Wilhelm, Reading, Pa., +third. + +One mile, professional, consolation--R. A. Neilson, Boston (scratch), +first, in 3m. 8¾s.; J. R. West, England, a one-legged rider, 150 yds. +start, second. + +One mile, amateur, consolation--G. I. Whitehead, Hartford, first, in +3m. 19½s.; James Wilson, Jr., Worcester, second; George C. Dresser, +Hartford, third, the three being nearly in line. + +Field officers: Referee, Howard P. Merrill; judges, C. S. Howard, W. G. +Kendall and George H. Burt; timers, F. G. Whitmore, C. T. Stuart and J. +H. Parker; starter, H. H. Chapman; clerk, Henry Goodman. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Essex Club, of Newark, which has been in existence since +May, 1879, and is known as “Old Essex,” resumed its runs, which were +discontinued during July and August, in the last days of September. The +organization is one of the pioneers of cycling, and is the third oldest +club in the National League of American Wheelmen. Stone House Plains, +South Orange and Irvington, Avondale, Roselle, Rahway, and Montclair +were visited during October. The programme for this month, so far as +arranged, is a run to Montrose, and on the 6th a run to Caldwell and +Parsippany, to Morris Plains Asylum, thence to Morristown, and return, +via Madison, home. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. Frank I. Stott~, secretary of the New York Bicycle Club, +has issued a call for the formation of a wheelman’s bowling league, for +inter-club contests during the ensuing winter. The idea is an excellent +one, and replies from the Long Island Wheelmen, Harlem Wheelmen, +King’s County Wheelmen, Atlantas of Newark, and Hudson County Wheelmen +of Jersey City, have already been received, favoring the affair, and +promising their support and play, so that a close and spirited contest +for supremacy may be looked for, and the success of the affair is +assured. By this means not only is a more perfect acquaintance between +neighboring clubs arrived at, but the winter, the dull season in +wheeling, is pleasantly employed. + + * * * * * + +~The~ New York Bicycle Club took possession of their +newly-erected west end club-house on September 1st. The building +is beyond question the most costly ever constructed for a cycling +club-house, representing as it does an expenditure of nearly $45,000 +exclusive of furniture and interior decorations. The club and their +new home are both a credit to the sport, and speak volumes for the +permanency of wheeling interest. + + * * * * * + +~The~ feeling of dissatisfaction against the League of American +Wheelmen that has for some time existed in Brooklyn, has taken form in +the organization of “The Cyclists’ Union of Long Island.” The Union +proposes to devote itself to the protection and development of Long +Island cycling, and will be purely local in its scope and action. +The charter members are: Messrs. J. B. Huggins, G. W. Mabie, C. A. +Bradford, C. Newberg, M. L. Bridgeman, M. Furst, H. Greenman, H. E. +Raymond, W. J. Clark, and L. G. Wilder. The C. U. L. I. declares itself +as not being in any way antagonistic to the L. A. W. + + * * * * * + +~The~ mileage of the New York Bicycle Club for the eight months +ending September 1st was 35,269, of which 36 men rode 8,093 in August. +George M. Nesbit leads with a total of 5,039 for the year, 1,219 of +which was made in August. His longest day’s ride was 162 miles, and +his average per riding day in the 1,219 miles was 44 3-5 miles. W. E. +Findley follows with a total to date of 2,794, 590 being credited to +him for August. His longest ride in one day was 134 miles, and his +record of 132 days’ riding without a break is record. J. M. Andreni +rode 406 miles in August on a tricycle, bringing his record for the +year up to 1,285. Irving M. Shaw shows 145 miles done in one day, with +a total for the year of 1,763. The figures in the above are beyond +question, as they are those on which the club’s prizes for mileage +of 1888 will be awarded. Nesbit’s total and Findley’s 132 days of +consecutive riding are notable performances. All of the gentlemen named +are in active business, and have accomplished these performances for +purely recreative purposes, after business hours. + + * * * * * + +~The~ most important event in the cycling world in the West was +the inter-State tournament which has closed its three days’ session in +Kansas City, September 9th. The track was rough, and fast time was not +made nor expected. + +The first race, the one-mile Kansas State championship, was won by A. +Joseph Henley, of Wichita; Harry Gordon, of St. Louis, took the first +prize in the one-mile hurdle; in the three-mile handicap, Percy Stone, +of St. Louis, took first prize, and Nelson T. Haynes of Kansas City, +second; in the one-mile club championship, open only to Kansas City +United Wheelman, Mr. Haynes took the handsome cup presented by the +Pope Manufacturing Company. One of the fastest races was the two-mile +lap race, which was won by Percy Stone, of St. Louis; Harry Gordon, +second. The one-mile handicap was won by Percy Stone; Frank Mehlig, of +St. Louis, second. An important race was the three-mile Kansas State +championship, which was won by A. Joseph Henley. The half-mile race, +with hands off, was won by Harry Gordon; John A. De Tar, of Kansas +City, second; the one-mile Missouri State championship was won by John +Hogden, of St. Louis; the three-mile Missouri State championship was +won by Percy Stone, as was also the two-mile team race, which secured +for him a handsome silver cup. The tournament closed with a banquet at +the Midland, which was a grand affair, and healed many wounds that had +been received during the three days’ contest. + + * * * * * + +~The~ cycling clubs of New Orleans enrolled in the Louisiana +division of the L. A. W., gathered in Audubon Trotting Park, September +27, for the fourth annual race meeting. Two thousand ladies graced the +grand stand. The officers of the course were Harry H. Hodgson, chief +consul, referee. Judges: F. C. Fenner, J. M. Gore, R. W. Abbott, C. H. +Fenner, B. F. Albertson. Timers: P. M. Hill, J. C. O’Reardon, W. L. +Hughes. Starter: Edward A. Shields. Clerk: C. M. Fairchild. + +The following is a summary of the results: + +First race--Novice, one mile. Entries: H. Christy, W. W. Ulmer, R. P. +Patson, R. P. Randal, George Johnson, Jr., and Charles H. Fourton. +Christy, after a struggle, won. Time, 3.49. + +Second race--One mile, championship of the South. Entries: R. P. +Randall, C. B. Guillotte and C. T. Mitchell. Guillotte won, hands down. +Time, 3.38 3-5. + +Third race--One mile, Louisiana Cycling Club championship. Entries: R. +G. Betts, W. H. Renaud, Jr., L. J. Frederic, Jr., W. M. Hathorn, H. +Christy, E. M. Graham, W. W. Ulmer, A. B. Harris, R. P. Randall, W. +E. Hobson, W. H. Crouch and M. S. Graham. Hathorn was so well out of +harm’s way near the close that he won rather easily in 3m. 38 2-5s., +Graham second, Frederic third, Betts fourth and Randall last, of +course. Time, 3m. 38 2-5s. + +Fourth race--Half-mile, for boys under sixteen. Entries: Robert Jobin, +Eddie Dupre, Albert Abbott, J. Born, Guy Menton, Aiken Polkingham, J. +Swartz, Theo. Bernhard, Thayer Randall, Eddie Dare and J. D. Houston, +Jr. Eddie Dupre won as he pleased in 2m. 19 1-5s. Albert Abbott second, +J. Born third, Robert Jobin fourth. + +Fifth race--One mile, State championship. Entries: Chas. B. Guillotte, +Chas. H. Fourton, C. T. Mitchell and Randall. Guillotte, in this race, +as he did in all he rode, killed his opponents by fast riding for the +first half-mile, then going it easy and winning as he pleased. Time, +3m. 34 2-5s. + +Sixth race--One mile, for safety wheels. Entries, as they finished in +the race: Hathorn, Johnston, Renaud, Ulmer, Frederic. Time, 4m. 14 2-5s. + +Seventh race--100 yards, last man wins. Entries; W. E. Hobson and R. P. +Randall. Hobson won. Time, 2m. 18s. + +Eighth race--One mile handicap. This race was won by H. Christy. Time, +3m. 40 4-5s. The distance traveled by the winner was 240 yards short of +a mile. + +Ninth race--2½, miles, lap race, points to count. Entries: Guillotte, +Christy, Hathorn, Graham and Randall. Guillotte won. Time, 9m. 55 1-5s. + +Tenth race--One mile, consolation. Entries made on the track. Betts +won. Time, 3m. 55s. Frederic second and Harris third. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Saint Cloud Club, of St. Cloud, Minn., was formed the +last of July, and is known as the “St. Cloud Mystics.” Dr. S. Charest +is president and captain, and James R. Jerrard the secretary and +treasurer. The club has not yet joined the League, but intends to +do so. The uniform is blue belts and caps, black coat, pants and +stockings, and white shirts. + + * * * * * + +~The~ world’s record for one mile on safety tandems was made at +Hartford, Conn., by Messrs. Crist and Davis, on a Swift tandem, and not +on a Premier, as stated erroneously in a number of papers. + + * * * * * + +~In~ answer to an appeal made by ~Outing~ on behalf of +the wheelmen of New York, the following letter has been received, which +will, we think, please our cycling friends: + + ~Office of the Board of Aldermen~, } + ~No. 8 City Hall~, ~New York~, } + October 9, 1888. } + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~. + + Dear Sir: Your favor of 6th instant is at hand. I will endeavor to + look into the matter of the pavement of Madison Avenue, from 32d + Street to the Park, to-day. + + Yours very truly, + + ~Geo. H. Forster~. + + * * * * * + +~Our~ readers will notice that we make no record of the recent +so-called championship of the world races between Ralph Temple and W. +A. Rowe. In view of the disclosures effected by the Boston _Herald_ and +other papers, our reasons are obvious. The effect of such proceedings +can only be a further stigma on professionalism. + + +FISHING. + +~The~ officers of the Grand Central Fishing Club, of Cincinnati, O., +for the year are: President, Herman H. Rotherl; secretary, Henry H. +Muller; treasurer, Peter Bonte; commissary and quartermaster-general, +Henry Stueve; adjutant and assistant to commissary and +quartermaster-general, Adam Lotz; chaplain, Edward A. Shiele; assistant +chaplain, Carl Lesber, and surgeon, Henry Morning. + + +FOOTBALL. + +~The~ Boston _Herald_, in a dispatch from New Haven, gives the +following changes in the football rules, adopted by the Intercollegiate +Football Association: + +1. To allow tackling above the knees. + +2. To permit the snapper back to rush the ball. + +3. To prohibit the rush line from using their hands or arms in blocking. + +4. In putting the ball in play from touch, it “can be either bounded in +or touched in with both hands at right angles to the touch line.” + +(1.) In tackling, the line has always been drawn at the hips. In actual +play, however, the tackler cared very little if his hands slipped below +the hips so long as he checked his man, and the umpires, when called +upon to declare it intentional, hesitated, and seldom disqualified. The +new rule permits a dangerous tackle, and is not an improvement. + +(2.) This was the disputed point in the Yale-Harvard game last year. +The rule (29) was ambiguously worded, and Yale, by a little headwork, +easily overcame it, and the referee could not very well decide against +them. Last year the snapper-back could not rush the ball until it had +touched a third man. + +(3.) The new rule reads: “No player can lay his hands upon or interfere +with, by use of hands or arms, an opponent, unless he has the ball.” +And interference is defined “as using the hands or arms in any way to +obstruct or hold a player who has not the ball.” + +The intent of this rule is to make the rushers keep their arms down +when lined up, or when covering one of their own men who is making a +run. It looks easy enough on paper, but in actual practice it will +probably be as easy to keep a rusher’s arms down as to keep a duck away +from water. + +To the casual spectator, and to those not experts in the technical +points of the rules, the game will be as it has been--simon-pure +football. + + * * * * * + +~A match~ was played at Montreal, September 22, between the +Britannias and Victorias, which resulted in favor of the former team by +13 to 0. The following were the teams: + + BRITANNIAS. VICTORIAS. + + J. Ross Back Fred. Stewart + Crathern } Three-quarter { A. M. McEwen + Watson } Back { Ferndale + Ross Half Back R. Clarke + Kerby } { A. Fyfe + Thompson } { J. A. Gubian + Harvey } Forwards { C. McClatchie + Murphy } { T. A. Ouimet + McFarlane } { D. Hamilton + Kinghorn } { J. H. Gubian + H. Patterson } { T. Scott + Warden } Wings { E. May + Cameron } { J. McKay + Sinclair } { A. Cowan + +September 22, a match between the Britannia third and Victoria second +fifteens, resulted in a victory for the Britannias by 18 points to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ American Football Union arranged the following schedule +for the autumn games: October 13--Orange vs. Staten Island, at +Livingston; New York vs. Crescents, Brooklyn. October 20--Staten +Island vs. Crescents, on Staten Island; New York vs. Orange, at New +York. October 27--Staten Island vs. New York, in New York; Orange vs. +Crescent, Brooklyn. November 3--Staten Island vs. Orange, on Staten +Island; New York vs. Crescent, New York. November 10--Staten Island vs. +Crescent, Brooklyn; New York vs. Orange, at New York. November 17--New +York vs. Staten Island, on Staten Island, and Orange vs. New York, in +New York. The Crescent Football Club won the championship of the union +last year. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Amateur League Football Club has elected the following +officers: President, H. B. Wheatcroft; treasurer, Dr. Mortimer; +secretary, T. Savage. + + * * * * * + +~W. J. Ford~ has been elected captain of the football team of +the Crescent Athletic Club, of Brooklyn. He will organize two teams for +the season. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Clinton Football Club was organized in Newark recently. +The governing council consists of W. Elcox, C. Hopwood and C. Von +Lengerke. Carl Suffern was elected captain. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the meeting of the executive committee of the +Intercollegiate Football Association, the most radical changes, says +_The Dartmouth_, in the rules were concessions to Harvard. A tackle may +now be made anywhere above the knees. Interference was strictly defined +and the rule re-enforced. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Canadian team now in England won a splendid victory, +September 15, at Edinburgh, over the Hearts of Midlothian, one of the +best football teams of Great Britain, by a score of three to none. The +Canadians had by far the best of the play all through. The Canadian +team is composed of Messrs. Garrett, Brubacher, Keller, Pirie, Kranz, +Gordon, Webster, Thomas and Alexander Gibson. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Britannia and Victoria Rifle teams played a match in +Montreal, September 15, which was won by the Britannias. Score, 7 to 4. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Ottawa College team has reorganized for the season. The +team is heavier than those of previous years, and the outlook is +promising. + + +KENNEL. + +~The~ regular annual show of the Tri-State Fair Association, of +Toledo, Ohio, was held in that city, September 27 to 31. Messrs. John +Davidson and H. L. Goodman judged all classes. There were 166 entries. + + * * * * * + +~The~ long-looked-forward-to bench show at Buffalo was held +September 11 to 14. The entries numbered five hundred and thirty-two, +and the quality was good throughout. The judging, except in a few +instances, gave satisfaction. The very liberal policy of the Buffalo +club in regard to premiums offered has gained them a host of friends +amongst the dog men. The money prizes alone footed up to some $4,000, +and the list of specials was a long one. The weather was good, and the +attendance was simply enormous. There were many of the arrangements +that can be improved upon another year; in fact, the management was +not of the best, owing, perhaps, to the reason that all the work +appeared to be on the shoulders of two men, when there was enough to +keep six going all the time. Next year, however, we shall look for an +improvement. National Dog Club rules governed. + + * * * * * + +~Good~ weather, good quality, cheerful and polite officers, +and good judging, were the features of the show following +Buffalo--Syracuse. A small entry and poor attendance were the +drawbacks. Entries numbered three hundred and nineteen, but the +absentees reduced this to less than three hundred. The management +worked like heroes and kept things in good shape. The hall was light +and well ventilated. American Kennel Club rules were in force. + + * * * * * + +~The~ London, Ontario, show, held the week following Syracuse, +was the first of five to be held annually by the London Kennel Club. +Everything ran smoothly. The entries made a very good showing with +the quality fair. A new judge cropped out here, by the name of Bell, +from Toronto. He judged spaniels and some of the smaller classes. When +will men learn that because they have owned a dog or so for a year +or two they are not competent judges? A man to be a judge at a bench +show should be a breeder of experience and of long standing. Each year +brings out its quota of new judges, who are heard of once and then sink +away into oblivion. + + +LACROSSE. + +~The~ Eastern and Western champions of Canada--the Brants of +Paris, Ont., and the Shamrocks, of Montreal--met on the grounds of the +latter club, at Montreal, September 22, and played before an audience +of about 4,000 spectators. The result was three straight games for the +Shamrocks. The teams were as follows: + + SHAMROCKS. POSITIONS. BRANTS. + + Reddy Goal Robinson + Barry Point Whitson + Creagan Cover Point Jennings + Fraser } Defence { Whitelaw + Duggan } field { Watson + Ahern } { Skea + Devine Centre Munn + Neville } Home { Pickering + Reilly } field { J. Adams + Ellard } { D. Adams + Keefe Outside home Walker + Brown Inside home Tate + Dumphy Captain Jas. Adams + + Referee--W. L. Maltby. + + Umpires--Messrs. McLeod and A. W. Stevenson. + + Summary of Score--First game, Shamrocks, Ellard, ½m.; second game, + Shamrocks, O’Reilly, 9m.; third game, Shamrocks, Devine, 20m. + + * * * * * + +~The~ tournament held at Washington Park, Brooklyn, in June, for +the championship of the Eastern Association, was hardly as successful +as it was hoped it would be. In part this was due to the day selected. +But three clubs competed--the Staten Island Athletic Club, the +Brooklyns, and the Maple Leafs, from Philadelphia. In winning first +place and the championship, and defending it successfully in several +games since, the team of the Staten Island Club--formerly the New York +Lacrosse Club--has shown that a change of name did not affect its +playing abilities. + +A word regarding this change will not be out of place here. For +many years the New York Lacrosse Club had been without a home. +Notwithstanding this drawback, it struggled on. The record of its games +will show that disappointments did not dishearten the members. This +spring the opportunity of uniting with the Staten Island Athletic Club +offered and was taken advantage of. As a part of the Athletic Club it +now enjoys a home, has a suitable place for practice, and hopes in time +to surpass its previous achievements. + + * * * * * + +~A match~ for the Eastern District Junior Championship was won +by the Junior Shamrocks from the Crescents, at Montreal, September 22, +by three straight games. The teams were as follows: + + CRESCENTS. POSITIONS. JUN. SHAMROCKS. + + Mazurette Goal McKenna + Blakely Point Brophy + Murphy Cover point Dwyer + Brown First defence Driscoll + Crosby Second defence Curran + Bark Third defence McVey + Clapperton Centre Moore + McCabe Third home McBrearty + McDonnell Second home Rowan + McAnulty First home Cafferty + McCafferty Outside Tansey + Herbert Inside Lavery + F. W. McAnulty Captain Maguire + + Summary of Score--First game, Junior Shamrocks, Tansey, 2m.; second + game, Junior Shamrocks, Brown, 15m.; third game, Junior Shamrocks, + Cafferty, 1m. + + Messrs. Hodgson and Shanks, umpires. + + W. J. Cleghorn, referee. + + +LAWN TENNIS. + +~The~ eighth annual tournament of the United States National +Lawn Tennis Association for doubles was held on the grounds of the +Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club, Wednesday, September 12. The +entries were not as large as in previous years, but the playing was +excellent, namely, the match between H. W. Slocum, Jr., and Foxhall +Keene against E. P. MacMullen and C. Hobart. All present were of one +opinion that it was the best double tennis ever seen in this country. +After reaching two sets all, Slocum and Keene seemed to weaken, while +their opponents played with more confidence and heart. The struggle +in the second round between 0. S. Campbell and V. G. Hall against +H. A. Taylor and J. S. Clark was noticeable for many fine rallies +and accurate placing. But the former team proved themselves too much +for the veterans, and won the match three sets to one. In the finals +great interest and excitement prevailed as Campbell and Hall were to +face Hobart and MacMullen. The day set for the match was a perfect +one, so that by three o’clock, when the referee called play, nearly +two thousand people surrounded the court. From the very first it was +apparent that Hall and Campbell had the match well in hand, while +Hobart and MacMullen played as if slightly rattled. Three games all +were called by the umpire on the first set. The playing so far had +been very even. Each team now scored another game “four all.” Hall +and Campbell, by fine serving and placing, won the next two games and +set, 6-4. The second set also fell to them, 6-2, and the third in like +manner, 6-4. The championship was over, and Hall and Campbell were +victorious. + +Number of points, 179. Campbell and Hall won 102; MacMullen and Hobart, +77. Points lost by ball knocked out, Campbell and Hall, 19; MacMullen +and Hobart, 29. Points lost by putting into net, Campbell and Hall, 22; +MacMullen and Hobart, 28. Balls placed or passing opponent, Campbell +and Hall, 38; MacMullen and Hobart, 27. Following will be found the +score in full: Preliminary round, A. Torrence and H. M. Torrence, +Jr., beat M. S. Paton and C. E. Sands, 3-6, 1-6, 6-1, 7-5, 9-7; E. P. +MacMullen and C. Hobart beat W. E. Glyn and M. F. Goodbody, 6-3, 7-5, +6-0; F. V. Beach and C. H. Ludington beat J. Dwight and I. Shaw, Jr., +by default. First round, H. A. Taylor and J. S. Clark beat A. Torrence +and H. M. Torrence, Jr., 6-3, 6-4, 6-3; V. G. Hall and 0. S. Campbell +beat C. J. Post and W. A. Tomes, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1; B. F. Cummins and E. +W. McClellan beat F. V. Beach and C. H. Ludington, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, +7-9, 6-4; C. Hobart and E. P. MacMullen beat H. W. Slocum, Jr., and +Foxhall Keene, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Second round, V. G. Hall and +O. S. Campbell beat H. A. Taylor and J. S. Clark, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3; +C. Hobart and E. P. MacMullen beat B. F. Cummins and E. W. McClellan, +6-2, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3. Final and championship round, V. G. Hall and 0. S. +Campbell beat C. Hobart and E. P. MacMullen, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. Consolation +prize, Beach and Ludington beat Post and Tomes, 7-5, 6-4, 8-10, 8-10, +8-6. Second prize, Hobart and MacMullen beat Post and Tomes, 6-3, 6-3, +6-4. Taylor and Clark defaulted. + + * * * * * + +~A very~ pleasant and enjoyable tournament was given at Revere, +Mass., September 3d, on the club grounds of the Revere Lawn Tennis +Club. The audience was large and fashionable. The final game was won by +Mr. Kimball, over his opponent, Mr. Tutien, by a score, 6-4, 6-2. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall tournament of the Staten Island Athletic Club, August +30th, was regarded by all as the best entry list and best tennis +yet seen on the grounds. Following will be found the score in full: +Preliminary round--J. Brown beat N. Morris by default; J. W. Raymond +beat W. Brown by default; J. E. Elliott beat W. A. French, 6-0, 6-0; D. +Miller beat F. W. Smith, 6-2, 3-6, 10-8; Sam. Campbell, Jr., beat A. +Williamson, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. First round, A. H. Larkin beat S. Campbell, +0-6, 6-1, 8-6; E. P. Johnson beat W. E. Gaynor, 6-4, 6-3; W. Brown beat +M. DeGarmendia by default; B. J. Carroll beat F. A. Kellogg, 6-3, 6-5; +Raymond beat J. Johnson, 6-0, 6-4; Elliott beat Henshaw, 6-0, 6-0; +Post beat Kelly, 6-0, 6-1; Miller beat Frothingham, 6-1, 6-4. Second +round, Larkin beat Brown, 6-4, 6-0; Miller beat Johnson, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2; +Elliott beat Carroll, 6-2, 5-6, 6-3; Raymond beat Post, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. +Third round, Elliott beat Larkin, 6-5, 6-5; Raymond beat Miller, 6-3, +6-5. Final round, Raymond beat Elliott, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, 6-0. In the +doubles, E. P. MacMullen and C. Hobart, of the N. Y. Tennis Club, were +victorious, defeating Smith and Elliott in the final round, 6-1, 6-0, +7-5. + + * * * * * + +~The~ second annual invitation tournament of the New Hamburgh +Lawn Tennis Club was held Tuesday, September 18th, and following days +on the private grounds of Mrs. Swords and Mrs. Reese. The rain, which +fell heavily during the entire week, greatly interfered with the +playing. The final singles (out of twenty-four entries) was fought +between Mr. O. S. Campbell and Mr. V. G. Hall. The former won after +a long and hard struggle. Score: Campbell beat Hall, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, +11-9. In the gentlemen’s doubles, Messrs. Campbell and Steele were +victorious, defeating the Hall brothers in the finals, 1-6, 6-2, 6-4. +Miss E. C. Roosevelt, of Poughkeepsie (well known on the tennis field), +won the ladies’ singles over Miss Anna Sands. The ladies’ doubles were +easily won by the Misses Roosevelt. The mixed doubles (which were +handicap) were won by Miss Camilla Moss and Mr. C. E. Sands. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual open Lawn Tennis tournament of the New York Tennis +Club was held on their grounds at 147th Street, September 19th. The +courts are considered by many to be the finest in the country. Mr. E. +P. MacMullen won the gentlemen’s singles, and with Mr. C. Hobart as +partner, the doubles also. Ladies’ singles and mixed doubles formed the +other events. Mrs. Badgeley won the singles, and Mr. MacMullen and Miss +V. Hobart the mixed doubles. The courts were in excellent condition. +The playing was above that of last season, especially the final match +between MacMullen and Hobart. + + * * * * * + +~One~ of the largest tennis tournaments of the season was given +September 26th, on the grounds of the Highlands Country Club, about +five miles from Washington. The winner, Mr. Mansfield, now holds the +championship of the Southern States. Remarkably good tennis, fine +weather, and a large and fashionable attendance were the features of +the week. Space forbids giving the score in full; suffice it to say +that Fred. Mansfield, of the Longwood Club, Boston, carried off the +honors in the gentlemen’s singles by defeating D. Miller in the final +round, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2. In the gentlemen’s doubles, Mansfield was again +successful, and with his partner, F. V. Hoppin, easily defeated, in the +final round, Davidson and Metcalf, 6-2, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Clifton Lawn Tennis Club held its annual tournament at +Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, September 27th. As the tournament was +open to all Staten Island clubs, the Ladies’ Out-Door Sporting Club +and the Staten Island Athletic Club were well represented. Miss Austin +won in the final round of the ladies’ singles, defeating Miss Gertrude +Williams, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, 6-1. E. W. Gould carried off the honors among +the gentlemen by defeating J. B. Johnson in the final, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1, +6-1. Very handsome prizes were given to the winners. + + * * * * * + +~Not~ long ago an association was formed comprising all the lawn +tennis clubs on the Hudson River, from Yonkers to Albany. The name by +which it was to be known was the Hudson River Lawn Tennis Association. +The first tournament was held on the grounds of the “Far and Near,” +at Hastings-on-the-Hudson, Sept. 25th, and proved, for a beginning, a +great success. Mr. V. G. Hall, of the Edgwood Club, won the handsome +silver pitcher, valued at $200, which will become his property by +winning it twice. In the gentlemen’s doubles, V. G. Hall and his +brother, E. L. Hall, were winners, defeating C. E. and R. C. Sands in +the finals score, 6-4, 2-6, 3-6, 6-5, 6-3. Miss E. C. Roosevelt won +the ladies’ singles, and with her sister Grace, the doubles also. The +mixed doubles were won by Mr. C. E. Sands and Miss E. Roosevelt. In +all probability, the next meeting, which is to take place some time in +June, 1889, will be on the Newburgh courts. + + +QUOITS. + +~A match~ was played at Montreal, September 22, for the +championship of the Dominion, on the Montreal Quoiting Club’s grounds, +and resulted in a victory for the home club over the Dominion Club by +65 points. The following are the teams, with the individual scores: + + DOMINION CLUB. MONTREAL CLUB. + + 1. G. Fleet 23 A. McIntyre 31 + 2. J. Ganley 5 J. Graham 31 + 3. J. Briggs 10 J. J. Elliott 31 + 4. X. Desrochers 31 J. Williams 27 + 5. L. E. Farrar 26 G. Sibley 31 + 6. A. Tattersall 31 J. Leduc 12 + 7. M. Bannan 7 A. Lindsay 31 + 8. A. Weir 26 W. Renshaw 31 + 9. H. Oram 31 W. Ogilvie 20 + 10. R. Waugh 28 H. Trepannier 31 + 11. J. Cuthbert 31 A. Loiseau 15 + 12. W. J. Stewart 8 J. J. Adams 31 + --- --- + 257 322 + + +ROWING. + +~The~ Atalanta Boat Club held its fortieth annual regatta on the +Harlem, September 15. It was also Ladies’ Day. The club-house at One +Hundred and Fifty-third Street was crowded with guests. No time was +kept of the different contests, which were very exciting. The following +is the result of the races, and the names of the men who took part in +them: + +Junior single shells--Entries: George B. Weed, William D. Bourne, +William C. Dilger, Edward W. Tanner and Alexander Woods. William D. +Bourne won. + +Senior single gigs, for gold medal given by Captain Theodore Van Raden; +distance, one mile--Entries: Max Lau, William Lau, George R. Storms and +Benjamin A. Jackson. Max Lau won. + +Four-oared shells--Entries: No. 1, W. E. Cody, bow; S. B. Marks, P. +B. Reyhmer, J. A. Garland, stroke. No. 2, W. C. Doscher, bow; A. G. +Roemer, C. A. Hawley, W. Content, stroke. No. 3, E. J. Stewart, bow; D. +Van Holland, W. Dittmar, Jr., H. A. McLean, stroke. No. 2 won. + +Eight-oared barge race--Entries were, No. 1, married, William C. +Dilger, bow; G. M. Young, William Dittmar, D. Van Holland, E. J. +Cullen, H. M. Williams, T. McAdam, W. Dittmar, Jr., stroke, and H. +Hazard, coxswain. No. 2, single, C. F. Beyer, bow; E. McCormack, F. +H. S. Cooley, F. A. Merrill, W. J. Davenport, A. J. Wallace, S. A. +Saffard, E. Fuchs, stroke, and H. Moody, coxswain. The race was a +close, pretty and interesting one, and resulted in a victory for the +married men. + +Eight-oared shells--Entries: No. 1, F. McElroy, bow; E. J. Allen, E. +D. McMurray, D. Brown, H. D. Clapp, W. B. Merrall, L. F. Roediger, B. +A. Jackson, stroke; E. P. K. Coffin, coxswain. No. 2, W. H. Chandler, +bow; T. G. Smith, E. J. Ranhoffer, I. D. Fairchild, F. Pullman, W. J. +Winter, J. A. Miller, O. Fuchs, stroke; J. E. Silliman, coxswain. No. +3, C. Renner, bow; W. J. Hutchinson, E. R. Bunce, W. F. Mohr, G. R. +Pasco, G. Radley, W. D. Stewart, E. H. Patterson, stroke, and E. J. +Byrne, coxswain. This race differed from the others in that it was over +a straightaway mile course. No. 1 won. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fourth annual regatta of the Nautilus Boat Club took place +September 15. The course was from the Sea Beach dock, at Bay Ridge, +toward the Atlantic Yacht Club basin. Distance, with a turn, about +three-fourths of a mile. + +The junior single-gig race, class A, with five entries, was rowed in +two trial heats. Johnson won first heat--time, 5m. 24s. Olsen, second +heat, 5m. 29s. The final heat was won by Olsen; time, 5m. 6s. + +The junior single-gig race, class B. Nine entries. First trial heat won +by W. Reid; time, 5m. 21s. Second trial heat, S. H. Ayres; time, 5m. +27s. Third trial heat, S. Manley; time, 5m. 44s. The final heat was won +by Ayres in 5m. 24s.; Manley second. + +The junior double-scull gig was won by Oswald and Peterson; time, 5m. + +The senior double-scull gig was won by F. Olsen and M. Donally; time, +4m. 45s. Their only competitors, the two Hillmans, were only a half +length behind at the finish. + +The single-gig match, between W. A. Merrick and T. F. Crean, was won by +the latter. Time, 5m. 41s. + +Two crews entered for the junior four-oared gig race. The crew composed +by W. Charnley, T. F. Crean, A. T. Morro and A. Ribas, with W. Whitner +as coxswain, won by a boat’s length, in 4m. 5s. + +The eight-oared barge race was won by Captain Donnelly’s crew, made +up as follows: Fred Olsen, bow; J. O’Conner, second; J. D. Phillips, +third; A. N. Peterson, fourth; S. Manley, fifth; M. W. Mullany, sixth; +R. Hillmon, seventh; M. Donaly, stroke, and C. W. Parmlee, coxswain, +were the winning crew by two boat-lengths; time, 4m. 54s. + + * * * * * + +~A popular~ subscription has been started by the Cornell _Era_ +to raise money to put an eight-oar crew on the water next season. A +Cornell crew in the seventies showed all the college crews the way to +victory. + + +SHOOTING. + +~The~ annual contest for State trophies of the Massachusetts +Volunteer Militia took place at South Framingham, Sept. 25. The +contests were open to teams of seven men each from each county, and the +staff teams were five each. There were two prizes for staff officers, +three for line officers, and three for enlisted men, besides the three +team prizes. Two scores of seven shots each, contestants shooting in +teams count that score and then shoot an additional one. + +Staff Team Prize--Staff 2d Brigade, 1st, 136; Staff 5th Infantry, 2d, +136; Staff 1st Brigade, 3d, 135. + +Staff Officers--Capt. J. B. Osborne, 1st Brigade, 60; Lieut. R. B. +Edes, 5th Infantry, 60. + +Line Officers--Lieut. E. B. C. Erickson, 5th Infantry, 61; Lieut. C. +N. Edgell, 2d Infantry, 60; Capt. Williamson, 1st Infantry, 58. + +Company Team Match--Compy. B, 2d Infantry, 200; Compy. C, 2d Cadets, +198; Compy. F, 2d Infantry, 194. + + * * * * * + +~The~ National Rifle Association of America held their annual +meeting at Creedmoor in September. The attendance was smaller than +last year--in fact, it seems to grow smaller every year. The shooting +was, on the whole, good. Sergt. T. J. Dolan, 12th N. Y., made the fine +score of 50 points at 200 and 500 yards, 5 shots at each range, making +the possible 25 points at both, a feat that has never before been +equaled on the range. Both his scores were made on the same day. Capt. +Barnard Walther, of the renowned Zettler Club, of New York City, again +carried off the first prize in the Tiffany Match, this being the second +consecutive year he has won the cup. The Massachusetts State Team again +won the Inter-state and Hilton trophies, being the third consecutive +year that they have accomplished this. Major C. W. Hinman, of Boston, +won the Governor’s Match at 50 yards. Sergt.-Major W. M. Merrill, of +Boston, won the Wimbledon Cup at 1,000 yards. Sergt. Geo. Doyle, Corps +of Engineers, U. S. A., won the President’s Match, which carries with +it the title of Champion Military Rifle Shot of the U. S. A. for the +coming year. Sergt. Fred. Wells, 22d N. Y., made the same number of +points, but was outranked. Sergt. Wells won the first stage and prize +of $20. The Zettler Rifle Club, of New York City, won the Short Range +Team Match. The winners and matches were as follows: + +Director’s Match (5 shots, 200 yards)--James Duane, 23. + +Wimbledon Cup (30 shots, 1,000 yards)--Sergt. W. M. Merrill, 134; F. H. +Holton, 125; W. F. Mayer, 117; I. F. McNevin, 116; C. H. Gaus, 103; T. +J. Dolan, 79. + +Judd Match (at 200 yards--two scores of five shots each to count +for first five prizes. For remainder of prizes, one single score; +each contestant to shoot six strings, three each day. Twenty-five +prizes)--T. J. Dolan, 1st; T. G. Austen, 2d; D. H. Ogden, 3d; W. G. +Hussey, 4th; W. C. Johnston, 5th. The first three prizes were won with +the Remington 50 cal. rifle, which received two points allowance on ten +shots. + +The Long Range Military Match (10 shots at 800, 900 and 1,000 +yards)--Jas. McNevins, 114; C. W. Hinman, 112; W. M. Merrill, 111; A. +B. Van Heusen, 110. + +President’s Match (first stage at 200 and 500 yards)--F. A. Wells, +1st, 67. The 22 men who won prizes in the first stage were eligible to +shoot at 600 yards, 10 shots each, and the man making the highest total +at 200, 500 and 600, won the prize of $25 and the title of Military +Champion. Sergt. Doyle (total of both stages), 109; F. A. Wells, 109; +T. J. Dolan, 107. T. J. Dolan was the winner last year. + +Short Range Team Match (American standard target, 200 yards +off-hand)--Zettler Rifle Club--B. Walther, 84; M. Dorrler, 83; L. +Flack, 73; C. S. Zettler, 52--total, 292. + +Second Regiment Team, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia--W. M. Farrow, +77; M. W. Bull, 70; S. S. Bumstead, 65; F. R. Bull, 59; allowance, +16--total, 287. This team used military rifles and received 4 points +allowance per man. + +Lynn Rifle Association, Lynn, Mass.--W. G. Hussey, 73; W. C. Johnston, +70; C. W. Hinman, 67; R. B. Eades, 55; allowance, 12--total, 277. All +used military rifles except Hinman. + +Nyack Rifle Club, Nyack, N. Y.--J. J. Sydecker, 64; G. McAucliffe, 59; +D. Shakespear, 59; J. O. Davidson, 53--total, 245. + +New York State National Guard Match--Regimental Team Match (at 200 +and 500 yards)--23d Regiment Team, 1st, 521; 12th Regiment Team, 482; +7th, 495; 13th, 484; 22d, 451. 1st Brigade, National Guard Match--7th +Regiment Team, 572; 12th, 485; 2d, 441. 2d Brigade--23d Regiment Team, +509; 13th, 457. + +The Inter-State Match had only New York and Massachusetts State teams +entered (12 men, 10 shots each, at 200 and 500 yards)--Massachusetts +State Team, 1,047; New York State Team, 1,015. + +Hilton Trophy--open to State teams and teams from the divisions of +the regular army (7 shots each at 200, 500 and 600 yards, 12 men each +team)--Massachusetts Team, 1,080; Division of the Atlantic Team, 1,057; +New York Team, 1,057. + +Governor’s Match (three scores to count at 500 yards each, shooter to +shoot as many entries as he pleases)--Major C. W. Hinman, Boston, 1st; +Capt. J. B. Osborn, Boston, 2d. + +Tiffany Match (200 yards)--B. Walther, 1st; T. J. Dolan, 2d; W. M. +Farrow, 3d. + +Stewart Match (200 yards, standing, sitting or kneeling)--J. F. Klein, +1st; Geo. Doyle, 2d; W. M. Farrow, 3d; W. G. Hussey, 4th; C. L. Potter, +5th; J. S. Shepherd, 6th; C. H. Gaus, 7th; C. A. Jones, 8th; J. D. +Foot, 9th. + +All Comers and Marksman Badge (25 at 200 and 25 at 500)--T. J. Dolan, +1st. + +Revolver Match--Ira A. Paine, 140; A. Brennor, 132; J. G. Newbury, 123; +G. L. Garrigues, 122; W. E. Petty, 120; W. C. Johnston, Jr., 119; F. J. +H. Merrill, 114; C. H. Gaus, 113; W. M. Merrill, 113; J. E. Winslow, +111. Among the noted visitors present during the week were Herr Josef +Schuloff, the inventor of the magazine rifle and revolver, Col. Bodine, +Col. Miller, Major Shorkley, and other well-known rifle-shots. + + * * * * * + +~The~ eighth annual tournament of the Western Rifle Association +was held recently at Fort Snelling, Minn. It was successful as far as +shooting is concerned. The following are the summaries: + +THE CHICAGO MATCH (10 SHOTS). + + 200 YDS. 300 YDS. 600 YDS. TOTAL. + E. W. Bird 45 43 48 136 + C. Mandlin 46 47 43 136 + C. W. Skinner 48 42 43 133 + +DEER HUNTER MATCH (10 SHOTS, AMERICAN FIELD TARGET). + + 100 YDS. 200 YDS. TOTAL. + John Marshall 81 65 146 + E. W. Bird 70 71 141 + +Pistol or Revolver Match (15 shots at 30 yards)--C. M. Skinner, 135; A. +E. Chantler, 117; S. M. Tyrrell, 105. + +Minneapolis _Tribune_ Match (15 shots at 200, 500 and 600 yards)--C. W. +Weeks, 275; John Marshall, 272. + +Minneapolis Match (shot on new decimal target adopted by Minneapolis +Rifle Club--15 shots at 500 and 600 yards)--E. W. Bird, gold badge, +225; A. F. Elliott, deer’s head, 224; John Marshall, silver card-tray, +216. + +Police Revolver Match (50 yards, 20 shots each)--C. M. Skinner, 151; +S. M. Tyrrell, 127; E. W. Bird, 126; A. S. Chantler, 118; C. W. Weeks, +117. This was shot on the American field target. C. Mandlin, of +Minneapolis, won the Continuous Match at 200 yards off-hand. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. Fred. E. Bennett~, of Boston, the champion revolver shot +of America, has been doing some fine shooting at 50 yards, using a 22 +calibre pistol. In 100 consecutive shots he made the following fine +totals: 97, 95, 90, 85, 89, 91, 93, 89, 86, 91--total, 906, out of a +possible 1,000. Mr. Bennett has issued a challenge to shoot a revolver +match with Ira Paine for $1,000 a side, either in France, England, or +America. + + * * * * * + +~The~ experts at the National Armory, at Springfield, Mass., are +trying a new ammunition with a view to the adoption of a small calibre +rifle. The experiments made so far demonstrate that the Swiss rifle, +which is of a small calibre (about .30), has a very flat trajectory at +500 yards, and is accurate; while the Springfield, or U. S. Government +rifle has a very high trajectory. Further experiments will be made +before anything definite is done. + + * * * * * + +~A new~ rifle club has been organized in Newark, N. J. Its +officers are William Dennenger, president; F. Kraus, vice-president; +William Doull, secretary; K. Kopf, treasurer; F. Siegman, +sergeant-at-arms. + + +YACHTING. + +~A dozen~ pretty cat-rigged yachts, manned by jolly crews from +Brooklyn, Canarsie and Ruffle Bar, sailed a very exciting race on +Jamaica Bay, Saturday, September 23. It was the second of the series +inaugurated by the Windward Club of Ruffle Bar, and the result has +decided that Mr. Hatch’s pretty _Julita_, built three years ago by Dick +Wallin, of South Brooklyn, is the fastest boat in the first class, for +she has won both races, and so takes the prize of the Windward Cup, +offered by the club. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Yorkville Yacht Club had its twice postponed fall races +September 23. There was a lack of wind in the forenoon. In the +afternoon the yachts started from Oak Point against a light wind and +with a strong flood tide. Both wind and tide were with them on the +return. Classes A, B and C sailed around the gangway buoy and return, +a distance of twenty miles. The other classes rounded the Stepping +Stones Lighthouse, making fifteen miles. In class A, for cabin sloops +more than 30 feet, D. McGlynn’s _Emma and Alice_ was the only entry. +She made the distance in 5 hours 15 minutes 15 seconds. _Maud M._, +manned by Sergeant McManus and a crew of 14 men from Fort Schuyler, had +a walk over in the class for cabin boats under 30 feet. Her time was 5 +hours 18 minutes 45 seconds. She broke her spinnaker on the return. J. +Thomson’s _Bessie R._ was the only catboat between 17 and 22 feet, and +she sailed the 15 miles in 5 hours 3 minutes 30 seconds. The _Jessie_ +was successful in her class, and the _Happy Thought_ won handily in the +race for smaller catboats. The _Peerless_, the _Jennie V._, and the +_Helen_ did not finish. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Fall Regatta of the New York Yacht Club took place +September 20. The day was all that could be desired by the most ardent +yachtsman. + +At 11h. 32m. the Blue Peter was lowered on the _Electra’s_ foremast and +the signal gun started the racers. _Fannie_, under mainsail and jib, +with the wind on the starboard quarter, rushed for the line, with the +_Dauntless_ a little to windward and the _Katrina_ almost bow and bow. +As they darted past the flagship the _Dauntless_ hauled a little closer +by the wind and shot ahead of the other two yachts, the _Katrina_ +passing within a few feet of the _Electra’s_ lee side. The three went +over almost in line and made one of the handsomest marine pictures ever +seen in New York harbor. The _Dauntless_ held the lead for a short +distance, but the _Katrina_ soon forged ahead. After these three the +_Alarm_ came slowly by as stiff as a house, but a little faster. Then +followed the _Shamrock_, with her baby jibtopsail in stops, which were +broken as she crossed the line, and the _Adelaide_, heeling well to +leeward. The _Grayling_, with every sail set and as full as a balloon, +rushed across in her dashing style. The _Wizard_ followed after her +with a handicap of 3 minutes, and then the _Magic_, also handicapped +12m. 57s. + +The yachts had a beat to the lightship and were forced to make a long +and short leg to weather the buoys, which had to be passed on the port +hand. The _Katrina_ and _Shamrock_ seemed to point about the same and +were both pinched very closely. The former was the first to go on +port tack, at 12h. 35m., followed by the _Shamrock_ one minute after. +The _Grayling_ held to the starboard tack longer than either of the +sloops and gained very much in so doing, for she rounded the Sandy Hook +Lightship almost the same moment as the _Shamrock_. Following are the +times: + + H. M. S. + Katrina 12 40 05 + Shamrock 12 45 30 + Grayling 12 45 35 + +In the run from the start to the lightship the _Katrina_ gained 1m. +13s. on the _Shamrock_. That from the lightship to the stake boat was +a reach by the wind on the port tack. When the yachts reached the +_Haviland_ the _Katrina_ was still in the lead, though she had lost +45 seconds to the _Shamrock_, who had in turn gained 2 minutes on the +_Grayling_. The _Dauntless_ was leading the _Fanny_ at this point, and +the _Adelaide_ the _Wizard_. At the stake-boat the following times were +taken: + + H. M. S. + Katrina 1 26 40 + Shamrock 1 32 60 + Grayling 1 34 55 + +The yachts passed the _Haviland_ on the port hand, easing off sheets +and running again for the lightship with the wind on the starboard +quarter. They rounded the lightship a second time as follows: + + H. M. S. + Katrina 2 10 05 + Shamrock 2 15 08 + Grayling 2 15 42 + +In this run the _Katrina_ lost 22 seconds to the _Shamrock_, who gained +1 minute on the _Grayling_. + +From Sandy Hook Lightship it was a run with the wind on the port beam +to the finish. The sloops set their club topsails over working ones +and made a fast run home. The _Katrina_ held the lead to the end, but +lost on time allowance. The wind was a steady wholesale breeze from the +south-southwest, and remained so throughout the day. + +The following is the elapsed and corrected time: + + KEEL SCHOONERS. + + _Elapsed._ _Corr’d_ + _Start._ _Finish._ _Time._ _Time._ + + H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. H. M. S. + + Dauntless 11 34 14 3 22 24 3 48 10 3 48 10 + Alarm 11 35 22 3 45 26 4 10 04 [*] + + CLASS 3--SCHOONERS. + + Grayling 11 40 55 3 10 35 3 29 40 3 29 40 + Magic 11 42 00 3 42 03 4 02 03 3 59 22 + + CLASS 2--SLOOPS. + + Shamrock 11 38 35 3 11 44 3 33 09 3 31 59 + Katrina 11 34 23 3 08 13 3 33 50 3 33 50 + Fanny 11 34 14 3 36 00 3 57 09 3 54 10 + + CLASS 4--SLOOPS. + + Adelaide 11 40 06 3 55 38 4 15 32[*] + Wizard 11 42 00 Did not finish. + + [*] Not measured. + + +Thus in the keel schooner class the _Dauntless_ beats the _Alarm_. +In class 3 the _Grayling_ beats the _Magic_ 29m. 42s. and makes +the quickest time over the course. In the second class sloops the +_Shamrock_ beats the _Katrina_ 1m. 51s., and the _Adelaide_ has a walk +over in class 4, the _Wizard_ having carried away her topmast. + + * * * * * + +~A new~ yacht club was recently organized in this city. It will +be known as the Rockaway Yacht Club. The certificate of incorporation +was signed Sept. 17. + + * * * * * + +~Can~ any of our readers inform us what has become of the +following clubs, and what are their present addresses? + + ~Cycling~--Weston Wheelmen, Weston, Ohio; Worcester Bicycle + Club, Worcester, Mass.; Wayside Wheelmen, Brooklyn, L. I. + + ~Canoe~--Mystic Canoe Club, Winchester, Conn.; Stillwater + Canoe Club, Stillwater, Ohio. + + ~Rowing~--New England Amateur Rowing Association, Boston, + Mass.; Long Island Amateur Rowing Association, Brooklyn. + + ~Shooting~--Memphis Gun Club, Shell Lake, Ark.; Jacksonville + Gun Club, Jacksonville, Ky.; Frelinghuysen Rifle Club, New York + City; Krutland Ionia Hunting Club, Grand Rapids, Mich. + + ~Yachting~--Bohemian Yacht Club, San Francisco, Cal. + + +ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + [_This department of_ ~Outing~ _is devoted to answers to + correspondents seeking information on subjects appertaining to all + sports._] + + * * * * * + +_Yachtsman, Chesapeake Bay Y. C._--You cannot do better than have your +boat furnished by Messrs. Warren, Ward & Co., 6 and 8 East 20th St., N. +Y. City. Commodore Gerry had his steam yacht _Electra_ fitted by this +firm, and the results are admirable. The best refrigerator for a yacht +is made by W. Law, 324 East 122d Street, City. + + * * * * * + +_J. Dixon, New York City._--We are able to give you the information you +require as to your proposed cycling trip from West Troy to Buffalo. (1) +You would be allowed to ride on the tow-path of the canal. (2) The road +is not good. (3) The distance is about 325 miles. (4) On the road you +should average from forty to sixty miles, but on the tow-path you would +not do more than about twenty-five miles a day. You would also have to +dismount often on account of mule teams, etc. These animals have been +known to jump into the canal at the sight of a bicycle, thereby causing +trouble between canal boat men and cycler, much to the disadvantage +of the latter. We should strongly advise you to take the main road, +and follow the route in the New York Road Book. (5) As to your last +question, we think that you had better use your own judgment. + + * * * * * + +_Observer._--The best position in which to place a registering +thermometer is over an open grass-plot. If this cannot be done, a +wall may be used, care being taken that it is a garden-wall, and not +the wall of a house; also that the screen in which the thermometer is +placed hangs at some distance from the wall, so as to admit of the free +passage of air behind it. In all cases the thermometer should be placed +in a screen not less than four feet from the ground, and facing to the +north (in the northern hemisphere) and sheltered from the sun at all +hours, but exposed to a free circulation of the air. + + * * * * * + +_Drag-Hunter, Boston, Mass._--The best drag for hounds is generally +supposed to be a common red herring. Assafœtida is sometimes used, +and also aniseed. Many people suppose, however, that the last is +detrimental to hounds, but drag-hunting of any description will spoil a +pack for fox, so that that question does not matter much. + + * * * * * + +_T. G. F., Portland, Oregon._--Your description and sketch of the fish +caught on a branch of the Columbia River, in Washington Territory, +and which you supposed to be a “grayling,” was so imperfect that it +was hard to give you an answer. We referred it to Dr. Tarleton H. +Bean, of the Smithsonian Institution, one of the highest authorities +on ichthyology in the country. It would have been a matter of great +interest had the grayling been found in that region. It seems, however, +that it is only another instance of the confusion which arises from +local nomenclatures. Dr. Bean’s reply sets the matter at rest, and +is so interesting that we publish it in full. He writes: “The sketch +sent is intended to represent Williamson’s whitefish (_Coregonus +Williamsoni_), which is called ‘grayling’ in some parts of the West. +I do not know of the existence of a grayling west of Montana, until +British America is reached. Williamson’s whitefish is common in the +region west of the Rocky Mountains, particularly so in the Sierra +Nevada, and is often styled ‘grayling.’” + + * * * * * + +_B. J. W., Albany, N. Y._--Yes. An amateur athlete may compete with a +professional, provided that it is a genuinely friendly contest, but not +for money or prizes, or at a public meeting. + + * * * * * + +_Scott, Montreal, Canada._--The best way to preserve gut leaders is to +wrap them up in wash-leather, tightly bound with string. If they are in +good condition, they will keep well like this for years. + + * * * * * + +_J. S. M., East 56th Street, N. Y. City._--What you heard is quite +true, although you appear to doubt it so much. The “King of Dudes,” +Berry Wall, was at one time quite an athlete, and about seven or eight +years ago was one of the fastest amateur walkers in the country. His +record for a mile was 7m. 20s. + + * * * * * + +_J. A. I., Phila._--E. Waters & Sons, of Troy, New York, are builders +of paper boats. The name was incorrectly given in the September +~Outing~. + + * * * * * + +_Duck Hunter, Charles City, Va._--You can obtain such rubber goods as +you mention from the Hodgman Rubber Company, 459 and 461, Broadway, New +York. + + * * * * * + +_Jock, Dayton, Ohio._--The race called “The Oaks” is run on the Friday +following Derby Day. It is for three-year-old fillies, and the distance +is about a mile and a half, over the same course as the Derby. Both +races were founded by the twelfth Earl of Derby--the first Oaks being +run on May 14, 1779, and being named after his residence at Woodman +Sterne, while the first Derby was run in the next year. The Derby +course was at first a mile, but has since been altered. + + * * * * * + +_Double Team, Albany, N. Y._--To the best of our knowledge there is no +better treatment for thrush in horses than the old method of frequently +dressing the affected feet with tar, spread on tow. This should be +well thrust into the cleft of the frog. Carbolic acid is also used in +the same way, while in severe cases, where lameness is occasioned, it +becomes necessary to use poultices. + + * * * * * + +_Pointer, Lynchburg, Va._--The question whether or not to remove +a puppy’s dew-claws, is more a matter of fashion and opinion than +anything else. As a matter of fact, the presence of dew-claws seems +very seldom to lead to any inconvenience to a dog. There does not, +however, seem to be any real objection to the removal of them, for +the attachment is usually only ligamentous; or, if bone does exist, +it is so slight that the operation of cutting them does not amount to +anything. + + * * * * * + +_Sportsman, Brooklyn._--President Cleveland’s bluefishing trip was +not the first angling expedition he had made during his presidential +career, for last year he went up to the Adirondacks for trout-fishing. +It will be remembered that his predecessor, President Arthur, was also +an enthusiastic angler. + + * * * * * + +_Whip, Fifty-ninth Street, N. Y._--What you say is quite true as to +the difficulty in procuring good, lasting gloves for rough work like +driving. There is, however, a capital article for your purpose, or, +indeed, for any purpose, manufactured by J. C. Hutchinson, Johnstown, +N. Y. This maker’s gloves will, we think, give you satisfaction. + + * * * * * + +_H. S. P., Newark, N. J._--If the horse has completely “broken down,” +the fetlock joint will actually touch the ground. From your description +this does not seem to be the case, and so the accident probably only +amounts to a partial breakdown, due to the rupture of the flexor tendon +and some of its ligamentous fibres. As to treatment, you had better +consult a veterinary surgeon, but after the first severity of the +inflammation has subsided, it is generally thought best to fire the leg. + + * * * * * + +_Housewife, Baltimore, Md._--Truly your questions are hardly in +~Outing’s~ line, but we can answer them. It is very hard to beat +that most reliable article, the Royal Baking Powder; you will see from +the company’s advertisement what testimonials it receives from sources +absolutely trustworthy. As to your second question, we cannot do better +than refer you to the Quarterly published by Messrs. Strawbridge & +Clothier, Eighth and Market Streets, Philadelphia. In this useful +publication you will find on page 148 just the information you want. + + * * * * * + +_Racquet, Toronto._--You are quite right in supposing that tennis +proper, or court tennis, has seen much palmier days. It is said that in +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were a couple of hundred +courts in England, of which fourteen were in London, while Henry VIII. +built one at Hampton Court Palace. No revival of this aristocratic game +took place till this century. In 1838 one was built at Lord’s Cricket +Ground, London. Now there are, we believe, three in London, one each +at Oxford and Cambridge, while there are five other public or club +courts in England, at Manchester, Brighton, Leamington, Crayley near +Winchester, and Hampton Court. Besides these there are about as many +private ones. + + * * * * * + +_Capt. C., Minneapolis._--In England linseed oil is never used in +hunting stables, except as a purgative, or, mixed with tobacco dust +(about three-quarters of an ounce of the latter to three-quarters of a +pint of the former) as a drench for worms. To hacks and harness horses +linseed oil is sometimes given in small quantities to make their coats +look better. The seed itself is given to hunters after a day’s work, +either in the form of linseed tea (a substitute for oatmeal gruel), or +when boiled to a jelly and mixed with a bran mash. About two pounds +of linseed is the quantity for either preparation. Linseed jelly is +often mixed with oats when it is desired to put flesh on horses in poor +condition, or when getting them up for sale. It is a demulcent, and +slightly laxative. + +[Illustration: A PAIR OF POACHERS.] + + + + + ~Outing.~ + + ~Vol. XIII.~ DECEMBER, 1888. ~No. 3.~ + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +SPORT--PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. + +BY ALEXANDER HUNTER. + + +It may be a pleasant task for the sporting antiquary or the historian +of some future period to trace the rise and fall of shooting in the +section where the Potomac bursts foaming through its narrow bed at the +Great Falls to Point Lookout, where the wide, majestic river mixes +its fresh waters with the brine of Chesapeake Bay. But retrospection +only brings sadness and regret to the sportsman of to-day, who sees +the finest shooting-ground for wild fowl on the American continent now +denuded of its game, except in scantiest quantities. + +_Potomac_ in the Indian dialect signifies “The River of Swans.” A +pleasure or health seeker as he passes down the bay _en route_ to Old +Point, or a tourist on a pilgrimage to Mount Vernon, admires from the +steamer’s deck the fine scenery, the bold headlands, the sweeping +curves of the shore, and the ever-shifting scenes of the beautiful +river, but he will never catch a glimpse, in a lifetime’s travel, of +the stately birds that were so plentiful that the river was named after +them. + +All the observant traveler now sees is the settling of, perhaps, a +dozen broad-bills in the water, or the alighting of a solitary shuffler +or mallard. He will learn with surprise that not many years back the +steamer literally ploughed its way through vast flocks of ducks, who +only took wing when the sharp prow was within a few yards of them, +while every creek, stream and run that poured its waters into the river +was alive with waterfowl of a dozen different species, scurrying to and +fro, circling high into the air, or striking into their native element +with an explosive splash. On a windy day the river was so black with +them that the bosom of the deep seemed to have been changed into an +undulating, many-hued meadow. + +Across the river from Mount Vernon was one of the most famous ducking +blinds on the Potomac. The steamboat passengers notice with curiosity +what appears to be a small island directly in the centre of the river, +which at this point is about two miles wide. It is a miniature Loch +Leven Castle, and the ruins of a small stone edifice makes it a +romantic picture in the varied panorama that unfolds as one passes +down the “River of Swans.” Right across on the Maryland side is one +of those old colonial brick houses that tell of days when his Majesty +was “prayed for” by fox-hunting parsons, and where the King’s health +was drunk before each toast by the cocked-hat gentry. The house, which +stands on a high hill, and faces Mount Vernon across the river, is the +manor-seat of the Chapmans, a family whose name is connected with every +public enterprise or “high emprise” from the conversion of the colony +of Maryland into a commonwealth. + +[Illustration: The Willet + +Ox Eyes] + +General John Chapman was a great lover of both rod and gun, and some +thirty years ago he conceived the idea of making comfort and sport go +hand in hand. Having made his soundings, he kept his slaves steadily +at work, during odd days and off hours, hauling rocks in flat-boats, +and dumping them into the rolling river. He kept his own counsel, and +his neighbors began to fear he was going crazy. At last his island +was completed. Like the Old Point “Rip-Raps,” it arose sheer from +the water, and was composed entirely of loose rock. Chapman Island, +as it was called, had an area of about a quarter of an acre, and was +shaped like a cigar--the smaller end gradually decreasing in height +and breadth until the narrowing ledge disappeared in the water. +At this point the decoys--rarely under a hundred, often double +that number--were placed. At the large end of the island was the +hunting-lodge, at a distance of about seventy-five yards. It was built +low, but the walls were thick, and a coal stove kept it comfortable +in the stormiest, coldest days. It is doubtful whether there ever was +a blind in all America that surpassed in attractions this artificial +island. + +Ducks, as a general thing, when moving in great numbers, choose the +middle of a river, and seeing a large flock (the decoys) floating near +the point, they would invariably swirl aside and join them. At a time +when the river was full of waterfowl, some idea may be had of the +royal sport, without any terrible exposure and endurance; a warm fire, +refreshments of all kinds within a minute’s walk, and the ducks raining +down in a ceaseless stream from the sky--that was the very poetry of +sporting. + +In the fall and winter months General Chapman had his house filled with +the men whose names are household words in America, and his oyster +roasts, canvasback and terrapin stews were as widely known then as were +the dinners of the great lobbyist and gourmand, Sam Ward, a quarter of +a century afterwards. + +From the traditions handed down, it is known that General Washington +was an enthusiastic rider after hounds, and it was at one of the meets +that he first met Mistress Betty Custis; but he never was a devotee of +the gun. There are several letters written by him to his patron, Lord +Fairfax, of Greenway Court, which are, or were a few years ago, in the +possession of Mrs. Custis, of Williamsburg, Virginia. In them the young +surveyor tells in glowing language of the fine runs he has had and the +brushes he has taken. + +Opportunity makes the right man; but for the Revolution, George +Washington, of Mount Vernon, Virginia, would have been a hard-riding +fox-hunter, a shrewd bargainer at a horse-trade, and a vestryman of the +Pohick church. + +Washington’s nearest neighbor was famous George Mason, whose statue +adorns Capitol Square in Richmond, Va. He lived a few miles down the +river at Gunston Hall, which, next to Greenway Court, was in its day +the most celebrated hunting resort in Virginia, and was the scene of +many a glorious meet long after girder, rafter and roof of Greenway +Court had mouldered in the dust. + +[Illustration: ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMAC.] + +Gunston Hall of to-day is the same building as that of over a century +ago. It was built for comfort and not for show, for the walls are very +thick, making the rooms warm in winter and cool in summer. It was +erected in 1739, and every brick was brought from England as ballast. +The plantation originally comprised 5,000 acres, and was, without +exception, the finest game preserve in the country. Colonel Mason was +an ardent sportsman, and cherished and protected the game on his land. +At his river front the wild celery grew in the greatest profusion. If +those old walls of Gunston Hall could talk, what entrancing tales they +could tell of men of iron mould and giant minds, and maidens “passing +faire”! There is a porch around the ancient mansion, religiously +preserved, though it is in the last stages of dilapidation, where +on the south side of the hall Washington and Mason were wont to sit +during the long summer evenings, their senses lulled by the fairy-like +scene, their eyes ranging over the grand, circling sweep of the river, +and their conversation freshened by many a decoction of pounded ice, +fresh mint, and Jamaica brandy. By the way, there are comparatively +few people who ever tasted a real Virginia mint julep. The decoction, +hastily mixed and as hastily drunk, is called a julep. Bacchus, save +the mark! It is as different from the royal mint julep as corn whisky +from the imperial cognac. It does not take five minutes, an hour, or +a day to properly brew this wonderful drink, but a year at the very +least. Here is the way Colonel Bob Allen, of Curl’s Neck, on the James +River, used to prepare the julep. In the early spring, gather the young +and tender mint, have your demijohn three-quarters full of the best +whisky, and into its mouth drop the mint, rolled into little balls, and +well bruised--about a quarter of a peck, loosely heaped up, to each +gallon of liquor. Next, enough loaf sugar is saturated in water to melt +it, and sweeten the whisky _ad lib_. This fills the demijohn, which is +then sealed tight, and kept for the future, being rarely opened for at +least two years. + +The preparation of the drink is simple, and yet artistic. First, a +julep ought never to be mixed but in a silver flagon--there is such a +thing as a “perfect accord.” The demijohn being opened, the fragrant +liquor is poured into the mug, with a double handful of _crushed_ +ice--not pounded, but crushed until it is like hail or snow ice--(a +stout towel and a few blows against a brick wall will accomplish +this result); add a few sprigs of fresh mint, a few strawberries, a +tablespoonful of Jamaica rum, and you will have an elixir worthy of +Jove to drink and Ganymede to bear. + +But the swans from whom the Potomac takes its name, what of them? + +In my boyhood I have often heard the septuagenarians and octogenarians +of the lowlands speak of the vast migratory flocks of swans and geese +that would whiten the river for miles. So many were they that in the +spring-time, when the imprisoned frost was released from the ground and +the surface of the earth became soft, vast numbers would swoop upon the +fields of winter-wheat, and ruin the crop in a single day. It was a +common thing for the farmers to employ every supernumerary on the place +to guard the young and tender wheat. + +[Illustration: A POT-HUNTER WAITING FOR DUCKS.] + +But when the steamboat appeared on the scene, both swan and wild geese +vanished, never to return. + +Memory carries me back to my old ancestral home on the Virginia side of +the Potomac, directly opposite the Washington Navy Yard. + +In those days, a planter was an epicure by blood, a gourmand by +breeding, and as long as his digestion remained unimpaired he could +revel in the best of living on the choicest viands; and were he a +devotee of the gun, he could amuse himself by killing a variety of game +in such quantities that satiety would be apt to ensue. + +Yes, the noble river furnished an unfailing supply of succulent food +to the dwellers on its banks. The number of fish that swam in the +clear waters of the Potomac would seem incredible in these times of +purse-ponds and gill-nets. Our overseer used to devote one week in the +spring to hauling a small seine, and would catch an abundance of fish +to last the plantation the ensuing year, and there were enough herrings +salted in barrels, and smoked shad in kits, to half fill our huge +cellar that ran underground the whole length of the house. Fresh fish +was on every table of the plantation nine months out of the year as a +matter of course. The troll lines, set a short distance from the shore, +yielded a steady supply of catfish, eels, perch, tobacco-boxes and +fresh-water terrapin, or “tarrapin,” as they are called--a luxury only +second to their cousin the “diamond-back.” As for the ducks and geese +that made their home during winter on the flats between Washington and +Alexandria, their number was simply astounding. I have hunted in the +last decade from Havre de Grace to Tampa Bay, but never have seen such +apparently limitless numbers of ducks as circled in the very sight of +the Capitol’s dome some thirty years ago. + +The channel was on the Maryland side. It varied from one hundred to +one hundred and fifty yards across. For a mile and a half the water +was rarely over two feet on the flats at low tide, and not over a +fathom at the high-water mark. On these shallow bottoms there grew in +the greatest luxuriance a peculiar quality of indigenous plant, called +celery-grass, which wild fowl preferred to any other food. About the +middle of November the birds began to congregate in such huge flocks +that on a clear morning, when suddenly disturbed they took to wing, +they made a noise like rolling thunder. + +There were sportsmen, of course, at that time in the two cities of +Washington and Alexandria, but they confined themselves to the laziest +mode of shooting, and followed the creeks and streams that bordered or +led into the river. Here the wild fowl afforded fine sport, with but +little hardship. + +As a general rule, the family on the plantation soon became tired of +eating wild ducks; even the incomparable canvas-back palls at length +upon the palate, as much as the partridges that are devoured on a +wager, one each day for a month. The products of the poultry yard in +the end were always preferred to the spoils of the river. Frequently, +when company were coming to dinner, it was desirable to have a +plentiful supply of game on the table; so my aunt, a famous housewife, +would call up Sandy, who, being lame in one leg, was the general +utility man of the plantation, one who could turn his hand to anything +except regular labor, which he hated as a galley slave his oar, or as +much as Rip Van Winkle did to earn an honest living. Sandy resembled +Rip in more ways than one, though, fortunately for him, he had no sable +Gretchen. + +“Take Brother Bush’s gun, Sandy,” my aunt would say, “and go down and +bring me some ducks.” + +“How many does you want, Miss Jane?” + +A mental calculation, and the number was given; then Sandy hobbled off +with a matter-of-fact air, as if he were merely bound to the barnyard +to slaughter half a dozen chickens. It was just as easy an undertaking, +and one infinitely more to his taste. Calling one of the house-boys, +he would go with him to the shore, a couple of hundred yards or so +distant. Then the couple would walk in single file for some large +tree bordering the river. The ducks feeding on the wild celery close +to the shore would on their approach swim lazily from the banks out of +gun-shot. Sandy would take his position behind the trunk of the tree +and lie close. His companion would leisurely walk back to the house. +The wild fowl, seeing the cause of their alarm disappear, would slowly +circle back, and Sandy, waiting till they were well bunched, would let +go both barrels; then, denuding himself of his breeches, he would wade +in and bring out his game. The ducks never seemed to “catch on” to this +dodge, and Sandy rarely failed to fill his orders, as the drummers say, +“with promptness and dispatch.” + +There was only one pot-hunter in the neighborhood of Washington thirty +years ago--an old, grizzled, weather-beaten man, named Jerry, who +anchored his little schooner in a snug cove on our shore every winter, +and such was the unfailing supply of wild ducks that Jerry was rarely +forced to up-anchor, set his sails and speed farther down the river. +Old Jerry was assisted by his son, young Jerry, a chip of the old +block. Every Saturday these two would put their game in canvas bags and +carry them to their regular customers in Washington. + +[Illustration: A KICKER.] + +I became a fast friend of these two pot-hunters, as much, indeed, as +a boy of twelve years could with matured men. I suppose I imbibed from +them that overmastering love of sport that has made me a wanderer for a +score of years. I was of practical use to them; the sentiment and the +benefits were all on my side, for I made the gardener give them regular +rations of turnips and cabbages. In return, I was allowed the run of +their cabin, a little cuddy at which the meanest, poorest slave on the +plantation would have turned up his nose. + +[Illustration: THE CURLEW.] + +Jerry was one of the few pot-hunters who possessed a swivel--a monster +ducking gun, with a solid, uncouth stock, fastened to a barrel some +ten or twelve feet long, with a bore as large as an old twelve-pounder +Napoleon. This “thunderer” was loaded with twenty or twenty-five +drachms of powder, and between thirty and forty ounces of shot. + +Old Jerry would be in his skiff at the earliest dawn of day, and would +cruise from Washington to Alexandria, closely followed by his son and +heir, some hundred yards in the rear. + +As soon as old Jerry saw a closely bunched flock of ducks, he would +lie flat in the bottom of the skiff, and take his creeping paddles, +which were about two feet long, two inches wide by a quarter of an inch +thick, made of the best hickory, and painted a neutral color. With +his arms hanging over the sides of his skiff, and a paddle in each +hand, he could make his way evenly along, hardly raising a ripple. As +he would approach closer the ducks would get more and more restless, +swimming backward and forward, and gazing with alarm at what seemed a +log with a queer, indescribable motion on each side. At last, when the +woolen cap of a man could be seen, and underneath it the glittering +eyes could be detected, then it was that the flock would rise from the +water and take wing. That was the moment old Jerry was waiting for, +with the stock resting against his shoulder, which was protected by a +bag or pillow stuffed tight with feathers to break the recoil, and his +eye ranging along the black barrel just as an artilleryman sights his +piece before giving the word. A quick jerk of the trigger, the click +of the flint striking the pan, the flash of the priming powder, then +the deafening roar of the swivel, followed by a flash of flame, an +encircling volume of smoke, the swirl of the water as the skiff was +rocked by the kicking gun, and the deed was done. Old Jerry would rise +up, grasp his double paddle, and make for the shore to reload, while +the younger Jerry would come up in hot haste to pick up the dead, and +dispatch with his double-barrel the crippled ducks. + +Many a day have I played truant, and half the darkies on the plantation +would be searching for me, while I, in the seventh heaven of delight, +was with Jerry in his skiff following up the diving ducks whose wings +were broken. I had a little single barrel that would make the water +splash, and that was about all. + +It was my one thought by day and dream by night to possess a gun big +enough to kill the ducks at a fair distance--not a swivel by any manner +of means--I had not the slightest desire to be behind that huge piece +of ordnance when it went off. I wanted one that could strike a flock at +eighty and a hundred yards. I never divulged my thoughts at home. I was +that unfortunate “ne’er do weel,” known as the only son, and such an +intimation would have raised hysterics at the female end of the house, +and something worse at the male end of the mansion, for my paternal +ancestor was a retired officer of the navy, and when he was excited his +speech savored of the forecastle more than the cabin, and his actions +became alarming. + +A kind fate threw into my hands just such a weapon as my soul longed +for, and I look back to it now with the same affection that a man of +many _affaires de cœur_ recalls the memory of his first love. + +To make a long, rambling story short, my father bought, as a curiosity, +a long Dutch ducking gun, that was intended to be fired from the +shoulder by a man of stalwart build. Loading it carefully, the captain +told the overseer, named Robinson, to fire it. This individual was a +tall, ungainly lopsided man, who got sideways over the ground like a +crab. He had a slatternly wife, with the most vivid, burning red hair I +ever saw, and a large, callow brood of vividly headed children. + +I suppose Robinson fired the gun, for it was brought back by his eldest +hope, who said something about “Dad’s laid up; somethin’ or nuther +kicked him;” but no attention was paid to what he said. + +My father, accompanied by his youthful likeness, set out to try the +gun himself. He made me fasten a piece of paper to the side of the +ice-house, and then raised the long weapon slowly until he caught +sight, and then pulled. I saw him spin around from the force of the +blow, and utter the most blood-curdling curses against the gun, and +next seizing the harmless piece and striking it against a tree, he +broke the stock short off, then throwing the barrel down, he walked +wrathfully away. I picked up the pieces tenderly, and carried them to +Uncle Peter, the plantation carpenter, and told him I would give him a +quart of that liquor he most loved in the world if he would patch it +up. Uncle Peter agreed, if I would pledge myself to keep his share in +the affair secret. Of course I promised. + +What with braces, screws, clamps, rivets, the old piece was +reconstructed, and I was as proud of it as a girl of her first long +dress, or a spinster with a beau. It was about eight feet long, with a +bore about the size of a Queen Anne musketoon. The barrel was slightly +curved outside. The trigger was hard to pull, but the springs were +good, and every time the flint fell a handful of sparks would be +generated. + +But, shades of Vulcan, how that ancient gun did kick! No vicious +army mule, no bucking broncho, no Five Points billy-goat ever were +productive of more sudden shocks. While the recoil was not so great as +that of the famous gun that left the load stationary while it lodged +the man who fired it in the fork of the tree two hundred yards in the +rear, yet, like a champion pugilist, it sent every one to grass who +tackled it. Uncle Peter was laid out. Sandy, steadying himself with his +crutch planted firmly in the ground--a human tripod--was spun around +and hurled to mother earth, as Hercules threw Antæus. Jack, the giant +of the plantation, who led the cradlers in the harvest field, and +pulled one end of the seine against six on the other side, tackled that +weapon, and he, too, for the first time in his life, was vanquished. +Though this piece could not quite rival the matchlock that belonged to +Artemus Ward’s grandfather, which would not only knock the shootist +over, but club him when he was down, still it put every man who fired +it on the invalid list for the balance of the day. + +[Illustration: OLD JERRY AND THE DUCK GUN.] + +I would not have put that gun against my shoulder and pulled the +trigger for a month’s holiday. Uncle Peter, however, did the trick, and +fixed the gun so that it was as harmless as a copperhead with its fangs +drawn. He got the blacksmith to rivet a couple of iron rings close to +the muzzle and another on the breech just above the pan. Next, he put a +massive staple in the prow of the skiff, and another and a smaller one +on the front seat; a chain with a catch passed through staple and ring, +and held everything tight. When the gun was fired the staples received +the shock, and no kicking could loosen them. + +Uncle Peter finished the job Saturday night, and Sunday morning a +mysterious message came from the overseer’s son, Sam, that he was +waiting to see me in the shuck-house. I no sooner laid my eyes on him +than I knew his mind was full of something. + +“Well, Sam, what is it?” + +“Mister”--Sam called every white man and boy mister--“I done hearn pop +say as you were a-goin’ to use that air big gun.” + +“Yes, I am; but you keep your mouth shut about it. You hear, Sam?” + +“I ain’t a-goin’ to tell, but you’d better leave her alone.” + +“Why?” + +“Cause it’ll kick yer liver lights out, that’s why.” + +“How do you know?” + +“Ef you cross yer heart, an’ say, ‘I hope I may die,’ I tell yer.” + +This mystic process having been complied with, Sam commenced: + +“One evenin’ I slipped home from the brickyard, an’ thar warn’t anybody +at home ’cept the child’en. Pop was gone to market, an’ tuk mam wid +him. I seed the big gun sittin’ in the corner, but pop had tole me that +ef I ever tortched it he’d knock thunder outen me. So I dassent handle +it. Jest then a big hawk lighted on the barn, an’ I jest grabbed the +gun, meanin’ to shoot that bird, thrashin’ or no thrashin’. I crept +behind the corn-house, an’ run the muzzle through the logs, an’ I tuck +aim at the hawk that was watchin’ fer a chicken. I tried to draw back +the hammer to a full cock, when the hammer slipped, and it went off. At +first I thought that something had busted, then that Mose, the brindled +bull, had butt me, or that Toby, the old blind mule, had kicked me, an’ +I commenced a hollerin’, an’ jus’ then, by gum! pop an’ mam druv up, +an’ mam thought as how I was killed, an’--” Here Sam stopped to take +breath. + +“Well, Sam, what did your father do? Did he scream, too?” + +“Scream!” answered Sam; “pop ain’t that kind. No, he picked up the big +gun with one hand, an’ tuk hole on me with the other, an’ dragged me +home, me a-kickin’ an’ a-tryin’ to break away all the time, an’ then +he got that cowhide that hangs over the chimbly, an’ almost tanned the +hide offen me. But you jus’ see where that big gun kicked me,” and Sam +opened his shirt and showed me his narrow pigeon-chest that was bruised +black and blue. + +“Now I mus’ be goin’, mister. You mine me, don’t you tortch that air +big gun; as sure as yer do she’ll knock yer cold.” + +Sam’s tale frightened me, and I pulled the trigger, with my heart in my +mouth, the first time; but Uncle Peter had done his work well, and if +it kicked I never felt it. + +I remember through this long vista of years the ecstatic pleasure +of creeping up to a huge flock early one morning, and the thumping +of my heart that beat like a trip-hammer against the bottom of the +skiff--for I was lying close, and using the creeping paddles. At last, +at last! and as the flock cleared the water I let drive, and was rather +astonished to find myself safe and afloat. + +So in the Old Dominion the fox-hunter followed his hounds, and took +timber as it came. The partridge-hunter discharged his right and left +shots in the stubble. One fine morning in April, 1861, they awoke from +their easy-going, rollicking existence, and dropping the shotgun and +sporting rifle, grasped instead the sabre, the lanyard, the sword, or +the musket. + + To be continued. + +[Illustration] + + + + +PICKEREL SHOOTING ON THE MARSHES. + +BY O. W. HARD. + + +One winter, more than a score of years ago--a winter ever memorable for +its extreme cold and great depth of snow--I changed my residence to +near the head of Shelburne Pond, one of the most beautiful sheets of +water in Northern Vermont. The pond is, for the most part, skirted by +low marshes, fringed with alders, pussy and red willows, but here and +there a bold promontory projects into the water. + +All my life I had been a keen fisherman, and from my youth up I had, +in one form or another, pursued the finny denizens of the waters. I +had lured the slippery, wriggling eel and festive bullpout from many +a deep hole in the Little Otter, snatched the shy minnow from some +sheltered cove, and landed the shiner and horndace from some still +pool, panting on the sandy shore. I had trolled for pickerel on the +lake, and seen them taken by the score in a seine, had even caught one +through the ice; but of the modern method of annihilation--shooting--I +was ignorant. All through the winter I listened to the stories told by +old fishermen of wonderful shots, and of the number, ranging from one +to five, killed at a single shot. I dreamed of pickerel, and my mouth +watered in expectancy as I fancied I detected a fish-like smell arising +from the pan. Having provided myself with a fowling-piece and a goodly +store of ammunition, I waited patiently for the first signs of milder +weather to appear on the southern swale. The phœbe and redbreast, the +first harbingers of spring, were beginning to trill their morning +carols, but spring still lingered in the lap of winter. At length, +under the genial action of the sun, now high in the heavens, the snow +began to fade slowly and almost imperceptibly away, and patches of +brown sward to appear on the hillsides. + +One warm afternoon toward the middle of April, when not a cloud flecked +the sky, nor a breeze rippled the miniature sea, I sallied forth to try +my luck among the finny drove. I soon reached the edge of the north +marsh, and saw that the water was literally alive with fish, darting +hither and thither through the turbid flood, and leaving shining wakes +in the water. But a sluggish brook, now swollen beyond its capacity +with banks overflowed, presented an effectual barrier between me +and the pickerel. Not to be baffled, however, by a little water, I +commenced wading through bog and fen till I reached a fence, on which I +crossed the brook, and went splashing and floundering through a swamp, +and finally reached a very small spot of dry land. + +Here I was among myriads of shovel-nosed fellows, facing me, perfectly +motionless in the water, like a ship riding at anchor, or darting from +under my very feet into the channel of the stream. Wading out into the +shallow flood, I spied a big fish parting the water with his dorsal +and caudal fins, and swimming slowly from me. I took aim and blazed +away. To my utter astonishment, instead of one, five speckle-sided, +white-bellied pickerel floated up. If I had been excited before, I was +more so now--I had drawn blood. + +Quickly ramming a charge into my gun, I was up and at them again, and +soon had a string that did credit to a tyro, and would have done any +old fisherman’s heart good to behold. I kept up a continual fusillade +among them until the blackbirds, perched on the alders and among +the branches of the gray ashes, began to ring their evening curfew. +Then, slinging the slimy string over my shoulder, I wended my way +homeward, with the pleasing thought in my mind that, if I was wet, the +traditional fisherman’s luck was not wholly mine. + +According to Lesueur, the common pike of our inland waters, the long or +shovel-nosed pickerel (_Esox reticulatus_), attains a length of one to +three feet; the body is green above and golden yellow on the sides, +with dark, irregular, longitudinal lines, which unite in imperfect +reticulations; flesh-colored on the throat, lower parts white; beneath +the eye a black vertical band; caudal and dorsal fins greenish black, +while the others are flesh-colored. It is a very rapid swimmer, +voracious and strong; it remains apparently motionless in the water, +awaiting an opportunity to dart upon its prey, consisting of anything +it can swallow excepting the perch. While the body is suspended there +is an incessant motion of the last few rays of the dorsal and anal +fins, with a rotatory movement of the pectoral and, occasionally, of +the ventral and caudal. Such an exact equilibrium do these forces +maintain that the fish does not move in the water. This recalls what I +said before about the fish lying at anchor. He is the shark of fresh +waters, and sometimes attains a weight of thirty pounds, though the +common size is two to five pounds. + +For shooting in shallow water, small shot are, perhaps, as good as +anything, but in deep water buckshot or ball are the best. Any one at +all familiar with pickerel shooting has noticed that many fish captured +in this way show no marks; they are simply stunned or killed by +concussion. The pickerel spawns in the early spring, for that purpose +ascending narrow brooks, creeks and ditches as soon as the ice is +clear. The shooting season generally lasts from one to two weeks, or as +long as the fish run. While the ice remains firm in the ponds there is +always good sport, but when that disappears and the frogs, with throats +cleared of frost, set up their nightly croaking, it is ended. + +During the last two decades there has been such a renaissance of +sport, so to speak, among the American people, both in forest and on +stream, that what was once regarded merely as the pastime of the idle +and wealthy is now recognized as suitable even for the pillars of the +church and state. Every class seeks relaxation from business cares +and worries in outings with rod and gun. Whatever may be the cause +of this change, the fact remains that sporting has been reduced to +almost an exact science. The effects of this are very palpable; for +instance, pickerel shooting to-day is not what it was twenty, or even +ten years ago. True, we have a law which forbids catching them through +the ice, or shooting them, yet no attention is paid to it, except to +impose an occasional fine on fishermen using nets in the lake. In +direct violation of this law, great numbers are taken through the +ice, and very many shot, and were they not wonderfully prolific, the +species would soon become extinct. Whereas a few years since only a few +sportsmen shot fish, now every one that can lay his hands on a gun or +muster a spear makes a wholesale business of it during the season. + +The best sport is obtained when, after a heavy fall, the snow melts +with a rush, so as completely to cover the marshes. On a certain Good +Friday I remember shooting fish at the base of a cobble, where a +Canadian named Isaac was chopping wood. Now Isaac had a sense of humor, +and thought to spoil our fun. He was half blind, but he told us if we +shot a fish “we’d have to be darned slide about it.” We rolled them up +right under his nose, however, and he was apparently none the wiser. I +have enjoyed many a day’s outing with the pickerel, but none that would +quite compare in zest and novelty with the day when I made my first +shot. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: BALL GROUND, DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.] + + + + +THE DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB. + +BY JOHN A. RUSSELL. + + +The city of Detroit has had, within the past fifteen years, a variety +of experiences with outdoor sports. It is nearly that length of time +since the enthusiasm for boating was aroused, which spread over the +adjacent territory and culminated in bringing out amateur boating crews +of such national fame as the Hillsdales and the Sho-wae-cae-mettes. +That enthusiasm was intense while it lasted. Every schoolboy, and many +of larger growth for that matter, who could command the wherewith to +buy or hire a boat, was out on the river, practising the characteristic +strokes of Terwilliger or the Nadeaus. + +Amateur boating clubs were organized in great profusion, and their +boat-houses lined docks and slips in such numbers that the visitor +to Detroit was amazed, and even the native could hardly account for +the enthusiasm that could support them. Physicians who had patients +of sedentary habits had a general prescription of “Take a little spin +on the river in the evening,” which was administered _quantum suff_. +Even the ladies were interested in the sport. It was no uncommon sight +to see big barges industriously propelled by young girls and maidens +grown, with here and there a more elderly person, who, with advancing +years, had not forgotten the long sweep or the feathering motion of the +oar. + +The organization of a baseball club and its admission to the National +League diverted some of the enthusiasm which had been given to +boating, and the city became “ball-crazy” at once. The paroxysms +became more marked every time the team won a substantial victory. +Interest increased in the work of the professional club. Good hands +began to look after its financial affairs, its positions were well +supported, while the small boy and the devotee of physical culture +took to ball-playing in summer, in preference to rowing, with a dash +of gymnasium work in the winter in which boxing and sparring were the +leading features. Getzein, Brouthers and the “good Deacon” White were +put up as the idols to be worshipped in the places whence Durell, +Dusseau, Van Valkenburgh and the other famous oarsmen of Monroe, Ecorse +and Hillsdale had fallen. Even those who were not active, working +devotees of the national game were found quite equal to taking their +exercise by proxy on the cushioned seats of the grandstand, or in the +more exposed positions of the “bleaching-boards.” + +[Illustration: THE HIGH POLE VAULT.] + +Boating had its day. The fast oarsmen dropped back into semi-obscurity. +The Montie Brothers, of Ecorse, who were in the famous Wah-wah-tah-see +Club, returned to their avocations, as did Schweikart and Alder, +of the Centennial Four of Detroit, while their associates, Parker +and McMahon, developed into professional athletes and instructors. +Only one of the old clubs--the Detroit--retains its organization and +equipment in anything like the style in which they were maintained +during the prevalence of the aquatic fever. Many of the oarsmen, +having grown older, have taken to yachting as a pastime. For this +there are unlimited facilities on the Detroit River and in the lakes +above and below the city. There is not nearly as much exertion and +training required for a yachting expedition as for a mile-and-a-half +straightaway, and yet there is quite as much judgment called into play +in handling sheets and tiller, with immeasurably more real sport. + +Baseball, while it has palled somewhat, seems to have encouraged the +taste for individual exertion. Up to a very recent period that taste +was inclined to the pastime from which it came--baseball. No great +interest was taken in general athletics by the majority until about +a year ago. Prior to that time an organization for the promotion +of general athletics had existed in the Detroit Amateur Athletic +Association. Its membership, however, was small, and though its +ambitions may have been great, its achievements were few, one alone +excepted; that being its expansion into the present Detroit Athletic +Club, and its fitting up of gymnasia and grounds. The Amateur Athletic +Association was very like good King William IV. in that “nothing, +perhaps, in life so became it like the leaving of it.” It merged itself +into the movement for the new club, of which it was the precursor, and +its members the founders and boomers until there was no further need +of booming; for the present club is a pretty healthy infant. Its birth +occurred at a time when its existence was most needed, and just after +the period when boating had lost favor, and the ambitious athletes +had learned that baseball had not all that could satisfy the utmost +desires of the athletic spirit. It had a manifest advantage in being +able to offer a greater diversity of sports than boating and baseball, +which, after all, are two very limited sections of the general field of +athletics. + +The new association came into existence a year and a half ago. It is +not in its organization like the Montreal Association, described by +Mr. Whyte in ~Outing~ for April, a federation of the athletic +clubs of the city, but is a distinctive and independent club, with +its own equipment and government. It was formed as a joint-stock +corporation, with five hundred shares of the nominal value of $10.00. +The demand for these became so great that a premium was soon obtainable +for certificates of membership, their value going up until they are +now held at $50.00 per share. The receipts from the sale of stock gave +the young club a strong treasury from the start. The grounds of the +old Athletic Association were secured on a long lease. They are on +Woodward Avenue, in the heart of the finest residential portion of the +city, and the plot is, perhaps, the largest piece of desirable property +now unoccupied in the city; it contains something over 300,000 square +feet, the land being, in round figures, 400 by 800 feet in dimensions. +The six acres thus afforded have a value of nearly $200,000. They are +readily accessible from both the business and residential quarters, and +face two leading streets. + +This property secured, steps were at once taken to erect a building +suited to the needs of the club. There were some buildings on the tract +barely fit for temporary quarters. In these the club housed itself +until the present structure (see illustration, p. 212) was completed +and opened last March. The house has a frontage of 107 feet and an +extreme depth of 68 feet. It is of pressed brick with brownstone +and terra-cotta ornaments, and possesses in its design much of the +spirit of the newer styles of construction seen in English library and +gymnasium buildings. Its space is well allotted. The entrance-hall is +also a reception-room, with a cheery grate in pressed-brick designs. +An ornamental staircase leads to the upper floor. The lower floor, +besides containing the reception-room, has on it a ladies’ parlor and +toilet-room, offices for the directors and stewards, a billiard-room, +reading-room, the baths, and a locker-room. A wing on a lower level +contains the bowling-alleys, while the upper floor is devoted to +the gymnasium, the only reserved space being used for a small +refreshment-room. Saved room under staircases is utilized for closets +and chests, and there is not an inch of waste space in the house. The +kitchen and accommodations for servants of the club are under the roof, +in the attic story. + +[Illustration: THE RUNNERS OF THE DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.] + +[Illustration: THE FOOTBALL ELEVEN, DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB.] + +The various departments of the club-house are complete in their +appointments. The reception-hall is a roomy apartment, finished in +hard wood, which opens into the directors’ room and the reading-room +on the one side, and a billiard-parlor and the bowling-alley on the +other. The directors’ room is the headquarters of the caretakers and +the office of the club. The reading-room is spacious, a big table +and easy, antique oak chairs forming the furnishings, the walls +being decorated with sketches of other club-houses and a series of +photographic reproductions of the disc-throwers of the ancient Roman +period. The mental pabulum furnished is of the class one would most +naturally expect to find amid such associations--the leading journals +and magazines devoted to athletics, the daily papers of the city, and +the literary magazines. The billiard-parlor contains three Schulenberg +tables, oak-finished, with furniture harmonizing with the club-house +furnishings. It has already shown itself to be rather too small for the +demands likely to be made upon it, but the house has been so designed +that a wing may be extended without marring the harmony. Wrought-iron +designs in gas-fixtures complete the furnishings of this part of the +house. + +Just beyond the reading-room, and disconnected from it, are the bath +and locker rooms. A separate entrance to them is afforded from the +grounds, while they are also connected by a private staircase with the +gymnasium overhead. The lockers, in number about 300, are arranged in +“L” fashion, the spaces between each set of six affording the privacy +desirable for dressing-rooms. + +The bath-room caused much marvel in these parts. It is 30 by 16 feet in +size. The centre of marble-paved floor is occupied by the plunge-bath, +20 feet long and 12 feet wide. Its sides are lined with white enameled +bricks, and a constant flow of water is secured from the city +service-pipes. It varies in depth from three to five feet. At one end +of the bath-room four marble-fitted shower-baths are located, and close +by, an equal number of foot-baths. + +Just beyond the bath and reading rooms, on the side of the house +facing the grounds, and so depressed as to give a clay bottom for +the structure, is the wing which contains the bowling-alleys. These +are six in number, of the regulation length of 65 feet, and 42 inches +wide. They are admirably equipped; the entire work, as well as that +of the gymnasium above, having been executed by the Narragansett, R. +I., Machine Company. A gallery for spectators is located behind the +dead-line, above the level of the alleys. + +The entire upper story, aside from that portion given to the lunch-room +and staircase landings, is given up to the gymnasium. This, of course, +is the feature of the clubhouse. It is a well-lighted, lofty hall, +76 by 32 feet, there being fifteen feet available in height from the +hardwood floor to the open-timbered roof. The apparatus, being all new, +is of the latest designs. The weight and pulley system of machines is +used in every conceivable form for developing the muscles of the arms, +chest, legs, neck, shoulders and the grip. Hand-over-hand climbing +is afforded by ropeladders, poles, and hemp ropes suspended from the +roof-timbers. Vaulting facilities appear in horses and frames, and a +system of parallel and horizontal bars is provided with the necessary +mattings to prevent injury. Besides these more elaborate pieces of +machinery there are bells and Indian clubs innumerable for the classes +in calisthenics, and gloves and foils for the devotees of the manly +art and the gentleman’s sport. This practically completes the list of +indoor sports. + +[Illustration: F. D. STANDISH. + +FRANK W. EDDY. + +JOHN H. CLEGG.] + +For outdoor exercise the club has admirable facilities. The big tract +of ground which the club controls has very little, comparatively, +of its area taken up by the club-house, and one standing on the big +second-floor balcony which extends over the billiard-room on the +lower floor, will notice that the turf that stretches in front of +him for a furlong is cut up for a diversity of uses. The running +track is the most noticeable feature. It is a quarter of a mile from +start to finish, was laid out by the noted trainer of the Brooklyn +Club, Jack McMaster, and was built from his designs. It is 16 feet in +width at all points except on the finishing stretch and the 220-yards +straightaway. This latter takes in the south side of the quarter-mile +track as far as it goes and has a width of twenty feet. The track +was laid last spring, is cinder-packed to the depth of a foot and +has a clay foundation, all of which will combine to make it an ideal +running-course in time. There was some disappointment with it at first, +as it was feared it would be a trifle slow, but the rains and rolling +have eliminated its spongy qualities and made it perfect, so that fast +time can be expected upon it. + +Within the circle formed by the track the two baseball diamonds are +laid out. To the north of the track, and in shelter, are the tennis +courts, four of them being “skin” courts, the rest, half a dozen, being +the turf courts which are not so much in favor. The field is a fine one +for cricket and football, both of which games are cultivated. Far down +in the extreme corner there looms up during the summer a skeleton-like +structure, which unjoints itself with the advent of winter, and forms +a toboggan slide with an incline and a slide over an eighth of a mile +long. Another corner is devoted in winter to a curling rink, where the +royal Scotch game is played by its admirers with the greatest zest. The +Detroit Curling Club has many members in the athletic club, and for +their benefit a rink was set apart for the jolly Scotchmen and their +besoms and curling-stones last winter. So pronounced was the success of +the experiment that it will probably be repeated this coming winter. + +The readers of ~Outing~ will not be amazed, then, to know that +with such facilities, the club’s membership kept growing as fast +as applications could be investigated and applicants admitted. The +_personnel_ of the management was drawn from the young-man class of +active workers. The president, Frank W. Eddy, had been the originator +of the more modest Amateur Athletic Association, as he was of its +successor, the present organization; and to him and half a dozen close +associates the major part of the success of the club is attributable. +Mr. Eddy was also one of the promoters of the movement for the Amateur +Athletic Union of the United States, of which he is vice-president +and one of the strongest backers. The first meeting of the union took +place in the grounds of the Detroit Club in September. Mr. Eddy’s work +was supplemented by that of a faithful set of directors, and between +them they have managed to run the membership pretty close up to its +permanent limit of five hundred. + +[Illustration: IN THE BOWLING ALLEYS.] + +[Illustration: THE GYMNASIUM.] + +It must not, however, be for a moment believed that all these, or even +a liberal percentage of them, are practised athletes. The membership +of the club is mainly drawn from the class of young men between 18 and +25 years of age, in that period of life where sedentary careers are +apt to tell hardest on constitutions however vigorous. There are many +members, it is true, who had been accustomed to gymnasium work in the +period of the boating excitement, but besides these, and the nucleus +drawn from the old Amateur Athletic Association, it is fair to say +that nine out of ten of the members were novices when they entered the +club. There had been no such thing in Detroit as the cultivation of +general athletic sports until this organization took hold, and whatever +was cultivated was usually run to death. The private gymnasia were +the first to break the ice; but even in these men undertook to rival +Samson or Hercules in a week’s time, and, straining themselves, very +often discouraged others as much as they caused injury to themselves. +The private gymnasia were ephemeral affairs which were unsatisfactory, +for the most part, and they never afforded the opportunity for +long-continued training. Their prices, usually from ten to fifteen +dollars for a two or three months’ term, were rather too much for young +men of moderate means, and even where these drawbacks were eliminated +there was no facility for outdoor work during the summer season under +the direction of a proper tutor. The new club’s dues of twelve or +fifteen dollars a year, at most, had an advantage from the standard +of economy, and the price at which shares were sold early in its +history made it possible for many to join it at a comparatively slight +expenditure of money, taking into consideration the advantages gained. +The novices took hold with a will, the advantage of a good instructor +being very great, and under direction they have shown that there is +much to be hoped for. + +The instructor of the club is John Collins, a young man of twenty-five. +He has also devoted some time to training in the gymnastic department +of the Catholic Club and the local branch of the Young Men’s Christian +Association. He has been five or six years in the business now, and is +acknowledged to be the best all-round athlete in the city to-day. His +special points of excellence are the grace and science of his boxing, +and the expertness with which he handles the foils. He is self-trained, +and during his career has boxed and sparred with most of the great men +in the business, having stood up with Jack Burke, Pat Killen, Dennie +Kelleher, “Reddy” Gallagher, Jack King, and others of equal fame. His +earliest aspirations were in the direction of a private tutorship, +and he was picked up first by the proprietors of some of the private +gymnasia, where his methods and skill attracted so much attention as to +secure him his present place. He is lightly built, quick and active, +and has the necessary amount of patience with his pupils to qualify +him for the difficulties of teaching. So far he has proved popular and +profitable to the members of the club. + +[Illustration: THE CLUB HOUSE.] + +It must not be supposed for a moment from the foregoing remarks about +the novelty of athletic training in Detroit, that there are no members +of the club who are above the level of mediocrity. That would be far +from the truth. There are quite a number of athletes who were drawn +almost directly from the teams of the colleges in which they were +educated to the new movement at home, and these are among the very +active workers. The captain of the club is Nathan C. Williams, Jr., +who was a Yale graduate of ’84, and is now in business in Detroit. He +has charge of the field sports of the club, is responsible for its +property used in gymnastic work, and arranges, with the aid of his +lieutenants, the various exhibitions and field days which are given +from time to time. Mr. Williams was manager of the Yale baseball +team in his college days, and had an enviable record at New Haven. +He has two lieutenants, Sidney T. Miller, a young lawyer, a graduate +of Trinity College, Hartford, and Benjamin S. Comfort, Principal of +the Tappan School, who was also inducted into the spirit of athletic +work in one of the Eastern colleges. The club’s secretary, George J. +Bradbeer, is an excellent hammer-thrower, an allround athlete, and was +a good ball-player in by-gone years. The club’s president, Mr. Eddy, +is a sprinter and ball-player of local note, and rarely misses a daily +jog in good time on the cinder track. The University of Michigan, +which is located so near Detroit, has furnished quite a number of +young athletes, among them Royal T. Farrand, who held the University +light-weight championship in boxing; Fred T. Ducharme, who has won a +score of running races in good, if not fast time, and who promises +to develop into a great jumper; Geo. P. Codd, a Michigan sophomore, +the crack pitcher of the University ball team, and a good single +player in lawn tennis; and Albert E. Miller, a young lawyer, who is +the best tennis player in the club--so much so, in fact, that he is +generally required to give handicaps to contestants. Mr. Miller was +first lieutenant and manager of the club’s events last year, and is +this season catcher in the club’s regular baseball nine. So far none +of the runners have made startling time, except in base-running, which +is hardly a recognized feat. In this, however, W. H. Reidy has equaled +the best time made by professionals, 14 4-5 seconds, and the feat has +been time and again duplicated by members of the club in 15 seconds. +Ben. S. Warren, a recent accession from Yale, has developed into a +fast sprinter, having made the 100-yard dash in 10 2-5 seconds, the +best record for the feat being 10 seconds even. In last year’s sports +Warren won the quarter-mile dash in 60 1-5 seconds, and has since made +it in 54 seconds. This year a fast runner has been developed in Ed. +Sanderson, a young student, who with ten yards start made the quarter +on a slow track in 57 seconds. W. A. Chope and M. W. Sales, all young +athletes, are among the more promising of the fast ones. + +[Illustration: THE RECEPTION PARLOR.] + +[Illustration: JOHN COLLINS, TRAINER, DETROIT CLUB.] + +The baseball team is a strong one. The regular nine is made up as +follows: A. E. Miller, catcher; Charles T. Miller, pitcher; Ed. E. +Swift, third base; W. H. Reidy, short stop; Wm. C. Johnson, second +base; Wm. H. Reid, first base; Walter A. Chope, left field; Mart. J. +Root, centre field; Charles K. Foster, right field. Of these Chope has +the reputation of being a phenomenal left-fielder for an amateur; Root +is a man who had a good deal of practice with his fellow students at +Yale; Reidy is a good pitcher, and Reid is a player who made a name +with the Class Club, one of the strongest local amateur teams. Besides +these, there are substitutes innumerable; so many, in fact, that the +team has rarely played together as named. + +The team is managed by Principal Comfort. It has already won a majority +of the games played against the State University team, and the strong +local nines with which the city abounds. The ball club’s uniform is +gray and blue, the Athletic Club’s colors being gray and black. + +Football has a good number of devotees. Sidney T. Miller, Professor +Comfort, Strathearn Hendrie, a Trinity College man, Albert E. Miller, +Edward E. Swift and R. Humffreys-Roberts, the latter a well-known +English player, are among the leaders of the sport, but they have been +unlucky in their weather. The coming year will be utilized to the best +advantage, however, when some interesting games are promised. + +The tennis players include A. E. Miller, H. T. Cole, Jerome H. Remick, +Geo. P. Codd, David S. Carter, Sidney T. Miller and H. E. Avery. +Codd and A. E. Miller represented the club at the tournament of the +North-western Lawn Tennis Association, at Chicago, in July, 1887, tying +for second place in the doubles. + +[Illustration: RACING OVER HURDLES.] + +The intention of the club management is to have a boating department +in the near future. The City of Detroit owns Belle Isle, an island, +700 acres in extent, opposite the city, which has been turned into one +of the finest public parks of the country. The yachting and boating +clubs have taken or are preparing to take up their quarters on the +shores of the island, where a congenial location and ready access to +clear water are afforded. Here the Athletic Club’s boating department +will be located, the city gymnasium of the club affording facilities +for training the oarsmen and keeping them in shape. Those who know +the history of boating in the West and are familiar with the names of +the leaders, will recognize what the club has to hope for when it is +stated that its membership includes John H. Clegg and Fred Standish, +who have made the best records in pair-oared amateur races for years +back. Both men are developments of the boating furore of a dozen +years ago. Clegg took to the water for his health, and Standish for +recreation, and they have been rowing together since 1881. In that year +they won the senior pairs of the N. W. A. R. A., at Diamond Lake, and +in 1882 took the senior pairs of the Mississippi Valley Amateur Rowing +Association, at Creve Cœur Lake, near St. Louis. They were winners at +Lachine, Quebec, in 1882. In 1883 and ’84 Clegg did not row, but in +1885 he returned to his old love, winning with Standish the pair-oared +contests at New Orleans, at Moline, Ill., at St. Louis and at Detroit. +At Hamilton, Ont., in August, 1885, they defeated Phillips and Hard, +of the New York Athletic Club, in the Canadian annual regatta, winning +in their class. Their record in 1885 was four straight victories and +the lowering of the two-mile record. Clegg has decided views on the +amateur question, and has contributed several articles to the press +which meet the approval of the leading amateurs. He is opposed to +semi-professionalism, paid crews, and those who row in the interest +of backers, and believes all such should be excluded from competition +against genuine amateurs. Mr. Clegg is a genuine American amateur, and +with him and his co-worker, as leaders, there seems no reason why there +should not be a healthy renaissance of boating among the members of the +club. + +It was this body of athletic enthusiasts who induced the Amateur +Athletic Union of the United States to hold its first national meeting +on the grounds of the Detroit Athletic Club. Those who are interested +in amateur athletics already know of the success of that first meeting, +held in the middle of September last. The entries included the leaders +in the various departments of field and track work, and numbered 120, +many competing in several events. There was excellent weather, a crowd +of fully 5,000 people to enjoy the clever work, and much enthusiasm +on the part of the participants and spectators. Some fast work was +done in the running and jumping, although some people had fears that +the track would prove rather slow. These fears were dispelled by the +results, which were, in some cases, within one-fifth of a second of +the best records. There was no record-breaking, however, save in one +event--throwing the 56-lb. hammer. Till the meeting, Mr. C. A. J. +Queckberner, of the Staten Island Athletic Club, had held the American +championship on a best record of 26 ft. 4¾ in., while W. J. M. Barry, +of Queen’s College, Cork, Ireland, had made 27 ft. The first essays of +Queckberner fell below his own mark, and the work was tame until Mr. W. +L. Coudon, of the New York Athletic Club, broke the world’s record by +throwing the clumsy weight three-fourths of an inch beyond the distance +made by Mr. Barry. When, in further competition with Queckberner, +Coudon threw the weight 27 ft. 9 in., the excitement was intense, for +even before the official announcement was made, it was apparent that he +had beaten his previous throws by nearly a foot. + +The running was of good character, with such contestants as Malcolm W. +Ford, C. H. Sherrill, F. Westing, and a host of younger men from the +New York Athletic clubs, and one each from Detroit and Philadelphia. +Mr. C. H. Sherrill, of Yale College, suffered an unfortunate injury to +his leg in the 220-yard dash, and Mr. T. P. Conneff, of the Manhattan +Club, was badly worn out by the five-mile run, of which he was the +winner; but beyond these there were no accidents to mar the occasion. +The running times made very nearly approached records, but in no case +excelled them. + +The jumping did not come so close to records as the running. The +hammer-throwing beat Queckberner’s record of 102 ft. 7 in., W. J. M. +Barry, who has an American record of 129 ft. 1½ in., throwing the +16-lb. hammer from a seven-foot circle, without follow, 127 ft. 1 in. +Queckberner beat his present championship record by throwing 106 ft. 11 +in. The vaulting was short. In the tug-of-war the “Busy Bees” Athletic +Association of Company B, 22d Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y., competed with a +four-men team of the Manhattan Athletic Club, best two in three pulls, +time limit, and weight limited to 600 pounds. The “Busy Bees” won the +first and third pulls, the Athletic Club taking the second. + +About all the events there was a dash and interest and that reassuring +appearance of “squareness” which makes the work of the Athletic Union +so attractive. This promises to be one of the distinctive marks of +amateurism as opposed to professionalism. The management was excellent. +Every event went off on time and without a hitch. The timekeeping, the +judging, and the announcement were done with a rapidity that pleased +spectators and left a good impression both of the National Union and +its local representative. One immediate result of the success of the +meeting was a boom in the local club’s membership. + +[Illustration: THROWING THE HAMMER.] + +There are many reasons why Detroit people are proud of their Amateur +Athletic Club. The success of the idea which they aim to promote, the +success of the national meeting, the character of the work done and the +excellence of the facilities for doing it, the energy of the officers +and the discipline of the members, and, above all, the vast physical +benefit to result from the encouragement of the athletic idea, are +among those reasons. Already the good work has begun to bear fruit +in the establishment of other gymnasia. The Young Men’s Christian +Association has equipped one, though not on quite so extensive a +scale as the Athletic clubs. The Catholic Club has a class of about +sixty, mostly its younger members, in training in a modest yet +commodious “gym,” and the dealers tell the writer that the quantity of +apparatus sold for private and home use during the past year is simply +astonishing. These are direct results of the work of the Athletic Club, +and there is hope for more. + + + + +GRAY EVENING. + + + The evening’s gown of gray + Sweeps over the sighing grain: + She comes, with her tender smile, + As the sunset’s glories wane; + And the flowers nod to her, + And the grasses kiss her feet, + And she sings to the weary day + A lullaby, low and sweet: + Sing soft, sing low, + O Evening gray! + Hush thou to rest + The weary day. + + The morning was very fair, + And she laughed for very glee; + And the blossoms, waking, breathed + Of love and of hope to me. + But love and hope have waned + As the sunset colors wane-- + O Evening, come, for the day + Is athrob with fevered pain! + Sing soft, sing low, + Sweet Evening gray! + Lull thou to rest + The heart-wrung day. + + _Charles Prescott Shermon._ + + + + +TO THE PACIFIC THROUGH CANADA. + +BY ERNEST INGERSOLL. + + +PART II. + +Trusty to his promise, the porter calls us at early dawn. The train is +rushing between massive walls of rock, rising to unseen heights and +confining the railway to the bank of a swift green river. The official +is already up, and standing upon the rearmost platform with closely +buttoned coat, for the morning is chilly in the shadows of these Alps. + +“This is The Gap,” he explains, “through which Bow River comes out. +We follow it almost to its sources, before we come to Kicking-horse +Pass, through the central range, or Main Divide. Better have the ladies +called. We shall be at Banff in an hour, and they ought not to miss any +of this.” + +He touches an electric button, directs the responding porter to summon +the Vassar family, and we return to the platform. + +The Gap has now been traversed, and we can see the great mountains +on each side of it. Then we turn northward and run along the river +between gigantic upheavals. Their tops are half hidden in the lingering +night-mists, but rifts now and then reveal bristling, snow-crested +peaks, rosy with premonitions of sunrise, and tiers upon tiers of +cliffs bounded by long lines of snow resting upon narrow ledges, and +broken by gorges of unmeasured depth filled with blue shadows and +swirling fog. It is a wonderful, inspiring, never-to-be-forgotten +sight. Awakened and driven out by the skirmish line of the hosts of +the morning, the clouds reluctantly forsake their rocky fastnesses, +and more and more of the rugged grandeur and height of the bordering +ranges, right and left, come out. Soon far-away peaks show daintily, +“like kisses on the morning sky,” as one of the ladies expressed it, +in imagery chaste, no doubt, but rather cold; and finally, as we sweep +toward the face of the gigantic precipices of Cascade Mountain (which +seem to rise courteously and advance to welcome us), even the valley +shakes off its blanket of haze, and sunshine pours over the crystal +heights to sparkle upon dewy leaves and glistening river. + +Under these brilliant auspices we step out of the car and into a +carriage at Banff, and are whirled away to a great hotel, built upon +the grandest site in Canada. + +“This hotel is the Company’s property, and here you are to be my guests +for the day,” was the command of our genial official, as he registered +the names of the party. “It is too early for breakfast. Let us go to +the upper balconies and have a look at the mountains. This is Canada’s +National Park, you know, and she is proud of it.” + +What a picture that north-western balcony opened to us! In the +foreground green rolling woodland dotted with turfed openings and the +red roofs of cottages or white dots of tents. Then the tortuous and +shining course of the Bow River, sweeping gracefully to the right. On +the left, steep and wooded slopes; ahead, high mountains--some with +their splintered spires towering above rugged and darkly forested +foothills, others more distant and breaking into jagged outlines, +gashed by blue gulfs and piled with snow, others still farther away, +filmy and white upon the western horizon, where the water-shed of the +continent rises supreme and superb. Nearer is the cliff-fronted mass of +Cascade Mountain, 5,000 feet high, its slender waterfall trembling like +a loose ribbon down its broad breast--the badge of its identity. Past +it, through a rocky gap, our eyes follow the lower Bow, sparkling with +ripples, parted by islets, shadowed by leaning spruces and cottonwoods, +to the green ridges where the railway runs, and on to where the white +wall of the Fairholme range, a massive rank of heights, upholds wide +spaces of stainless snow. + +“Just behind that mighty wall, whose tallest peak--Mt. Peechee--is over +10,000 feet in altitude,” our friend tells us, “there is an immense +cañon, occupied by a narrow and very deep lake. The Indians believe it +to be haunted by malignant demons, and I don’t wonder at it. Cliffs +thousands of feet in height rise straight from its margin, and its +waters are shadowed by the Devil’s Head and other peaks, that can be +seen for a hundred miles out on the plains. To cruise upon its surface +in a canoe and catch the monstrous trout that lurk in its coves, while +the echoes of your talk and paddling wander from scaur to scaur, and +wild goats come to the edge of the crags to look down upon you, is an +experience not to be duplicated easily anywhere else in the world.” + +“What is this lake called?” + +“Devil’s or Devil’s Head Lake. We will drive over there this afternoon, +if you like. I think the views you get from that road are the best of +the whole park scenery, unless, perhaps, you except the view of Mount +Massive and the Main Divide from a boat on the Vermilion Lakes. Now let +us go to the other end of the building.” + +“Here,” he continued, when we were gathered upon the south-eastern +balcony, “you are looking _down_ the line of the Rockies, instead of +up their length, as you were before. This is the valley of the Spray, +which joins the Bow just below the hotel.” + +We could not see the river, but we could hear its rushing, and readily +believed our friend’s stories of the trout in its pools. On the left of +the valley long slopes of whitish limestone rose bare and glistening +with dew far above the forest, until they terminated in two sharply cut +peaks, from which fell suddenly away, for many hundreds of feet, the +precipices that we had half seen earlier that morning. This was Mount +Rundle--an excellent type of the mountains of stratified limestone, +shaped like wedges laid upon their sides, in parallel rows north and +south, which constitute the eastern half of the Rocky Mountain system +in this part of the world. The eastern aspect of all these ranges, +therefore, is a rank of precipices--tier upon tier of nearly or quite +level ledges of limestone, strongly indicated by banks of snow and +lines of trees--broken into separate headlands, and bordered at their +base by bush-covered slopes of débris. Here and there a great gap +allows you to pass to the rear of these headlands, when you find them +sloping back with much regularity into the forest-covered valley, +beyond which another rank of cliff-faced promontories again confronts +you, and so on until the central water-shed is reached. + +“Why does that curious little cloud stay so persistently on the slope +of that hill?” asked one of the ladies, pointing to the right. + +“That is the steam from the hot springs,” was the reply, “and after +breakfast we will walk up there.” + +The hot mineral springs at Banff lie along the base of Sulphur +Mountain, where they flow from exits round which great masses of tufa +have been built up. The upper spring, some 700 feet above the river, +commands a wonderful view of “peak o’ertopping peak,” with green vales +and broken crags between. From this spring a large stream of sulphurous +water, at a warmth of 120° F., is conducted down to the hotel, to +supply the luxurious bath-houses. More plebeian arrangements exist +at the spring itself for bathing and drinking the waters, which have +proved wonderfully efficacious in curing a great variety of diseases, +especially obstinate cases of rheumatism and dyspepsia. Two miles +distant, up the Bow, are two other prominent springs--one an open +basin, and the other a large pool, occupying a dome-shaped cavern built +out of its own depositions when it was more copious, and this is now +a most curious place. Originally, the only way of reaching the water +was by squeezing one’s self through the chimney at the top of the dome +and sliding down a slippery ladder, like entering a Tchuckchi house +in Siberia. Now a tunnel has been bored through the side of the dome, +level with the surface of the diminished water, and you go straight in +from your dressing-room in the rustic cottage at the entrance. Another +pretty cottage admits to the open pool. In both the pool and the cave +the water is pleasantly warm, clear and almost tasteless, though highly +impregnated with salts, giving it a close resemblance to the Arkansas +Hot Springs. These improvements of the springs, and the good roads +throughout the Park, are the work of the Government, which is making +easily accessible all the most interesting localities and best points +of view. + +We could have spent a week in this most delightful spot--rambling, +climbing, sketching, shooting (outside the Park limits), fishing and +boating. The beautiful river and lakes, and the falls, have hardly been +mentioned, even. But time presses, and next morning sees us reluctantly +resuming our journey. + +[Illustration: MOUNT STEPHEN FROM THE WEST.] + +From Banff we pushed straight westward through wooded defiles into the +upper valley of the Bow, where the scenery is upon an even grander +scale. On the left runs a line of magnificent promontories--prodigious +piles of ledges studded with square bastions and peaked towers. On +the right is a gray sloping wall, 5,000 feet high, of slaty strata +tilted on edge, and notched into numberless sharp points and splinters, +like the teeth of a badly hacked saw. Between the two, right in +the foreground, stands Castle Mountain, isolated, lofty, brown and +yellow, vividly contrasting with the remainder of the landscape, and +terminating in a ruinous round tower from whose top pennants of mist +are waving more than a mile above our heads. As we roll past its base +it gradually changes from a lone castle tower to an escarpment of +enormous cliffs. These can be climbed, and the expectation of what the +outlook would be is more than realized. + +But we must not forget in the grandeur of the Castle the splendid +peaks fronting the valley on the left--Pilot, a leaning pyramid poised +high upon a pedestal of square-cut ledges; next to it the more massive +summit of Copper Mountain, to which you may almost ride on horseback +along an old road cut to the copper mines near its apex; then the green +gap of Vermilion Pass (into the Kootenay Valley), through whose opening +we catch alluring glimpses of many a haughty spire and bristling +ice-crown along the Continental Divide. To the north of this gap +stretches Mount Temple’s rugged wall, and beyond it, supreme over all, +Lefroy’s lonely peak--loftiest and most majestic of them all. + +When Castle Mountain and the steel-pointed sierra behind it have +swerved to the right, we see northward the great glacier that nourishes +the childhood of the Bow with milky meltings, and in the midst of a +galaxy of hoary peaks the noble form of Mount Hector--a monument to +the first explorer of Kickinghorse Pass. Then, leaving the Bow, we +climb the gorge of a little creek and enter the jaws of a narrow gap +through the central range. Upon either hand rise rugged walls crowned +with Alpine peaks, framing a chaos of snow-fields, glaciers, and +sharp black summits westward--some close by, and showing the scars of +ages of battle with eternal winter; others calm and blue in the far +distance. Yet here in the pass it is warm and pleasant: trees flourish, +flowers bloom, cataracts leap and flash in the sunlight. Backward we +review in profile the line of mountains we have passed; beside us are +the crumbling terraces and turrets of the Cathedral, thousands of feet +straight upward; ahead, reflected in a lake whose waters flow east +to the Atlantic and west to the Pacific, the stately head of Mount +Stephen, brandishing cloud standards and carrying with royal dignity +its ermine mantle of snow and gleaming coronet of ice. + +[Illustration: THE SELKIRK PEAKS.] + +We have pierced the Rockies and are looking down the Pacific slope. +Range after range of blue-and-white crests, rising from valleys of +forest and prairie, burst upon our awed vision. The scene is past +adequate description; we do not say much about it to one another, but +only look; and when the descent has been accomplished, and some hours +later we halt on the bank of the Columbia (only 100 miles from its +source), we are almost stunned with the sublime panorama that has been +unrolled so rapidly before our eyes, each scene more astonishing in +its magnitude and beauty than the last. + +Yet we have crossed only one of the three great subdivisions of the +Canadian Rockies. Just ahead lie the Selkirks, and beyond that is the +Gold Range. Then we shall cross a wide, hilly plateau region. Finally +we must follow the Fraser River in its profound cutting through the +Cascades range, before we see the coast of the Pacific. The whole +distance from the eastern base of the Rockies to the coast--Banff to +Vancouver--is done in thirty-six hours, and the night travel comes +where there is little loss of fine scenery; but it is too much to take +in at once. Our stop of only one day at Banff was not only a rest, but +allowed us to become acquainted with the mountains and prepared us for +what we should see ahead; and we mean to stop again at the summit of +the Selkirks. + +The ascent of the Selkirk range from the east is begun in a regular +gateway, where the Beaver River pitches down some rocky stairs at the +bottom of a chasm, and is continued along the forested side of its +valley, gradually ascending until the track is a thousand feet above +the stream. Here the splendor of the Selkirks is manifest in the west, +where a rank of stately mountains, side by side and loaded with snow, +are grandly outlined. Then we turn up a branch cañon and enter Roger’s +Pass through the terrific cleft between Mount Carroll and The Hermit. + +In another place[2] the present writer has described his first +impressions of these singularly impressive heights--the climax of the +transcontinental trip. + +At the western extremity of Roger’s Pass lies the Great Glacier, where +the Company has built a beautiful little hotel, within twenty minutes’ +walk of the ice. It would have been nothing short of criminal to have +gone past this point without stopping. + +The path through the forest, the huge size of whose trees, and the +redundancy of whose mossy undergrowth, bespeak our nearness to the warm +coast, is along a brawling river gushing from underneath the glacier. +Presently the vast slope of creeping ice is before us, completely +filling the head of the gorge. All the glaciers we have hitherto seen +were near the very crest of the range, but this one comes far down into +the forest, so that flowers and shrubbery are sprouting all around its +lower margin, whence a dozen rivulets gurgle out to feed the river. +The rounded forefoot is broken, where blocks of loosened ice have been +sloughed off, and seamed with numberless cracks, the commencement of +further sloughings. These cracks and the freshly exposed faces are +vividly blue, while liquid turquoise fills all the cavities and deepens +to ultramarine in the shadows; but the general tone of the glacier, as +it slopes steeply upward in billowy undulations toward the head of the +ravine, is grayish white. Curving crevasses cross from flank to flank, +and longitudinal rifts gash the surface as if cut with a sharp knife in +an elastic substance. These crevasses may be as blue as the clearest +sky, or sometimes green as young grass, according to the light; and +between are often pure-white patches of fresh snow. Toward the top +(where the breadth is nearly two miles) the slope is still steeper and +the surface smoother; but along the very crest, jagged and hard against +the sky, thousands of fractures appear, indicating how the mass of +ice breaks, rather than bends, as it is pushed over the cliffs. These +breaks then reunite, and the chaos becomes the smoothly congealed and +undulating surface we see below. + +[Illustration: A CAÑON ON THE ILLICILLIWAET.] + +“This glacier,” the official remarks, “is only one of several overflows +from a _mer de glace_ occupying a plateau on the summit, scores and +perhaps hundreds of square miles in extent. It is continually crowded +over the edge through breaks in the rim of cliffs, and thus room is +made for the new deposits of snow annually heaped upon its frigid +wastes.” + +For several hours we scrambled about the edges of the ice. On its right +is a huge moraine, which we climbed for a few hundred feet and thence +ventured out upon the glacier itself, but could go only a few steps, +for we had no spiked shoes, alpenstocks, ropes, or other appliances for +safety. Greater in size than any of the Swiss glaciers, its exploration +needs at least equal precautions. On one side a cave in the ice remains +to mark the former exit of some now diverted stream; and when we +entered it we found ourselves in an azure grotto, where the very air +was saturated with blue and we expected to be turned into petrifactions +of sapphire. + +All the morning there rests upon the ice-slope the huge triangular +shadow of Sir Donald--a superb pyramidal pile of cliffs, shooting its +slender apex far above all its royal mates--Ross, Dawson, Carroll, The +Hermit, and Cheops--and cleaving clouds that have swept unhindered over +their heads. It is imperial in its grandeur and separation from the +rest, and nowhere shows more magnificently than when we look back from +a point far down the pass, and can see how royally this richly colored, +elegantly poised spire soars exceedingly sharp and lofty above the +group of lesser mountains--themselves monarchs of the range--grouped +sublimely about it. These were the pictures we saw as, refreshed by a +night’s slumber in the balsamic air of the spruce-clothed mountains, we +renewed our journey next morning, and from the foot of Ross Peak gazed +back with amazement at the tortuous descent our train had made around +the loops and trestles that had “eased” us down from Roger’s Pass and +Glacier Station to the bank of the Illicilliwaet. + +This river, fed by unmeasured stores of snow and ice kept in a circle +of heaven-piercing peaks, rushes away down a series of densely wooded +and rocky gorges. With much ingenuity the railway follows it to the +Columbia, which has made a long detour around the northern end of +the Selkirks since we last saw it. Here is Revelstoke, a railway +headquarters, the limit of steamboat navigation, and the supplying +centre of many mines. Behind it are lifted the western outliers of the +Selkirks; before it, beyond the Columbia, is the Gold Range, some of +whose glacier-studded peaks constitute a grand view. + +The Gold Range is easily crossed. Eight miles beyond the Columbia +bridge, we have risen into Eagle Pass, which is only 1,900 feet +above the sea, and are gliding past lake after lake nestling between +magnificent headlands. Trees 200 feet tall fill the pass and encircle +the lakes in a close and continuous forest, and wherever a ledge or bit +of easy slope allows soil to cling, the rocky crag-sides are clothed +with luxuriant foliage. It is the White Mountains, or the Blue Ridge, +doubled and trebled in scale. Each of these deep, still lakes is filled +with fish, and along the Eagle River, which leads us westward out of +the pass through a darkly shaded ravine, are many camps of sleepy +Indians fishing for salmon. + +As evening approaches we escape from the hills and run along a +connected series of long, narrow and very deep bodies of water, +penetrating between hills and ridges covered with unbroken forest. This +polypus-like lake is called the Great Shushwap, and is as large as +Cayuga, Seneca, and all the other lakes in Western New York would be +were they connected by navigable straits. Fed by several strong rivers, +it forms the reservoir which guarantees a steady supply to Thompson +River, by whose side our train will run all night. + +“These lakes are wonderful places for sport,” says the official. +“Salmon and several other fish are numerous, and every kind of game +abounds. It is an almost untouched field, too, although facilities for +getting over an immense region of wild country, by steamboat, sloop or +canoe, are exceedingly good.” + +“What are we missing in the night?” asked Miss Vassar, as darkness +blotted out the landscape and the cheery lamps were lighted for the +last of so many jolly evenings together in this overland voyage. + +“You don’t miss much until toward morning; and that you may get a fair +idea of by moonlight if you sleep on the right-hand side of the car. +We are getting entirely past and away from the mountains now, into a +plateau country of grassy hills where farming (except by irrigation) +has small success, but grazing is a great industry. At midnight we +go through the important town of Kamloops, the headquarters of this +grazing region, which extends for hundreds of miles southward, and is +interspersed with many gold and silver mining localities. Then we pass +Kamloops Lake and get into the cañons of the Lower Thompson River. +There the scenery is very curious. This is a dry country--looks like +California--and the rocks and earthen river-banks have been carved +by wind and occasional deluges into the most fantastic and gayly +colored of monumental forms, through which the waters of the racing +Thompson mark a sinuous line as green as the purest emerald. It’s a +very extraordinary, grotesque landscape, but having seen it once in +daylight, I, for one, am satisfied to go through henceforth by night. +After we leave the mouth of the Thompson at Lytton, however, and begin +to descend Fraser River, the scenery becomes very grand and beautiful; +so you must get up early once more.” + +How shall I tell in a few words what those Fraser cañons are like? +They are not like the thin, abysmal clefts of Colorado, nor the weird +corridor through which the Missouri makes its way. + +The Fraser is the main water-course of British Columbia, and comes from +the far northern interior. It is a broad, heavy, rapid stream, flowing +between steep banks sloping ruggedly back to the mountains, whose white +and shapely peaks stand in splendid array before us at Lytton. The +railway is at first on the eastern bank, and high above the turbulent +yellow river, which is soon compressed into a narrow trough, where the +hampered water rushes and roars with frightful velocity. Cliffs rise +for hundreds of feet with out-jutting buttresses that almost bar the +passage. Huge rocks, long ago precipitated into the water, have been +worn “into forms like towers, castles, and rows of bridge-piers, with +the swift current eddying around them.” + +Near Cisco advantage is taken of a particularly narrow strait to cross +the river upon a huge cantilever bridge, the farther end of which rests +in a tunnel. The scenery here is savage, but the air is soft and the +sky clearest blue. As we proceed, the cañon rapidly becomes narrower, +deeper, and more terrific; the river, a series of whirlpools among +knife-edged rocks. The railway pierces projecting headlands in short +tunnels, springs across side-chasms, and is supported along sharp +acclivities by abutments of natural rock or careful masonry. Finally +the constantly heightening wall on the opposite side culminates in +the crag of Jackass Mountain, which rises 2,000 feet in a well-nigh +perpendicular mass--a second Cape Eternity. Nearly 1,000 feet above +the boiling torrent, and often overhanging it, the wagon-road built +years ago to connect the Fraser River gold mines with the coast creeps +about its brow; and the little party of Indians trotting along this +airy pathway look like pygmies or gnomes who have come out of some +stony crevice to see us pass. Yet four-horse stages were driven here +for many a year, and before the road was built men traveled afoot over +the trail which preceded it, passing places like these on swinging +pole-bridges, something like the foot-ropes under a ship’s yard-arm. +Thrilling stories of that trail and road in the fierce old mining days +of ’58 and ’64 are recorded in books and told by the “mossbacks” one +meets up and down the coast. But since the building of the railway the +wagon-road is little traveled, though the Cariboo district northward, +and other districts south of the line, still yield gold and silver +bountifully under systematic mining. + +[Illustration: ON THE BROAD WATERS OF THE FRASER.] + +As we roll steadily onward through long shadows projected across the +gulf by the rising sun the cañon alternately expands and contracts, +but never loses its grandeur. The queer little figures of Chinese +gold-washers dot the gravel-bars here and there (we can’t help +wondering how they got down there!), and on almost every convenient +rock near the river’s edge are perched Indians with large dip-nets, +industriously scooping in an eddy after loitering salmon. Their rude +bivouacs are scattered about the rocks; and their fish-drying frames, +festooned with the red flakes of salmon-flesh, among which the curing +smoke curls as lazily as Siwash smoke might be expected to do, add the +last touch of artistic color to the picture. + +[Illustration: TYPES OF WESTERN STEAMBOATS.] + +[Illustration: SCENERY OF THE FRASER CAÑON.] + +But a painter will be attracted constantly by the form and color of the +bronze-brown chaotic rocks, the tawny, foam-laced river, the gaunt, +desperately rooted trees, and the brilliant azure of the sky. And +everywhere he will find handy a foreground-bit of “life”--gold-diggers, +mule-trains, Chinese red-labeled cabins, Siwash “wickiups” and +barbarically adorned graves, or some trim railway structure--to lighten +the composition with a sympathetic human touch. + +At North Bend we get breakfast in a charming hotel, and then go on +again, past the important old town of Boston Bar (now abandoned to the +Indians) and over the bridge above Skuzzy Falls, which come sliding +down fern-strewn rocks in cataracts of lambent emerald. Gradually +the cañon walls grow high again, and encroach more and more upon the +channels. The railway passes from tunnel to bridge and bridge to tunnel +in quick succession, always curving and costly. It is one long gallery +of wonders. Ponderous masses of rock, fallen from the cliffs and long +ago polished like black glass, obstruct the current, which roars +through narrow flumes between them and hurls showers of spray far up +their sides. This is the Black Cañon of old settlers; and an idea of +its tortuous narrowness may be got from the fact that in freshets the +choked-up water will rise a hundred feet above the ordinary level. + +At the foot of this cañon is Yale, an old trading post and frontier +town, ensconced in sombre mountains. As the head of navigation on the +lower Fraser, it was once the leading town of the Province, and still +has some 12,000 inhabitants. A few miles farther on is another similar +village, Fort Hope, which is at the limit of steamboating, and is +charmingly placed in front of a cluster of brilliant Cascade peaks. +At times the figure of a colossal anchor is marked in snow-banks upon +one of these summits; whence the name of the village--for is not the +anchor the emblem of hope? In these mountains rich silver lodes await +development. + +Gradually the cañons and cliffs are left behind, and we gather speed on +a level track through woods of prodigious growth. The river becomes a +broad and placid stream, “backing up” here and there into lagoons, and +making prairies utilized for herds of cattle. Beautiful mountains show +themselves in every direction--last and finest of all, Mount Baker, +fifty miles away. + +At Agassiz many passengers leave the train to visit the Harrison Hot +Springs, at the foot of Harrison Lake, five miles northward. This +is one of the pleasantest watering-places on the coast, and a most +interesting spot for sport and amusement. Harrison Lake and its outlet +into the Fraser, with other lakes and portages, formed the foremost +route to the northern interior twenty-five years ago. Its waters were +then alive with steamboats, and the roads with wagons and pack-horses; +but now the route is quite abandoned, and its wayside habitations have +fallen into decay. + +At noon we scent the saline odor of the ocean, and presently come with +eager curiosity to the shore of Burrard Inlet. Half an hour later we +are at Vancouver, and our transcontinental trip has reached its western +terminus. + +Two years ago a saw-mill represented civilization, and a dense forest +covered the peninsula between Coal Harbor (a widening of Burrard Inlet) +and English Bay (an offshoot of the Gulf of Georgia), where now a city +of 5,000 people is established. The town is crescent-shaped, rising +with gentle ascent to the ridge overlooking the open gulf, the heights +of Vancouver Island and the Olympic and Cascade ranges in Washington +Territory. Upon this high ground a group of residences has already +arisen, whose windows command a wonderfully beautiful view of water and +mountains. + +The town has been built with great rapidity, but the wooden houses +first thrown up are fast giving place to substantial buildings of +brick and stone. All the improvements of modern civilization have been +introduced; business and agriculture flourish; mining and the fisheries +are engaging more and more capital, and the foundations of a great and +beautiful seaport have been laid. + +Thus the Canadian Pacific Railway is, in fact, a new way round the +world! + + + [2] “Mountaineering in British Columbia.” A lecture delivered + before the American Geographical Society, in Chickering Hall, + January, 1886. + + + + +A CRITICAL SITUATION. + +BY S. SMITH. + + +As I was walking through one of the principal London streets the other +day, on my way to fulfil a business engagement, my attention was +attracted by one of those huge posters which plentifully besprinkle +the walls of the city. In resounding tones of red, blue and bright +vermilion, it called the attention of the public to the fact that the +stirring sensational melodrama, of deep domestic interest, entitled +“For Life or Death; or, the Grave’s Witness,” was then being performed +to overflowing audiences at the Royal Lorne Theatre. Just above +the printed announcement was a picture representing one gentleman +apparently in the act of boring a hole in the floor with another +gentleman’s head, and which I took to bear reference to the printed +notification below. + +My momentary curiosity satisfied, I turned to proceed on my way, when +my eyes encountered those of a man standing by my side--a man whom +I had not noticed before, and who might have been the very ghost of +a sandwich man instead of a sandwich man in the flesh, so suddenly +and quickly had he come upon me. Yet, there he unmistakably was, his +tattered old frock-coat, once the pink of fashion, frayed at the +edges, worn to shreds at the seams, and bulging at the elbows; the +trousers darned and patched in a dozen different places, but now gone +far beyond the last stage of repair; the patent-leather boots broken +and down at heel, and almost soleless; the battered white hat, with +black band round it, and the brim all but gone; the bulbous red nose, +the trembling mouth and the bleary eyes that told their own tale. +I stood for a moment staring at this sudden appearance without any +particular reason, and he, in his turn, staring at me. The pause, +awkward enough in all conscience, was of that character in which one +of the parties feels impelled to make an observation of some kind in +order to get decently away. Before I could open my lips, however, my +companion anticipated me. + +“Striking sort of picture, that,” he said, in a dry, husky voice, and +with an apologetic kind of sniff. + +“If coloring has anything to do with it, I should certainly say it was +striking enough,” I replied. + +“Ah!” he returned, “you seemed interested in it; but I’ll warrant +you’re not half so interested in it as I am. There’s not a soul in +all this city that understands that picture as I do. The worst of it +is, when I once start looking I’m unable to leave it for thinking of +what this play once did for me. Then the police have to move me on, and +that gets me into trouble. Even if I would forget the past, I may not, +for--look here!”--he pointed to the two boards slung over his shoulders +as he spoke, and showed me the inscription, “For Life or Death,” in +lightning zigzag letters. + +“Many people stop to look at the posters here and elsewhere, but there +is not one of them to whom it means what it does to me. To you and them +it is only a picture badly designed, clumsily cut, and worse colored. +To me it is the story of my life’s ruin. Perhaps you’ll wonder what I’m +driving at. If you care to listen for a few moments I can tell you.” +He glanced at the open doorway of one of the old city churches near at +hand. “Come in here,” he said; “it’s quiet and shady, and when there’s +no one about they sometimes let me go in there for a rest. You may like +to hear what I have to tell, and I shall be glad to get these infernal +boards off my shoulders for a few moments.” + +Thoroughly interested already in spite of myself--perhaps more by the +man’s manner than anything else--I followed him. Entering the porch, +he took the boards off his shoulders and placed them against the wall, +and taking his seat on the bench just inside the doorway, drew a pocket +handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead with it. + +“To begin with,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “let me tell you +that my name is Edward Morton. Perhaps you will not believe me if I +say that I was once upon a time--what of all things in the world do +you think--a dramatic critic! Yes, it’s true. What is more, a dramatic +criticism was the beginning and end of my downfall; and this is how +it happened. It was about ten years ago, and soon after I started +my journalistic career in the provinces, that I took a situation on +one of our great daily papers--_The Blunderer_, to wit. This I had +succeeded in obtaining through the influence of a friend at court, +and, for a youngster just entering the profession, it was looked upon +as an immense piece of good fortune. However that may be, up to town +I came, and not being quite a fool, turned my chances to such good +account that I was soon spoken of on all sides as ‘a promising young +man.’ I might have gone on in this way, and ultimately attained +to a bald head and a sub-editorship at fifty or so, but for doing +two exceedingly foolish things. I made the acquaintance of Charlie +Dashwood, and I fell desperately in love with a pretty actress, and one +who was quite as clever and good as she was pretty--Lizzie Rayburn--you +remember her? This Charlie Dashwood was a journalist like myself--a +wild, harum-scarum fellow of the speculative sort--you’ve met his +prototype, I daresay; always going off at a tangent, or breaking out +in a fresh place when least expected; full of extravagant ideas about +the undiscovered possibilities of the press; always vaporing about the +reforms he intended to originate, if ever he should edit a paper of his +own. I, at that time, admiring and looking up to Charlie, not only as +the best of good fellows, which he really was, but as the very prince +of journalists and an original genius, which, only too late, I have +discovered he was not, firmly believed in and held to him in spite of +the ridicule and chaff of older and wiser heads. + +“At last, one day Charlie came to me at the office in a perfect frenzy +of excitement with the news that he had just taken the management of a +new weekly paper called _The Bullseye_, which would make its appearance +the following week, and which had, as usual, been started to fill the +not particularly noticed void. ‘We’re all full up with the exception of +the dramatics, and Teddy my boy, you’re the very man! I know you have +ideas of your own about the way that sort of thing should be done, and +here’s the opportunity. Between us, we’ll make the paper the biggest +“go” in London.’ + +“What Dashwood said was true. I had long possessed secret yearnings +that way, which I had at times confided to Charlie. For a moment +considerations of prudence came to my aid, and I ventured the mild +suggestion of a doubt as to whether I was quite fitted for that line of +work. + +“‘Nonsense, my boy!’ said Charlie; ‘I know your proper capacity. You’re +sure to make a hit.’ It was a curious fact that Charlie possessed the +most remarkable intuitive faculty for discovering everybody’s proper +capabilities except his own. + +“‘Besides,’ he added, ‘think of Lizzie!’ + +“That settled it. Without further ado I closed with the offer, and a +fortnight later saw me installed as dramatic critic of _The Bullseye_, +with the title of that publication inscribed on my cards underneath +that of _The Blunderer_. The plan of operation I proceeded to act +upon was this: I had long had a wholesome contempt for that class of +dramatic critics forever hanging round stage doors and hotel bars, and +drinking with managers and actors, so I resolved to set an example +in the opposite direction by keeping religiously aloof from all +association with the profession--with one exception. This was Lizzie, +who insisted on receiving her little paragraph of two or three lines +regularly every week, and with whom I spent each Sunday afternoon and +evening at her father’s place in Twickenham, whither he had retired +to spend the rest of his days, free from the smoke of Aldgate and the +cares of the grocery business. There had once been some talk of a Mr. +Loydall, a huge, beetle-browed, hoarse-voiced tragedian, who played +heavy lead to Lizzie’s juveniles at the Olympian, but he soon found out +that he had no chance with me, and after one or two tussles retired +from the battle, leaving me to walk over the course at my leisure. + +“As you will guess, matters were pretty well settled between Lizzie and +me, and we obtained old Rayburn’s consent to our marriage whenever the +_Blunderer’s_ management should recognize my merits sufficiently to +advance my salary, and enable me to take Lizzie away from the stage. +_The Bullseye_, contrary to everybody’s expectations--everybody, that +is, outside the office--showed signs of becoming a pronounced success. +My dramatic criticisms was soon one of the leading features of the +journal. I had always had a notion that the withering, sarcastic style +of writing was best suited to me, and this was the line I took, with +such effect, that at times it became difficult to find out whether I +had been praising or ‘slating’ a piece or an actor. Some people were +unkind enough to say that they would prefer the latter process to the +former. Needless to say that, as the power and influence of the paper +increased, I soon became an object of hatred and dread to the whole +profession. This only tickled my vanity the more, and I would strut +along Fleet Street and the Strand of a morning meeting the scowls of +passing ‘pros.’ with a stare of supercilious indifference. + +“One night, entering my club at the usual hour, just before starting +for the Lorne Theatre, where a new piece, entitled ‘For Life or Death,’ +was to be produced that evening, I found a telegram lying for me in +the rack. It was from Lizzie’s mother, telling me that Lizzie had +been seized with a dangerous illness that very morning, and begging +that I would proceed to the house at once. For a moment I was in a +serious dilemma. At all hazards I must see Lizzie that night, yet it +was imperative that I should attend the first night show at the Lorne, +having for that special occasion undertaken _The Blunderer’s_ notice in +place of the regular man, who was absent through indisposition. + +“Then an idea struck me as I caught sight of Scrubby, the dramatic +critic of _The Scorcher_, at the other end of the room, already +preparing to leave. Scrubby was a reliable man, I knew, and the best +available for the purpose I had in my mind. Crossing over to where he +was, I showed him the telegram, and explained my difficulty. + +“‘Nothing easier, my boy,’ he exclaimed, clapping me on the back. +‘Trust to me. I’m going down to the show, and will leave you a program +here, marked with my notes, on my way to the office. If you’re back +here by half-past ten, you’ll find it waiting. Then you can scribble +your notices for the two papers from my notes, and send them in in the +usual way.’ + +“Warmly shaking him by the hand, I accepted his offer, and hastened +away to Twickenham. When I reached the house I found my darling already +delirious in the first stages of a high fever, and calling for me. I +remained by her side, holding her hand in mine and soothing her as +best I could until she had fallen off into a fitful doze. Then I stole +quietly away, whispering to Mrs. Rayburn that I would return as soon as +my business in town was concluded. + +“When I got back to the club I found, as I expected, the program lying +in the rack, inside an envelope addressed to me. Scrubby’s analysis +of the production, play and acting, was distinctly unfavorable, his +marginal notes having such a bitterly acrid flavor that I concluded +it must all have been very bad indeed; and so I followed suit with +good interest, cutting up everything and everybody concerned in the +most unmerciful manner. The notices written, I put them into separate +envelopes, the one addressed to _The Blunderer_, the other to _The +Bullseye_, and sent them to the offices by the club messenger. This +done, I went back to Twickenham. + +“Returning to town the following morning, almost the first person I +met was Charlie Dashwood. I made to speak to him, when, to my utter +bewilderment, he stopped me short with a motion of his hand, looked me +full in the face, and slowly drew a copy of that morning’s _Bullseye_ +from his pocket. Opening it, he pointed to my criticism of the +production of ‘For Life or Death,’ at the Lorne Theatre, and held it up +close to my eyes, then, deliberately turning his back upon me, passed +on without uttering a syllable. I stared after him in a kind of daze as +he rapidly disappeared. What on earth could he mean? What could he be +driving at? In all my experience of him I had never known him to act so +strangely. Could he be going off his head, or was I going off mine, or +what? + +“If I wanted an explanation I had not long to wait for one. As +I entered the office, the hall-keeper handed me a letter, the +superscription of which I recognized as that of the editor. I opened +the letter with an unaccountable trembling at the fingertips. What I +found inside was a check for three months’ salary, with a notification +to the effect that in consequence of my great success in having that +morning made _The Blunderer_ the laughing stock of all London, the +proprietors considered it due recognition of my talents that I should +not enter the office again. For explanation I was referred to the +enclosed cuttings from that day’s daily newspapers. I lifted one of the +slips from out of the envelope, and what then met my eyes caused me to +stagger back speechless and breathless against the wall, for there in +that brief announcement of the postponement at the last moment of ‘For +Life or Death,’ I saw the evidence of the horrible treachery of which I +had been a victim. The evidence of my own ruin, utter and irremediable, +stared me in the face. I had actually written a detailed report and +criticism of an audience which had never assembled, of actors who had +never appeared, of a piece which had never been produced!” + + * * * * * + +“What need is there for me to tell you more, when you can guess the +rest for yourself? You don’t want to hear that I and the papers with +which I had been connected became the by-word and scoff of England, +and that _The Bullseye_ in particular never survived the shock. Nor do +you need to be told that the few hundred enemies whom I had contrived +to raise around me by my exceeding smartness turned the story in +all ways so as to tell to my disadvantage, or that my journalistic +career, which meant my livelihood, was practically at an end, if you +can understand the charitable eyes with which an editor would be +apt to look upon that kind of mistake. Whatever I tried, wherever +I went, London or the provinces, it was always the same--the black +shadow pursued me and closed every door in my face. Lizzie, of all the +world, was the only one who clung to me in my trouble, and insisted on +carrying out her promise and marrying me in the teeth of her parents, +who threw her off when they found her bent on allying herself to a +pauper. She struggled on by my side for two years, comforting and +sustaining me in our bitterest adversity with her love and faith, until +one day she died in my arms, and the light of my life went out. Then, +having nothing else in the world to cling to, I clung to the drink the +while it dragged me down, down, down to what I am. + +“One thing more I have to mention,” said the sandwich man, as he rose +from his seat and proceeded to hang the boards over his shoulders +again; “it was one day some months after the events described that I +met Scrubby. ‘I can’t for the life of me understand how you came to +fall into that terrible blunder,’ he said, ‘especially after the note +I left for you, telling how we had all gone down to the theatre on a +wild-goose chase, only to find that the piece was postponed until the +following week.’ + +“‘Note! Left for me by you!’ I ejaculated. + +“‘Yes!--No! now I come to think of it, I didn’t leave the note. I +wanted to go down to the Parthenon to see the new burlesque, but I gave +it to a man who said he would be passing the club and would hand it +in. Let me see. Ah! I have it now--you know him--Loydall, the Olympian +heavy lead.’” + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +A VISIT TO DEATH LAKE, FLORIDA. + +BY LIEUT. W. R. HAMILTON. + + +Some years ago, I was stationed at Fort Barrancas, on the west coast of +Florida, and at the mouth of Pensacola Bay. It was the custom of the +military authorities every summer, as the sickly season approached, to +order all the troops stationed in garrisons along the southern coast +into camps among the pine-trees to escape the fatal yellow fever. The +camps were selected with a view to health and isolation combined. + +In the year of which I write, we were ordered up into the pine woods +about thirty-six miles north-west of Pensacola. The camp was several +miles from the only line of railroad then existing in that country, +and fifteen miles from the nearest settlement, which happened to be +a railroad and telegraph station also. The yellow fever had already +broken out with terrible violence in New Orleans, and all the southern +coast was alarmed. Of course, we were obliged to maintain the strictest +quarantine to prevent any communication between our camp and the +outside world. This was necessary, as the country soon became filled +with refugees from the plague-stricken districts, yet it made our +existence particularly doleful. We received fresh meat only once a +week, and, as it was brought in an open cart thirty-six miles in the +hot sun, the term _fresh_ was about all there was of that significance +about it. We lived on potted meats and canned vegetables and fruits +almost entirely. Nothing was allowed inside the lines except the mails, +and even they had to be disinfected outside before admission. News of +the outside world was from a week to ten days old, and as the weather +was extremely hot, it can be easily imagined that our existence was not +particularly rose-colored. + +Judge, then, of the delight and pleasure we all experienced when, one +sultry evening, when the very air was quivering and dancing with heat, +an old man came into camp with a large basket full of beautiful little +fresh-water fish. How he passed the line of sentinels no one cared to +inquire, the probability being that the guards, knowing what a boon +he had in his basket, winked at his passing. He came direct to the +line of officers’ tents, and in five minutes had sold all his fish at +a good price. We asked him where the fish came from, and he answered +“Death Lake.” I had heard of “Death Lake” a number of times, and the +negroes in the neighborhood always spoke of it with bated breath and a +mysterious air, so that my curiosity concerning it was much aroused. I +therefore asked the old man to my tent, where I could talk to him about +it. After he had seated himself and taken a drink of cool water, fresh +from the spring, I asked him the name of the fish and when and where he +caught them. + +“They be brim, mister, and they wuz caught by me early this mawnin’ in +the lake.” + +“But where is the lake?” I inquired, “and why is it called Death Lake?” + +“Wal,” he answered, “it lies about six miles from here, in the middle +of a big swamp, and it is called Death Lake, I reckon, because no one +can’t git there without losing his life.” + +“Yet you have been there, and you are alive,” I replied. + +“Yes, but I’ve most lost my life as much as a dozen times, and I’m only +forty years old.” + +He looked fully seventy, and he was much bowed and broken. His eyes +were deep sunk, and had a watery opaqueness; his cheeks were sallow, +and there were only a few straggling white hairs on his head. His +answer surprised me, and I pressed him to tell me his story, which, +after a while, he did, although he was much averse to it. After a time +I prevailed upon the old man to take me to the lake next day. “But it +is at your own risk, young man,” he said; “remember, if you dies, I +told you all about it, and you can’t blame me.” + +“Not if I die,” I replied; “but I am strong and healthy, and willing to +take the risk.” + +I easily obtained the necessary permission to leave the camp, as +I was not going near the settlements, or where the fever existed, +and I moreover promised to bring back a good string of fish for the +commanding officer. The next morning I met the old man at daybreak, +just outside the lines, and off we started together. He carried his +large basket and a couple of fish-poles made of reeds he had cut in the +swamps. I carried our lunch and a coffee-pot. + +We tramped for about two hours through the woods, till we came to a +small river called “Perdido,” from the Spanish word for “lost.” “Lost +River” was a very good name for it, as it had its origin in Death Lake, +and lost itself completely in the swamps after many turnings. Close to +the bank, the old man had a flat-bottomed skiff moored, in which we +paddled up the stream for a half-mile, when we reached the confines of +the large swamp in which Death Lake is situated. The scenery here is of +the typical Florida nature. On either side the stream was bounded by +the swamp. Huge cypress trees lifted their weird limbs upward, and long +streamers of trailing moss floated from them, and even at times formed +a swinging arch across the entire width of the stream. The water was +dark and sullen, and on the banks, wherever a little sunshine happened +to strike, half a dozen alligators might be seen basking, which, on our +approach, would flop into the water with a tremendous splash. After +paddling up the sides of the swamp for a couple of miles we came to an +archway, which appeared to have been cut by man through the foliage of +trees and vines. It was not over four feet high and about eight wide, +and from it the water flowed with a scarcely perceptible current. + +“Now, Loot’nent,” said the old man, “we’ve got to go up this creek, +and you’ll have to kneel down like this, for we have to stoop pretty +low in places.” + +Once inside the arch, it became very dark, for though the sun was +shining brightly outside, it could not penetrate through the dense +foliage of the vines. The little stream turned and twisted in the most +tortuous channel I ever saw, and often it was with difficulty that we +managed to turn the boat round the sharp and narrow corners. At length, +after paddling in this fashion for over half a mile, we emerged into +the famous Death Lake. + +Right well had it been named, for the very feeling one had in breathing +its atmosphere was of death. It seemed more like a river than a lake, +for though by its various windings and twistings it was several miles +long, it was never, in its broadest part, over sixty yards wide, and +throughout most of its length not over twenty yards. The banks were +lined by immense cypress trees that towered upward to a height of +eighty feet or more. From their branches hung long festoons and trails +of Florida moss, while the roots of the trees, half out of water, +assumed such weird and fantastic shapes that they seemed like immense +serpents that had become suddenly petrified in their writhings. So +dense was the foliage that it formed an impenetrable wall to both sun +and wind, and the sunlight never touched the water except between the +hours of 12 and 2 ~P. M.~ Not a breath had stirred the waters +for years, and they were covered to a depth of several inches with +a green vegetable slime, so that the first appearance was that of a +beautiful level floor, on which one might walk. + +We reached the lake about ten minutes before the sun, and there was +consequently a very strange light over the water. It had much the +effect of a twilight above, through which the sun was breaking, while +close to the water hung a mist, heavy, silent and motionless. But the +tops of the trees the sun had touched with his master-strokes, and +created tints more beautiful than could any painter’s brush. So still +was the place that the silence was actually oppressive, and, though we +were startled at the sound of our own voices, we would have been glad +to have heard the noise of some animal life. + +But all round us was death; no sign of life anywhere. No birds in the +trees; no insects in the air. Even the reptiles and snakes avoided the +fearful place. To breathe such air for an hour, except when the sun +was directly over the water, would be death to any living creature. +Even the water was lifeless, and the trees and all vegetation were +dead, except the moss, which lived at the expense of all else. The old +man had told me in his queer parlance that the lake had no bottom, for +although he had dropped 900 feet of line, he had never touched. I had +taken the precaution to bring with me two of my sea trolling-lines, +and fastening them together, I had a line 250 feet long. With this I +sounded in several places, but only proved the old man’s words, for I +never touched bottom. I afterwards learned, as the explanation of this, +that all Western Florida is of a limestone formation, and so I presume +this lake is one of those wonders that have their sources far away down +in the bowels of the earth. + +As soon as the sun touched the water we let our fish-lines down to a +depth of about thirty feet, and soon began to pull out very quickly +the “brim”--a corruption of the name of bream. Although, when the hand +was thrust through the slime, the water had a horribly slimy, warm +feeling, the fish came up cold and firm, showing that below the water +was clear and cold. The fish had the same dull, opaque eyes as fish of +subterranean caves, proving that the vegetable mould on the water’s +surface had for many years formed a bar to any light in the water. + +In the two hours we managed to nearly fill our boat, for the fish bit +as fast as we could throw the line overboard; so about two o’clock +we stopped, and paddled out as quickly as possible to avoid those +poisonous vapors that killed all animal life. Notwithstanding the +sport, so weird and unearthly strange was the place that I was glad +to leave it. I could well understand its name now, and as we passed +through the tortuous archway, I thought of the many negroes in the old +slavery days, that escaping to this swamp to find liberty found death +instead. + +After reaching the river, the old man suggested our stopping at a place +on the banks, where the ground rose in a little knoll, and cooking +some of our freshly caught fish. I agreed to the proposition, and as +we reached the bank I jumped out and took three or four steps inland, +when the old man sharply cried, “Look out, Loot’nent! See there!” +at the same time pointing, as he stood up in the boat, to something +directly in front of me. I looked and beheld, about a yard from me, a +huge moccasin snake, the most deadly poisonous reptile of the South +upreared to strike me. I involuntarily took a step backward, and as I +did so I heard another hiss behind me, and then others on all sides. +One quick, horrified glance showed me that I was surrounded by at least +a dozen of these fearful reptiles, all coiled and ready to strike. For +an instant I was paralyzed and unable to move, and it was, perhaps, +well that it was so, as I should probably have stepped on one and been +bitten. + +“Move carefully and come away,” the old man cried. “If you don’t git +close to them they can’t hurt you; they’re casting their skins.” + +So it proved. It seems that this spot of ground, being drier than its +surroundings and more exposed to the sun, had, by the natural instinct +of the creatures, been selected as the place for the annual changing of +their skins. While this process is going on they are almost incapable +of motion. As a rule they will move off when disturbed, provided they +are not attacked, but in this case they could not; but had I got +within striking distance they would have bitten me. I picked my way +out very daintily, and stepped into the boat, with no further desire +to eat fish till I got back to camp. Indeed, I felt quite faint as I +realized my narrow escape. We paddled down the river, soon reached our +landing-place, and then made a bee-line for camp, which we reached just +at dark. With such a string of fish, my return was heartily welcomed; +but after hearing my adventures, no one else seemed anxious to make the +visit to the lake. + +I wanted to revisit the lake, till one morning, about two weeks after +my visit, I was taken suddenly ill, and before the day was over I was +unconscious with the terrible “swamp fever.” I had a long and hard +fight for my life, and though I conquered in the end, I lost all desire +to ever see the horrible place again. + +[Illustration] + + + + +AMERICAN COLLEGE ATHLETICS. + +I. + +HARVARD UNIVERSITY. + +By J. MOTT HALLOWELL. + + +[Illustration: ~The Harvard Boat-houses.~] + +At Harvard, and at nearly all other American colleges, athletics are +managed on a plan entirely different from that adopted by most of the +amateur athletic associations of this country. As a rule, an athletic +association has control of all contests played upon its grounds, track +and field athletics, boating, football, baseball, and all other games; +but at Cambridge, the origin and growth of each branch of athletics has +been so distinct in itself, and has had so little direct connection +with the development of the others, that, as a result, each athletic +sport is managed by a separate organization--the Harvard University +Boat Club managing the boating interests, the Baseball Club taking care +of the nine, while the Athletic Association has control only of the +winter meetings in the gymnasium and the track and field meetings out +of doors. + +Of all the Harvard athletic clubs the Athletic Association deserves +first mention as the club which each year opens the athletic season. +If on the first Saturday in March, a little after one o’clock in the +afternoon, a stranger should happen to pass by the Hemenway Gymnasium, +his attention would be attracted by an incongruous, closely packed +crowd, patiently waiting upon the porch and steps. There are small +boys with pennies tightly clasped in closed fists, poking their +elbows into the sides of the “sport,” who is jotting down his last +entry in the book he has just made up on to-day’s games; a few of the +ubiquitous unwashed muddying the nicely polished shoes of some dainty +youths with big canes and high collars, and even a few poorly clad +individuals of studious mien, with perhaps a book under one arm, who +look as if they had crowded into the press in order to keep warm, in +marked contrast to the contented looking men, wrapped in large ulsters +and leisurely puffing cigars, who stand just at the edge. The crowd +is jolly--swaying, jostling, and cracking its jokes, while it eagerly +waits till the doors are opened to swarm into the gymnasium; for this +afternoon is held the first winter meeting of the Athletic Association. +Presently, by the time the first sparrers or wrestlers appear in the +ring, every seat is filled, and even standing room whence can be had a +view of the contestants. + +This meeting is but one of seven that the Athletic Association holds +every year; two field meetings, the class games and university games +held every fall and every spring, and three winter meetings held in +the gymnasium. In 1873 the Athletic Association had not been formed, +and the only gymnasium for the use of the students was a wretched +little structure now used as a storehouse; now the Association leads +all the other colleges in its records, owns a hard cinder quarter-mile +track, and has the use of one of the best gymnasia, if not the best, in +America. + +In July, 1874, at Saratoga, was held the first intercollegiate athletic +meeting between American colleges. Due notice of this meeting had been +sent round to the leading colleges, and the interest aroused by the +proposed contest led to the first athletic meeting at Cambridge. A +notice appeared in the Harvard _Advocate_ that, if sufficient interest +was felt by the students, some athletic sports would be held in the +Jarvis Field on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 17th. The program was +to consist of a mile running race, a mile walking race, a one hundred +yards dash, a three hundred yards dash, a running high jump, running +long jump, and a three-legged race; the entrance fee of 50 cents was +to be used in purchasing cups for prizes, and the notice ended with +an appeal to the students to give the games their generous support, +so that the college might be enabled to select representative men to +send to the intercollegiate games at Saratoga. No notice of the result +of these games appeared in the college papers, but their success was +sufficient to encourage four men to enter the Saratoga games, where +they succeeded in winning last place in most of their events, none +of their records being taken. The undergraduates seemed to have been +stirred up by this signal defeat, and in the fall of 1874 the Harvard +Athletic Association was formed for the purpose of encouraging track +and field athletics--unknown factors in college games at that time--in +order that the college might be fitly represented in intercollegiate +contests. + +It is strange in the present period of great athletic interest, crowded +athletic meetings, and Faculty restrictions, to recall those days +only fifteen years ago, when the undergraduate had to be encouraged +to interest himself in athletic games. An editorial in the college +paper in the winter of 1874-5, speaking of the formation of the +Association, says: “While the bodies of the men now at the university +do not receive a tithe of the attention they ought, it is cheering to +note that more is being done towards inviting that attention than ever +before. In no other exercise than baseball and rowing has there been +any emulation, and never a general and systematic using of any set of +muscles sustained throughout the year. The average student has been +physically what he is now. At entering, President Eliot describes him +as of ‘undeveloped muscle, a bad carriage and an impaired digestion, +without skill in out-of-door games, and unable to ride, row, swim or +shoot.’ During his four or six years, short of a little spasmodic work +now and then, he does little towards becoming anything else, and with +just that body and most of these defects he starts into his life’s +work; and with growing labor and care, and little time to look after +his body, and no one by to spur him to it, that is just about the sort +of body he goes through life with, generally losing rather than gaining +vigor and power. A new door has been opened for the men who really mean +to be what they ought physically, and it is pleasant to see already +signs of a brisk rivalry in this direction. The legs--long neglected +members--are now to be put to their best, and at last we have the +various foot contests so well known in the British universities. They +began last fall, and the work done then was so little above mediocrity +that there is strong ground to hope for new winners in May. All the +running was slow, the jumping poor, and the walking nothing much.” + +The Association when first formed was very primitive. Only about a +couple of hundred men belonged to it; members were given tickets of +admission to the games, which they could present to their friends, +while the admission fee, entitling a person to a life-membership and +free admission to all games ever held by the Association was only two +dollars. Gradually, as the games grew in importance, and interest +increased, the expenses of the Association became heavier; a track +costing about $600 was laid out on Jarvis Field; the necessary expenses +incurred in the winter meetings, held in the little gymnasium for +the first time in 1876, added an annual increase of expenditure (the +tickets of admission were then given away by members), until at last +the expedient was adopted of laying an assessment of fifty cents on all +members except Freshmen. The task of collecting this proved so great, +that, of the collectors appointed, some resigned, while the others +confessed their inability to proceed further. + +[Illustration: THE HEMENWAY GYMNASIUM.] + +In 1879 the Harvard Athletic Association, as well as the other athletic +clubs, received a great stimulus in the erection of the Hemenway +Gymnasium, the gift of Mr. Augustus Hemenway. Fifty years before, an +attempt had been made to found a gymnasium out of doors in the Delta +where Memorial Hall now stands, but the result had been unsuccessful. +Again, in 1860, a small gymnasium was erected at the corner of +Broadway and Cambridge Street, costing something less than $10,000; +but this building had become entirely inadequate for the needs of the +undergraduates, and in 1878 the ground was broken for the present +erection. When finished, it cost, including all its apparatus, over +$150,000, and is as complete as any gymnasium in the country. In the +second story is a rowing-room for the crew, fitted up with hydraulic +rowing-machines, while a gallery overlooking the main floor of the +gymnasium makes an excellent running track. On the floor below is the +gymnasium proper, fitted up with apparatus of every description, and +at one side, under the rowing-room, are lockers and bath-rooms. In +the basement is the “cage,” reserved for the winter practice of the +nine and the lacrosse team; but room is left for nine bowling alleys, +several hundred more lockers, a long open space for tug-of-war cleats, +and a room for the use of fencers and sparrers. + +In 1880 the management hit upon the happy expedient of setting apart +one of the winter meetings in the gymnasium as a “Ladies’ Day,” on +which only such events as the light gymnastics, bar performances, +jumping, and light-weight sparring should be contested, the wrestling +and the heavy-weight sparring being reserved for one of the other +meetings. The next year another day was added as Ladies’ Day, so +that only one of the meetings remained open to men alone. At first +ladies were admitted free, the Association trusting to this additional +attraction to fill their coffers from the pockets of the men; but after +the success of Ladies’ Day was assured, the fair sex was put on an +equal footing with their escorts, and have since been obliged to pay +full price; indeed, they supply the principal source of revenue. + +[Illustration: THE TUG-OF-WAR--“THE DROP.”] + +From the date of their first admission, however, they inaugurated a war +against the sparring exhibitions which occur on one of their days. From +that time to the present they have continually protested against it, +and just as continually have they come in crowds to see it. There is +in the first President’s report (Harvard Athletic Association), after +the establishment of Ladies’ Day, a notice that “the ladies ought to +understand that if blood be drawn in the sparring, the men will not +leave the ring as they did last year;” and again in a report two years +later: “We decided last year to have light and feather weight sparring +on the first Ladies’ Day, and although there was at the time much talk +against it among a certain number of men, we did not find the apparent +interest of the ladies in any way less, or that their number decreased +from the year before, although it had been extensively advertised for +more than a month that there was to be sparring, and it is not to be +supposed that many of the ladies were ignorant of the fact that they +were to see it. Far would it be from me to force ladies to look at any +event that was distasteful to them, but I fail to see why the large +number who are entertained by sparring should be deprived of seeing +it in our winter meetings because certain others object to it, more +especially as the latter are in no way compelled to come unless they +chose to.” The “large number” has continued to come, and the sparring +still continues. + +The financial status of the Association was assured by the success of +the winter meetings in the gymnasium, until, in time, it was able to +engage a track-master and trainer for the men, so that all competitors, +poor as well as rich, trying for places in the team which annually +competes for the intercollegiate cup, could have an equal chance of +responsible training. It was also able to contribute $1,000 towards +the construction of the hard cinder track round Holmes Field, finished +in 1883, and now is able to pay all the expenses of the team which +competes at the intercollegiate games. Besides the annual income +received from the winter games, it receives a large sum annually from +its membership roll. Though the fee is but small, only $3.00 for a +life-membership entitling free admission to all games, a regulation +forbidding any undergraduate to be present at the games unless he is a +member, annually forces nearly the entire freshman class to join. + +[Illustration: THE HARVARD BASEBALL TEAM.] + +There is not space in the limits of an article of this nature to +mention more than a few of the men who have been connected with the +rise and success of this Association. Some of them have already a +world-wide athletic reputation, while many stand at the head of all +college athletes. The fact that not until four years after Harvard’s +entry into the Intercollegiate Athletic Association did she win the +championship cup, but that then she won it for seven successive years, +shows the need that existed originally in the college for such an +association, besides demonstrating the success that has since attended +it. Mr. E. J. Wendell, ’82, did more in his day than any one else, not +only to increase its prosperity at home, but also to win laurels for +it in its intercollegiate contests; and the names of Soren, Goodwin, +Easton, Baker, Rogers and Wells show what strong representatives +the Association has had. Out of the twenty-four first prizes that +Harvard won the first four years she held the cup, W. Soren, ’83, won +seven; he gained first prize in every jump in the intercollegiate +program--running high, running broad, standing high and standing +broad--besides the pole vault, and in the standing high jump holds the +best amateur record in the world. + +The following table shows the best records made under the Harvard +Athletic Association in events contested at the intercollegiate games: + + 100 Yards Dash 10s. E. J. Wendell, ’82. + 220 Yards Dash 22s. W. Baker, ’86. + 440 Yards Dash 50¼s. W. Baker, ’86. + Half-mile Run 1m. 59 1-5s. G. P. Coggswell, ’88. + Mile Run 4m. 38 3-5s. G. B. Morison, ’83. + Hurdle Race, 120 yards 17 3-5s. S. R. Bell, ’91. + Hurdle Race, 220 yards 26 4-5s. G. S. Mandell, ’89. + Mile Walk 6m. 59½s. H. H. Bemis, ’87. + Bicycle Race (2 miles) 6m. 2½s. R. H. Davis, ’91. + Running High Jump 5 ft. 10¾ in. H. L. Clark, ’87. + Pole Vault 10 ft. 5-8 in. R. G. Leavitt, ’89. + Throwing Hammer (16 lbs.) 93 ft. 2 in. H. B. Gibson, ’88. + Putting the Shot (16 lbs.) 40 ft. 1½ in. D. B. Chamberlain, ’86. + Running Broad Jump 20 ft. 10 in. W. Soren, ’83. + +The following records have been made in other events: + + 125 Yards Dash 12 3-5s. W. Baker, ’86. + 180 Yards Dash 18s. W. Baker, ’86. + Two-Mile Walk 15m. 10½s. H. H. Bemis, ’87. + Three-Mile Walk 24m. 24 2-5s. H. H. Bemis, ’87. + Seven-Mile Walk 58m. 52s. H. H. Bemis, ’87. + Standing High Jump 5 ft. 1¼ in. W. Soren, ’83. + +Two days after Baker had graduated he made a record of 8s. in the +80-yard dash, 10s. in the 100-yard dash, and 47¾s. in the 440-yard +dash, all three of them counting as best amateur American records; but, +unfortunately, since he had received his degree, the Harvard Athletic +Association cannot claim these records. W. H. Goodwin, ’84, while he +was in college, also made a record of 1m. 56⅝s. in the half-mile +run, but as he did not make it in college games, this record was also +lost to the Harvard Athletic Association. + +The tug-of-war is another event in which the Harvard Athletic +Association can hold no record, but in which it has had no rival. The +veteran anchor of the team, Easton, did more toward introducing science +into this seemingly unskilful sport than any other collegian in the +country. The amount of skill and team work cultivated in this contest +at Cambridge is shown by the fact that at the last intercollegiate +games, Harvard presented the class tug-of-war team of the senior class, +because the men had had long experience in pulling together; and this +class team defeated successively Princeton, Columbia, and Yale. + + +BASEBALL. + +The game of baseball was first introduced into Cambridge in 1862. +Until that year no ball club had existed in the college, and no record +can be found of any games previously played. Baseball was brought to +Cambridge from Phillips Exeter Academy, by the class which entered +college from that school in 1862. “In December of that year,[3] George +A. Flagg and Frank Wright, members of the then Freshmen class, and +great enthusiasts over the game, established the ’66 Baseball Club. +During the spring of 1863 the interest in the new game and class +organization became very great, and the Cambridge city government +granted a petition for leave to use that part of the Common near the +Washington Elm for a practice-ground. Invitations to play were sent to +many of the colleges, and among the first to the Yale class of ’66; +but the latter replied that the game was not played by them, although +they hoped soon to be able to meet a Harvard nine on the ball field.” +A match was then arranged with the Sophomores of Brown University, +and was played on June 23, 1863. This was the first intercollegiate +baseball game ever played by Harvard, and resulted in the first of a +long line of victories. Following is the official score of the game, a +very different looking affair from our present complicated score card: + + _Harvard, ’66._ _Pos._ _Outs._ _Runs._ + Banker, H. 3 3 + Wright, P. 1 5 + Flagg, S. 5 2 + Irons, A. 2 4 + Fisher, B. 2 4 + Greenleaf, C. 4 2 + Nelson, L. 4 2 + Abercrombie, M. 2 3 + Tiffany, R. 4 2 + -- -- + 27 27 + + _Brown, ’65._ _Pos._ _Outs._ _Runs._ + Witter, P. 1 4 + Finney, H. 4 2 + Brown, S. 2 1 + Rees, A. 4 1 + Spink, B. 2 3 + Deming, C. 4 1 + Brayton, L. 2 3 + Judson, M. 4 1 + Field, R. 4 1 + -- -- + 27 17 + + Umpire:--Miller, Lowell Club. Scorers, Harvard--J. J. Mason; + Brown--H. S. Hammond. + +There were but few other college clubs at this time, and in order to +keep alive the interest in the game it was necessary to play an annual +championship series with the strongest local amateur nine that could be +found. The Lowell Club, of Boston, was then the best amateur club in +that part of the country, and the Harvards chose them for their regular +opponents. The games played on the Boston Common for the championship +and the possession of the silver ball offered as a trophy attracted +immense crowds, sometimes as many as ten thousand people; and not +only was college interest aroused, but also the worthy inhabitants of +Boston and Cambridge became eager and enthusiastic partisans of their +respective nines. + +The first games with the Lowells were played by the class nine of ’66; +but in 1864 the other classes, having taken up the game, united their +forces and formed the University Baseball Club. The entire control of +the University nine, from its organization until the fall of 1866, +was left with the catcher, Flagg, and the pitcher, Wright--the former +managing the players in the field. The old ground on Cambridge Common +was abandoned, and the Delta, now covered in part by Memorial Hall, was +turned into a ball-field. The games with the Lowells were continued as +the principal event of the season until about 1870; for practice, the +nine playing against the various college and professional nines, and +occasionally getting a game with George Wright’s famous old team, the +Red Stockings of Cincinnati. + +[Illustration: THE LAST LAP.] + +In the summer of 1870 the nine spent nearly the entire vacation in +an extended tour through the West, playing all the principal amateur +clubs and many of the professionals, and winning forty-four out of +the fifty-four games they played. Their greatest victory was over the +Niagaras, in which they made 62 runs to their opponents’ 4, and 49 +base hits with a total of 68, for 8 hits by the Niagaras. The latter +philosophically accepted their defeat, declaring that they could not +expect to play ball successfully against a nine whose reputation was +comparatively world-wide. The account in a contemporary paper, of the +game against the old Cincinnati Red Stockings is interesting as showing +what the general opinion at that time was of Harvard’s club. The Red +Stockings was the old champion nine in which the veterans George +Wright, Harry Wright, Leonard and McVey first made their reputations +as ball players. “Never before in the history of the Union Grounds +has so exciting a struggle taken place as that of yesterday between +the Harvard University and the first nine of the Cincinnati Club. We +heard many intimate that if the local favorites were beaten on their +own grounds, something hitherto unheard of, they preferred that the +deed of baseball glory should be accomplished by the gentlemen players +from Cambridge, rather than by the more dreaded professionals from the +East. The game was remarkably close, the Harvards outplaying their +opponents at the bat and in the field; but at a critical moment in the +last innings, professional training showed its superiority over amateur +excitability, and the Red Stockings won by 20 to 17.” The game at the +time was considered “one of the most remarkable on record--remarkable +for the inferiority both at the bat and on the field, of a club of +professionals who ought on their record to defeat their amateur +opponents easily. Nothing but sheer luck saved the Red Stockings from a +defeat which would have been honorable because administered them by the +Harvards.” + +[Illustration: HARVARD INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC TEAM.] + +This was what might be called the uncollegiate period of Harvard +baseball, for all of Harvard’s most important games were played with +other than college teams; indeed, there were none of the latter who +could compete with her. From 1867 until 1874 she did not lose a single +game to any college, although annually playing their best nines. Of +the many crack players during this period, A. McC. Bush, ’71, stands +head and shoulder’s over all others. He played in one hundred and four +games, was captain for one year, and his success in that office is +shown by the fact that Harvard never lost a game to an amateur club +during his captaincy.[4] + +There is no time to trace further the development of baseball at +Harvard, and, indeed, there would be little point in doing so; for +the game there has simply kept pace with its progress throughout the +rest of the country. I have purposely given this short sketch of the +introduction of the game to show the early importance attached to it +at Cambridge, the prominent part that the latter took in introducing +the game among American colleges, and the general reputation that the +nine had at that time. The significant remark in the Cincinnati papers +about “the gentlemen players from Cambridge,” and many other comments +of a similar kind, were made at a time when Harvard played many games +against professionals--a privilege now forbidden. + +Up to the present date, however, the game has retained its popularity, +although no longer can the college boast of seven successive years +without losing an intercollegiate game. After 1874 the team gradually +began to find more formidable opponents among the other colleges, +especially Princeton and Yale; but, nevertheless, Harvard won the +college championship in 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879. Tyng and Ernst, +the famous battery of this period, still figure in the minds of the +undergraduates as traditional heroes. Then an Intercollegiate Baseball +Association was formed by a large number of the colleges; but not until +1885, under the captaincy of Winslow, ’85, and with the battery work of +Nichols and Allen, did Harvard again win the college championship; but +then she won every one of the ten championship games, and twenty-four +out of the twenty-five played during the whole season. Then followed +the withdrawal from the large college league, the formation of the +smaller one with Yale and Princeton, and the discomfiture of the +Harvard nine by the present Yale pitcher, Stagg. If any one wishes to +understand the position that baseball occupies in the college, it is +only necessary to go out on Holmes Field at the annual Harvard-Yale +match the day after Class Day. Games are played then which throw the +old Harvard-Lowell games on Boston Common completely in the shade. +A large part of the unpleasantly critical element is excluded by +enclosed grounds and an admission fee; but their places are taken by +thousands and thousands of enthusiasts, less critical, but even more +demonstrative. + + To be continued. + +[Illustration] + + + [3] The Harvard Book, vol. ii., page 269. + + [4] Most of my material on the history of baseball I have taken + from an article by W. D. Sanborn, published ten years ago in + the Harvard Book.--J. M. H. + + + + +A RIDE TO A RUSSIAN WEDDING. + +BY C. M. LITWIN. + + +A friend of mine sent me, not long ago, the recently published +translation of Count Tolstoï’s “The Snow Storm.” I had not read it +in the original, but the translation was a good one, and this little +picture of a ride in a snow-storm, drawn by a master’s hand, vividly +recalled to my mind many of my traveling experiences during ten years +of active service in Russia. + +One of them--I don’t know why--presented itself to my mind with more +persistence than the others, and I have not been able to resist the +temptation of putting it on paper. I hasten to say, for fear of giving +a bad opinion of myself beforehand, it will not be an account of a +ride in a snow-storm, nor a description of such a storm, although I +have seen many and have often felt their embraces. Who, after having +read the Count’s little gem, would dare attempt a description of a +snow-storm? Would it not be the same as to attempt to paint a subject +treated by Rembrandt, or to mold another “Statue of Liberty?” + +My tale is simply about an exciting ride taken in the winter, but early +in the season, with but little snow on the ground--for Russia--while +I was in a very excited state of mind over an event that was of more +importance to me then than the still pending Oriental question or +any other question of either hemisphere, namely, the wedding and the +wedding-ball of a girl with whom we had all been, or imagined ourselves +to be, a little in love. But I see that mature age is not always a +sufficient safeguard against excitement, and I confess that with this +glance back at those happy days I begin to feel something of that +youthful nervousness, always aspiring to something, always wishing for +something, and to put a check on it I begin my tale. + +My headquarters were in Ladoga, the county seat of the district of the +same name, in the Province of St. Petersburg. The town is situated on +the Lake of Ladoga, at the mouth of the river Wolchow, which is large, +but very dangerous for navigation on account of its rapids. This stream +forms a link in the water-system connecting the Caspian Sea with St. +Petersburg and the Baltic. + +The situation of Ladoga, its streets and buildings, have little of +picturesqueness, except the old church built on a slight elevation +just where the river enters the lake. On the high tower of this +church, almost at its summit, and on the side facing the lake, there +is a niche, protected from rain and wind by a pane of glass. Within +this niche is placed a picture of the Holy Mother, lighted by several +lamps burning day and night. These are kept there by the donations +of the fishermen and sailors, who hold the holy picture in great +veneration. They look for it from afar, not only with the eagerness of +a Cunarder’s captain watching through his glass for Sandy Hook or the +Fastnet lights, but also as worshipers, raising their eyes and hearts +to the Holy Mother with her Infant, imploring help and protection in +their lives of hardship and danger; for navigation on the lake is very +dangerous from undercurrents, and I have often heard marine officers +say that they would rather cross the ocean than make a trip on this +lake. + +The town of Ladoga contains only a few thousand inhabitants, but, since +it is a county seat, all the government officers, military and civil, +are obliged to live there with their families. If you add the staffs of +the various regiments which are stationed there in turn, and several +wealthy landowners of the nobility, you can imagine that life in Ladoga +is gay. + +In no other country than Russia are there so many private dancing +parties, suppers--or rather midnight dinners--and all sorts of +amusements, any one of which is, for the most part, a pretext for +eating, drinking and gambling. Even among ladies, every game of cards +is played for money, in a country where the paternal government says: +“You cannot read; I will read for you. You cannot write; I will write +for you. You cannot think; I will think for you.” Questions of public +interest there are none. If there is a vacancy in an office, every one +knows the Czar will make the appointment. If there is a famine, every +one says the Czar will send bread; thousands will die meanwhile, but +this is no matter. If there is a war, every one proclaims, “Our little +father, the Czar, will beat them; our mother, Russia, is invincible; +let him [the enemy] come, we will bury him under our caps.” One is +only permitted to think how to win more at cards, how to eat more +and not make himself ill, how to drink more and not be made drunk, +although this last condition is not considered at all degrading. On the +contrary, it awakens in every one charitable feelings, quite naturally, +for every one expects to be drunk himself, if not to-day, then, surely, +to-morrow. It is really edifying to see how a mantle of charity is +thrown over one who is drunk, and how tenderly he is carried home to +bed--more tenderly, indeed, than one who may have had the misfortune +to slip and break his leg. But the young men do not think merely of +cards, eating and drinking, although they do not lose much time before +entering upon these delights, and almost all show, very early, a +genius for them, probably by way of inheritance. The adherents and the +advocates of the theory of inherited inebriety would find in Russia +their task greatly simplified. In case of a hiatus in the genealogical +record, or in case of the utter impossibility of tracing one, they +would not be obliged to make a _salto mortale_ to Noah. Stretching out +their fingers triumphantly, they could at once point out son, father +and grandfather drunk in company. + +There is, however, a time when a young man, even in Russia, thinks more +of dancing and flirtation than of anything else, and when he under no +circumstances would omit a dancing party or a ball, to say nothing of +a wedding-ball. A wedding and a wedding-ball were on the program for +the next day. I was young, recently graduated, held quite an enviable +office under government, and had been chosen by the bride to hold the +crown--not of diamonds, but of tinsel--over her head at the wedding +ceremony during her triple promenade round the pulpit, hand in hand +with her _fiancé_, which, according to the Greek rite, is a symbol of +the Gordian knot. + +But something still better my stars had destined for me. It was that +the dear girl, just lost to all others except her husband, had selected +me from a score of aspirants to lead the mazurka with her at the +end of the ball. No sympathetic soul will wonder that, under these +circumstances, I thought myself of no less importance for the events of +the coming day than Bismarck for the Vaterland, and that while hurrying +on all the necessary preparations for my personal appearance, I was +plotting to prolong the mazurka at least one hour beyond the usual time. + +Perhaps some one will question how it was that the honor of dancing the +principal dance with the bride was bestowed on me, and not reserved +for the bridegroom. Well, there were two reasons of the best kind. The +first--a secret I will not tell; but the other, known to all Ladoga, +was as follows: The groom’s left leg was shorter than the right. This +misfortune naturally prevented him from dancing that fiery dance. +Besides this, he belonged to that body of dignitaries entrusted by +the Father of all Russia with the power of deciding the fate of poor +delinquents, no matter in what category. Russia has her points of +etiquette. Was it possible for such a dignitary to hop for hours +through a mazurka? Certainly not. Even if both his legs had been of +the same length, he could not have done it, for his shoulders were +already loaded with a terrible weight of responsibility. To please his +own humane heart, and to please all the living steps above him, up +to the highest, who--no matter what Roman numeral is appended to his +name--is considered to be endowed with the most humane heart of all, +our dignitary had often to decide a question, frequently put to Russian +rulers: which penalty would be the most humane, several thousand +strokes of the knout, under which the sufferer might possibly die; or +twenty years in the mines, where he would probably die? + +Now, since this subject is at present so eloquently presented before +the world in a work--for which, oh, so many thousands of hearts are +praying that it may bring the same blessed results as “Uncle Tom’s +Cabin”--I will only say that my bridegroom, being in a constant dilemma +himself on that point, carried his neck bent forward in addition to his +mismatched legs. + +The evening before the wedding and the ball my preparations were all +accomplished to my satisfaction. My new uniform, new epaulets, new +boots, fitting so tightly that I could scarcely walk in them, but made +to my special order by the most reliable shoemaker in Ladoga, new white +gloves--in one word, everything new--lay spread about in my room on +tables and chairs. Imagine, then, my dismay, when, at five o’clock in +the evening, I received a dispatch ordering me to go at once on a very +important service to a place at a distance of ninety-six versts (about +sixty miles) from Ladoga. + +In spite of my own excited anticipation of to-morrow’s enjoyment, I +must say that I was more tormented by the thought of the disappointment +of the poor girl. What would she think? What would she feel? Would she +not even consider my absence as a bad omen for all her future life? +To be absent! No, even for the Czar’s sake I was incapable of such +treachery. But what could I do? To report myself sick was impossible, +for in that case I could not appear at the ball. Delay was out of the +question. I was obliged to go. Fortunately I could calculate upon +performing my duties there before noon of the next day, and it only +remained to be sure if I could make the journey with the speed of the +wind. But I would not allow any obstacles to give me uneasiness. I +knew I could make the 192 versts easily in nineteen hours, and having +twenty-seven hours before me, I calculated upon having plenty of time, +both for the business and the journey. + +So, without losing any time, I packed what was necessary for the trip, +sent at once for the post-horses, and ran to communicate the bad news +to my partner. As I anticipated, she was much startled, but by giving +her the most solemn promises that I would return _coûte que coûte_ in +time for the ball, at eight o’clock the next evening, I succeeded in +calming her. + +As I have mentioned before, it was in the beginning of winter, so I +traveled in a sleigh. I left Ladoga at half-past six in the evening, +and arrived at my destination about three o’clock in the morning, +without any accident. Ordering at the post station a _samovar_, I +made tea for myself, drank several cups, gave orders that I should be +aroused at six in the morning, and without undressing, wrapped myself +in my fur cloak, and, pushing under my head my leather traveling +pillow, fell asleep on the station sofa. + +I was aroused punctually as I had ordered at six, and after the +blessing of Russia--the _samovar_--had fulfilled its morning duty, I +hastened to mine. As I said, I had fully decided to rid my hands of +the unwelcome business in a very few hours, but I counted without my +host. Some individuals who were called as witnesses, but had not in +view a wedding hop, arrived late, and the village authorities, who +could not guess the reason of my feverish zeal in the Czar’s service, +moved and acted with the habitual slowness and apathy of the Russian +peasant. In short, it was already one o’clock in the afternoon when the +last document was duly signed, witnessed, and packed in my portfolio. +I rushed into my furs and through the door, before which the _trojka_ +had been standing for more than an hour, the horses and the _jamszczyk_ +shivering with the cold, and the bells tinkling. + +I threw myself into the low, spacious sleigh, well filled with straw, +and shouted to the _jamszczyk_: + +“_Poszol!_” (Go.) + +A promise of one ruble if he would make the next station, a distance +of sixteen versts, in one hour, did not fail to produce the desired +effect. The horses, stimulated by the wild shouts of the _jamszczyk_, +and by the whip, on the end of which stuck the promised ruble, ran, as +the French say, _ventre à terre_, and the next village was reached at +but seven minutes past two. + +The day was clear, but a strong northwester, blowing fiercely, made +the air bitterly cold. Snow having fallen some few days previously, +the road was excellent, and my only fear was that I might fail to find +horses at some station. In this case there would be no help. Every one, +even the Governor-general himself, if he arrives unexpectedly, must +wait till the return of the first span, and till the regulation two +hours for feeding the exhausted beasts passes away. But, trusting to my +good luck, and still more to the secret prayers of my partner in the +mazurka, I drove such gloomy anticipations as far as possible from my +mind. + +The _starosta_ met me at the door of the station, which was at the same +time his house, invited me to enter and to warm myself with a cup of +tea. I declined, and having no heart to ask the question dreaded by +each traveler: “Are the horses at hand?” said that I was in a great +hurry and wished to go at once. He said, “All right!” and I entered the +room resolving to be polite and patient, knowing by experience that in +many cases politeness and patience produce more effect than shouting +and commands. Besides this, I was sure my former driver would not fail +to tell his comrades that I was a “good fare.” Scarcely ten minutes had +passed when the _starosta_ came in, announcing: “The horses are ready.” + +With a light heart I hurried out, but my satisfaction was a little +checked by seeing that instead of three horses there were only two. +I asked the _starosta_ for the reason, and received the answer that +all the _jamsczyks_ were out, and that he would send his own boy, whom +he could not risk with a _trojka_. At the same moment a little bit +of a chap came out of the _izba_. He was not more than twelve years +old, but looked bright and smart: he was dressed in the full costume +of a genuine _jamszczyk_, and held in his hand his short whip, which +he snapped with the air of a connoisseur. Approaching the horses +deliberately, he walked round them, and imitating in every movement +an old _jamszczyk_, he began to examine and to try by shaking the +different parts of the harness, showing an especial fondness for the +big bell hanging over the head of the horse in the shafts. He was +evidently convincing himself that everything was in order for the +event--so important for him--of driving a real officer with a star on +his cap, instead of a simple peasant-delegate. Meanwhile the _starosta_ +helped me into the sleigh, seated me on my leather cushion, and piled +heaps of straw round my legs and feet, pressing it so that it was +impossible for me to move. As the cold was increasing, I abandoned +myself to his tender care, which I could but consider as a mark of +atonement for the missing third horse. + +Everything being ready, I said “Go!” and the little boy, faithful to +the end to the great rôle he was performing, took off his big cap, +crossed himself hastily thrice--as every Russian does before any +important, doubtful or dangerous occasion--seized the reins, threw +himself coquettishly on the front edge of the sleigh, leaving his short +legs hanging out, and in the manner of a well-bred _jamszczyk_, turned +toward me his merry face, without disturbing his acrobatic posture, and +asked, “Are you ready, sir?” + +I gave a nod with my head just sticking out from the big collar of my +fur coat, and the _starosta_ said, “With God, Vaniusha [Johnny], and +take care.” Vaniusha replied, “All right!” and addressing the horses, +sang out with his silvery voice, “Eh, you, my little doves!” The doves +started, the bells jingled, and off we went. + +Now, I must confess that in my heart I was wickedly glad to have for a +driver a child; “_cet âge est sans pitié_,” as the great fabulist has +said, and I knew he would not spare the little doves, even without the +one ruble _pour boire_. + +The village being situated on a steep hill, the road from the station +went rapidly down at a grade which could delight only a tobogganist. +Besides this the road was not wide, and was bordered with _izbas_ +and fences on both sides. The passers-by greeted Vaniusha, and the +village belles, attracted by the sounds of our chime, peeped out of +the windows. That the little rogue, being well aware of the general +admiration, felt himself in the seventh heaven, and was as proud as +a peacock, he proved by an impatience which brought us both within a +hair’s breadth of a bad end. + +Not waiting to reach the plains, he began to tickle the tender parts +of the side horse with his short whip. The tickled horse, knowing +very well there are no flies in winter, instead of using his tail for +self-protection, used his leg and kicked fiercely. Unfortunately, +during this performance, the whiffle-tree became entangled in his +legs. There is no difference between the animals of a civilized and an +uncivilized country, and every one can easily guess what happened. The +kicks were redoubled; and the shaft-horse, alarmed by his neighbor’s +actions, kicked too, and both started on a wild race. The frightened +Lilliputian dropped the lines and grasped the sleigh with both hands. +I had no time to seize the reins before the sleigh tipped over. I was +imprisoned in my seat by the straw tightly packed round my feet, so +my body was forced to follow all the zigzags of the half-overturned +sleigh, dragged furiously downward by the runaway “doves,” which +seemed, indeed, to possess wings. + +How long this lasted I cannot tell, for, thanks to the concussions that +I received, and the dizzy speed in such an unaccustomed position, I +lost all consciousness. + +When I came to my senses I found myself stretched on the road. +Hastening to get on my feet as quickly as I could, I began to examine +myself, and was very glad to find everything all right. + +I heard shouts of men running toward me, and perceived at some distance +behind me the poor boy, now without his whip and without his big cap, +standing in the middle of the road, bitterly crying and nursing one +hand tenderly with the other. Far ahead spasmodic sounds of a bell +resounded, and turning in that direction I saw my horses running round +a mill which stood isolated beyond the village, just as if they had +been performing a chariot-race at a circus. + +I rushed to the boy and asked what was the matter. His pitiful sobs did +not permit him to utter a single word, and I was afraid he had broken +his arm. + +Meanwhile the _starosta_ and a crowd of _moujiks_ reached us. Little +Johnny was brought into the nearest _izba_ and undressed. A careful +examination by a _znachar_ (village quack), fortunately present in the +crowd, having been made, I was glad to learn from the mouth of the +oracle that the bones were sound, though the wrist was sprained. + +Several _moujiks_, who had run to catch the horses, brought them to the +door, and my gun, portfolio, and other things scattered on the road +were soon recovered. + +This restored me to my full consciousness, and I exclaimed, “The +mazurka!” + +Without losing a moment, I thrust my hand into my pocket, gave to the +still sobbing Vaniusha a “blue” (five paper rubles), and, addressing +the _starosta_, said that I must go on at once. + +The _starosta_, whose conscience now pricked him doubly for having +economized on the third horse (for use of which he had already pocketed +the post-fare), and for trusting a life precious to the Czar’s service +to such childish hands, declared at once that he would drive himself. +The station-house being now a half-mile away, not to lose time, he +snatched, without much ceremony, from the nearest bystanders, things +necessary to protect him from the cold, and we started. + +Although this occurrence made me lose more than a half-hour, each +minute of which was precious to me, I rendered thanks from my heart to +Providence for my preservation from having my head split in two on a +fence or on the corner of an _izba_. + +The wind increased constantly, and snow began to fall and to melt on my +nose, so I wrapped myself closely in my furs, and, feeling some fatigue +from the excitement, sat perfectly quiet. Not so my driver. At first he +was as still as a mouse, probably fearing or expecting some strongly +flavored words from me, which he was sure he had deserved; but, seeing +me so quiet, his own feelings began to wander in other directions. +He grew angry. Had he not enough reason? His poor boy injured, and +himself, instead of sitting in a warm _izba_ and sipping tea, obliged +to perform the duty of a _jamszczyk_. Who was guilty of all this? +Certainly the doves, and to them he now turned all his attention. The +whip, being now in the paternal hands, began to perform the paternal +duty of bygone times. The doves could make no mistake this time about +flies or mosquitoes, and had no time to kick. They ran at the top of +their speed. + +As it always was, and probably always will be--the one suffers, the +other rejoices. So the doves suffered and I rejoiced as they devoured +the space, and I flew with the speed of a state messenger bearing to +the White Czar the news of a new victory of his army. In less time +than any tip could have brought it about, we reached the next village, +and, without any delay, I proceeded farther. The next stage was a +long one, twenty-two versts, and the road led through the woods. Once +in the woods, the wind could not be felt so severely. Darkness was +coming on, and I felt sleepy. Moving hither and thither on my seat, +and sliding down a little, I fell into quite a comfortable position +and began to doze. My dreams, which constantly represented to my mind +a brilliantly lighted hall, with its peculiarly scented atmosphere and +incoherent rustle, all the beauties in their ball-dresses, and my still +more beautiful partner of the mazurka, were interrupted by a sense of +the cessation of motion, and by a voice saying, “_Barin_ [sir], eh, +_Barin!_ do you see?” + +“What is there?” + +“Wolves!” + +Indeed, straining my eyes to pierce the darkness, I perceived in +the distance some points of light moving to and fro. I could hear +indistinct howlings, too. + +“The deuce!” thought I “what shall we do now?” + +It seemed to me strange to meet, at this season, with a pack of wolves. +The frosts had only begun, the snow was not deep, and generally these +beasts venture out of their retreats only when driven by hunger. But I +knew very well, too, that in such an encounter the most dangerous thing +is to stop or to retreat. Even wolves respect courage. So, seizing +my double-barreled gun, I said to the _jamszczyk_, “Go! go fast, but +steadily, and do not stop under any circumstances.” + +He started, but soon stopped again. Seeing that mildness would have +no effect here, I applied to his head the strongest argument that I +could, not neglecting, in spite of the darkness, to hit with my fist +the lurking-place of his nerve of courage, indicated by Lavater. This +plan worked, and, with the flash of an electric transmitter, he +passed on the blow to the running nerves of the horses. They flew. +The _jamszczyk_ thrashed them without mercy, the bells jingled madly, +and I, holding my gun in both hands, tried at the same time, by all +possible means, not to tumble out of the sleigh. The points of light +grew nearer, the howlings became more distinct, but it seemed to me as +if it were dogs. + +So it proved. Soon we came on a gypsy camp. + +It was after seven in the evening when we reached the next station, +and I had only one more before me. Being obliged to wait some time for +fresh horses, and seeing that it would be impossible to arrive at the +very beginning of the ball, I began to grow restless in spite of the +conviction that the dear girl would never doubt my intentions, and +would not pout her charming lips by way of punishing me for the moments +of suspense. + +At last the horses were announced, and I could proceed, but a new +disappointment was in store for me. The horses, being still tired +from a previous trip, showed themselves provokingly obedient to the +regulation speed, and all my own and the _jamszczyk’s_ efforts to urge +them on proved useless. It was half-past nine when we reached the +Wolchow. I think I have forgotten to say that my route being on the +right side of the river, which was not yet frozen, I had to cross it. +There was no bridge, and I think there never will be. Communication +being made by a ferryboat, built and handled on the ante-diluvian +principles, but quite safe in calm weather, I had now to cross the +river on it once more. Generally it takes half an hour for the floating +apparatus to make each trip, but I was prepared for this. + +Imagine my surprise, then, when the ferryman--a weather-beaten +ex-fisherman--who knew the lake and the river as well as his own five +fingers, announced that the ferryboat was on the other side, and in +such weather it could not cross the river. + +Having made the last half of my way almost entirely through the woods, +I was not aware of the increased fury of the elements. But now, jumping +from the sleigh and approaching the river, I could convince myself of +its condition. + +Indeed it was an ugly sight. The wind blowing a gale, and coming from +the lake, stopped the current of the river and raised its water. Not +only white-caps, but whole mountains of waves were rolling in fiercely, +throwing foam and spray high in the air. I saw there was no use +even in promising a kingdom for a ferry. My feelings fell to a point +below zero. So near to my goal, and at the same time so far from it! +Nevertheless, I turned to the ferryman and asked him if there was no +other way to cross the river. He said if I wished he would take me +over in his little dory. I had noticed the little nutshell before, and +always wondered how it could carry such a big sail without tipping +over. But to think of it now! The bold proposal of the tar made me +shudder. It was true that I might expect to be drowned that night, but +though the Wolchow bubbled, sparkled and foamed, better than the driest +product of the famous widow--it was not champagne. + +Again I questioned the man whether there were no other means for +crossing. He replied that, if I insisted upon it, I could have the +large rowboat, adding that there were some men, who had already waited +several hours in the ferry-house, to whom he had refused the boat, but +that an officer must be accommodated, and that he was sure they would +be glad to row me and themselves over. + +I hastened to the shabby ferry-house, and found the company scattered +about the floor asleep. Arousing them as quickly as I could, I +explained to them the situation. + +They were four in all--two peddlers and two peasants. Unanimously I was +proclaimed captain, and we went to the boat at once. + +I took the seat at the stern and seized the rudder. One of the peddlers +took one oar, one of the peasants took the other. The second peddler, +still half asleep, tumbled into the dancing boat, and we only waited +for the remaining countryman. + +What was my astonishment when I perceived him dragging something that +did not wish to go? What was it? What new passenger? Before he reached +the boat, however, I could guess by the squeals and peculiar noises +which my ear caught amid the howling of the wind and the roaring of the +river, that it was a pig. + +Now, this was too much. My very epaulets revolted against such a +thing. To go on a perilous expedition in company with a pig, and, if +successful, to divide the honors with the pig! + +I protested hotly. The owner of the pig implored, and the crew--true to +tradition--revolted against the captain and voted for the pig. + +What could I do? The chances were equal. Without me they could not have +the boat; without them I could not manage it. + +Fortunately at that critical moment--for to resist would be to lose the +mazurka, and to yield to lose authority, and heaven knows of what those +Tartars would not be capable in case of danger, once in the middle of +the stream!--a brilliant idea struck me. I have acknowledged already my +ignorance of nautical principles, but I had read in my boyhood, like +every one else, some piratical novels, and the idea of ballast flashed +through my mind. + +The pig would be our ballast! And with this in view, I ordered the men +to bind the pig’s legs and throw it into the bottom of the craft. + +The ferryman having once more warned me to keep the boat constantly +headed to the southwest, said to us, “Now, with God!” the two +improvised oarsmen bent to the oars, and we started. + +On the river it was pitch dark. I could barely see the forms of my +companions. The boat danced wildly; nevertheless, I was in high +spirits--I was advancing. The boat was large and in good condition, +as the ferryman had assured me. All fears of capsizing disappeared +from my mind, thanks to my bright idea of the ballast, which now lay +gently grunting just in the centre of the boat. Besides, I had under my +command two men in reserve to relieve the two oarsmen in case of their +being exhausted, and we were provided with spare oars. + +How long we pulled and struggled with the river I cannot say, for +I began to lose all idea of time. Twice already the oarsmen had +relieved each other, and in spite of this they began to show signs of +exhaustion. It seemed to me we were not advancing at all. Suddenly +the boat began to dance violently. From this I concluded that we must +be in the middle of the river. To cheer up the crew, I communicated +to them my nautical observations, but just at this moment a huge wave +raised us high up, and another, as in a fury of jealousy, struck us +vehemently. The boat made a terrible lurch. The frightened men raised +cries of terror, and--worst of all--the pig began to squeal horribly, +and, struggling with its bound legs, began to throw itself hither +and thither. I was frightened. I thought the struggling animal would +surely upset the boat; and in my turn I howled out, with a voice of +which I am sure a captain possessed of the strongest lungs would not +be ashamed, “Overboard with the pig!” But this command, instead of +ameliorating the situation aggravated it in the most unexpected way. +Its owner threw himself flat on the beast to protect it. The pig, +taken by surprise, and misjudging the man’s intention, redoubled its +tossings, and the man following each of them with his body, put the +boat in real danger. + +Already I was prepared to give a new command, “Overboard with the two +pigs!” but hesitated for one moment. + +At that time I had never killed anyone--though I must confess to having +afterwards sacrificed the lives of a few stupid Circassians who dared +to fight against the White Czar for their beautiful mountains and their +liberty--and I was glad that I hesitated. The man proved stronger than +the pig, overpowered it with his weight, and both man and pig lay still. + +The boat recovering its buoyancy began again to follow the motions of +the waves. At the same moment I perceived the lights of Ladoga, but to +my horror those lights, instead of vanishing to the right, vanished +rapidly towards the left. I jumped on my feet and shouted, “For your +lives, men, pull stronger; we are drifting into the lake!” + +A new struggle--a struggle for our lives--began. Each of us knew well +that once in the lake in such weather and darkness, we were lost. The +men threw their sheep-skins off. I did the same with my fur. We did not +need them--we were bathed in perspiration. + +How long it lasted again I cannot tell. It seemed an eternity, and in +spite of our utmost efforts the lights vanished more and more to the +left. + +Suddenly I felt something strike my head. My cap was snatched off, +and instinctively throwing my hand up to catch it, I struck a rope. I +seized it frantically, and shouted, “A rope! catch hold!” + +The pig’s master was now the first to follow my command, and at the +same time I felt that the boat was striking something hard. This proved +to be a huge barge. A merciful Providence had guided us just under the +rope of her anchor. The rudder and the oars were abandoned; we all, +except the pig, clung to the rope, and began to call for help. + +A voice above our heads shouted, “Who the devil is there?” and the +peddlers and the peasants, as with one voice, cried out, “It is a +_czinownik_!” (a government officer). This magic word proved no less +effective on sea than on land, and at once came the answer, “Hold +on--wait!” + +In a few minutes a light appeared on the deck, some one threw us a rope +from the barge and we were dragged to the other side of the vessel. + +I saw a man lying flat on his stomach and stretching down toward me +both his hands; another man held his feet. I seized the welcome hands, +or rather the welcome hands grasped mine vigorously, and I was hoisted +on the deck. + +My companions followed me in the same way. What became of the pig I +don’t know. + +My limbs trembled and almost refused to support me. From exhaustion and +excitement I was shivering all over. But I had no time to lose. I must +be on the shore as soon as possible, and my deliverers from an almost +certain death led me, supported on both sides, to the place where an +immense plank, some fifty feet long, connected the barge with the shore. + +But if I could not walk very well on the deck, still less was it +possible for me to risk myself on this narrow plank. So I was seated on +it, and the boatswain of the barge pushed me over as carefully as if I +were a bale of most precious merchandise. + +Once on _terra firma_ my legs recovered their elasticity as if by a +charm, and thrusting into the hand of the boatswain the whole contents +of my pocket-book, I ran to my lodgings. + +With the help of my servant, who was fully initiated in all the +mysteries of an officer’s ball attire, it did not take me long to +get ready, but it was past two when I reached the house where all my +thoughts were concentrated. It was supper-time, and the servant led +me at once to the dining-room, brilliantly lighted and crowded to its +utmost capacity. + +But I had no time to waste in reflections, and had scarcely tossed off +a few glasses of champagne in reply to toasts on my safe arrival when +the signal for the mazurka was given. + +All who had both legs right did not wait for the end of the supper, but +seizing their partners rushed to the ballroom. + +I need not say that I and my prize--I have the right to call her so, +for I had fought gallantly for her, and won her, not for life, but for +the mazurka--were at the head of all. We danced the mazurka, and danced +till six in the morning. + + + + +THE ACE OF HEARTS. + + + I never can see the ace of hearts + (Like a single splash of bright, red blood), + But a train of awful memory starts + And o’er me whirls like a seething flood. + + I see the flash of a wicked knife + That settles for all the hot dispute-- + A cruel end to a sweet young life, + A boyish face lying white and mute. + + I can see it all--the lurid light + From th’ open fire on the mountaineers-- + The far Sierras gleam cold and white, + And through the forest the wan moon peers. + + My deal again--and again the ace + That horrid train of memory starts: + I can always see that dead boy’s face + And his cold hands clutching the ace of hearts. + + _Edith Sessions Tupper._ + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +OUTDOOR LIFE OF THE PRESIDENTS. + +BY JOHN P. FOLEY. + + +No. II. + + +~Thomas Jefferson~, the third President, was, like Washington, +a member of the rich, slave-owning aristocracy of Virginia. His father +was a large landed proprietor, and bequeathed to him a handsome estate +in the county of Albemarle. It was called Shadwell, after a parish in +London. To another son, younger, he left a property on the James River, +named Snowden, which commemorated the reputed birthplace of the family +in Wales. The Jefferson homestead was on the Shadwell lands. At a +distance of about two miles from where it stood there arose a beautiful +forest-clothed mountain, which commanded a wide view of the surrounding +country. It was a favorite resort of young Jefferson. When a boy, he +and a youthful companion used to climb its rocky sides, and in later +years they repaired to it for the purposes of study and recreation. +Under the shadow of a splendid oak they read their legal text-books, +and, in the ardor of their friendship, resolved that whoever died +first should be buried at its feet, and that, when the time came, the +survivor should rest beside him. This young friend, Dabney Carr, who +subsequently married a sister of Jefferson, died in early manhood, and +the romantic compact of boyhood was faithfully carried out. Half a +century later the remains of Jefferson were laid by his side. + +The story is told that during one of their frequent rambles on the +mountain, Jefferson unfolded to Carr his intention to build his future +home amid the scenes where they had spent so many happy hours. + +This tale is probably true, for soon after Jefferson became of age, the +majority of his slaves were set to work clearing away the top of the +mountain, now called, for the first time, Monticello, and preparing the +site for the mansion which was destined to an eternity of fame, because +of the splendid achievements of its illustrious owner. + +Jefferson was only fourteen years old when his father died. He had +been nine years at school at the time; knew the rudiments of Latin +and Greek, and had some knowledge of French. In a letter written in +his old age to a grandson, whose education he was superintending, Mr. +Jefferson refers to this sad event in his life, and describes the +perils that surrounded his youth as follows: “When I recollect that +at fourteen years of age the whole care and education of myself was +thrown on myself, entirely without a relative or friend qualified to +advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad company +with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished that I did +not turn off with some of them and become as worthless to society +as they were.... From the circumstances of my position I was often +thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, +scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time +have I asked myself in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, +the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently +argued at the bar, or in the great council of the nation, ‘Well, which +of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse-jockey, a +fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country’s rights?’” +The temptations to which he refers beset him, in all probability, when +he was at William and Mary College and immediately after, while he was +reading law in Williamsburg, the then capital of Virginia. That town +was the centre of the most refined society of the province; the seat of +the legislature; the headquarters of the army; and it was only natural +that the objectionable characters whom Jefferson condemns should have +been attracted to it. A young man just graduated with the highest +honors from the university, with a reputation for the possession of +great intellectual gifts, the heir to a fine estate, of agreeable and +cultivated manners, Jefferson was at once admitted into the very best +society of Williamsburg. He lived in a style befitting his position. He +had his horses and slaves, in fact all the luxuries which a rich young +gentleman of the time could command. At this period he fortunately +fell under the influence of three men who helped to mold his career +and turn him toward those pursuits which were ultimately crowned with +the highest honors an American can obtain. They were the first men in +the social and political life of Williamsburg; the first men, in fact, +in the whole province. One was George Wyeth, his legal preceptor, a +gentleman of the highest order of ability; in after years a signer of +the Declaration of Independence and Chancellor of Virginia. The second +was Dr. Small, one of the professors in the college, “who made him his +daily companion,” and the third Governor Fauquier, “the ablest man,” +says Jefferson, “who ever filled that office.” At the table of the +governor, Jefferson, not yet twenty years old, was a guest as often as +twice a week. He was also a member of a little musical society which +the representative of royalty in Virginia had organized. Fauquier was +one of the most accomplished men of his time. He was of a distinguished +English family, courtly in manner, a brilliant conversationalist, +with a wide knowledge of the world. He loved high play, and, it is +said, lost his fortune in one night to the celebrated Anson, who first +circumnavigated the globe. + +Jefferson’s father, as we have said, died when his son was only +fourteen years of age; but, says Mr. Randall in his biography of the +third President, he had already taught young Thomas “to ride his horse, +fire his gun, boldly stem the Rivanna when the swollen river was +‘rolling red from brae to brae,’ and press his way with unflagging foot +through the rocky summits of the contiguous hills in pursuit of deer +and wild turkeys.” From youth to old age riding was the one amusement +of which Jefferson never tired. At college he kept his horses, the +very best that could be had. His stable was the one extravagance of +which, while there, he appears to have been guilty. His expenditures +in this respect were so heavy that he requested his guardian to charge +them to his portion of the estate, so that his brother and sisters +should not suffer; but the guardian declined, on the ground that if +he had thus sown his wild oats the property would be able to stand it +without very great loss. His taste for fine horses lasted all through +life. He rode and drove magnificent animals, says Mr. Randall, and in +his younger days was exceedingly “finical” in their treatment. When +his saddle-horse was led out he examined him carefully. If there was +a spot on his coat he rubbed it with a white pocket-handkerchief, +and if it was soiled, the groom was reprimanded. He preferred the +Virginian racehorse. He did not ride, and was scarcely willing to +drive, any other. He usually kept half a dozen brood mares of high +quality. Although not a turfman--he ran only one race in his life--he +had all the fondness of the Virginian for the sport, and rarely missed +seeing what promised to be a good contest. While he held the office +of Secretary of State, and, later on, when chief magistrate, he was +frequently seen on the race-courses near Philadelphia and the federal +city. Jefferson was not satisfied with slow and spiritless animals. +On the contrary, he always aimed to have fleet, powerful, mettlesome +creatures, and when these qualities could be obtained he was willing +to overlook a bad temper. Colonel Randolph, writing on this point, +remarks: “A bold and fearless rider; you saw at once from his easy and +confident seat that he was master of his horse.... The only impatience +of temper he ever exhibited was with his horse, which he subdued +to his will by a fearless application of the whip on the slightest +manifestation of restiveness. He retained to the last his fondness for +riding on horseback. He rode within three weeks of his death, when, +from disease, debility and age, he mounted with difficulty.” A servant +was rarely allowed to accompany him, for he loved solitude, and used +to say that the presence of an attendant annoyed him. In his young +days he never drew rein at broken ground, and when in haste he used to +dash into the Rivanna, even when it was swollen into a large and rapid +river by mountain torrents. His superb horsemanship served him well on +a memorable occasion during the Revolutionary War, when a detachment +of English troops visited Monticello in the hope of capturing him. He +had timely notice of their approach, and, having sent his family away +in carriages to one of his numerous farms, he ordered his horse to a +certain point, and returned to the house to secrete his papers. While +thus occupied a second alarm came, and he had barely time to mount and +dash into the woods, where he was safe from pursuit. Jefferson was +then governor of Virginia, and in after years his political opponents +charged that he ignominiously ran away from the enemy. + +Mr. Jefferson’s classical tastes were indicated in the names of his +horses: “Caractacus” was one, “Arcturus” another, “Tarquin” a third, +“Celer” a fourth. Then he had “Diomed” and “Cucullin,” “Jacobin” and +“The General,” “Wildair” and “Eagle.” “Eagle” seems to have been his +favorite steed. He was fleet and fiery, and, withal, of a gentle +temper. This animal was ridden by Jefferson when he was so feeble +that he had to be assisted to mount. “Eagle,” it would appear, loved +his venerable master. The story is told that when a young kinsman of +Jefferson’s mounted the old horse to ride with a cavalcade to meet +Lafayette on his way to Monticello, in 1825, “Eagle” became so excited +by the sound of the drums and bugles that the young gentleman was +obliged to turn back and ride home. On one occasion, when Jefferson was +old and suffering severely from an injured wrist, a messenger brought +the intelligence to Monticello that a grandson of the ex-President +was severely ill at Charlottesville. Night was coming on, and the +sky was dark and threatening. Jefferson ordered that “Eagle” be led +to the door. His family, alarmed for his safety, vainly entreated +him not to attempt the journey. In the saddle, he gave “Eagle” a cut +which set him off at full speed. Mr. Jefferson’s family anxiously +listened, hoping that he would draw bridle at the “notch,” where the +mountain began to descend abruptly. The echoes of “Eagle’s” hoofs +over the rocks told them that the fearful speed was maintained. The +returning messenger was soon passed, and Charlottesville was reached +“in a time over such ground that would have reflected credit on the +boldest rider in Virginia.” “Arcturus” had the honor of being one of +the Presidential horses at Washington. His disposition was bad, and +he was exceedingly unmanageable. The crags of Monticello did not suit +him, and when he first arrived there he selected as a shying point a +rock which jutted out into the narrow road on the edge of a ravine. +The brute seemed to reason that his rider would not dare to punish +him at such a point. Jefferson indulged him two or three times, and +then determined to break him of the habit. The next time “Arcturus” +shied he punished him so severely that the animal was glad to put his +fore-feet on the rock and stand still. Mr. Jefferson kept a good stable +while he was President, although his political enemies were unwilling +to concede even that point in his favor. In one of the opposition +prints of the day we are told that he carried his affectation of +democratic simplicity so far that “he rode around the avenues of +Washington an ugly, shambling hack of a horse which was hardly fit to +draw a tumbril.” But this was a slander. There are conflicting stories +in regard to Mr. Jefferson’s inauguration. On the one hand, we are +assured that he rode to the Capitol alone, and, tying his horse to the +palings surrounding the grounds, went to the Senate chamber and took +the oath. Mr. Rayner, in his life of Jefferson, quotes the account of +the event by an eye-witness as follows: “The sun shone bright on that +morning. The Senate was convened. The members of the Republican party +that remained at the seat of government, the judges of the Supreme +Court, some citizens and gentry from the neighboring country, and about +a dozen ladies, made up the assembly in the Senate chamber.... Mr. +Jefferson had not yet arrived. He was seen walking from his lodgings, +which were not far distant, attended by five or six gentlemen, who +were his fellow-lodgers. Soon afterwards he entered, accompanied by a +committee of the Senate.... He took the oath, which was administered by +the Chief-Justice.... The new President walked home with two or three +gentlemen who lodged in the same house.” It is a well-known matter of +history that Jefferson abolished all the official and social pomp that +was so marked a feature of the administrations of his predecessors. +The levees were discontinued. He had only two days for the reception +of company--the 1st of January and the 4th of July, when he dispensed +a very liberal hospitality. The ladies of Washington bitterly opposed +this severe simplicity, and determined to make Mr. Jefferson return +to the old order of things. With that end in view, a number of them +visited the White House on the usual reception day. Jefferson was out +riding at the time, and on his return was informed of their presence. +A storm of wrath gathered on his brow, but was soon dispelled. Booted, +spurred, and covered with dust, he entered the room, and, riding-whip +in hand, chatted in the most delightful manner. The ladies saw they +were beaten, and never made a second attempt to get the levees back. +Mr. Jefferson on one of his solitary rides, while he was President, met +a feeble beggar sitting on the banks of a stream. The mendicant, not +knowing whom he addressed, asked to be helped across. Mr. Jefferson +directed him to mount behind, and carried him over. The pack was +forgotten, and Jefferson recrossed the stream for it. + +From his youth Jefferson had an intense fondness for agriculture. The +care and management of his large estate devolved on him as soon as he +became of age. He was studying law at Williamsburg, but his summers +were spent at Shadwell. He kept a clock in his bedroom, and rose in +the early dawn. During the day he usually took a gallop, and in the +twilight walked to the top of Monticello. Nine o’clock in summer and +ten in winter were his hours for retiring. At a very early period he +introduced a minute and exact system into all his affairs. He kept a +large number of note-books. In one, “the garden book,” he recorded +facts and data about the vegetable world, more particularly information +bearing on the subject of horticulture. He also kept “a farm book,” +and books for “personal” and “general” expenses. Then there was a +meteorological register. In his account-books we find such entries as +these: “Paid 11d. to the barber; 4d. for whetting penknife; put 1s. +in the church box.” On the memorable Fourth of July, 1776, when the +Declaration of Independence was signed, he sets forth that he had “paid +Sparhank for a thermometer £3 5s.,” and “27s. for 7 pairs of women’s +gloves.” He gave “1s. 6d. in charity.” The weather record tells us that +on the same day at six ~A. M.~ the mercury stood 68° above; at noon, +76°, and at nine ~P. M.~, 73½°. Entries were made in this book +regularly three times a day. Special expenditures were set down by +themselves. All his outlay while President, for instance, is preserved +in one manuscript volume, which was among the literary treasures of the +late Samuel J. Tilden. A striking illustration of how Mr. Jefferson +could charge his mind with the smallest as well as the largest matters +of human concern is shown by the curious record which he kept of the +condition of the vegetable market in Washington during the eight +years of the Presidency. This table specifies thirty-seven different +articles, and gives the date of the appearance of each of them on the +table, or on the stands for sale. In his “garden book” he entered +the time of the planting, sprouting, and ripening of his multitude +of esculents. These entries were illustrated by diagrams, as neat as +engravings, of the different plots or beds. The rows are numbered, +and the seeds planted in them accurately given. Even small matters +concerning the household received his attention, and we are told how +much of this or that article will suffice for one person, or for a +family; how much oil will be required for a given number of hours; +the relative cost of oil and candles. His agricultural observations +were ranged under seventeen general heads, comprising more than fifty +subdivisions. + +By birth and fortune Jefferson was an aristocrat, but his nature +revolted against the idle and voluptuous habits of the planter class +of that day. His ideas when he was about thirty years of age are well +expressed by himself, as follows: “Those who labor in the earth are the +chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he +has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It +is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire which otherwise +might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the +aggregate mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor +nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those who, not +looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the +husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and +caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, +suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs +of ambition. This, the natural progress and consequence of the arts, +has sometimes, perhaps, been retarded by accidental circumstances; +but, generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the +other classes of citizens bears in any State to that of its husbandmen, +is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good +enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption.” + +Mr. Jefferson was married January 1, 1772, to Mrs. Martha Skelton, +a rich young widow. The 1,900 acres inherited from his father he +had increased to 5,000 acres, all paid for, and his slaves numbered +nearly fifty. The farm yielded him about $2,000 a year, and his law +practice $3,000, which was a large income at that time. Mrs. Jefferson +inherited a fortune fully equal to that of her husband, so that when +the Revolution came he was a rich man. Shadwell house had been burned +down some years before, and the bride was taken to a wing of the new +one at Monticello, which was ready for occupation. The wedding trip +was inauspicious. The little phaeton in which the journey was made +became imbedded in the snow and had to be abandoned. The young couple +went the remainder of the distance on horseback, arrived at Monticello +at midnight, and found all the servants asleep. A small bottle of +wine, found behind some books in the library, constituted the bridal +supper. Jefferson, as we have said, began the erection of Monticello +when he reached his majority. The first work was to level the summit +of the mountain, which rose nearly eight hundred feet above the +surrounding country. This summit--an ellipsis of about ten acres--was +made perfectly smooth. The view from it is of surpassing grandeur and +beauty. At a distance of 100 miles, in some parts, the magnificent +ranges of the Alleghanies shut out the horizon on the west, and trend +away to the north and south. The Blue Ridge Mountains are visible +for 150 miles, while in the foreground of the picture lies a lovely +landscape of hill and valley, forest, stream and plain. The scene on +the east, to quote the words of Mr. Wirt in his eulogy on Jefferson, +“presents an extent of prospect bounded only by the spherical form of +the earth, in which nature seems to sleep in eternal repose, as if to +form one of the finest contrasts with the rude and rolling grandeur +of the West.” “From this summit,” says Mr. Wirt, “the philosopher +was wont to enjoy that spectacle, among the sublimest of nature’s +operations--the looming of the distant mountains--and to watch the +motions of the planets, and the greater revolutions of the celestial +spheres. From this summit, too, the patriot could look down with +uninterrupted vision upon the wide expanse of the world for which he +considered himself born, and upward to the open-vaulted heavens which +he seemed to approach, as if to keep him constantly in mind of his +great responsibility. It is, indeed, a prospect in which you see and +feel at once that nothing mean or little could live. It is a scene fit +to nourish those great and high-souled principles which formed the +elements of his character, and was a most noble and appropriate post +for such a sentinel over the rights and liberties of man.” + +The mansion was probably the finest country residence on the continent +at the time. The main structure is one hundred feet in length and +about sixty feet in depth. The basement story rises six feet above +the ground. On it rests the principal story, twenty feet in height. +Above this is an attic eight feet high, the whole crowned by a lofty +dome twenty-eight feet in diameter. On the north and south fronts +were piazzas, opening on a floored terrace which ran one hundred feet +in a straight line, and then another hundred feet at right angles, +terminated by pavilions two stories high. The offices and quarters +of the servants were ranged under these terraces. The style of +architecture is Doric with balustrades on top. The main entrance opens +on a magnificent hall which is surrounded by a gallery connecting +the upper rooms of the house. An American eagle in bas-relief, +encircled by eighteen stars--the number of States when Jefferson +was President--looks down from the ceiling, and holds in its claws +a ponderous chandelier. This hall contained an immense number of +statues and busts, so arranged as to exhibit the historical progress +of sculpture from the rude attempts of the red Indian to Caracci’s +finished statue of Jefferson himself. There was a vast collection of +Indian paintings, ornaments, weapons, statues and idols, together with +a profusion of natural curiosities and fossils of every description. +The hall on one side opened on a spacious _salon_, through double doors +of glass. The design was Egyptian. Imbedded in the walls were Louis +XIV. mirrors, bought in France, while Mr. Jefferson was minister. It +contained many fine paintings, historical and scriptural. There were +portraits of Locke, Bacon, Newton, Jefferson’s “Trinity of great men;” +of Columbus, Vespuceius, Cortez, Magellan and Raleigh; of Washington, +Adams, Franklin, and other distinguished men of the Revolution. +Adjoining it was another splendid apartment, called the “tea room,” +fitted up in rich and becoming style. The southern wing was devoted to +the library, cabinet, and chamber of Mr. Jefferson. The library was +divided into three apartments, opening one into the other. In it, at +one time, was the finest private collection of books on the continent, +sold afterwards to Congress when the Capitol was burned in the second +war with England. The cabinet led to a greenhouse filled with rare +plants. In a room adjoining the study was a collection of mathematical, +scientific, and optical instruments, said to be the best possessed by +any private gentleman in the world. The erection and decoration of this +elegant home, and the improvement of the grounds surrounding it, cost +Mr. Jefferson more than $400,000. He was practically his own architect +and superintendent. The rough work was performed by American mechanics, +slave and free; but the decoration was wrought by foreign artisans, +who were brought for the purpose from Italy, Switzerland, and other +parts of Europe. Beneath the building are, or were, long subterranean +passages, cased with stone, through which a person could walk upright. +They were connected with the slave quarters and the stables, hundreds +of feet distant. The master of Monticello used to pass through one +of them from his bedchamber and mount his horse in the early morning +before the household arose. + +All the appointments at Monticello were on a scale corresponding with +the style of the mansion. On the declivities of the mountain were +houses and buildings sufficient to make a small village. They were the +dwellings of his overseers and workmen; the quarters and workshops +of his mechanics. It was a little community complete in itself. Mr. +Jefferson’s millers ground in his own mill the corn and wheat raised on +his farms; his horses were shod by his own blacksmiths; the timber of +his woods was made into every article of use by his own carpenters, the +wool clipped from his own sheep was spun and woven by his own people. +He even made his own nails, and his mechanics were sufficiently skilful +to build his carriages. + +The lawn and grounds, which were laid out under his direction, +were as beautiful as nature and art could make them. At the age of +twenty-three, according to an entry in his garden book, he planted a +great variety of fruit-trees, and about the same period he selected the +now historic burying-place where the young friend of his youth, his own +family, and himself are buried. The book is filled with memoranda like +these: “What to do with the grounds: Thin out the trees; cut out stumps +and undergrowth; remove old trees and other rubbish, except where they +may look well; cover the whole with grass. Intersperse jessamine, +honeysuckle, sweetbrier and hardy flowers which do not require +attention. Keep in the park deer, rabbits, and every other wild animal +except those of prey. Procure a buck elk, to be, as it were, monarch +of the wood. Put inscriptions in various places on the bark of the +trees, and make benches or seats of rock or turf.” There are directions +for the shrubbery. “To be planted: Alder, bastard-indigo, flowering +amorphia, barbery, cassioberry, carsine, chinquipin, Jersey tea, +dwarf-cherry, lilac, wild-cherry, dogwood, redwood, horse-chestnut, +magnolia, mulberry, locust, holly, juniper, laurel, yew.” “Hardy +perennial flowers: snapdragon, larkspur, anemone, lily-of-the-valley, +primrose, larkspur, sunflower, flower-de-luce, daisy, gilliflower, +violet, flag, etc.” That Mr. Jefferson carried out his plans in regard +to the deer is evident from the account which has been left us by the +Marquis de Chastellux, who visited Monticello in 1782. The Marquis +says: “Mr. Jefferson amuses himself by raising a score of these animals +[deer] in his park. They have become very familiar, which happens to +all the animals of America, for they are, in general, much easier to +tame than those of Europe. He amuses himself by feeding them with +Indian corn, of which they are very fond, and which they eat out of +his hand. I followed him one evening into a deep valley where they are +accustomed to assemble towards the close of the day, and saw them walk, +run and bound.” + +The lawn was filled with lofty willows, poplars, acacias, catalpas, and +other native and foreign trees set out so as not to obstruct the view +in any direction from the centre where the house stood. Many of them +he had planted with his own hand, and all of them were placed where +they grew under his immediate superintendence. No wonder he declined to +leave this beautiful and ideal home and accept the commission to France +when it was first offered to him. The death of Mrs. Jefferson, in +1782, was so severe an affliction, however, that he gladly went abroad +as a means of escape from scenes which so forcibly reminded him of +his loss. His important and often vexatious diplomatic duties did not +prevent him from noting and sending home to his numerous correspondents +every hint and suggestion likely to benefit the agricultural interests +of the country. Almost every one of his many letters contains some +reference to his favorite pursuit. He was a member of the Agricultural +Society of Paris and of the Board of Agriculture of London. In 1785, +he writes from Paris that he recently “went to see a plough which was +worked by a windlass, without horses or oxen. It was a poor affair. +With a very troublesome apparatus, applicable only to a dead level, +four men could do the work of two horses.” To another correspondent he +writes about a new invention--“the working of grist-mills by steam,” +and adds, “I hear you are applying the same agent in America to +navigate boats.” Then comes the prediction, “I have little doubt but +that it will be applied generally to machines so as to supersede the +use of water-ponds, and, of course, to lay open all the streams for +navigation.” This improvement of the plough was one of Mr. Jefferson’s +great problems, and it is said that he was the first to lay down a +mathematical rule for shaping the mould-board. The first mention +of it in his writings is found in the journal of his trip through +Southern France, which was made partly for pleasure and partly to +obtain information on agricultural and other subjects that would be of +value to his countrymen at home. He received for the new mould-board a +gold medal from the Société d’Agriculture de la Seine. With the same +object in view, he also made a tour of Northern Italy. In a letter to +the Marquis de La Fayette he writes: “In the great cities I go to see +what travelers think alone worthy of being seen; but I make a job of +it, and generally gulp it all down in a day. On the other hand, I am +never satiated with rambling through the fields and farms, examining +the culture and cultivators with a degree of curiosity which makes +some take me to be a fool and others to be much wiser than I am. From +the first olive fields of Pierrelatte to the orangeries of Hieres has +been one continued rapture to me.” Mr. Jefferson was captivated by the +olive. He wrote home that he considered it the most precious gift of +heaven to man, and thought it was superior even to bread. He strongly +urged its cultivation, and also that of the fig and the mulberry. +The Southern States are indebted to him for upland rice. In 1790, +he procured a cask of that variety from Denbigh, in Africa; shipped +it to Charleston, where, by his direction, a part of it was sent to +Georgia. He also shipped a large number of olive plants, which throve +admirably in their new soil. “The greatest service,” says he, “which +can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture, +especially a bread grain. Next in value to bread is oil.” While in +Italy, he procured the seeds of three different species of rice from +Piedmont, Lombardy and the Levant, and sent them to South Carolina, +together with the seeds of the San Foin and other grasses. He was not +in favor of the cultivation of the vine in the United States--not, +however, on account of his temperance principles, but because he +thought men might be more profitably employed in other departments of +industry. While there he bought Merino sheep for his farm at Monticello. + +While he was sending these gifts to the country, greater and more +valuable, perhaps, than all the parchment treaties that have come +across the Atlantic since our diplomacy began, he was at the same time +extremely zealous in making known every new discovery and invention +within the whole circle of the arts and sciences. For the great staple +productions of the country he eagerly sought new outlets and markets. +He labored long and earnestly with the Count de Vergennes, the French +Prime Minister, to break up the tobacco monopoly, so that the American +product could be sold in France. He endeavored to convince the Italian +merchants that they needed our whale-oil and lard, and thus laid +the foundation of what afterwards became a profitable trade. In the +literary and scientific circles of Paris he was a prominent figure, +honored for his great attainments, the nobility of his character, and +his services in the cause of human freedom. His fame had preceded him, +and he was welcomed by the savants of France as a worthy successor to +the immortal Franklin. He discussed natural history with M. de Buffon. +“I have made a particular acquaintance here,” he writes to a friend, +“with Monsieur de Buffon, and have a great desire to give him the best +idea I can of our elk.” He requests his correspondent to send him the +horns, skeleton and skin of one, if it is possible to procure them. In +order to gratify Mr. Jefferson, a grand hunting party was organized +in New Hampshire by his friends, and, after a day’s hard chase, a +fine animal was captured. It was stuffed and shipped to Paris at an +expense of over fifty pounds sterling. Daniel Webster used to tell +the story that its arrival was celebrated by a grand supper, at which +Buffon was, of course, a guest, and that, at the proper time, it was +introduced as the scientific course of the feast. Mr. Jefferson also +added to the King’s Cabinet of Natural History, in charge of Buffon, +our American grouse and pheasant, which he asked Francis Hopkinson to +buy for him in the markets of Philadelphia. But he began to weary of +France. Writing to Baron Geismer in the fall of 1785, he says: “I am +now of an age which does not easily accommodate itself to new manners +and new modes of living, and I am savage enough to prefer the woods, +the wilds and the independence of Monticello to all the brilliant +pleasures of this gay capital.” He was not, however, released from +his post until three years later. On his way home from Norfolk, where +he landed upon his return, he received an invitation from Washington, +then President-elect, to become Secretary of State. He reluctantly +accepted, and entered on his new duties March, 1790, in New York, which +was then the seat of government. Mr. Jefferson was duly beloved by his +slaves, and his reception by them on his arrival at Monticello showed +the reverence in which they held him. His daughter, Mrs. Randolph, +writes: “The negroes discovered the approach of the carriage as soon +as it reached Shadwell, and such a scene I never witnessed in my life. +They collected in crowds around it, and almost drew it up the mountain +by hand. The shouting, etc., had been sufficiently obstreperous +before, but the moment it reached the top of the mountain, it reached +the climax. When the door was opened, they lifted him in their arms +and bore him to the house, crowding around and kissing his hands and +feet--some blubbering and crying--others laughing. It seemed impossible +to satisfy their anxiety to touch and kiss the very earth which bore +him. They believed him to be one of the greatest, and they knew him to +be one of the very best of men and kindest of masters.” + +Mr. Jefferson did not lose his interest in agricultural pursuits while +he was a member of the Washington administration. He made frequent +trips to Monticello, and directed the operations of his farmers, +laborers, and other workmen. In June, 1790, he writes from New York to +one of his daughters: “We did not have peas or asparagus here until the +8th day of this month. On the same day I heard the first whip-poor-will +whistle. Swallows and martins appeared here on the 21st of April. +When did they appear with you, and when had you peas and strawberries +and whip-poor-wills in Virginia? Take notice, hereafter, whether the +whip-poor-wills always come with the strawberries and peas.” When Mr. +Jefferson retired from the Washington Cabinet he immediately began to +repair the damages his long absence had caused on his estate. He then +owned 10,000 acres of land, of which 2,000 were under cultivation, +but they had been sadly mismanaged by his overseers. All the cleared +land was divided into nearly four equal parts, each containing about +280 acres. These were subdivided into fields of about forty acres in +extent, separated from one another by rows of peach-trees, 1,151 of +which were planted by him in one year alone. He had 154 slaves, 249 +cattle, 390 hogs, 5 mules, and 34 horses, 9 of which were required +for the use of his household. To quote his own words at this time, he +gave himself up “to his family, his farms and his books.” His farming +operations were conducted on the most approved scientific principles, +and the first threshing-machine seen in Virginia was on his estate. +But in a short time his election to the Vice-Presidency recalled +him to the political arena, and “the rocks and wilds” of Monticello +were once more abandoned. Four years, and he became President. The +young capital, Washington, was then slowly assuming the form and +appearance of a town, if not of a city. Jefferson, who, as Secretary +of State at Philadelphia, had supervised the plan of its streets and +the architecture of its public buildings, took a keen delight in the +work of building and beautifying it. One of his biographers, writing +shortly after his death in 1826, says: “Almost everything that is +beautiful in the artificial scenery of Washington is due to the taste +and industry of Mr. Jefferson. He planted its walks with trees and +strewed its gardens with flowers. He was rarely seen returning from +his daily excursions on horseback without bringing some branches of +tree or shrub, or bunch of flowers, for the embellishment of the infant +capital. He was familiar with every tree and plant, from the oak of +the forest to the meanest flower of the valley. The willow-oak was +among his favorite trees, and he was often seen standing on his horse +gathering the acorns from this tree. He had it in view to raise a +nursery of them, which, when large enough to give shade, should be made +to adorn the walks of all the avenues in the city. In the meantime he +planted them with the Lombardy poplar, being of the most sudden growth, +contented that, though he could not enjoy their shade, his successors +would. Those who have stood on the western portico of the Capitol and +looked down the long avenue of a mile in length to the President’s +house, have been struck with the beautiful colonnade of trees which +adorns the whole distance on either side. They were all planted under +the direction of Mr. Jefferson, who joined in the task with his own +hands. He always lamented the spirit of extermination which had swept +off the noblest forest trees that overspread Capitol Hill, extending +down to the banks of the Tiber and the banks of the Potomac. He meant +to have converted the grounds into extensive parks and gardens. ‘The +loss is irreparable,’ said he to a European traveler, ‘nor can the evil +be prevented. When I have seen such depredations I have wished for a +moment to be a despot, that, in the possession of absolute power, I +might enforce the preservation of these valuable groves. Washington +might have boasted one of the noblest parks and most beautiful walks +attached to any city in the world.’” The Washington of even 1830 has +long since passed away. Where the long line of shade-trees from the +Capitol to the President’s house stood, the parallel rails of the +street-cars have long been laid, while the stream of classic name has +been inclosed in brick and stone, and made to serve the ignoble purpose +of a great drainage conduit. Jefferson’s dream of a beautiful capital +has been realized, however; and could he return to it he would not find +much to condemn in its avenues and parks except some of the statues +that disfigure them. + +Mr. Jefferson’s long political service came to an end in March, +1809, and with it his final retirement to Monticello. He was then +sixty-six years of age. The journey to his home was one long triumphal +procession, the inhabitants of every town and village through which he +passed welcoming him with complimentary addresses and resolutions. He +had been forty years in the service of the public. His intellectual +powers were undecayed and his bodily health good. Seventeen years of +life were yet before him. The restoration of his property was his first +care. His lands were not in a compact body, and a great deal of riding +to and fro was necessary. One of the principal farms was in Bedford +County, more than a day’s journey from Monticello, and he usually spent +six or seven weeks there every year. In private as well as in public +life, Mr. Jefferson had made it a rule to be out of bed with the sun, +and to transact a large amount of business before breakfast. To this +rule he adhered even in his old age. In a letter to ex-President Adams, +in 1820, he says: “I can walk but little, but I ride six or eight +miles a day without fatigue; and, within a few days, I shall endeavor +to visit my other home, after a twelvemonths’ absence from it. Our +University, four miles distant, gives me frequent exercise, and the +oftener as I direct its architecture.” The building and equipment of +the University of Virginia was the crowning work of Mr. Jefferson’s +life. He visited it nearly every day, and when compelled to remain at +home, watched the workmen through a spyglass from his veranda. The +usual routine of his life at this period is thus described by one of +his biographers: “He rose with the sun. From that time to breakfast, +and often until noon, he was in his cabinet, chiefly employed in +epistolary correspondence. From breakfast, or noon at the latest, to +dinner he was engaged in his workshops, his garden, or on horseback +among his farms. From dinner to dark he gave to society and recreation +with his neighbors and friends; and from candle-light to bed-time he +devoted himself to reading and study.” A granddaughter has left us this +picture of him in the last years of his life: “He loved farming and +gardening, the fields, the orchards, and the asparagus beds. Of flowers +he was very fond. I remember the planting of the first hyacinths and +tulips. The precious roots were added to the earth under his own eye, +with a crowd of happy young faces of his grandchildren clustered around +to see the process and inquire anxiously the name of each separate +deposit. In the morning, immediately after breakfast, he used to visit +his flower-beds and gardens.” His retirement was invaded by a multitude +of admirers and curiosity seekers, whose entertainment became so great +a drain upon his resources that, coupled with other financial losses, +he became deeply involved in pecuniary difficulties. His creditors grew +clamorous, and he was compelled to ask the Legislature permission to +dispose of his property by lottery. The scheme embraced three great +prizes, namely, Monticello, valued at $71,000; the Shadwell Mills, +adjoining it, $30,000, and the Albemarle estate at $11,500. Public +attention having been thus called to his distress, meetings were held +in nearly all the principal cities of the Union, and a large sum of +money was subscribed for his benefit. But his life was now drawing to +a close, and he experienced very little relief from these voluntary +offerings. In the summer of 1826 he became very feeble, and he died on +the 4th of July, at ten minutes to one o’clock, “the day on which he +prayed that he might be permitted to depart.” Fifty years had passed +away since the great Declaration had been given to the world, and the +political independence of the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed. Away in +distant Quincy, noble old John Adams died almost at the same hour, +thanking God that “Thomas Jefferson still lives.” + + + + +MAN’S THREE FOLLIES. + + + A woman said to sage Voltaire: + “You men are really famous + For just three follies: they’re your share; + For more than three you blame us. + + “Man never waits for fruit to fall, + But shakes the tree or beats it; + While woman, in no haste at all, + When fruit has ripened--eats it. + + “Men rush to war, defying fate, + And fight as if for pleasure; + When death would come, if men would wait, + And take them at his leisure. + + “Man follows woman: foolish chase, + For if he only knew her, + And would but turn from her fair face, + He need not thus pursue her. + + “If she once thought man meant retreat, + All scruples she would swallow; + Grass would not grow beneath her feet, + So quickly would she follow. + + “We’re not afraid this truth to tell + To men who oft deceive us + We’ve learned their ways, and we know well + That they will not believe us. + + “Man will not, cannot turn away + From the fair face of woman; + Her sceptre she will always sway-- + At least while man is human!” + + _Egbert L. Bangs._ + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE LADIES’ EASTERN TRICYCLE TOUR. + +FROM THE MERRIMAC TO NAUMKEAG. + +BY DAISIE. + + +[Illustration] + +“Ohne Hast” was our motto as, in the month of October, we cycled from +the banks of the Merrimac to old Naumkeag. We borrowed but one-half of +Goethe’s motto, for we did not care to add the “Ohne Rast,” and live up +to it. He gets much out of a cycle tour who wheels leisurely through +the country, for he exerts himself far less than does the pedestrian or +the equestrian; he sees no less of what is around and about him, and he +travels farther in a given time. There are those who derive no pleasure +from cycling unless they rush along, bent only on making quick time +between points; but this idea has never animated the ladies who yearly +wander awheel along the rocky coast of Northern Massachusetts. + +“The Ladies’ Annual Tricycle Tour to the North Shore of Massachusetts” +is our rather cumbersome but all-inclusive title, and under it we +have had four very delightful outings. This tour was evolved during +the fall of 1885 from the mind of Miss Minna C. Smith, then on the +editorial staff of ~Outing~, and the first tour was carried +out under her direction, and became the subject of an article in this +magazine at that time--(the Ladies’ Tour to Kettle Cove, vol. vii., +p. 431). Minna’s first idea was a tour for ladies alone; but she very +soon discovered that the ladies would not go without their husbands and +sweethearts, and it occurred to her mind, also, that the masculines +would be very handy in screwing up loose nuts, or repairing damages to +the machines. And so it was a mixed company that first essayed to run +awheel from Middlesex Fells to Kettle Cove. And it has come about that +ladies with gentlemen have composed all the succeeding tours, three +in number, though the ladies have always been in the majority, and the +rule that no gentleman can participate unless he is escort to a lady +has been rigidly adhered to. The gentlemen pay for the privilege of +attending the tour by arranging all the details and liquidating the +bills, and find their reward in the supreme satisfaction of which the +ladies give evidence in look and manner. Before I tell you how we went +and what we did, let me invite your attention to our itinerary. + +Wednesday, October 3d.--By train from Boston to Newburyport--special +car to carry our cycles. Night at the Wolfe Tavern. + +Thursday, October 4th.--Ride from Newburyport to Gloucester, +thirty miles. Through Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Essex Woods, +Manchester-by-the-Sea, Magnolia, and Gloucester. + +Friday, October 5th.--Around Cape Ann, through Rockport, Lanesville, +Annisquam, Riverdale, West Gloucester, and Gloucester. + +Saturday, October 6th.--A forenoon at Magnolia. In the afternoon, ride +to Salem, through Manchester-by-the-Sea, Beverly Farms, Beverly, and +Salem. + +Sunday, October 7th.--A forenoon at Nahant, dinner at Lynn, and the +homeward ride in the afternoon. + +There were twenty-four of us in all. Eight wives assisted their +husbands in pedaling eight tandems. Two pairs of girls propelled two +tandems. The veteran and his wife rode a tandem bicycle. One young lady +rode a single tricycle. One solitary gentleman rode a bicycle. + +Our tandem bicycle was a seven-days’ wonder for the rustics on the +route, and they viewed it with open-eyed astonishment. They never +expected to see a lady on a bicycle, and they could hardly believe what +their eyes told them. + +There were some who protested against travel by rail on any part of +a cycle tour, and spurned the idea of going to Newburyport in this +way. They were allowed to exercise their own sweet wills, so four of +the tourists wheeled forty miles to the rendezvous the day before the +start. We were quartered at the Wolfe Tavern, in front of which hung +a sign placed there in the last century, and bearing a portrait of +General Wolfe. It was an ugly daub, but interesting and attractive, +nevertheless. Hector thought it strange that a tavern should encourage +the presence of a “wolf at the door,” and suggested that the landlord +would have our assistance to drive him away when we came to pay our +bills, or “pay the shot,” as he put it. + +Newburyport is a quaint old place, and on every hand are to be seen +suggestions of bygone days in the forms of a gambrel-roof house, a +colonial door, or the more common outside steps which follow the +front lines of the house and take one in at the front door by a turn. +Here is the mansion house of Lord Timothy Dexter, who sent a cargo of +warming-pans to the West Indies and made a large sum of money, not by +selling them for bed-warming purposes, but for the use to which the +natives quickly turned them of dipping up molasses from the vats. It is +told, also, of this eccentric individual, that he had a mock funeral +pass through the streets while he himself occupied the coffin, which +was carried in a hearse. The picture of his great house, in front of +which is a high fence with huge posts, each post a pedestal for a +statue, has become familiar in cheap prints. + +Hector and I were up early and strolling through the town. Our riding +suits attracted no little attention, but one gets used to being +stared at after cycling experiences of a few months. Gentlemen in +knee-breeches are no uncommon sight in these days of tennis, baseball +and cycling, but legs clad in knee-breeches appearing below an overcoat +suggest an inharmonious grouping of garments, and I do not wonder that +they provoke a smile. We made straight for the cemetery, of course, +for in these quaint old places the cemetery is always interesting. +We found it hard-by the jail, and I thought their juxtaposition not +inappropriate. We read many epitaphs written a century ago, and could +not but smile at the queer ideas expressed. + +The natives turned out in force to see us start. They had possibly seen +ladies ride tricycles before, but a large party like this, and one +couple on a tandem bicycle, was a decided novelty. Good Mother Nature +was kind to us on this the first day of our tour. She had been frowning +for weeks before and sending down rain, rain, till we began to think we +should have to tour in an ark instead of awheel. The gentlemen forgot +what a glorious riding year lay behind them, and I heard many remarks +more emphatic than polite. The frown on the face of the heavens changed +to a smile the night before the eventful day, and we started our wheels +toward Gloucester under pleasant skies. Molly was our pacemaker, +while I staid behind to help along the laggards and to signal Molly in +case of accident, and the Doctor’s wife looked after the drag which +conveyed our luggage and a few spare machines. We had a whistle code +which nobody took the trouble to learn, and our rules were very strict, +though nobody seemed to pay much regard to them. Six miles an hour was +the pace cut out by Molly, and this did not violate the motto, “Ohne +Hast,” except in the minds of the horses on the drag. Do we mind the +hills? Bless you, no! If the hill has a good hard surface we do not +mind it nearly so much as we do a level, sandy stretch. + +It were useless to attempt to tell the delight of a tricycle ride +through a pleasant country, where Nature invites the eye to dwell upon +her charms, where the roads are firm and smooth, when the whole body +tingles with exhilaration born of quickened circulation and speedy +movement through the air. To experience is to know. The half cannot be +told. + +We left the old town behind us and soon came to the river Parker (don’t +call it Parker River in the presence of a Newburyporter). On the +farther bank we were greeted by an old resident, who gave us apples to +eat and entertained us with stories of the old house in which he lives, +which, by the way, is the homestead of the Poor family, of which the +noted Ben. Perley Poor and our friend are members. To-day we see Cape +Ann under its rural aspect; tomorrow we shall see the bold shore and +the open sea. + +A boy shouts after the gentleman from New York: “Say, mister, your +wheel’s goin’ round,” and the man from Manhattan nearly falls off his +wheel from the effect of this very new joke. + +At Bean’s Crossing we stopped for a drink of cold water at the well, +and, if you will believe it, many of the ladies preferred to drink from +the old oaken bucket, and spurned the drinking-cups gallantly offered +by the gentlemen. The bucket was clean, however, without a suspicion of +dirty moss on it. The ride through Essex woods was a poem in cycling. +The summer residents have bought up large tracts of land in these woods +and perpetuated this beautiful driveway. The road-bed is good, and one +passes under arching trees for miles seeing nowhere any disturbance +of nature due to the hand of man, save only the path he is traveling. +Drink in this scene if you can, and garnish it with the glory of the +autumnal foliage. + +Just before we entered the woods we were met by the Poet and the +Artist, who rode over from Gloucester to meet us and escort us on our +way. They approached us down-hill, as we ascended. Just before we came +up to them they performed a most artistic header in full sight of the +party, which we all enjoyed, after we had discovered they had come out +of it without injury. The poet dived through the air and alighted on +the grass many feet in front of the machine, while the artist found +himself under the machine, which illustrated the total depravity of +inanimate things by jumping on him and pinning him to the sod. At +Ipswich we drank again. Every pump is patronized by cycling tourists, +and I dare not estimate the number of glasses of spring water that +are consumed on a trip of this kind. Let me say that our tourists are +teetotalers. I know this, because I heard one of the gentlemen say, +after we had drunk from our fourth or fifth spring the first day, “I +never saw such a lot of teetotal drinkers as cyclers are.” + +Just out of Ipswich there was a breakdown. The Doctor’s axle yielded to +his tremendously powerful pedaling, and a wrecked machine was cast upon +the road. Here came in the usefulness of the drag with its cargo of +spare machines. The wreck was taken on board and new machines were soon +under the castaway crew. + +Dinner was taken in picnic style, under the trees, in a nook of the +Essex Woods, and ham sandwiches, chicken and eggs were washed down with +water from a neighboring spring. At four ~P. M.~ we drew up in +front of the Pavilion, at Gloucester. Then came the discussion over the +distance. ’Tis with our cyclometers as with our watches, none go just +alike, yet each believes his own. Some told us we had ridden thirty-two +miles, others said thirty. My fatigue indicated a ride of a short +distance, my hunger pointed to figures much larger than any cyclometer +told. + +That night there was music and dancing in the parlor. To see that merry +company, who would think they had pedaled their “go-carts” over thirty +miles of good, bad, and indifferent roads during the day? Molly favored +the company with a number of recitations, the Doctor’s wife read an +original poem which teemed with personalities, and Mrs. Manhattan +played while we danced. We slept the sleep of the innocent that night, +lulled to slumber by the breakers on the beach, just beneath our +windows. + +The second day is always the most important of the tour, for on it +we circle Cape Ann. The road runs out of Gloucester at the north, +belts the cape, and returns to Gloucester again from the west. Cape +Ann projects into Massachusetts Bay, as though nature had given a +great nose to the Old Commonwealth. The road follows the shore-line +northward, then turns inland, and takes the visitor through a country +of hills to the starting-point. I cannot believe that money or material +wealth in any form could tempt a cycler to travel this road if it were +not for the scenery. The length of the belt is only fifteen miles, but +experienced riders suffer more fatigue in traveling these, than forty +miles of ordinary roads would bring. A Boston newspaper pronounced it, +a few years ago, an unfit road for ladies to ride over. And yet we have +conquered it four times. Hill succeeds hill in constant succession, +and sandy surfaces make the levels hard to ride upon. But we must pay +for the good things of this life, and we cannot have Cape Ann scenery +without compensation. + +Twenty of us responded to the call of the pacemaker at nine o’clock +Friday morning, and the drag was in position. Hector presented a +pretty spectacle this morning behind the white wings of a dove which +ornamented his tandem. The Doctor’s wife was suspected of this trick, +perpetrated to show her appreciation of the way in which Hector +sang his favorite song of “White Wings” for the entertainment of +the company. If Hector’s beauty ranked with his inability to sing +he would be another Adonis. The tourists were well avenged for the +peace-destroying notes that had been forced upon them, for every +shrill-voiced boy on the road that day--and we met several groups just +let loose from school--saluted the decorated machine with the chorus of +the well-worn song. + +We went out of Gloucester with bright colors to the fore--on the +cheeks of the ladies. Leaving Gloucester, we passed the old stone barn +at Beaver Dam, then to Rockport, where we spent a pleasant half-hour +at the quarries, looking down from the stone bridge that carries the +roadway over the cut, into the great depths with the palisaded sides of +still unquarried granite. Some of the great blocks but recently taken +out were said to be twenty-five feet long and twenty tons in weight. +We took the statement on faith, for we had neither measuring rod nor +scales. A native took us to see a curio that is shown to visitors. A +schooner ran into a sloop. The jibboom of the former went clear through +the mast of the sloop and staid there. The mast with its unceremonious +visitor lies upon the wharf to excite the wonder of those who behold +it. “His Grace the Duke” cracked a very poor joke when he spoke of the +masterly stroke of the schooner, and one man said that schooners had +run into him without any such effect. + +We were doing more walking than riding, for there are more hills than +levels in that district, and many hills make pedestrianism a charm. +Pigeon Cove came next in view. We saw several flights of ducks, but +no pigeons hereabouts. Here, on the extreme easterly point of Cape +Ann, we halted for lunch. An accommodating innkeeper, who had closed +his hostelry, and who was the sole occupant except his family, kindly +loaned us a table and the use of his range for the making of coffee. +Molly made the coffee, and proved herself an artist in beverages. + +After dinner we strolled and climbed upon the rocks which were piled +up upon the point. Great slabs of granite that weighed ten, fifteen, +and even twenty tons, were shown us, and we were asked to believe that +they were thrown up by the sea, or moved rods away from their former +positions by the gale of March, 1888. It was a great tax upon our +credulity to view these massive stones and accept the tales that were +told of the sport which the waves had made with them. The landlady +showed an ugly and repulsive horned toad that had recently been sent +her from California. It was still alive, and several of the ladies were +courageous enough to take it in their hands, though the general verdict +was, “Ugh!” + +Leaving Pigeon Cove behind us, we rode on to Folly Cove. Here the scene +is altogether different. The cove is surrounded by high land, from +which we looked down upon white-capped waters and saw white-winged +plyers of the deep in the middle ground and on the horizon, while just +beneath us fishermen were tending their nets, and lobster-catchers in +dories were hauling in their pots. + +At Annisquam we visited the great boulder. Near the summit of a great +hill lies this mass of rock, not less than fifty feet in height and +width. Who put it there? Let the icebergs tell the story in scratches +on its side. A few venturesome ones, who were shod with rubber, climbed +to the top, and the photographer snapped his shutter and caught us as +we stood about the rock. Off in the distance is Coffin’s Beach. Two +schooners are on the sands, one at low-water mark, and the other far +above the waters. They were thrown up there from the sea by the gale of +last March, and they wait for the sands to engulf them. It will not pay +to save them, so slowly but surely they are sinking into the sands, and +before many months they will have gone down out of sight. + +The Veteran brought pickled limes for our entertainment on the road. +There should have been a few left when we got to the boulder, so one of +the young ladies clambered into the drag to refresh herself, and soon +had the box in her lap. There was a screech from the drag and a rush of +the gentlemen toward it. When the maiden opened the box, she had found, +not pickled limes, but the horned toad from California, who winked his +ugly eyes at her as daylight was let in upon him. It appeared that +the Doctor’s wife had begged him from the landlady at Pigeon Cove and +without our knowledge had made him one of the party. He went with us +to the end, and the ladies soon gained courage enough to feed him with +flies. + +We were back at Gloucester at half-past four. Then, after dinner, we +had more fun in the parlor during the evening, more song and more +story. Does anybody say we ought to have been tired after our long and +difficult ride? Bless you, we never think of being tired on these tours. + +Saturday morning brought clouded skies. Out upon you, Mother Nature, +for marring our tour! It never yet rained on our touring days, then +why spoil the record? Weatherwise natives told us that it would not +rain long, and said that fair weather was ahead. Hector sententiously +remarked: “He who rides a cycle needs no reins.” We started for +Magnolia in a drizzle, and in a drizzle we did the place. Our wheels +were housed at Willow Cottage, and the tourists strolled over to +Rafe’s Chasm. It was a good day for surf studies, and the chasm is the +ideal place for this. The waters rush up into the great cleft and come +tumbling back white with anger, the waves beat upon the rocks, and the +spray is sent high in air. We looked at the iron cross erected to the +memory of Martha Marvin, who was washed into the sea from these rocks +a few years ago; and lying right before us was Norman’s Woe, whereon +the schooner _Hesperus_ was wrecked. + +Meantime the heavens put on a thicker coat of gray, foreboding trouble +ahead for any who should dare venture unprotected beneath them. Two +o’clock was our hour for starting, but at that time the rain was +falling in torrents. No matter; let us drive on. It will not hurt us +to get wet, for our work will keep us warm. Let me choose between a +high wind and a rain-storm and I will take the rain in every case, and +so think all cyclers. Keep the body warm by quick action on the wheel, +change clothing at the end of the ride, and rub yourself well with a +coarse towel, and there is no evil effect from a ducking of this kind. + +We rode twelve miles to Salem. The roads were heavy, and we had to +take the sidewalks wherever we could, without paying any regard to +the law prohibiting sidewalk riding, for the blue-coated guardian of +the peace could never be so cruel as to arrest ladies for riding on +the sidewalk when the mud was six inches deep. It was: Go at your own +pace now; no matter about precedence. The word was: Get to Salem as +quick as you can! It was a race warm-bathward, as Miss Rives would say. +The tandem bicycle reached the hotel first of all, but close behind +were the Misses K---- on their tandem. Good English and Scotch blood +flows in the veins of these two young ladies, and they have the brawn +and sinew to put their machine over the road faster than many of the +gentlemen care to ride. We must have presented a ludicrous sight as +we passed through the villages drenched with rain and dropping water +from every projection. “Why don’t you drop it and run?” called out a +youngster after us as we hurried onward. When we came to the river, +Hector suggested that we should ride through it, “for,” said he, “we +can’t get any wetter than we are, and the experience will be novel.” +Declining the suggestion, we took the bridge. Only the week before they +had celebrated the centennial anniversary of the structure--old Beverly +Bridge--and we wondered if ever a stranger company had crossed from +shore to shore than this rain-drenched party of cyclists. The Doctor’s +wife tired of riding in the rain before half the journey was completed, +and she found a way to take solid comfort and keep dry. She got into +the drag and left her husband to pedal a double-seated machine alone, +but taking pity on him shortly, she threw him a rope and an umbrella. +The rope he attached to the machine and the umbrella was raised for +shelter. Thus was he towed along, to the delight of the small boys who +witnessed the peculiar spectacle. Salem was kind to us. Warm fires were +ready, and soon we were in dry clothing, with our wet garments hanging +before the fires. Thus was marred the afternoon of our third day. + +We held a council of war in the parlor, and decided that the tour +should continue if the morning proved fair, otherwise it was to be +considered at an end. Morning came, and the rain was still falling. We +bade farewell to each other, and sought our homes as each deemed best. +A few of the more reckless riders mounted their wheels for another ride +in the rain, but this time home was their destination. Many went home +by train, and a few remained at Salem to await fair weather. + +Thus ended the fourth North Shore tour of the ladies. We had two +glorious days and much pleasant experience. We had one half-day of rare +enjoyment on the rocks at Magnolia, and the monotony of our delight +was relieved by our cycle bath. They were red-letter days for us all. +Ye who tour by rail, by boat, or by carriage, know not one half the +delight one gets on the wheel. If you would be convinced of this, come +with us next year when we embark on the fifth annual tour. + +[Illustration: Newburyport. Gloucester. Rockport. Magnolia. Beverly. +Salem. Boston. Finale] + + + + +A LOVE LETTER. + + + Here is her note. See how the courier pen, + All dizzy with delight, went zigzag down + The road that leads to Eros’ happy town! + See, here a steady pace; and here again + A sudden forward bound, as if, just then, + Her heart beat faster for the precious noun + That brought him near! and there, to match a frown, + A wavy course, as if doubt blurred his ken. + + So, ever nearer to the self-same spot, + Bearing the message of my sweetheart true, + Her courier went rejoicing in his lot + To have for heavens eyes of tender blue: + Ah, Heart of mine! see, here’s a tiny blot-- + A cloud for him--a tender tear for you. + + _Frank Dempster Sherman._ + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Open ~Window~.] + + +THE PAST CRICKET SEASON. + +~The~ visit of the team of Irish amateur cricketers to the +United States this past season resulted in affording further proof +of the fact that Philadelphia is the home of cricket on this side of +the Atlantic. While the Irish gentlemen had almost a walk-over in +competing with the resident English cricketers of Canada, and were +successful without difficulty against the selected teams of Boston and +New York--though Boston gave them quite a close push--in Philadelphia +alone were they opposed by elevens of native American cricketers only, +whom they found their match. The success of the Philadelphia gentlemen +in winning both of their games with the Irish visitors should encourage +them to get up another team of American amateurs to cross the Atlantic +again in 1889. + + * * * * * + +~A noteworthy~ fact in local cricket this past season was that +the old St. George cricket field was once more the scene of a match +between elevens of the St. George and Manhattan clubs. The members of +the St. George Cricket Club have of late years become so absorbed in +lawn tennis that they have sadly neglected the old, manly English game +of cricket, which was the basis of their organization over thirty odd +years ago. + + ~Henry Chadwick.~ + + + * * * * * + + +IN THE FOOTBALL FIELD. + +~For~ years before the adoption of the game of football in +America our autumn season had no sport distinctively its own. Baseball +dragged out a lingering existence as the hands grew numb in the frosty +air. Boating shivered along into November in sweaters, but its life +was frozen. Until the advent of football many of our best athletes, +finding nothing to train for, strayed away from the strict regimen and +early hours to the seductive tobacco and beer and all-night cards. +Nor did they always return, for many refused to tear themselves away +when the spring came, while still others, after the first few days of +effort in the warm May weather, were so overcome with the longing for +the flesh-pots that they would fall out of the ranks, never again to +reappear. The athletes of to-day have an autumn sport the equal of any +in enjoyment and the superior in helping symmetrical development. Nor +is this the sole attraction. There is the generalship of a sport with +room for all the planning of a real campaign. Its tactics are but half +developed, and every year adds some new strategies. + +The season of 1888 brought in a change of rules whereby there is a +marked increase in the liberty allowed to comrades assisting a runner. +Formerly the amount of aid they might render to one of their own +men when he had the ball was so small that it was seldom attempted +except in a crowd. The practice was to have all this done under the +cover of the rushing and surging line of forwards, and at the time +of the snap-back only. This led to many complications as the amount +of interference grew gradually greater, owing to the leniency of +umpires, until last season, when the play of all the teams in the +field was characterized by the most marked and deliberate holding in +the rush-line, oftentimes a runner was given an absolutely clean path +through the forwards by having these opponents dragged out of the +way by the men in front of him. Such was the state of affairs that +the question of the day bade fair to become whether or not all the +rushers could not be held so that the backs and halves would be the +only ones left to tackle. This line of development was manifestly a bad +one. Every move in that direction increased the personal contact of +players who did not have the ball in their possession. It is and has +been a noticeable fact in the history of the game in this country that +whenever a rule has been passed which admitted of an increase in the +liberty of laying hands upon a man who had not the ball, we have had a +greater amount of “squabbling and slugging.” It seemed best, therefore +to the Graduate Committee, who last year made the rules, to put forward +changes which should effectually end this hand-slapping, pushing, and +holding in the rush-line. In doing this, however, they wished to put no +check upon what seemed by no means an objectionable feature, namely, +assisting a runner by going alongside him and acting as an obstacle in +the path of those advancing to tackle him. + +The rules were altered accordingly, and the alteration has marked +a decided advance in the sport. It has made the game more open by +increasing the chances of a successful run. Nothing so delights the +spectators as a long run. So keen is the excitement that it cannot be +pent up, but must out, and while the partisans of the side against +whom the run is being made stand holding their breath in fear lest the +runner reach the goal, his sympathizers are crying out encouragement +to him from all sides, and when at last he is brought to earth by some +determined tackler, the sympathizing shouts are in their turn fairly +drowned by the yell of exultation which goes up from the throats of the +other party. While the kicking game is always a beautiful one to watch, +it can never equal in excitement a game where long runs are made. The +tedious game is the one which was played when the rules admitted of +what was known as the “block game”--that is, where the ball was never +advanced more than a yard without a “down,” and all the playing was in +the centre. This style has fortunately been completely eliminated by +the rules. The change of rules this year has again demonstrated the +fact that the game is steadily advancing, and that every year brings it +nearer and nearer that point of perfection so earnestly sought after by +all its steadfast disciples, for no sport has more hearty, whole-souled +followers, nor is there any so richly deserving them. + + ~Walter C. Camp.~ + + + * * * * * + + +COLLEGE SPORTS. + +~The~ limited time which students have had since their return +from the summer vacation to indulge in their favorite pastimes, has not +been productive of any achievements worthy of special mention. Many +noted athletes were graduated in the class of ’88, and the Freshmen +have hardly had the opportunity to show their mettle. To be sure, +those semi-barbarous struggles known as rushes have taken place, and +in many cases sophomoric dignity has had to suffer from freshman zeal, +but such practices are frowned upon by college authorities and upper +classmen. Very often serious injuries are inflicted, and what good is +accomplished? None whatever. Want of organization always seriously +interferes with the success of the new comers, and the frantic +struggle, continued often for hours, to gain possession of and hold a +two-foot cane can scarcely be called sport. Much better, because more +satisfactory, are the class games of baseball and football. Here the +freshmen are not so handicapped, because many of the men who go to +college have received excellent preliminary training in the preparatory +schools, and furthermore, these contests develop material for the +college teams. Thus class feeling serves to call attention to and +bring out men who can reflect honor to the college they represent in +intercollegiate sports. A word with regard to these. + +It is the opinion of many noted educators that such contests are +detrimental to good scholarship. In the first place, the few who +participate in them do not fairly represent the athletic development of +their respective colleges. The majority of students, after a week or +two of enthusiasm for sport immediately after college has begun, do not +go near the gymnasium, and can hardly be said to take any interest in +sport at all. Again, it is claimed that when the time for the holding +of these contests approaches, studies are neglected, because interests +centre in the success of the teams. + +The readers of ~Outing~ will be interested to learn the result +of an investigation recently made at Cornell of the records of men who +engaged in intercollegiate sports since the opening of the college. +The result showed that the average scholarship of each man who rowed +in the crews was 70 per cent., that of baseball players 73 per cent., +and that of track athletes 76 per cent., a standard of 70 per cent. +being necessary to graduate: 54 per cent. of all these men graduated, +which is 7 per cent. above the University percentage of graduation. +According to these figures, general scholarship does not suffer from +intercollegiate contests, provided they are kept within reasonable +limits. The standing in scholarship of noted athletes from Yale, +Harvard and Princeton also shows that they are not strangers to hard +study, while many of them are honor men and the winners of prizes in +special departments of study. + + ~J. C. Gerndt.~ + + + * * * * * + + +DOG CHAT. + +~The~ present year will ever be memorable in the history of +American “dogdom.” In it the battle between the American Kennel Club +and its opponents has been inaugurated. The enforcement of “compulsory +registration” in the American Kennel Club Stud Book, finally aroused +the long suppressed popular indignation at the manifest incompetency +of that body to administer its self-assumed control of kennel matters. +The club’s action was, however, in a measure sustained by the brilliant +success of the Westminster Kennel Club’s show, which was selected as +the lists in which the initial contest of the rival factions was to be +fought. So far, so good, for the A. K. C. + + * * * * * + +~The~ dog _breeders_ and exhibitors of America, however, have +long felt that a body composed of individuals was necessary for the +proper guidance of the kennel affairs of the continent, and to guard +their interests. The American Kennel Club is a club composed of clubs. +The local clubs are almost entirely made up of “dog lovers,” so +called--men who own perhaps but one dog, many of them none, and who +are utterly ignorant of dog matters in general, with perhaps one or +two “prominent” dog-men who hold the reins of power. It will be seen, +therefore, that as these few individuals are able to use the club name +and influence, should they wish it, in the furtherance of their private +ends, a dangerous amount of power is placed in their hands. The large +majority of our leading breeders were unattached, many of them living +at long distances from the headquarters of local clubs. They were, +therefore, without representation in the government of matters canine. +To remedy this evil and for the protection of breeders--the A. K. C. +having exhibited a criminal want of concern in their interests--the +National Dog Club was formed. + + * * * * * + +~The~ President, Dr. J. Frank Perry, better known as “Ashmont,” +was the prime mover. In May last, acting in accordance with the wishes +of many prominent gentlemen, he wrote to about fifty of the best known +and most successful breeders and exhibitors in America and in Canada, +requesting them to become charter members of a club, the initial +meeting of which was to be held during the Boston show in April. +Upwards of forty at once assented. + + * * * * * + +~At~ first the intention was to limit the membership to fifty; +but it was afterwards deemed advisable to make it unlimited. Upwards +of one hundred and fifty members are now enrolled, and this number +includes a majority of the most prominent and reputable owners of the +continent. + + * * * * * + +~From~ the outset the infant organization has had to contend +against fierce opposition and prejudice, incited by the friends of the +older club. But the promoters were not men to be easily turned aside +from their purpose, and in consequence of their endeavors the most +brilliant success has been achieved. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first show under the N. D. Club’s rules was that held by +the International Fair Association, at Buffalo, and its enemies tried +by every possible means to accomplish its ruin. Not only did they +“boycott” the show, but they neglected no course by which they could +injure it. Their defeat was a signal one. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Buffalo show was the best in the quality of dogs entered +of any show ever held outside New York or Boston, and indeed was but +little behind those giant rivals. The management, it is true, was +execrable; but that cannot be cited against the N. D. C. + + * * * * * + +~Honors~ are easy, therefore, between the rival factions, +although the fair-minded onlooker cannot but admit that the members of +the N. D. C. have set an example by their temperate and gentlemanly +behavior in the contest which their rivals by no means followed. + + * * * * * + +~Yet~ another National Kennel organization has been born within +the year, namely, the Canadian Kennel Club. A meeting of Canadian +dog-men was held for the purpose during the London, Ont., Show, and +the club was organized with Lord Stanley (Governor-General), Hon. +President; Mr. A. Gibson, London (of McEwen & Gibson, the leading +collie breeders), president; U. S. Jackson, Toronto (of Bedlington +terrier fame), first vice; Mr. M. Baumgarten, Montreal, second +vice; Mr. Thos. Johnston, Winnipeg, third vice; Mr. F. C. Wheeler, +London, secretary-treasurer; and Mr. C. M. Mills, Brantford (owner +of the celebrated Brant Cocker Kennels); Mr. F. H. F. Mercer, Ottawa +(invincible in clumber spaniels); Mr. W. B. Wells, Chatham; Mr. W. +Hendrie, Hamilton; Mr. J. S. Campbell, Simcoe (widely known for his +Gordon setters); Dr. Niven, London (of Gordon setter and spaniel +renown); and Mr. F. Mills, Hamilton, executive committee. This array of +names, embracing as it does nearly all the most prominent Canuck doggy +men, may be taken as a guarantee of success, and I trust the new club +will fulfil its fair promise. + + ~Dogwhip.~ + + + * * * * * + + +THE PAST BASEBALL SEASON. + +~The~ success of the New York Club in winning the championship +of the League for 1888 opens a new era in the contests for the pennant. +From 1872 to 1876 the Boston Club held the professional championship. +But in 1876, under the auspices of the newly organized National League, +the Chicago Club went to the front, and since then that club has almost +monopolized pennant honors in the League, Boston winning but three +times since 1876, while Providence was successful twice. Now, however, +the trophy has come East once more. The struggle was virtually confined +to a quintet of the eight competing clubs, viz., the New York, Chicago, +Detroit, Philadelphia and Boston clubs. Finally the contest for the +pennant lay between but three of them, while Pittsburgh, Indianapolis +and Washington were tail-enders throughout of the eight competitors. + + * * * * * + +“~Four~ times winner” is the honor claimed by the St. Louis +Club, the champion winners of 1888 in the American Association. This +result was mainly due to the important fact that the St. Louis Club +was the only one which presented for the pennant race a well-managed +and ably-captained team, all the others being to a greater or less +extent merely picked nines of star players. In no season has the +fact that team work--alike at the bat and in the field--is the most +important element of success in winning championship honors, been more +strikingly illustrated than in the race for the American Association +championship of 1888. + + * * * * * + +~Among~ the many clubs organized for the promotion of healthy +outdoor recreation, no feature has been more conducive to the best +interests of gentlemanly sports in the metropolitan district than +the friendly rivalry between the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball +Association and the Staten Island Athletic Club. Both organizations +have secured handsome grounds and club-houses. During the past season +they have given their members attractive exhibitions of amateur play +on their baseball, football, lacrosse and tennis fields. The former +club, however, has had an advantage in its cricket team, a game the +Athletic Club has not yet developed. The greatest attraction in their +field games has been their baseball exhibitions, which have surpassed +those of any other amateur organizations in the country except the +representatives of Harvard, Yale and Princeton colleges. + + * * * * * + +~The~ national game has at last become fashionable as one of +the sports at Newport. During the autumn a syndicate of admirers of +the game among the Newport cottage residents was formed to purchase a +plot of ground and lay out a baseball park to be ready for the season +of 1889. A diamond field is to be made and a grand-stand erected. Match +games will be played there by the rival college nines of Harvard, Yale +and Princeton next summer. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Boston ball grounds were the most liberally patronized +last season of those only boasting a National League club. The +attendance at the Boston-Chicago games during the season alone reached +a total of 59,020 people. This shows that it has paid to construct the +handsome ball grounds. + + ~Henry Chadwick.~ + + + * * * * * + + +SKATING. + +~The~ season of winter sports has opened in a way that +promises greater opportunities for indulgence in the fascinations +of skating than have been afforded for the last few years. Whether +this fair promise will be verified or not remains to be seen, but +the enthusiastic skater must have been indulging in pleasurable +anticipation of the joys of his favorite pastime. + +Great, however, as is the individual enthusiasm in regard to this +recreation, there seems to be a lack of concerted effort to give the +sport the prominent place which it deserves. In England the prospects +of good ice are anxiously watched every season, in order that contests, +not only between the great skaters of England may be brought off, but +also that international races between such champions as “Fish” Smart, +and the pick of the Dutch and Scandinavian skaters, may take place. +Considering the very limited chances afforded by English weather, the +old country may well be proud of the feats performed by her sons. +Why, then, may not America do far greater things? And not only in +the professional, or semi-professional field, is there a chance for +improvement, but there is a noticeable lack of energy in arranging +races between amateurs. Surely skating can be made the vehicle for a +winter athletic meeting, when running, jumping, etc., are put out of +the question by the severity of the weather. We hope to see during this +winter contests of this description taking place. + + ~Sporting Tramp.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~The Outing Club.~] + + +THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF THE CYCLE. + +~Wheelmen~ will read with interest the following quotation from +Sir Frederick Bramwell’s address to the British Association at Bath, +England: + +“Consider the bicycles and tricycles of to-day--machines which afford +the means of healthful exercise to thousands, and which will, probably +within a very short time, prove of the very greatest possible use +for military purposes. The perfection to which these machines have +been brought is almost entirely due to strict attention to detail; in +the selection of the material of which the machines are made; in the +application of pure science (in its strictest sense) to the form and to +the proportioning of these parts, and also in the arrangement of these +various parts in relation the one to the other. The result is that the +greatest possible strength is afforded with only the least possible +weight, and that friction in working has been reduced to a minimum. +All of us who remember the hobby-horse of former years, and who +contrast that machine with the bicycle and tricycle of the present day, +realize how thoroughly satisfactory is the result of this attention to +detail--this appreciation of the ‘next to nothing.’” + + +A YACHT-TRIP ROUND THE GLOBE. + +~We~ are pleased to hear from Hong Kong that the American yacht +_Coronet_--the winner of the yacht race across the Atlantic last +spring--arrived safely at Yokohama, Japan, en route round the world. We +next expect to hear from the _Coronet_ at Singapore, then at Bombay, +from which latter port the yacht will proceed to England, via the Suez +Canal and the Mediterranean Sea. + + +FIGHT BETWEEN A VIPER AND A HEDGEHOG. + +~The~ Copenhagen _Jagttidente_ recently contained the following +curious account of a fight between a viper and a hedgehog, as related +by Dr. Bilandt, a Danish naturalist: + +“One hot day, about noon, on the Billeslund estate, I espied a hedgehog +in a meadow with its eyes fixed intently on some spot in a hedge close +by, and, by following its gaze, I saw a viper lying on the bank curled +up, sunning itself. I sat down on the grass to watch them. For quite +an hour the two combatants remained immovable, the hedgehog keeping a +steady eye upon his prey. Then suddenly the viper began to move exactly +in the direction of his foe. The hedgehog let it nearly pass, when, +swift as lightning, it darted forwards, and, having seized the viper +by the tip of its tail with its teeth, rolled himself up. The viper +writhed under the bite, and dashed its body repeatedly against the +quills of the hedgehog till blood flowed, and in a short space of time +it had practically committed suicide. The hedgehog then devoured its +prey, from the tail upward, carrying away what he could not consume.” + + +GLASS-BALL SHOOTING EXTRAORDINARY. + +~An~ incident in rifle-shooting this season was the feat +accomplished by the well-known rifle-shot, Dr. F. W. Carver, who, in +October, at the Pittsburgh Exposition Park, surpassed all previous +efforts in rifle-shooting. Dr. Carver had made a bet of $100 with +Adam Forepaugh, Jr., that he would break six glass balls thrown into +the air simultaneously before they fell to the ground. The shooting +was done with a Spencer repeating rifle in the presence of a few +invited guests. Dr. Carver had not the slightest trouble in performing +the feat, repeating it four times in succession. The doctor was not +satisfied with this, but threw up seven balls at once, all of which he +perforated before they fell to the ground. The cartridges used in these +rifle-shooting exhibitions, however, are not simply made of powder and +balls. They are prepared with shot in the place of bullets. Even with +shot the feat is remarkable; with bullets it would be an impossibility. + + +THE NOVELTY IN WHEEL MACHINES. + +~With~ a flourish of trumpets, the advent of the road-sculler +was heralded into public notice. How far the machine will attain the +great popularity which its sponsors expect for it remains to be seen. +No one will attempt to deny that it has real merits; whether, however, +the machine has attained anything like its highest point of perfection +seems uncertain. During the contest between all the noted scullers of +the world at Madison Square Garden, there was undoubtedly far too high +an average of breakages, which, indeed, seriously interfered with the +interest of the show. But the average mortal is not such a creature +of thews and sinews as the grand specimens of humanity who entered +into that competition. Moreover, the ordinary use of the machine will +not be for racing purposes, but simply as a means of pleasure and +locomotion, and, therefore, the frailer parts of the mechanism will +not be put to such undue strain. The question also arises whether +the exercise is identical with sculling a boat, and the answer to +this appears decidedly to be that it only comprises a portion of the +muscular action necessary in sculling proper. At least two motions are +absent, viz., the act of feathering, and dropping the hands at the end +of the stroke. The action is a straight pull and a straight return. The +natural inclination on the part of an expert oarsman to drop his hands +was plainly observable, and possibly may have accounted for some of the +accidents which happened to the steel ropes. The general conclusion +will, however, be that the essential element which has gained rowing +such a prominent place among athletic sports--the exercising of every +muscle in the body, both arms and legs--is far from being lost, and +this is a point which is lacking in both bicycle and tricycle. + + + + +OUR THEATRICAL PLAYGROUND. + + +THE FRENCH PLAYERS AT PALMER’S. + +~A French~ company headed by M. Coquelin of the Théâtre +Française and Madame Jane Hading, of the Gymnase, Paris, made their +American début at Palmer’s, October 8th. Palmer’s Theatre! How +strange the name seems as it appears in print! It takes the place of +“Wallack’s”--a name around which cluster the traditions of a playhouse +that was the delight of New Yorkers for over a generation. Well! +“the king is dead,” and close upon his burial came the comedians of +France, to entertain an American public with French works in the home +of English Comedy. M. Coquelin inaugurated the French season with +Molière’s “Les Prècieuses Ridicules,” a couple of monologues, and a +one-act piece, “La Joie Fait Peur,” made familiar to theatre-goers +by Boucicault under the title of “Kerry.” New York gave the foreign +players on the first night a welcome which assured them at once +of the friendly spirit of an American audience. The visit of the +Coquelin-Hading Company to this country, it is to be hoped, will +be productive of good results. It was refreshing to be able to +witness a dramatic representation by a good company, where scenery +and costumes were secondary considerations. Coquelin in his acting +demonstrates close study of his art in every detail. As a comedian, he +is unapproachable. But when M. Coquelin attempts the heroes of romance +he fails. The company engaged to support, though not particularly +strong, have acquired much of the spirit of Coquelin’s acting. When one +considers the elaborate productions of the American stage and compares +them with the freedom from such show with which similar plays may be +given, when acting is not subordinated to scenery and dry goods, the +question naturally suggests itself, Is not much of this extravagant +display in many of our theatres a mistake? The scene painter and +costumer of to-day are of more account in a comic opera, for instance, +than a prima donna. An opera may be produced with a prima donna devoid +of singing voice, if she has shape, good looks, and sparse raiment +to recommend her, but without elaborate scenery, and plenty of color +and show, it would not run a fortnight. A similar state of affairs +exists on the dramatic stage. It takes a small fortune to keep up the +stage wardrobe of any actress who is called upon to play the heroine +or a lady of fashion in modern plays. One of the brightest and most +accomplished actresses of the American stage recently, after a great +success in a part, on being complimented by a friend, accepted the +compliment graciously enough, but felt considerably piqued because +the critics did not notice the nice new frocks she had had made for +the part, and which she expected to see praised quite as much as her +acting. If the advent of M. Coquelin and Mme. Hading to this country +will tend to correct some of these weaknesses, their coming among us +will be of more benefit than was anticipated by their managers when the +engagement was projected. + + +RE-OPENING OF DALY’S THEATRE. + +Augustine Daly opened the doors of his theatre, Tuesday evening, +October 9, with an adaptation from the French of the comedy “Les +Surprises du Divorce.” Mr. Daly calls his work “The Lottery of Love.” +It was enthusiastically received on the first night, and it grew +in favor with subsequent repetition. During the season it is the +intention of Mr. Daly to produce, in addition to the more pretentious +part of his plans, a number of short one-act comedies. They will +precede the important attraction of the night’s entertainment. These +“curtain raisers,” as some writer has christened them, are oftentimes +very enjoyable. One of the most pleasing recollections of the last +theatrical season was the presentation of “Editha’s Burglar,” at the +Lyceum. + + +“LORD CHUMLEY” SOTHERN. + +Speaking of the Lyceum, calls to mind the success of young Sothern in +“Lord Chumley.” Since the first night he appeared in the comedy, he has +crowded the handsome little theatre with well pleased auditors. The +success is due more to the acting and personality of Mr. Sothern as the +young lord, who is not such a fool as he looks, than to the merits of +the play or the acting of the company. Young Sothern’s “Lord Chumley” +is as good in its way as was the elder Sothern’s “Lord Dundreary.” +The play of “Lord Chumley” is a piece of literary patchwork, rather +skillfully put together, and afterward run through the sieve of +thorough rehearsals. Daniel Frohman may be congratulated on the success +of his promising young star and the good fortune he has brought to the +Lyceum. + + +THE PROSPERITY OF “A LEGAL WRECK.” + +William Gillette’s victory with “A Legal Wreck,” in the very +theatre--the Madison Square--in which his first play, “The Professor,” +was brought before the footlights was complete. “A Legal Wreck” is +not a great play, and Mr. Gillette did not aim to make it so. He did, +however, attempt to make an interesting drama, and succeeded. Since +its first night it has steadily improved. Judicious cutting down, and +alterations in the stage business, have made it an effective acting +play. When it is taken from the Madison Square Theatre and sent to +other cities, it will meet with as much favor as here. When “A Legal +Wreck” was first put on the stage it was not expected to be played +more than a few weeks. It has exceeded expectations, and will run Mr. +Gillette’s entire season out. A. M. Palmer’s follows with the regular +Madison Square Company in a revival of “Partners,” after which he will +produce “Captain Swift,” an English drama of the “Jim the Penman” +order, which is highly spoken of by people who have seen it in London. + + ~Richard Neville.~ + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: ~Among the Books~] + + +~A story~ of the rough life of the ranch in the Far West, clad, +so to speak, in “purple and fine linen,” appears at first sight to +be somewhat of an anomaly. In this case, however, the contents are +worthy of the binding, and the story is not thrown into a shadowy +background by its luxurious and sumptuous equipment. “Ranch Life and +the Hunting-Trail,” by Theodore Roosevelt, has already made its bow to +the public in a series of papers issued in the _The Century_ magazine, +and the verdict has been given in its favor. Now it is published in a +veritable _édition de luxe_ by _The Century_ Company. The story loses +nothing of its merits in the process, while Mr. Frederic Remington’s +spirited and characteristic illustrations, so familiar to the readers +of ~Outing~, are shown to the greatest possible advantage. + + * * * * * + +~With~ the advance of popular education has arisen a demand +for standard historical works, which, avoiding diffusiveness and +elaboration of details, give the reader broad inductions and concise +results. The student of the present day requires a book which may be +regarded as absolutely authentic, and which will present to him, not +elaborate historical dissertations on knotty historical periods, but +able summaries and careful generalizations of the whole subject. Such a +work is the “Cyclopædia of Universal History,” by John Clark Ridpath, +LL.D. (The Jones Brothers Publishing Co., Cincinnati, and Phillips & +Hunt, New York), and it is by far the most successful effort which has +been hitherto made to supply this want of the modern student and the +average American citizen. The handsome appearance of the three volumes, +and the copious wealth of excellent illustrations, numbering twelve +hundred, vastly enhance the effect and merits of the text. + + * * * * * + +~The~ South, at the present time, would appear to be the coming +nursery of our light literature. The novels which have, of late, +created the greatest stir--whether by their genuine merits or their +sensationalism we do not propose to decide--have sprung from Southern +brains. Yet another work--and this, we believe, is a maiden effort--by +an author who hails from Tennessee, lies before us. But in “A Seaside +Romance,” by William Perry Brown (New York: John B. Alden, 1888), there +is nothing of the morbidly sensational. Though hardly to be classed as +a notable novel, or likely to create a great stir, it is a pleasant, +healthful story of Southern life. The characters are well drawn, though +some are rather thinly delineated, and a certain lack of vigor is +discernible in the action in places. It is, however, essentially a book +to afford a reader a pleasant hour or two. + + * * * * * + +~A slight~ infusion of medical science into a novel often +proves both instructive and interesting. But experiments of this +character require to be conducted with great care and judgment. +Such can hardly be said to be the case in “From the Beaten Path,” +by Edward R. Roe (Chicago: Laird Lee, 1888). Medical horrors are +crowded into the volume, and the reader is confronted with _cholera +infantum_ (symptoms fully described), a most unpleasant affection of +the eyes, and blindness resulting from rheumatism, within the first +two chapters, while dislocations, sprains, fevers, consumption, and +drunkenness--culminating in _mania a potu_--with a slight spice of +body-snatching, are negligently scattered through the pages. Thrilling +incidents are pitchforked into odd corners, and the thread of the story +is quite disconnected. The motive of the book would appear to be the +disparagement of allopathy, and commendation of faith-healing allied +to magnetic influences. The extreme ease with which the cures are +performed will, however, prove a somewhat hard pill for most people to +swallow. + + * * * * * + +~Sportsmen~ owe a debt of gratitude to any one who facilitates +their quest of sport. This object should be vastly furthered by a +little volume entitled “The Sportsman’s Guide,” compiled and edited +by William C. Harris, editor of _The American Angler_ (New York: +The Anglers’ Publishing Company, Chas. T. Dillingham). The enormous +number of hunting-grounds from which the sportsman has to choose are +tabulated, and all necessary information regarding them given. The +reports appear to be very accurate, the material being, for the most +part, derived from personal letters from individuals acquainted with +the localities. The condition of the shooting, whether good, bad, or +indifferent, is plainly stated. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fascination of that charming amusement, amateur +photography, year by year enlists a vast number of recruits for the +already great army of amateur photographers. To such recruits, good +textbooks are an indispensable feature, and for this purpose we can +heartily recommend “The Photographic Instructor” (New York: Scovill +Manufacturing Co., 1888). The volume consists of “the comprehensive +series of practical lessons issued to the students of the Chautauqua +School of Photography,” edited by W. I. Lincoln Adams, editor of _The +Photographic Times_, with an appendix by Prof. Charles Ehrmann. It +forms one of Scovill’s Complete Photographic Series. + +~A little~ handbook is issued by the Red Star Line of steamers +entitled “Facts for Travelers.” In the mixture of useful and amusing +matter contained in it, travelers are sure to find something worth +noticing. + + * * * * * + +~A souvenir~ of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association’s Fair +has reached us, entitled “Athletic Leaves.” The editors are Samuel L. +Baylis and William H. Whyte, and they have produced a very bright, +readable little volume, with notably good illustrations. + + + + +[Illustration: Amenities.] + + +RONDEAU. + +[Illustration] + + ~Her~ starry eyes, with lightning glance, + Arrest me like a swift-thrown lance, + As I ride down the narrow lane; + And backward on my wheel I crane, + Another glimpse to catch askance. + + My fickle steed begins to prance, + And leads me such a lively dance, + That danger signals glint in vain, + Her starry eyes. + + O Fortune! if, by happy chance, + You’d throw this fair one in a trance, + Until I tumble on the plain-- + But no! she cries a laughing rain-- + A header dims my brief romance, + Her starry eyes. + + And now whene’er I pass the seat + Where first I met that maiden sweet, + My aching heart is smote again; + The blush of shame o’ermounts my brow, + And bids me soft repeat the vow, + Her starry eyes. + + _Jay Gee._ + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Scrap Book] + + +~First Baseball Player~: Did you go to Shortstop’s wedding +to-day? + +~Second Baseball Player~: Of course I did. + +~First Player~: How did it come off? + +~Second Player~: Declared a tie.--_Once a Week._ + + * * * * * + +~A Cape Cod~ fisherman calls his boat “The Kiss,” because it is +nothing but a smack.--_Puck._ + + * * * * * + +~Many~ large wagers are chronicled from time to time, but Queen +Elizabeth still remains the greatest Bet in history.--_Exchange._ + + * * * * * + +~Dealer~ (_to clerk_): I’m going to make those boys’ diagonal +suits fifteen dollars to-morrow. + +~Clerk~: Fifteen dollars! Why, we’ve been selling them for ten +dollars right along. + +~Dealer~: I know it; but I’m going to give away a baseball bat +with each one of them free of charge.--_Detroit Free Press._ + + * * * * * + +~Lady~ (_to negro cook_): Can you poach eggs, Sambo? + +~Sambo~: ’Deed I kin, missy, when dey grows up.--_Time._ + + * * * * * + +~Cholly~: I say, Binx, did you ever witness a burial at sea? + +~Binx~: No, never saw a burial, but we had a wake behind us all +the way over last trip.--_Harper’s Bazar._ + + * * * * * + +“~What’s~ up, Billy?” + +“Fut ball.” + +“Well, ’fore I’d set up there in the cold watchin’ a lot of fellers +kick a ball up--” + +“Ain’t watchin’ em kick no ball up; watchin’ of ’em kick each other +down!”--_Harper’s Weekly._ + + * * * * * + +~A lost~ curve in baseball--the Arc that Noah pitched.--_Puck._ + + * * * * * + +“~Well~, Tompkins, how did you come out at the last race +meeting?” asked a traveling man of a friend. + +“As nearly as I can figure it, I came out about $1,500 ahead.” + +“Fifteen hundred! That’s not bad. What horses did you back?” + +“None. I had about $1,500 with me that I did not bet.”--_Merchant +Traveler._ + + * * * * * + +“~What~ shall I play?” asked a meek-looking newly-appointed +organist, of a parson of a rather festive turn of mind when off duty. + +“That depends on the kind of a hand you have,” responded his reverence, +in the most innocent manner. + + * * * * * + +~The~ man who is wild on the subject of yachting is an +ultra-marine.--_Puck._ + + * * * * * + +~Spirits~ probably walk about for exorcise.--_Life._ + + * * * * * + +~The~ yellow dog contemplates with satisfaction the advance in +the price of tin cans. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.--_Life._ + + * * * * * + +“~Do~ you ever bet on the races, stranger?” he asked, as the +boat approached Bay Ridge. + +“I used to, but it cost me too much money.” + +“You are a business man, I suppose?” + +“Yes, sir; I sell ‘tips.’ I can give you a sure ten-to-one winner, +to-day--only twenty-five cents.”--_Time._ + + * * * * * + + +REFLECTIONS OF A CAT. + +~The~ nicest bed is a pan of rising bread. + +The old maid is the cat’s good Samaritan. + +If it wasn’t for the rat I would be an outcast. + +I think I have a pretty nose when it isn’t scratched. + +The oven was about the hottest place I was ever in. + +I am blamed for a great many things the girl breaks. + +In all my experience I never yet saw a cat hit with a bootjack. + +Every cat that gets on our back fence doesn’t come to see me. + +When people go to sit down they never see I am asleep in the chair. + +When I can’t get the ribbon off my neck I try to drag it in the dirt. + +If I hadn’t talons the small boy would find no fun in pulling my tail. + +The sailor is the only one who would sooner have a rat than a cat +around. + +The missis and I can never agree as to the place where I shall bring up +my kittens. + +Missis used to leave me only one kitten until after she had twins +herself, and then she left me two.--_Judge._ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Our MONTHLY RECORD~] + + + ~This~ department of ~Outing~ is specially devoted to paragraphs + of the doings of members of organized clubs engaged in the + reputable sports of the period, and also to the recording of the + occurrence of the most prominent events of the current season. On + the ball-fields it will embrace _Cricket_, _Baseball_, _Lacrosse_ + and _Football_. On the bays and rivers, _Yachting_, _Rowing_ and + _Canoeing_. In the woods and streams, _Hunting_, _Shooting_ and + _Fishing_. On the lawns, _Archery_, _Lawn Tennis_ and _Croquet_. + Together with Ice-Boating, Skating, Tobogganing, Snowshoeing, + Coasting, and winter sports generally. + + Secretaries of clubs will oblige by sending in the names of their + presidents and secretaries, with the address of the latter, + together with the general result of their most noteworthy contests + of the month, addressed, “Editor of ~Outing~,” 239 Fifth Avenue, + New York. + + +TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + _All communications intended for the Editorial Department should + be addressed to “The Editor,” and not to any person by name. + Advertisements, orders, etc., should be kept distinct, and + addressed to the manager. Letters and inquiries from anonymous + correspondents will not receive attention. All communications to be + written on one side of the paper only._ + + +ATHLETICS. + +~The~ Pavilion Pastime Club, of Brooklyn--a new +organization--started in August last with a membership of twelve, +has rapidly increased, and now numbers over seventy. Its grounds on +Arlington Avenue, Jerome and Barbey streets, have been frequented daily +by enthusiastic lovers of outdoor sports. The club has developed a +number of excellent tennis players, among whom are the Misses Milan, +the Misses Crawford, Miss Pattison, Miss Hart, Rev. R. H. Baker, +Messrs. C. Palmer, J. H. Webster, and C. Wheeler. October 13, an evenly +contested set was played on the grounds, Miss Alice Linton and Mr. J. +A. Cruikshank defeating Miss Edith Linton and Dr. H. O. Rockefeller +after a very interesting set, the score being 7-5. + + * * * * * + +~A general~ meeting of the N. A. A. A. A. was held at the +Grand Union Hotel, in this city, on the evening of October 6. The +constitution and bylaws were revised. The alterations made were of a +radical character, and a general movement of reform was inaugurated. +The following clubs had delegates present: Missouri Amateur +Athletic Club, Manhattan Athletic Club, Intercollegiate Athletic +Association, Star Athletic Club, West Side Athletic Club, and Allerton +Athletic Club. The matter of changing the rules governing weight +competitions was referred to the executive committee, with power. The +Intercollegiate Athletic Association will in future be entitled to +one representative on the executive committee for every five colleges. +This will increase the college representation to four. The Allerton +Athletic Club, of New York City, was elected to membership, and other +clubs will be proposed at the next meeting of the executive committee. +The following meetings, under N. A. A. A. A. auspices, were announced: +The Association championship was to take place positively, rain or +shine, at the M. A. C. grounds, October 13. The Allerton Athletic Club +games, open to all amateurs, was to take place at Madison Square Garden +during November; the M. A. C. Winter games, open to all amateurs, same +place, during December; the Star Athletic Club winter games, open to +all amateurs, at same place, during January; the West Side Athletic +Club games, open to all amateurs, at same place, during February. The +International Athletic meeting, open to all amateurs, will take place +on the Saturday before the Intercollegiate championship meeting at +the M. A. C. grounds. In this meeting there will be fourteen scratch +events, and the winner of each event will be entitled to go to Europe +on the N. A. A. A. A. championship team, which team will compete +at the English and Irish championships and at the international +championship meeting at the Paris Exposition. The team will also +take part in special meetings gotten up under the auspices of the +National associations of the different countries. Among other large +subscriptions, G. M. L. Sacks gives $500 towards the expenses of the +team. The Columbia College Athletic Association will give its fall +games under Intercollegiate Athletic Association rules. The entries of +the N. A. A. A. A. athletes will be accepted in the open events. Other +clubs and associations have expressed their intention of holding games +under N. A. A. A. A. laws. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Perth Amboy, N. J., Athletic Association have elected +the following officers for the ensuing year: William H. McCormick +president; Mayor Thomas Armstrong, vice-president; Fred. F. Fox, +secretary and treasurer. + + * * * * * + +~An~ exhibition was given by the athletic team of the Irish +Gaelic Association at the Baseball grounds, Newark, N. J., October 20. +Results were as follows: + +100-yards run--J. Connelly, first, no time being taken; T. J. Maloney, +second. + +Hop, step and jump--Daniel Shanahan, first, 49 ft. 7½ in.; P. Looney +second. + +Running long jump--D. Shanahan, first, 22 ft. 2 in.; J. Connelly, +second, 21 ft. + +Putting the 56-pound weight--J. S. Mitchell cleared 25 ft. 9 in. in the +American style, and 32 ft. 5 in. according to Irish rules, J. C. Daly +being second, with 24 ft. 2 in. and 30 ft. 7 in. respectively. + +Quarter-mile run--N. J. Kearns first, in 54s.; F. Conklin, second, +close up. + +Throwing the 16-pound hammer from 9-ft. circle--J. S. Mitchell, first, +133 ft., the throw being made with a turn; J. C. Daly, second, 114 ft. +7 in. + +Running high jump--O’Connor, first, 5 ft. 9½ in.; Connery, second, 5 +ft. 3½ in. + +The sports were brought to a close with the usual hurling +match, which was watched with interest. + + * * * * * + +~The~ members of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Yonkers, +N. Y., held their fall games October 20, the events resulting as +follows: + +100-yards run, for boys--N. A. Ball, first, in 12½s.; G. W. Stephens +second. + +Running long jump--G. A. Gahagan, first, 22 ft. 9½ in.; G. P. Holden +second. + +220-yards run, boys--N. A. Ball, won in 28½s. + +One mile run--Alexander Grieve, first, in 5m. 22s.; N. P. French second. + +Running high jump--G. P. Holden won, 4 ft. 7 in. + +100-yards run--M. Frazier, first; J. Atkinson second. + +Half-mile run--F. A. Ware won, in 2m. 6½s. + +One mile walk--Frank Brown, first, in 7m. 52½s.; C. L. Nicoll second. + +Tug-of-war--Brooklyn Y. M. C. A. beat Yonkers Y. M. C. A. by a yard. + + * * * * * + +~The~ new athletic grounds, located at Morris Dock, on the Harlem +River, were opened October 20, by the Berkeley Athletic Club. The +opening event was a football match between teams representing the +Berkeley Club and the St. John’s College of Sing Sing, which the +latter won by a score of four touchdowns to nothing. The old Harvard +champion sprinter, Wendell Baker, then attempted to surpass the +record for running 280 yards, 29 4-5s., being assisted by his brother +Fred, the latter receiving thirty yards start, and himself essaying +to beat White’s 251-yard record of 31¼s. Owing to the heaviness of +the track both failed, although Wendell lowered the record for the +lesser distance to 26 3-5s. His time for 280 yards was 31 1-5s., while +Fred’s time for 251 yards was 31 2-5s. Then A. F. Copeland, of the +Manhattan Athletic Club, was successful in an attempt to break the +hurdling records at 75, 100 and 120 yards, timers being stationed at +the intermediate distances, and the new figures established being +respectively 8 3-5s., 12 4-5s. and 14 3-5s., the hurdles being 2 ft. 6 +in. in height. The event taken altogether was a great success. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fourth annual fall games of the Missouri Amateur Athletic +Club took place at the Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, October 14. The +weather was not favorable, and the attendance was small. A large +delegation from Chicago was present, and it must have been gratified at +the way the Chicago athletes distinguished themselves in the contests +in carrying off four firsts and five seconds. The games resulted as +follows: + +100-yards run, _first heat_--Emile Reder, M. A. A. C., 5½ yards, won, +10 2-5s.; Walt Farrant, Chicago, 6½ yards, second, by six inches. +_Second heat_--Ed. Sampson, M. A. A. C., 9 yards, won, 10 4-5s.; Ed. +Smith, Chicago, 4½ yards and set back one, second, by two feet. _Third +heat_--A. C. Wignall, Chicago, 4½ yards, won, 10 3-5s.; A. J. Hellmich, +M. A. A. C., 7 yards, second, by a yard. _Fourth heat_--D. L. Cabanne, +Pastime A. C., 9 yards, won, 10 3-5s.; George Mark, M. A. A. C., 9 +yards, second, by a foot. _Fifth heat_--John C. Meyers, M. A. A. C., 10 +yards, won, 10 2-5s.; H. G. Perry, Chicago, 4 yards, second, by a yard. +_Final heat_--Cabanne, won, 10 2-5s.; Wignall second, by a half-yard; +Sampson third, Meyers fourth. + +Weight contest for height--George Riddle easily won the 56-pound weight +contest for height, tossing the missile over the bar at 10 ft. 5 in., +with Dan Leahy second, three inches less. Riddle afterward threw 11 ft. +1 in. and is good for much higher. Three others competed. + +Running high kick--A. C. Baum, of the Missouri A. A. C., easily won the +running high kick with 8 ft. 11 in.; George Powell, same club, second, +at 8 ft. 8 in. Baum then tried for a record, and did 9 ft. 5½ in. C. +C. Lee, of Yale College, holds the world’s record, 9 ft. 8 in. H. G. +Perry, of Chicago, also competed. + +440-yards run, handicap--_First heat_--W. S. Farrant, Chicago, 25 +yards, won, 53 1-5s.; W. T. Nolan, M. A. A. C., 8 yards, second; R. J. +Leacock, M. A. A. C., 20 yards, third. _Second heat_--J. C. Meyers, M. +A. A. C., 30 yards, won, 52s.; James Price, Chicago, 30 yards, second; +A. J. Hellmich, M. A. A. C., third. _Final heat_--Farrant won, 51 +1-5s.; Leacock, second, by three yards; Price, third, by two yards. The +start was too great for Farrant. Leacock’s effort was a good one, but +he had hard work beating Price. + +Mile walk, handicap--H. H. Hentrichs, M. A. A. C., 125 yards, won +easily by twenty yards, 7m. 45s.; Ed. Gaines, M. A. A. C., scratch, +second. Two others started, but both stopped. + +Mile run, handicap--Arthur Hunn, M. A. A. C., 110 yards, won easily by +ten yards, 4m. 43 2-5s.; R. K. McCullough, Chicago, 120 yards, a strong +second; T. K. Henderson, Chicago, scratch, third, by twenty yards. The +latter ran a game race. + +Hurdle race, 220 yards, handicap--The _first heat_ was a walk-over for +George Mark, 15 yards, and A. J. Hellmich, 15 yards, in 30 3-5s. The +_second heat_ was won by Ed. Smith, Chicago, scratch, in 30 4-5s.; D. +L. Cabanne, Pastime A. C., 15 yards, second; J. C. Meyers, 15 yards, +third. _Final heat_--Mark won by two yards in 28 1-5s.; Smith second; +Hellmich third, by ten yards. + +George Powell took the high jump with an actual jump of 5 ft. 9¼ in., +George Riddle, Chicago, six inches, second, 5 ft. 9 in. + +Half-mile run, scratch--Ed. Baker, Chicago, won, 2m. 6 1-5s.; T. T. +Lingo, St. Louis, second, by five yards.; W. T. Nolan, M. A. A. C., +third, beaten off. R. J. Leacock, M. A. A. C., also started. + +Hop, step and jump--Chas. Bayer, Jr., 4 feet, won, 43 ft. 11½ in.; +A. C. Wignall, Chicago, 4 feet, second, 43 ft. 9 in. + +The members’ race was taken by A. H. Hitchings, in 37 2-5s.; B. A. +McFadden second, by a yard. + +John C. Meyers won the amusing obstacle race in easy style, with F. H. +Armfield second, and Arthur Hunn third. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall games of the Columbia Athletic Club, of Washington, +D. C., were held on Analostan Island, in the Potomac River, October 6. +The weather was disagreeable, and though the attendance of visitors was +comparatively small, the games themselves were a success. The grounds +and track were in fairly good condition, and the events resulted as +follows: + +100-yards run--Samuel King first, in 10 2-5s.; L. T. Reed, second by a +yard. + +Two-mile bicycle race, lap--W. E. Crist first, 26 points; Phil. Brown +second. + +120-yards hurdle race--Lee Harban first, in 18 3-5s.; McCawley second. + +One mile walk--A. T. Stoutenburg first, in 9m. 15s.; O’Leary second. + +Bicycle race, mile, novice--W. E. Bell, first, in 3m. 25 1-5s.; T. +Hodgson second. + +220-yards run--Sam. King, first, in 23s.; L. T. Reed, second. + +One mile bicycle race--L. J. Barber, 75 yards start, first, in 2m. 47 +4-5s.; W. E. Crist, scratch, second. + +220-yard run--Sam King first, in 55 3-5s. + +One mile run--J. M. Kenyon, first, Lee Harban second. + +Throwing the hammer--T. C. Chalmers, first, 62 ft. 8 in.; Van +Rensselaer, second, 60 ft. 2 in. + +Standing high jump--Robert Elder, first, 4 ft. 4 in. + +Running long jump--S. E. Lewis, first, 20 ft. + +Putting the shot--L. T. Reed, first, 34 ft. 7 in. + +Running high jump--W. E. Buell, first, 5 ft. + +Standing long jump--Robert Elder, 9 ft. 10 in. + +Pole vault--Telfair Hodgson, first, 7 ft. 8 in. + +Tug-of-war--Fat men defeated lean men. + + * * * * * + +~The~ thirteenth annual meeting of the National Association of +Amateur Athletes, for the Amateur Championship of America, was held +October 13, on the Manhattan Athletic Club Grounds. The Irish athletes +proved superior in three events--the 440-yards run, the running high +jump, and throwing the fifty-six pound weight. In putting the shot, +the method of J. S. Mitchell of the Irish team was objected to and +he withdrew from the contest. He made one effort, however, that +was allowed to count, and that gave him second place. In throwing +the fifty-six pound weight he lowered the American record six and +three-quarter inches. W. J. Barry, also of the Irish team, threw the +sixteen-pound hammer 120 ft. 11 in., as an exhibition of his own method +of throwing. Conneff, of the M. A. C., had an easy victory in the +five-mile run, winning by over a quarter of a mile. Results were as +follows: + +100-yards run, _first heat_--Walk-over for F. Westing, M. A. C. _Second +heat_--A. F. Copeland, M. A. C., first. Time, 10 2-5s. _Third heat_--V. +E. Shifferstein, Olympic A. C., California, first. Time, 10 3-5s. +Trial heat for second men--J. Mooney, Gaelic A. A., first. _Final +heat_--F. Westing, first. Time, 10s. Dead heat between Copeland and +Schifferstein. Copeland won the run off in 10 2-5s. + +One mile walk--E. D. Lange, M. A. C., first. Time, 6m. 53 4-5s.; C. L. +Nicoll, M. A. C., second. + +One mile run--T. P. Conneff, M. A. C., first. Time, 4m. 32 3-5s.; W. +McCarthy, Gaelic A. A., second. + +220-yards run--F. Westing, first. Time, 22 2-5s.; H. M. Banks, M. A. +C., second. + +Two mile bicycle race--J. W. Powers, Jr., M. A. C., first. Time, 6m. +55s.; J. H. Hanson, M. A. C., second. + +Three mile walk--E. D. Lange, first. Time, 22m. 49 3-5s.; C. L. Nicoll, +second. + +120-yards hurdle race, _first heat_--A. F. Copeland first. Time, +17 2-5s.; Herbert Mapes, Columbia College A. C., second. _Second +heat_--Walk-over for H. S. Younghand, M. Vandervoort, M. A. C. _Final +heat_--A. F. Copeland, first. Time, 16 2-5s.; Herbert Mapes, second. + +Half-mile run--J. W. Moffatt, Montreal A. A. A., first. Time, 2m. 2 +1-5s.; J. C. Devereaux, Columbia College A. C. second. + +440-yards run--T. J. O’Mahony, Gaelic A. A., first. Time, 53s.; T. J. +Norton, M. A. C., second. + +220-yards hurdle race--A. F. Copeland, first. Time, 20 3-5s.; Herbert +Mapes, second. + +Five mile run--T. P. Conneff, first. Time, 25m. 35s. S. J. Freeth, +Prospect Harriers, second. + +Tug-of-war--D. S. Lord, J. Jenning, D. T. Brokaw and W. Revere, M. A. +C., against G. M. Elliott, F. M. R. Meikleham, E. C. Robinson and +Eugene Clapp, Columbia College. Manhattans won by two inches. + +Tug-of-war--M. A. C. team against M. Mulhern, J. J. Van Houten, J. +Moran and C. Miltman, West Side A. C. Manhattans won by 7¾ in. + +Pole vault--G. P. Quinn, University of Pennsylvania, first, 10 ft. 1 +in.; J. J. Van Houten, West Side A. C., second, 9 ft. 10 in. + +Putting the shot--F. L. Lambrecht, M. A. C., first, 42 ft. 4 in.; J. S. +Mitchell, Gaelic A. A., second, 41 ft. 9 in. + +Running high jump--T. M. O’Connor, Gaelic A. A., first, 5 ft. 9½ in.; +M. W. Ford, Brooklyn, second, 5 ft. 8½ in. + +Throwing 16-lb. hammer--F. L. Lambrecht, first, 105 ft. 1 in.; J. S. +Mitchell, second, 102 ft. 3 in. + +Running broad jump--V. E. Schifferstein, first, 23 ft. 1¾ in.; A. F. +Copeland, second, 22 ft. ½ in. + +Throwing 56-lb. weight--J. S. Mitchell, first, 26 ft. 10 in.; J. C. +Daly, Gaelic A. A., second, 26 ft. 8 in. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual fall games of the Princeton College Athletic +Association were held at the University grounds, October 20. The +Princeton record in the half-mile run was broken by Roddy, ’91, who +covered the distance in 2m. 5 1-5s. Dohm, ’90, ran one hundred yards in +10 sec. The other events and winners were as follows: + +Throwing the hammer--Brownlee, ’89, 81 ft. 9½ in. + +Running high jump--Lemassena, ’90, 5 ft. 2 in. + +Mile walk--Whitehead, ’91; time, 8m. 10 1-5s. + +Putting the shot--Galt, ’91, 28 ft. 10 in. + +Quarter-mile run--Somerby, ’92; time, 59s. + +220-yards dash--Dohm, ’90; time, 23 1-5s. + +Mile run--Phillips, ’90; time, 5m. 18s. + +Two-mile bicycle race--Shick, ’92; time, 8m. 7 1-5s. + +Running broad jump--Lemassena, ’90, 20 ft. 9½ in. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall meeting of the Ridgefield Athletic Association took +place on the afternoon of October 8. The results were as follows: + +100-yards dash--J. F. McDonald, three yards lead, first; J. H. Shepard, +six yards, second. Time, 10 3-5s. + +Running broad jump--Ben. J. Worman, one foot allowance, first, 19 ft. 7 +in.; F. R. Wells, second, 18 ft. 11 in. + +440-yards run--J. F. McDonald, 10 yards lead, first; William +Grotenhuis, second. Time, 57 1-5s. + +Hop, step and jump--Ben. J. Worman, allowance of three feet, first, 41 +ft. 10 in.; F. R. Wells, second, 41 ft. ½ in. + +100-yards dash, juniors, heats--J. H. Bailey first, E. L. Miller +second. Time, 11s. + +220-yards dash--Wm. Grotenhuis, six yards lead, first; R. S. Calkins, +Jr., second. Time, 23½s. + +Running high jump--H. M. Wilcox, allowance of four inches, first, 4 ft. +11 in.; F. R. Wells, second, 4 ft. 9½ in. + +Putting 16-pound shot--F. R. Wells, first, 33 ft. 5½ in.; M. +Pennington, second, 29 ft. 4 in. + +880 yards--W. Patterson first, F. R. Wells second. Time, 2m. 28 1-5s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall athletic sports of the University of Pennsylvania +took place October 20, with the following results: + +Open 100-yards dash--Won by Sweet, of Swarthmore, in 10 4-5s. + +100-yards dash--Won by Landreth, ’91, in 10 4-5s. + +Pole vault--Won by Quinn (law), with 9 ft. 5½ in. + +Throwing the hammer--Won by Bonsall (med.), with 96 ft. + +Half-mile run--Won by Chamberlain, ’89, in 2m. 20 3-5s. + +440-yards dash--Won by Kulp (med.), in 56s. + +Mile walk--Won by Schofield (law), in 8m. 39 1-2s. + +Running high jump--Won by Howard, ’91, with 5 ft. ⅞ in. + +Running broad jump--Won by Landreth, ’91, with 19 ft. 5 in. + +120-yards hurdle race--Won by Stroud, ’88, in 19s. + +Mile bicycle race--Won by Cressman, ’90, in 3m. 25 1-5s. + +Putting the shot--won by Bonsall (med.), with 33 ft. 6 in. + +220-yards hurdle race--Won by Stroud, ’88, in 34 1-5s. + +Mile run--Won by West, ’91, in 5m. 3s. + +220-yards dash--Won by Landreth, in 25s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall meeting of the Yale University Athletic Association +was held October 20. There were 137 entries. The grounds were in +excellent condition. Results were as follows: + +120-yards dash--Won by H. F. Walker, Yale, ’89, 6½ yards start, in +12 1-5s. + +Mile run--J. T. Lloyd, Yale, ’91, 50 yards handicap, won in 4m. 43 2-5s. + +Mile walk--L. R. Parker, Yale, ’92, won in 8m. 19 1-5s. + +600-yards run--Won by C. W. Porter, Amherst, ’90, 24 yards handicap, in +1m. 13s. + +120-yards hurdle race--Won by H. L. Williams, Yale, ’91, 5 yards +handicap, in 17 1-5s. + +Two mile bicycle race--Won by F. A. Clark, Yale, ’91, Sheffield, +handicap, 50 yards; time, 6m. 33 1-5s. + +300-yards run--Won by H. F. Walker, Yale, ’89; time, 32 2-5s. + +220-yards hurdle race--H. L. Williams, Yale, ’91, handicap 6 yards, won +in 28 4-5s. + +Three-quarter mile steeplechase--G. Y. Gilbert, N. Y. A. C., won in 4m. +38 4-5s.; C. A. Davenport, Harvard, ’90, and J. P. Lloyd, Yale, ’91, +ran a dead heat for second place, which had to be run off, when the +Harvard man won. + +440-yards run--Won by E. B. Hinkley, Yale, ’89, in 52s.; F. W. +Robinson, Yale, ’90, was a very close second. + +Running high jump--A. Nickerson, N. Y. A. C., handicap 4 in., won in 5 +ft. 11½ in. + +Throwing the hammer--H. A. Elcove, Yale, ’91, with a handicap of 3 ft., +won with 81 feet, 1 in. + +Running broad jump--E. P. Hinckley, Yale, ’89, handicap 3 ft. 6 in., +jumped 22 ft. 8 in. and won. + +Putting the shot--F. W. Robinson, Yale, ’90, handicap 4 ft., won with +35 ft. 8 in. + +Pole vault--E. D. Ryder, Yale, ’91, with a handicap of 1 ft. 10 in., +won with 10 ft. 2 in.; T. G. Shearman, Yale, ’89 was second. + + * * * * * + +~Delegates~ from the Manhattan, Star, Titan, Crescent, Brighton +and Allerton Athletic Clubs and the Missouri Athletic Association made +up the meeting of the National Cross-Country Association in this city, +October 23. The West Side Athletic Club was elected to membership. +The officers elected for the ensuing year are: President, F. A. +Ware, Crescent A. C.; vice-president, C. C. Hughes, Manhattan A. C.; +secretary, C. J. Harvey, Star A. C.; treasurer, E. J. Ryan, Allerton +A. C. Executive Committee--E. J. Ryan, Allerton, A. C.; D. J. Cox, +Brighton, A. C.; C. S. Busse, Crescent A. C.; C. C. Hughes, Manhattan +A. C.; J. A. Murphy, Missouri A. A. A.; C. J. Harvey, Star A. C.; J. L. +McAuliffe, Titan A. C.; J. D. Douglass, West Side A. C. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first annual meeting of the National Amateur Athletic +Union was held on the grounds of the Detroit Athletic Club, September +19. An attendance of five thousand witnessed the games, and the entire +management was a success. The referee was John F. Huneker of the +Athletic Club of the Schuylkill Navy. The judges were D. G. Trench, +Chicago Athletic Club; W. G. Schuyler, New York Athletic Club; J. H. +Booth and F. W. Janssen, Staten Island Athletic Club; P. E. Stanley and +F. D. Standish, Detroit Athletic Club. As timekeepers, the following +gentlemen officiated: Otto Ruhl and J. H. Abeel, Jr., New York Athletic +Club; Fred. T. Moran, Detroit Athletic Club; W. H. Robertson, Pastime +Club, and Hon. J. E. Reyburn, Cape May City Club. The measurers were J. +E. Sullivan, Pastime Club; Howard Perry, Columbia Club; J. W, Carter, +New York Club; Charles W. Lennon, Pullman Club, and W. H. Rogers, +Schuylkill Navy. George Turner, of Philadelphia, was starter, and +Sporting Editor, P. J. Donohue, of the New York _World_, was judge of +walking. Harry McMillan, of the Schuylkill Navy, was chief-marshal of +the day, and Fred. W. Burns, of the Brooklyn Athletic Club, official +announcer. The following were the results in the various events: + +100-yards run--F. Westing, Manhattan Athletic Club, first; C. H. +Sherrill, Yale College, and Malcolm W. Ford, Staten Island Athletic +Club, tied for second place, Ford getting the place on the toss. Time, +first heat, 10 2-5s.; second heat, 10 3-5s.; third heat, 10 2-5s.; +final heat, 10 2-5s. + +120-yards hurdle--A. A. Jordan, New York Athletic Club, first; A. F. +Copeland, Manhattan Athletic Club, second; E. M. Vandervoort, Manhattan +Athletic Club, third. Time, 16 1-5s.; won in one heat. + +One-mile walk--W. R. Burkhardt, Pastime Athletic Club, first; C. L. +Nicoll, Manhattan Athletic Club, second. Time, 6m. 54 1-5s. + +One-mile run--G. M. Gibbs, Toronto Athletic Club, first; T. P. Conneff, +Manhattan Athletic Club, second; P. D. Skillman, New York Athletic +Club. Time, 4m. 27 1-5s. + +220-yards run--F. Westing, Manhattan Athletic Club, first; W. C. Dohm, +New York Athletic Club, second; H. F. Walker, Detroit Athletic Club, +third. Time, 22 1-5s. + +220-yards hurdle race--Won in one heat--A. F. Copeland, Manhattan +Athletic Club, first; A. A. Jordan, New York Athletic Club, second; G. +Schwegler, Chicago Athletic Club, third. Time, 26 4-5s. + +Three-mile walk--Won by E. D. Lange, of the Manhattan Athletic Club; +Otto Hassell, Chicago Amateur Athletic Club, second. + +Two-mile bicycle race--W. E. Crist, Columbia Athletic Club, first. +Time, 6m. 49 1-5s. + +440-yards run--W. C. Dohm, New York Athletic Club, first. Time, 51s. + +880-yard run--G. Tracey, Wanderers’ Athletic Club, Chicago, first; C. +M. Smith, New York Athletic Club, second; C. L. Estes, Manhattan Club, +third. Time, 2m. 2 1-5s. + +Five-mile run--T. P. Conneff, Manhattan Athletic Club, first; E. C. +Carter, New York Athletic Club, second. Time, 26m. 46 3-5s. + +Running high jump--J. D. Webster, Manhattan Athletic Club, first, 5 ft. +6½, in.; W. M. Norris, Staten Island Athletic Club, second, 5 ft. 4½ +in.; R. K. Pritchard, Staten Island Athletic Club, third, 5 ft. 4½ in. + +Tug-of-war--Manhattan Athletic Club Team--D. S. Lord, anchor; W. +Revere, D. T. Brokaw, and J. Senning, against the “Busy Bees” Athletic +Association of Co. B, 22d Regiment, N. G. S. N. Y. Won by the “Busy +Bees,” in the first and third pulls. + +Putting 16-lb. shot--G. R. Gray, New York Athletic Club, first, 42 ft. +10½ in.; F. L. Lambrecht, Manhattan Athletic Club, second, 40 ft. 6 +in.; W. L. Coudon, New York Athletic Club, third, 40 ft. 4½ in. + +Running long jump--W. Halpin, Olympic Athletic Club, first, 23 ft.; A. +F. Copeland, Manhattan Athletic Club, second, 22 ft. 11⅝ in.; A. A. +Jordan, New York Athletic Club, third, 22 ft. 9⅞ in. + +Throwing 16-lb. hammer--W. J. M. Barry, Queen’s College, Cork, first, +127 ft. 1 in.; C. A. J. Queckberner, Staten Island Athletic Club, +second, 106 ft. 11 in.; F. L. Lambrecht, Manhattan Athletic Club, +third, 97 ft. 4 in. + +Pole vault--L. D. Godshall, Manhattan Athletic Club, first, 10 ft.; +C. Whitehorn, Staten Island Athletic Club, second, 9 ft. 9 in.; A. A. +Jordan, New York Athletic Club, third, 9 ft. + +Throwing 56-lb. weight--W. L. Coudon, New York Athletic Club, 27 ft. 9 +in., beating the world’s record by 1 ft. 11 in. + + * * * * * + +~Columbia College~ students turned out in full force October +26, at the Manhattan Athletic Club grounds. The entries numbered +over 225. Three Columbia records were broken and one intercollegiate +record was equaled. H. Mapes, ’92 (mines), won the 220-yards hurdle +in 26 4-5s., beating the Columbia record by two seconds and equaling +the intercollegiate best time. He also beat the college record for +the 120-yards hurdle in 17 1-5s. A. S. Vosburgh, ’90 (arts), beat the +Columbia mile record by one second, making the distance in 4m. 53 2-5s. +The winners and seconds are as follows: + +100-yards dash--Final, Herbert Mapes, 3 yards, first; H. M. Banks, Jr., +scratch, second. Time, 10 3-5s. + +220-yards run--H. M. Banks, scratch, first; Herbert Shipman, 7 yards, +second. Time, 23 2-5s. + +440-yards run--J. C. Travis, 35 yards, first; Herbert Shipman, 18 +yards, second. Time, 52s. + +880-yards run--J. M. Hewlett, 40 yards, first; M. R. Strong, 10 yards, +second. Time, 2m. 5s. + +Mile run--A. S. Vosburgh, scratch, first; J. S. Langthorn, 25 yards, +second. Time, 4m. 53 2-5s. + +Mile walk--T. McIlvaine, scratch, first; H. G. Peck, second. Time, 8m. +8 4-5s. + +Two-mile bicycle--W. H. Hall, 60 yards, first; G. A. Wardlaw, second. +Time, 7m. 50 4-5s. + +220-yards novice race--S. R. Bradley, first; J. R. Steers, second. +Time, 25 4-5s. + +880-yards novice race--F. E. Gunnison, first; J. A. Dempsey, second. +Time, 2m. 27s. + +120-yards hurdle--H. Mapes, ’92 (mines), first; T. H. Havemeyer, 12 +yards, second. Time, 17 1-5s. + +220-yard hurdle--H. Mapes, scratch, first; Victor Mapes, 15 yards, +second. Time, 26 4-5s. + +Putting 16-lb. shot--B. C. Hinman, actual distance 33 ft. 6 in., first; +M. C. Bogert, actual distance 31 ft., second. + +Running high jump--F. C. Hooper, actual height, 5 ft. 4 in., first; +Alexander Stevens, 4 ft. 7 in., second. + +Running broad jump--Victor Mapes, actual distance, 20 ft. 8 in., first; +J. C. Devereaux, 19 ft. 8 in., second. + +Throwing 16-lb. hammer--B. C. Hinman, actual throw, 79 ft., first; M. +T. Bogert, 66 ft. 6 in., second. + +Tug-of-war--’89 won from ’90 by 1 in.; ’92 won from ’91 by default; ’89 +won from ’92 by default. + +The winners in the open events were: + +100-yards run, handicap--F. Westing, M. A. C. first; H. Shipman, 5 +yards, second. Time, 10 2-3s. + +Half-mile run--J. W. Moffatt, of Canada, scratch, first; D. I. +Tompkins, Manhattan Athletic Club, 24 yards, second. Time, 2m. 2-5s. + +C. H. Mapes was referee; G. L. M. Sachs, S. C. Herriman, and D. L. R. +Dresser, judges; G. A. Avery, W. Hegeman, C. C. Hughes, timers, and H. +Pike, starter. + + +BASEBALL. + +~The~ following is the official record of the League +Championship campaign, giving the victories and defeats of each club +and the deciding percentage of victories, on the basis of which every +club was placed in the race, from the pennant winner to the tail-ender: + + A: New York. + B: Chicago. + C: Philadelphia. + D: Boston. + E: Detroit. + F: Pittsburgh. + G: Indianapolis. + H: Washington. + I: Games won. + J: Per cent. of victories. + + ---------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + ~Clubs~ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H || I | J + ---------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + New York |-- | 8 |14 |12 |11 |10 |11 |15 || 84 |.641 + Chicago |11 |-- | 8 |12 |10 | 9 |14 |13 || 77 |.570 + Philadelphia | 5 |10 |-- |10 | 7 |14 |13 |10 || 69 |.531 + Boston | 8 | 7 | 9 |-- |10 |10 |11 |15 || 70 |.522 + Detroit | 7 |10 |11 | 8 |-- |10 |11 |11 || 68 |.519 + Pittsburgh | 7 |11 | 6 | 8 |10 |-- |14 |10 || 66 |.493 + Indianapolis | 5 | 6 | 4 | 9 | 8 | 6 |-- |12 || 50 |.370 + Washington | 4 | 6 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 8 |-- || 48 |.358 + ---------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + Games lost |47 |58 |61 |64 |63 |68 |85 |86 ||532 | + ---------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++----+---- + +Not only was the race close between New York and Chicago for first +place up to October, but the struggle for the third position between +Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit, was interesting. + + * * * * * + +Here is a table giving the full statistics of the League campaign in +all the most essential particulars. + + A: New York. + B: Chicago. + C: Philadelphia. + D: Boston. + E: Detroit. + F: Pittsburgh. + G: Indianapolis. + H: Washington. + + -----------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- + | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H + -----------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- + Victories | 84| 77| 69| 70| 68| 66| 50| 48 + Defeats | 47| 58| 61| 64| 63| 68| 85| 86 + Games played | 131| 135| 130| 134| 131| 134| 135| 134 + Per cent. of victories |.641|.570|.531|.522|.519|.493|.370|.358 + Drawn games | 7| 1| 1| 3| 3| 4| 1| 2 + Series won | 5| 4| 2| 2| 3| 2| 1| 0 + Series lost | 1| 1| 1| 2| 1| 2| 6| 5 + Series tied | 0| 1| 0| 0| 2| 1| 0| 0 + Series unfinished | 1| 1| 4| 3| 1| 3| 3| 3 + Batting average |.240|.247|.229|.240|.243|.223|.233|.207 + Fielding average |.918|.906|.919|.904|.916|.914|.904|.899 + Victories at home | 44| 43| 37| 34| 41| 38| 31| 26 + Victories abroad | 40| 34| 32| 36| 27| 28| 19| 22 + Defeats at home | 23| 26| 31| 29| 26| 30| 35| 38 + Defeats abroad | 24| 32| 30| 34| 37| 39| 50| 48 + Extra innings games | 6| 2| 9| 2| 4| 4| 1| 1 + Chicago victories | 18| 11| 16| 7| 10| 13| 6| 6 + Chicago defeats | 3| 9| 6| 13| 5| 19| 11| 21 + -----------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- + +The appended table presents the statistics, in brief, of the thirteen +pennant races of the League, from 1876 to 1888, inclusive. + + -----+------------+----------+--------+-----------+--------------- + YEAR.| CHAMPION |VICTORIES.|DEFEATS.| Per cent. | CLUB + | CLUB. | | | of | MANAGER. + | | | | victories.| + -----+------------+----------+--------+-----------+--------------- + 1876 | Chicago | 52 | 14 | .788 | Spalding + 1877 | Boston | 31 | 17 | .648 | Harry Wright + 1878 | Boston | 41 | 19 | .683 | Harry Wright + 1879 | Providence | 55 | 23 | .705 | George Wright + 1880 | Chicago | 67 | 17 | .798 | Anson + 1881 | Chicago | 56 | 28 | .667 | Anson + 1882 | Chicago | 56 | 29 | .655 | Anson + 1883 | Boston | 63 | 55 | .534 | Harry Wright + 1884 | Providence | 84 | 28 | .750 | Frank Bancroft + 1885 | Chicago | 87 | 25 | .776 | Anson + 1886 | Chicago | 90 | 34 | .725 | Anson + 1887 | Detroit | 79 | 45 | .637 | Watkins + 1888 | New York | 84 | 47 | .641 | Mutrie + -----+------------+----------+--------+-----------+--------------- + + +CANOE. + +~The~ second series in the canoe sailing races for the +international challenge cup took place October 13 from Bechtel’s Rock, +Stapleton, Staten Island, over the usual course, which is two miles +long. The boats sailed over the course four times, making the distance +of the race eight miles. Col. C. L. Norton, of the New York Canoe Club, +acted as referee. + +There was but one race in the forenoon, which was won by the _Eclipse_ +of the Brooklyn Canoe Club, sailed by R. S. Blake, in 2h. 1m. 30s. The +_Charm_, of the Royal Canoe Club, sailed by Walter Stewart, took the +lead at first, but was overhauled and passed by the Yankee boat. The +time of the _Charm_ was 2h. 8m. 30s. + +The afternoon race was won by the _Eclipse_, in 2h. 9m. 45s. The +_Charm_ was unable to round the offshore buoy according to the +requirements, and the Brooklyn boat went over the course alone. The +winning of the silver international cup by an American boat will +necessitate the next international canoe race to be sailed also in +American waters. + +There were other races during the day for a prize flag. The first +race of this contest had three entries, and the boats finished in the +following order: _Fly_, time, 1h. 15m. 10s.; _Essex_, of the Essex +Club, 2h. 7m.; and the _Guinn_, Brooklyn Club, 2h. 8m. The course was +six miles. + +The second race was decided in the following order: _Fly_, 1h. 34m. +45s.; _Guinn_, 1h. 36m. 30s.; _Vagabond_, 1h. 41m. 20s.; _If_, 1h. 45m. +45s.; _New York_, 1h. 48m.; _Essex_, 1h. 48m. 45s. _Will of the Wisp_ +and _Nancy_ fell out of the race. + + +CRICKET. + +~Cricket~ has closed for the year among the leading English +teams. During the season the following scores were made in first-class +matches: W. G. Grace, 215, 165, 153, and 148; W. W. Read, 338, 171, +109, and 103; W. Newham, 129 and 118; M. P. Bowden, 189, not out; J. +Eccles, 184; Abel, 160; Painter, 150; P. J. T. Henery, 138, not out; +Jesse Hide, 130; Hall, 129, not out; Briggs, 126, not out; S. W. Scott, +121, not out; Maurice Read, 109; K. J. Key, 108; Wainright, 105; Frank +Sugg, 102, not out. The 153 and 148 of W. G. Grace were made in one +match. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Irish Gentlemen cricketers, who have been visiting the +principal cricket clubs in this country and Canada, sailed for home +October 3, on the _City of Rome_. The Irishmen speak in warm terms of +the way in which they were treated by their brother sportsmen here. +They have reason to be proud of their performance. During six weeks +they have played thirteen matches, of which they have won eleven and +lost two. Both games were lost in Philadelphia, one by seven runs, the +other by thirty-nine. In Canada the Home Rulers defeated Kingston’s +and Ottawa’s best players by large scores, and in a match against +all Canada they had eighty-six runs, and an innings to spare. In the +United States they defeated all the best elevens, except those in +Philadelphia. New York’s best team came within nine wickets of the +Irishmen in a two-innings match. The highest score made by any member +of the visiting team was 126, made by J. Dunn, in the New York match. + + +CURLING. + +~The~ annual meeting of the Ontario Branch of the Royal +Caledonia Curling Club was held in Montreal, October 16. The following +is a list of the officers elected: His Excellency the Governor-General, +Patron; Robert Ferguson, president; vice-presidents, John Harvey and +Dr. Bouchier; chaplain, Rev. D. J. Macdonnell; secretary-treasurer, +J. S. Russell; council of management, W. Badenach, Toronto Granite +Club; W. Rennie, Toronto Caledonian Club; Dr. Beaton, Orillia Club; T. +McGaw, Toronto Club; W. Leggatt, Hamilton Thistle Club, and Dr. Berth, +Bowmanville Club. + + +CYCLING. + +~S. G. Whittaker~ continues to make new records abroad. +September 22, at the Long Eaton Recreation Grounds, England, he made +the attempt to beat the record for twenty-five miles, and succeeded in +creating new figures for every mile from two to the finish. Time for +the full distance, 1h. 11m. 5⅔s. + + * * * * * + +~G. R. White~, in England, at the annual North Road Cycling +Club’s 100-mile road ride, September 22, over the usual course, on +an “Ordinary,” rode the entire distance without dismounting, in 6h. +48m. 14s. The previous record was 7h. 6m. 18s., and was made by F. H. +Williams. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Y. M. C. A., of Worcester, Mass., had games October 20, +and in the one-mile bicycle race D. W. Rolston made the mile in 3m. 18 +1-5s., James Wilson, Jr., coming in second, in 3m. 18 3-5s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Pennsylvania five-mile handicap race was run October 20. +The contest resulted as follows: J. H. Draper, half-lap handicap, +first, in 22m. 25s.; D. A. Longaker, one lap, second; J. G. Fuller, +scratch, third; C. L. Leisen, one lap, fourth; Al. Kohler, one lap, +fifth; John A. Wells, one lap, sixth; L. J. McCloskey and W. W. +Randall, each with two laps, finishing seventh and eighth. The track +was soft and the wind strong. + + * * * * * + +~A. C. and W. D. Banker~, of Pittsburgh, Pa., rode a mile, +tandem, Sunday, October 21, in 2m. 41 4-5s. The course was rough, and a +strong wind prevailed against the riders. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Danvers, Mass., Cycle Club races were run October 20 on +a heavy track. The results: Mile novice--J. Ogden, of Middletown, +3m. 4s. Half-mile, club challenge, two in three--M. W. Robson, of +Salem. Mile tandem tricycle--R. H. Robson and mate, of Salem, 4m. 50s. +Mile handicap--E. A. Bailey, of Somerville (scratch), 3m. 37s. Mile +tricycle--R. H. Robson, of Salem, 5m. 15s. Two mile--E. A. Bailey, 8m. +15s. Mile county championship--H. Robson, of Salem, 4m. 14s. Referee, +W. S. Atwell, of Boston. + + * * * * * + +~The~ five-mile Peninsula championship, decided at the +Wilmington (Del.) Fair, was won by McDaniel; Pyle second; Jefferies +third. + + * * * * * + +~I. P. Hail~, of Albany, Oregon, recently made a four hundred +mile trip through Southern Oregon to Coos Bay and return. He crossed +the Coast Range Mountains twice, and traveled one hundred and fifty +miles over a rough mountain trail, over which no bicycle had ever +passed. + + * * * * * + +~John M. Cook~ has presented an eight-in-hand cycle to a college +for the blind, at Upper Norwood, England. The eight-in-hand is arranged +for the girls of the institution to ride. Two four-in-hands and a +tandem will enable the boys to take exercise and recreation. + + * * * * * + +~The~ tournament of the Pittsburgh Cycling and Athletic Club +was held at Pittsburgh, September 24, 25 and 26. It was a show in +which professionals and amateurs took part. “The tournament,” says +the _Wheelmen’s Gazette_, “was a success from a sporting standpoint,” +whatever that may mean, “but there was little or no financial benefit.” +The following is a summary of the races: + +_Monday, September 24._ + +One-half-mile bicycle scratch--W. W. Windle, first; time, 1m. 23s. +One-mile novice--W. D. George, first; time, 3m. 20s. Five-mile +professional championship--First heat of championship series--W. A. +Rowe, first; time 15m. 22 1-5s. One-half-mile bicycle, 1:35 class--W. +D. George, first; time, 1m. 35 1-5s. Two-mile professional lap race--H. +G. Crocker, first, 31 points; time, 6m. 42s. Two-mile Pennsylvania +Division State championship--A. C. Banker, first; time, 6m. 3 1-5s. +One-mile bicycle, 3:30 class--W. D. George, first; time, 3m. 21 2-5s. +One-mile professional handicap--W. F. Knapp, 30 yards, first; time, 2m. +52 3-5s. Two-mile bicycle scratch--W. W. Windle, first; time, 6m. 15s. + +_Tuesday, September 25._ + +One-mile bicycle lap race--W. W. Windle, first, 14 points; time, +2m. 55s. One-half-mile bicycle novice--W. D. George, first; time, +1m. 38s. Three-mile bicycle professional, second heat of world’s +championship--W. A. Rowe, first; time, 8m. 57s. One-mile bicycle, 3:10 +class--W. D. George, first; time, 3m. 19 1-5s. One-mile professional +handicap--R. A. Neilson, 50 yards, first. One-mile bicycle scratch--W. +W. Windle, first; time 3m. 2-5s. Two-mile bicycle professional--W. F. +Knapp, first; time, 6m. 14s. Three-mile bicycle amateur handicap--W. W. +Windle, scratch, first. Time, 8m. 59s. + +_Wednesday, September 26._ + +One-mile bicycle amateur handicap--W. W. Windle, scratch, first; time, +2m. 58½s. One-mile professional bicycle scratch--R. A. Neilson, first; +time, 3m. 12s. Two-mile bicycle amateur, 6:20 class--W. D. George, +first; time, 7m. 2s. Two-mile bicycle amateur lap race--W. W. Windle, +first; time, 6m. 20s. One-mile professional bicycle, final heat world’s +championship--W. A. Rowe, first; time, 3m. One-mile bicycle amateur +scratch--W. W. Windle, first; time, 2m. 55 3-5s. One-mile bicycle, 3:20 +class--W. D. George, first; time, 3m. 23s. Two-mile bicycle handicap, +professional--H. G. Crocker, 20 yards, first; time, 6m. 11s. Five-mile +bicycle L. A.W. State championship--W. D. Banker, first; time, 16m. 28s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Indianapolis Wheelmen held their first annual race meet at the +Exposition Grounds, September 29. The track was bad, the weather was +wretched, and time poor. The results were as follows: The one-mile +novice race was won by W. C. Marmon, in 3m. 20 4-5s.; the five mile +State championship by L. M. Hollingsworth, in 17m. 6 4-5s.; the +one-half mile heat by A. B. Taylor, in 1m. 31s.; the one mile club +championship by Tom Hay, in 3m. 59 4-5s.; the two-mile lap by L. M. +Hollingsworth, in 7m. 7s.; the quarter-mile heat by A. B. Taylor, in +42s.; the one-mile, 3:30 class, by Chas. McKeen, in 3m. 42s.; the +one-half mile heat by L. M. Barber, in 1m. 34s.; the one-mile rover +safety by A. L. Tabor, in 3m. 56s.; the quarter-mile heat by A. B. +Taylor, in 43 2-5s.; the one-mile open by A. J. Lee, in 3m. 51¼s.; the +one-half mile, 1:30 class, by Josh Zimmerman, in 1m. 39 2-5s.; the +two-mile handicap by L. M. Hollingsworth, in 6m. 42 3-5s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ bicycle races at Wilmington, Del., October 18 and 19, resulted +as follows: Mile open--S. W. Merrihew, W. W. C., 4m. 7¾.; E. J. +Halstead, Y. M. C. A., second. Mile, 3m. class--Merrihew, 4m. +54½s.; Ludwig, Honeybrook, Pa., second. Three-mile lap race--W. I. +Wilhelm, won, 19 points, 13m. 28s.; Merrihew, second, with 14 points. +Half-mile open--Wilhelm, 1m. 45½s.; Halstead, second. Two-mile 6.20 +class--Merrihew won in 8m. 4½s., but was protested as being out of +his class. The race will go to McDaniels--Mile novice--C. R. Guiding, +Reading, Pa., 4m. 26¾s.; J. D. Kurtz, Jr., second. Half-mile, state +championship--B. F. McDaniels, Wilmington, 1m. 34½s. Victor Pyle, 2d. +Five mile state championship--McDaniels won, 19m. 51s.; Victor Pyle, +2d. Mile, 3:30 class--McDaniels won, 3m. 37s., J. D. Kurtz, 2d. + + * * * * * + +~The~ races at Quincy, Ill., October 11, resulted: Half-mile--Percy +Stone, St. Louis, first; Lumsden, Chicago, second: Colie Bell, third; +1m. 48¾s. Quarter-mile, hands off--J. Harry Gordon, St. Louis, 1m. +38s.; Frank Peters, Newton, Kas., second. Mile, open--R. A. Neilson, +Boston, won, 3m. 10s.; Munger, Chicago, second; Knapp, Denver, third; +Crocker, Boston, fourth. The grand-stand fell in during the races, +injuring many people. + + * * * * * + +~Our~ cycling friends will read the following with pleasure, as +it shows that there is a probability of the improvement of the Madison +Avenue pavement being accomplished shortly: + + ~Office of the Board of Aldermen~, } + ~No. 8 City Hall, New York~. } + October 24, 1888. } + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~. + + Dear Sir: I have the pleasure of informing you that at the Board + meeting yesterday your resolution for a noiseless pavement on + Madison Avenue, between 32d Street and 59th Street, was passed. + + Yours very truly, + + ~Geo. H. Forster~. + + ~Department of Public Works~, } + ~Commissioner’s Office~, } + ~No. 31 Chambers St., New York~. } + October 24, 1888. } + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~. + + Sir: In answer to your letter of the 6th inst., urging the + desirability of continuing the asphalt pavement on Madison Avenue, + from 32d Street to 59th Street, I beg to say that this work + was included in the Department Estimate for “Repairing Streets + and Avenues” for 1889, and that the work will be done by this + Department next year if the Departmental Estimate is approved by + the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. + + Very respectfully, + + ~D. Lowber Smith~, + + _Deputy and Acting Commissioner + of Public Works_. + + +FOOTBALL. + +~An~ Interscholastic Football Association has been formed in +Boston, in which the following schools are represented: Roxbury Latin, +Boston Latin, Chauncy Hall, Cambridge High and Latin combined, Mr. +Hopkinson’s, Mr. Hale’s and Mr. Nichols’ and Mr. Stone’s combined, +and Mr. Noble’s. The officers are as follows: President, R. B. Beals, +Roxbury Latin School; vice-president, E. B. Randall, Mr. Noble’s +school; secretary, F. W. Lord, Mr. Hale’s school; treasurer, F. Loring, +Mr. Nichols’ school. The series of games consists of one game with each +school, to be played on grounds mutually agreed on, for a cup to be +called the Boston School Football Challenge Cup. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first game of football in the United States was played in +New Haven, in 1840, between the classes of ’42 and ’43 of Yale College. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Intercollegiate Football Association held its annual +meeting in New York, October 13. The colleges represented were: +Yale--Camp, Corbin and King; Harvard--Brooks, Palmer and Sears; +University of Pennsylvania--Hill and Hulme; Wesleyan--Coffin and +Manchester; Princeton--Barr and Cowan. The interpretation of the rules +as regards blocking was left as suggested by the Graduate Advisory +Committee. + + * * * * * + +~The~ New England Intercollegiate Football Association held +its annual meeting in Springfield, Mass., September 28. Trinity +withdrew from the Association and Williams was admitted. The colleges +represented this year are: Amherst, Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute +of Technology, Stevens’ Institute of Technology, and Williams. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Graduate Advisory Committee of the Intercollegiate +Football Association met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, October 6, to +select umpires for the several association championship matches. +The delegates present were: J. A. Hodge, of Princeton; Mr. Brooks, +of Harvard; W. C. Camp, of Yale; J. C. Bell, of the University of +Pennsylvania, and Mr. Beattys, of Wesleyan. It was decided to ask the +following gentlemen to act: Yale vs. Harvard--R. Hodge, Princeton; Yale +vs. Princeton--F. Fisk, Harvard, F. R. Remington, alternate; Yale vs. +Pennsylvania--R. Hodge, Princeton; Yale vs. Wesleyan--F. Fisk, Harvard; +Harvard vs. Princeton--E. Richards, Yale, A. Baker, alternate; Harvard +vs. Pennsylvania--L. Price, Princeton, H. Beecher, Yale, alternate; +Harvard vs. Wesleyan--J. A. Saxe; Princeton vs. Pennsylvania--H. +Morris, Harvard College; Princeton vs. Wesleyan--W. A. Brooks, Harvard; +Wesleyan vs. Pennsylvania--R. Hodge, Princeton, W. A. Brooks, alternate. + +After the delegates had reached an agreement about the umpires they +proceeded to give interpretations to Rules 10, 24 and 25, which read +as follows: + +Rule 10--Interference is using the hands or arms in any way to obstruct +or hold a player who has not the ball, not the runner. + +Rule 24 (a)--A player is put off side if, during a scrimmage, he gets +in front of the ball, or if the ball has been last touched by his own +side behind him. It is impossible for a player to be off side in his +own goal. No player when off side shall touch the ball, or interrupt or +obstruct opponent with his hands or arms until again on side. + +Rule 25--No player shall lay his hands upon or interfere by use of +hands or arms, with an opponent, unless he has the ball. + +The Princeton delegate wished to have these rules so changed that +a rusher should be allowed to block with his arms and also to use +his open hands in pushing his opponent. The committee came to the +conclusion that such a radical change should be left to the meeting +of undergraduates and therefore decided merely to put the following +interpretations on the rules: + +(_a._) The side which has the ball can only interfere (or block) with +the body, and no use of the hands or arms will be permitted in any +shape. + +(_b._) The side which has not the ball can use the hands and arms as +heretofore, so long as they do not get “off side.” + +The great idea in these rules is to do away with the disagreeable +“slugging” feature that has characterized intercollegiate football +matches for the past five or six years. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harvard team defeated the Technology team at football, +October 13, by a score of 18 to 0. There was a large crowd of +spectators despite the drizzling rain. Some of Harvard’s best men were +not on the team, but they won nevertheless. + + * * * * * + +~The~ opening game of the American Football Union took place on +the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket Club, at Livingston, October +13. The teams of the Orange Athletic Club and the Staten Island Cricket +Club took part in it. The game was a hot one, and ended by the Orange +team winning. The score was 4 to 0. Mr. Larkin was referee. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Princeton team beat Stevens’ Institute at football, on +the grounds at Princeton, N. J., October 13, by a score of 80 to 0. +The Institute team lacked training, but some good individual work was +displayed. + + * * * * * + +~Harvard’s~ Football team won the contest with the Worcester +Technology Eleven on Jarvis Field, Cambridge, October 27. The score was +68 to 0. + + +KENNEL. + +~The~ National Dog Club held a meeting in this city, October +15. Twenty new members were admitted. Among other business transacted, +writes Secretary H. W. Huntingdon, it was decided-- + +“That the American Kennel Club be formally notified that the National +Dog Club of America is ready and will be pleased to aid it in advancing +the interests of the breeders and exhibitors of this country. + +“That should the American Kennel Club desire to confer with the +National Dog Club, the latter, on receiving such expression, will meet +it in the person of Dr. J. Frank Perry, the chosen representative of +the executive committee. + +“That hereafter at all bench shows there shall be appointees of the +executive committee of the National Dog Club to take charge of the dogs +of those of the club’s members who are unable to attend, to see that +such dogs are properly benched, fed, watered, groomed, brought before +the judges, etc., and at the end of the show to superintend their +reshipment. The expense of such service to be borne by the National Dog +Club.” + + * * * * * + +~The~ New England Kennel Club will hold its next annual show in +Boston, April 2, 3, 4 and 5, 1889. + + * * * * * + +~The~ chances of a bench show in Pittsburgh this winter are +slight. The last venture in that direction was not a success. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Richmond Dog Show was a very creditable exhibition. The +enterprise, however, was not successful financially. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Erminie Kennels, Mount Vernon, N. Y., have purchased from +Mr. Jarvis, Scarborough, Eng., the well-known rough-coated St. Bernard, +Lysander; also the imported smooth-coated St. Bernard dog, Barry out of +Bella, own sister to the celebrated Guide. + + * * * * * + +~A special~ meeting of the American Pet Dog Club was held +October 15. The following members were present: Mrs. Charles +Wheatleigh, Mrs. M. E. Randolph, Mrs. John Draper, Mrs. Frank Leslie, +Miss Marion Bannister, Dr. M. H. Cryer, Mr. W. J. Fryer, Jr., Mrs. +Henry B. Cowles, Mrs. Landreau. By a resolution of the club, Mr. C. +Ormsby was expelled from membership and the office of secretary which +he held was declared vacant. + + * * * * * + +~The~ third annual meeting of the American Coursing Club was +held at Great Bend, Ind., October 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. It proved +a great success. The winner of the Great Bend Derby was Master Hare, a +perfect specimen of his breed. Thorn, the winner of the Silver Cup, is +a well-known greyhound in the neighborhood of Great Bend. The annual +meeting of the club was held on the evening of October 19. President +David Taylor of Emporia, Vice-President D. W. Heizer of Great Bend, +Secretary F. K. Doan of St. Louis, Treasurer V. Prinkman of Great Bend, +were re-elected for the ensuing year. Mr. D. V. Heizer, Mr. H. C. Lowe +and Mr. W. W. Carney were elected as the executive committee. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the last meeting of the American Kennel Club, the following +changes in the contemplated new Constitution and Rules were offered by +Mr. Hitchcock: + +Amendment to Article V., Section 1, of the Constitution, by adding “and +no delegate shall represent more than one club.” + +The following are the amendments to the Rules: + +Now Rule III. by changing in Section No. 3, the words “Kennel Club +Show” to “show recognized by the American Kennel Club.” + +Proposed Rule XVI.: “unit of weight” should read “limit of weight.” + +Add to proposed Rule XVII. to list of classes “Kennel Classes”; and add +to Rule VIII.: “The Kennel Class shall be for kennels of dogs of the +same breed to compete as a kennel. The number of dogs to comprise a +kennel must be fixed by the Show Committee.” + +Proposed Rule XVII., Section 6, by changing the word “four” on second +line to “five.” + +Proposed Rule XVII., by adding to Section 5, “and for dogs for which no +challenge class has been provided.” + +Last section of proposed Rule XVII. so as to read: “All dogs qualified +to compete in a Champion Class previous to January 1, 1889, shall +compete in the Challenge Class. The winnings referred to in these rules +apply only to shows recognized by the American Kennel Club, a list of +which, together with these Rules, must be published in the Premium List +and Catalogue of each Show.” + + ~Herman F. Schellhass~, + + _Sec’y pro tem. A. K. C._ + + +LACROSSE. + +~A Lacrosse~ match for the Eastern Championship and the +Oelrichs’ Cup was played October 13, at Staten Island. The contestants +were the teams of the Staten Island Athletic Club and the Brooklyn +Lacrosse Club. The latter won after a desperate struggle by a score +of 4 goals to 3. Canadian lacrosse men present stated that it was the +finest exhibition of lacrosse they had ever witnessed. + + * * * * * + +~A match~ game between the teams of the Montreal Club from +Canada and the Cambridges was held on the Union Grounds, Boston Mass., +October 6. Heavy rains interfered somewhat with the games. The Montreal +team won by a score of 6 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Victoria team defeated the Orients, both of Montreal, +during the week ending October 6, by a score of 3 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Crescents also the same week, in the same city, beat the +team of the St. Lawrence Club after the same fashion. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Hawthornes and the Jerseys, two other Canadian clubs, also +during the same week had a match game, in which the Hawthornes were the +victors by a score of 3 to 1. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Waltham and the Cambridge Lacrosse Teams met on the +grounds of the Cambridge Club, October 13, to contest for the Boston +_Herald_ Cup and the New England Championship. The Waltham team won +by a score of 2 to 0. The following was the organization of the +contestants: + + Flohr Goal Phalen + Young Point Clacy + Cook Cover point Ritchie + Clements { Defense } Watson + C. Brown { field } Wyman + Menard { } Phillips + Smith Centre Gilmore + Stanley { } Crocker + Barton { Attack } Rourke + A. Brown { field } Clancy + Ballard First home Wells + Eyrick Second home Crocker + + +LAWN TENNIS. + +~Mr. C. A. Chase~, the Champion of the Western States, goes +into winter quarters with quite a brilliant record for the season. He +began this year by winning the Western Championship, following this up +by capturing the honors at the Wright & Ditson tournament. He also won +again the following week at the invitation tourney at Nahant, and added +to his victories the last of September the Middle States Championship +at Rochester. + +~The~ fifth annual tournament of the Intercollegiate Lawn Tennis +Association was held on the grounds of the New Haven Lawn Tennis Club, +October 8, 9 and 10. Eight colleges were represented and the play +resulted as follows: + +Singles, Preliminary Round--Vernon, Princeton, beat Woodruff, Amherst, +6-3, 7-5; Ludington, Yale, beat Mapes, Columbia, 5-2, 6-0; Campbell, +Columbia, beat Wheden, Brown, 8-6, 7-5; Hurd, Yale, beat Banks, +Williams, 6-1, 6-2; Sears, Harvard, beat Johnston, Princeton, 6-1, 6-2; +Wright, Trinity, h beat Deane, Amherst, 7-5, 6-4; Hall, Columbia, beat +Brown, Harvard, 6-2, 6-2. First round--Hall beat Ludington, 6-3, 6-3; +Hovey, Brown, beat Vernon, 6-3, 6-3; Campbell beat Hurd, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; +Sears beat Wright, 6-2, 6-2. Second round--Hall beat Hovey, 6-3, 6-2; +Sears beat Campbell, 6-3, 5-7, 8-6, 6-4. Final game--Sears beat Hall, +7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2. Game for second prize--Campbell beat Wright, +6-3, 6-3. + +Doubles, Preliminary Round--Hurd and Huntington, Yale, beat Wheden +and Hovey, Brown, 3-6, 6-1, 6-3; Chase and Tailer, Harvard, beat +Woodruff and Deane, Amherst, 6-0, 6-1; Campbell and Hall, Columbia, +beat Banks and Meigs, Williams, 6-1, 6-3. First round--Chase and Tailer +beat Woodruff and Deane, 6-0, 6-1; Campbell and Hall beat Ludington +and Beach, Yale, 8-6, 6-3; Sears and Shaw, Harvard, beat Hurd and +Huntington, 6-3, 6-4; Vernon and Johnson, Princeton, beat Wright and +Scott, Trinity, 6-4, 6-4. Second round--Campbell and Hall beat Chase +and Tailer, 6-4, 6-4; Sears and Shaw beat Vernon and Johnson, 6-1, 6-2. +Final game--Campbell and Hall beat Shaw and Sears, 7-5, 6-2, 6-3. Games +for second place--Ludington and Beach beat Chase and Tailer, 6-1, 2-6, +6-2. Final game--Sears and Shaw beat Ludington and Beach, 5-3, 8-6. + +The officers of the Association for the ensuing year are: G. A. Hurd, +Yale, ’90, president; Q. A. Shaw, Harvard, ’91, vice-president; and O. +S. Campbell, Columbia, ’91, secretary. The next tournament will be held +as usual on the New Haven grounds. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Boston _Herald_ of October 14, says, regarding the +champions of the world and the premier lawn tennis players of both +sexes in two continents: + +The comparative playing-form of both sexes in England has been tested +on two or three occasions during the past season. At Exmouth, says +London _Pastime_, the champion gave the lady champion 30 and defeated +her by 2 sets to 1, after a very hard match. At Manchester, Miss +L. Dodd won by 2 sets to love against W. Renshaw at the same odds, +and at half 30 she beat W. Grove, setless. How far Miss L. Dodd is +above the acknowledged next best player, Mrs. Hillyard, was proved at +Exmouth, when she gave the ex-lady champion half 30 for a bisque and +defeated her. This performance vies with E. Renshaw’s victory over G. +W. Hillyard at Torquay, when owing him half 40, for the glory of being +the most remarkable match of the year. The champions for 1888-9 are as +follows: + +England--Champion, E. Renshaw; lady champion, Miss L. Dodd; doubles +champions, E. Renshaw, W. Renshaw; ladies’ doubles champions, Miss L. +Dodd, Miss May Langrishe. + +Ireland--Champion, E. Renshaw; lady champion, Mrs. Hillyard; doubles +champions, W. J. Hamilton, T. S. Campion; ladies’ doubles champions, +Miss M. Steedman, Miss B. Steedman. + +Scotland--Champion, P. B. Lyon; lady champion, Miss Butler; doubles +champions, H. B. Lyon and P. B. Lyon. + +Wales--Champion, W. J. Hamilton; lady champion, Mrs. Hillyard. + +Covered Court--Champion, E. W. Lewis. + +United States--Champion, H. Slocum, Jr.; doubles champions, V. G. Hall +and O. S. Campbell. + +The United States National Lawn Tennis Association has not yet +recognized a lady championship, and if any such championship is claimed +it is open to question. + + * * * * * + +~The~ lawn tennis season in England has ended, and from the +results of play for the year an interesting review has been completed +by the London _Pastime_. This shows that hardly a tournament, after +the end of May, was free from the serious inconveniences caused by +heavy falls of rain. Among the principal features of the season was the +defeat of W. Renshaw by W. J. Hamilton, in the championship tournament +at Wimbledon, and the success of his twin brother, Ernest Renshaw, at +the same meeting. The champion, E. Renshaw, has not once been defeated +on level terms, and his record against the first-class players is an +excellent one. Against the second-class players his average is not +as good as those of the other men in his class. He lost two sets out +of eight played, while Lewis lost only that number out of twelve, +and Hamilton three out of seventeen. The two sets lost by Renshaw +were in his match with Wilberforce, at Wimbledon, on the day that W. +Renshaw was defeated by Hamilton, when the ground was in a very soft +condition. Neither Renshaw or Lewis lost a set to a third-class man. +The classification of the leading English lawn-tennis players for the +season of 1888, based on actual public performances, in matches on +level terms, is as follows: + +First class--E. Renshaw, W. J. Hamilton, E. W. Lewis. + +Second class--W. Renshaw, E. G. Meers, H. F. Lawford, H. Chipp, P. +B. Lyon, A. G. Ziffo, H. Grove, H. S. Barlow, E. de S. Browne, H. W. +Wilberforce, J. Pine, J. Baldwin, C. G. Eames, H. S. Scrivner, T. S. +Campion, F. A. Bowlby. + +Third class--H. S. Stone, F. L. Rawson, W. D. Hamilton, W. C. Taylor, +C. L. Sweet, M. S. Constable, W. C. Hillyard, C. H. Ross, J. R. Deykin, +F. S. Noon, P. B. Brown, A. Thompson, A. de C. Wilson, G. R. Newburn, +W. Baddeley, F. O. Stoker, H. S. Mahoney. + +The placing of W. Renshaw, ex-champion, in the second class is due to +the rule that no player beaten by a player in the second class, without +having defeated one in the first class, shall be placed in the first. + + * * * * * + +~The~ development of tennis in the Southern States, both as to +the number of clubs and players and the improvement shown in play, is +wonderful; and, although the first open tournament at Washington, in +September, resulted in the honors being brought to Boston by Messrs. +Mansfield and Hoppin, the Northern players who were in attendance +during the week of the tournament all look forward to seeing two, if +not three, strong players from the South in the national championship +of next year. Mr. Post, of Baltimore, is perhaps the most promising +among the younger set. He is only seventeen years of age, yet taking +the odds of half-fifteen from Tom Pettitt, he made a very creditable +showing, winning the first set. Charles L. McCawley, of the Marine +barracks, is another rising player, and with his partner, Mr. Post, +they made a strong fight in the final doubles against Hoppin and +Mansfield. The above championship was played on dirt courts, and the +Country Club contemplates covering the courts in. Thus the Southern +players will be able to keep in practice all the year round. With the +many advantages for play afforded the players in the South, they will +before long make dangerous rivals for our Northern cracks. Already +there are more than 100 lawn tennis clubs and many new ones are +springing up every day. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Hunnewell Tennis Court, near Dartmouth Street, Boston, has +been reopened pending the completion of the courts in the new building +of the Boston Athletic Association on the Back Bay. Tom Pettitt is +again in charge, and Messrs. Hunnewell, Warren, Metcalf, Dr. Haven, and +other lovers of the game, are in regular practice. + + +POLO. + +~The~ New England Association of Polo Clubs, at Hartford, +October 22, elected the following officers: President, T. H. McDonald, +New Haven; vice-president, F. C. Bancroft, Springfield; secretary and +treasurer, F. E. Sands, Meriden; directors, H. W. Putnam, Salem; H. +P. Merrill, Springfield; C. F. Clark, Boston; Chas. Soby, Hartford. +Messrs. Clark and Putnam urged a consolidation of the Connecticut and +Massachusetts divisions, by taking in Boston and Worcester, the Salem +team to remove to Worcester, but the Connecticut representatives would +not consent, and Messrs. Clark and Putnam announced an intention of +forming a league of six clubs. + +The Connecticut division elected the following officers: President, +E. J. Smith, Hartford; vice-president, W. N. Harris, Bridgeport; +secretary, T. H. McDonald, New Haven; treasurer, F. E. Sands, Meriden; +directors, F. C. Bancroft, Springfield, and Chas. Soby, Hartford. Mr. +Bancroft’s location at Springfield was approved. Secretary McDonald was +authorized to receive applications for appointment as referees. + + +ROWING. + +~The~ record on the Paramatta Championship course in Australia +was broken recently in a race between Henry E. Searle and James +Stadsbury. Stadsbury is not yet out of his teens. Searle covered the +first mile in 5m. 35s., and the 3 miles 300 yards in 19m. 53s. The men +rowed with the tide. The best previous record made over the course, +20m. 29s., was made by Beach in his race with Hanlan in August, 1884. +Searle has been matched to row Kemp at Sydney, N. S. W., on the 27th +inst. + + * * * * * + +~Goepfert~ of the Metropolitan Rowing Association of this city, +who was charged by James Pilkington, his partner in the double-scull +race at the National Regatta, July 19, at Sunbury, Pa., with selling +out the race, was found guilty by the executive committee of the +National Association of Amateur Oarsmen, at a meeting held October 13, +and expelled from the amateur ranks. When Goepfert’s conduct was first +reported, ~Outing~ took occasion to point out the bad results +sure to follow unless the most rigid measures were adopted to get at +the truth of the charges made against him, and if they were found true +the severest punishment should be meted out to him. The executive +committee has done the amateur athletes a good service. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harlem Regatta Association held its Fall regatta October +13. The Association is now in its twenty-first year. The course was one +mile straightaway. Weather threatening; slight shower; wind light; +water smooth. The following is the summary of the contests: + +Four-oared gigs, with coxswains--Nautilus B. C., Bay Ridge, L. I., +F. Oleson (bow), D. Voorhees, C. Sutton, M. Donally (stroke), J. +Schellenburg (coxswain), won in 5m. 51s.; Atalanta B. C., M. Lau (bow), +W. Lau, J. Miller, G. K. Storm (stroke), E. J. Byrne (coxswain), second +in 6m. 2-5s.; Nonpareil B. C., J. Plummer (bow), F. Zellecke, J. +Canavan, I. Maas (stroke), H. W. Nelson (coxswain), third. + +Senior single-scull shells--O. J. Stephens, Union R. C., was the +winner in 6m. 50s.; J. Pilkington, M. B. C., 7m. 3s.; W. Goodbody, +Metropolitan R. C., third. + +Junior four-oared shells--Metropolitan R. C., G. C. Johnston (bow), +J. T. Hettrick, J. E. Nagle, J. A. Heraty (stroke), came in winner in +5m. 41s.; Nonpareil R. C., C. Schilling (bow), J. Meehan, T. Wade, +F. Zellecke (stroke), 5m. 50s.; New York Athletic Club, E. Valentine +(bow), S. G. Carr, R. Fisher, J. E. Lambden (stroke), third. Nonpareil +was impeded by N. Y. A. C. + +Pair-oared shells--New York Rowing Club, C. L. Andrews (bow), J. C. +Livingston (stroke), were the victors, 6m. 23s.; Union R. C., G. J. +Eltz (bow), M. B. Kaesche (stroke), second; Nonpareil R. C., G. A. +Delancy (bow), J. J. Delaney (stroke), quit at half way. + +Junior single-scull shells--E. R. de Wolfe, A. B. C., came in first, +6m. 16s.; O. D. Thees, Nassau B. C., second; A. J. Davenport, A. B. C., +third. + +Pair-oared gigs, with coxswains--Atalanta B. C., M. Lau (bow), W. Lau +(stroke), E. J. Byrne (coxswain), won in 6m. 13s.; Columbia B. C., Glen +Echo, N. J., J. A. Dempsey (bow), G. C. Dempsey (stroke), N. Southard +(coxswain), 6m. 19s.; New York Athletic Club, G. D. Phillips (bow), J. +W. Burr (stroke), E. Freeman (coxswain), 6m. 23 2-5s.; Nonpareil B. C., +G. Bates (bow), P. H. Morgan (stroke), H. W. Nelson (coxswain), 6m. 25 +2-5s. + +Double-scull shells--Ravenswood (L. I. City) B. C., A. J. Buschmann +(bow), J. Flatt, Jr. (stroke), reached the goal in 5m. 11s.; Union B. +C., O. J. Stephens (bow), E. T. Haubold (stroke), 5m. 33s.; Nonpareil +B. C., G. A. Delancy (bow), H. Zwinger (stroke), 5m. 37s.; Varuna B. +C., Brooklyn, L. I., G. E. Laing (bow), T. Hield (stroke), fourth; +Metropolitan B. C., R. Keat (bow), J. Pilkington (stroke) did not +finish. + +Senior four-oared shells--Metropolitan B. C., G. C. Johnston (bow), J. +T. Hettrick, J. E. Nagle, J. A. Heraty (stroke), captured the prize in +5m. 17s.; Nonpareil B. C., G. A. Delancy (bow), H. Zwinger, I. Maas, +J. I. Delancy (stroke), second, by several lengths; Union B. C., H. +Roche (bow), E. T. Donovan, M. B. Kaesche, G. J. Eltz (stroke), third; +Atalanta B. C., M. Lau (bow), W. Lau, J. Miller, G. K. Storm (stroke), +fourth. The Metropolitan crew were the same four men who rowed and won +the junior four-oared race two hours before. + +Eight-oared shells, with coxswains--New York Athletic Club, E. W. +Knickerbocker (bow), E. Weinacht, W. O. Inglis, I. Spalding, F. G. +McDougall, J. Cremins, M. J. Austin, E. J. Giannini (stroke), E. +Freeman (coxswain), won in 5m. 14s.; Nonpareil B. C., G. Bates (bow), +P. H. Morgan, C. H. Beck, H. Zwinger, T. Wade, H. C. Boedecker, I. +Maas, J. J. Delancy (stroke), H. W. Nelson (coxswain), 4m. 19s.; +Dauntless B. C., A. F. Camacho (bow), C. J. Connell, J. K. Mumford, +H. W. Walter, F. H. Burke, L. M. Edgar, V. Mott, M. F. Connell +(stroke), I. C. Egerton (coxswain), 5m. 23s.; Metropolitan B. C., D. +H. Bransfield (bow), G. C. Johnston, T. S. Mahoney, J. T. Hettrick, +J. E. Nagle, J. A. Heraty, K. Kent, J. Pilkington (stroke), M. B. Foy +(coxswain), 5m. 33s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ eighth annual regatta of the Union Boat Club was held on +the Harlem River, October 20. The course was from Macomb’s Dam Bridge +over a straightaway course of nearly a mile. + +In the race for single gigs T. A. Fitzsimmons started off with an easy, +telling stroke, which he kept up to the finish, winning apparently +without effort, F. J. Burke making second place. + +In the double-shell race George, J. Eltz and Harry Roche were defeated +by E. Haubold and Olin J. Stephens by three lengths. + +The four-oared gig contest was an exciting event. Four crews entered. +The winning one was composed of S. Van Zandt (stroke), Louis Walter, F. +J. Burke, E. T. Donovan and William Schneider (coxswain). The crew of +Coxswain E. P. Murtha got second place. + +The starters in the junior single-shell race were Harry Roche, E. +T. Haubold and Charles Halkett. When half way over the course Roche +dropped out, and while Halkett was overhauling Haubold, the latter +upset, making the race a paddle over for Halkett. + +The eight-oared shell contest was won by George T. Eltz (stroke), E. +B. Schile, William D. Kelley, E. T. Donovan, Charles Halkett, John J. +Schile, J. P. Donovan, Harry Roche and Olin J. Stephens (coxswain). +Coxswain Schneider’s crew was second. + + * * * * * + +~James R. Finlay~, ’91, of Colorado Springs, Col., has been +chosen to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Captain Storrow +of the Harvard University Crew. + + * * * * * + +~George W. Woodruff~ has been elected to succeed Carter as +captain of the Vale University Crew. Woodruff rowed in the University +eight and has played football on the eleven for three years. + + * * * * * + +~Yale~ class races were rowed October 13, on Lake Saltonstall. +The weather was bad. The single scull race for the Cleveland cup was +declared off on account of a foul. The mile race between ’92 and ’91 S. +was won by ’92 in 5m. 51s. The two-mile race between ’90 and ’91 was +won by ’91 in 11m. 36s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harvard class races came off on the Charles River, October +26. Considerable pluck was displayed by the contestants. With a broken +oar the sophomore crew made a gallant struggle. The juniors, too, made +a manly fight and were beaten only by about half a length by ’90, with +’92 a good third. The seniors thus won their first class race with this +crew--Bow, E. W. Dunstan; 2, J. H. Proctor; 3, C. A. Hight; 4, E. P. +Pfeiffer; 5, F. E. Parker, captain; 6, A. P. Hebard; 7, E. C. Storrow; +stroke, C. E. Schroll; coxswain, J. E. Whitney. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual fall regatta of the Columbia College Boat Club +was held on the Harlem River, October 19. The contests were between +crews in six-oared barges from the Freshman classes in the Schools of +Arts and Mines, and between eight-oared shells in which the crews were +chosen by lot. + +The first race, three-quarters of a mile to a finish opposite the +boat-house, was between the freshmen. For a short distance the crews +kept together, but after that the Arts crew drew ahead, and landed a +winner by four lengths. The victorious crew were: J. C. Travis, bow; +F. W. DeGray, No. 2; J. A. Barnard, No. 3; E. P. Smith, No. 4; E. +H. Sisson, No. 5; A. C. Hazen, stroke; H. C. Pelton, ’89, coxswain. +Their opponents were H. Ries, bow; C. B. Anel, No. 2; E. Wenland, No. +3; E. Flint, No. 4; B. Robertson, No. 5; H. Weatherspoon, stroke; W. +Robertson, ’91, coxswain. + +The next race between four scratch-eights was more closely contested +and more surprising to the students, as the crew that won had been +thought an excellent candidate for third place. The winning crew were: +Jopling, ’89 (mines), bow; Douglass, ’90 (mines), No. 2; Camman, ’81 +(arts), No. 3; Bunzle, ’88 (arts), No. 4; Dempsey, ’91 (law), No. 5; +Hewlett, ’90 (mines), No. 6; Bradley, ’90 (mines), No. 7; Pelton, ’89 +(mines), stroke; Cheeseborough, ’91 (arts), coxswain. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harvard Boat Club held its annual meeting October 9. The +following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, G. F. +Keyes, ’89; vice-president, J. P. Hutchinson, ’90; secretary, C. F. +Crehore, ’90; manager and treasurer, S. Dexter, ’90. + + +SHOOTING. + +~The~ Minnesota National Guard Rifle Association had a very +successful meeting at Fort Snelling. The meeting lasted five days. The +weather was miserable except the first day. + +The Judgment Match, two shots at 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 +yards, was won by Lieut. T. C. Clark, whose scores at 100, 200, 300, +400, 500, and 600 yards were 3, 3; 4, 4; 4, 5; 5, 5; 3, 5; 3, 5. Total, +49. + +The Stillwater Match at 200, 300, and 500 yards, was won by Prof. C. +Mandlin with the following fine score: 42, 49, 47, respectively. Total, +138. + +Rapidity Match at 200 yards, sixty seconds to fire--won by C. M. +Skinner; total. 38 out of 86 hits. On the targets there was not a +bulls-eye made. + +The Pillsbury Match--cup valued at $100, donated by C. Pillsbury & Co., +for teams of six men, 5 shots each, at 200 and 500 yards, was won by +Co. C, 1st Regiment Minnesota N. G., with a total of 280 points, and +Co. A., 1st Regiment Minn., 259 points; Muscatine Team (Iowa), 215 +points. + +The Reeve Match (open to commissioned officers of the M. N. G.)--Capt. +Skinner, 58, first; Lieut. E. W. Bird, 58, second. + +Minneapolis Match (7 shots each at 200, 500 and 600 yards), won by W. +J. Bain. Total, 86. + +Commissioned Officers Match (10 shots at 200 and 500 yards)--won by +Lieut. E. W. Bird. Total, 80. + +Enlisted Men’s Match (5 shots at 100, 200, 300 and 500 yards)--won by +Corporal Falk, 79. + +Company Team Match (7 men, 7 shots each at 200 and 500 yards)--Co. C, +1st Regiment Minnesota, 340; Co. G, 1st Regiment Minnesota, 334; Co. +A, 1st Regiment Minnesota, 333; Co. K, 1st Regiment Minnesota, 272; +Wisconsin Team, No. 1, 370; Wisconsin Team, No. 2, 370. + +Regimental Team Match (10 men from the 1st, 2d and 3d Regiments, M. N. +G., 10 shots each at 200, 300 and 500 yards)--1st prize, the State cup, +value $250, to be won three years before it becomes the property of +the regiment. The 1st Regiment now owns it, having won it three years +in succession. The scores were: 1st Regiment Team, M. N. G., 1250; 3d +Regiment Team, Wis. N. G., 1225; 3d Regiment Team, M. N. G., 1033; 2d +Regiment Team, M. N. G., 838. (The last had but three men.) + +Washburn Match (State team match at 200 and 500 yards, to be held by +the Adjutant-general of the State winning it for the year)--Minnesota +Team, 984; Wisconsin Team, 964; Iowa Team, 846. + +St. Paul Match--(10 shots at 200, 300, 500 and 600 yards)--Cole +Mandlin, 1st, 164; W. J. Bain, 2d, 163: H. T. Martin, 3d, 162; E. W. +Bird, 4th, 161; J. H. Bacon, 5th, 160. The Springfield U. S. musket was +used in all the matches. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the Ohio State Trap Shooters’ League, the league offered +$80 in cash prizes for the best average in all shoots except the +championship, which was won as follows: Mr. Heikes, of Dayton, O., +214, 1st; Al. Bandle, Cincinnati, O., and C. W. Hart, Huron, O., 213, +2d; Mr. Benscotten, 210, 3d. The championship was undecided as Hart +and Heikes tied so often. The shooting of each was very fine. They +tied first on 48 out of a possible 50; their second tie was 47 out of +a possible 50, and third tie was 49 out of a possible 50. Both being +out of cartridges the match was postponed to a future day, and as Mr. +Heikes won the cup last year he retains it until this match is decided. + + * * * * * + +~A match~ between the Wawaset Gun Club, of Trenton, N. J., and +the Wingohocking, of Philadelphia, was shot at Germantown, Pa., October +18. Teams of 11 men to shoot at 25 birds--15 single rises and 5 double +rises. The Wawaset Club won by 27 birds, the scores being Wawaset, +211; Wingohocking, 184. Of singles, Wawaset hit 138, missed 27; and in +doubles, hit 73 and missed 37. Total singles, 211; Total doubles, 64. +Wingohocking in singles hit 117 and missed 48, and in doubles hit 67 +and missed 43. Total singles, 184; total doubles, 91. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual rifle meeting of the 3d Division Rifle Association, +of Albany, N. Y., was finished at Rensselaerwyck range, October 13. + +The Continuous Military Match (200 yards), with 112 entries, was won by +Major C. H. Gaus, with a score of 46; Sergt. Miles, 2d, 46; W. C. Gomp, +3d, 46. + +Standard American Target Match--re-entry, 91 entries--W. C. Gomp, 1st, +79; B. C. Andrews, 2d, 79; J. J. Newbery, 3d, 79; A. Donner, 4th, 79. + +Championship Marksmanship Badge, open to members of the National Guard, +New York, was won by Private D. H. Ogden, with the score of 22 at 200 +yards, 25 at 500 yards--total 47; Major Gaus, 2d, with 21 at 200 yards, +25 at 500 yards. + +Rest Match at 200 yards, 33 entries--S. Schreiber, 1st, 108--possible, +144. + +The Stevens Target Pistol Match--distance, 30 yards, open to pistols +and revolvers, 109 entries--Major C. H. Gaus, 85, 1st; M. Roberts, 85, +2d; J. J. Newbery, 82, 3d. + +The 2d Separate Company of Binghampton won the 3d Brigade Team Match--a +trophy valued at $100, presented by the State. The same Company also +won the Company Match, $50, presented by the 10th Battalion, N. G. S. +N. Y. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. J. B. Fellows~, a member of the Massachusetts Rifle +Association, at the range at Walnut Hill, October 13, did some fine +shooting with a single-shot pistol, 22 calibre, at so yards. The +weather conditions were not favorable for big scores. The scores were: +91, 90, 92, 91, 85--total, 449. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. C. W. Weeks~, President of the Minneapolis (Minn.) Rifle +Club, accomplished some extra fine work with the long range rifle, +October 10, on a very trying day for rifle-shooting. The shooting was +at 800, 900 and 1000 yards, his total of 221 out of a possible 225 +being an extremely fine score for such a poor day. His scores were: 800 +yards, 73, possible 75; 900 yards, 75, possible 75; 1000 yards, 73, +possible 75--total, 221, possible 225. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Connecticut National Guard held the annual Brigade +Rifle Tournament at Hartford, October 17. The day was miserable for +rifle-shooting, rain falling nearly all day. The scores made for such +a day were good. The Presentation Sword for the best score made by an +officer in the Regimental Team match, was won by Lieut. Col. C. E. +Thompson, 1st Regiment, with the following score: 28 points at 200 +yards--possible 35; 32 points at 500 yards--possible 35. + +The enlisted men’s prize, a cabinet, was won by Corporal George Kerr, +4th Regiment, making 31 points at 200 yards--possible 35; 30 points at +500--possible 35. + +Sergeant Ripley, of the Hartford City Guard, won the gold badge for +highest score in the Company Team match. + +The Regimental Team Match (at 200 and 500 yards, 12 men each, 7 shots +each, man at each range), was won as follows: + + 200 YDS. 500 YDS. TOTAL. + + 1st Regiment 326 319 645 + 2d “ 316 310 626 + 3d “ 311 293 604 + 4th “ 307 290 597 + 5th Battalion 260 194 454 + +Company Team Match (at 200 and 500 yards, 6 men, 5 shots per man at +each distance), was won as follows: + + 200 YDS. 500 YDS. TOTAL. + + Company K, 1st Regiment 115 117 232 + Company C, 4th “ 109 104 213 + Company F, 1st “ 113 99 212 + Company K, 2d “ 108 98 206 + Field and Staff, 1st “ 98 106 204 + Company C, 2d “ 109 94 203 + Company B, 4th “ 98 101 199 + Field and Staff, 2d “ 106 89 195 + Company A, 2d “ 97 93 190 + Company I, 3d “ 95 91 186 + Company D, 2d “ 100 83 183 + Company G, 3d “ 93 88 181 + + +TOBOGGAN. + +~The~ Essex County Toboggan Club of Orange County elected the +following Board of Governors for the season of 1885-89: John Firth, +T. W. Hall, E. P. Hamilton, Charles T. Minton, Clarence D. Newell, +John H. Sprague, Louis E. Chandler, Dr. T. A. Levy, Dr. G. B. Dowling, +R. G. Hopper, Frank Lyman, D. H. Carstaers, Charles Hendricks, N. B. +Woodworth, and C. F. Whiting. + + +YACHTING. + +~The~ Ohio Yacht Club at its last annual meeting, October 14, +elected the following board of officers Commodore, Geo. H. Ketcham; +vice-commodore, H. R. Klauser; rear-commodore, M. T. Huntley; +secretary, J. E. Gunckel; treasurer, J. M. Kelsey; fleet surgeon, Dr. +J. T. Woods; fleet captain, E. E. Kirk; directors, Geo. H. Ketcham, H. +R. Klauser, J. E. Gunckel, J. M. Kelsey, G. W. Bills, W. H. McLyman, +E. Bateman, Ed. Mitchell, C. E. Curtis; measurer. E. P. Day; regatta +committee, James Dority, Henry Marshall, J. A. Faskins. + + * * * * * + +~Can~ any of our readers inform us what has become of the +following clubs, and what are their present addresses? + +_Canoe_: Cincinnati Canoe Club, Cincinnati, O.; Hub Canoe Club, Boston, +Mass.; Union Canoe Club, Boston, Mass.; Lake George Canoe Club, Lake +George, N. Y.; Philadelphia Canoe Club, Philadelphia; Quaker City Canoe +Club, Philadelphia; Chicago Canoe Club, Chicago, Ill. + +_Rifle_: Empire Rifle Club, New York City; Germania Rifle Club, Boston, +Mass. + +_Yachting_: Phœnix Yacht Club, Chicago, Ill. + +_Cycling_: Port Schuyler Wheelmen, Port Schuyler, N. Y.; Junior +Wheelmen, Washington, D. C.; Clyde Cyclers, Clyde, N. Y.; Clarion +Bicycle Club, Philadelphia; Colorado Bicycle Club, Denver, Col. + +_Rod and Gun_: Acme Club, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Independent Club, Montreal, +Can; St. Lawrence Club, Montreal, P. Q., Can. + +_Fishing_: “I Don’t Know” Fishing Club, Cincinnati, O. + + +ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + [_This department of_ ~Outing~ _is devoted to answers to + correspondents seeking information on subjects appertaining to all + sports._] + +_A. L. M., Boston, Mass._--We think that you are wrong in your ideas. +Dr. L. Wolff, of Philadelphia, after speaking of the complete freedom +from ordinary adulteration which he had found in wines and brandy +supplied by the California Vintage Co., of 21 Park Place, N. Y. City, +goes on to say: “I have also determined their alcoholic strength, and +found them to correspond strictly in this respect with the standard +of pure and natural wines. As a native of a wine-producing country, I +consider myself somewhat of a judge of wines, and regard your products +as comparing more than favorably with the wines from abroad.” + + * * * * * + +_E. M. H., Harrisburg, Pa._--Yes. We have seen some specimens of +absolute novelties in calendars. They are of celluloid, decorated in +artistic designs, and, besides being useful as calendars, will serve +admirably as bric-à-brac ornaments, and are original, pretty, and +inexpensive. They are made by Messrs. Weeks & Campbell, 149 Church +Street, N. Y. City. + + * * * * * + +_Professor, St. Charles, Mo._--To gain such a knowledge of football as +you desire, your best plan is to obtain copies of the “Book of Rules” +and “Football; How to Coach a Team.” Should you desire to do so, you +can obtain copies through ~Outing~. + + * * * * * + +_John S., Wilkesbarre, Pa._--The owner of the canoe is the only man who +can furnish you with the required information. + + * * * * * + +_E. W. C., East Hampton, Mass._--In the opinion of experts, fencing +cannot be learnt without a master; but it would be easier to dispense +with a master after some progress had been made, than before acquiring +the rudiments of the art. It is almost impossible to learn the +parries and attacks without some one showing you how to execute them. +There are no books of any value on fencing in the English language. +The best articles ever published in America on the subject were in +~Outing~ (October, 1887, and February, 1888). All reference to +books in French can be found in the former number. The best “theory” +ever published is that used by the French army, and published by the +Minister of War. It can be obtained on application. But this is a +professor’s book, and would be of little value to a pupil ignorant +of the first rudiments of the art. Professor Rondelle, whose fencing +academy is at No. 106 West 42d Street, and who is the _maître d’armes_ +of the Knickerbocker Fencing Club and of the Manhattan Athletic Club, +is now at work on a book on fencing, which, when finished, will be +the most complete, thorough, and interesting book of the kind ever +published. + + * * * * * + +_A. M. R., Newark, N. J._--For the purpose you mention you can hardly +do better than buy some of Rogers’ groups of statuary. They are +excellent, both in design and treatment. + + * * * * * + +_J. H. D., Philadelphia._--You say nothing of the present state of +the lawn. We should think that in case you want to refresh an already +well-laid lawn, a slight sprinkling of wood ashes would be better than +soot. + + * * * * * + +_Doggy, Milwaukee, Wis._--A whippet is now considered a distinct +variety. Originally, it came from a cross between the terrier and +greyhound, possibly the Italian greyhound. + + * * * * * + +_Choke-Bore, 23d Street, City._--We believe the largest bag ever made +in one day was that on Mr. Lloyd Price’s estate in North Wales in +1885, viz., 5,086 rabbits, 1 grouse, 1 snipe, and 1 woodpigeon. Lord +Walsingham’s big bag of grouse, of which you will find an account in +the Outing Club, is, however, much more remarkable. + + * * * * * + +_Fox-hunter, Baltimore, Md._--You will find that you can obtain +first-rate riding-boots from R. M. Sheridan, 30 Broad Street, New York +City. + + * * * * * + +_Medicus, Pittsburgh._--Dogs of large breeds grow until they are about +two years old. You need not, therefore, be perturbed about your puppy, +for he will probably be as large as you can desire. + + * * * * * + +_Joseph M. R. City._--If you want a dog “as fast as a greyhound” he +must be of that breed, for no other dog is as fast. But for the purpose +you mention, we should think such cross as between a Scotch deerhound +and a Great Dane would suit you. + + * * * * * + +_Sportsman, Quebec, Can._--The best receipt for making ordinary cloth +goods water-proof is the following, which was used by old Jack Russell, +the noted Devonshire sporting parson. Take alum 6 ozs., sugar of lead 3 +ozs.; dissolve this in 12 quarts of boiling water, and let the mixture +stand 6 hours, with an occasional stir. Then strain off the liquid, and +soak the cloth for 48 hours, and dry it in the shade. It is scarcely +necessary to say that the cloth is best treated thus _before_ being +made up into a suit. + + * * * * * + +_Gymnast, Pittsburgh, Pa._--For a gymnast’s outfit, as well as for all +kinds of gymnastic apparatus, you will do well to apply to Messrs. A. +J. Reach & Co., 1,022 Market Street, Philadelphia. + + * * * * * + +_Farmer, Westchester Co., N. Y._--The wonderful amount of butter made +from the milk of one cow, as to which you inquire, is the record +of “Shadeland Maud,” one of the Holstein-Friesian herd belonging +to Messrs. Powell Bros., Springboro, Crawford County, Pa. This +extraordinary record has, however, since been eclipsed by their +“Shadeland Boon.” + + * * * * * + +_Cruiser, Lake George._--You cannot do better than write to the Western +Arms and Cartridge Company, 47 and 49 State Street, Chicago, Ill., for +a catalogue of Douglass’s boats, for which they are agents. You can +purchase from them such a craft as you desire for a very reasonable +sum. + + + + +[Illustration: + + COPYRIGHTED. + +ICE-YACHT “NORTHERN LIGHT,” FEBRUARY 14, 1887. + +FROM AN INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPH BY C. E. SCHAFFER, OF POUGHKEEPSIE, N. +Y.] + + + + + ~Outing.~ + + ~Vol. XIII.~ JANUARY, 1889. ~No.~ 4. + + + + +AMONG THE TAURUS MOUNTAINS. + +BY L. B. PLATT. + + +Quitting the broad highways of travel, it is often refreshing to turn +aside from beaten paths and strike off into new regions, where foot +of tourist and pen of magazine writer have not awakened the sacred +silences, startled the resident deities, and broadcast their treasures +upon the world. + +Through such a byway among the mountains of Taurus, in Asia Minor, from +the sea-coast at Mersina, through half-ruined Tarsus, and across the +wide Cilician Plain to the ancient cities of Marash and Aintab we made +our journey. + +There were three of us, Gould, a picturesque youth of seventeen +mild summers, with carefully mapped side-whiskers of a style that +had never before invaded that sequestered portion of the world, and +afforded unceasing entertainment to the curious and admiring natives, +Lee, a missionary at Marash, in the interior, and myself, the modest +chronicler of our adventures. With three horses of the light-stepping +Arabian blood, whose native turf is the sharp, loose stones of the +mountains, another of less noble lineage to carry our pack, and an +Armenian servant to run behind, we entered upon the Great Plain of +Cilicia. + +Immediately we were upon historic ground. Alexander had been here +before us, wading breast-deep around that rugged promontory in the +distance, beaten by the thundering Mediterranean surges, and sweeping +the plain of his enemies with the velocity and destructiveness of +a cyclone. He had met Darius the Persian here and annihilated his +magnificent array in the world-famous battle of Issus, where “all day +long the noise of battle rolled between the mountains and the (summer) +sea.” + +Cicero had been here as Roman Governor of the Province of Cilicia; +had chased the bandit mountaineers into the fastnesses of the hills, +defeating them there and flushing his maiden sword with victory, for +which he ambitiously claimed, but never received, a Roman Triumph. + +Antony and Cleopatra had been here, sailing the River Cydnus--the same +Cydnus in whose cold waters Alexander bathed, overheated by the tropic +sun, and almost lost his life. And poor Antony, also overheated, lost +body and soul together by the no less tropic love glances of the +Egyptian Queen. And who could wonder at it, if, as Shakespeare tells +us-- + + “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, + Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold; + Purple the sails, and so perfumed that + The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, + Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made + The water which they beat to follow faster, + As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, + It beggar’d all description: she did lie + In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue-- + O’er-picturing that Venus where we see + The fancy outwork nature: on each side her + Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids. + + * * * * * + + At the helm + A seeming mermaid steers.” + +[Illustration: A CARPENTER OF THE TAURUS.] + +And here also, on the banks of this same river, swollen and rapid +with the melting snows of Taurus, not far from the sea, is the +forlorn-looking city where Saul of Tarsus was born to the trade of a +tentmaker and the exalted career of the greatest of the Apostles. In +Tarsus, once a free city under the Roman Empire, her coins proudly +stamped “Metropolis,” at one time more illustrious with academies and +schools of philosophy than Athens or Alexandria, the ancient Marseilles +of the Mediterranean, real estate has taken a fearful tumble since Paul +boasted that he was a citizen of “no mean city,” for he “was born in +Tarsus.” Seven thousand squalid inhabitants still cling with amazing +tenacity to life, and carry most of the real estate around with them +as personal property. There is absolutely nothing of interest to be +said of it, for it is not even a ruin. It is the degenerate scion of a +noble ancestry, in “looped and windowed raggedness,” whose only claim +to respectability is the “high connections” of past history; and of +these the most is made, for among other pretensions not the least is +the ancient one, that to this very port the prophet Jonah set sail when +“he entered into a ship of Tarshish and paid the fare thereof.” + +Riding leisurely through the suburbs, we are soon in the heart of +the Great Plain. Two hundred and seventy miles from east to west, +sixty-eight in greatest breadth from white-capped sea to snow-capped +mountain, are the vast dimensions of this Cilician prairie. The soil +is as fertile as nature ever made, the rich alluvium of three rivers +constantly depositing itself in thick layers, century after century, +and yet it is a comparative desert, often stricken to death with famine +and calling upon the pitying world for help from starvation. And why is +it? The only sufficient answer is--the Turkish Government! + +Our first night we spent in the city of Adana, the present metropolis +of the Plain, a city of 30,000 inhabitants, as geographers tell us, +and, as they do not tell us, of as many mosquitoes to each inhabitant. +We made a careful estimate of them that very night. In fact it was +not without considerable anxiety that we waited to see how many, and +in what condition the survivors would be who would respond to the +breakfast call next morning. For myself, I had thought that that +morning would never come; or, if it did, it would come too late for +me to derive any benefit from it in this present life. I noticed that +the roosters around town seemed to entertain the same opinion. They +started in about midnight with considerable confidence, and once in a +while would all take hold and lift together in one grand crow, and then +settle back disappointed--there was a hitch somewhere, the sun would +not up. In the meantime, a tender regard for the feelings of my readers +would not allow me to attempt any description of our sufferings--only +this, that after exhausting every stratagem I could think of to outwit +the enemy--all to no purpose--I simply threw back the bedclothes in +the madness of despair, and said,“Come on, then, if you want to!” And +they came. They came in ranks and squadrons, wing touching wing, like +Milton’s fallen angels when they went down with whir and rustle and +clatter of stumpy wings into the pit. And as fast as they came I lifted +my hand and slaughtered them--or rather, _thought_ I did. + +Then it occurred to me, in my half-asleep condition, that I would +gather up those dead mosquitoes and pile them into a monument, so that +if I should be devoured alive there would at least be something to +mark the spot. But before I could find mosquitoes enough to lay the +corner-stone, I fell asleep. I dreamed I was bodily lifted up on wings +and borne through the air. I passed over island and ocean and continent +and ocean again. And just as I came in sight of my home and saw my +mother on the doorstep, there was an awful crash, and then a groan, and +somebody said, “Great Caesar!” I awoke to see my friend Lee sitting +upright in bed, listening with head bent forward, as if his life +depended on his hearing something--his hands were uplifted and spread +wide. Then there was the feeble first note of a song in the air, and +the hands came together with fearful precision, and I thought, “Well, +that mosquito has sung his doxology any way.” But there was no more +sleep that night, and when the morning came we were a sorry company to +think of starting on a long pilgrimage that day. + +[Illustration: A TIN-SMITH’S SHOP.] + +All the forenoon we were making preparations for our journey. There +were horses to obtain, and donkeys and saddles and provisions and +servants, so that it was the middle of the afternoon before we were +ready to start. We were going that day’s journey in company with a +small caravan. Now, if a person has never seen a caravan get under way, +he has something still in this world to live for. In the first place, +when the horses and donkeys are brought together, as they were in this +case, into the narrow courtyard of the house to be loaded, it seems to +occur to all of them at once that the proper thing for them to do under +such circumstances is--to kick. And they evidently think that what is +worth doing at all, is worth doing well. + +[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN MENDICANT.] + +I left my horse standing a moment to run up stairs, and when I +returned, which was at the call of Mr. Lee to “come and hold your +horse,” that animal of mine had made a circuit round that yard, like a +comet round the sun--heels first, and left a clean swath behind him all +the way. And when you add to all this confusion the crying of servants, +the barking and yelping of dogs, the howling of babies, and above all, +the screaming of camels and that excruciating bray of the jackass which +makes you willing to stake all you possess that he can’t do that again +and live through it; why, then you can gather some faint idea of what +the starting of a caravan is on a small scale. + +We mounted our horses and marched off in magnificent procession. They +say that the grandest moment in the life of a boy--that moment when +first he feels that there was no hap-hazard about his being born, but +is conscious that he came into this world for a purpose, is when for +the first time he gets on a pair of red-topped boots. They are the +cradle and that is the birthday of all his after greatness. And I think +that it is equally true that the very sublimest and _topmost_ event +in the life of any young man is when, with a belt full of pistols, a +heart bursting with valor and a spur on his heel he puts his foot into +the stirrup and swings himself across the back of a horse. I am ready +to admit that it was so with me. I felt as though somebody ought to +go ahead on the road and let people know that I was coming but that +I wasn’t dangerous and probably wouldn’t hurt anybody. I remembered +that it was the same country where the Apostle Paul had been taken for +Mercury and Barnabas for Jupiter, and I thought that likely enough this +people would take it into their heads that I was the War God, Mars, let +loose upon them and careering through their country breathing fire from +my nostrils and striking out hot lightnings from my horse’s hoofs. + +[Illustration: A COUNTRY BELLE.] + +I had two pistols; one of them had a barrel about the size of a quill +tooth-pick. But I knew from what experience I had had with that weapon +that all that was necessary would be to find the right man and somebody +to hold him and it would then be only a question of time--I should +certainly kill him. But my other pistol was altogether a different +affair. It was as much too large as the other was too small. It was +somewhere from one to three feet long and extended from my third rib +down to my knee-pan, like a lightning rod down the side of a chimney, +and kept me bolt upright and stiff in my saddle. It was so formidable +that I would not have liked to fire it off without getting behind +something. And I thought that if worse come to worst and we met a +Circassian coming to rob us, I would just hand it over to him and let +him discharge it, and watch and see what became of him. + +But there was one member of our party whom I must not forget to +mention, and that was the soldier or military police--the “zabtieh” +as he is called. For the sake of convenience we will call him the +“Government,” because he represents the Government. The advantage of +having him with you is, not so much that he is a kind of traveling +masked battery, concealed mostly by earthworks, nor that he always +provides himself with a fast horse so that in case anything happens +he can turn tail and make off so speedily that the next party going +over the road will not be left without a guide and protector--not so +much either that his gun is likely to be a flint-lock without any +flint in it, as that when you have one of these ornamental gentlemen +traveling in your company, and are attacked and plundered, the Turkish +Government is bound to make good your losses in such a way that your +great grandchildren, if they are healthy and long-lived, will have the +benefit of them. It was this last consideration which determined us +to take a zabtieh. One of the most interesting relics of antiquity, +and almost the only voice out of the past, from this historic plain, +is a simple monument of a single stone with the Latin inscription to +the effect that a certain Roman captain--giving his name--“erects +this pillar to the gods of his native land.” It was the Roman way of +giving vent to homesickness, and this true patriot, stationed on these +inhospitable shores so far from home, has left this pathetic monument +of his longing to return. It is a beautiful tribute to that tender +touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. A good, true heart he +must have buckled under that Roman cuirass. Let us hope that he got his +furlough with full pay. + +[Illustration: HADJAM--OR NATIVE BARBER.] + +The sun had dropped behind the mountain wall and the moon had taken +his place with scarce diminished radiance when we approached the +long-forgotten town of Mopsuestia. The atmosphere was so clear that we +had seen the town for at least three hours, apparently only just ahead +of us, but it never seemed to come any nearer. In fact, it seemed to be +moving ahead on the road somewhat faster than our party. I tried to +remember whether I had not somewhere read that at a certain season of +the year corresponding with our first of May, the inhabitants of this +country take up their houses on their backs and go off with them to a +new place. But I could not make myself remember anything like that. + +[Illustration: ON THE MARCH.] + +At last it became dark, and I was glad of it, because I thought that +if those people _were_ really going off with that city, they would +probably want to set it down and rest when night came on, and then we +should have a chance to overtake them. + +And now the moonlight had effect upon us and we began to sing. First +our Armenian servant, Crecor, started in. I thought I recognized the +tune and was about to join in, when suddenly it changed to something +else. At first I was sure it was “I need thee every hour”--next minute +it was “Pull for the shore.” And I said: “All right, I would just as +lief sing that.” But before I could pull my diapason and get my mouth +open, it had changed again to “I want to be an angel.” “All right,” +said I, “so do I.” But before I could join with him and be an angel, +he had flown the track and was off again. When at last he wound up and +put on the flourishes with a strain that limped on one leg like “Yankee +Doodle,” and on the other like the “Old Hundredth,” and finally leaped +up into the air and vanished in a heart-rending cry of anguish topped +off by a howl that shook the stars, I did not try to follow him. I +secretly suspected that, no matter how badly he wanted to be an angel, +he never would be until he could make better music than that. + +At last we came to the old river Pyramus. As we passed over the ancient +stone bridge, fast falling into ruin, the musical click-clang of our +horses’ hoofs on the archway was echoed back by the swift-running +waters of the river beneath. Each wave of the stream seemed to be +lifting itself to look at us and was struck down again by the arrowy +glance of the moon, shivering and running away to tell the pebbles +along the shore what a strange people with hats on, and even shirts and +pants, they had seen. + +But now, right ahead of us loomed up the walls of the hotel where we +were to pass the night. It was by far the most high-toned hotel in the +place--in fact it was the only one. It consisted of four stone walls +about ten feet high without any roof. There was no bed-chamber, no +bed, no carpet, no floor, no light, no fire, nothing to sit down on, +nothing to eat and, so far as we could discover, no proprietor. But +there _was_ a door and it was locked for fear someone might imagine +there was something inside, I suppose, and then go in and steal it; +and by ill-luck someone had gone off with the key. Crecor went off to +hunt it up and soon returned with the clerk of the hotel who ushered +us in, horses and all, through the front door into the parlor. We had +thought of telegraphing ahead to have the best chamber reserved for us, +but were glad that we had saved ourselves that expense. For it happened +that we were the first who registered that night, with the exception +of a donkey and a man and his wife, and so we had the whole range of +the hotel. We selected the corner where there seemed to be the fewest +stones and least rubbish and cleared a place to put up our tent. And +now for something to eat. + +[Illustration: CIRCASSIAN MOUNTAINEERS.] + +Lee had brought along a chest full of bread, cake, canned goods, +chicken, eggs, etc., so we were well provided with all but the +appetite. We did not any of us want anything after that long, hot, +dusty ride but just a watermelon apiece, and then to go to bed in the +shortest and speediest manner. But to fall asleep was another matter. +How it seemed to my traveling companions I don’t know, but there was +such a horror of desolation about that place, such an awful, oppressive +night-silence that made me think of all that I had ever read in the +Bible about jackals howling in ruined places, hooting owls and +creeping foxes and satyrs crying to their fellows, that I determined +as soon as I struck the bed that if anybody got to sleep before I did +he would have to be lively about it. I wasn’t going to be the last +awake that night, anyway, and so I bent all my energies to the task. I +had heard that if anyone would start slowly and count five hundred, it +would surely put them to sleep. And so I began. I reached four hundred +and fifty, and was just falling off into slumber when it occurred to +me that I had only fifty more to count, and maybe I wouldn’t make it, +and, of course, that excited me and woke me up. I thought that perhaps +I had counted too fast, and concluded to give it another trial. began +more slowly. I kept saying to myself, “Now, not too fast!” and of +course. that kept me awake. I reached 499, and while I was waiting for +something to happen before I said 500, the thought flashed through my +head, “Well now, it seems to me it wasn’t 500 that puts folks to sleep +after all, it was a thousand.” All right, I would try a thousand. I +did. I went on to two thousand, three thousand, five thousand. I +became wrought up. I said to myself, “I’ll do it if it takes forty +thousand. I’ll lie on this bed all night, and all day to-morrow, if +need be, and count a million.” And I believe I would have done it, if +another plan had not happened to occur to me. + +[Illustration: A NOMAD MOTHER.] + +I had read somewhere that if a person could only get their body into +a certain position, no matter how wide awake they might be, sleep +would immediately follow. I said to myself: “Now, how glad I am that I +happened to think of that.” But, then, I couldn’t remember what that +position was. Never mind, I would try them all, and see if I could +strike it. I had rather a narrow field to operate in, for my iron +bedstead wasn’t wide enough to turn over in without rolling out. And +it wasn’t long enough, so that my feet could not go to bed at the same +time I did. At last I think I must have hit it, for I fell asleep, +and my last thought was, “I’m glad my mother does not know where I am +to-night.” + +Strange to say, it had not rained in that country for four solid +months, but that night it rained as though it had been saved up for +our special benefit. It waked us up at midnight. It drove in above +and ran in below. It rolled down the folds of the tent like so many +waterspouts. We all sat up in bed and looked at each other. We wanted +to say something, all of us, but each seemed to be waiting for the +other and wishing he would say it first, until, there being nothing +else to do, Lee carefully gathered together the folds of the tent so +that the water all ran down into his bed (which he didn’t discover +until he laid down again). I put on my overcoat and again crawled into +bed. The last I saw of Gould, he was lying flat on his back holding an +umbrella with both hands, hoisted and spread over him, and trying to +sleep. + +Next morning we arose before daylight, called for our hotel bill, +paid it (it was only fifteen cents for the whole company), mounted +our horses and rode out of the front door with a long day’s journey +of forty-five miles before us, a blazing sun above us, and the River +Pyramus flowing by our side. The memory of that day is like one of +those winterbird’s nests swinging on the tree, frozen stiff with +rain and dreary enough, without a warm feather in it or a note of +song. I have a confused recollection of a sun that was unmistakably +hot, a white road that made it hotter, and a desert wind that was +“Hottentotter.” I recollect, too, that I rode a horse that was never +happy unless he was ahead, and I was never happy unless he was behind. +I remember that I carried a sun umbrella, and every time a horse tried +to go ahead of mine he would elevate his hind feet and lift me into the +air, still holding on to my umbrella, until I had all the experience of +going up in a balloon. But I _do_ have a very distinct recollection of +every time I came down again. It seemed to me that that saddle was all +pommel, for though I went up and came down perhaps a hundred times, I +never could land anywhere else. + +We passed trains of camels, herds of donkeys, men and women on foot, +and here and there a Mohammedan under the shade of a tree or wall going +through with a gymnastic performance of standing on his head, which is +the way he prefers to say his prayers. On every side was wilderness, +parched and withered, without a spear of grass or a green leaf. But all +things must have an end, and so must our journey. We made up our minds +when we went to bed on the third night that next morning we would get +up at three o’clock and push through, a journey of a day and a half, to +Marash. + +And what a morning that was! + +We had pitched our tent in a valley, between the high perpendicular +walls of two mountains. The moon rode full overhead and passed along +just on the broken edge of one of them, now leaping a chasm, now +dodging behind a crag, now looking down through a leafy gorge with +a brilliancy of glory such as our moon never attains, except in the +frostiest nights of winter, by the aid of a ground covered with snow. +I was able to read a newspaper with ease. I tried it, holding it off +at a natural distance. I could see distinctly every feature and line +of a photograph of my mother which I took from my inside vest pocket +and gazed at, as I thought possibly for the last time. I could even +see to read my own writing as I penned what I thought might possibly +be my last words. What made me think so was this: We were to start +that morning through a mountain pass infested by robbers. Now, I hope +my readers will meditate on this, and try to be as scared as I was. It +was the same pass in which Mr. Montgomery, of Marash, with a friend, +had been robbed but a short time previous. They had passed a group of +Circassians, the highwaymen of that region, lying by the roadside, +holding their horses and waiting for someone to come along. They had +gone but a short distance when there was a clatter of hoofs around the +bend of the mountain, a flashing of pistol barrels leveled straight at +their heads, and a command to dismount and give over. And there was +nothing else to do. The five Circassians stood over them with knives +and made them empty their pockets and give up their weapons. Then they +took their horses and left them to make the best of their way home on +foot, some twenty or thirty miles across the mountain. And now we were +entering that same pass. And it was night. + +We had not gone far, groping our way up the narrow trail in single file +over rough stones, not speaking above a whisper, and wishing that our +horses’ hoofs were shod with velvet, when Lee turned about and said: +“Have you got your shooting-irons ready? We must be pretty near the +place now where Montgomery was robbed.” + +Oh dear! I felt awful. I wanted to go back. It wasn’t what I came +for, to be shot down on that cold mountain in the dark by a shirtless +Circassian. The next moment we came where there was a big tree right +ahead of us and oh, horrors! we could hear distinctly the voices +of several men in conversation. At the same time I thought I heard +something in the bushes beside me. Then I was sure of it. Then I saw +it move. Then a man stepped out into the road close to me. I drew my +pistol and held it where he could see the flash of the barrel in the +moonlight. + +He stood still and I passed him, turning round in my saddle to keep my +eye on him. + +We all had our pistols out and were ready with pale cheeks, and hearts +that thumped like drumsticks. + +But we passed by unmolested. + +Lee said afterwards that if we had not been well armed and looked so +formidable we should probably have been attacked and robbed. I was glad +that I _looked_ so. + +The only other incident of any importance before we reached Marash was +the downfall of the Turkish “Government.” He was riding ahead in grand +style, full of the proud consciousness of having brought us safely +through the mountains, pricking his horse with the sharp corner of the +stirrup, which is used for a spur, and then playfully reining him up +on his haunches, when suddenly, but with the utmost grace, horse and +rider, with pistols and knives and gun, with brown rags and red rags +fluttering in the wind, head down and feet uppermost, went tumbling +over into the bushes. When he appeared again, unhurt but drooping at +both ends like a dog when the boys have just got the pan securely +fastened and are urging him to run, it was a sight that did us all +good. We hadn’t laughed before in three days, and from that moment our +feelings began steadily to improve. At last we came out into the open +plain and ascending a rise of ground, saw in the far distance, hanging +on the side of the mountain like an avalanche which has run half-way +down and stopped in a gorge, the white houses of the city of Marash. + +Three hours after we were riding through its streets, climbing up and +up until we reached the high wall surrounding the buildings of the +Mission. We rode in through the gate, and before we could dismount the +missionaries were upon us. They welcomed us so heartily that we could +not have been happier if we had returned home to America. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CALIFORNIAN LYRICS. + + +I. + +A MORNING TRYST. + + The oleander bends its boughs above the running water, + Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo! + Ah! the iris skies above her have a less bewildering blue + Than the eyes of the rancher’s daughter. + + The oleander shall hear vows above the running water; + Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo! + If she choose me for her lover, she shall find me fond and true, + True and fond for the rancher’s daughter. + + The oleander swings its blooms above the running water; + Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo! + In the clover bees are humming: shall I dare be bold and sue + For the lips of the rancher’s daughter? + + The oleander breathes perfumes above the running water; + Sing, robins! call, orioles! coo, wild doves, coo! + Shyly, shyly she is coming while the sun is in the dew + On her path--ah! the rancher’s daughter. + + +II. + +SNOW-WIND. + + Down from the stately Sierras, down through our valley of flowers + Sweeps the snow-wind from far summits; the white rose trembles and + cowers; + The red rose flaming beside it, bends quivering and yields + Its homage to the strong wind, rushing on to the green wheat fields. + + +III. + +A PINE-CONE FIRE. + + Not two, not three, but twenty! Now half of twenty more-- + Huge cones that the kings of the forest, the kings of the forest + bore. + Now, snap and blaze and sparkle, oh, banners of fire that flow + Towards fire of the stars! Glow royally, hearthstone, glow; + Burn, cones, in fiery blossoms. Each crown-like flower disclose + Your petals of coals that drop down in ashes of rose. + + _Minna Caroline Smith._ + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +AMERICAN COLLEGE ATHLETICS. + +I.--HARVARD UNIVERSITY. + +BY J. MOTT HALLOWELL. + +(Continued from page 241.) + + +ROWING. + +A History of the development of boating at Cambridge would in itself +fill a large-sized volume, and would only be a repetition of what has +been often written before. The boating interest of the college dates +its rise from a time long antecedent to that of any other athletic +contests, as we understand them now, and the first intercollegiate +race, in 1852, was rowed more than ten years before Harvard began her +intercollegiate baseball games. At first desultory races with Yale +were rowed, in which Harvard was usually victorious; then the National +Rowing Association of American Colleges was formed, and Harvard +annually sent a crew to the Intercollegiate regatta. About this time +also, 1869, a four-oared crew was sent to England, but was defeated +by six seconds in a four-mile race with Oxford University. Endless +disputes, before and after the races, and the occurrence of many fouls +caused by the large number of entries, at last caused Harvard and Yale +to withdraw in disgust from the National Rowing Association, and in +1878 were begun the annual boat races between the two colleges, rowed +on the Thames at New London. These races are still continued and now +form the only intercollegiate boat races in which the university crew +rows. For seven years Columbia also rowed on the same course, but last +year this race was abandoned. With Yale eleven races have been rowed +over the Thames course, Yale winning six and Harvard five. + +Of all athletic training at Cambridge, that for the university crew is +the longest and most trying. Soon after college opens in the fall, the +captain collects a crew of the most promising candidates who are not in +training for football, and begins a little desultory practice on the +river. About the first of December the work begins in earnest and from +then until the Yale race the following June, the candidates for the +crew pursue systematic training. During the winter, social pleasure is +cut down, as the men have to be in bed at an early hour, with possibly +the privilege of sitting up one night in the week. Daily practice is +taken upon the rowing-machines in the gymnasium accompanied by light +chest-weight work and a run out-of-doors. As soon as the ice is off +the river, the crew begins work on the water and soon after goes to +a training table for the rest of the year. Then not only are regular +hours of retiring necessary, but the men must report at eight o’clock +every morning for a short walk before breakfast. This sort of training +accompanied by work on the river, gradually increased in severity, +continues until the last of June, the day of the Yale race. + +The Charles River flows within five minutes’ walk of the college yard, +furnishing a fairly good piece of water for practice; and a little +over a mile below the college, it opens into “the basin,” a broad +sheet of water almost two miles in length. On this course are rowed the +class races every May. The three principal rowing events of the year +at Harvard are comprised in these class-races, the Freshman race with +Columbia College and the contest with Yale University. + + +THE LACROSSE TEAM. + +[Illustration: THE LACROSSE TEAM.] + + +FOOTBALL. + +In October, 1872, the first University Football Association was formed +at Harvard. At this time football as a game was but little known in the +United States; a few of the other colleges had formed a league, but the +character of their game was absolutely different from that now played +in America. It was modeled after the English “Association” game, and +was played entirely with the feet; the ball could not be touched by +the hands while the game was in progress, but instead was kicked or +“dribbled” by the player in making his runs. At Harvard the game had a +strong resemblance to our present method, and American football is a +distinct outgrowth of a rough, rushing game as played for some fifty +years on the college campus at Cambridge, a game at first modeled on no +pattern, begun with no rules, but of an irregular, unrestrained growth, +a sort of curious combination of “Association” football as played in +England, and the college rush of those days in which an unlimited use +of the hands and fists was allowed in order to gain possession of the +coveted prize. About the year 1872, however, some Harvard men who had +become acquainted with the English “Rugby” game, seeing the resemblance +between it and the Harvard game, made a careful study of the former, +and recognizing the need of regular rules, adopted a set of rules +peculiarly like the Rugby, but adapted to the method of play then in +vogue at Cambridge. + +Thus was evolved a regular game limited by rules which were the +result of a curious combination of three different factors: the +game informally played by “sides” chosen from athletically inclined +students, the rough fights of the Freshman and Sophomore classes in +the annual rush, and lastly the influence of the adapted rules of the +English Rugby game. + +[Illustration: THE CREW AT THEIR WINTER WORK.] + +In the fall of 1874 Yale issued a call to Princeton, Harvard, +Columbia and Rutgers to form an Intercollegiate Football Association, +but Harvard could not join, because her game was so radically +different from that played at the other colleges. The Yale _Record_ +remarked: “Harvard said that her game was so strictly scientific +as to prevent her from ever contending with other colleges whose +games were so entirely devoid of skill.” If Harvard had consented to +join the League, American football to-day would be a very different +game, but she could not have retained her own rules as they were +fundamentally different from those in use at the other four colleges, +and they, naturally wishing to retain their own rules, could have +out-voted her. By her action in refusing to join the League, and her +superiority--principally shown in games against Canadian teams--she +forced first Yale and then the other colleges to adopt the Harvard +game. In 1875 the first Yale-Harvard game was played under the +Rugby Union Rules, practically the same as those used at Cambridge; +and in 1876 the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed +between Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Princeton. The game that Harvard +introduced, Yale and Princeton have since developed. + +[Illustration: HARVARD SHOOTING CLUB.] + +In 1875 Harvard defeated Yale by four goals and four touch-downs to +nothing. The next year she suffered defeat from Yale by one goal to +three touch-downs, and since that time the Cambridge team has won not +a single Yale game, and only a few from Princeton. The season of 1884 +was especially disastrous. In vain the college paper, the _Crimson_, +published semiweekly exhortations to the players to play better +football, and to the undergraduates to take more interest in the team. +The make-up of the eleven was excessively weak, and both the players +and the rest of the undergraduates seemed indifferent concerning +its success, so that at the close of the season it was disgracefully +beaten by Yale and Princeton, and was defeated even by Wesleyan and the +University of Pennsylvania. The undergraduates felt little regret when +the Athletic Committee, who had for a long time been opposed to the +game on account of its brutality as then played, announced that they +considered it “brutal and demoralizing,” and that thereafter Harvard +was forbidden to engage in any Intercollegiate football games. For a +year the rule was enforced, but in 1886 it was reconsidered and Harvard +again took her place in the football arena. + +[Illustration: THE CREW’S NEW LONDON QUARTERS.] + +That year’s rest was fortunate, for it served as a breathing spell in +which the college could pause and reflect for a brief space, so as to +discern just what the fault was that had sent Harvard to the rear in +football, while she still retained her prominent position in other +games. When in 1886 she was allowed to resume her old position in the +League, she began work with a grim determination to recover her lost +prestige. With comparatively untried material to work upon, Brooks, +’87, the new captain, produced an eleven which was second only to +Princeton and Yale. The record of Captain Holden’s eleven in 1887, +the defeat of Princeton, the game lost to Yale at the New York Polo +Grounds, and the dissatisfaction and dispute over the result, are still +too fresh in the memory to need repetition. + +The football played at Cambridge in the last two seasons shows that +Harvard has regained her position as one of the leaders on the football +field. For the seven or eight preceding years, Harvard football had +been nothing more than a weak imitation of the game of Yale and +Princeton. Upon the re-establishment of Harvard in the League, in the +autumn of 1886, the game was first played with a slight attempt at +originality. But the previous decline had been too great to admit of +more than an attempt, and most of the time had to be spent in learning +what the other colleges already knew. In 1887 for the first time in +many years Harvard began the season on an equal footing with Yale and +Princeton, with an equal knowledge of the science of the game and as +clear a perception of what the requirements of the coming year would +be. Instead of tamely imitating the game of the previous year as played +by the two other colleges, she mapped out a plan of work of her own, +and developed a scientific, heavy, rushing game, a system in striking +contrast to the Yale and Princeton style, and entirely different from +the heavy, bull-headed, rushing game as played by all the colleges +six years ago. This style of play had its defects, but it possessed +that which more than counterbalanced them all--it showed that at last +Harvard football was logical and scientific, original in its conception +and systematic in its play, and that the college again had taken her +position as one of the leaders in the development of the American game +of football. + + +LACROSSE. + +Although lacrosse is not a game very generally adopted in this country, +it has been successfully played at Cambridge for nearly ten years. +The Association is but a young brother of the other clubs, having +been formed as late as 1879. It was quickly followed in 1881 by the +formation of the Intercollegiate League, with Harvard as a leading +member, and in 1881, 1882, 1883, 1885, 1886 and 1887 the lacrosse +championship fell to Cambridge, and in two of these years the Oelrich’s +Cup was also secured at the annual tournament in New York. When +lacrosse was first played at Cambridge, fifteen dollars expended for +advertising and policemen, and seven dollars received as gate receipts +was not an unknown experience at a championship game. But successful +teams, and the natural advantages of the game, have gradually extended +its popularity, and now each year the rapidly increasing number of +players attests the growing interest felt by the college. + +There are also many other athletic clubs of more or less importance +in the college, which, however, seldom take part in intercollegiate +games--the polo, shooting, canoe and bicycle clubs, and the sparring +association. In tennis, Harvard has furnished some of the leading +players in the country--R. D. Sears, H. A. Taylor, J. S. Clark, P. S. +Sears and Q. A. Shaw; and the extent to which the game is now played +is shown by the fact that, in reply to the questions of the Faculty +athletic committee, out of 1,031 men who replied, over 600 named tennis +as one of their usual forms of outdoor exercise. + + +FACULTY REGULATION OF ATHLETICS. + +In 1882 there entered into Harvard Athletics a new factor, in the shape +of interference with, or rather attempted guidance of, athletics by +the college authorities. With this purpose in view, a committee on +athletics was appointed, consisting of Prof. C. E. Norton, Prof. J. W. +White and Dr. Sargent; a committee which for a time was more discussed, +more abused, and more misunderstood than any other unfortunates who +ever had the complimentary misfortune of being appointed to guide +college athletes into the path they ought to follow. The immediate +cause of its appointment was to prevent several abuses which the +Faculty believed they saw increasing coincidently with the growth of +intercollegiate athletics. + +The public sentiment of the undergraduates was favorably inclined +toward the regulating action of the Faculty, and although some of the +overzealous raised an outcry against any interference on the ground +that such would injure their chances of success, the majority and the +more cool-headed undergraduates agreed that some regulation of the +growth of athletics was needed. + +The members of the committee were all very strongly of the opinion that +athletics were essential to the highest welfare of the students; but at +the same time they thought they saw tendencies growing which, unless +checked, would be likely to more than offset all the advantages which +were to be gained. They felt that the drift of affairs during the past +few years had been toward the effacement of that clearly defined line +which separates amateur from professional athletics, and that for the +preservation of intercollegiate athletics a strict observance of this +line was necessary. The first step in interfering with the _laissez +faire_ system of athletics was to dismiss the men employed as trainers +by the Athletic Association, and to forbid any “professional” trainer +from appearing on the college grounds. Till that time each would-be +athlete had chosen his own trainer, usually the professional selected +by the H. A. A., but often some professional walker or sprinter who +had no connection with the college. As a result petty disputes arose +among the various trainers, and were continued on the track; and there +was bitter rivalry in obtaining the best runners, in order to secure +the advertisement of having trained a “record” man. Of course, imbued +with this feeling, the trainers neglected the development of the weaker +men who entered into track athletics for the sake of exercise, but +with no hope of breaking a record. It was to remedy this evil that the +committee on athletics forbade professional trainers to appear upon +the college grounds. At the same time, realizing how necessary it was +for the men in training to have some one to look after them, they sent +a request to the corporation that some man might be appointed with a +fixed salary, to have a place in the gymnasium and to act as a trainer +for all the athletes. Their recommendation was accepted, and after a +delay of about a year Mr. J. G. Lothrop was engaged to superintend the +general exercise of all the track men, and also the special work of +those training for the intercollegiate games, and he was installed in +the gymnasium as “assistant in the department of physical science.” The +satisfaction occasioned by this change has borne fruit in the large +number who now work in the gymnasium classes during the winter, the +many candidates for the intercollegiate team of track athletes, and the +brilliant record of the team in annual intercollegiate games. + +The second step taken by the committee, in 1882, was to prohibit +the Harvard baseball nine from playing games against professionals. +Previous to this, President Eliot had written to the Faculties of all +the colleges with which the Harvard nine played matches, asking them +whether they would forbid the nines of their respective colleges to +play games with professional clubs in case Harvard took the initiative. +Affirmative answers were received from all except Yale, and she alone +rejected the proposition. Nevertheless, in October, 1882, the Harvard +athletic committee forbade the nine to play further games against +professionals; but the other colleges, instead of adopting the plan, +as, naturally, it was supposed they would, neglected to support the +position taken by Harvard, and up to the present time every college +nine in the country except Harvard is allowed professional practice. At +Cambridge the rule has been strictly enforced since it was adopted in +1882. + +If the athletic committee won any favor with the undergraduates by +their successful regulation of track and field athletics, it was all +lost by this baseball regulation. The step was taken with the idea of +drawing a strongly marked line between amateurs and professionals, +thus effectually preventing the professional tendency from increasing +in college athletics; and also to prevent the game from becoming a +monopoly played by a few skilled players, instead of being participated +in by the whole college. It was a measure passed with a good aim, +but nevertheless one which has flown wide of its mark, for its only +practical result has been to heavily handicap the Harvard nine. + +When any game in any branch of athletics is successfully played +by a university team, experience shows that greater interest is +always aroused throughout the entire college in that particular +sport; that more “scrub” teams are formed, and a larger number of +undergraduates practise the game, than when they have only a weak, +defeated university team as a model. A higher standard of ’varsity +play may, perhaps, lessen the number of candidates for the team; +but these candidates form only a very small proportion of the +number who incidentally play the game, while the greater enthusiasm +aroused largely increases the number of mediocre players. Thus this +prohibition, besides weakening the nine, besides enforcing more work +on the captain and the team, really defeats the very aim that the +committee had in view, and lessens rather than increases the number of +men who play the game for general recreation. + +As regards the anti-professional reason, it is impossible to say +what would be the status of the Harvard nine if this rule had not +been passed. Judging from the other college nines who annually play +professionals for practice, there would be but little difference from +what now exists. The difference, so difficult to discover on the +ball field, exists chiefly in the minds of men whose knowledge of +baseball is derived principally from discussions in the college Faculty +meetings. Although it is difficult to surmise how even there such a +discriminating distinction can be drawn between local unrestrained, +would-be-but-couldn’t-be professionals, and the disciplined league +players; the former eager by any means fair or foul, to score a point +against the “college boys,” the latter playing a practice game simply +as a business matter. The Harvard Faculty, it is presumed, do not +approve of professional sparring as an avocation for students, but they +have not yet forbidden undergraduates to take lessons of competent +teachers, even although the latter may have occasionally fought a +prize-fight; and such lessons are deemed even less contaminating, from +a professional point of view, than would be friendly and unpaid bouts +with celebrated locals who hoped in the future to enter the ring. + +The position of the committee towards college football has been unique. +Football in this country is a game still in a state of development, and +the Harvard athletic committee have taken an active part in developing +it in the right direction. In November, 1883, the attention of the +committee was first called to a serious consideration of football. +The game as played that fall was one of the roughest ever played in +the country; and of a kind of roughness where brutality and unfair +play were put at a premium. On Thanksgiving Day, Harvard was scheduled +to play the final championship game with Yale on the Polo Grounds, +New York. Imagine the chagrin and astonishment of the undergraduates +when, on November 22, a letter was received from the committee by R. +M. Appleton, the captain of the eleven, stating that Harvard would not +be allowed to play any more intercollegiate games, until substantial +changes in the rules were made. Some of these rules appeared to the +committee “to allow of no other inference than that the manly spirit +of fair play is not expected to govern the conduct of all players, +but on the contrary, that the spirit of sharpers and roughs has to be +guarded against. The committee believes that the games hotly played +under these rules have already begun to degenerate from a manly, if +rough, sport, into brutal and dangerous contests. They regard this as +a serious misfortune in the interest of the game, which, if played in +a gentlemanly spirit, may be one of the most useful college sports +as a means of physical development. They regret that they did not +give earlier attention to the character of these rules, and thus +earlier come to the conclusion which they have now reached, namely, +that the Harvard eleven cannot be allowed to take part in any further +intercollegiate match games until substantial changes in the rules have +been made.” The objectionable rules were: + +Rule 19. The referee shall disqualify any player whom he has _warned +twice for intentional_ off-side play, _intentional_ tackling in touch +or _intentional_ violation of Rule 28. + +Rule 28. No kicking, throttling, butting, tripping-up, tackling below +the hips, or striking with closed fists shall be allowed. + +Rule 38. No players shall _intentionally_ lay hands upon or interfere +with an opponent unless he has the ball. + +In other words, a man could intentionally knock down another player +with a straight blow from the shoulder; he could do it again if he +wished, but not until he had done it the third time could he be +disqualified. It was to this and its practice that the athletic +committee objected. Most of the New York papers sneered at it as +“Harvard delicacy;” while a scatter-brained undergraduate, in an open +letter in the _Crimson_, abused the committee for obliging our eleven +to break its agreement, for robbing the Yale team of some $1,500, its +expected share in the gate-money, and ended by solemnly declaring, “We +sincerely hope that the time will sometime come when our feelings of +honor will have some weight with the Faculty in its decisions.” + +That the athletic committee, however, were not irredeemably lost to +all consideration of the honor of the students and were not quite as +prudish or unreasonable as the New York press represented them, was +soon shown by their allowing the game to be played when the respective +captains of the Harvard and Yale teams informed them that the +objectionable rules had been changed. The important changes were that +the referee was allowed to disqualify a player without any previous +warning, and that no more than two disqualified men on either side +should have their places filled by substitutes; also that no player +should lay hands on or interfere with an opponent unless he had the +ball. The game was played, and, as was expected, Harvard was beaten. +The football of the succeeding year was fully as bad as it had been in +1883, and consequently there was a large body among the students ready +to support the athletic committee when, at the close of the season, +they announced that they considered the game as then played to be +brutal and demoralizing, and on this account should request the Faculty +to prohibit Harvard from playing it against other colleges. A short +delay was granted before presenting this report in order to give the +students a chance for a hearing; but no satisfactory results came from +the delay, and in January, 1885, Harvard was forbidden to engage in any +more intercollegiate football contests. + +So much has been said and written about this action of the athletic +committee, so much abuse has been heaped by the newspapers on the +“Harvard dudes,” and so much misrepresentation has been spread abroad +concerning the so-called “Harvard daintiness,” that it is only fair, +even at this late date, to consider, for a few moments, what it was +that influenced the committee in their action, and whether this Harvard +daintiness was the result of an unmanly avoidance of the roughness +of the game, or whether it was actuated by a feeling that no sport +encourages true manliness when it has such an alloy of brutality and +unfair play as football had at that period. + +The committee had attended the four principal championship games of +the season, and at each of these games they had stationed themselves +in different parts of the field, in order to notice what seemed to be +the objectionable features of the play. Their report says: “In every +one of these games there was brutal fighting with the fists when +the men had to be separated by other players, or by the judges and +referee, or by the bystanders and the police. In addition there were +numerous instances where a single blow was struck, instances that +occurred in every one of the games. A man was felled by a blow in +the face in the Harvard-Princeton game, in the Harvard-Yale game and +in the Yale-Princeton game. In the Wesleyan-Pennsylvania game a man +was thrown unfairly, out of bounds, by an opposing player. Then, as +he was rising, but before he was on his feet, his antagonist turned, +struck him in the face and knocked him down, and returned in triumph +with the ball. In all of the games the manifestations of gentlemanly +spirit were lacking--the spirit that scorns to take an unfair advantage +of an opponent. The teams _played to win_ by fair means or by foul. +If two teams are at all evenly matched, and one plays a gentlemanly +and the other an unfair game, the self-respecting team will always be +beaten.... In the four games which we attended there were but two cases +where a player was punished for brutal or unfair play. In several cases +the team was punished by having a ‘down’ given to the other side, but +only twice was a man disqualified.” + +In 1885 an important change was made in the personnel of the committee +by increasing their number from three to five; of the five members two +to be representative undergraduate athletes, one a recent graduate, one +a physician, resident in Boston or in Cambridge, and the director of +the gymnasium, who is also a member of the Faculty. The other colleges, +urged on by a natural spirit of progress in the development of +football, and spurred still further by the public attention which had +been attracted to its abuses, had materially altered its character. The +committee carefully watched it progress as shown in the championship +contests between the other colleges, and after careful consideration, +came to the conclusion that a decided change had taken place; that it +had largely lost its brutality, and, although rough, its roughness was +of a kind that often encouraged a manly spirit; that although still far +from perfect, it was but in a transient stage of development, and that +the new rules, with a few slight exceptions, had proved efficacious in +regard to the evils they sought to remedy. They therefore recommended +that the Faculty should allow Harvard to renew her intercollegiate +games of football. The report was accepted and Harvard was reinstated +in her position in the intercollegiate league. + +Since the reinstatement of Harvard into the football league, no +important action has been taken by the athletic committee. The +committee have been much abused, and still more ridiculed, but a calm +survey of the work they have done, however much one may differ with +them on a few measures, must be convincing that they have been needed +as a restraint upon the exceeding growth and concomitant abuses of +athletics, and that their work has usually been successful. + +The formation and growth of the different athletic organizations up to +about 1882 formed by itself a distinct period in Harvard athletics; +then began a new period, marked by their curtailment, or, more justly +speaking, the curtailment of what seemed to be their abuses, by Faculty +restrictions. Within the last few years has begun still a third period, +marked by distinctly new athletic action; this is the curtailment by +the students themselves of Harvard participation in intercollegiate +athletics; a feeling that the intercollegiate athletic interests of the +college have become too complicated and too cumbrous, and that action +should be taken to restrain them. + +When, in order to win an intercollegiate athletic meeting, it is +necessary, as is the case, not only to send good athletes upon the +field, but also to train good amateur detectives in order to ferret out +unfair entries from other colleges, the time certainly has arrived when +some sharp remedy should be applied. Often, it may be, these unfair +entries are not sought by the college under whose colors they compete, +they may be simply “mug hunters,” attracted by the rich prizes, and +the wide reputation which attaches itself to an intercollegiate +prize-winner; but, nevertheless, such entries are oftener and more +easily made, and are more readily winked at when there are thirteen +colleges and over two hundred entries, than when there are only two +colleges and fifty entries. A clearly drawn distinction between college +and non-college athletics is absolutely essential for the true welfare +of college athletics, and this line it is hard to preserve in any large +intercollegiate league. + +Never yet has there been a large intercollegiate league in any +important branch of athletics which has not been productive of bitter +ill-feeling and charges of unfair play. The generous rivalry begun on +the athletic field has far too often borne fruit at the conventions in +underhand combinations worthy only of those political conventions of +which they are cheap imitations, and too often victory on the athletic +field must be preceded by a victory on paper, insignificant, perhaps, +to the uninitiated, but which under its apparently harmless words +conceals the future _coup d’état_ by which victory is to be won. The +defeated team, smarting at the recognition that it has been tricked, is +obliged quietly to submit or be taunted with not having pluck enough to +accept defeat; or else it may carry on a wordy war which no one outside +the college understands, which brings no satisfaction, and which +usually ends in nothing being accomplished. This is followed the next +year very naturally by a sullen determination to return the compliment, +not only on the field but also in the convention. These disputes, this +ill-feeling, this idea that victory even meanly won, is well won, +are real troubles which must be guarded against. They are practical +signs of a partial disappearance of the line which ought to separate +professional from college athletics, and the origin of them is largely +due to the existence of intercollegiate leagues. + +No quack medicine in the shape of edicts against what the world +calls “professionals,” will stop this tendency. Such attempts remind +one of the nobleman who, because his son was nightly attacked by +the nightmare, hung all the old women, so-called witches, in his +neighborhood, instead of regulating the boy’s evening diet. Nor can the +trouble be prevented by abolishing all intercollegiate contests. Such +a remedy would be like cutting off a man’s hand in order to extract a +splinter. This plan was proposed last spring in an eccentric report +presented by a majority of the committee on athletics appointed by +the board of overseers, but, nipped in the bud by its own apparent +weakness, it was suffered to pass quietly out of sight. The Faculty, +however, aroused by the fresh importance attached to the subject, +appointed a committee to investigate thoroughly the entire athletic +question; statistics were collected having reference to the general +standing in college of athletic men, and the effect of athletic sports +upon the colleges as a whole; and the conclusion reached was that, +although several abuses still exist, they are greatly overestimated; +that the physical standard of undergraduates has been greatly raised +since the general introduction of athletics; that as a usual thing the +rank of athletic men is higher than the average, and the report ended +by recommending the authorities at once to secure fresh land for new +athletic ground, and to build an addition to the gymnasium. This report +representing--as concerns athletics--the most conservative college in +the country, practically puts an end to the opposition to athletics +as a factor in college life, and recognizes the fact that college +intercollegiate contests will and ought to retain a permanent and +important position in the college world. + +Now that the Harvard authorities have at last given official +recognition of the importance and permanency of college athletics, it +is all the more important that these evils arising from intercollegiate +leagues should be driven out of existence. The quickest and only +thorough way of effecting this is for Harvard to withdraw from all +intercollegiate leagues, and to confine her annual championship +contests to Yale alone. There are many other reasons besides those +given in this article why Harvard’s position in intercollegiate +leagues acts as a drag upon her true interests; increased expenses +both in training and traveling attendant upon so many championship +contests; the longer time necessarily spent in preparation for matches +not important in themselves, but which lost by accident would impair +the chances of winning the championship; the element of chance in +determining the winner of the intercollegiate track athletic games, +ever increasing with the admission of so many smaller colleges which +have no hope of ever securing first place. The only solution of +the present athletic problem for Harvard is a withdrawal from the +intercollegiate leagues. As the case now stands, in most branches of +athletics the contest eventually narrows itself down to one final +effort between Yale and Harvard. There is everything to gain and +nothing to lose by the change. The idea is rapidly gaining ground at +Cambridge: a free discussion of it in the college papers has only added +new converts. Dissolution from all athletic leagues, practice games +against the best teams in the country, and championship games with +Yale alone, would cure many of the evils which seem to have attached +themselves to Harvard athletics. + + ~Note.~--The illustrations of the different groups of + athletic, football, baseball, lacrosse, and other teams in this + series of articles on college athletics, are from photographs by + Pach Brothers, of 841 Broadway. + + + + +THE FAUN DANCE. + + + In gladsome grouping + The fauns come trooping, + With frolic steps and fleet. + The short crisp grasses, + As each one passes, + Rebound beneath his feet. + + Now Pan goes trilling + A measure thrilling + With wild ecstatic mirth. + The fauns leap after, + With mad, sweet laughter, + Their footsteps kiss the earth. + + The revel hushes + The shy brown thrushes; + They silent sit and peer. + With lithe limbs shining, + With arms entwining, + The fauns leap there, leap here. + + The brown feet twinkle, + While harebells tinkle + In tune, with graceful nod. + The sun-flecks racing, + In antic chasing, + Seem dancing on the sod. + + Light zephyrs swaying + The boughs, are playing + A soft Æolian air. + The owlet, rousing + From daytime drowsing, + Looks down with sleepy stare. + + A cloud stoops o’er them; + Behind, before them + The pattering rain-drops fall. + Then, helter-skelter, + They fly for shelter + Beneath the oak-tree tall. + + _M. E. Gorham._ + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +MASK AND FOIL FOR LADIES. + +BY CHARLES E. CLAY. + + +[Illustration] + +Among the infant nations of the world woman was expected to share +the labors of the field with her lord. The exotic conditions of a +pernicious civilization, as wealth accumulated and luxury grew, imposed +trammels on woman and relegated her to the enervating confinement of +the house in order that she might preserve a more delicate and pleasing +form for the gratification of man returning after the day’s toil. Woman +was, however, originally intended to be a much more competent companion +and helpmate than the selfishness of man will concede. + +So long as a community remained pastoral and nomadic, so surely did +woman retain a physical development equal and perfect as that of her +mate. Thus, we find that Atalanta was as fleet of foot as any of her +male companions, and not until she allowed her cupidity to get the +better of her judgment, while striving to secure the golden apples +dropped by Hippomenes during the race, was she vanquished. That woman +was once as skillful as man in the practice and art of venery, was +symbolized by the fact that men did not deem it unworthy to worship a +virgin huntress, and called upon Diana to lend them her knowledge and +support in the chase. That war even claimed their services is evidenced +by Herodotus and other ancient historians; and although the prowess of +the doughty Amazons, who, in order that they might not be impeded in +the use of the bow, mutilated their right breasts, may be in a great +measure mythical, still such testimony goes to prove conclusively that +woman, while perhaps not endowed with the same brute strength as man, +can be his peer in most games, pastimes and recreations that call for +dexterity and quickness of hand, foot and eye. + +No one can gainsay the fact that the long-continued seclusion of +our fair sisters from sports and exercises has undoubtedly much +deteriorated the physical stamina of the female race, at least in +civilized countries. They are not capable of undergoing the fatigue, +exertion and exposure nature intended they should; they are the victims +of many ailments that have become hereditary to their sex simply from +inaction. They are not (I am talking now of the upper and leisure +classes of civilized society more especially) in as thoroughly a +healthy physical condition to sustain the burdens of maternity and +its consequent strain upon the system as they ought to be, as it was +intended by nature that they should be, and as they undoubtedly would +be, if healthy exercise was more universally prevalent among the +sex. If any reader doubts this statement he has only to analyze the +statistics of any European nation that bear upon this subject to be +convinced. + +Happily, the baneful results of an indoor life of inaction have been +realized before its effects have become ineradicable, and the growing +superiority of the physical development of the Anglo-Saxon over her +Latin sister is due chiefly to the revival of athletic outdoor +exercise among the women of this family. English girls may surely claim +the lead in the good work of athletic regeneration. They are closely +followed by their fair sisters and rivals on this side of the Atlantic, +and both are head and shoulders ahead of the daughters of France, +Germany, and the other Continental nations. I will not waste words +in contrasting the physical condition of the women of the West with +the deplorable state of the sex in the East. It would be an insult to +Christianity. + +[Illustration: EN GARDE. + +FIRST POSITION. SECOND POSITION.] + +I need hardly enumerate the rich catalogue of sports, games and +recreations that claim the attention of our enlightened sisters of +to-day, but this much I will say, that there is not an exercise that +will repay a girl so well, and at the same time rouse her enthusiasm +and enjoyment so thoroughly as the practice of fencing--and in that +term I include the handling of foil, broadsword and single-stick. In +considering the art of fencing in the present article I shall not +attempt to give any instruction in the rudiments or the more finished +evolutions of the science, because, in the first place, to treat only +the principal thrusts and parries would occupy more space than I have +at my command, and in the second, _fencing cannot be learned from the +book_. One lesson from a competent _maitre d’armes_ will effect more +than the perusal of a volume. I shall, however, endeavor to point out +the beneficial results to be reaped from the exercise, to create a +feeling, if possible, that fencing ought really to be an indispensable +necessity of a young lady’s complete physical education, and to offer a +few hints and suggestions as to the best means of learning and enjoying +the art, as well as the proper dress and equipment to be employed. + +Fencing, then, may be popularly defined as the art and science of +attack and defense, the weapon used being the foil for pleasure, and +the rapier in a duel of deadly intent. The attack consists of a number +of thrusts, points and lunges, the latter being an extension of the +thrust. The defense is the art of warding off an adversary’s thrusts by +evolutions, termed guards or parries. It is also admissible to advance +the whole body while dealing thrusts or to assist the execution of the +guard by a timely retreat. The participation in this exercise by two +persons is called a “bout,” or a “passage,” with the foils, and when +one line of assailants faces another, fencing two and two, this general +bout is distinguished as an assault of arms. + +The exercise will give to the carriage and general poise of the body +a grace, dignity and freedom, with majesty of step and mien to be +attained in a like degree by no other means. Some finniking miss will, +perhaps, venture that dancing and the idiotic steps of deportment +taught by a mincing Frenchman is all the setting up that a young +lady properly brought up should require; but there is just as much +difference in the walk of a young lady who has been well drilled in +a _salle d’armes_ and a dancing-school miss as there is between the +walk of a lithe young panther and a cat stepping over hot bricks. In +fencing, every part of the body is brought into play. The strain on +the wrist, and the rapid movements with the foil work every muscle in +the shoulder and forearm. The quick advance and hasty retreat develop +the lower limbs. The tension of the whole body brings into healthy +action the internal organs. The chest expands, the lungs are quickened +and produce a stronger circulation; the whole frame is invigorated, +hardened, strengthened and braced up. Moreover, exercise with the foils +does not abnormally develop one member, or one set of muscles to the +detriment of others equally important. For, as Captain Nicholas, of +the New York Fencers’ Club, very happily expressed it to me, “fencing +rather places the muscles of the body in the very best position to +perform their several functions to the best advantage.” That some +pastimes, notably lawn tennis, will develop one member to an inordinate +degree, if pursued to excess, is proved by the experience of many of +the fashionable dressmakers, one of whom assured me not long ago, that +since the general craze for tennis among her customers she has found +it necessary to measure _both_ arms and shoulders of her most ardent +tennis-playing _clientèle_, as she finds as much as three to four +inches difference in the deltoid and biceps measurements of the playing +arm. And many of my lady friends have assured me that since taking up +tennis they have found it impossible to put on the right hand the mate +of the glove that snugly fits their left. In fencing this cannot occur, +for the lessons are always given equally with left and right hand +holding the foil. + +[Illustration: LOW QUARTE.] + +To prove that this healthy exercise is one of the very best means that +can be employed to efface the serious effects to the lungs and heart +involved by a narrow contracted chest and stooping shoulders, let me +instance the experience of one of the young Viennese lady fencers at +present with Professor Hartl’s accomplished troupe, as Fraulein A. +related it to me herself. “Oh, no; it is not at all for the money +that I continue to remain with Professor Hartl, neither did I join +his excellent school in Vienna with the idea of ever going before a +public audience, but I first took up fencing on my doctor’s orders, +and the wonderful results in the improvement of my health from this +training made me loth to quit the exercise.” “You would hardly think,” +said the fraulein, smiling archly at me as I surveyed her plump and +comely figure, “that barely twelve months ago I was so puny and sickly +a creature that I could not rise from my chair nor walk across the +room without assistance. I stooped like a broken-down old woman, my +chest was so hollow and bent inwards that it was pain for me to draw +a breath, and I was troubled all the time with a dry, hacking cough +that was as distressing to my dear mother as it was painful to me. I +had been for months in the doctor’s hands and nothing bettered by his +treatment, though he was one of the leading physicians in Vienna. At +last he told my mother that if I did not mend shortly she would be +childless (for I am her only child), and as a last resource he would +recommend my being sent to Professor Hartl’s fencing school. My mother +was astounded, and demurred; but I, like some drowning wretch catching +at a straw, was bent on going, and carried the day. I was conveyed to +his _salle d’armes_ in a carriage. The professor was very kind and +prescribed a course of exercise as gentle and easily progressive as it +was judicious. In three weeks I could walk, breathe and move my limbs +as well as any of the other girls. Then my lessons with the foil +commenced--very short and very feeble attempts they were at first, I +can tell you, but I grew stronger and heartier every day. I became +straight and strong, my chest became full, and my shoulders humped +no longer. I had such an appetite, too, that my mother was appalled. +Then the professor made arrangements to come to America. The doctor +told me the sea voyage would be most beneficial. My mother reluctantly +consented as I wanted much to see this great country. _Ainsi me voici, +monsieur!_” Pretty conclusive evidence that, I take it, as regards the +benefits of fencing to a weak constitution. + +Let us now consider the subject of the most suitable costume to wear +while taking a turn with the foils. In the first place let me say +that, as a general thing, young ladies fashionably dressed in the +prevailing styles are not properly attired even for a walk to do them +any real good from an athletic point of view. The waist is too tightly +laced. The bodice is worn too tight at shoulders and in the sleeves +to give the freedom of play necessary for arms and shoulders, to walk +beneficially. The dresses are “pulled back” to such a degree that +they cramp the forward movement of hip and knee. The abominable shoes, +with a tiny heel, with head no bigger than a dime, planted almost in +the middle of the foot, tilt the body forward in such a manner that it +becomes a miracle why ladies don’t pitch forward more often on their +noses. Besides, this abnormal elevation of the heel throws the whole +weight of the body on the ball and toe of the foot, causes a fearful +strain on the instep and the extensor muscles of the leg, and throws +all the posterior muscles of the calf and ankle out of use. + +[Illustration: OCTAVE.] + +Such being the case of affairs, my advice to a young lady commencing +to fence would be: Discard all the impedimenta and addenda, especially +the latter, with which you so successfully break “the continuity of +beauty’s lines and curves” on the street. Don a skirt of flannel, +velvet or tweed that is moderately heavy, _i. e._, heavy enough to stay +down without being weighted at the bottom with leads. The skirt should +be amply kilted or plaited to a good broad, strong band, which when +fastened round the waist should act the part of a man’s gymnasium belt. +The plaits, of course, should be made so that they open easily at the +bottom to allow the easy and rapid advance of the leg. The length may +be left to the good taste and judgment of the wearer, only don’t have +it made so long that when extended at your full length in the lunge +the skirt will trail round the heel of the rear foot, for if this is +the case you may be apt to step on the skirt as you recover to the “en +garde” position. + +Another style of dress much in vogue, and especially approved by ladies +of the theatrical profession, is the divided skirt. Any one who has +seen pretty Rosina Vokes in this costume will readily recognize that +when properly made and artistically managed it gives the greatest scope +for perfect freedom of action with the acme of grace in movement. But +the plain kilted skirt is the simpler and more natural garment, and I +recommend it to young ladies who practice fencing as an amusement and +occasionally cross foils with their brothers or their male friends. + +It is absolutely necessary that the upper portion of the figure should +be well supported, and for this purpose a short underwaist reaching +barely to the waistband of the skirt should be worn. This should be +made of some twilled or ribbed material and laced snugly down the +back, but should not contain whalebone or steel of any kind. I believe +they are known as corset-waists. The ordinary steel corsets extend too +low over the hips and are apt to be inconvenient when lunging. A good, +elastic, silk jersey is the very best thing for a waist. But let it +give ample room under the arms and across the chest. Many girls wear a +simple blouse or sailor jacket, and they are very serviceable; but the +jersey is preferable, inasmuch as it clings closely to the arm and the +foil is not so likely to get caught in the sleeve as is apt to happen +with a sailor-jacket sleeve. Let the throat be bare and wear no collar. +Nothing, in fact, that will come above the neck of the plastron, or +chest shield. Be shod with tennis shoes; they are better than high +boots, because they allow more play to the ankle. If leather soles are +worn it will be well to rub them liberally with some preparation that +will prevent the foot slipping. + +The accoutrements necessary are a plastron, or chest shield, mask, +gauntlets, and a foil. The plastron is generally of finely dressed +leather, quilted chamois leather, padded canvas or buckram. All these +equally serve their purpose, which is to protect the chest when +sharply struck with the button of the foil. They are made of various +thicknesses and weights. Those thickly quilted and cotton stuffed, of +course, insure perfect immunity from the blow, but they are ungainly, +heavy-looking coverings, and for ordinary practice, I think a stout +canvas or leather plastron will be found to be all that is required. +They slip over the shoulders on which the straps rest, are cut out +under the armpits, and are buckled at the back or side; if at the side, +better on the left. They should fit closely round the neck and lie +perfectly flat upon the chest. + +[Illustration: PRIME.] + +In choosing the gauntlets care should be taken to have the fingers, +and especially the thumbs, thoroughly well padded. They should be +perforated in the palm, and the wrist shield should be stiff and extend +half-way up to the elbow. The mask must fit easily and comfortably well +over the head and completely under the chin, protecting as much as +possible the throat as well. The foil should be of best tempered steel +and, for young girls particularly, as light as possible. The French +make the best fencing paraphernalia, and if a young lady wants to get +a thoroughly serviceable equipment, my advice would be to take counsel +with some experienced male fencing friend on the selection, or perhaps +better, to go to one of the leading _maitres d’armes_ and trust him to +get the complete outfit. One caution, and a most serious one I will +emphasize, which every fencer, young or old, expert or tyro, should +always bear in mind, and that is, _never use a foil until you have +thoroughly satisfied yourself that the button is firmly on the point_, +and that it is well covered. Negligence in this important particular +may risk life. I vividly recall an instance that occurred in the class +of Professor Angelo, of London, of which I was a member at the time. We +were awaiting the advent of our teacher, being, as boys are very apt to +be, a little before the appointed hour. Two of my classmates, donning +masks and gauntlets but no plastrons, took their foils and were soon +engaged in a furious bout, all the more earnest because of the keen +rivalry that existed between them. Both were fairly expert fencers, and +thrust and lunge and parry and feint succeeded with lightning rapidity. +Suddenly young C---- received his adversary’s foil full on the chest, +and with a sharp cry of anguish staggered backward, dropping his foil +and falling heavily into a chair: a ghastly pallor overspread his face +and a small red stream of blood trickled slowly from his parted lips. +We hurried to him and hastily divested him of waistcoat and shirt, +which we found stained with blood. We laid bare the chest and found a +nasty livid-looking puncture just above the nipple of the left breast. +The poor boy never spoke again, and before we could summon medical +aid he expired. The cause of this tragedy was found to be that his +opponent’s foil had lost its button; whether it was off before they +engaged or was knocked off during the bout could not be ascertained, +but the moral is easy to point. Never skylark with foils, broadswords +or single-sticks, unless you are thoroughly dressed and prepared for +the bout. + +The proper method of holding the foil, as well as the correct position +to assume, I quote from Mr. Van Schaick’s excellent article on fencing +which appeared in ~Outing~ for October, 1887: + +The body must be placed so as to present a profile to the adversary. +The right foot forward, the right arm half bent, with the elbow at the +distance of about ten inches from the body, the left foot some twenty +inches behind the right and at right angles to it. The knees bent, +the body erect and well poised on the hips, but a trifle more on the +left than on the right, so as not to interfere with the right leg +when “lunging.” The general position must be such that the shoulders, +the arms and the right leg will have the same direction towards the +adversary; the purpose is to cover the vital parts and facilitate the +lunge. The right arm, half bent, the wrist at the height of the breast, +and the point of the foil at that of the eye. The left hand must be at +the height of the head, the fingers well rounded, the thumb free. The +head erect, looking in the direction of the right shoulder. The eyes +fixed frankly on those of the adversary. The whole posture must be free +and easy. + +Advance takes place when the contestants are too far apart; retreat +when too near. In order to advance, carry the right foot forward +without in any way disturbing the position of the body or that of the +sword, and bring immediately the left foot within its proper distance +of the right (twenty inches). In order to retreat, carry the left foot +backwards without in any way disturbing the position of the body or +that of the sword, and bring immediately the right foot within its +proper distance of the left. + +The foil must be held so that the hand will take the direction of the +forearm, and the point of the blade will be at the height of the eye. +Hold the foil very firmly only when thrusting or parrying; if you +grasp it tightly during a bout of any length, the muscles of your hand +will become cramped and will prevent your handling the foil with the +necessary delicacy. + +The hand can assume three different positions when thrusting or +parrying. + +(1.) In _quarte_, where the palm is uppermost. + +(2.) In _tierce_, where the knuckles are uppermost. + +(3.) And in _six_, where the thumb is uppermost and the fingers are on +the left; this last position is also called _middling_. + +And to this article I refer all my young lady readers and fencers, but +recommend you, as he himself would, to go to a master first and study +his instructions as an aid to your maitre’s practical teaching. + +There are a number of excellent teachers of fencing in New York. Among +the best will be found Captain Nicholas, of the New York Fencers’ Club; +Mons. Regis Senac, of the New York Athletic Club; Mons. Tronchet, of +the Manhattan A. C., and Mons. Louis Rondell, of the Knickerbocker +Fencing Club. The last two named gentlemen are graduates of the +celebrated French Military Academy, at Joinville-les-Ponts, France, +the highest authority on this subject in the world. + +A last point I will make ere I close. Learn fencing, if for no other +reason, at least as an additional means of protection and self-defense +in case of a sudden emergency. + +Although you, my fair sisters, may not be called upon to defend +yourselves against the murderous attacks of drunken or lawless +ruffians, yet instances are on record where women have been compelled +literally to fight for the lives of themselves and their children. With +the knowledge and practical experience gained in the _salle d’armes_, +or the friendly bouts with foil and single-stick that helped to while +away a winter afternoon, they have been able to hold their own, nay, +even to come off victorious in a contest in which the stakes were life +against life. I remember an instance of such a nature which, when +told round the jovial mess-table, with clinking glasses and flashing +lights and bursts of jocund laughter, hushed every tongue and caused +the breath to come with panting gasps from breasts suffocating with +feelings of hatred and vengeance. + +A gay young subaltern returning to India after his first leave of +absence, brought with him a tall, fair flower of English girlhood, +gathered from a quiet vicarage away in Devonshire. Passing her life in +the free enjoyment of the glorious English air, taking long rambles +o’er fen and field and wold with her father, or joining in the more +hardy sports by flood and field when her brothers were home for the +holidays, she had built up a constitution that defied the weather +and had acquired a freedom of action, a superb grace of deportment +that would have been the envy of the sylvan Diana. She was a perfect +horsewoman, a capital shot with gun and pistol, and could give points +to most of her brothers at pool or billiards. Mrs. K---- had been well +drilled in fencing and single-stick practice, and was passionately fond +of the pastime; often after the early morning parade the young husband +would invite some one or other of his brother officers to their cool +bungalow veranda, where many a lusty bout was fought by the ardent +young swordswoman, while the happy husband laughed merrily at the +discomfiture of his warrior brothers. + +But this pleasant scene was soon to change. Rumors of the deadly mutiny +raging in Bengal were brought to the out-of-the-way cantonment. The +swarthy Punjaubees, who a month or two before had paraded so quietly +and calmly, and were so alert to obey orders, came now to drill or +stables with dogged step and sullen brow. + +It was an anxious time for every one. The officers were keenly alive +to the volcano on which they trod, yet dared not show any semblance +of fear or mistrust. All ammunition was carefully removed to the +mess-house, and the sabres and lances of the men (for Lieutenant +K----‘s was a cavalry regiment) were only issued for parade, when every +officer carried loaded revolvers and a goodly stock of cartridges. At +last, one morning, the regiment was paraded to attend the funeral of a +young officer who had sickened and died. The men had already drilled +that morning, and as they mustered for the funeral, ominous signs of +disorder and disaffection were rife. With heavy and anxious hearts the +little knot of officers gathered to perform the last sad rites to their +dead comrade. But they were destined never to complete their mournful +task. Just as the adjutant had formed the parade and the officers were +awaiting the coming of the colonel, at a given signal, preconcerted +doubtless, the entire regiment broke ranks and stampeded helter-skelter +over the parade-ground. + +The majority of the mutineers hurried to their huts, and gathering +together all their chattels decamped as soon as possible to join +the headquarters of insurgent sepoys. But a band of more desperate +characters, longing to steep their hands in English blood, and eager +to join their revolted brethren with the prestige born of some glaring +deed of butchery, hastened to the colonel’s residence, where the only +two ladies of the regiment were known to be. Most of the officers +were at the bungalow of their deceased comrade, which was situated on +the opposite side of the parade-ground. The adjutant and the officers +on parade retreated, immediately on the outbreak, to the mess-house, +which had been prepared for defense in anticipation of just such an +occurrence. The colonel, coming from the orderly room, took in the +status of affairs and hastened to join the mess-house defenders. + +In the meanwhile the ladies had been watching the forming of the +parade from the colonel’s private smoking den, where there was +littered in truly masculine chaos the thousand and one articles with +which a keen sportsman and soldier loves to surround himself--a well +selected battery of rifles and shotguns, half a dozen pig spears, +a varied and choice assortment of hunting-knives, powder-flasks, +bullet moulds, rods and whips, and crops of all descriptions were +everywhere. Hanging in a little more order and by themselves were the +colonel’s military accoutrements, a couple of cavalry sabres, a pair +of pistols, an old sabretache, and an extra set of bits and bridles. +The ladies gazing out from this sportsman’s snuggery saw with a thrill +of horror the stampede, witnessed the hurried retreat of the officers +to the mess-bungalow, and before their dazed senses realized the awful +catastrophe saw some half-dozen yelling sowars making for the house in +which they were. The colonel’s wife, perceiving the peril with which +they were threatened, uttered one piercing shriek and fell fainting on +the floor. But young Mrs. K. was made of sterner stuff. She, too, saw +the danger, but it stirred her to action: Self-reliant and heroic by +nature, she rose grandly to the occasion. No help was to be expected +from the servants. Peons, kitmutgar, syces and chokras all had fled. +But not a moment was to be lost. As she dashed frantically to the +entrance, and as she closed and bolted the teak doors, she heard +menaces that chilled the very marrow in her bones. She flew to every +window and barred the blinds--poor weak defenses at best!--yet the +breaking of them would gain a moment’s respite for her to prepare for +the attack. She then retreated to the room in which the colonel’s wife +still lay as she had fallen. There was no time to care for her. Mrs. +K. took down the heavy cavalry pistols and ascertained with delight +that they were loaded. She next drew the heavy barrack-table in front +of her fallen friend and facing the door. Placing the pistols at hand +on the table, she took down from a peg on the wall the mask with +head protector used for broadsword exercise, and as she adjusted the +cumbrous thing over her bonny waves of golden hair, she thought sadly +of the pleasant bouts she had had with the bluff old gentleman whose +property it was, and how the gallant soldier would puff and blow in his +attempts to make good his cranium against the blows which she rained +with lightning rapidity on each exposed point. + +Heavy blows on door and windows cut short her meditations, and +selecting the lighter of the two sabres (made more to wear at dress +parades or levées than actual warfare) the brave girl took up her +position behind the table. The fiends did not keep her waiting long. +The stout old veranda chairs, hurled with the force of battering rams +by the strong arms of the now thoroughly infuriated natives, soon +wrenched the door from its hinges, and with a thundering crash it fell +inwards, creating havoc with the dainty little tables, with their +delicate bric-a-brac. She heard the exulting shout of the troopers and +the tramp of their heavy boots as they scoured the house in search of +their intended victims. With dauntless mien and white lips the young +wife grasped the pistol, and with one short muttered prayer for him she +loved, awaited the supreme moment. A rush--a heavy thud as of bodies +hurled against the door--a smashing of wood, and four burly sowars +tumbled headlong into the room. As the first sepoy with a horrid oath +picked himself hastily up, Mrs. K.’s pistol was discharged within a +dozen feet of the would-be murderer’s breast, and with a choking sob +the ruffian fell backwards. Instantly catching up the second weapon +she fired at the advancing trio. Another howl of anguish told that +the true ball found fatal lodgment. She seized her sabre as the table +was overturned, and found herself hotly assailed by the two surviving +troopers. Skillfully she parried the savage onslaught. With the rage +of baffled demons they plied her with a perfect hailstorm of blows +regardless of method or science. Some she eluded by her activity, some +she caught on the frail blade she wielded, and she felt that some had +wounded her on arm and side. She grew faint and dizzy--a black mist +spread before her darkening eyes. She staggered--reeled--and fell +upon the still unconscious form of Mrs. P. A hoarse shout from behind +arrested the murderers. They turned one moment. It was their last. A +couple of pistol-shots rang out, and the assassins fell dead on the +bodies of their antagonist. + +The rescue is easily explained. When the officers perceived the +attack was meant for the colonel’s house, and that the mess-house was +comparatively safe, the colonel, adjutant, and a couple of others +rushed after the attacking mutineers, and arrived in time to turn the +tables on the dastardly cowards. The whole affray, assault, defense, +and vengeance, was enacted in less moments than it takes to read the +account. Mrs. K. recovered after long months of illness, and is now +living among the scenes of her childhood. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +SPORT--PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. + +BY ALEXANDER HUNTER. + + +PART II. + +For four years the game in Virginia, all undisturbed, increased and +multiplied at an astonishing rate. There was no shot to be had in +the Confederacy, and the only way an ardent sportsman, when home on +furlough, could take a shy at the game, was to hammer out from a leaden +bullet long, square blocks, and then cutting off the ends with a knife, +to use a brick to roll these bits on the floor until each pellet became +round enough for use. It would take a man a day, and exhaust all his +patience, to make one pound of shot; and he would naturally be very +chary about using his ammunition, and rarely pull a trigger except +when certain of his game. In most sections of Virginia to fire a gun +was a dangerous pastime, for what with raids, irruptions, incursions +and forays, the people were in a state of siege, and the report of +a firearm was as likely as not to be followed by a bullet from some +traveling soldier, prowling bushwhacker, or passing cavalryman, thrown +just for good luck in the direction of the sound. Then, if it should +happen that a raid was in progress, the shot would attract the +videttes and scouts, and the luckless gunner would find himself in +hostile hands; and if too old or too young for military service, he +might consider himself lucky if he were allowed to depart minus his +fowling-piece and dog. + +In the mountains of Virginia the wild turkeys were more numerous than +they ever were before, the various bivouacs furnishing them in winter +with an ample supply of food, while, best of all, they were allowed to +feed unmolested. The water-fowl on the Potomac kept up their ratio of +increase, for except the officers of the gunboats patrolling up and +down the river, none dared to fire a gun. There were hunters of men in +those times scattered along the banks, as well as floating on the bosom +of the blue water. The explosion of a sportsman’s gun, and its smoke, +might serve as an admirable target for the boatswain of an iron-clad +with a crew nearly dead with listlessness and _ennui_, and glad to get +an excuse to blaze away at anything. + +In the fall of 1865, those Virginians who loved sporting, and had the +good luck to return to the homes of their youth with their arms and +legs intact, had a rare and royal time among the fur and feather, and +a moderate shot would return in the evening and show such a bag as +the result of the day’s sport as would last the family for a week. A +couple of sportsmen living about ten miles from Culpeper Court House, +Virginia, killed, in one day, eighty-four rabbits and fourteen wild +turkeys. If a gunner can start even half a dozen cotton-tails now in +a long day’s tramp he considers himself fortunate, and he won’t see +a wild turkey in a season’s shooting. I well remember a hunt that I +had in the autumn of 1865, just after the war ended. It was a perfect +day in November, with the morning mists still hanging around the +tree-tops. I had borrowed a double-barrel from one friend, and a good, +staunch pointer named “Josh” from another. I climbed the fence of an +orchard, and put the dog out in a huge field near Warrenton Junction, +where portions of both armies had often encamped. Josh had not gone +seventy-five yards before he came to a dead stand, and with beating +heart I advanced and hied him on. As the birds rose I let fly both +barrels, and--did not touch a feather! Loading up, I again sent Josh +careering over the stubble. In ten minutes he had pointed a covey, and +I again emptied the gun with the same result as before. If ever a dog’s +face expressed contempt Josh’s was surely the one. His dewlaps curled +up, and he absolutely showed his teeth, whether in anger or derision +I never found out. The third time I approached a covey that Josh +had cornered in a big patch of briers, and two more loads were sent +harmless as Macbeth’s sword “cutting the intrenchant air.” This was +enough for that disgusted dog. He sneaked off, and I never laid my eyes +upon him again. + +It was no great matter, the birds were so plentiful that I had merely +to walk up and down the field, and I banged away most lustily. All in +vain! I could not touch one. I fired with both eyes open, then with +one shut, and still no partridge lingered on that account. I became +superstitious and fired with both eyes shut. I doubled the charges, +until I swept that meadow with leaden pellets, as a field is cleared +by grape-shot. But there were no dead. At last, in my despair, I would +shoot even if the bird was half a mile off. I went home that evening, +after shooting away about ten pounds of shot, with one solitary +partridge in my game-bag, and this bird, when I flushed him suddenly, +was so scared that he flew from the edge of the field across a fence +and against the trunk of a black-jack tree with such force as to knock +himself silly, and before he could hustle himself away I had jumped the +fence and wrung his neck. + +[Illustration: SHOOTING OVER DECOYS.] + +There was apparently enough fur and feather in Virginia just after the +war to supply the whole of America with small game, but in one decade +the state of the case was completely altered. First came the invention +of the breech-loader, which enables one to shoot all day without +intermission. The game stood but little chance against these machines +of perpetual destruction. But worse even than the breech-loader was +the old army musket, loaded with a handful of shot, with a lately +enfranchised freedman behind the big end of it. The darkey is a +nocturnal prowler, as much so as a ’coon or ’possum, and his prowls +through meadow, woods and fallow cause him frequently to stumble on the +wary turkey that forgets his cunning as he struts around preparatory +to flying to his roost, generally a dead limb on a lofty tree. He +bags many a molly cotton-tail loping down the road to get his evening +drink at the branch. But it is when “our friend and brother” catches +sight, in the shades of the evening, of a flock of partridges settling +in some field for their night’s rest, that he becomes dangerous. It +is then that the old army musket is converted into a terror, and when +its muzzle bears upon the whole covey squatted in a space that can be +covered by a bandana handkerchief, and its contents are turned loose, +every bird will be either killed or crippled. + +[Illustration: RED-HEAD DUCKS AT HOME.] + +The freedman’s musket, battered and patched though it be, must look +down upon the handsome, resplendent breechloader as a great orator +does upon the garrulous, loquacious youth who talks upon every subject +at any time, and at any length, while he only opens his mouth to make +knock-down arguments, or to utter words of great import that thrill +and convince. When the reverberating roar of that old A. M. was heard, +it was safe to bet that something that did not come from the barnyard +would fill the shooter’s iron pot that night. + +A weather-beaten old darkey said to me once: “It dun cos’ me nearly +five cents to load that air musket, countin’ powder, caps, shot and +everythin’, an’ I ain’t gwine to let er off ’less I knows I’se sartin +to make by de shot.” + +The baybird-shooting in the summer, and the duck-shooting outside +the Virginia capes, was at its zenith some fifteen years ago. Then, +too, the canvas-back, that king of water-fowl, before whose name the +gourmand bows in homage, still lingered in the tributaries of the +Chesapeake Bay, but now it is nearly extinct. A sportsman may gun for +a whole winter in the bay and not kill half a dozen “canvas-backs,” +but, if a good shot over the decoys, he can count on the kind known as +the “red-head”--and if he knew how to pull out a few feathers, as does +the professional pot-hunter, he could easily follow that gentleman’s +example and sell them at fancy figures for “canvas-backs,” which in +another decade will be as utterly annihilated as the dodo. Still, great +is the culinary _chef’s_ art, and if he can, by the magic power of his +sauces, herbs and seasonings, pass calf’s head off for green turtle, +and the skillpot for diamond-back terrapin stew, then nobody is hurt. +His patrons enjoy it just the same, and to the average man the red-head +duck tastes as well with his champagne as its incomparable relative. + +[Illustration: POTOMAC SHOOTING--OLD STYLE.] + +[Illustration: ROBIN-SNIPE.] + +Fifteen years ago--even ten years--many an amateur would pack his trunk +with ammunition, and taking steamer for Old Point Comfort, disembark +there, and after a few hours’ wait at the Hygeia Hotel, proceed on his +way to the eastern shore of Virginia by crossing the Chesapeake Bay. +Or he would go outside the capes, and stop at Cape Charles, or Cobb’s +Island. Once at his objective point, he could be certain in the right +season of having his fill of shooting every day at the baybirds. +They were so plentiful that all along the Virginia Broadwater every +oyster-bar or mud-flat would be covered with them, and all the shooter +would have to do would be to make a blind out of sea-grass, place +his decoys around him, and then try his hand on singles, doubles and +flocks, striking them on the turn, while a hundred pair of yellow-legs, +or willet, would not be considered anything out of the way. As it is +now--well, the finest shot in the country could not kill that many +snipe in a week, simply because they are not there to kill. The vast +flocks of robin-snipe that tarried in their migrations along the +shores of the Chesapeake and the Broadwater of the Atlantic coast have +entirely disappeared. The curlew still haunt their favorite places, +but have become so wary that neither blind nor decoys can lure them, +except, indeed, at the earliest dawn of day, before their eyes are +wide open. Half a dozen curlew, between sunrise and sunset, in the +blinds, is something for a sportsman to be proud of, for no crow is +keener-eyed, more suspicious, and keeps a sharper lookout than these +birds. Fifteen years ago I have often killed from thirty to fifty from +sun to sun, at Smith Island or Cape Charles, but now one has to load +his shell with No. 3 shot to bring down the high-circling, distrustful +curlew. + +The willet is still fairly plentiful. They lay their eggs and rear +their young in the neighboring sea-meadows, and though preyed upon by +crabs, snakes and raccoons from the time the egg is laid until the bird +is able to fly, they still hold their own. They are such sociable birds +that whenever a flock of snipe is fired into, one of the dead is almost +certain to be a willet. + +The ox-eye, another variety of the snipe family, is found in abundance +on the shores and sea-meadows, and they owe their preservation, like +the sandpipers, to their insignificant size. There are no birds in +existence that keep so close together when on the wing as these +ox-eyes. A large flock resembles a solid mass, and dire is the +destruction that a double-barrel makes as it pours forth its contents +of No. 8 shot at point-blank distance and strikes them on the turn. I +asked old Nathan Cobb, of Cobb’s Island, which is outside the Virginia +capes--a pot-hunter of half a century’s experience, who has grown +independent from the proceeds of his gun--what was the greatest number +of snipe he had ever killed by one discharge of his double-barrel. + +[Illustration: POTOMAC SHOOTING--NEW STYLE.] + +“Wal,” said Nathan, with his Eastern Shore drawl, “I was out gunning +one spring, about thirty years ago, and had a No. 8 muzzle-loader that +would hold comfortably six ounces of shot. I ran in on a solid acre of +robin-snipe on the beach, and fired one load raking them as they fed, +giving them the other barrel as they rose. I picked up three hundred +and two.” + +I next asked him the greatest number of brant he had ever killed in one +day over the decoys, with single shots. + +“I bagged,” he answered, “about ten years ago, one hundred and seventy +brant, and nearly every one of them was a single shot.” + +I can easily believe this, for I have shot in blinds with many +sportsmen, at redhead, shufflers, black duck and brant, and I never yet +saw amateur, professional, or pot-hunter, whose aim was so unerring +and deadly at the flying ducks as Nathan Cobb’s. I do not believe this +score has ever been beaten in this country. + +At the present day this same story of the disappearance of the +waterfowl on the Virginia coast and along the Capes becomes dreary from +repetition. It does not pay the sportsman to go to Cobb’s Island now. +I spent three seasons there in the winter, during the “Eighties,” and +found that the brant were so wild that they would not stool. Then I +went to Cape Charles, just outside the Capes, and, though it is a most +inaccessible place, the brant would not come near the decoys. + +Two winters ago, I tried Currituck Sound, and found palatial +club-houses open all about that noble sheet of water. Some of these +houses are so splendid in appointment that when you glance around the +elegantly furnished rooms, with their damask curtains, Brussels carpets +and open grates where the anthracite is piled high, it is impossible +to imagine that just outside roll the dark waters of the Sound, while +miles upon miles of barren sea-meadows, marshes and swamp separate the +house from civilization. All of these club-houses are owned by Northern +men--rich in world’s gear, of course--men who count their incomes by +thousands, where ordinary bread-winners of the professions count their +earnings by tens. Think of having in the magazine of a club-house +thirty thousand dollars in guns! Gordon Cumming, starting for a ten +years’ game hunt in the jungles of Africa, or Stanley, setting out to +fight his way through the “Dark Continent,” with countless hordes of +savage “Wawangi” disputing his passage, never had that amount invested +in weapons--and all to kill the wary geese and swift-flying ducks. + +Even with such perfection of outfit--with guns of every imaginable +make from the 12 to the 4 bore, and trained gunners to oversee every +arrangement, the clubmen were talking gloomily about the sport fast +deteriorating. Pot-hunters, “duck pirates,” countrymen, freedmen--all +who lived or robbed along the shores of the Sound had their shy at the +ducks, day in and night out, and such a fusillade was never heard since +Burnside stormed and carried Roanoke Island, some miles below, in the +glinting spring days of 1862. I found good enough sport on the private +point of a friend who lived on a large farm by the shores of the Sound. +Still the birds were thinning rapidly. + +Last winter’s experience with Currituck made me determine never to go +to that spot again for sport. I do not think I overstate matters when +I say that wildfowl-shooting on the finest grounds in the world is +doomed. Gone are the vast flocks, decimated are the swans and geese +that were so plentiful in certain localities even three short years +ago, and indigo blue are the rich sportsmen who quaff their champagne +in silence and puff moodily at their twenty-five cent cigars as they +think of the meagre bags they have made, and how matters, now so bad, +are always getting worse, thereby proving the old saw which saith +“Nothing can be so bad that it cannot be made worse.” The club men +should, however, be glad that the snipe will always be with them. + +For keen trading, guileless equivocation and general deviltry commend +me to the “cracker” of the North Carolina Coast. He could discount +the Jersey Yankee upstairs and down-stairs. The typical specimen is +slab-sided and always thin; I never met a fat one yet. Their complexion +shows that they have wrestled for years with “chills,” and their cheeks +are as yellow as a newly-pulled gourd; they drawl in their speech, +look at you with half-shut eyes, are afraid of neither man nor devil, +have no hero-worship in their composition, and are as familiar with +the captain of a yacht as with the roustabout. They are as keen as a +brier, despite their listless, indifferent air, and to them more than +any other cause is due the extermination of the wild fowl in Currituck +Sound. They cleaned out the wild geese by setting steel traps on the +bars. What they did not catch they frightened away. + +Mr. William Palmer, the superintendent of the Palmer Island Club, +states, moreover, that the number of sportsmen who come to Currituck +to shoot has increased twenty-five per cent., while the natives have +crowded the Sound with their blinds, and every male “cracker” who can +hold a gun straight is on the watch. + +It is true that there are stringent State Laws against the illegal +killing of wild fowl, and also a close season. If these rules were +enforced there would be first-class shooting in Currituck Sound for +years to come, but the laws seem to be completely ignored; there is not +even a pretense of observing them. The law makes a strong provision +against a gun being fired at a duck after sunset, but there are numbers +of murderous, greedy natives who have their skiffs hid in the woods and +swamps in which are the huge ducking guns already referred to. Every +hour during the night can be heard the sullen boom of these swivels +floating across the waters, and the true sportsman, as he listens to +the echoing roar, can only grind his teeth with rage, for he knows +what a slaughter is going on, and how the survivors will take wing and +abandon the Sound for good and all. + +But the worst remains to be told. As if steel traps and big guns were +not enough to destroy the wild fowl, the ingenious natives make fires +on the banks of the creeks that run through the marshes, and, as +the ducks float in ricks up to the illuminated waters, the ambushed +assassin gets in his deadly work. Unless the sportsmen who own the +club-houses on the Sound, by concerted action and vast outlay, can +prosecute the offenders, then “Othello’s occupation’s gone.” + +My own idea is that these clubs are too exclusive. They should make it +a point to cultivate the _entente cordiale_ with the sportsmen of the +State of North Carolina, and thus, by gaining their co-operation, they +could induce the State authorities to take stringent action against +the law-breakers. Unless this is done the sporting code will remain a +dead letter as far as Currituck is concerned. The people shrug their +shoulders when the subject is mentioned and say, “Those fancy Northern +sportsmen don’t want a North Carolinian to kill a North Carolina duck +in North Carolina waters,” and so on, and so on. Had I the arranging +and the forming of a game protective association of the club men in +Currituck, I would extend a pressing and standing invitation to every +member of the Legislature and every officer of the State Government to +make the club-houses their own, and the Governor and his staff should +be kidnapped every winter, and be made to enjoy the gilt-edge sport of +the “Yankee” clubs. + +Seeing in a State paper that the Light-house Board intended to abandon +the Pamlico (N. C.) Light-house, I applied to the Treasury Department +to turn it over to me for a “shooting box.” This was done, and I hope +to have some good sporting in the future. + +Southward the sportsmen must make their way, and find more inaccessible +spots than Currituck to establish club-houses. This being the case, the +topography and charts of the regions lying south of Currituck become +interesting to the handlers of the gun. Four miles across the mainland +is that grand sheet of water, the Albemarle Sound, some fifteen miles +wide. Though this sound cannot compare with Currituck for the number +and variety of its waterfowl in past years, at the present time it is +filled with the birds that have been driven by night-shooting away from +Currituck to find safer quarters there. Undoubtedly there will, in the +next few years, be erected many club-houses in Albemarle Sound. Some +twelve miles as the crow flies across the peninsula, another sheet of +water is encountered. This is the Crotan Sound, apparently of about the +area of Currituck. There is an abundance of waterfowl here, and but +few, if any, club-houses, which will, however, soon follow. + +Ten miles southward, across a swampy, barren pine country, there +appears the largest and grandest sound of all, the Pamlico. I have +no data to furnish the exact size, but the steamer travels over 100 +miles before it arrives at Pamlico Point light, at the spot where the +Pamlico River enters the Sound. Here is the home and haunt of the swan, +and, as they have been but comparatively little hunted, they furnish +fine sport to those who have their own yachts and plenty of time. +There are no spots at Currituck that can afford more exciting sport +or show a greater abundance of all kinds of waterfowl than Pamlico +Point, Porpoise Point, about five miles distant, or Brant Island, some +twelve miles away. The inaccessibility of the place prevents the shore +pot-hunters from disturbing the game, and the “duck murderer,” with his +night-shooting, has not yet put in an appearance. + +The water of Pamlico Sound is neutral to the taste; sometimes fresh, +again decidedly saline, but, for most of the time, it is simply +brackish. This condition arises from the fact that the Neuse and +Pamlico Rivers pour fresh waters into its area, while New Hatteras +and Oregon inlets and Core Sound admit the salt waters of the ocean. +This mixture of fresh, brackish and salt waters in a common receptacle +naturally attracts every variety of waterfowl. The red-head and +shuffler haunt the mingling of the fresh-water rivers with the Sound +waters, while the black duck, mallard, and that king of aquatic birds, +the gamest of all--the brant, stay in the vicinity of Oregon Inlet. +In my opinion, within a few years Pamlico Sound is destined to be the +greatest sporting-ground in the country, and the costly and expensive +club-houses at Currituck will be discounted by the new ones at Pamlico +Sound. + +How long it will be before the breech-loader in the hands of the +natives and the swivel gun, killing in the night, will drive the wild +fowl out of that extensive region is a question that none can answer. +Many sportsmen who have been forced southward and still southward +during the past years in quest of game hope that Pamlico Sound will +furnish winter sport to last them at least the balance of their days. + +[Illustration] + + + + +MR. PERKER’S BEAR; OR, MR. BEAR’S PERKER? + +BY PRESIDENT BATES. + + +Since his marriage with Effie Cameron, Mr. Perker has greatly improved +in many respects. In his attire, his wheel, and his general style, Mr. +Perker still retains his proud pre-eminence as the pink of fashion of +the club. Taken all in all, he is the nattiest wheelman that ever sat +on a saddle. But now it is a chastened and refined glory. The little +“loudness,” indicative of an ambition soaring after effects not quite +attainable, which formerly marred Mr. Perker’s brilliancy at times, has +given place to a subdued chasteness, suggesting that he could be still +more elegant if a rival should appear. Plainly he exhibits evidences of +being toned by feminine taste. + +Mr. Perker still clings fondly to his bicycle gun, but nowadays he +keeps it in the barn. Mrs. Effie will not permit it to be brought +into the house. I mention this for the tranquilization of visiting +wheelmen, so that they need not hesitate to accept an invitation to +one of the elegant lunches with which Mrs. Effie is wont to regale +the club and its guests on occasions. And pilgrim wheelmen, who have +read ~Outing~ in former years, do not need to be assured that +Mrs. Effie Perker is an altogether charming hostess, and one of the +prettiest and most warm-hearted Scotchwomen that ever made a home happy. + +Former readers of ~Outing~ also know that Mr. Perker’s +remarkable dog, Smart, gave promise in his puppyhood of becoming one +of the most intelligent animals in the country. In fact, he achieved +wide notoriety in his early career. He is now famous for sagacity and +accumulated wisdom. As a bicycle hunting dog he is not only peerless, +but the founder of a new race--bicycle hunting dogs--a species of dog +not hitherto known; and several clubs have obtained specimens of his +progeny. + +When Mr. Perker was required by the firm to whose interests he +devotes his talents to visit a settlement upon the northern coast of +Lake Michigan, upon business that would occupy him for two or three +weeks, he determined to take with him his dog, his bicycle gun and +his wheel. Mrs. Perker protested mildly; but yielded sweetly upon +hearing Mr. Perker’s solemn promise not to hunt wildcats. For a woman +whose girlhood was spent in the frontier wilds of Canada, Mrs. Perker +entertains a singular apprehension of wildcats--all on Mr. Perker’s +account. Of course, he is a hero in her wifely estimation; but she +does not consider him a wildcat hero. And she has very little faith in +Mr. Perker’s bicycle gun, or in the tried courage and sagacity of Mr. +Perker’s dog Smart, as against wildcats. She mingled with the packing +of Mr. Perker’s clean linen a loving remonstrance against hunting +wildcats; and she mixed with Mr. Perker’s toothbrush and razor a tender +warning against being led by “that fool, Smart,” into danger. Mr. +Perker solemnly promised, with his parting kiss, to take good care of +himself. And he meant it. + +When Mr. Perker left the city, in Southern Michigan, the spring was +well advanced. The roads had dried and were ridable, while the trees +were beginning to show yellow-green buds. When, however, he arrived +in the Northern woods, the snow still lingered in patches in the dim +shades of the pine and hemlock forests, and ice clung to the shores +of the lake. The rivers and brooks had cleared themselves, but were +still in spring flood. The sharp frosts at night were followed by warm, +sunny days, and occasionally by a day that remained cold enough not to +melt the surface frost. There was no chance to ride except along the +lake shore, where the sloping sands had frozen smoothly and were firm +when their surface was unmelted. At various distances from the shore, +generally ten to thirty rods, ice-banks, in some places twenty feet +high, had formed in the shoal water, from great fields of drifting +ice being driven upon the coast by the winter gales, and breaking and +piling up their shore edges. Between the ice-banks and the shore sands +the ice was reasonably flat, with a top surface of roughly frozen snow. +Wherever a swollen river discharged into the lake, its freshet had cut +an open channel through the flat ice and through the ice-banks, though +the ice-banks still furnished bridges by which to cross the channels of +the smaller streams. + +At that season of the year there was little hunting, for most game +was protected by the game-laws. To be sure the open spaces of water +were visited by flocks of wild fowl flying northward, and there were +rabbits in the woods, and of them Mr. Perker bagged a few. But, as of +old, his hunter’s soul longed for larger game, and only his solemn +promise to Effie prevented his joining the settlers in their wildcat +hunting. There were wolves in the woods--large gray wolves. But it +requires good hunting to get sight of one of these wary prowlers; and +Mr. Perker had not the time to take long tramps into the swamps where +they kept their lairs. The bears had also come out from their winter +sleep, and almost every day Mr. Perker heard of their slaughter. But +bears require skilled hunting, unless one happens upon a specimen by +accident. If there was any one thing more than another that Mr. Perker +longed for it was a bear. He ached for the glory of killing a bear. A +bearskin, captured by his own hand, would elevate him several degrees +in the estimation of the club and would greatly enhance the reputation +of his bicycle gun. But the days of his sojourn in the wilderness were +waning fast, and an encounter with a real live bear still remained the +thing “he long had sought and mourned because he found it not,” as the +hymn-book feelingly remarks. What made his disappointment more bitter +was the fact that everybody in the settlement freely conceded that +Smart undoubtedly possessed all the faculties and qualities of a good +bear dog, except that of finding a bear. Smart, with his master, had +made the acquaintance of every dead bear brought into the settlement, +but the live bears perversely avoided his distinguished society. + +Bears have provokingly peculiar ways. When you arm yourself with +rifle, axe, knife and dog, and go hunting expressly for bear society, +every bear in the woods hangs out a sign, “not at home,” and declines +to be interviewed. When you particularly prefer not to be disturbed +in your solitude, as your gun is at home, and you forgot to bring +either axe or knife, and your dog is a mile off, rushing around after +fugacious rabbits, then is the time that the largest and savagest, and +most impudent of all bears is most apt to thrust himself upon your +attention, with alarming indications of begging for a chew. + +Mr. Perker had reached the last day of his stay in the settlement. It +was a fine but cold Sunday. There was a moderate northwest wind swaying +the dull evergreen tree-tops and ruffling the gray-blue waters of the +lake, but in the woods and along the shore, sheltered by the bordering +pines and hemlocks, the air was still and just cool enough not to melt +the surface of the frozen sand. Five miles up the shore lived a man +with whom Mr. Perker had done business for the firm. Mr. Perker desired +to call upon him once more, not really on business, but to show him +attention and leave a good impression. This man had a thirteen-year-old +boy who, during a visit to a city the previous summer, had seen cowboys +perform in a circus, and this had fired his youthful spirit with +ambition to lasso something. Mr. Perker thought to win the heart--and +custom--of the father by making the boy a present of a lasso. To this +end he bought a suitable rope, thirty-six feet long. On one end he had +a sailor make a Turk’s-head knot, to prevent its slipping through the +grasp. On the other end was the lasso loop. But, lest the ambitious +youth should accidentally strangle his younger brother, or his father’s +favorite calf or pig, the sailor put a knot in the rope so that the +loop could close sufficiently to hold but not to choke. The rope was +stretched and limbered with oil and wax, making it a very good lasso +for a boy, and strong enough to hold a mule. + +Mr. Perker would not go a-hunting on Sunday--he never did. There was, +however, no service till evening, so he determined to ride along the +beach on his wheel, make the visit, return in time for the service, +and start for home on Monday morning. He coiled the lasso and tied it +with a thread, so that he could easily carry it on the head of his +wheel, and though he did not take his bicycle gun, Smart, of course, +accompanied him. The beach sand proved hard and moderately smooth, so +that the riding was fair. He was in good spirits, having succeeded well +in his business, and at peace with the world, and had no thought of +seeing game of any kind. + +He had gone nearly half-way, and was riding quietly and comfortably +along, minding his own business, when he was startled by seeing a large +bear come out of the woods, ahead of him, and walk down to the shore, +where it turned and went leisurely forward, evidently not having seen +him. + +Smart, as was his habit, was--very sagaciously--somewhere else when +he was wanted to put himself in danger. If Smart had reasoned that +he did not know that his master would meet a bear but, in case his +master should meet a bear, it would be a great deal safer for him to +be absent, he could not have acted with shrewder wisdom. At that +moment he was a quarter of a mile behind in the woods, enjoying +himself greatly, trying to ram himself down a woodchuck’s hole, at the +bottom of which, his wise nose informed him, a woodchuck either was or +recently had been. He was sternly resolved to have that woodchuck out, +if it took all day. So now and then he would pull out his head to bark, +by way of signaling his master for help, and then ram it down the hole +again, so that the woodchuck couldn’t get out without running down his +yawning throat. + +In the absence of Smart, Mr. Perker conceived a brilliant scheme for +the capture of the bear. He would lasso the beast, and then call Smart, +whom he supposed to be somewhere close at hand. So breaking the thread +that kept the coils of the rope together, he opened the loop, slipped +the knotted end under his right thigh, and drew it around the saddle +behind him, holding the knot in his left hand, and then pedaled rapidly +toward the unconscious and innocent forest monarch, the rubber-tired +wheel making no noise. As he was an excellent rider, he could have done +this without using either hand; but he kept his left hand, with the +knotted end of the lasso in it, upon the handle-bar. + +He was almost upon the bear, stealing silently upon his prey, when the +bear caught a glimpse of him over his shoulder. Instantly the bear +wheeled about, reared upon his hind legs, exhibited a frightfully open +countenance and spread claws, at least three inches long, in a way that +betokened a warm welcome. At the same time every hair on the animal’s +body seemed to bristle with fury, and it snarled in a blood-curdling +baritone voice, which would have made a fortune for an opera star +villain. + +Mr. Perker was not entirely prepared for this reception. It had not +occurred to him that his advances toward a familiar acquaintance would +be met in that way. He hastily concluded not to intrude. But not having +his right hand upon the handle-bar, in a position to put down the +break, it was a great deal easier to wish to stop than to accomplish +it. Therefore, he simply stood on the pedals, and they pitched him +headlong over the handles, right at the bear, like heaving a bag of +bran off a wagon. + +It was now the bear’s turn to be astonished. He had not calculated +upon any such method of assault. He was prepared for a fair fight; but +he wasn’t used to having men thrown at him, all doubled up in a wad. +“Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves shall never tremble.” +But _that_ shape!--well, he was the scaredest bear probably ever seen +upon the coast of Lake Michigan. He was so scared that he didn’t have +presence of mind enough to run into the woods; but, with a loud snort +of panic, he scattered the frozen sand straight down the beach. + +In falling Mr. Perker somehow gave the lasso loop such a flirt that it +went over the head of the bear and drew about his neck, when he started +to run. Mr. Perker did not intend to do it, and the bear ought not +to have laid it up against Mr. Perker. It was purely an accident--a +liberty with a stranger that Mr. Perker would not have taken under +such circumstances, if he could have helped it. In fact he couldn’t +have lassoed a bear by the neck if the bear hadn’t been surprised by +his header, for a bear on guard is as practiced a boxer as can be +found, and one can no more get a noose about his neck than one can +over a man’s neck with his hands and arms free to fend it off. As it +was, however, the bear was caught; and, as he ran, the knot of the +rope caught under the bicycle saddle, and that machine was dragged, +rattling, bounding, banging and glittering after the flying brute, +adding to his panic, like a tin-pan tied to a dog’s tail. + +Mr. Perker scrambled to his feet quicker than he ever did before in his +life. His first instinctive impulse was to ascertain if he was still +alive, with none of his members missing. Having discovered that he was +all there, his next impulse was to run after his beloved wheel, which +he did, shouting like a lunatic for “Smart! Smart!” This did not tend +to lessen the fright, nor diminish the speed of the bear--quite the +contrary. + +About twenty rods ahead a small brook had cut a channel through the +flat ice with its spring flood, but the ice-banks were still intact a +dozen rods from the shore, compelling the outflowing flood to find a +channel beneath them. When Mr. Perker first formed the scheme to lasso +the bear he had counted upon this open water to stop the animal in +case he ran that way. Now he expected the bear to either turn into the +woods or else go around the open mouth of the brook on the ice-bank. +But, as may be guessed, Mr. Perker was not familiar with bears. This +bear, frightened half out of his wits by the bicycle clattering at his +heels at the end of the rope, didn’t turn at the brook. On the contrary +he plunged into it and swam across, no doubt with the notion that his +mysterious pursuer could be stopped by the icy water. Clambering out on +the ice on the opposite side, as soon as he got the length of the rope +from the brink the bicycle caught under the ice and anchored him. This +the more easily because the ice upon which he stood was glassy smooth +from the recent overflow, and gave his claws no hold, let him strain, +and yank, and dig in his toes and swear as savagely as he might. + +Seeing this Mr. Perker hurried faster and shouted louder, doing his +best to get around the end of the open channel by way of the ice-bank. +He was afraid that the rope would break or be gnawed off and let his +beloved wheel sink where the water was probably twenty feet deep. +Coming around the head of the channel, he ran along the edge of the +ice to get between the bear and the water, and haul up the bicycle. +If he could recover his wheel he would be willing to let the bear +go. Meanwhile he kept shouting for Smart. On his approach the bear +redoubled his efforts to break away, but in vain. Mr. Perker reached +the spot and managed to loosen his wheel from its hold under the ice by +pulling on its handle-bar. It naturally came up out of the water with a +jerk that upset Mr. Perker with great violence, jamming one of his feet +between the spokes as he fell. + +The bear now set off again, plunging and snarling, this time toward the +woods, only a hundred feet away, dragging Mr. Perker by the foot, flat +on his back. In hopes of stopping the procession, Mr. Perker flopped +over upon his breast, and tried to dig his hands into the ice. No go. +He only skinned his hands. As he struck the rougher ice it felt hot +from friction, and he turned over again on his back. But it was equally +hot that way. When he struck the sand, it seemed red-hot. It was like +being drawn over a rasp. Luckily the sand was only a few feet wide, +the woods coming down at this point almost to the shore. Here the bear +turned slightly, and in a moment Mr. Perker’s free leg went on one side +of a small tree, while his caught leg went on the other side. The tree +did not break nor his leg pull out by the roots, though Mr. Perker +thought for a moment that it would, and the procession was anchored +again. By way of backing the anchor Mr. Perker threw his arms about the +tree and hugged it with all his might, while he yelled for Smart. + +The frightened bear, after a few frantic tugs, became convinced that +he could not get away. Then he turned upon the prostrate and yelling +Perker with dire intent; but the instant the strain slackened on the +rope, Mr. Perker was able to kick, and a single kick freed his caught +foot. Before he could rise, however, the bear would have been upon him +but for an interruption. That interruption was from Smart who came +tearing around the ice-bank and charged bravely to the rescue of his +imperiled master. + +Finding that the woodchuck--if there was any woodchuck in the +hole--evidently intended to stay there, Smart paused in the work of +excavation, and sat down to reflect and catch his breath. The instant +he was thus quiet he heard the far-off voice of his master calling him +in a manner that indicated urgency. Smart ran after his master at full +speed, and coming to the spot where Mr. Perker first encountered the +bear, stopped as if he had run against something. His nose whispered +“bear!” to his brain. The hair on his back bristled. Then he heard +Perker shout, and set off on his track again. Coming around the open +channel by way of the ice-bank he caught sight of the bear, and charged +fiercely upon the unknown enemy, intending to incontinently scatter his +vitals all over that part of the coast. + +Attacked by the dog, the bear halted in his rush at Mr. Perker, sat +up on his haunches, and bestowed a buffet upon poor Smart that rolled +him over and over, a dozen feet away. Smart, though a remarkably +intelligent dog, did not know much about bears; but that single cuff +taught him much. He caught the general idea immediately, and rushed +behind Mr. Perker for protection, while the bear rushed after him. Mr. +Perker shinned up that small tree very much faster than a boy after +a bird’s nest. By the time he was up his own length, spreading his +legs as wide as he could, to get them higher, Smart, with admirable +strategy, perceiving that the shelter of Mr. Perker’s legs was +withdrawn, ran around the tree, looking for a good place to climb it +also. The bear ran around after Smart. This wound the rope around the +tree; and, when Smart ran off at a tangent, the bear rushing after him +was brought up with such a violent jerk of the noose upon his neck that +he turned end for end and hit Smart with his hind legs, like the snap +of a whip, while every bone in his back cracked. The shock almost +jerked Mr. Perker out of the tree, but he hung on grimly, and crawled +up a few feet farther. By the time he was eight feet from the ground, +however, the tree, which was only as large as a man’s leg at the +bottom, began to bend over with his weight, and he could go no higher. + +The dog being out of his reach, the bear now ran back at Mr. Perker, +and rearing up against the tree, tried to reach him. Mr. Perker again +spread his legs wide apart, and drew himself up as far as he could. The +bear cautiously raised himself a little higher and managed to give one +of Mr. Perker’s swaying legs a scratch that drew from him a yell of +pain and fear. Then Smart rushed in and hung upon the bear’s flank, and +the bear and Smart dropped upon Mr. Perker’s wheel. The bear got one +foot through the spokes, and he and Smart went wildly cavorting about +with the wheel, till Mr. Perker’s anguish of mind and failure of muscle +let him drop with a yell upon them, knocking the bear down. He did not, +however, hold the bear down. On the contrary, he executed a prompt +strategic movement, and did not stop rolling over until he brought up +twenty feet away. Smart followed him, with that devotion for which he +is noted, and the bear followed Smart, until snubbed again by the rope. + +At this moment, when Mr. Perker most needed repose, his nerves were +startled by the crack of a rifle. The ball sang over his head and +pierced that of the bear, who immediately turned slowly around twice, +and then sank down in a heap, quivering and kicking, whereupon Smart, +with renewed courage, ran in and tugged terribly at one of his ears. As +soon as Mr. Perker could comprehend what had happened, he was grateful. +He thought the voice of the man who ran forward and asked: “Are you +hurt?” was the most welcome sound he had ever heard. He replied that +he was “only just a little out of breath.” This reply, wasn’t strictly +accurate. A sorrier looking object than Mr. Perker has rarely been seen +on Sunday. + +The man kicked Smart off the bear’s ear, and then said, looking +curiously at the disconsolate Mr. Perker: + +“Why! Mr. Perker! how are you?” + +Perker limply took his hand, looked at him, and answered: + +“Hello! Smith!” + +Then he shook Smith’s hand heartily, for Smith was the identical man he +was going to see. With Smith was the boy to whom Mr. Perker was taking +the lasso. The boy had stood gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the +lassoed bear, at Perker, and at Smart, with which sagacious beast he +had already struck up a treaty of amity and mutual admiration. + +Smith noticed the rope and drew it from the neck of the dead bear. + +“Was a tame critter, eh?” he asked. + +Perker answered with unnecessary heat: “Tame! not by a blamed sight!” + +“You wasn’t trying to lead a wild bear into town with a rope, was you?” +asked Smith, grinning. + +“That’s what I started to do,” said Perker, seeing that honest +confession was best, “but he came near leading me into his camp.” + +Then Perker told the whole story, and Smith sat down and laughed till +exhausted. Finally he slapped Perker on the shoulder and said, with +vast soberness: + +“Well, Perker, you’re the pluckiest chap I ever met! You couldn’t have +hired any man about here to undertake that job for ten dollars an hour!” + +And he laughed again and fell to skinning the bear, chuckling. Then the +boy wanted to know what he was going to do with the rope. This reminded +Perker and he gave it to him. Never was a boy so thoroughly delighted. +He had a lasso that had actually lassoed and held a wild bear, and a +big one at that! + +Perker found his idolized wheel in a sad state. Its rim was +badly buckled, and half a dozen spokes were bent, but after some +straightening and tightening, with Smith’s aid, except for a wet +saddle, rapidly drying, the wheel was as good as ever. + +Mr. Smith proposed to cure the skin and send it to Mr. Perker, taking +his city address for that purpose. This pleased Perker immensely; and +they parted with mutual satisfaction. + +When Mr. Perker reached the city, he limped home, and Mrs. Effie, while +she tended his hurts, remarked: “Theophilus, you’re too big a fool to +be trusted to go alone into the woods! And the sooner you get rid of +that fool of a dog the longer you’ll be likely to dodge the Foolkiller!” + +Mr. Perker did not report this observation to the Club, but Mrs. +Perker’s kitchen-girl reported it to Mrs. Littleweed’s cook, and a +course of pumping, by the Club wits, extracted the other facts from Mr. +Perker. + +This is the reason the members, when Mr. Perker proudly exhibits the +bear-skin, sometimes speak of “Mr. Perker’s bear,” and sometimes of +“Mr. Bear’s Perker.” + + + + +FAST ICE-YACHTS. + +HOW THEY ARE BUILT, RIGGED AND HANDLED. + +BY CHARLES LEDYARD NORTON. + + +On a rocky promontory of the Hudson River, a few miles above +Poughkeepsie, there stands, half hidden by the foliage in the summer, +a long, low, neatly painted structure instantly suggestive to the +nautically inclined of boats and their belongings. + +But there is an unaccountable lack of the familiar characteristics +of such localities. Even in midsummer there are few, if any, boats +anchored in the cove, or hauled up on the shelving rock that serves +in lieu of a beach. Through the open doors of the boat-house one may, +perhaps, see certain varnishing and rigging operations under way. +There are bundles of sails, coils of rope, rows of blocks, and long, +curiously curved spars resting upon racks--long enough they are to +serve as topgallant-yards for an old-fashioned man-of-war, but no +ordinary sailorman would see any use for them with their nautically +impossible curves and angles, and their unfamiliar and unshipshape +attachments of galvanized iron. + +This boat-house, however, is the headquarters of a yacht club that +stands easily at the head of its class in all the world; but its fleet +of racers is dismantled and laid aside in summers when other yachts are +in the height of their glory. This fleet goes into commission only when +the floating fields of new ice are fast welded together, and the river +surface is solid from the Highlands to the Mohawk. + +The Hudson River is by no means the only club, though it may not +unfairly be designated as the leading one. At the neighboring towns +of Poughkeepsie, New Hamburg and Newburg, and up stream at Hudson, +Athens, Saugerties, Albany, and elsewhere, are other associations, with +fleets of yachts always eager to try conclusions with their down-stream +rivals. Poughkeepsie, and its immediate vicinity, however, has always +been, and is likely to remain, the headquarters for ice-yachting. + +This is due to several favorable conditions, natural as well +as artificial. The river narrows and becomes tortuous at the +Highlands--about forty miles from the sea--and this natural obstacle +largely determines the permanency of ice in the river above. In a +large stream the ice rarely forms across from shore to shore in a +single night. It freezes in bands and patches, which become detached +from the shore and float up and down with the tide until they become +jammed and frozen together. North of the Highlands, too, the average +winter temperature is considerably lower than it is to the southward, +and sharp frosts come earlier and stay later. The beautiful and +picturesque banks, moreover, have since early colonial times proved +attractive to lovers of the country, and the riverside is for many +miles almost continuously occupied by residents who have abundant means +and leisure for such recreations as suit them best. Again, the great +harvest field of the Hudson River ice-crop finds here its southernmost +limit. At this point in the stream the admixture of sea-water renders +the ice more or less unmarketable, and the ice-yachtsmen are therefore +not so likely to be interfered with by the armies of men who are set to +work by the great companies as soon as the ice is thick enough to pay +for cutting and storage. + +It is proverbial that no sooner is a good surface formed for +ice-yachting than it is hopelessly buried under a shroud of snow; but +here again nature comes to the rescue, for the latitude is far enough +south to render alternations of frost and thaw probable all through the +winter. Accordingly the white surface soon becomes streaked with gray, +and ere long the yachtsman looks out of a morning and sees his highway +once more practicable for steel runners. + +This year engineering science has arrayed itself on the side of the +yachtsman, and has built two huge piers in the river at Poughkeepsie. +Primarily these are intended for the new cantilever railroad bridge, +but incidentally they are welcomed by the winter-sailing clubs, because +they will undoubtedly keep the ice in the river longer than it has +heretofore been in the habit of staying. This is highly important in +their eyes, for not infrequently there are cold “spells” in March which +render the ice available for good sport, provided it could be held in +position long enough to be temporarily re-frozen and prevented from +floating away down stream on the ebb tide. + +Despite all these favorable conditions, however, the goddess who +presides over the destinies of ice-yachting is but a coy and fickle +divinity. Sometimes she vouchsafes to her devotees not more than a day +or two of sailing in an entire winter. Often she limits her favors to +ten or fifteen days, and only at rare intervals does she smile upon +them for thirty days, all told. The ice-yachtsman may, therefore, plume +himself upon being the most select and exclusive of all sportsmen. He +cannot, if he would, spend very much time _en voyage_, so he makes up +for it as well as he may by contriving and perfecting all the details +of his craft during her hours of enforced idleness. The result is that +he has evolved a fabric that is a marvel of construction, adapted for +lightness and strength in a wonderful degree. + +Many of our readers have never seen an ice-yacht, but probably most +of them have seen and made a common diamond-shaped kite--the simplest +and easiest form of kite known to ingenious boyhood. This frame is +in its general principles of construction identical with that of the +modern ice-yacht, as shown in the working plans published herewith. The +cross-piece corresponds with the runner-plank, the upright represents +the center-timber, and the cord that passes around the whole is +identical with the side-stays. (See Fig. 1.) + +It is only necessary to set up a mast at or near the intersection, +rig sails upon it, attach some kind of runners to the ends of the +runner-plank and to the long or aftermost end of the center-timber, and +you will have a very passable model, constructionally speaking, of the +modern ice-yacht. Magnify it a hundred-fold, substitute wire-rope with +turn-buckles for the side-stays, fit the timber ends with cast-metal +caps, bolt everything together with cunningly contrived fittings, mount +her upon a set of hardened iron runners, equip her with a “tailor-made” +suit of sails, launch her on reasonably smooth ice, and, given a +twenty-mile breeze, she will carry you forty miles, or maybe sixty +miles, an hour, if you know how to make her do her best. + +It may be remarked in passing that very pretty sport may be had with +model ice-yachts, constructed somewhat after the manner indicated. +Pieces of tin or sheet-iron will do for runners and steering-gear at +a pinch, and if the sails are moderate in area and the center-timber +tolerably long, so that ballast can be suitably adjusted, she will go +like a witch and skim over a mere veneering of ice to the admiration +of all beholders. There are always several days at the beginning of +winter before the ice is available for skating, when model ice-yachts +might be made to do duty instead of the sticks and stones with which +impatient boyhood usually disports itself, thereby ruining the ice for +the legitimate pastimes of colder weather. + +In the regions where the ice rarely becomes thick enough for +satisfactory skating, these little ice-yachts may easily afford a +deal of not altogether unprofitable amusement. Model yachts have not +as yet gained much of a foothold in the nonfreezing United States, +but in England, where there are prosperous clubs almost everywhere, +even in Hyde Park, in the heart of London, the conditions are very +favorable. Sails and rigging are all ready and need only to be mounted +upon a suitable frame with runners, steering gear and adjustable +ballast. The average Englishman may probably regard this suggestion +as unwarrantable, because ice-yachting is wholly beyond his range of +experience, but if once he tries it he will find that it opens up +possibilities of seamanship not dreamed of heretofore, and he will +cover the frozen Serpentine with miniature fleets that will rival in +beauty and vastly excel in speed those that dance over its ripples +during the summer months. + +[Illustration: FIG. 1.--A KITE-FRAME FOR AN ICE-YACHT.] + +In its main features the Hudson River ice-yacht now closely approaches +perfection. Improvements will, of course, be made from time to time +in the minor details of rig, and occasionally some phenomenally fast +boat will be built, the secret of her speed remaining perhaps, in some +degree, unexplained. + +A few years ago the lateen rig was simultaneously adopted by the +Hudson River and Shrewsbury (N. J.) clubs, and for a time it bade +fair to supersede the jib and mainsail boats that had long held the +championship pennant. Several very large lateen-rigged yachts were +constructed, notably the _Scud_ of the Shrewsbury, and the _Avalanche_ +of the Hudson River Club. Experience has shown, however, that craft of +that size and rig are phenomenally fast only when the wind rises to No. +70 of Beaufort’s scale, that is to say, something nearly approaching a +full-grown hurricane. With such a wind the big lateens are undoubtedly +very fast, but the rarity of such conditions leaves them in the lurch +on ordinary racing days, and it is by no means certain that even in a +hurricane they are sure to win when pitted against a jib and mainsail. +At all events, some of the large lateens have been altered to the sloop +rig, and their owners are not disposed to try back. + +On small or moderate sized yachts, however, the lateen is an admirable +rig, and in average racing weather such boats not infrequently distance +their larger competitors. In this connection it may be well to compare +the respective weights of the two rigs as taken by Mr. John A. +Roosevelt, Commodore of the Hudson River Club. + +Comparative weights of the _Icicle_ (sloop) and _Avalanche_ (lateen): + + _Icicle._ _Avalanche._ + + Center-timber and box, lbs. 776½ lbs. 768½ + Runner-plank and strap, 565 520 + Mast, 250 361 + Runners, 150 186½ + Boom and two blocks, 146½ 451½ + Rigging, 125 -- + Blocks, -- 93 + Rudder-post and tiller, 91 81½ + Gaff, 47½ -- + Yard, -- 198 + Jib-boom and two blocks, 47 -- + Blocks, -- 18½ + Blocks and halyards, 62 50 + Sails, 172 206 + --------- --------- + lbs. 2,432½ lbs. 3,007¾ + +It is seen, therefore, that the lateen outscales her rival by about +575 lbs., the two boats being nearly the same size. Theoretically, the +_Avalanche_ having only a single sail--and that capable of being set +almost as tight and flat as a drumhead--should out-point and out-foot +anything of her size, but practically the extra weight hinders more +than the better fitting canvas helps her. + +The “cat-rig,” too, has been tried, but without the good results +anticipated, and a sharpie rig has, it is said, done fairly well with a +small boat on the Shrewsbury. + +It may be confidently stated that the sloop rig is the safest to count +upon for allround work, particularly in the largest-sized boats. In +boats of the second and third class the lateen may be used with a +chance, not altogether assured, of superlatively good results. + +It is not likely that ice-yachts will ever be built larger than the +present, the _Avalanche_, _Icicle_, _Northern Light_, _Scud_, and their +class, _i. e._, about fifty feet long, and spreading something like 600 +square feet of canvas. To sustain such a boat requires comparatively +heavy ice; to drive her at a high rate of speed calls for a living gale +of wind, and to tow her home when becalmed, or collect her scattered +fragments should she chance to be shipwrecked, is a work demanding a +large store of patience and endurance. In average blustering wintry +weather, with a wind not to exceed, say, twenty-five miles an hour, +boats of the second class stand a very fair chance of beating those of +a larger spread and heavier weight. + +The art of sailing an ice-yacht is _sui generis_. It is, indeed, of +comparatively modern origin. A generation ago sheets were started +on an ice-yacht when running free, much as they are in an ordinary +sailing-boat, and the singular properties of the close-hauled sail +were not understood. The modern ice-yachtsman never slacks away his +sheet except, perhaps, when he wants to turn a stake with certainty, or +when the ice softens. Given a hard surface and a stiff breeze, he will +outrun the wind in any direction. + +One who hears this paradox stated for the first time may be pardoned +for incredulity, nor is it easy in all cases to make clear the +possibility of such a feat. A very large majority of intelligent +people when confronted with the proposition, simply say that it is +impossible and absurd, and are hardly convinced when they actually +see an ice-yacht running straight down the wind, with her pennant +streaming out astern. To yachtsmen. it had been known for several +years that a comparatively light wind would send ice-yachts ahead of +the fast express trains on the Hudson River Railroad. After a time +the mathematical experts heard of it, and they said it could not be +so; they took their little slates and proved their position to the +satisfaction of all properly constituted scientific minds. But this did +not prevent the yachtsmen from sailing faster and faster, and presently +other mathematicians rose up and demonstrated the contrary of the +proposition, thereby showing, for the ten-thousandth time, that all +save the truth can be proven by figures. + +[Illustration: FIG. 2.--THE SAILING PARADOX.] + +The fundamental principle of sailing an ice-yacht faster than the wind +may be readily demonstrated by means of a very simple mechanical device. + +Let A, E, B, F be an open frame, A-B a wire stretched diagonally from +corner to corner, and G a ring running upon the wire. C-D, another +wire, reaches from end to end of the frame, passing also through the +ring G at the intersection of the wires. This second wire (C-D) is +movable back and forth between A-F and E-B, and parallel to them. It is +evident that when C-D is moved the ring G will slide along both wires, +and that while C-D is passing from A-F to E-B, G will slide from A to +B--twice as far, that is, as the distance traversed by C-D, the moving +agent. + +[Illustration: SAIL PLAN OF A MODERN ICE-YACHT.] + +Now, suppose G to be an ice-yacht; let the movement of C-D across the +frame represent the direction and velocity of the wind and the diagonal +A-B the distance to be traversed. The ice-yacht G moves twice as far, +that is to say, twice as fast as does C-D (the wind) that drives it. +Such is, perhaps, as plain a statement of the conditions as can be +devised. In practice the elements become more complicated. Let Fig. +3 represent a section of frozen river, with the wind blowing across +it in the direction indicated by the arrows. Applying the principle +shown in Fig. 2, an ice-yacht may run from A to B while the wind is +moving across the river from A-F to E-B. It is not the purpose of this +paper to go into the logistics of sailing in general, but any one who +can sail a boat will see at a glance, that with the wind as shown in +Fig. 3, an ordinary boat would sail nearly or quite as fast from C to +D, or from E to F, as she would from A to B. The same rules apply, +of course, to an ice-yacht, but with this important difference, while +an ordinary sailing-boat meets with increasing resistance from the +water the faster she goes through it, an ice-yacht meets less and less +frictional resistance from the ice the faster she goes over it. Again, +if she is pointing more or less toward the wind (as on a line from E to +F), she increases the apparent force of the wind by her own motion. The +only considerable resistance is that offered by spars, rigging, etc., +in passing through the air, and this is trifling when compared with her +large sail area, and the propulsive energy of even a moderate breeze. + +[Illustration: FIG. 3.--THE SAILING PARADOX IN PRACTICE.] + +In sailing an ice-yacht there is none of the vexatious handling of +ropes unavoidable in an ordinary sailing-boat. The sheets usually take +care of themselves in going about, and the steersman has only to move +his tiller a little to starboard or port to secure instant obedience +and an eagle-like swoop of the yacht in the desired direction. In +high winds, however, the yacht is apt to lift her weather runner +clear of the ice, upon which she at once becomes unmanageable and +must be brought down to her bearings as soon as possible. If properly +balanced she should shortly do this of her own accord, but during the +few seconds when she has the bit between her teeth she may do untold +mischief. + +The astonishing rapidity with which an ice-yacht under control may +be handled was well instanced last winter in an encounter between +the _Polaris_ and _Arrow_, as indicated in the diagram, Fig. 4. The +_Polaris_ was running dead before the wind, heading to pass a space +of open water where ice-cutters were at work, when her steersman +became aware of the _Arrow_ approaching on his starboard hand at a +fearful rate of speed, but with her weather runner in the air, and +evidently with the bit between her teeth. A collision was imminent, +for the _Polaris_ could not bear away in either direction; on one +side was open water and on the other was the _Arrow_, too near to be +passed astern. Under the circumstances it was instinct rather than a +process of reasoning that led Commodore Roosevelt to jam his helm hard +a-starboard and send the _Polaris_ spinning on her center, making a +complete revolution almost within her own length (see Fig. 4). She +did it, and was on her former course again almost before any one knew +what had happened, her jib-boom barely clearing the after leach of the +_Arrow’s_ mainsail as she passed astern of her. Such a gyration as +this is justifiable only in extreme cases, for of course everything is +subjected to a sudden and tremendous strain, and if nothing gives way +it speaks well for the perfection of equipment. + +Sometimes an ice-yacht will perform this maneuver on her own +responsibility and without an instant’s warning, and this is especially +true of the smaller class of lateen-rigged boats. With them, however, +damage is less likely to result, as the strains are proportionately +less severe. + +Sailing on the wind is a comparatively simple matter, though, of +course, where a number of boats are breaking tacks, as in a thrash +to windward on a regatta day, a quick eye and a steady hand are +indispensable if collisions are to be avoided and the most made of +every turn. + +Running down the wind, however, calls for the more skillful seamanship, +and involves a closer calculation of chances. Not many years ago, +when a fleet of ice-yachts sailed down the wind, it was a straight run +with lifted sheets, but after a while some bright fellow discovered +that by putting his boat on the wind at her very best point for speed, +she would in a few seconds attain a maximum velocity. Then, bearing +away, she would run sometimes for several minutes _through_ the wind, +her pennant flying out astern, and she sliding past her free-sailing +competitors at an astonishing rate. + +[Illustration: FIG. 4.--A CLOSE CALL.] + +Fig. 5 roughly shows the comparative courses of two ice-yachts, A +running dead to leeward and B tacking after the method described. The +proportions between the tacks across the wind and the runs through +it cannot be preserved on so small a map; but it is evident that B +traverses a far longer course. That she invariably beats A, other +things being equal, is the unanimous testimony of all practical ice +sailors. In other words, if a balloon could be persuaded to drift down +the wind at a convenient height above the ice, B could let it have a +fair start, and could, if properly handled, sail completely around it +in a run of two or three miles. + +This “proper handling,” however, is not so simple as it seems. It +involves an intimate knowledge of and sympathy with one’s boat. Her +best point of sailing varies with every variation in the force of the +wind, and her skipper should know by instinct exactly when she is doing +her very best under existing conditions. She must not be forced so that +she will lift her weather runner clear of the ice, for the moment that +runner lifts the grip of the lee runner weakens, and the yacht is in +danger of making leeway. She must not be turned too sharply, for the +rudder checks her headway, and so does the lateral resistance that she +encounters while changing directions. A knowledge of the course is of +vital importance. Instead of the currents and tide-rips of summer, +the winter yachtsman must be familiar with the “windrows,” air-holes, +cracks, ice-imbedded drift-wood, and the like, that beset his course. +After every storm these are liable to change and new obstructions from +similar causes likely to appear. Hence every tack must be calculated to +a nicety, so that the next change of direction can be made to the best +advantage. + +When running for the stake it is important to gauge headway so that +the turn can be made without being carried too far beyond the mark; +and here again a personal knowledge of the boat and her whims is +indispensable for nice seamanship. In the excitement of the moment one +may readily lose control, and it is said to be a good plan to slack +away the peak halyards a trifle just before rounding. This enables the +rudder to act with certainty, and as soon as the turn has been made the +halyards can be again hauled taut. This operation necessitates the best +modern appliances in the way of hoisting-tackle, for the halyards all +lead aft to the “box,” and one man should be able to slack away or haul +taut with one hand. Then, of course, there are all the devices known to +sailing experts intensified a hundred-fold by the altered conditions. + +[Illustration: FIG. 5.] + +An absolutely even start can always be had since the contestants can +be held at anchor till the signal is given, though, of course, the +windward position gives an advantage. Once under way seamanship and +knowledge of the course begin to tell, and bold maneuvering may quite +as often win a race as in the slower evolutions of regular sailing +craft. The swiftness with which any plan can be executed renders the +game extremely exciting. One sees an opponent making a short and +seemingly unnecessary tack. The natural results must be comprehended +instantly or, peradventure, one may find one’s self presently forced +to yield the right of way when every second is of the last importance. +It is jockeying, perhaps, but when one knows that by crowding a +dangerous rival a trifle he will be forced to tack a mile farther on +by an insurmountable windrow, one were more than mortal to resist the +temptation. It calls for quick thinking and equally quick action to +sail an ice-yacht successfully and well in a modern regatta; but the +excitement is of the wildest description, and all the accessories are +fascinating in the extreme to one who has robust health and does not +care a rap for exposure in a northern midwinter. + +Our frontispiece is from an instantaneous photograph which caught the +_Northern Light_ (holder at the time of the Challenge Pennant) just +as she was rounding the home stake, off Poughkeepsie, on Valentine’s +Day, 1887. She was probably moving at the rate of twenty miles an hour +when the picture was taken. The sleet thrown up by her lee runner can +be seen flying off astern. Her weather runner was, in fact, just clear +of the ice at the moment, though so slightly as to be imperceptible in +the picture. This is probably the best photograph of a moving ice-yacht +that has ever been taken. + +Every year sees improvements in fittings and rig. The “Haggarty hoist” +is now used on the mainsails of the best boats instead of the ordinary +mast-hoops. This hoist consists of a series of metal clamps attached to +the luff of the sail and engaging a wooden cleat shaped like a T-rail +and fastened vertically to the after-side of the mast. + +To secure a better “set” the luff of the sail is no longer doubled +over on itself, but instead, a canvas binding is sewed on. This gives +three thicknesses of canvas instead of five thicknesses, as was often +the case under the old system, and, consequently, the sail stretches +along the mast, where the greatest hoisting strain falls, and where any +inequality is most readily taken up without causing wrinkles elsewhere. +The elliptical box, with its comfortable cushions and its central +hand-rail for the passengers to grasp in case of need, is suggestive +of luxury but in itself it is largely delusive, for no position is +less endurable than a half-reclining one with the head raised, as was +formerly unavoidable. To render the sitting position possible the iron +tiller is now given an upward curve, so that the steersman can sit with +his legs across the center-timber, the tiller swinging freely above his +knees. This posture, however, necessitates some sort of a backboard, +and the best appears to be an upholstered iron frame, as shown in Fig. +6. + +[Illustration: FIG 6.--A BACK-REST.] + +The flat extensions, A A, pass under the cushion, and a firm back +and brace is thus supplied. Another device is to make the central +portion of the side of the box higher than the rest, with a narrow +cushion to fit, effecting the same end. This matter of cushions is +not mere luxury. The rapid passage of the runners over any save the +very smoothest of ice produces a jarring motion that speedily becomes +unendurable wherever the person rests against a hard or angular +surface. In previous articles it has been suggested that stout +chair-seats, with arms and back, might be adjusted to the center-timber +in connection with a foot steering-gear, similar to those used in +canoes. Such seats could be fastened anywhere on the center-timber by +means of thumb-screws, thus moving the weight forward or aft according +to the special conditions of wind or weather. + +The season for ice-yachting in the latitude of New York rarely begins +before January and often holds off until February. The daily morning +papers always mention the condition of the ice on the preceding +day, and by taking an early morning train one may easily reach the +sailing-ground by noon or shortly after. The weather, in New York is no +criterion of that north of the Highlands. It is often raining on the +coast when the sky is clear and the weather fine in the interior. When, +therefore, good ice is announced by the papers, the correct thing to do +is to take the next train to Poughkeepsie, irrespective of weather. You +may be disappointed, for wind and temperature are proverbially fickle; +but if you have reasonably good luck you may see the finest ice-yachts +in the world, and learn by personal observation how they are managed. + + + + +THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN YACHT CLUB. + +FREDERIC G. MATHER. + + +“This is a great day for Lake Champlain,” said a rustic who had been +discussing with his fellow the difference between a cat-boat and a +sloop. “I may not know the difference, but there’s plenty about here +who do--and I say, ‘Hurrah for old Champlain! anyhow.’” + +The rustic, like many others who are right, spoke better than he knew. +It was a mild morning in September last. Rain had fallen all through +the neighborhood, and more was to come according to that never failing +test--the low-hung clouds which still covered the eastern slopes of the +Adirondacks and refused to lift even when an occasional ray of sunshine +gave them every chance. From the opposite shore of New York the early +morning hours were watched with intense interest. The alternate layers +of mist and mountain showed also stretches of lake, and the larger +objects in Burlington appeared through the rifts--the whole making +nature’s _mise en scène_ for what was to come. + +And, indeed, it was a great day. The Lake Champlain Yacht Club was +organized May 16, 1887, with a constitution, by-laws and sailing +regulations patterned closely after those of the New York Yacht Club. +Its rules for sailing were no stricter than its rules for uniforms. +In a word, at the time of the regatta everything that experience and +enterprise could suggest had been in preparation for sixteen months +under the guidance of such gentlemen as W. Boerum Wetmore, commodore; +W. A. Crombie, vice-commodore; J. Gregory Smith, president; W. S. Webb, +first vice-president; Henry Ballard, second vice-president; Joseph +Auld, secretary, and Horatio Hickok, treasurer. An executive committee +of thirty included not only the above but also such names as H. J. +Brookes, H. Le Grand Cannon, H. H. Noble, Jacob G. Sanders, J. A. +Averill, A. C. Tuttle, W. H. H. Murray and Alvaro Adsit--all of them +well-known sailors upon fresh water; while the total membership of two +hundred took in navigators as far to the southward as Albany and New +York. In fact, it will be noticed that many of the names are those of +New Yorkers who spend the summer months along the shores of Champlain, +and one enthusiastic member, Robert W. Rogers, comes all the way from +New Orleans. Among the members who have not, according to popular +belief, made any aquatic record is G. F. Edmunds, the U. S. Senator +from the State of Vermont. + +Thus all that hard work, good discipline and natty uniforms could do +had been done. The day was a great one because it would bring what +had been attempted to a practical test. The lake is about one hundred +miles long with a breadth varying from half a mile at the southern end +to twenty miles (including islands) at the northern end, so that the +greatest stretch of clear water from east to west is ten miles, and +the longest unobstructed sweep lengthwise is forty miles. There is no +perceptible current, although the drainage is northward into the valley +of the St. Lawrence. The prevailing winds are from the south, with +occasional winds from the north and, near the shores, frequent puffs +that come down through the notches in the Green Mountains on one side +and the Adirondack Mountains on the other. Given, then, such a lake not +so steady for sailing purposes as Long Island Sound, the chain of the +Great Lakes, or even the inland lakes of Chautauqua, Seneca and Cayuga +with their low-crowned banks, and yet less treacherous than smaller +mountain lakes, like George and Memphremagog--to find the craft that +will sail it best with speed and safety. This was the problem that had +been discussed and solved and solved over again for months, and which +had now come to the point where all theories must show their value or +cease to be entertained. + +Yachting on Lake Champlain was a plant of slow growth. It was hardly an +exotic, because some kind of craft had been known there for 250 years. +The xebecs of the early French gave way to the sloops and schooners +of the English; and the latter, in the decline of commerce, have been +followed by the “long-lakers,” and the Canadian square-sail galleys +of to-day. Sail boats of uncertain age, and still more uncertain +origin, have flitted about the lake for generations; but nothing was +ever evolved from them that met the requirements of the modern yacht. +It was reserved for the Rev. W. H. H. Murray to bring thither some of +the ideas that he had gathered among the oystermen along the coast of +Connecticut and to adapt them to a fresh-water lake. Everyone credits +Mr. Murray, better known as “Adirondack,” with calling attention to the +broad expanse of lake opposite Burlington that had not been used as it +might be by sails and hulls of modern cut; and everybody agrees that +the present yacht club is the outcome of his earlier efforts, although, +in many respects, it has outgrown what he developed and contended for +at the first. So Mr. Murray shall have the credit in these pages. + +[Illustration: THE “GYPSIE,” PHELPS & SON, BURLINGTON, VT.] + +[Illustration: THE “VIRGINIA”--PETER THUST, ST. JOHNS, CANADA.] + +It had occurred to Mr. Murray that the type of oyster-boat known on +Long Island Sound as the “sharpie,” would fill all the conditions +on Champlain noted above. The sharpie was the successor of the old +V-shaped punts, or “flat-iron” scows, that brought the earlier oysters +to market. When the demand for more bivalves led to the transplanting +of Southern oysters to Long Island Sound, the larger boat, the sharpie, +was produced, as the one which would combine cheapness, light draught, +broad bottom, ready handling with the sail or oar, sea-worthiness, and +fair sailing qualities. + +[Illustration: THE “FLYAWAY”--DR. W. S. WEBB.] + +[Illustration: COMMODORE’S LAUNCH “DOLPHIN.”] + +So Mr. Murray constructed the _White Wings_ in Connecticut, and brought +it to Burlington to show his faith in his new theory. We may quote +liberally from his description of a sharpie adapted for use on Lake +Champlain. The length over-all is 50 feet; depth, 4 feet amidships; +extreme width of deck, 12 feet; length of center-board, 16 feet; width, +5 feet; distance between masts, 30 feet; sail-area, 200 to 300 yards; +length of foremast, 50 feet; length of mainmast, 47 feet. The sails are +laced to small booms, or the sprit can be used. The sails can be of +strictly “leg-o’-mutton” shape or “clubbed” in form, which is desirable +when a large spread of canvas is demanded, because it allows a large +sail area, and, at the same time, keeps the major section of the sail +low down, where the wind-pressure should be located. These boats are +decked and staved in hard woods--oak, cherry, birch or Southern pine. +White pine is of course allowed, but it is soft and liable to be +marred by indentations. The sides are of white pine plank, 2 inches +in thickness, 8 inches wide, and from 16 to 20 feet in length. Such +plank-work is easily shaped, and makes a strong boat. The bottom is +of Southern pine, finest quality, 2 inches thick and 6 wide, and the +stern-piece of best white oak, with plenty of size to it. Fourteen feet +abaft the stem is the front of the cabin, and the length of cabin is +adapted to suit service. If for home sailing, it can be twelve feet, +divided amidships into two apartments--one for men, the other for +women. The front section of each apartment, say 4 × 5, is fitted with +a lavatory like a Pullman car; height of cabin, six feet in the clear. +This gives an elevation of sides above deck-line of, say, two feet, +three sides to be built in two or three panels which can be opened +inward in fair weather, and buttoned to cabin roof. The cabin is thus +converted, at will, into a charming sitting-room, in which ladies and +children can be protected from the sun, and yet enjoy the sight of +water and mountains beyond. If the boat is intended for cruising, the +cabin can be made longer, say twenty-two feet. This would still leave +a large cockpit, and accommodate a party of a dozen with berths and +tables for sleeping and eating, whether the weather was fair or foul. +The table-leaf can be hinged to the center-board case, so as to hang +vertically to it and take up no room when not in use. Berths, on bed +frames, made of wicker, 6 × 2 feet, are hinged to the cabin sides, +and like the table, hang pendant when not in use. Cook’s galley, +immediately ahead of the cabin, is entered by a hatch of large size, +say 3 × 4 feet, built to be slid forward in close-fitting grooves, so +that in rough weather it would be practically water-tight. The cabin +should be of quartered oak or cherry, or any desirable wood. Fifty +chairs can be placed in the cabins and cockpit. + +Such were the boats of which Mr. Murray wrote: “They are well adapted +to meet the wants of amateurs, and will do much to make yachting a +popular recreation to a degree never hitherto realized.” The appearance +of the _White Wings_ led to the building of other sharpies, and an +organization under the name of the Sharpie Yacht Club of Burlington +became the nucleus of the present yacht club. + +Since Burlington boasts no canoe or rowing clubs, it was Mr. Murray’s +idea to combine all the boating interests as a part of a general scheme +which should take charge of all kinds of sports and pastimes natural to +such a magnificent body of inland water, and yet the boating section of +the club was to be devoted to sharpies--the model to which Mr. Murray +still pins his faith. As the club grew it showed decided tendencies +toward a regular yacht club. This carried with it the erection of +a $5,000 club-house on one of the best wharves in the harbor at a +point about which all the boating tendencies of the lake might rally, +the expenses of membership being only $10 yearly with no financial +responsibility beyond this figure. + +As an illustration of the very effective and concise way of doing +things, it will be of interest to repeat a statement that was posted +upon the bulletin board: “The regatta committee will announce before +each race in which direction the course shall be sailed, which will +depend upon the wind. If the course is first to the north from the +club-house, all yachts will pass to the right of all rounding marks, +leaving them on their port sides. In case an overlap exists between +two yachts when both of them, without tacking, are about to pass a +mark on the required side, then the outside yacht must give the inside +yacht room to pass clear of the mark. A yacht shall not, however, +be justified in attempting to establish an overlap and thus force a +passage between another yacht and the mark after the latter yacht has +altered her helm for the purpose of rounding. When a yacht is in danger +of running aground, or of touching a pier, rock or other obstruction, +and cannot go clear by altering her course without fouling another +yacht, then this latter shall on being hailed by the former, at once +give room, and in case one yacht is forced to tack or to bear away in +order to give room, the other shall also tack or bear away, as the +case may be, at as near the same time as is possible without danger of +fouling.” + +The regatta should have taken place on the first Tuesday in August, +and that will be the date hereafter; but last year it was postponed +till September 21, in the hope that certain new boats might be finished +and enter the races. The _Nautilus_, the most eagerly expected of all, +failed to appear. We will make note of her later on. + +[Illustration: SHARPIE YACHT “BURLINGTON”--JOSEPH AULD AND OTHERS, +BURLINGTON, VT.] + +It was required in every instance that there should be three starters +or no race. The club course of about 8-5/16 miles commenced on a line +inside the breakwater and at right angles to the club-house, round the +south end of the breakwater, south of Rock Dunder, south of Juniper +Ledge buoy, west end of Juniper Island, north end of breakwater to +starting line. This was the course for the first class sailing yachts +(33 feet and upward), the time not to exceed 2¾ hours. The first prize +was $60, and the second $20. + +[Illustration: W. S. WEBB, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT. + + W. A. CROMBIE, VICE-COMMODORE. JOSEPH AULD, SECRETARY. +] + +There had been a brush, a few days before, for the championship +pennant. The _Flyaway_, a sloop built by Lawler, of Boston, for Dr. +W. S. Webb. had covered the course in 1h. 30m. 42s. Next came the +_Ripple_, a sloop built and owned by Adsit and Bigelow, in 1h. 32m. +50s.; and last came the sharpie, _White Wings_, built under Murray’s +eye, and owned by C. B. Gray, her time being 1h. 48m. 30s. The same +boats started in the first class race, except that the sharpie, +_Burlington_, owned by Joseph Auld and others, having less freeboard +and an improved stern, took the place of the _White Wings_. Time +allowance was waived by the _Ripple_ and the _Burlington_. The _Ripple_ +came over the line first and held the lead till, on rounding Juniper +Island, she was passed by the _Flyaway_. Then came a very close +contest, the _Ripple_ afterward claiming she would have won if she had +had the time allowance. The elapsed time was: _Flyaway_, 1h. 45m. 3s.; +_Ripple_, 1h. 46m. 33s. The _Burlington_ was becalmed and withdrew. + +By this time a drizzling rain had set in; but the yachtsmen and their +friends had had enough taste of the sport to want more. The second +class race was for sailing yachts measuring between 20 and 33 feet. +The prizes were $45 and $15. The course was the club course, omitting +the turning of Juniper Ledge buoy--distance, 7⅓ miles, to be covered +in 2¾ hours. There were five starters, and the prospects were for the +best race of the day. But the rain beat down the wind; the race became +a drifting match, and was postponed till the next day. The starters +were: the _White Wings_, sharpie; the _Agnes T._, a sloop owned by T. +A. Taft; the _Princess_, a sloop owned by R. W. Rogers; the _Puritan_, +a sloop owned by W. C. Witherbee, and the _Eagle_, a schooner-rigged +keel-boat owned by W. S. Hopkins. The same yachts were allowed to sail +in the postponed race on the following day, but only the _Agnes T._ +appeared. She sailed over the course in 1h. 14m. 25s. Two entries of +the day before were barred out because they did not start at that time. + +There was still more rain and still less wind when the third class +yachts (under 20 feet) were called. The course was 5-13/16 miles, +starting around the north end of the breakwater, thence about Rock +Dunder, and homeward around the south end of the breakwater. Two hours +was the time limit; and the prizes were $30 and $10. The only starter +was the sloop _Goat_, owned by W. C. Witherbee--and so the race was +declared off. + +[Illustration: THE BURLINGTON Y. C. HOUSE.] + +But no amount of rain or lack of wind could keep back the steam and +naphtha launches of under 50 feet from racing for the $100 cup offered +by Commodore Wetmore. The course was around the north end of the +breakwater, north of Appletree buoy, south of Proctor’s shoal buoy and +around the south end of the breakwater, a distance of 7 1-5 miles. The +time limit was 1½ hours. Four of the starters finished the race; the +fifth, the _Idlewild_, owned by Averill & Kellogg, having passed the +first buoy only. The starters, together with their owners and elapsed +time, were these: the _Nymph_, Dr. W. S. Webb, 41m. 55s.; the _Cecil_, +Myers & Clough, 49m. 33s.; the _Adonis_, J. B. Tressidder, 52m. 14½s.; +the _Comus_, R. W. Rogers, 58m. 17s. It was evident from the start that +the _Nymph_ would win--but there was a very exciting contest for second +place, the _Cecil_ finally leading the _Adonis_. In figuring the result +the Isherwood rule was used, because the lengths of all the boats were +less than 50 feet. If they had been more than 50 feet, the Emory rules +of the American yacht club would have held. The Isherwood rules provide +that the speed in knots per hour is divided by the cube root of the +length on the waterline of the yachts respectively, and the quotients +represent, relatively, the merits of the different yachts. Based on +this rule, the ratios were: _Nymph_, 1.13; _Cecil_, 0.97; _Adonis_, +0.91. + +The _Nymph_ is 46 feet long, 8 feet beam, and 3 feet draught. She +divides with the _Dolphin_, owned by Commodore Wetmore, the honor of +being the fastest steam launch on the lake. The _Dolphin_ is 42 feet +long, with the same beam and draught as the _Nymph_. On October 15 +there was a test of speed between the two for the champion pennant of +the lake. The _Nymph_ won by 11½s. over a 7-mile course, there being no +time allowance. On November 1 another race over a course of 6½ miles +was won by the _Dolphin_ by 32½s. We may look for good time from both +the _Dolphin_ and the _Nymph_ in the steam race of 1889. + +[Illustration: COMMODORE B. WETMORE.] + +The greatest race of all came off upon Saturday, September 22, the +second and final day of the regatta. This was for the $500 cup made +by Tiffany, and presented by the ladies of Burlington. It is an +elaborately-made punch-bowl, with a fine engraving, on the outside, +of the harbor of Burlington. According to the rules of the club, “the +Ladies’ Cup” shall be a perpetual challenge, and shall be sailed for +each year by the yachts belonging to the members of the club at their +annual regatta. The course shall be about ten miles, and the sailing +allowances, etc., shall be governed by such rules of the club, as +from time to time may obtain. The course, etc., may be changed from +time to time by the regatta committee as the exigencies of the club +may require. They, or their successors in office, are made custodians +of the cup for the club, and shall award the same each year to the +successful yacht; which yacht shall have its name and the date of the +regatta engraved on the cup by the committee, and shall hold it until +the next annual regatta, giving bonds to the committee in the sum of +$600 for the safe keeping of the same. Any damage or loss to the cup +while in the possession of a yacht shall be appraised and deducted +by the committee from the bond on the return of the cup, which shall +be one week before the next annual meeting. Owners of yachts failing +to return the cup at the time specified, shall sacrifice their bonds +and cease to be members of the club. A yacht holding the cup and not +competing for its possession, is considered as having competed and +lost. In all races, at least three yachts must start or no race, unless +a race has been postponed; but should the yacht which is in possession +of the cup be a competitor, she may sail the course, without this limit +as to the number starting. + +The wind being from an unfavorable quarter, the course of 9⅞ miles was +reversed. It led from the south end of the breakwater, south of Rock +Dunder, south of Juniper Ledge buoy, west of Juniper Island, north +of Appletree buoy, and around the north end of the breakwater. Eight +yachts entered the lists; the _Flyaway_, the _Agnes T._, the _Ripple_, +the _White Wings_, the _Burlington_, the _Gypsie_, Phelps & Son, the +_Surprise_, Joseph Labelle, and the _Virginia_, Peter Thust, the two +latter being Canadians. There was a splendid start, the eight boats all +crossing the line within a space of 1m. 14s. They kept well together, +and on turning the Ledge buoy they were so closely bunched as to be in +each other’s way. Then came more than four miles of beating. The _White +Wings_ capsized in trying to house her jib, and the Canadian boats +gave up the fight. The _Agnes T._ had led thus far with a prospect of +winning, because she was allowed 2m. 10s.--a figure that would have +given her the race over the _Flyaway_ the day before. But her narrow +beam kept down the area of her sails, and she dropped out, while the +_Flyaway_ spread her gaff-topsail and shot ahead. The _Burlington_ held +her port tack well into the broad lake, the _Gypsie_ tacking nearly as +long. It was evident the race belonged to the _Flyaway_ or the _Agnes +T._ The latter was 6½m. behind in turning the Appletree buoy. Then the +race homeward was commenced. The _Flyaway_ set her jib-topsail, and the +_Agnes T._ set her spinnaker. It was to be a very close thing--for the +_Flyaway_ had allowed her rival 2m. 26s., and the _Gypsie_ 9m. 50s. Had +not the spinnaker gone overboard, the _Agnes T._ might have won. + +The score stood-- + + _Elapsed_ _Corrected_ + _Time._ _Time._ + H. M. S. H. M. S. + Flyaway 2 03 19 2 03 19 + Agnes T. 2 09 10 2 06 44 + Gypsie 2 17 20 2 07 30 + Burlington 2 16 28 2 22 55 + +It should be stated that the _Burlington_ was obliged to give an +allowance of 6m. 27s. to the winner--thus making her fourth, although +she was third in elapsed time. As soon as the _Flyaway_ crossed the +line there was a welcome from all the steam-whistles in and about the +harbor, such as old Champlain had never heard before. + +Now came an incident that showed the _esprit de corps_ of the new +yacht club. Many of the older clubs do not venture upon the Corinthian +race, wherein every boat must be sailed by its owner, assisted solely +by members of the club to which he belongs. Even if the members want +a race of this sort, it is only after years of hard work and constant +sailing contests, that it will be worth the trouble. But Commodore +Wetmore had with him upon the _Dolphin_--the official boat--Col. W. +A. Crombie, vice-commodore; Chester Griswold, fleet captain; Joseph +Auld, secretary; Maj. M. B. Adams, U. S. Engineers; Captain Abbott, +of the 6th U. S. Cavalry, and one or two civilians, who were also +land-lubbers. It was suggested to the commodore that it was of no use +to start the Corinthian race because there could be none--the _Agnes +T._ alone offering to sail. But the commodore blew his whistles, the +proper flag appeared on the club-house, and the race was started in +good form--all except the boats. Then the Commodore delivered himself: +“I propose to let everybody know that we go through the forms of +starting every race, whether there is anybody to start or not. Next +year every boatman and every visitor will know just what to expect. It +is better to start our first regatta right and educate everybody up to +the proper way to do these things.” + +The final whistle was blown and the first annual regatta of the Lake +Champlain Yacht Club was over; and over with great credit, thanks more +particularly to the energetic Regatta Committee, W. Boerum Wetmore, +Chester Griswold and H. Le G. Cannon, of New York, and Elias Lyman and +Lieut. A. S. Cummins, of Burlington. Then the sharpies, cutters, sloops +and cats sailed away; and if you were “handy there” you must have heard +the old refrain taken up and echoed back from the hills!-- + +[Illustration: THE “AGNES T.”--T. A. TAFT.] + + “Watch her! catch her! + Jump up in a ju-ba-ju; + Give her sheet and let her howl, + We’re the boys to put her through. + Oh! you ought to hear her howling + When the wind is blowing free.” + +Among the sailing-yachts that did not race, were--the _Emily_, Rev. C. +H. Kimball, of Hartford, Conn.; and the _Champlain_, J. Armor Knox, of +New York. The list would not be complete without a mention of three +screw-yachts: the _Sappho_, owned and sailed by the ever-hospitable Dr. +W. S. Webb; the _Scionda_, which knows every reef and bay of Champlain, +under the guidance of the genial commodore, Jacob G. Sanders; and the +_Alexandria_, upon whose decks and within whose cabins Mr. Alexander +Macdonald, of St. Johns, dispensed true Canadian hospitality, and added +much to the social features of the regatta by the presence of his +guests, Mayor Macdonald, U. S. Consul Bertrand, and Mr. Charles Aspin, +of St. Johns, and Judge Davidson, Col. and Mrs. Bond, Miss Bond, Miss +Wood, and Miss Grant, of Montreal. + +It is hoped, and rather expected, that another year we may see a race +for steam yachts. The _Sappho_ is 104 feet long, 15 feet beam and 7 +feet 6 inches in draught. The _Scionda_ is 98 feet long, 17 feet beam +and 6 feet in draught. The _Alexandria_ is about 85 feet long, with a +beam and draught nearly the same as the _Scionda_. She is built not +so much for speed as for porpoise and other fishing off the coast of +Newfoundland, and all of her arrangements and appliances are of the +most complete and compact kind. An engine, from Providence, R. I., +gives the motive-power. + +The new yacht club starts with all the advantages that the experience +of the older clubs can offer. It is really the pioneer of strict +yachting on the inland waters of the United States. Even on salt water +the history of yachting commences with the New York Yacht Club less +than fifty years ago; and all the developments of the present day date +from within the past twenty years. The pioneer of clubs in New England, +the Boston, was not formed till 1865. The South Boston was formed in +1868; and the Bunker Hill and the Portland in 1869. At the latter +date there were only fifteen clubs in the United States--all of them +on salt water. So the new club enters the lists not much behind the +others in age, and with every inducement and opportunity to avoid their +mistakes, and to profit by their success. In these days of steam-power +the yachtsmen are the only ones left to keep alive the tone and vigor +of the old-time seamanship which was the theme of song and story. And +when the American navy finds its reserve--as it surely will--in the +well-trained yachtsmen of the day, then the Champlain Club will offer +aid that is worth having upon a lake that saw the transit of arms for +more than 200 years. + +But the Lake Champlain Yacht Club is thus early in the process of +changing from its original design and scope. We have already seen +how it has grown beyond the sharpie. In spite of schooner or barque +rigs and lower freeboards and more cutter-like sterns the sharpies +that entered the races showed that they were both out-pointed and +out-footed by the sloops. In other words, they failed to hold that grip +upon the water that all boats must have when beating. Their narrow +beams also keep down the area of their sails. As racers, therefore, +the regatta showed them to be failures--although they are safe, roomy +and comfortable boats for cruising. The accident to the _White Wings_ +should not tell against the sharpie model, for even a broader beamed +boat is liable to go over when a gybe comes along and the booms and the +ballast are on the same side of the keel. In running before the wind, +however, the sharpie proves to be a safe and a fairly speedy boat. + +The other extreme--to which the club seems to be tending--is the +salt-water sloop of the latest design. Such an one, the _Nautilus_, +was expected to be ready for this regatta, but it will surely be on +hand next year, prepared to beat all comers, if what is claimed can be +proved. The hull floats a mile or two down the lake, and the spars and +boom are laid aside till another season. Burgess, of Boston, finished +the lines, and they are very nearly those of the _Volunteer_, the +defender of the _America’s_ Cup, but on a smaller scale. The length +on deck is 53 feet, and on the waterline 40 feet. The beam is 15 feet +and 3 inches, and the draught is 5 feet--or about 13 feet with the +12-foot center-board down. The color is white, but the gunwales are of +oak, and the combings are of mahogany. Steel rigging is used. The mast +is 42 feet high, and the topmast is 34 feet more, a total of 76 feet +from the deck. From the step of the mast to the end of the bowsprit is +39 feet, while the boom is 47 feet long. This makes the lower edge of +the sail-plan triangle 86 feet. With a single rig of sails spread the +_Nautilus_ will carry about 350 square yards, but if the flying-jib, +the spinnaker, and other extra sails are included, the area will reach +about 700 square yards. + +Of course the building of the _Nautilus_ is tentative. It remains to be +seen whether as much sail area as can be spread to the steady breezes +of salt water can be spread with profit, or even with safety, to the +comparatively unsteady and uncertain winds of an inland lake that is +surrounded by mountains. The American Canoe Association has proved, +on a smaller scale, that big sails on a mountain-locked lake are to +be avoided. Experience has shown that a moderate area of sail, well +handled, wins the day; but there are times when a light wind gives +the race to the man who has the largest area. The same experience is +likely to come to the yacht club, and our prediction is that it will +soon be shown that the _Nautilus_ has too many and too large sails for +her hull, and that by the time of the regatta in August she will appear +with a smaller area. But if the _Nautilus_ can go through the narrow +pass in the lake known as Split Rock, with its varying currents of air +and water, and its sudden and terrific squalls from off Whallon’s bay, +then she can do anything; for that is the test of seamanship, according +to the old sailors on the lake. Such a severe trial, however, should +not be asked of the _Nautilus_, or of any other new boat that is built +for the same purpose. Her mission is not so much to tempt Providence as +to mark an era in the advancement of yachting upon the unsalted waters. + +Whatever may be thought of Burlington as a place of winter resort, it +is certain that it is developing into a more popular place for the +passing of the warmer months. Instead of the winter carnivals we have +not only yacht-racing, but all the other pleasures that the water can +afford. While the principal rivers of the New York shore are bounded +by rocks, those on the Vermont shore are bounded by long bars of sand. +To the northward of Burlington the Lamoille sends out a long sand-bar +on which, with a little assistance by men, a drive has been formed to +one of the larger islands. It goes by the name of the Sandbar Bridge. +Then there is the Winooski, or Onion River, which empties into the lake +seven or eight miles south of the Lamoille River, and a mile or so +north of Burlington. The river rises close to the Connecticut River, +on the southern borders of Vermont breaks through the range of the +Green Mountains and shows caves at Duxbury and many other points along +the slope of the Camel’s Hump. The river, in fact, runs through the +valley between Mansfield and the Camel’s Hump, and presents a series of +surprises to the tourist. + +Burlington was in the old seigniory of La Manaudiere on both sides +of the Lamoille River, and belonged to Pierre Rainbault, who was one +of the French victims at the time of the conquest of Canada by the +English. Burlington has many beautiful spots, and the monuments to +Lafayette and Allen are especially worth visiting. The isolated rock +Dunder, only a mile or two off from the wharves, has always been an +object of mystery, many claiming that it was the original boundary +between the French and English Indians. Then there is Juniper Island, +on which the United States has established a light-house, and the +breakwater which forms the real harbor of the city except when, as +occasionally happens, the waves break down the breakwater itself. Only +a short distance down the lake are Shelburne town, and the neighboring +resort known as Cedar Beach. Then we come to the extensive grounds, +thousands of acres in area, recently purchased by the Vanderbilts and +their connections, and now developed into most beautiful parks and +all kinds of driveways, that would do credit to cities of much larger +growth. + +Indeed, Burlington is the city which Edward Everett Hale recently +described as a fitting answer to Matthew Arnold’s strictures upon the +homeliness of Americans and their surroundings. Mr. Hale spoke of the +new hospital in Burlington, and its fund of half a million dollars, and +said: “If this be a commonplace monument, let us thank God that we live +in a commonplace land.” He spoke of the public library with its choice +collections, and was informed that it was a question whether there were +three or four paupers in the poorhouse. Then Mr. Hale went on to say: +“This is so distinguished a condition of affairs that I should not dare +tell that story in any social science congress in Europe. It would be +set down as a Yankee exaggeration. People would say it was impossible. +It is not impossible, because the men and women of Burlington have +known how to give themselves to the administration of the wealth in +common.” + + + + +THE BREAKING OF WINTER. + +BY PATIENCE STAPLETON. + + +“That’s the fust funerel I’ve went to sence I was a gal, but that I +drove to the graveyard.” + +“I dunno as that done the corp enny good.” + +“An’ seems all to onc’t I miss old Tige,” muttered the first speaker +half to herself. + +It was snowing now, a fine mist sifting down on deep-drifted +stone-walls and hard, shining roads, and the tinkle of sleigh-bells, +as a far-away black line wound over the hill to the bleak graveyard, +sounded musical and sweet in the muffled air. Two black figures in the +dazzling white landscape left the traveled road and ploughed heavily +along a lane leading to a grove of maples, cold and naked in the winter +scene. + +“They say Ann Kirk left a good prop’ty,” said the first speaker, a +woman of fifty, with sharp black eyes, red cheeks, few wrinkles and +fewer gray hairs in the black waves under her pumpkin hood. She pulled +her worn fur cape around her neck and took a new grasp on her shawl, +pinning it tight. “Ann an’ me used to take a sight of comfort driving +old Tige.” + +The man, her companion, grunted and went sturdily ahead. He was +enveloped in a big overcoat, a scarf wound around his neck and a +moth-eaten fur cap pulled down over his ears. His blue eyes were watery +from the cold, his nose and chin peaked and purple, and frost clung to +the short gray beard about his mouth. + +“Who’ll git the prop’ty?” panted the woman. She held her gown up in +front, disclosing a pair of blue socks drawn over her shoes. + +“Relashuns, I s’pose.” + +“She was allus so savin’, keepin’ drippins for fryin’, and sellin’ +nearly every mite of butter they made; an’ I’ve heered the Boston +relashuns was extravagant. Her sister hed on a black silk to the +funerel to ride to the grave in; I guess they are well-to-do.” + +“Dunno,” gruffly. + +Somehow then the woman remembered that glossy silk, and that she had +never had one. Then this sister’s husband, how attentive he was leading +his wife out to the sleigh, and she had seen them walking arm-in-arm +the past summer, when no man in Corinth ever offered his arm to his +wife unless it were to a funeral and they were first mourners. “Silas +never give me his arm but the fust Sunday we were merried,” she +thought; “bein’ kind to wimmen wan’t never the Lowell’s way.” A sharp +pain in her side made her catch her breath and stop a moment, but the +man paid no heed to her distress. At the end of a meadow on a little +rise looking down a long, shady lane, stood a gray old farm-house, to +which age had given picturesqueness and beauty, and here Maria Lowell +had lived the thirty years of her married life. She unlocked the door +and went into the cold kitchen where the fire had died down. A lean cat +came purring from under the table, and the old clock seemed to tick +more cheerily now the mistress had returned. + +“A buryin’ on Christmas Eve, the minister said, and how sad it were, +and I felt like tellin’ him Ann an’ me never knowed Christmas from enny +other day, even to vittles, for turkeys fetched better prices then, an’ +we sold ourn.” She went into a frozen bedroom, for Corinth folks would +have thought a man crazy to have a fire in a sleeping-room except in +sickness; she folded her shawl and cape and laid them carefully on the +feather bed, covered with its gay quilt, the fruit of her lonely hours. +Mechanically she set about getting supper, stirring the fire, putting +a pan of soda biscuits in to bake, and setting a dish of dried-apple +sauce and a plate of ginger cookies on the table. “Berried on Chrismus +Eve, but little she ever thought of it, nor me, and little of it Jimmy +hed here to home.” + +She looked at her biscuits, slammed the oven door, glanced cautiously +around to see if Silas, who had gone to milk the cow, were coming; +then drawing her thin lips tighter, went back into the cold bedroom. +With ruthless hand tearing open an old wound, she unlocked a drawer +in the old mahogany bureau and took out something rolled in a +handkerchief--only a tiny vase, blue and gilt, woefully cheap, laughed +at by the cultured, scorned by the children of to-day. She held it +tenderly in her cold hand and brought back the memory that would never +die. It was years and years ago in that very room, and a little child +came in holding one chubby hand behind him, and he looked at her +with her own bright eyes under his curly hair. “Muver, Jimmy’s got a +s’prise.” She remembered she told him crossly to go out of the cold +room and not bother her. She remembered, too, that his lip quivered, +the lip that had yet the baby curve. “It was a present, muver, like the +minister sed. I got candy on the tree, but you didn’t git nawthin’, +and I buyed you this with my berry money.” The poor little vase in +that warm chubby hand--ay, she forgot nothing now; she told him he was +silly to spend good money on trash, and flung the vase aside, but that +grieved childish face came back always. Ah, it would never fade away, +it had returned for a quarter of a century. “I never was used to young +ones,” she said aloud, “nor kindness,” but that would not heal the +wound; no self-apology could. She went hurriedly to the kitchen, for +Silas was stamping the snow off his feet in the entry. + +“I got fifty dollars for old Tige,” he said, as he poured his tea into +his saucer to cool; “he was wuth it, the honest old creetur!” + +The little black-eyed woman did not answer; she only tightened her +lips. Over the mantel where the open fireplace had been bricked up, was +a picture in a narrow black frame, a colored print of Washington on a +fine white horse, and maidens strewing flowers in his pathway. + +“When Tige was feelin’ good,” continued Silas, “he’d a monstrous +likeness to thet hoss in the pictur, monstrous! held his hed high an’ +pranced; done you good to see him in Bath when them hosses tried to +parss him; you’d a thort he was a four-year-old! chock full of pride. +The hackman sed he was a good ’un, but run down; I don’t ’low to +overfeed stock when they ain’t wurkin’.” + +“Ourn has the name of bein’ half starved,” muttered the woman. + +Silas looked at her in some surprise. “I ginerelly gits good prices for +’em all the same.” + +“We ginerelly overreach every one!” + +“Goin’ to Ann’s funerel hez sorter upset ye, M’ri: Lord, how old Tige +would cavort when Jim would ride him; throw out his heels like a colt. +I never told the hackman Tige was eighteen year old. I ain’t over +pertikler in a hoss trade, like everybody else. He wun’t last long I +calc’late now, for them hack horses is used hard, standin’ out late +nights in the cold an’--” + +“Was the Wilkins place sold out ter-day?” said the woman hastily, with +agonizing impatience to divert his thoughts to something else. + +“Yes, it were,” chuckled Silas, handing his cup for more tea, “an’ +they’ll have ter move ter Bosting. You was ginning me for bein’ mean, +how’d you like to be turned outer doors? Ef I do say it, there ain’t no +money due on my prop’ty, nor never was.” + +“Who air you savin’ it fur?” said Maria, quietly. She sat with downcast +eyes tapping her spoon idly on her saucer; she had eaten nothing. + +“Fur myself,” he growled, pushing his chair back. He lit a pipe and +began to smoke, his feet at the oven door. + +Outside it was quite dark, snow and night falling together in a dense +black pall. Over the lonely roads drifted the snow, and no footfall +marred it. Through drear, silent forests it sifted, sifted down, clung +to cheery evergreens, and clasped shining summer trees that had no +thought for winter woes; it was heaped high over the glazed brooks +that sang, deep down, songs of summer time and gladness, like happy, +good old folks whose hearts are ever young and joyous. Over the wide +Kennebec, in the line of blue the ferry-boat kept open, the flakes +dropped, dropped and made no blurr, like the cellar builders of temples +and palaces, the rank and file, the millions of good, unknown dead, +unmentioned in history or the Bible. The waves seething in the confined +path crackled the false ice around the edges, leaped upon it in +miniature breakers, and swirled far underneath with hoarse murmur. In +the dark water something dark rose and fell with the tide. Was there a +human being drifting to death in the icy sea? The speck made no outcry; +it battled nobly with nature’s mighty force. Surely and slowly the high +wharfs and the lights of Bath faded; nearer grew the woods of Corinth; +the ferry landing and the tavern-keeper’s lamp. + +“I heered suthin’ on the ferry slip,” said a little old man in the +tavern, holding his hand behind his ear. + +“Nawthin’, night’s too black,” said the tavern-keeper; “you’re allus a +hearin’ what no one else do, Beaman.” + +No star nor human eye had seen the black speck on the wild water, and +no hand lent it aid to land. + +In ugly silence Silas smoked his pipe, while equally still, Maria +washed the dishes. She stepped to throw the dish-water outside the door +and then she heard a sound. The night was so quiet a noise traveled +miles. What was it, that steady smothered thud up the lane where so +seldom a stranger came? Was it only the beating of her heart after all? +She shut the door behind her and hurried out, wrapping her wet cold +hands in her apron. Suddenly there came a long, joyful neigh! + +“How on airth did that critter git home?” cried Silas, jumping to his +feet. + +Nearer, nearer, in a grand gallop, with tense muscles and quivering +limbs, with upraised head and flying mane, with eager eyes, nearer, +in great leaps thrusting time and distance far behind, came that +apparition of the night. + +“Oh, my God!” cried the woman wildly, “old Tige has come home--come +home to this place, and there is one living thing that loves it!” + +The light flared out from the open door. “How on airth did he git +across the river?” said Silas, querulously. “An’ how am I goin’ to git +him back in this weather?” + +There he stood, the noble old horse that her boy had raised from a +colt, had ridden, had given to her when he went away. “Mother,” her +boy had said, “be good to old Tige. If ever father wants to sell him, +don’t you let him. I’d come back from my grave if the old horse was +abused--the only thing I loved, that loved me in this place I cannot +call a home. Remember he has been so faithful.” + +Ay, he had been faithful, in long, hot summer days, in wide, weary +fields, in breaking the stony soil for others’ harvest, in bringing +wood from the far forest, in every way of burden and work. + +He stood quivering with cold, covered with ice, panting after his +wild gallop; but he was home, poor brute mind! That old farm was his +home: he had frolicked in its green fields as a colt, had carried a +merry-voiced young master, had worked and rested in that old place; +he might be ill-treated and starved, he did not grieve, he did not +question, for it was home! He could not understand why this time the +old master had not taken him away; never before had he been left in +Bath. In his brute way he reasoned he had been forgotten, and when his +chance came, leaped from the barn, running as horse never ran before, +plunged off the wharf into the black waves, swam across and galloped to +his home. + +“If there is a God in Heaven, that horse shall not go back!” cried +the woman fiercely; “if you take him from here again it shall be over +my dead body! Ay, you may well look feared; for thirty years I have +frozen my heart, even to my own son, and now the end’s come. It needed +that faithful brute to teach me; it needed that one poor creature that +loved me and this place, to open the flood-gates. Let me pass, and I +warn you to keep away from me. Women go mad in this lonely, starved +life. Ay, you are a man, but I am stronger now than you ever were. I’ve +been taught all my life to mind men, to be driven by them, and to-night +is a rising of the weak. Put me in the asylum, as other wives are, but +to-night my boy’s horse shall be treated as never before.” + +“But M’ri,” he said, trembling, “there, there now, let me git the +lantern, you’re white as a sheet! We’ll keep him if you say so; why +hadn’t you told me afore?” + +She flung him aside, lit the lantern and then ran up to an attic +chamber under the eaves. “M’ri, you hain’t goin’ to kill yourself?” he +quavered, waiting at the foot of the stairs. She was back in a moment, +her arms full of blankets. + +“What on airth!” + +“Let me alone, Silas Lowell, these were my weddin’ blankets. I’ve saved +’em thirty years in the cedar chist for this. They was too good for you +and me; they air too poor fur my boy’s horse.” + +“But there’s a good hoss blanket in the barn.” + +“The law don’t give you these; it mebbe gives you me, but these is +mine.” + +She flung by him, and he heard the barn door rattle back. He put on his +coat and went miserably after her. + +“M’ri, here’s yer shawl, you’ll git yer death.” The barn lit by the +lantern revealed two astonished oxen, a mild-eyed cow, a line of hens +roosting on an old hay-rack and Maria rubbing the frozen sides of the +white horse. “Put yer shawl on, M’ri, you’ll git yer death.” + +“An’ you’d lose my work, eh? Leave me, I say, I’m burning up; I never +will be cold till I’m dead. I can die! there is death ’lowed us poor +critters, an’ coffins to pay fur, and grave lots.” + +Silas picked up a piece of flannel and began to rub the horse. In +ghastly quiet the two worked, the man watching the woman, and looking +timorously at the axe in the corner. One woman in the neighborhood, +living on a cross-road where no one ever came, had gone mad and +murdered her husband, but “M’ri” had always been so clear-headed! Then +the woman went and began piling hay in the empty stall. + +“You ain’t goin’ to use thet good hay fur beddin’, be ye, M’ri?” asked +Silas in pathetic anxiety. + +“I tell you let me be. Who has a better right to this? His labor cut it +and hauled it; this is a time when the laborer shall git his hire.” + +Silas went on rubbing, listening in painful silence to the click of the +lock on the grain bin, and the swish of oats being poured into a trough. + +“Don’t give him too much, M’ri,” he pleaded humbly, “I don’t mean ter +be savin’, but he’ll eat hisself to death.” + +“The first that ever did on this place,” laughed the woman wildly. + +Then standing on the milking-stool she piled the blankets on the +grateful horse, then led him to the stall where she stood and watched +him eat. “I never see you so free ’round a hoss afore,” said Silas; +“you used to be skeered of ’em, he might kick ye.” + +“He wouldn’t because he ain’t a man,” she answered shrilly; “it’s only +men that gives blows for kindness!” + +“Land of the living!” cried Silas, as a step sounded on the floor, and +a queer figure came slowly into the glare of light by the lantern, a +figure that had a Rembrandt effect in the shadow--an old man, lean and +tall, shrouded in a long coat and bearing on his back a heavy basket. + +“You can’t be a human creetur, comin’ here to-night,” said Maria; +“mebbe you’re the Santy Claus Jim used to tell on as the boys told him; +no man in his senses would come to Sile Lowell’s fur shelter.” + +“M’ri’s upsot,” said Silas meekly, taking the lantern with trembling +hand; “I guess you’ve got off the road; the tavern’s two mile down +toward the river.” + +“You’ve followed the right road,” said Maria; “you’ve come at a day of +reck’nin’; everythin’ in the house, the best, you shall have.” + +She snatched the light from Silas and slammed the barn door, leaving +Tige contentedly champing his oats, wondering if he was still dreaming, +and if his wild swim had been a nightmare followed by a vision of +plenty. In the kitchen Maria filled the stove, lit two lamps and began +making new tea. + +“Thet was a good strong drorin’ we hed fur supper, M’ri,” said Silas, +plaintively, keenly conscious of previous economies; “’pears to me you +don’t need no new.” She paid no heed to him, but set the table with the +best dishes, the preserves--Silas noted with a groan--and then with +quick, skillful hand began cutting generous slices of ham. + +“I hope you’re hungry, sir?” she asked eagerly. + +“Wal, I be, marm,” said the stranger; “an’ if it ain’t no trouble, I’ll +set this ere basket nigh the stove, there’s things in it as will spile. +I be consederable hungry, ain’t eat a bite sence yesterd’y.” + +Silas’s face grew longer and longer; he looked at the hamper hopefully. +That might contain a peddler’s outfit and “M’ri” could get paid that +way. + +“An’ I hain’t money nor nawthin’ to pay fur my vittles ’less there was +wood-sawin’ to be done.” + +“Wood’s all sawed,” said Silas bitterly. + +“I wouldn’t take a cent,” went on Maria, with flushed cheeks and +sparkling eyes. “Ann Kirk thet hed the name of bein’ as mean as me, was +berried to day, and folks that keered nawthin’ fur her is a goin’ to +hev her money an’ make it fly. They say ’round here no grass will ever +grow on her grave, fur ev’ry blade will be blarsted by the curses of +the poor.” + +“M’ri, you a perfessed Christian!” cried Silas. + +“There’s good folks unperfessed,” interposed the stranger; “but I dunno +but a near Christian is better nor a spendthrift one as fetches up at +the poorhouse.” + +“Right you air!” said Silas, almost affably feeling he had an advocate. + +The stranger was tall and bony, with a thin, wrinkled face bronzed by +wind and weather, with a goatee and mustache of pale brown hair, and a +sparse growth of the same above a high bald forehead; his eyes were a +faded brown, too, and curiously wistful in expression. His clothing was +worn and poor, his hands work-hardened, and he stooped slightly. When +the meal was ready he drew up to the table, Maria plying him with food. + +“Would you rather have coffee?” she asked. + +“Now you’ve got me, marm, but land! tea’ll do.” + +“I should think it would,” snarled Silas; but his grumbling was +silenced in the grinding of the coffee mill. When the appetizing odor +floated from the stove, Silas sniffed it, and his stomach began to +yearn. “You put in a solid cup full,” he muttered, trying to worry +himself into refusing it. + +“We want a lot,” laughed Maria. + +“Set up an’ eat,” called the stranger cheerily; “let’s make a banquet; +it’s Chrismus Eve!” + +“That ham do smell powerful good,” muttered Silas, unconsciously +drawing his chair up to the table, where the stranger handed him a +plate and passed the ham. Maria went on frying eggs, as if, thought +her husband, “they warn’t twenty-five cents a dozen,” and then ran +down into the cellar, returning panting and good-humored with a pan of +apples and a jug of cider; then into the pantry, bringing a tin box out +of which she took a cake. + +“That’s pound cake, M’ri,” cried Silas, aghast, holding his knife and +fork upraised in mute horror. She went on cutting thick slices, humming +under her breath. + +“Might I, marm,” asked the stranger, pleasantly, “put this slice of ham +and cake and this cup of milk aside, to eat bymeby?” + +“How many meals do you eat in a evening?” growled Silas, awestruck at +such an appetite; “an’ I want you to know this ain’t no tavern.” + +“Do eat a bite yourself, marm,” said the stranger, as Maria carried the +filled plate to the cupboard. The impudence of a tramp actually asking +the mistress of the house to eat her own food, thought Silas. “We’ve +eat our supper,” he hurled at the stranger. + +“I couldn’t tech a mite,” said Maria, beginning to clear up, and as +he was through eating, the stranger gallantly helped her while Silas +smoked in speechless rage. + +“I’m used to being handy,” explained the tramp. “I allus helped wife. +She’s bin dead these twenty years, leaving me a baby girl that I +brought up.” + +“You was good to her?” asked Maria wistfully; the stranger had such a +kind voice and gentle ways. + +“I done the best I could, marm.” + +Doubting his senses, Silas saw Maria bring out the haircloth +rocking-chair with the bead tidy from the best front room. + +“Lemme carry it,” said the tramp politely. “Now set in’t yerself, marm, +an’ be comfurble.” He took a wooden chair, tilted it back and picked up +the cat. Maria, before she sat down, unmindful of Silas’s bewildered +stare, filled one of his pipes with his tobacco. + +“I know you smoke, mister,” she smiled. + +“Wal, I do,” answered the tramp, whiffing away in great comfort. +“’Pears to me you’re the biggest-hearted woman I ever see.” + +She laughed bitterly. “There wan’t a cluser woman in Corinth than me, +an’ folks’ll tell you so. I turned my own son outer doors.” + +“It was part my fault, M’ri, an’ you hush now,” pleaded Silas, +forgiving even her giving his tobacco away if she would not bring out +that family skeleton. + +“I’ve heered you was cluse,” said the stranger, “an’ thet you sent Jim +off because he went to circuses in Bath, an’ wore store clothes, an’ +wanted wages to pay for ’em.” + +“All true,” said Maria, “an’ he wanted to ride the horse, an’ was mad +at workin’ him so hard.” She went on then, and told how the old animal +had come home. + +“An’ me thinkin’ the critter was a speerit,” said the stranger in a +hushed voice. “Beat’s all what a dumb brute knows!” + +“I thought mebbe,” went on Maria, twisting her thin fingers, “as Jim +might be comin’ home this time. They says things happens curious when +folks is goin’ ter die--” + +“Your good fur a good meny years, M’ri,” said Silas, pitifully. + +“There’s folks in this wurld,” said the stranger, his kindly face +growing sad and careworn since the mother’s eager words, “that ain’t +mean enuff, an’ comes to charity to the end--” + +“That there be,” assented Silas. + +“And as can’t bring up their folks comfurble, nor keep ’em well an’ +happy, nor have a home as ain’t berried under a mortgage they can’t +never clear off.” + +“Ay, there’s lots of ’em,” cried Silas, “an’ Mis Lowell was a twitting +me this very night of bein’ mean.” + +“An’ this good home, an’ the fields I passed thro’, an’ the lane where +the old hoss come a gallopin’ up behind me, is paid fur, no mortgage on +a acre?” + +“There never was on the Lowell prop’ty; they’ll tell ye thet +ennywhere,” said Silas. + +“We uns in the South, where I come from,” said the stranger, shading +his face with his bony hand, “ain’t never fore-handed somehow. My name +is Dexter Brown, marm, an’ I was allus misfortinat. I tell you, marm, +one day when my creditors come an’ took the cotton off my field, thet +I’d plarnted and weeded and worked over in the brilin’ sun, my wife +says--an’ she’d been patient and long-sufferin’--‘Dex, I’m tired out; +jest you bury me in a bit of ground that’s paid fur, an’ I’ll lie in +peace,’ an’ she died thet night.” + +“Mebbe she never knowed what it were to scrimp an’ save, an’ do +without, an’ never see nawthin’, till all the good died in her,” +muttered Maria. + +“Part o’ my debt was wines an’ good vittles fur her, marm.” + +“I’ll warrant!” said Maria quickly, “an’ she never wept over the graves +of her dead children, an’ heered their father complainin’ of how much +their sickness hed cost him. Oh, I tell you, there’s them that reckons +human agony by dollars an’ cents, an’ they’re wus’n murderers!” + +“M’ri!” cried Silas. + +“Mebbe, marm, you are over-worrited ternight,” said the stranger +softly; “wimmen is all feelin’, God bless ’em! an’ how yer son loved +ye, a tellin’ of yer bright eyes an’ red cheeks--” + +She turned to him with fierce eagerness. “He couldn’t keer fur me, I +wan’t the kind. I don’t mind me of hardly ever kissin’ him. I worked +him hard; I was cross an’ stingy. He sed to me, ‘There’s houses that +is never homes, mother.’ I sneered an’ blamed him for his little +present.” She ran and brought the vase. “I’ve kept that, Mr. Brown, +over twenty years, but when he give it to me, bought outer his poor +little savin’s, I scolded him. I never let him hev the boys here to pop +corn or make candy; it was waste and litter. Oh, I know what he meant; +this was never a home.” + +“But he only spoke kind of ye allus.” + +“Did you know Jim? Been gone this ten year, an’ never a word.” + +Silas, a queer shadow on his face, looked eagerly at Brown. + +“I did know him,” slowly and cautiously--“he was a cowboy in Texas, as +brave as the best.” + +“He could ride,” cried Maria, “as part of a horse, an’ Tige was the +dead image of that Washington horse in the pictur, an’ Jim used to +say thet girl there in the blue gown was his girl--the one with the +bouquet; an’ I used to call him silly. I chilled all the fun he hed +outer him, an’ broken-speerited an’ white-faced he drifted away from +us, as far away as them in the graveyard, with the same weary look as +they hed in goin’.” + +“An’ he took keer of much as a hundred cattle,” said Silas; “they has +thet meny I’ve heerd, in Texas?” + +“They has thousands; they loses hundreds by drought--” + +“Wanter know?” cried Silas, his imagination refusing to grasp such +awful loss. + +“Wal, I knowed Jim, an’ he got merried--” + +“Merried!” from both the old parents. + +“He did. He says, ‘I wunt write the home-folks till I’m well off, for +mother will worrit an’ blame me, an’ I hain’t money, but Minnie an’ I +love each other, an’ are satisfied with little.’” + +“Minnie,” the mother repeated. “Was she pretty?” + +“Woman all over you be, to ask thet, an’ she was,” said Brown, sadly +“with dark eyes, sorter wistful, an’ hair like crinkled sunshine, an’ +a laugh like a merry child, fur trouble slipped off her shoulders like +water off a duck’s back.” + +“An’ they got prosperous?” asked Silas uneasily. + +“They was happy,” said Brown with gentle dignity; “they was allus +happy, but they lived under a mortgage, an’ it was drift from pillar to +post, an’ ups an’ downs.” + +“An’ they’re poor now,” muttered Silas, visions of Jim and his family +to support coming to him. + +“Hush!” cried Maria. “Tell me, sir, was there children? Oh, the heart +hunger I’ve had for the sound of a child’s voice, the touch of baby +hands. You an’ me grandpa and grandma, Sile! an’, my God! you think of +money now.” + +“Set calm,” pleaded Brown, “for I must hev courage to tell ye all.” + +“An’ they sent ye to tell us they was comin’?” asked Silas, judging of +their prosperity from the shabby herald. + +“They asked me to come, an’ I swore it. There’s a queer blight as +creeps inter our country, which without thet might be like everlasting +Paradise. Ourn is a land of summer an’ flowers, but up here in this +ice-bound region, the air is like water in runnin’ brooks, it puts life +an’ health in ye.” + +“There’s the blight o’ consumption here. We’re foreordained to suffer +all over this airth,” muttered the woman. + +“But there it comes in waves of trouble--in awful haste--an’ takes +all at once, an’ them that’s well flees away and the sick dies alone. +So the yellow fever come creepin’ inter my home, fur Minnie was my +child--the daughter I’d keered fur; an’ fust the baby went from her +arms, an’ then little Silas (arter you, sir). Then Minnie sickened, an’ +her laugh is only an echo in my heart, for she died and was berried, +the baby in her arms, and Jim was took next--an’ he says” (only the +ticking of the clock sounded now, never so loud before): “‘I want you, +dad,’ (he called me dad) ‘to go to my old home in Maine. I want you +to tell my father I named my dead boy for him, and I thought of his +frugal, saving life with pain, and yet I am proud that his name is +respected as that of an honest man, whose word is his bond. I’ll never +go up the old lane again,’ says Jim, ‘nor see mother standing in the +door with her bright eyes and red cheeks that I used to think was like +winter apples. And the old horse, she said she’d care for, I won’t see +him again, nor hear the bells. In this land of summer I only long for +winter, and dad, if I could hear those hoarse old jolly bells I’d die +in peace. Queer, ain’t it? And I remember some rides I took mother; +she wan’t afraid of the colt, and looked so pretty, a white hood over +her dark hair. You go, dad, and say I was sorry, and I’d planned to +come some day prosperous and happy, but it’s never to be. Tell mother +to think of me when she goes a Sunday afternoon to the buryin’-ground, +as she used to with me, and by those little graves I felt her mother’s +heart beat for me, her living child, and I knew, though she said +nothing, she cared for me.’ He died tellin’ me this, marm, an’ was +berried by my girl, an’ I think it was meant kind they went together, +for both would a pined apart. So I’ve come all the way from Texas, +trampin’ for weary months, for I was poor, to give you Jim’s words.” + +“Dead! Jim dead!” cried Silas, in a queer, dazed way. “M’ri,” +querulously, “you allus sed he was so helthy!” + +She went to him and laid her hand on his bowed head. + +“An’ we’ve saved an’ scrimped an’ pinched fur strangers, M’ri, fur +there ain’t no Lowell to have the prop’ty, an’ I meant it all fur Jim. +When he was to come back he’d find he was prosperous, an’ he’d think +how I tried to make him so.” + +“The Lord don’t mean all dark clouds in this life,” said the stranger. +“Out of that pestilence, that never touched her with its foul breath, +came a child, with Minnie’s face and laugh, but Jim’s own eyes--a bit +of mother an’ father.” + +The old people were looking at him with painful eagerness, dwelling on +his every word. + +“It was little May; named Maria, but we called her May for she was +borned three year ago in that month; a tiny wee thing, an’ I stood by +their graves an’ I hardened my heart. ‘They drove her father out; they +sha’n’t crush her young life,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep her.’ But I knowed I +couldn’t. Poverty was grinding me, and with Jim’s words directin’ me, +I brought her here.” + +“Brought her here!” cried the poor woman. + +“Ay! She’s a brave little lass, an’ I told her to lie quiet in the +basket till I told her to come out, fur mebbe you wan’t kind an’ would +send us both out, but I found your hearts ready fur her--” + +With one spring Maria reached the basket and flung open the lid, +disclosing a tiny child wrapped in a ragged shawl, sleeping peacefully +in her cramped bed, but with tears on her long lashes, as if the +waiting had tried her brave little soul. + +“Jest as gritty,” said Brown, “an’ so good to mind; poor lass!” + +Maria lifted her out, and the child woke up, but did not cry at the +strange face that smiled on her with such pathetic eagerness. “Oh, the +kitty!” cried May. “I had a kitty once!” That familiar household object +reconciled her at once. She ate the cake eagerly and drank the milk, +insisting on feeding the ham to the cat. + +“Him looks hungy,” she said. + +“We’ve all been starved!” cried Maria, clasping the child to her heart. + +Such a beautiful child, with her merry eyes and laugh and her golden +curls, a strange blossom from a New England soil, yet part of her +birthright was the land of flowers and sunshine. Somehow that pathetic +picture of the past faded when the mother saw a blue and gilt vase in +the baby’s hand--Jim’s baby’s. + +“It’s pitty; fank you!” said the little creature. Then she got down to +show her new dress and her shoes, and made excursions into the pantry, +opening cupboard doors, but touching nothing, only exclaiming, “Dear +me, how pitty!” at everything. Then she came back, and at Brown’s +request, with intense gravity, began a Spanish dance she had learned +when they stopped at San Antonio, from watching the Mexican senoritas. +She held up her little gown on one side and gravely made her steps +while Dexter whistled. The fire leaped up and crackled loudly, as if +it would join her, the cat purred, the tea-kettle sung from the back +of the stove, and little snowflakes, themselves hurrying, skurrying in +a merry dance, clung to the window-pane and called other little flakes +to hasten and see such a pretty sight. Maria watched in breathless +eagerness, and Silas, carried beyond himself, forgetting his scruples, +cried out: + +“Wal, ef that don’t beat all I ever see! Come here, you little chick!” +holding out his silver watch. + +With a final pirouette she finished with a grave little courtesy, then +ran to Silas: “Is there birdie in der?” and he caught her up and kissed +her. + + * * * * * + +When the old lane is shady in summertime, and golden-rod and daisies +crowd the way, and raspberries climb the stone-wall, and merry +squirrels chatter and mock the red-breasted robins, and bees go humming +through the odorous air, there comes a big white horse that looks like +Washington’s in the picture; and how carefully he walks and bears +himself, for he brings a little princess who has made the old house +a home. Such a fairy-like little thing, who from her sunshine makes +everybody bright and happy, and Silas’s grim old face is smiling as he +leads the horse, and Maria, with her basket of berries, is helped over +the wall by Dexter Brown, who always says he must go but never does, +for they love him, and he and Silas work harmoniously together. And +grandma’s eyes are brighter than ever and her cheeks as red. + +“What comfortable folks they air gittin’ to be,” say the neighbors, +“kinder livin’, but I dunno but goin’ a berryin’ a hull arternoon is +right down shiftless.” + +Winter is over and forever gone from that household on the hill; the +coming of gracious, smiling spring in a sweet child’s presence has made +eternal sunshine in those ice-bound hearts. + + + + +HINTS TO FOOTBALL CAPTAINS. + +BY WALTER C. CAMP. + + +Much has been written from time to time of the growth of the game of +football, and the reasons for its popularity, but no one has described +that which is the real secret of its fascination; viz., planning the +campaign. Planning a football campaign is a most interesting piece of +strategic work, and the amount of thought expended on it would astonish +the majority of that eager audience which crowds the Polo Grounds on +Thanksgiving Day. + +“Get some of your old men back to coach,” is a bit of advice often +given to captains of crews and ball nines. But to no one is it so +invaluable as to football captains. It is the careful planning of the +season’s work that will bring victory in November. Through the summer +the captain has been counting over the material he will have as a +nucleus in the fall, and he has also calculated about how much he can +rely upon from preparatory schools. As a rule he treats with distrust +all reports of wonderful men in the incoming class, for the players who +may have been giants on school teams are generally lost in the crowd on +a university field. + +His first interest on looking over the men he means to make use of is +this: Are there enough old men to steady the team? With five old men +no captain should be discouraged, and with six or over he ought to be +hopeful, provided he has a half-back and a quarter among them. The +reason for this is that he can then arrange to have a veteran next to +every novice in his team, by scattering the three old rushers. It is +amazing what steadiness can be infused into a team in this way. If the +captain has six instead of five, he can then strengthen the weak side +of his team by putting an old hand as an end-rusher on the side of the +green half-back. + +This plan of formation is merely for the early weeks of the season +until the real campaign can be laid out. The veterans act as coaches +to the new men, and after ten or fifteen days of playing in this way, +the novices, if they be at all promising men, will have learned the +general system of play, for the positions in which they stand. That is, +the rushers will have learned not to bunch, _i. e._, keep too close to +the next man, and also not to lag, or be slow in lining up when the +ball is down. They will have been repeatedly cautioned against tackling +high and not getting through hard. A new half will have learned about +how far back he ought to stand, and how quickly he has to kick. In this +way the captain can accomplish a double amount of work, for while he is +looking over his new material, and deciding upon what men will develop +into the service, his old players are giving very efficient assistance +to him by coaching the new ones and rapidly breaking them in. Were it +not for this, things would be in almost as much of a mess after ten +days’ playing as at the start, for it frequently happens that a green +captain will make so little use of his old men in the way of coaching +that the new men will be blundering on in the middle of the season full +of faults which might have been stopped the first week. + +Two weeks’ work will enable the captain to select about sixteen men +from whom he sees his team must be drawn. If he is wise he will be +inclined at this period to favor those men who are showing rapid +improvement rather than those whom he knows have already reached their +best days. He will also put some thought upon the general weight of his +team as well as the probable weight of the other teams he must meet. + +When he has considered these matters well, and made up in his own mind +the strongest team he can select, he should play these men together as +nearly as possible for some three or four days, and after making any +changes that may seem to him necessary, get his coaches together and +stand with them for one afternoon, when all will have a good look at +the practice. That evening he should have a meeting of the team and +coaches, and a thorough discussion of the strength and weakness of the +team. One learns very rapidly at such a meeting what the team considers +its strong points and where they fear an enemy. During the next week +the captain and coaches should decide finally upon what the strongest +plays of the team are likely to be. The great necessity of doing this +early is to thoroughly provide against accident, not only by being +more than usually careful of the one or two men most engaged in these +plays, but also to train others up to a moderate degree of skillfulness +to take the places of men who may be injured. A decision must also +be reached regarding the weak points of the team, and these not only +strengthened but made less evident to opponents. + +Following upon these decisions should come a week or more of very hard +individual coaching. Each man is taken by himself and worked at as +though upon him and his particular plays depended the victory or defeat +of the team. A curious fact is that just at this point in the season, +not only the team, but very often the captain and coaches are sure that +their playing is poor and that defeat stares them in the face. The +true explanation of this is that the enthusiasm has been worked off +to a great extent, and the players have not yet gained the dexterity +that practice will give, so that the poor playing is really painfully +apparent. + +Let us review the plan of the campaign up to this point. The captain +first sprinkled his veterans among the raw recruits, so that it was +necessary for them to mingle. By doing this he has prevented the old +men from banding together and looking down upon the new ones, and has +also compelled the green men to ask questions of the experts. While +all were thus being well shaken together, he has had an opportunity +to select the best team, and, by actual trial, to judge in what line +of action they would prove strongest. All this has been effected with +the least possible loss of time, for, owing to the shortness of the +football season, time is too valuable to be wasted even in experiments. +Of individual coaching, little need be said, as it is only a means of +improving details, and does not affect the campaign, except in the way +of dexterity. + +The captain next begins to study the best offensive and defensive +tactics for his team. He starts with the problem in such shape as this: +Given the kick-off with an adverse wind, what is the best opening for +the style of game his team plays? He may kick the ball as far down the +field as possible. But this is very seldom a good opening, because +the side that wins the toss, having the choice of goal or kick-off, +it invariably happens that the kick-off is made against the wind. The +captain knows that if he makes a straight kick down the field under +these circumstances it will be returned, and with the help of the wind, +will most surely be put back some distance into his own territory, so +that the play will have lost him considerable ground. + +The next thing to be considered is a long kick down the field and +out of bounds on the side. This opening was a strong feature of the +Yale game for several years, owing to the combination of two happy +possessions--a strong place-kicker and a very fast end-rusher. The +play usually means that the ball, when it goes into touch, is first +reached by the opponents and they return it into the field at the point +where it went out. Of course, the ball has made considerable advance +into the enemy’s territory; but as an offset to this, they have gained +possession of the ball, and, if their play is strong and accurate, they +should be able to return it past the center of the field on their first +kick. While the above is the usual result of the play, it does happen +that a fast end-rusher, in perfect unanimity with the place-kicker, +will succeed in reaching the ball before the opponents. In this case +there is an actual gain of the distance from the centre of the field to +the spot where the ball crossed the touchline. Another opening is to +dribble the ball and then pass it back for the half to punt. This gives +the rushers a chance to get up the field and prevent a return kick. In +this case, unless the ball is fumbled, there is only an apparent gain, +for the ball is in the possession of the enemy and after the down will +be returned probably beyond the centre of the field. + +The opening most popular during the past season was the “running +break” or “V.” The ball was dribbled and passed back to a half who was +protected by the rushers enough to insure his having a fair start. He +then made a break for the opening in the line and carried the ball as +far as he could. The amount of interference allowed last year made this +a strong opening, because the player usually made several yards, and +that without losing the ball. + +From this point on, however, comes the real strategy of the game. An +illustration of this is the statement made and carried out by one of +the coaches of a team which competed one Thanksgiving Day, not many +years ago. After a conference with the captain and other coaches the +night before the game, he made the astonishing statement that his team +would, if they lost the toss, put the ball over the enemy’s goal-line +in less than five minutes from the time of kick-off. The diagram of +the plans was laid out on paper, and is still in the possession of one +of the men. The plays were these: The ball was dribbled and passed by +a long throw to the right half-back, whose run was made successfully. +The ball was snapped and passed to the rusher next the end on the same +side. This play was strong, because the position of the men and the +throw of the quarter made it appear that the ball was again going to +the half, and the opposing rushers went through the more eagerly. The +next play was a centre-play--the guard giving the ball to the quarter +for a run, and the final play, which carried the ball over the line, +was out next the end once more. The immense superiority of such a +system over the usual method of sending the ball wherever there seems +the most chance was conclusively proven, for, with the exception of a +slight fumble, which caused one more down, there was no break in the +chain, and each man made within a few yards of the spot which had been +marked on the paper. + +While it is, of course, impossible to lay out the entire progress of +the game, owing to the element of uncertainty introduced by ignorance +of what line of action may be adopted by one’s opponents, it is +possible to plan what ought to be done at certain stages in the game. + +For instance, for many years it was thoroughly believed by all the +best football men that the kicking game could not be played against +the wind under even the most favorable circumstances. This theory has, +however, fallen through, and it is generally concluded that with fast, +good rushers, and strong, accurate kickers, the running game can with +advantage be supplemented with a few timely kicks. + +The opening of the game has been discussed; the next point is the +placing of the men on the first down by the opponents. This is +something of vital interest to the captain, for if the opponents have +any strong line of play they will undoubtedly develop it early in the +game. To discover and prevent the surprise is, therefore, the end to be +aimed at, for a strong play successfully made at this point seriously +weakens the adversaries, not only taking from them the actual ground, +but upsetting their confidence and nerve as well. + +Upon the use of the quarter depends the style of this first defensive +play. Some captains keep him back of the line where he may assist +the half-backs; others send him up into the line as an extra rusher. +Neither of these two plans can be said to be the right one in all +cases, for there are two elements which govern the play and should +enter into the decision. The first is the relative skill of the rushers +and halves. It is always possible for a captain to say whether he is +strongest “in the line” or “behind it,” and the quarter is most needed +with the weaker set of players. The second is the wind. If this is +very strong and straight with the opponents, there is the greatest +necessity of checking their running before they shall have advanced the +ball within kicking distance of the goal, even though by doing this +the captain for the time being leaves his halves and back less secure. +Therefore the wise captain brings up his quarter into or just behind +the rush line, and concentrates all his strength on preventing the gain +of five yards on three downs. In this way he can oblige his opponents +to kick or lose the ball before they are far enough advanced to be in +dangerous proximity to his goal. Of these two elements, then, it may +be conclusively argued the wind is the greater, and if very strong, +should decide him to bring his quarter up, even though his line of +forwards be exceptionally strong. + +The next point worthy of consideration is the offensive and defensive +play about the goals. Most important are: _guarding a goal against the +wind_, and _trying for a goal with the wind_. The former is of the most +vital importance, and time spent upon studying the situation will prove +of advantage to every captain. Let us suppose the case of a touch-back +(_i. e._, where the ball has crossed the goal-line, but without +compelling a safety), for it is generally at this point that the +condition becomes most serious. The captain finds himself driven back +into his own goal and facing a wind and a team encouraged by success. +His own team, on the contrary, are tired with the effort of contesting +the ground, and they are also nervous with the feeling that the +least slip on their part means a goal or a touch-down. The privilege +of a kick-out--at best a privilege of less than twenty-five yards +start--seems pitifully small in the face of the odds. The situation +is the same as at the kick-off upon beginning, with the exception of +the proximity of the goal and the attendant danger. The ball may be +place-kicked or drop-kicked down the field or out of bounds; it may be +dribbled and passed back for a punt or run. There is one thing which +must not be done, and that is to kick or pass the ball out toward the +centre of the field or across the goal, for as surely as the ball falls +into the enemy’s hands in front of the goal, they will, if their play +be accurate, not fail to score. Next to be borne in mind is that when +the ball does go into their hands it must be either a down or a fair, +_i. e._, it must not be a fair catch, but must go out of bounds, or +into their hands on the roll with a rusher close enough to make them +have it down. There are three ways to accomplish this: the first is +to place or drop-kick the ball down the edge of the field and out of +bounds, or accomplish the same result by a dribble and punt; the second +is to attempt the running game until two downs are exhausted, and then +kick out of bounds; and the third, and most aggressive of all, to kick +the ball a short distance ahead but well up in the air, and putting all +the men on side, rely upon getting possession of the ball in air or in +the scramble as it falls. If the last plan is adopted every man in the +line must go forward with one idea in his mind, and that is to prevent +a fair catch at all hazards. + +Another question is often discussed regarding the protection of a goal, +and that is: Is a man ever justified in running round behind his own +goal with the ball on the chance of getting out far enough on the other +side to gain ground? The only answer to this question lies in the head +of the man who has to do it. There are some who can be trusted to know +when it can be done, but most should be told to never do it unless at +that point in the game a safety will turn the balance of the score, and +they should not do it in the first half. + +But to pass to the attack. A side has advanced the ball within kicking +distance of their opponents’ goal, having the wind and the ball with +them. Should they at once attempt a field-kick, or by running try to +get nearer, or even rely upon a touch-down? If they try a field-kick, +should it be a drop at goal, or should they punt the ball just short of +the goal and chance a muff or a fumble by their adversaries to yield a +touch-down? Unless a team is remarkably strong in the running game, and +has been making their five yards, it is silly to try a touch-down or +nothing. Again, unless there is plenty of time remaining, it takes too +long to work the ball up to the line and get it across, beside the many +risks of losing possession of it in the meantime. Finally, a punt up in +front of the goal is too decidedly a confession of the lack of a good +drop-kicker. + +As a rule, then, the first down had better be utilized by getting the +ball in front of the goal if it is off at the side of the field. The +second down should be an attempt to get somewhat nearer only in case +the snap-back and quarter are sure men. Otherwise the drop-kick should +be tried after the first down. One thing to be said in favor of trying +the drop-kick at once, without attempting to bring the ball in front of +the goal, is that the adversaries are then much less prepared for the +try, and hence the kicker has a more uninterrupted aim and longer time. +After the first down the opponents concentrate their attention more +upon the kicker. + +These are salient features, but, of course, there is an infinity of +detail, of which the present article does not give space to speak. + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Open ~Window~.] + + +THE NATIONAL HORSE SHOW. + +“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good;” and let the press, comic and +otherwise, deride anglomania as it may, the good effects of this same +craze are plainly visible in some directions. Since Richard Ten Broeck +won the Cesarewitch Stakes with Prioress in 1857, since the victories +of Foxhall and Iroquois, no one has doubted that the race-horses of +America are in every respect equal to the English standard. But the +same can scarcely have been said of the carriage-horses, hacks, cobs, +and ponies, while until a comparatively recent date the hunter, in the +English acceptation of the term, was unknown. The rankest “_laudator +temporis acti_,” who took a stroll in Madison Square Garden during the +horse-show week, would not venture to deplore “the good old days” as +far as horseflesh is concerned. The prevalence of the “bang” tail and +hog mane may offend the eye of some, and when such treatment is carried +out on an elephantine dray-horse--as was the case with some of the +exhibits--the result is truly absurd. But the sporting, capable class +of horse with the best of action, which was so well represented--more +so than in any previous year--must of necessity have favorably +impressed the true disciple of horseflesh. + +The exhibition was very good--in some cases extremely so--and in a +rising scale from Mr. Pierre Lorillard’s happy family of Shetlands up +to Mr. A. Palmer Morewood’s colossal Clydesdale “Marlborough,” there +were shapes and sizes to please every eye. From East, West, North, and +South they came to constitute this goodly array, and in some cases +laurels gained in English show rings were supplemented with American +honors. + +In the high-jumping, however, as in former years, lay the special +feature of the show. When it is possible for _green_ hunters--save the +mark!--to be put to jump 6 ft. 6 in., even though it prove somewhat +beyond their powers, it may well make even old horsemen open their +eyes, and wonder where this emulation will stop. Such feats have never +been accomplished or indeed attempted in England, but in the New York +Show the standard rises year by year, and the record, unlike that of +trotting, is all the time being broken. The jump of 6 ft. 9⅞ in., +accomplished by Mr. F. Gebhardt’s “Leo,” ridden by “Pete” Smith, the +only man who can induce this wonderful horse to put forth his powers, +and Messrs. Durland & Co.’s “Filemaker,” ridden by that graceful +rider, Mr. McGibbon, is something which, unless one has seen it done, +he receives with doubting ears. The riding and driving was very good. +In the latter department, Mr. F. Asshenden, as usual, distinguished +himself. He drove in every competition which enters into his province, +with such success that only on one occasion did he leave the ring +without a “ribbon.” + +The management of the show was very well conducted, and with the +exception of some complaints of dampness--which was attributable to +Jupiter Pluvius and not to the management--there were no grounds for +objection. The health of the horses was excellent, the veterinary +department under Drs. Carmody and Field left nothing to be desired, +and the equine visitors left the Garden after their week’s sojourn in +strange quarters in no way the worse for their experience. + + ~Sporting Tramp.~ + + * * * * * + + +PLAIN TALK ABOUT STEEPLE-CHASING. + +For several years past the steeple-chase associations and hunt clubs +have been making strenuous efforts to raise the cross-country branch +of racing to its proper level. Five years ago steeple-chasing was a +byword and a reproach. The scandalous and open swindles that took place +at some of the large tracks were a disgrace, and the managers of these +tracks sat with folded hands while the press exposed the swindles and +urged them to do something or expunge altogether the cross-country +farces from the programme, but nothing was done. The truth is the +managers did not understand steeple-chasing, and would not learn, and +yet it was too lucrative a branch to expunge, as the public enjoyed the +excitement and liked to see the accidents and falls. + +About four years ago the members of the Rockaway Hunt Club formed the +Rockaway Steeple-chase Association, and with the Meadow Brook Hunt +Club as well as members of all the other hunt clubs, joined in trying +to raise the level of steeple-chasing. That they were successful +is shown by the records. What the cost was to their private purses +they themselves only know. It is hardly to the credit of the general +public or to the society element in New York, that associations of +this kind that provide honest and fair sport, should lose thousands +at each meeting. Naturally the members object to this continual +drain, and a change of some kind will have to be made. Neither the +Rockaway Steeple-chase Association nor the Country Club Steeple-chase +Association can continue running at a loss any longer. + +It might be well, however, to analyze the reason for the loss. When +in 1886, the future of racing in this State was jeopardized and +politicians were endeavoring to stop the sport for purposes of their +own, the leading men of both these associations cheerfully lent a +helping hand and worked to get the Pool bill through. Their endeavors +were successful. Racing was limited to the dates between May 15 and +October 15. So far so good. Then came the question of the dates for +the respective meetings, and the large associations at once seized +all they could get. The principal sinner in this respect has been the +Brooklyn Jockey Club, which has shown great precocity in its grabbing +propensities during the short time it has been in existence. Not +content with taking the days the Rockaway people wanted, the Brooklyns +encroached on Jerome Park’s dates and wanted those also. The Country +Club Association had to deal with Jerome, and found that association +very fair and open about its dates. No attempt was made to “grab,” and +every help was cheerfully given that could be. The weather, however, +knocked out the Country Club Association, and also took a hand in +marring the chances of the Rockaway, which, buffeted on all sides, +lost money steadily. Now for the cure. The Steeple-chase Associations +will have to reduce their meetings to the level of hunt races, _pur +et simple_, with cups and very small money added--with perhaps one +large handicap of $1,000 at most, and wait for better times. Another +alternative is to induce the Legislature to alter the Pool bill in +such a way that steeple-chasing may commence in New York State on +May 1 and end on Nov. 1, thus giving the Association a month to hold +their meetings. The third remedy would be to discontinue the meetings +altogether, a course which would be very regrettable. The Rockaway +people have an expensive plant at Cedarhurst, and the Country Club is +making arrangements for something of the same kind. Some measures will +have to be taken to protect their interests as well as those of the +other hunting clubs. + + ~C. S. Pelham-Clinton.~ + + * * * * * + + +THE GAME OF LACROSSE. + +The season which closed November 1 has not been so productive of good +results as those interested in the success of Canada’s national game +anticipated. Certain innovations, which were introduced last spring +and promised well, have proved to be impracticable. Then, again, the +splitting of the old National Association into two minor leagues has +not brought about closer relationship between the clubs. Not one of the +New England clubs has signified its intention of joining the Eastern +Association. A local championship series and a few games with outside +clubs have satisfied them. + +The Western Association, and its doings during the first season of +its existence, remain unknown to the lacrosse men in the East. For +some reason efforts to bring about cordial relations between the two +sections of the country have failed. The Western men appear to think +that enough deference is not paid them on account of their possession +of the National Championship, which was gained, not on the field, but +on paper. + +The Brooklyn Club will have the honor of being the champion club until +1889. It has made astonishing strides forward. Faithful practice and +attention to team-play has made it a strong organization. The Staten +Island Club, on the other hand, may safely be relied upon making every +effort next spring to regain the coveted honor which so long was theirs. + +The other clubs in the Eastern Association--Philadelphia, Baltimore, +Jersey City, Staten Island Cricket Club--have not done much during +the summer, except to build up their organizations. There is every +indication, however, that the season of 1889 will witness some exciting +games. + +That nothing encourages so much as success, is seen in the vigor and +enthusiasm with which Princeton, the champion of the College League, +has gone to work since the opening of college. Usually the lacrosse +men do very little in the fall in the way of practice. But this year, +intent upon again winning the championship in 1889, class games have +been played, and the University team has also had several games with +outside clubs. This has not escaped Harvard, her most dangerous rival. +The _Crimson_ has repeatedly called upon the college to give better +support to the lacrosse team, which has at times been almost the only +one to bring back a championship. In the spring the time is too limited +to get the men into first-class condition, and fall and winter work +should be indulged in when possible. + +Lehigh is thoroughly delighted with lacrosse, and Cornell is taking +it up. Williams is considering whether it will not draw too many men +from the other sports, and other colleges and schools are getting ready +to introduce the game. This is very gratifying. To play the game well +requires so much attention to training, and such thorough self-command, +that, as a mere matter of discipline, it ought to be recommended; +besides, no game is more exciting, and certainly none more graceful. + + ~J. C. Gerndt.~ + + * * * * * + + +RABBIT COURSING. + +For every man who owns a greyhound, at least a dozen own some kind of a +terrier. The terrier is essentially man’s companion among all the dogs. +Bright, intelligent, and full of spirits, he also has the happy knack +of knowing how to make his presence unobtrusive. Among the many breeds +which have at the present day attained popularity, the fox-terrier is +_facile princeps_, and of late years owners have bethought themselves +of a good plan to avail themselves of the natural instinct of the dog. +The fox-terrier is naturally possessed of a speed out of proportion to +his looks, and since “the nature of the beast” is to pursue anything in +the line of game or vermin, he has readily fallen in with man’s scheme +to course the rabbit with his aid. + +The advantages of this sport over coursing with greyhounds are many. +The grounds have not to be so spacious or complete; the dogs are not +so expensive, either in initial cost, maintenance, or elaboration of +training; impromptu matches can be easily arranged, and, especially +in this country, the difficulty of supplying the requisite quarry +for greyhounds is obviated. The rabbit, on the contrary, is fairly +plentiful in the Eastern States, and a goodly supply of them is +generally forthcoming. The meetings that have hitherto been held have +been very successful, and it is a cause of great satisfaction to all +sportsmen that the recent case at Hempstead reached such a favorable +termination. + +This sport has not as yet, in America, gone beyond the limits of the +select circle which patronizes polo and fox-hunting; but no real reason +exists why this should be so. The writer has witnessed and taken part +in very successful impromptu coursing-matches in the South, where the +intentions of the dogs were better than their looks or breeding. It is, +in fact, a sport open to every man who owns a decent terrier, and as +such it is regarded in many parts of England, where the farmers will +not only allow but will take part in matches run over their land. + + ~Sporting Tramp.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~The Outing Club.~] + + +THE DISSENSION IN THE ATHLETIC WORLD. + +Some time since ~Outing~ entered into communication with +the various gentlemen who are taking leading parts in the serious +disruption which has shaken the athletic world of America to its very +centre. For some reason best known to those addressed, the majority +of these gentlemen have not seen fit to favor us with their views on +the situation. We have, however, been placed in a position to give +the public some extracts from what appears to us to be an impartial +review of the facts, from the Union’s side of the question. We quote as +follows: + +“In 1879 the New York Athletic Club decided to give up the management +of the Amateur Championship Meeting, so successfully established by +it three years previously. This course was taken because it brought a +great deal of additional work on the officers of the club, and although +the games had been profitable to the organization, its officers no +longer desired to be continually appealed to for decisions and rulings +upon athletic matters. For these reasons the N. Y. A. C. was willing to +relinquish the conduct of the championship games to properly organized +associations of clubs.” + +Thus it came about that in the spring of 1879 the National Association +of Amateur Athletes of America was organized. In 1880 we find the list +of clubs that were members numbered twenty-one. In 1885 we find that +this number had sunk to twelve, and in 1887 it was still twelve, while +the New York Athletic Club, “through some personal club trouble,” had +resigned in 1885. + +“With these facts before us it can readily be seen that although the +Association may have been, and no doubt was, national some years ago, +it failed to keep pace with many of the leading clubs during the past +three or four years. Some of these, notably the New York and Staten +Island Athletic clubs, made such rapid strides that not only were +meetings given that were far superior to the championships, but also +many championship of America events were given by them and at their +expense, among them being the boxing, wrestling, swimming, general +gymnastic, general athletic, etc. + +“In 1887 the Athletic Club of the Schuylkill Navy started the Amateur +Athletic Union of the U. S.” The why and wherefore of its inception is +thus accounted for. “The first time the A. C. S. N. participated in any +other athletic competition than those held under its own management +was in February, 1886, when a number of entries were made in the +championship boxing and wrestling tournament given under the auspices +of the New York Athletic Club, at Tammany Hall, New York. Of the three +representatives of the A. C. S. N. at this competition, one, Mr. +Charles A. Clark, won the championship at feather-weight boxing, and +another, Dr. J. K. Shell, was fortunate enough to meet Joe Ellingsworth +in the middle-weight boxing class; the latter, it was learned just +in time to enter a protest, was so tainted with professionalism as +to render his presence at an amateur competition preposterous. The +protest against Ellingsworth was made by Captain Huneker of the A. C. +S. N. to the New York Athletic Club, by whom he was referred to the +National Association of Amateur Athletes of America for a decision as +to Ellingsworth’s standing. The latter association refused to take any +action, claiming that they had no jurisdiction in the matter. + +“The inconsistent part of the National Association’s action in this +matter is the fact of its having refused to take any action in this +instance and claiming that it had no jurisdiction, while many will +undoubtedly remember that sufficient jurisdiction was claimed in the +cases of the wrestlers who were disqualified about six months previous +for competing at unapproved meetings. + +“From the time of this occurrence dates the desire of the A. C. S. N. +to see formed an association national in character, which would take +cognizance of and exercise jurisdiction over all kinds and classes +of athletic sports over which no recognized association already in +existence, exercised special authority. This, together with the sincere +wishes of the club to contribute by every means within their power to +an effort to exclude from the amateur ranks the semi-professional, +‘tough’ and ‘shady’ element which has proved so great a detriment to +the natural growth and popularity of all true amateur sport, dwarfed +its possibilities and rendered competition in many of its classes +obnoxious to gentlemen, are the reasons which mainly influenced the A. +C. S. N. to request the New York Athletic Club, which organization was +not a member of the National, to join in a call for a meeting of all +the recognized amateur athletic organizations of the United States to +consider the formation of a new association. + +“The meeting of such a body and its outcome is a matter of athletic +history. From this convention emanated the Amateur Athletic Union. From +the inception of the Union the A. C. S. N. at once became prominent +in its councils, one of its delegates, Mr. W. H. McMillan, being +unanimously elected president of the new association. + +“When the circular calling for a meeting of all the clubs to consider +the formation of an association was received by the Staten Island +A. C., a letter was at once sent to Mr. John F. Huneker, captain +of the A. C. of the Schuykill Navy, inquiring what club was at the +bottom of this move, and what were the ideas and reasons in forming +such an organization. The reply, as received, was read to the Board +of Directors, and, after satisfying themselves as to its honesty +and advisability, a committee with power was appointed, consisting +of President J. W. Edwards, Secretary W. C. Davis, Treasurer G. M. +Mackellar, and Director F. W. Janssen. + +“This entire committee attended the first meeting of the A. A. U. +After carefully noting and satisfying themselves on every point, they +unanimously decided to join; so the Staten Island A. C. at once became +a member of the Union. + +“Later on, the Union showed so many advantages over the National, +and had so many respectable clubs in it, its affairs being conducted +on so much better and more business-like principles, that after duly +considering the case, the Staten Island A. C. sent its resignation to +the National Association. When the Union selected September 19, 1888, +at Detroit, as the date and place of their championship of America +games, the National scheduled its similar meeting for September +15, 1888, at New York, and, in order to detract from the Detroit +meeting, empowered the Missouri Athletic Club of St. Louis to hold a +Western championship on its grounds September 9. The Union, to show +its strength, at once authorized the Chicago Athletic Club to hold +a Western championship meeting on its grounds September 1, in order +to establish a set of Western champions for 1888 before the National +meeting could be held. + +“As time went by, the Union representatives considered the advisability +of taking some final action in the matter, and, after some six weeks’ +deliberation, at a meeting held August 25, 1888, unanimously passed the +following resolution: + +“‘Resolved, That any amateur athlete competing in any open amateur +games in the United States not governed by rules approved by the +Amateur Athletic Union, shall be debarred from competing in any games +held under the rules of the Amateur Athletic Union. This resolution +shall take effect immediately.’ + +“The idea was to have the Western clubs and athletes recognize but one +championship meeting of the West (that of the A. A. U. at Chicago). + +“The National (or rather now the Manhattan A. C.) found it impossible +to hold its championship meeting in New York, owing to the fact that +all the athletes, with very few exceptions outside the Manhattan Club, +belonged to Union clubs, and would not compete under the National +rules; so a cable was sent by the Manhattans to the Irish Gaelic Team +to the effect that the meeting had been postponed until October 6 in +order to allow them to compete. + +“In the West the two championship meetings were held, and those +athletes who took part at the St. Louis National meeting were debarred +from competing at the Detroit Union games. + +“The Union Board held a full meeting of the Executive Committee at +Detroit, on September 18, 1888, when the above resolution was again +unanimously approved of. The committee also unanimously refused to +rescind the same or to reinstate any of the athletes who competed at +the St. Louis National meeting. + +“The so-called National meeting held in New York city, on October 13, +1888, was, with very few exceptions, between the teams of the Irish +Gaelic Association and the Manhattan Athletic Club. + +“At the Detroit meeting of the Union, a committee consisting of Otto +Ruhl, James E. Sullivan, and Fred W. Janssen was appointed, with +power to confer with Mr. Cullinan, the manager of the Irish team. To +him, after explaining matters, the following proposition was made, on +condition that his team should not recognize the National Association +as an authorized body to give a championship of American meeting, viz.: +The A. A. U. would give his team a testimonial meeting whenever he +desired; would give all the American and Irish championship events, +and an all-round competition. His association was to take all the gate +receipts over and above expenses, and the following guarantees were +made for tickets: Staten Island Athletic Club, $500; N.Y. Athletic +Club, $500; Pastime Athletic Club, $200. + +“This offer was refused by Mr. Cullinan, and he wrote a letter to the +Secretary of the Union asking that the resolution be not enforced so +far as his team was concerned. As a similar request was made at Detroit +on behalf of the Western athletes, and Messrs. Schifferstein and +Pursell of the Olympic Club, San Francisco, and refused, no action was +taken. The request could not have been granted owing to the fact that +the Irish team seemed bound by contract to the Manhattan A. C., and +paid little or no attention to the Union’s propositions. + +“The National published on its official circular the following +Executive Committee: President, Walton Storm, Manhattan A. C.; +vice-president, Wm. Halpin, Olympic A. C.; secretary, C. H. Mapes, +Intercollegiate A. C.; treasurer, W. C. Rowland, Staten Island A. C.; +S. S. Safford, American A. C.; W. G. Hegeman, Nassau A. C.; Geo. S. +Rhoades, Missouri A. A. A.; and on the Games Committee, W. C. Rowland, +Staten Island A. C.; Walton Storm, Manhattan A. C.; W. G. Hegeman, +Nassau A. C. + +“Now, the following delegates and clubs mentioned on the Executive +Committee were not members of the National, viz.: Vice-President, +William Halpin, Olympic A. C.; treasurer, W. C. Rowland, Staten Island +A. C.; S. A. Safford, American A. C.; W. G. Hegeman, Nassau A. C.; and +of the Games Committee: W. C. Rowland, Staten Island A. C.; and W. G. +Hegeman, Nassau A. C., the clubs having resigned and joined the Amateur +Athletic Union. This left on the Executive Board of the so-called +National: President Walton Storm, Manhattan A. C.; secretary, C. H. +Mapes, Intercollegiate A. A., and George S. Rhoades, Missouri A. A. +A., with Walton Storm on the Games Committee. On both the circulars +and postal-cards, issued respectively under dates of September 3 and +September 18 by the so-called National, were found no names whatsoever, +nor did the parties left claim any more members. Therefore, the +following articles taken from the constitution and by-laws of the +so-called N. A. A. A. A. proved beyond a doubt to any fair-minded +person that such an association was virtually out of existence since +the resignations of afore-mentioned organizations, to wit: + + CONSTITUTION.--ARTICLE III. + + _Membership._ + + The membership of this association shall be limited to amateur + athletic clubs, and any associate club not giving at least one + public outdoor athletic meeting each year, to consist of not + less than five games, open to all amateurs, shall pay a fine of + twenty-five dollars, to be paid at or before the next annual + meeting, and in default of such payment such club shall forfeit its + membership. + + And the Intercollegiate Athletic Association may become a member of + this association, such Intercollegiate Association to be deemed an + amateur athletic club for all purposes herein. + + ARTICLE VI. + + _Application for Membership._ + + Any amateur athletic club desiring to join the association shall + send to the secretary an application for membership, a copy of its + constitution and by-laws, and a list of its officers and members. + The secretary shall submit this application to each member of the + Executive Committee in turn, and these members shall endorse their + decision. The approval of seven members of the Executive Committee + shall be necessary to constitute an election. + + BY-LAWS.--ARTICLE III. + + _Meetings._ + + The annual meeting of the Executive Committee shall be held at the + close of the annual meeting of the association. Special meetings + of the Executive Committee shall be called by the secretary either + at the written request of three members of the committee or by + order of the president, and one week’s notice of said meeting shall + be sent to every member of the committee. At all meetings of the + committee five members shall constitute a quorum. + +“By the first it is proven that the Intercollegiate Association was but +a single organization in the so-called National Association. The second +shows that it was necessary to have seven members of the Executive +Committee present in order to elect a new club to membership, and +the third that there should have been five members present to hold a +meeting. As the so-called N. A. A. A. A. had not been able to hold a +meeting or transact business under its own constitution and by-laws, +the organization in the Union refused to recognize the existence of +the so-called National Association of Amateur Athletes of America, +and in so doing stated that the respective clubs comprising the Union +positively denied having in any way boycotted the Irish Gaelic Team, +owing to the fact that the latter simply joined with the Manhattan and +Missouri Athletic clubs in preference to the Amateur Athletic Union +which was composed of twenty-seven leading associations. + +“The M. A. C. _Chronicle_ of October, 1888, published the following +clubs as having had delegates present at the so-called National’s +annual meeting held about October 13: Missouri A. A. A., St. Louis; +Manhattan A. C., New York City; Star A. C., Long Island City; West +Side A. C., New York City; Allerton A. C., New York City; and +Intercollegiate A. A. + +“The Allerton A. C. was organized in September, 1888, by members of the +Manhattan A. C. Mr. G. M. L. Sacks is treasurer, and Mr. G. M. L. Sacks +of the Manhattan A. C. represents the club on the so-called National +Association’s Executive Committee. Of late the Manhattan A. C. men have +organized several so-called athletic clubs in order to swell the list +of clubs belonging to the so-called National Association, and in the +M. A. C. _Chronicle_ of November, 1888, we find Walton Storm, G. M. L. +Sacks and Fred A. Ware, three well-known M. A. C. men on the Executive +Committee of the so-called National Association, and probably two or +three others of which it is not positive. + +“None of the so-called National clubs own any property, except the +land which Mr. Walton Storm of the M. A. C. lately purchased for about +$160,000, on which it is proposed to build a club-house. We, therefore, +arrive at the following totals: + + _National Clubs._ _Membership._ _Property._ + Manhattan A. C. 400 None. + Missouri A. A. A. 200 “ + Star A. C. 60 “ + West Side A. C. 40 “ + Allerton A. C. 50 “ + --- -------- + Entire National 750 Nothing. + +“The so-called National during the past year has given the St. Louis +championship meeting, New York championship meeting, and a ten-mile +championship run. (The New York meeting was twice postponed and the +ten-mile run was also postponed.) + + _Union Clubs._ _Membership._ _Property._ + + New York A. C. 2,500 $410,000 + New York Turn Verein 2,500 150,000 + A. C. of Schuylkill Navy 680 85,000 + Staten Island A. C. 900 85,000 + Columbia A. C. (Wash.) 400 65,000 + Orange A. C. 650 60,000 + Detroit A. C. 500 35,000 + New Jersey A. C. 500 35,000 + Flushing A. C. 200 25,000 + Jersey City A. C. 500 35,000 + Berkeley A. C. 250 225,000 + ----- ---------- + Eleven Union Clubs out of + membership of 29 9,580 $1,210,000 + +“During the past ten months of the A. A. U.’s existence, six +championship meetings have been given, namely: + +“Boxing, wrestling and fencing championships; general gymnastic +championships; swimming championships; Chicago Western championships; +Detroit American championships; New York indoor American championships.” + +The programme for the coming year, arranged by the A. A. U., is most +extensive and comprises a really notable list of events. + +“In view of all these facts it can readily be seen that the Amateur +Athletic Union has done more during its short period of existence to +encourage and foster athletic sports than the National has done in +almost its entire history of ten years. The Union has nationalized +athletics, and has proved itself to be national in character. It is +composed of more and stronger clubs than the National, and it has not +only come to stay, but also to make itself felt throughout the entire +United States.” + +In regard to the personal attacks made upon the leading spirits of the +Union by the Manhattan Athletic Club _Chronicle_, we do not propose +to say anything. We pass them by with the remark that “abuse is not +argument,” and that such indiscriminate scattering of verbal mud can +further no cause. + +In conclusion, we wish to remark that the evil effects of this +disruption are already becoming apparent. “Union is strength,” and the +following fact shows that the athletic world is losing its unity: + +“A Western Association has now been formed with a view to governing +the sport solely in the West. To further this cause, the Missouri Club +resigns from the N. A. A. A. A. and the Union, while the Wanderers of +Chicago club resigned from the A. A. U.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +OUR THEATRICAL PLAYGROUND. + + +The Casino, for the time being, has deserted the French and German +composers of comic opera and taken up the early English humor of +Gilbert wedded to the modern English music of Sullivan. “The Yeoman of +the Guard,” the latest production of these two writers, is now in the +full tide of its run at the Casino. It is doubtful, however, if its +prosperity will approach anywhere near that of its predecessor, “The +Mikado.” The theme does not admit of the same supply of fun, life, +color or picturesqueness in acting, and while Sir Arthur Sullivan has +given us some of the best music he has ever written, it is not destined +to strike the popular fancy. A comic opera that does not win popular +taste is sure to be short-lived. This may not be evidence of good +taste, but it is true, nevertheless. The manner, however, in which “The +Yeoman of the Guard” is put on the stage here, as regards costumes and +appointments, is good; but when the cast is considered it is time to +hesitate in praise. With the exception of Miss Bertha Ricci, Mr. Ryley +and Mr. Solomon, the other principals engaged to present it are unequal +to the task. In women, particularly, is “The Yeoman” weak. Miss Sylvia +Gerrish and Miss Isabella Urquhart are, to put it mildly, not happy in +the rôles to which they are assigned. Vocally, they are not up to the +mark, and their acting is on a parallel with their singing. The male +members of the company are also of inferior make-up. All the coaching +of Mr. Richard Barker, the London stage-manager, cannot make singers +and actors without the proper material. With a good caste, “The Yeoman +of the Guard” would have been a great success here, as it is now given. +While it is by no means a failure, it has disappointed numbers who +anticipated with pleasure its production. + + +A MELODRAMATIC UNDER-CURRENT. + +Augustin Daly has once more plunged into the exciting scenes and +thrilling situations of melodrama. With the production of “The +Under-Current” at Niblo’s, he has gone back to his first and early +love. “The Under Current” is a reminiscent kind of work in which +familiar scenes are called to mind, but Mr. Daly has been candid enough +to acknowledge the source from which he had taken them. To “Under the +Gaslight,” one of the most successful local dramas of its day, and “A +Flash of Lightning,” he is indebted for some of his effects. Both plays +named were written by Mr. Daly. He has availed himself of some of the +material contained in these works effectively. “The Under-Current” is +English in story, English in character, and the scenes are all laid +in England. The play was not successful, and after a short time was +withdrawn from the stage of Niblo’s. + + +THE ROUGH-AND-TUMBLE DRAMA. + +Charles H. Hoyt is one of the most prolific writers of the present day +in a class of so-called farcical comedies. “A Hole in the Ground,” “The +Parlor Match” and “A Brass Monkey” are the names of a few of his most +successful works. They have been played in this and other cities to +overflowing houses. One peculiarity of the Hoyt _pot-pourri_ is that +while people as a rule declare that the productions are rubbish and +“all that kind of thing,” they crowd the theatres in which they are +given, to enjoy the Hoyt nonsense and be amused at its absurdities. It +is not, however, the story, its manner of construction, or the dialogue +of a Hoyt skit which entertains, nearly so much as the situations, +music, and rough-and-tumble business of a number of fairly clever +people of variety-show tendencies. The Hoyt order of play will not +live long, but the prolific author of this curiously named theatrical +driftwood is bright enough to perceive that amusement seekers relish +nonsense and absurdity on the stage, no matter how ridiculous, and he +furnishes a supply equal to the demand. + + +OUR MARY’S RETURN. + +Mary Anderson’s return to the United States and her reappearance in +this city was hailed with welcome. It is three years since she left +here to play a return engagement in England. Her success abroad has +been such as she may feel just pride in. It moreover serves as a rebuke +to a certain class of people who claim there is no English recognition +for American talent. The absurdity of this assumption is self-evident. +“A Winter’s Tale,” as presented at Palmer’s Theatre by Miss Anderson +and her company is a creditable production. + + +ENGLISH BURLESQUE BY ENGLISH PLAYERS. + +Nellie Farren and Fred Leslie, of the Gaiety Theatre, London, arrived +in this city just prior to the presidential election, and opened at +the Standard Theatre shortly after in the burlesque, “Monte Cristo, +Jr.” Miss Farren has been the pet of the London public for twenty years +or more. She won her place to honorable regard by her acknowledged +abilities as an actress of burlesque characters. Her talent, however, +is not confined to this class of entertainment alone. A long experience +on the stage--she began her career before the footlights when she was a +child--has given her opportunity to attempt all kinds of parts. In the +romantic, domestic and Shakespearian drama she has made a commendable +record. Boys’ parts are her particular specialty, and in these she +excels. Miss Farren has introduced English burlesque in its best form +to New Yorkers. The attempt has been made before by other companies +from London, but shapely forms in scanty costumes were suborned to the +artistic requirements of the performers. In English burlesque, as given +by Miss Farren and her Gaiety Company, we get an attractive travesty +told with intelligent action, bright music, movement and life. It has +made an impression as it deserved, while it has given contradiction +to the theory entertained by the few that because Londoners could not +recognize the burlesque elements in an American company sent hastily +abroad, a New York public would reject an English burlesque company +here. Bringing coals to Newcastle must, in the regular order of things, +prove unprofitable, but there was no good reason why the theatre-goers +of this city should withhold their patronage from an entertainment +which has won the attention of the amusement seekers of the British +metropolis. The engagement of the London Gaiety Company at the Standard +has taught us much in the line of burlesque. + + ~Richard Neville.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Among the Books~] + + +~A story~ which deals with a routine of life, strangely unlike +the common every-day existence of civilization, is the novel, entitled +“A Mexican Girl,” by Frederick Thickstun (Boston: Ticknor & Co. 1888). +The most _blasé_ novel reader will find his attention riveted by +the novelty and wildness of the scenes depicted. The word-painting +and dialect are good throughout, and, as a rule, the characters are +very strongly drawn; but there is a striking improbability in the +supposition that any man could, like the New England schoolmaster, have +reached the age of thirty, or thereabouts, and remained so ignorant +of the ways of the world. The climax of the story is, moreover, +somewhat unsatisfactory. The principal character is dismissed rather +summarily. In spite of such disadvantages, the volume is full of +strong situations, and the interest is well sustained, while the +scene, laid in the Southwest, in a community composed of Americans, +Anglo-Americans, and Mexicans, serves as a weird and picturesque +background. + + * * * * * + +~An~ amusing and interesting account of a yachting expedition +is to be found in “The Devil of a Trip; or, The Log of the Yacht +Champlain,” by J. Armoy Knox, the well-known editor of _Texas Siftings_ +(New York: National Literary Bureau). The volume forms a number of “The +Unique Series,” and is entitled to its position. It consists, in fact, +of a photo-engraved reproduction of the letters from Colonel Knox, as +they originally appeared in the columns of sundry well-known daily +papers, with the addition of clever marginal sketches by Thomas Worth. +The voyage was an inland one, and apart from the entertainment to be +derived from the book, it may serve to furnish many hints to intending +voyagers of desirable routes of travel. + + * * * * * + +~Messrs. A. G. Spalding & Bros.~ have issued a little hand-book +entitled “Baseball,” by Harry Palmer, in view of their Australian +tour. It contains short and interesting biographies of the players who +compose the Australian teams, and careful directions and explanations +as to the science of the game. Every lover of the national game should +own a copy of this manual, if only for reference in settling knotty +points in the intricacies of play. + + * * * * * + +~When~ Mr. W. W. Greener adds another to his list of works on +the subject of guns, the sportsman may feel sure of gaining valuable +information by the perusal of the volume. “_Ne sutor ultra crepidam_,” +is a motto which should especially apply to writers of books on such +subjects, and a volume of this description, unless from the pen of an +expert, is worse than useless. In “Modern Shotguns” (Messrs. Cassell +& Co.) the author, without reiterating what he has already published, +has given sportsmen a valuable guide to the selection of the right +weapon in the right place. The mass of useful and interesting facts +and information incorporated will please every one interested in such +matters, while the cuts and diagrams are a markedly useful feature. + + * * * * * + +~An~ account of a winter sojourn in the kindly climate of a +tropic land may, to readers enduring the rigors of a northern latitude, +serve either of two purposes. It may inspire with envy and malice, +or serve to transport one for a while far from the interminable snow +and slush. Such as can read, without evoking the darker passions, a +prettily told narrative of a winter spent in the pleasant warmth of a +land blessed with + + “A snow of blossoms, and a wild of flowers,” + +should promptly peruse “A Winter Picnic,” by J. and C. E. Dickinson +and S. E. Dowd (New York: H. Holt & Co. 1888). The ladies who have +contributed to the book seem to have basked the winter through in the +glorious sunshine, but also have not neglected to chronicle, in an +amusing way, many a small inconvenience and drawback. The primitive +civilization of Nassau, the queer traits of the negroes, and, in short, +all the curious features of a country utterly unlike the great marts of +commerce, are duly set forth in an entertaining fashion. + + * * * * * + +~The~ literature of amateur photography--that most fascinating +pastime--grows apace. “The International Annual of Anthony’s +Photographic Bulletin, for 1888” (New York: Messrs. E. & H. T. Anthony; +London: Messrs. H. Greenwood & Co.), is a charming contribution. It +embodies a vast collection of papers on the various aspects of the +art from the pens of the best authorities on the subject. Information +on any and every point can be found in the pages, and no amateur +photographer should omit to study it. Messrs. Anthony’s manual for +amateurs, “How to Make Photographs,” contains a variety of practical +instructions and formulæ which are of substantial service. + + * * * * * + +~We~ have received some charming children’s story-books of an +exceptionally interesting character. Messrs. Lee & Shepard, Boston, +and Charles T. Dillingham, New York, are the publishers, and the +excellent appearance of these seasonable little volumes reflects +much credit on them. The mere fact that the text of “The King of the +Golden River, or the Black Brothers,” a legend of Stiria, is from the +pen of John Ruskin, and the illustrations by Richard Doyle, speaks +for itself. “The Last of the Hugger-muggers, a Giant Story,” and its +sequel, “Kobboltozo,” by Christopher Pearse Cranch, are thrilling tales +for the delectation of the little ones. Other two books for juvenile +readers, but for those out of the nursery, from the same publishers, +are “A Start in Life,” by J. T. Trowbridge, and “Little Miss Wheezy’s +Brother,” by Penn Shirley. Both are admirably calculated to effect +the purpose for which they were written, and will prove admirable +gift-books for this holiday season. + + + + +[Illustration: AMENITIES.] + + +THE BRITISH FOX’S LAMENT. + + “‘A southerly wind and a cloudy sky,’ + So runs a line of the hunting song; + But a bleak nor’-easter is what suits me, + Driving and whirling the snow along. + + “From the times of yore has the fox been sung + As a sly old rogue and merry wight, + Who loves the gay sound of the horn and hound + And gobbles chickens the livelong night. + + “Such things may have been, but the times are changed; + Chickens are scarce, and the farmers keen, + And with all the hunting that’s going on, + I’m quite played out and am growing lean. + + “Now, a neighbor was lately telling me + Of a land that sounds like Paradise, + Where instead of a fox they hunt a bag, + Where chickens are cheap and very nice. + + “And I wonder much if such things can be; + Egad! how I’d laugh to see that sport; + But they ‘break us up’ when they catch us here-- + What do they do when the bag is caught? + + “I have half a mind to speak to my wife + And take the cubs to these promised lands: + As I go back home, I’ll call at the bank + And see how much to my credit stands. + + “But, hark! I’ll be hanged if it ain’t that horn-- + I guess I’ll skip ere the hounds catch on.” + A few minutes after, the pack came up + And found the old “varmint” home had gone. + + _Sporting Tramp._ + +[Illustration: ~Tally Ho!~ + +~Gone Away!!~] + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Scrap Book] + + +AT THE RIDING SCHOOL. + + ~In~ her new riding habit of soft olive green + She appeared quite as lovely and proud as a queen, + As around the big ring with a petulant bob + She sailed on the spine of the old sorrel cob. + + She rocked like the reed in the breezes a-dream, + She rocked like a lily upon a wild stream; + And she made the old cob like a bald-eagle fly + When she hit him right over his only good eye. + + Oh, she seemed like a queen in the yellow side-saddle, + When she made the wild horse to “Erminie” skedaddle! + And when the band ceased, from the stirrup she dropped, + And over the platform most gracefully hopped. + + Then I heard her observe with a gesture elate: + “I am now riding daily to pull down my weight-- + I am losing flesh daily by riding, and that + Is the reason I’ve stopped taking Smith’s anti-fat!” + + --_Puck._ + + * * * * * + +~Miss Gushington~ (_enjoying a sleigh ride_): I think you have a +lovely horse, Mr. De Lyle. About what does such a fine horse cost? + +~Mr. de Lyle~: Two dollars an hou--oh--er--yes, that horse is worth +about eight hundred dollars, Miss Gushington.--_Epoch._ + + * * * * * + +~Smith~: What paper are you working on now? + +~Jones~: Ain’t working on any paper. The season is over with me. + +“How’s that?” + +“I was the humorist on the _Bugle_ who got off jokes on the baseball +umpire. As soon as the baseball season closed I was bounced. I’m +trying to get a position as a coal-dealer and slipped-up-on-the-ice +humorist.”--_Texas Siftings._ + + * * * * * + +~A pretty~ maiden fell overboard at New Bedford the other day, +and her lover leaned over the side of the boat, as she rose to the +surface, and said: “Give me your hand.” “Please ask papa,” she gently +murmured, as she calmly sank for the second time.--_Boston Herald._ + + * * * * * + +ANOTHER HUNTING INCIDENT. + +~Doctor P.~ had been asked to make one of a party to shoot over +some private preserves. It turned out to be one of his unlucky days. + +“I give you my word,” he at last exclaimed, in despair, “I can’t kill a +thing!” + +“Come, doctor,” suggested his host, “just imagine that you are at the +bedside of a patient.”--_Judge._ + + * * * * * + + ~Oh~! music sweet has charms, you know, + To soothe the savage breast; + It lightens troubles, calms all woe, + And gives the weary rest. + + In order, then, to kill his cares, + And all his sorrows check, + The blear-eyed, big-mouthed bull-dog wears + A brass band round his neck. + + --_New York Journal._ + + * * * * * + +~Wife~ (_indignantly_): I’ve heard through a certain married +lady in town, John, that you bet me against a horse the other night +that your candidate would win? + +~Husband~: Well, what of it? My candidate is bound to win; +the other man hasn’t the ghost of a show, and, as you’ve always +wanted a riding horse, I thought I would just get you one, and get it +cheap.--_The Epoch._ + + * * * * * + +~Parson’s Wife~: Why, Johnny, you’re not going fishing on +Sunday, are you? + +~Johnny~: Oh, no--no. I--I only thought I’d take the pole away +from the house so that my brothers needn’t be tempted.--_Life._ + + * * * * * + +~Captain~: Well, what do you make it out to be? + +~Miss Culture~ (_of Boston_): Why, it is a feline vessel, a +Grimalkin craft. + +~Captain~: Oh, yes; we call ’em cat-boats.--_Ocean._ + + * * * * * + +~Jones~: Ramrod, they say that it takes a temperature of 64° +below zero to kill a wild goose. + +~Ramrod~: Well, what of it? + +~Jones~: Oh, I was just thinking that you won’t be likely to get +any wild geese this season, that’s all.--_Burlington Free Press._ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Pleasure Travel and Resorts~] + + +~The~ following extracts from Mr. H. H. Johnston’s paper in the +_Fortnightly Review_ for October will interest sportsmen. Mr. Johnston +grows enthusiastic over the new territory ceded by the Sultan of +Zanzibar to the Imperial British East African Company: + +“The animal products of this region are typically African, and at +the time of my journeyings therein it was a sportsman’s paradise.... +Buffaloes, which abound so as to be dangerous, provide very eatable +beef. Rhinoceros are so numerous in the interior that the horns are an +important item in trade, for they may be sold on the coast for three +or four rupees each (say 6s.). Hippopotami are abundant in the rivers +and lakes.... The elephant abounds in the neighborhood of Kilimanjaro +and Kenia to the extent of many thousands. He here becomes quite a +mountaineer, and ranges through the magnificent forests that clothe the +upper slopes of these giants among African peaks. The natives waylay +his forest tracks with artfully devised pitfalls and traps, preferring +this more cowardly way of procuring their ivory to facing the elephant +in the chase.... Lions’ skins are less easy to obtain from the natives, +as that animal is rarely killed by them; but sportsmen might shoot him +to a considerable extent, as he is both common and bold. Monkey skins +of the handsome variety of bushy white-tailed Colobus, which is alone +found in this region, are valuable. + +“Ostriches are exceedingly numerous throughout this district of +East Africa; the species which is here represented is the _Struthio +Danaoides_ of Captain Shelley’s determination. It differs from the +widespread _Struthio Camelus_ in the color of the soft parts and naked +skin, and the size and markings of the egg. When living in Taveita, in +the summer and autumn of 1884, I and my men used to largely subsist on +their eggs, which were brought us in numbers by the natives, and sold +for about a pennyworth of cloth each. Of course, to any ornithologist, +this country is exceedingly interesting, and there is an abundance of +guinea-fowl, francolin, pigeons, and bustards.” + + * * * * * + +~Should~ the disappearance of all kinds of game, with which +we are so much threatened in America, really come to pass, it looks +as if Scandinavia would be a good field to seek. Bears and wolves +were unusually numerous in Sweden last summer; in the province of +Jemtland four were seen on one occasion, and much damage to cattle +was reported. Elks were very plentiful, in consequence of rigid +preservation, particularly in Central and Southern Sweden, large herds +having been seen of these noble animals. A great royal elk hunt took +place recently on the Hunneberg estate, in Sudermania, a Swedish crown +property, when upwards of 100 elks were killed. As to feather game, +the season in Sweden was better than was anticipated after so long and +severe a winter. From several parts came good reports of blackgame, +capercailzie and partridges. For the protection of the last during the +winter, when the snow makes feeding difficult, the Swedish Shooting +Association has decided upon granting awards to farmers who feed these +birds during that season. + +In Norway, however, game was scarce, owing to the terribly severe and +long winter. This was particularly the case with the rype, or brown +ptarmigan. The reindeer shooting was good, and bears seem to have been +more than usually numerous last summer, particularly in South-central +Norway. + + * * * * * + +~The~ following facts may, however, prove instructive to +Americans who think of emulating the example set by some few of their +countrymen, and seeking their sport abroad at the present time. In the +Valuation Appeal Court for Inverness, held recently, the first case +called was that of Donald Cameron, of Lochiel, who appealed against the +valuation of his deer forest at the rate of £25 per stag, and of his +grouse-shootings at 10s. per brace. Finally the case was settled at the +rate of £20 per stag, and 10s. per brace of grouse. It would be of much +interest to know what the rating of these properties would be if they +were used for agricultural purposes. It is worthy of note that Scotch +venison does not fetch more than 10c. per pound for the hind quarter in +the London market, and half that sum for the fore quarter. + + * * * * * + +~The~ following chronology of railways affords a good index to +the progressiveness of the countries mentioned: The first railway was +opened in England on Sept. 27, 1825; Austria, Sept. 30, 1828; France, +Oct. 1, 1828; United States, Dec. 28, 1829; Belgium, May 3, 1835; +Germany, Dec. 7, 1835; Cuba, in 1837; Russia, on April 4, 1838; Italy, +in September, 1839; Switzerland, on July 15, 1844; Jamaica, Nov. 21, +1845; Spain, Oct. 24, 1848; Canada, in May, 1850; Mexico and Peru, in +1850; Sweden, in 1851; Chili, in January, 1852; India, on April 18, +1853; Norway, in July, 1853; Portugal, in 1854; Brazil, April 21, 1854; +Victoria (Australia), Sept. 14, 1854; Columbia, Jan. 28, 1850; New +South Wales, Sept. 25, 1850; Egypt, in January, 1856; Natal, on June +26, 1860; and in Turkey, on Oct. 4, 1860. + + + + +[Illustration: ~Our MONTHLY RECORD~] + + + ~This~ department of ~Outing~ is specially devoted to paragraphs + of the doings of members of organized clubs engaged in the + reputable sports of the period, and also to the recording of the + occurrence of the most prominent events of the current season. On + the ball-fields it will embrace _Cricket_, _Baseball_, _Lacrosse_ + and _Football_. On the bays and rivers, _Yachting_, _Rowing_ and + _Canoeing_. In the woods and streams, _Hunting_, _Shooting_ and + _Fishing_. On the lawns, _Archery_, _Lawn Tennis_ and _Croquet_. + Together with Ice-Boating, Skating, Tobogganing, Snowshoeing, + Coasting, and winter sports generally. + + Secretaries of clubs will oblige by sending in the names of their + presidents and secretaries, with the address of the latter, + together with the general result of their most noteworthy contests + of the month, addressed, “Editor of ~Outing~,” 239 Fifth Avenue, + New York. + + + TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + _All communications intended for the Editorial Department should + be addressed to “The Editor,” and not to any person by name. + Advertisements, orders, etc., should be kept distinct, and + addressed to the manager. Letters and inquiries from anonymous + correspondents will not receive attention. All communications to be + written on one side of the paper only._ + + +AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. + +~At~ a meeting of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, held +recently, the executive committee of the Interchange reported that it +had selected from the slides of 1886-’87 two hundred specimens to be +sent to England in exchange for the same number to be sent to this +country. + + * * * * * + +~During~ the past year the Chicago Lantern Slide Club has added +materially to its numbers. The following new members were admitted +some time since: C. E. Bradbury, J. L. Atwater, E. H. Reed, G. H. +Daggett, Charles Stadler, F. S. Osborn, B. D. Washington, and Wallace +Fairbank. Three members were added to the executive committee: Dr. C. +F. Matteson, E. J. Wagner, and G. A. Douglas. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Society of Amateur Photographers of New York gave a +Smoking Concert, November 18, which proved a very enjoyable affair. +There was some good vocal and instrumental music, and after the concert +was over, the audience had a “German-American tea”--the tea having been +brewed in a keg, after the manner of the German. Strange to say, on +the conclusion of the repast there were several “kegs full,” after the +manner of the American. + + * * * * * + +~The~ New Orleans Camera Club has recently taken a number of +sketches of an “outing” along the line of the Northeastern railroad. +Some pretty bits of scenery and quaint negro characters were taken +during the trip. The following gentlemen headed the excursion party: +President William Mandeville, Vice-President Joseph A. Hincks, +Secretary Charles E. Fermer, Treasurer Harry T. Howard. + + +ATHLETICS. + +~The~ fall handicap meeting of the Harvard Athletic Association +was held November 5, on Holmes’ Field, Cambridge, Mass. The events were +as follows: + +100-yards run--_First heat_, O. K. Hawes, ’92 (2 yds.), first. Time, +10½s. _Second heat_, E. C. Moen, ’91 (scratch), first. Time, 10 2-5s. +_Final heat_, O. K. Hawes, ’92 (2 yds.), first. Time, 10 2-5s. + +Running broad jump--G. R. White (scratch), first. Distance, 20 ft. +2½ in. + +One-mile walk--C. T. R. Bates, ’92 (30 sec.), first. Time, 8m. 1½s. +J. E. Howe, ’91 (scratch), second. + +One-mile run--J. L. Dodge, ’91 (100 yds.), first. Time, 4m. 34s. A. M. +White, ’92 (100 yds.), second. + +Running high jump--E. W. Dustan, ’89 (3 in.), first. Distance, 5 ft. + +440-yards run--T. J. Stead, ’91 (10 yds.), first. Time, 52¾s. W. H. +Wright, ’92, second. + +Half-mile run--G. L. Batchelder, ’92 (40 yds.), first. Time, 2m. 3s. + +220-yards run--S. Wells, Jr., ’91 (12 yds.), first. Time, 23 2-5s. O. +K. Hawes, ’92 (5 yds.), second. + +The officers of the course were: Referee, G. B. Morrison, ’83; Judges, +J. D. Bradley, L. S., F. B. Lund, ’88; Judge of Walking, H. H. Bemis, +’87; Timekeepers, J. G. Lathrop, F. D. Fisher, ’86, J. T. Taylor, E. S. +Wright, L. S.; Scorer, Allston Burr, ’89. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall games of the Friends’ Central School, Philadelphia, +were held November 4, at the University Grounds. + +Pole vault--Stuart, 7 ft. 5 in. + +One-mile run--Emerick, 6m. 13 3-5s. + +Running high jump--Sill, 4 ft. 8 in. + +Standing broad jump--Goldsmith, 9 ft. 2 in. + +Half-mile walk--Wilkeson, 4m. 27½s. + +100-yards run (juniors)--_Final heat_, Stuart, 11 4-5s. + +Throwing baseball--Burrough, 1. + +100-yards run (seniors)--_Final heat_, Goldsmith, 11 4-5s. + +440-yards run--A’Becket, 1. + +Three-legged race--Burrough and Marter, 11 4-5s. + +One-mile bicycle race--Mode, 3m. 38 2-3s. + +Putting the shot--Meredith, 27 ft. 9 in. + +Running broad jump--Dumont, 18 ft. 4 in. + +Hurdle race--Dickeson, 22 2-5s. + +Tug-of-war--Class of ’89, 1, by 3 inches. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Athletes of the Gaelic Club of Ireland left for home on +the _City of Rome_, October 31. The trip to this country did not prove +a great financial success. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first annual games of the Outing Athletic Club were held +on the grounds of the Brooklyn Athletic Association, November 6. The +attendance was large, the management good, the track in fine condition, +and the racing events were closely contested and interesting. Nearly +six hundred people witnessed the sports, which resulted as follows: + +100-yards professional race, handicap--E. Herline, Wilmington (5½ yds.) +first; Steve Farrell, Rockville, Conn., second. Time, 10 1-5s. + +120-yards run, handicap (amateur)--Thomas Lee, N. Y. Y. M. C. A., +first; N. Linicus, Olympic A. C., second. Time, 12½s. + +Running high jump, handicap--M. O. Sullivan, Pastime A. C., first; +R. K. Pritchard, Staten Island A. C., second. Height, 5 ft. 5 in., +handicap 5 in.; second, 5 ft. 8½ in. + +One-mile walk, handicap--W. F. Pollman, Pastime A. C., first (40 sec.); +J. B. Keating second. Time, 7m. 1-5s. + +Half-mile run, handicap--A. Aspengein, Prospect Harriers (42 yds.), +first; W. H. Moore, N. Y. A. C. (45 yds.), second. Time, 2m. 2 3-5s. + +350-yards run, handicap--R. R. Houston, I. H. (20 yds.), first; W. E. +Hughes, Pastime A. C., second. Time, 39 4-5s. + +Running broad jump, handicap--S. D. See, (36 in.), Brooklyn A. C., +first, 18 ft. 9½ in.; W. Neuman, Olympic A. C. (30 in.), second. + +One-mile run, handicap--P. C. Petrie, Olympic A. C. (43 yds.), first; +E. Hjertberg, Olympic A. C., (35 yds.), second. + +220-yards hurdle race, handicap--A. Brown, Pastime A. C. (8 yds.), +first; W. H. Struse, S. I. A. C., second. Time, 27½s. + +Putting the 16-lb. shot, handicap--W. Neuman, Olympic A. C. (6 ft.), +first; Alf. Ing, Y. M. C. A. (1 ft.), second. Distance, 31 ft. 4½ in. + + * * * * * + +~I. B. Meredith~, the well-known sprinter and football player of +Ireland is coming to America. + + * * * * * + +~Schifferstein~, the California amateur sprinter, has decided to +become a professional. He and Bethune will be a great pair at 100 yards. + + * * * * * + +~An~ athletic enterprise has been set on foot by the National +Assoc. of Amateur Athletes of America. It is this: The association +has determined to hold a national meeting immediately before their +international championship next May. The meeting will be open to every +amateur in the United States, and the winners of contests will form +an international team which will make a tour of Europe, entering all +amateur championship games held in foreign countries. The team will +also hold a series of games at the Paris Exposition of 1889. Many +prominent men interested in athletics are very favorably impressed with +the scheme and believe that it will be a successful one. + + * * * * * + +~The~ following definition of an amateur has been adopted by the +Western Association: An amateur athlete is one who has never competed +with or against a professional for a prize, or who has never competed +for a staked bet or other monetary consideration or under a fictitious +name, or who has never, directly or indirectly, either in competition +or as an instructor, or as an assistant or through any connection +whatever with any form of athletic games obtained any financial +consideration, either directly or indirectly; who has never sold or +pledged any prize or token won or obtained through connection with +athletics, or whose membership in any athletic organization is of no +pecuniary benefit to himself, directly or indirectly. + + * * * * * + +~The~ games of the Manhattan Athletic Club, November 6, were of +a high order. Four new records were made, two on the running path and +two on the field. The cinder-path was in excellent condition. Arthur +George and G. L. Young, the champion cross-country runners of England, +gave exhibitions of their style. Conneff and Mitchell, the Irish runner +and the weight thrower, made new records. The following is a summary of +the events: + +100-yards run--_First heat_: F. Westing, M. A. C. (scratch), and A. F. +Copeland, M. A. C. (2 yds.), a dead heat, in 10 2-5s. _Second heat_: +J. S. Wieners, Jr., M. A. C. (9 yds.), first, in 10 4-5s. _Third +heat_: H. Shipman (4½ yds.), first, in 10 4-5s. _Fourth heat_: J. +C. Devereaux, M. A. C. (5 yds.), first, in 10 4-5s. _Fifth heat_: W. +M. Macdermott, M. A. C. (7 yds.), first, in 10 4-5s. _Final heat_: +Macdermott first, Devereaux second, Copeland third; time, 10 1-5s. It +was a fine race, and less than 18 inches divided the four men at the +finish. + +Two-mile walk--E. D. Lange, M. A. C. (scratch), first, time 14m. 45 +2-5s.; F. Fillistrand, W. S. A. C. (80 sec.), second, in 16m. 21s.; F. +A. Ware, M. A. C. (25 sec.), third, not timed. + +Throwing 16-lb. hammer--M. W. Ford, Brooklyn (25 feet), first, at 78 +ft. 11 in.; J. S. Mitchell, M. A. C. (scratch), second, at 101 ft. 4 +in.; F. L. Lambrecht, M. A. C. (scratch), third, at 101 ft. 3 in. + +Two-mile run--T. P. Conneff, M. A. C. (scratch), first, in 9m. 43s.; A. +Sheridan, W. S. A. C. (175 yds.), second; T. Owens, W. S. A. C. (205 +yds.), third; won easily. Conneff made 1 mile in 4m. 48s.; 1¼ miles, +6m. 3 4-5s.; 1½ miles, 7m. 19s., and 1¾ miles, 8m. 32 2-5s. His time +at 1¼ miles supplants P. D. Skillman’s 6m. 5 4-5s. made at Brooklyn, +July 4, 1887, and his time at 1¾ miles is the best American record, +there having been no previous record for the distance. Had Conneff been +pushed he could have broken Carter’s two-mile record of 9m. 38 3-5s. + +120-yards hurdle race over 3 ft. 6 in. obstacles--A. F. Copeland, M. A. +C., first; H. Mapes, Columbia College, second; E. M. Vandervoort, M. +A. C., third. Won easily in 16 2-5s. The record is 16 1-5s., by A. A. +Jordan, N. Y. A. C. + +Quarter-mile run for novices--J. E. Gounison, Columbia College, first; +W. Bogardus, M. A. C., second; J. A. Allen, Star A. C. C., third. Won +by 5 ft., after a good race, in 58 4-5s. + +Running broad jump--Victor Mapes, C. C. A. A. (1 ft. 6 in.), first, at +22 ft. 4½ in.; A. F. Remsen, M. A. C. (1 ft. 3 in.), second, at 22 ft. +4 in.; Z. A. Cooper, U. A. C. (3 ft. 6 in.), third, at 22 ft. 3 in. + +350-yards run--J. C. Devereaux, M. A. C. (9 yds.), first; A. F. +Copeland, M. A. C. (3 yds.), second; H. Shipman, M. A. C. (12 yds.), +third. Copeland got a good start, but was unable to get through the +field. He ran a close second in the good time of 39 3-5s. + +Field officers: Referee, G. W. Carr, M. A. C.; Judges, C. H. Mapes, +Columbia College; W. Gage, M. A. C., and G. L. M. Sacks, M. A. C.; +Timers, M. P. Bagg, M. A. C.; G. A. Avery, M. A. C., and A. F. Kimbel, +M. A. C.; Judge of Walking, G. L. M. Sacks; Starter, H. P. Pike, M. A. +C. + + * * * * * + +~The~ amateur athletic clubs of Chicago and vicinity, at +present members of the Amateur Athletic Union, have organized a local +committee, to be known as the Executive Committee of the Associated A. +A. U. Clubs of Chicago and vicinity. The committee will be composed of +three delegates from each A. A. U. club within fifty miles of Chicago, +and will legislate, under the board of managers of the A. A. U., on all +matters pertaining to the interests of the associated clubs and Western +athletics in general. The committee is at present composed of delegates +from the following clubs: Chicago Amateur Athletic Association, Garden +City Athletic Club, First Regt. (I. N. G.) A. A., and Pullman Athletic +Club. Officers: Hall T. K. Fake, P. A. C., chairman; Noah Clark, C. A. +A. A., secretary and treasurer. The following circular has been issued: + + ~To the Amateur Athletic Organizations of Chicago and + Vicinity~: + + The Executive Committee of the Associated A. A. U. clubs of + Chicago and vicinity beg to call your attention to the enclosed + announcement. It is to the interest of all amateur athletic + clubs to associate themselves with a national and thoroughly + representative governing body, having for its object the + advancement of American amateur athletics and whose rulings shall + be final and authoritative on all points of importance in such + matters, and whose decisions shall have international recognition. + The formation of the local executive committee insures the proper + representation of each local club, as well as the thorough + investigation and care of the mutual interests of the associate + clubs and Western athletic interests in general. + + Respectfully, + ~Noah Clark~, Sec’y. + + _Chicago_, Oct. 17, 1888. + + * * * * * + +~The~ American Athletic Union held its first supplementary +indoor meeting for the Championship of the United States, November 21, +at Madison Square Garden in this city. W. B. Curtis was referee and +the judges A. V. De Gorcouria, E. C. Carter, and John Huneker. The +following is a summary of the events: + +Seventy-five yards--_First heat_, W. C. White, N. Y. A. C., first; A. +J. Murburg, second; time, 8 2-5s. _Second heat_, Horace Walker, Yale A. +C., first; W. E. Hughes, P. A. C., second; time, 8 2-5s. _Third heat_, +F. W. Robinson, Yale College and N. Y. A. C., first; H. Luerson, P. +A. C., second; time, 8 2-5s. _Fourth heat_, Thomas J. Lee, O. A. C., +first; N. H. Strusse, S. I. A. C., second; time, 8 2-5s. _Fifth heat_, +S. J. King, Col. A. C., Washington, first; F. H. Babcock, N. Y. A. C., +second; time, 8 2-5s. Sixteen competed. _Final heat_, Robinson, Walker, +King and Lee competed, the others being beaten in the supplementary +heats. Robinson won by a foot; time, 8 2-5s; King second. + +200-yards hurdle (3 feet 6 inches)--Run in one heat. Won by A. +A. Jordan, N. Y. A. C.; time, 30 4-5s.; G. Schwegler, second; E. +Lentilhon, Yale College and N. Y. A. C., third. Four ran. Jordan won as +he pleased. + +Three-quarter mile walk--T. Sherman, N. J. A. C.; W. R. Burckhardt, P. +A. C.; H. Dimse, P. A. C.; Otto Hassell, Chicago A. A. A., and J. C. +Kouth, P. A. C., competed. Won easily by Burckhardt; time, 5m. 14s.; +Sherman second, Kouth third. + +Standing high jump--W. Norris, S. I. A. C.; A. Shroeder, N. Y. A. C.; +S. Crook, M. A. C.; F. T. Ducharme, Detroit A. C.; Samuel Toch, S. +I. A. C.; R. K. Pritchard, S. I. A. C.; J. R. Elder, Columbia A. C., +Washington, D. C.; John Scheurer, O. A. C.; E. Giannini, N. Y. A. C., +and B. L. Harrison, Orange A. C., competed. Crook won with 4 ft. 11½ +in. This is within three-quarters of an inch of the American record, +and beats the English record 1½ inches. The start was made at 3 ft. 6 +in. + +1,000 yards run--G. V. Gilbert, N. Y. A. C.; E. A. Merrick, M. A. C.; +S. Barr, S. I. A. C.; W. T. Thompson, S. I. A. C., and W. J. Gregory, +Birmingham A. C., competed. It was a good race, and during the last lap +and a half Gilbert and Thompson were in advance and running for their +lives. Gilbert lasted the longest and won by several yards. Time, 2m. +26 4-5s. + +150-yards run--_First heat_, W. C. White, N. Y. A. C., first; Thomas S. +Lee, O. A. C., second; time, 17 1-5s. _Second heat_, S. J. King, Col. +A. C., Washington, D. C., first; W. E. Hughes, P. A. C., second; time, +17½s. _Third heat_, F. T. Ducharme, Detroit A. C., first; S. E. +Corbett, S. I. A. C., second. _Final heat_, White won a splendid race +by less than a foot. Time, 17 1-5s. King was second and Hughes third. + +Kicking Football (for accuracy)--C. T. Schlesinger, N. Y. A. C.; T. +O. Speir, Orange A. C.; Frank Cunningham, S. I. A. C.; E. J. Chapman, +S. I. A. C.; D. A. Lindsay, S. I. A. C.; W. F. Allen, M. A. C.; C. T. +Hollister, M. A. C.; E. J. Laidlaw, N. Y. A. C.; G. A. White, M. A. C.; +H. Sinclair, M. A. C., and J. J. Barker, P. A. C., competed. Cunningham +won, Sinclair second and Allen third. + +600-yards run--Stewart Barr, S. I. A. C.; J. F. Robinson, S. I. A. +C.; E. E. Barnes, O. A. C.; A. W. S. Cochrane, N. Y. A. C., and J. P. +Thornton, N. Y. A. C., competed. Thornton won in hand. Time, 1m. 23 +2-5s. Barnes was second and Cochrane third. + +56-lb. weight (for height)--E. Giannini, N. Y. A. C.; George R. Gray, +N. Y. A. C.; C. A. J. Queckberner, S. I. A. C.; J. Hackett, P. A. C., +and M. O. Sullivan, P. A. C., competed. Sullivan won it with 13 ft. 11⅝ +in., beating his own record 2⅝ in., made October 2, 1886. Queckberner +was second at 13 ft. 7⅝ in. and Hackett at 13 ft. 5⅝ in. + +300-yards hurdle (2 feet 6 inches)--Run in one heat. A. A. Jordan, N. +Y. A. C.; A. Brown, P. A. C.; G. Schwelger, A. A. C., and E. Lentilhon, +Yale College and N. Y. A. C., competed. Jordan won without trouble. +Time, 41s. Brown was second and Schwelger third. + +Running hop, step and jump--Nine of fourteen entries competed. G. R. +Robertson, M. A. C., won with 43 ft. 1 in.; E. E. Smith, B. A. A., +second, 40 ft. 5 in., and T. H. Babcock, N. Y. A. C., third, 40 ft. The +world’s record is 48 ft. 3 in., by J. Purcell, Limerick, June 9, 1887, +and the American 44 ft. 1¾ in., by M. W. Ford, New York, May 10, 1884. + +Putting 24-lb. shot--George R. Gray, N. Y. A. C.; C. A. J. Queckberner, +S. I. A. C.; M. O. Sullivan, P. A. C., and J. Hackett, P. A. C., +competed. Gray was in grand form, and covered 32 ft. 6¾ in., which +beats the world’s record 4 ft. 7¾ in., it being 27 ft. 11 in., made by +George Ross, Salford, England, November 13, 1876. Gray then made an +exhibition put, and covered 33 ft. 9½ in. Queckberner was second in the +competition, with 31 ft. 3 in., and Sullivan third, with 27 ft. 3½ in. +The American record was 25 ft. 7 in., made by M. Markoe, Princeton, N. +J., May 13, 1876. + +Two-mile run--T. A. Collett, P. A. C.; A. B. George, Spartan Harriers, +England; P. C. Petrie, O. A. C.; G. Y. Gilbert, N. Y. A. C.; H. A. +Smith, S. I. A. C.; W. F. Thompson, S. I. A. C.; J. Adelsdorfer, P. +A. C., and E. Hjertberg, O. A. C., competed. George, who is a brother +of W. G. George, the well-known professional long distance runner of +England, won easily. Time, 10m. 18 1-5s. The American record is 9m. 38 +3-5s., made by E. C. Carter in the open air. E. Hjertberg, O. A. C., +was second in the competition, and T. A. Collett, P. A. C., third. + +300-yards run, in one heat--J. P. Thornton, N. Y. A. C., won with few +inches to spare. Time, 34 3-5s. W. H. Strusse, S. I. A. C., was second, +and Horace F. Walker, Yale College, third. Five started. + +Four-mile walk--H. Druise, P. A. C.; S. Cramer, P. A. C.; J. C. Korth, +P. A. C.; O. E. Paynter, S. I. A. C.; W. R. Burckhardt, P. A. C.; W. +Donahy, Prospect Harriers; W. Pollman, P. A. C., and W. A. Berrian, M. +A. C., competed. Cramer won. Time, 32m. 13s. The first mile was in 7m. +52 4-5s.; two miles, 16m. 1 3-5s., and three miles, 24m. 14 2-5s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Naval Academy cadets had their usual Thanksgiving Day +sports, November 29, at Annapolis, Md. The athletic tournament which +came off in the forenoon was witnessed by a large number of people. The +boys were defeated after an exciting contest in a football game with +the Johns Hopkins University team of Baltimore. The score stood--Johns +Hopkins, 25; cadets, 12. + +In the athletic tournament Cadet Camden cleared 21 ft. 4 in. in a +running long jump; Cadet Hoff reached 5 ft. 4 in. in a running high +jump; Cadet Chase 7 ft. 8 in. in pole vaulting; Cadet McDonald put a +16-pound shot 32 ft. 10 in., and Cadet Taylor 31 ft. The one hundred +yards dash was won by Cadet Brand in 10 sec., or rather so said the +timers, beating Cadet Sullivan ¼ of a second. + +Throwing the baseball was won by Cadet Beck, who reached 107 yards; +Cadet Trickle, second, 103 yards. + +In the tug-of-war the contestants were the first and third divisions of +cadets against the second and fourth, about 100 on a side. The first +and third walked away with their competitors. + + * * * * * + +~The~ following detailed account of the Montreal Athletic Fair +may prove of service in affording hints to organizations of a similar +description: + +In September, 1887, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association purchased +a fine piece of property in the West End for an athletic ground. The +purchase price was $45,000; of this they paid $15,000 in cash. An +active canvass among the members and friends resulted in $17,000 being +subscribed towards the liquidation of the liability. The leveling of +the grounds, fencing, grand-stands and cinder-path (one-third of a +mile) cost upwards of $10,000 more, with pavilions and dressing-rooms +and other improvements yet to build. The idea of a bazaar or fair, +which had been mooted two years previously, was again advanced, the +fair friends of the members becoming enthusiastic over it. After some +preliminaries the idea took shape; a committee was formed to further +the scheme; each club in the association formed a fair committee. A +lady was chosen and appointed president of each club table, with power +to select as many young ladies as were deemed necessary to assist. +Before the summer holidays the scheme was well under way, and during +the months of July and August, at most of the Canadian summer resorts, +groups of ladies could be seen at work making costly and handsome fancy +work for the fair. + +The Executive Committee finally stood as follows: F. M. Larmonth, +president; D. J. Watson, hon. sec.; Wm. Bruce, treasurer. James +Paton, S. M. Baylis, A. G. Walsh, I. Sutherland, A. G. Higginson, and +the following chairmen: W. H. White (association), F. C. A. McIndoe +(lacrosse), A. W. Stevenson (snow-shoe), F. G. Gnaedinger (bicycle), M. +Freeman (toboggan), G. L. Cains (football), W. D. Aird (hockey), W. J. +Cleghorn (Junior Lacrosse Club), Harry Brophy (Cinderella), Fred. S. +Brush (baseball), W. A. Coates (entertainment). + +The lady presidents of each table had from twenty to forty young ladies +as assistants, each wearing their particular club color. The lady +presidents were as follows: Mrs. W. L. Maltby (association), flower +table; Mrs. F. M. Larmonth (lacrosse) fancy table; Mrs. Fred. Birks +(snow-shoe), general store table; Mrs. C. W. Dickinson (bicycle), candy +and fruit table; Mrs. I. L. Wiseman (toboggan), bric-a-brac table; Mrs. +Geo. Drummond (football), art gallery; Mrs. Will H. Whyte (Cinderella), +refreshment parlor; Mrs. James Paton (hockey), fancy goods table; +Mrs. Fred. Massey (junior lacrosse), fancy table; Mrs. Fred. S. Brush +(baseball), linen and basket table. In all ten tables and two hundred +and fifty assistants. + +The fair was held the last week in September, in the Victoria Skating +Rink. Booths for each club were erected on the promenade around the +sides of the building, leaving the centre part free for the visitors +and patrons, with the exception of the flower table, which occupied a +place in the centre. Each table or booth was arranged differently, and +prettily decorated with the bunting and ribbons of each club color, +and the various and distinct implements of each particular sport. +Lacrosses, snow-shoes, bicycles, toboggans, footballs, hockey sticks +and skates, baseballs and bats, were decorated and used to decorate +in every conceivable way. Many of the ladies wore costumes made in +their favorite club colors. Gifts poured in from every quarter. Among +the many donations received was a $500 piano, $200 (pipe-top) organ, +$250 sealskin sacque, three sewing-machines, six ranges and stoves, +desks, writing cabinet, bookcase, Remington typewriter, silverware from +Tiffany of New York, fancy goods from A. G. Spalding & Bro. and Peck & +Snyder, of New York, and hundreds of smaller and equally handsome gifts. + +The fair realized from the sales of goods about $8,500; this, with the +handsome donation of a cheque for $1,000 from Sir Donald A. Smith, who +kindly presided at the opening, and a cheque of $500 from Mr. R. B. +Angus, will make the total result about $10,000, a very satisfactory +week’s work, and a gratifying result to the ladies interested in the +association, who worked so faithfully and steadfastly to achieve this +great success. + +In order to show that the members had brains as well as muscles, a +literary magazine entitled “Athletic Leaves,” with original articles +from a dozen of the members, was published under the editorship of +Messrs. Baylis and Whyte. Three thousand copies were issued to serve +as a souvenir of the fair, some $800 being made for the fair out of the +venture. Where all worked well it would be invidious to particularize. +Both the ladies’ and gentlemen’s committee of each section did +everything in their power to make the event a success; the brunt and +responsibility, however, devolved on the lady presidents and Executive +Committee, and how well they did their allotted parts the result +testifies. + + +BASEBALL. + +~Captain Willard~, of the Harvard University nine, has begun +work. The positions left vacant by Campbell and Gallivan at shortstop +and second base, respectively, will be difficult to fill, as these +men were perhaps the strongest all-round players on the team. Henshaw +will probably again go behind the bat, and with Bates will make a +first-class battery. Of the latter great things are expected. He has +all the curves and a wonderful command of the ball. + + * * * * * + +~The~ New York League Club and the St. Louis American +Association, the respective champions of the two organizations, +competed in an annual series of games for the baseball championship of +the world in October, the series consisting of ten games, four of which +were played in New York, four in St. Louis, and one each in Brooklyn +and Philadelphia. The League team won the pennant by their victories in +six out of the first eight games played, their success being largely +due to the effective battery work of Keefe and Ewing, and the splendid +infield play of shortstop Ward. Here is the full record of the series: + + Oct. 16. New York vs. St. Louis, at + New York. Pitchers, Keefe + and King. 2--1 + + “ 17. St. Louis vs. New York, at + New York. Pitchers, Chamberlain + and Welch. 3--0 + + “ 18. New York vs. St. Louis, at + New York. Pitchers, Keefe + and King. 4--2 + + “ 19. New York vs. St. Louis, at + Brooklyn. Pitchers, Crane + and Chamberlain. 6--3 + + “ 20. New York vs. St. Louis, at + New York. Pitchers, Keefe + and King. 6--4 + + “ 22. New York vs. St. Louis, at + Philadelphia. Pitchers, Welch + and Chamberlain. 12--5 + + “ 24. St. Louis vs. New York, at St. + Louis. Pitchers, King and + Crane. 7--5 + + “ 25. New York vs. St. Louis, at St. + Louis. Pitchers, Keefe and + Chamberlain. 11--3 + + “ 26. St. Louis vs. New York, at St. + Louis. Pitchers, King and + George. 14--11 + + “ 27. St. Louis vs. New York, at St. + Louis. Pitchers, Chamberlain + and Titcomb. 18--7 + +Total games won: New York 6, St. Louis 4. Total runs scored: New +York 64, St. Louis 60. Batting average: New York 275, St. Louis 223. +Fielding average: New York 930, St. Louis 918. Keefe pitched in four +victories and no defeats; Welch and Crane in one victory and one defeat +each, and King and Chamberlain in two victories and three defeats, and +George and Titcomb in one defeat each. The financial result of the +series of contests was as follows: Receipts in New York, $15,406.50; +St. Louis, $5,612; Philadelphia, $1,781; Brooklyn, $1,562. Total, +$24,362.10. Expenses, $8,000. Amount cleared, $16,382. Messrs. Gaffney +and John Kelly acted as umpires under the double umpire rule of one +official judging the balls and strikes, and the other the base running. + + * * * * * + +~The~ fall exhibition contests between the League and the +American clubs in October resulted as follows: + +ASSOCIATION. + + _Victories._ _Defeats._ + + Brooklyn 5 0 + St. Louis 5 6 + Baltimore 1 1 + Cincinnati 1 2 + Athletics 1 2 + -- -- + Totals 13 11 + +LEAGUE. + + _Victories._ _Defeats._ + + New York 6 5 + Pittsburgh 2 1 + Philadelphia 2 1 + Indianapolis 1 3 + Washington 0 3 + -- -- + Totals 11 13 + + * * * * * + +~The~ contest for the diamond medal offered by the Cincinnati +_Enquirer_, for the longest throw of the season, resulted in the +success of shortstop Williamson of the Chicago Club. The best on record +was John Hatfield’s throw of 400 feet 7 inches, made over a dozen years +ago. Crane, the pitcher of the New York Club, claimed to have exceeded +this by two feet, but the trial was not officially recorded. John +Hatfield stated recently that he once threw a ball 420 feet, but it was +not officially scored and was never counted. The record of the official +contest of 1888 is as follows: + + _Player._ _Club._ _Distance thrown._ + + 1. Williamson Chicago 399 ft. 11 in. + 2. Griffin Baltimore 372 8 + 3. Stovey Athletic 369 2 + 4. Vaughn Louisville 366 9 + 5. Burns Brooklyn 364 6 + 6. O’Brien Brooklyn 361 5 + 7. Collins Brooklyn 354 6 + 8. Tebeau Cincinnati 353 0 + 9. Gilks Cleveland 343 11 + 10. Reilly Cincinnati 341 6 + 11. Brennan Kansas City 339 6 + 12. Stricker Cleveland 337 8 + 13. Foutz Brooklyn 335 4 + 14. Davis Kansas City 333 6 + 15. O’Connor Cincinnati 330 0 + 16. McTamany Kansas City 327 6 + + +CANOEING. + +~The~ Princeton College Canoe Club was organized October 4, +1888. The following officers were elected: Commodore, A. N. Bodine, +’90; vice-commodore, C. Agnew, ’91; secretary, George Trotter, ’91; +treasurer, G. Agnew, ’91. All the members of the club are students. It +is probable the Princeton canoeists will apply for admittance to the +American Canoe Association in the Spring. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Pequot Canoe Club elected the following Board of +Officers: Commodore, W. A. Borden; vice-president, T. P. Sherwood; +secretary-treasurer, F. P. Lewis; measurer, E. C. Bogert; Rev. A. N. +Lewis, chaplain. + + +COURSING. + +~The~ Hempstead Coursing Club began its second season at +Cedarhurst, November 3. The morning was bright and clear, but before +the sport commenced rain came on, and it continued to shower until the +afternoon. As was the case last year, rabbits were scarce. The law +allowed their capture only since November 1. The consequence was the +demand exceeded the supply, and several nominators “scratched” their +entries. As a whole the rabbits were a fairly good lot. + +The officers were: Judge, Mr. A. Belmont Purdy; breed judge, J. E. +Cowdin; field steward, O. W. Bird; flag steward, J. L. Kernochan; +secretary, A. Belmont, Jr. and slipper, German Hopkins. The following +is a summary of the events: + + +NOVICE STAKES. + +An open sweepstakes for fox-terriers of 20 lb. or under, at $2 each, +play or pay, with a silver cup presented by Mr. James L. Kernochan to +the winner. The runner up to receive 25 per cent. of the stakes and a +pewter mug. Fifteen entries. + +_First Round._--J. B. Kernochan nominates A. Belmont Purdy’s white, +black and tan dog Pincher, who beat T. B. Burnham’s white, black and +tan dog Jack. L. and W. Rutherford’s white dog Warner Spider beat S. D. +Ripley’s white dog Bayonet. H. B. Richardson’s white, black and tan dog +Meadow Brook Jack beat E. Kelly’s white and tan dog Earl Leicester. H. +P. Frothingham’s white and tan dog Mugwump, C. Rathbone’s white, black +and tan dog Beverwyck Tippler, F. O. Beach’s white, black and tan bitch +Media, Blemton Kennel’s white and tan bitch Tiara, and O. W. Bird’s +white, black and tan bitch Warren Jingle had byes. + +_Second Round._--Pincher beat Mugwump, Beverwyck Tippler beat Warren +Spider, Tiara beat Media, and Meadow Brook Jack beat Warren Jingle. + +_Third Round._--Beverwyck Tippler beat Pincher, Meadow Brook Jack beat +Tiara. + +_Final Round._--Beverwyck Tippler beat Meadow Brook Jack. + + +ROCKAWAY CUP. + +An open sweepstakes for fox-terriers of 18 lb. or under, at $3 each, +play or pay, with a cup presented by the Rockaway Steeplechase +Association for the winner. The runner-up to receive 25 per cent. of +the stakes and a pewter mug. 19 entries. + +_First Round._--L. and W. Rutherford’s white dog Warren Spider beat +T. B. Burnham’s white, black and tan dog Jack. C. Rathbone’s white, +black and tan dog Beverwyck Tippler beat A. T. French’s white and tan +dog Blemton Volunteer. J. B. Kernochan nominates A. Belmont Purdy’s +white, black and tan dog Pincher, who beat F. O. Beach’s white, black +and tan bitch Medice. O. W. Bird’s white, black and tan bitch Warren +Jingle beat H. P. Frothingham’s white and tan bitch Lottery. H. V. R. +Kennedy’s white, black and tan dog Antic beats Blemton Kennel’s white, +black and tan dog Regent Fox. Edward Kelly’s white, black and tan bitch +Votary a bye. + +_Second Round._--Warren Spider beats Votary, Beverwyck Tippler beats +Pincher, Antic beats Warren Jingle. + +_Third Round._--Warren Spider beats Tippler, Antic a bye. + +_Final Round._--Antic beats Warren Spider, after an undecided. + + +COTTON-TAIL STAKES. + +An open sweepstakes for fox-terriers of 16 lb. or under, at $2 each, +play or pay, with $20 added, to the winner; the runner up to receive 60 +per cent. of the stakes and a pewter mug. Sixteen entries. + +L. and W. Rutherford’s white and tan bitch Warren Dainty beat H. P. +Frothingham’s white and tan bitch Lottery. C. Rathbone’s white, black +and tan bitch Blemton Lilly beat Blemton Kennel’s white, black and tan +dog Dusky Trap. A. T. French’s white and tan dog Blemton Volunteer, E. +D. Morgan’s white, black and tan dog Tancred, L. and W. Rutherford’s +white dog Warren Discord, and James Mortimer’s white, black and tan +bitch Suffolk Syren had byes. + +_Second Round._--Warren Dainty beat Tancred, Blemton Lilly beat Blemton +Volunteer, Warren Discord beat Suffolk Syren. + +_Third Round._--Warren Dainty beat Blemton Lilly; Warren Discord a bye. + +_Deciding Round._--Warren Discord beat Warren Dainty. + + +CRICKET. + +~The~ most successful cricket club in Brooklyn in 1888 was the +Manhattan Club. The club’s elevens played thirty-two matches, of which +they won twenty-seven, lost four, and had one drawn. Their first eleven +won twenty-six and lost but three, while their second eleven won one, +lost one, and had one drawn. The record of the leading contests of the +club is as follows: + + DATE. CONTESTING CLUBS. RESULT OF CONTEST. SCORE. + + May 21 Manhattan vs. Won with 10 wickets + Young America to spare 88 to 86 + + May 30 Staten Island vs. Lost by score of first + Manhattan inning 70 to 83 + + July 13 Manhattan vs. Won by score of first + Pittsburgh inning 133 to 91 + + July 28 Staten Island vs. Lost by score of first + Manhattan inning 76 to 127 + + Aug. 15 Manhattan vs. Won by score of first + Seabright inning 78 to 62 + + Sept. 3 Manhattan vs. Won with 10 wickets + Newark to spare 125 to 123 + + Sept. 5 Manhattan vs. Won by score of first + Seabright inning 191 to 57 + + Sept. 12 Manhattan vs. Won by score of first + Newark inning 60 to 54 + + Sept. 29 Manhattan vs. Won with 7 wickets + All New York to spare 107 to 77 + +Besides these leading contests the Manhattans defeated the Albions +three times, the New Yorks twice, the Amateur League twice, and the New +Haven, St. George, Alma, Cosmopolitan and Claremont clubs once each, +and lost one game each with the New Havens and Cosmopolitans, they +having drawn games with the Almas and New Yorkers. The second eleven +had a drawn game with the Staten Islanders, and won one and lost one +with the Brooklyns. + +The club had its annual meeting in October, and elected the following +officers for 1889: Edwin C. Squance, president; H. S. Jewell, first +vice-president; B. H. Beasley, second vice-president; J. G. Davis, +secretary; S. E. Hosford, treasurer; S. J. Fisher, captain; H. S. +Jewell, sub-captain; S. J. Fisher, M. R. Cobb, J. E. West, H. Coyne, +executive committee. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Peninsular Cricket Club, of Detroit, Mich., elected the +following officers for the ensuing year: President, C. R. Emery; +vice-president, D. F. O’Brien; secretary, J. J. Dodds; treasurer, W. S. +Waugh; managing committee, A. W. Anderson, R. Humffreys-Roberts, F. D. +C. Hinchman, A. C. Bowman, Dr. W. R. McLaren and Dudley Smith; match +committee, F. Bamford, R. B. Ridgley, E. F. Laible. + + +CYCLING. + +~The~ total number of members in the L. A. W. ranks is 11,804. + + * * * * * + +~An~ International Cycle Show is to take place in Leipsic next +February. + + * * * * * + +~R. T. McDaniel~ of the Wilmington, Del., Wheel Club, has one +of the big records for 1888. He has traveled 5,300 miles. His largest +mileage in one day was 115½ miles. + + * * * * * + +~The~ cyclists of New Orleans will participate in the coming +Mardi Gras festivities. They will endeavor to present the characters of +Mother Goose’s melodies astride of bicycles. + + * * * * * + +~T. W. Busst~, of Victoria, Australia, now holds the title of +ten-mile champion of Australia. He won it recently at the centennial +championship meeting of the Australian Bicycle Union at Sydney. + + * * * * * + +~George B. Thayer~, of Hartford, in five months covered over +2,600 miles in Europe on his bicycle. + + * * * * * + +~G. P. Mills~, the English rider, succeeded some time back in +lowering the 100-mile tricycle record to 6h. 58m. 54s. During October, +’88, he covered fifty miles on a tricycle in 2h. 53m. 25s., or 41m. +22s. better than that for ordinary bicycle record. + + * * * * * + +~A. D. Peck~, of the Massachusetts Club, has a cycling record +to be proud of. He began wheeling in ’83, and since then has gone over +17,863 miles of road. Each year’s records were as follows: 1883, 1,760 +miles; 1884, 1,840 miles; 1885, 2,785 miles; 1886, 4,404 miles; 1887, +4,002 miles; 1888, 3,102 miles. It is doubtful if there is another +Boston wheelman who can show such a record. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the first century run of the Kings County Wheelmen’s Club, the +starters were M. L. Bridgman, Harry Hall, Jr., John Bensinger, Robert +Hipson, Frank Douglas, and three others. They had selected a course +which was 7¾ miles roundabout, and they proposed to make the circuit of +this as many times as possible. John Bensinger did the best work of the +day. He not only made his 100 miles, but his total score was 102 5-8. + + * * * * * + +~I. W. Shurman~, a cyclist of Lynn, Mass., with a national +reputation as a hill-climber, started one fine morning in October last +at the foot of the Orange Mountain to beat Fred Connigsby’s record of +climbing the hill thirteen times without dismounting in 3h. 15m. 45s. +Shurman made the attempt and succeeded, accomplishing the feat in 3h. +5m., beating Connigsby’s record by about 10m. Not content with that, +Shurman continued, and made twenty-four round trips, a distance of +forty-eight miles, in 6h. 24m. 15s., thus establishing a record which +doubtless will hold good some time. + + * * * * * + +~The~ 24-hour road-riding craze has struck Chicago wheelmen, and +record after record has been going up. John Mason has the latest--277 +miles. + + * * * * * + +~During~ the winter months the Manhattan Bicycle Club will hold +a smoking concert every Wednesday evening. + + * * * * * + +~The~ five-mile Challenge Cup of the Pennsylvania Bicycle Club +can be raced for by members of that organization once a month. + + * * * * * + +~Members~ of the Racing Board of the League of American Wheelmen +have had assigned to them by Chairman Davol the following territory: + +Col. George Sanderson, Scranton, Pa., in charge of New York, New +Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. + +George S. Atwater, 1206 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D. C., in +charge of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South +Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky. + +George Collister, care of Davis, Hunt & Co., Cleveland, O., in charge +of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. + +W. M. Brewster, 309 Olive Street, St. Louis, Mo., in charge of +Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, California and Oregon. + +H. H. Hodgson, New Orleans, La., in charge of Louisiana, Mississippi, +Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Nevada. + +The chairman will have charge of the district embracing the New England +States. + + * * * * * + +~The~ second annual handicap road race of the Harvard Bicycle +Club was held November 8 over the ten-mile course through North +Cambridge, West Somerville and Arlington. The day was raw and windy, +and the road rough, yet the time was very good. Of the twenty-two +entries only ten appeared, of whom eight finished. The order of the +finish, with the handicaps and actual time, was as follows: + + 1. Barron ’91, 7 min. handicap, 38 min. 45 sec. actual time. + 2. Greenleaf ’92, 3 “ “ 35 “ “ + 3. Holmes ’92, 7 “ “ 39 “ 5 “ “ + 4. Bailey ’91, 2½ “ “ 34 “ 45 “ “ + 5. Rogers ’90, 6 “ “ 38 “ 30 “ “ + 6. Kelley L. S. 6 “ “ 38 “ 45 “ “ + 7. Saunders ’89, 7 “ “ not taken. + 8. Davis ’91, scratch “ + +Davis was so heavily handicapped that he was practically out of the +race from the beginning. + + +FOOTBALL. + +~The~ Trinity College team defeated the Stevens Institute team, +November 3, on the St. George Grounds, at Hoboken, by a score of 6 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Cornell team beat the team of Union College, 30 to 4, at +Ithaca, November 3. The Cornell footballers played a very good game +during the season. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first championship game of the season of the +Intercollegiate Football Association games--between Yale, Harvard, +Princeton, Wesleyan, University of Pennsylvania--was played November +3, on the Field, at New Haven, between Yale and the University of +Pennsylvania. The latter team did not show the strong game that had +characterized her playing in the other contests this year. Yale, on +the other hand, showed some improvement. In the first half Yale scored +28 points, to which 30 were added in the second half, due in great +part to the excellent playing of Wallace, McClung and Wurtenberg, +thus defeating her opponents by a score of 58 to 0. For Pennsylvania +the best playing was done by Hulme, Wagenhurst, Cash and Hill. The +positions were as follows: _Yale_--rushers, Wallace, Hartwell, Newell, +Corbin (captain), Pike, Heffelfinger, Stagg; quarter-back, Wurtenberg; +half-backs, McClung and S. Morrison; full-back, McBride. _University of +Pennsylvania_--rushers, Wagenhurst, Harris, Spaeth, Meirs, Rhitt, Cash, +Van Loon; quarter-back, McCance; half-backs, Hulme (captain) and Price; +full-back, Hill. Referee, Walter C. Camp, Yale, ’80. Umpire, H. Hodge, +Princeton, ’86. + + * * * * * + +~The~ second championship game was played on the Polo Grounds, +November 6, between Princeton and Wesleyan, before a large number of +people. Many serious faults in Princeton’s play were made evident. +Some of the most noticeable were high tackling, losing the ball when +tackled, and failure to get in a kick when needed. Bovaird played a +splendid game, Channing and Black, the half-backs, also did well. In +the first half Princeton made 20 points and in the second 24, defeating +Wesleyan by a total score of 44 to 0. The elevens played as follows: +_Princeton_--rushers, S. Hodge, Cook, Irvine, George, Janeway, Cowan +(captain), Bovaird; quarter-back, R. Hodge; half-backs, Black and +Channing; full-back, Ames. _Wesleyan_--rushers, Floy, Glenn, Heath, +Gardner, Eaton, Pierce, Crane; quarter-back, Eggleston; half-backs, +McDonald and Hall; full-back, Slayback. + + * * * * * + +~One~ of the most stubbornly fought contests in the history of +interscholastic football took place November 10, at Andover, N. H., +the occasion being the annual football game between Phillips Exeter +and Phillips Andover academies. For thirty-five minutes after the game +began the ball stayed near the centre of the field. Both teams played +a hard game, but were so evenly matched that neither could gain any +appreciable advantage. At last a fumble by Andover allowed Stickney, +of Exeter, to secure the ball with a clear field before him. He was +downed about five yards from the line, and a rally on the part of the +Andover eleven prevented Exeter from making a touch-down, and after +four downs, having failed to advance the ball five yards, it went to +Andover. Bliss got the ball, and dodging the entire Exeter eleven +ran almost the entire length of the field, scoring a touch-down for +Andover, from which a goal was kicked. Score at end of half time, 6 +to 0 in favor of Andover. In the second half the ball was kept in +Exeter’s territory, and a short time before the end of the game Upton +secured a second touch-down for Andover. No goal. The game ended with +this score: Andover, 10 points; Exeter, 0. The teams were made up as +follows: _Andover_--rushers, Hunt, Mowry, Coxe, Speer, Upton, Townsend, +Gilbert; quarter-back, Owsley; half-backs, C. D. Bliss and L. T. Bliss; +full-back, Sprague. _Exeter_--rushers, Hill, Bardwell, Stickney, +Beattie, Furman, Erskine, Heffelfinger; quarter-back, Barbour; +half-backs, Morse and Graves; full-back, Trafford. Referee, Mr. Finney, +Princeton. Umpire, W. J. Badger. + + * * * * * + +~The~ football teams of the Crescent Athletic Club, of Brooklyn, +and of the New York Athletic Club, met on the Polo Grounds, November 3. +The New Yorkers played a good game under discouraging circumstances. +From the beginning the Crescents had things their own way, although the +wind was against them and the sun shone in their faces. Their rush-line +was better than that of their opponents. Although the New York men made +some brilliant individual plays, they were forced backwards steadily. +The game wound up with a score of 30 for the Crescents to 0 for the New +York Athletic men. This was the make-up of the teams: + + ATHLETIC CLUB. CRESCENT. + + W. Scott Rusher P. Lamarche. + H. H. Steers Rusher M. Mathews. + C. T. Schlesinger Rusher H. Lamarche. + James Carter Rusher W. Ford. + M. J. Austin Rusher C. Chapman. + Eugene Kelly, Jr. Rusher J. Verner. + W. Littauer Rusher Warren Smith. + W. B. Coster, Jr. Quarter-back Duncan Edwards. + Alex. E. Jordan Half-back J. Smith. + John P. Thornton Half-back H. Sheldon. + W. Lawson Full-back John Lamarche. + + Umpire--George Goldie, Jr. Referee--W. R. Thompson. + + * * * * * + +~A football~ match, under the Rugby rules, was played November +6, at Orange, N. J., between the teams of the Orange Jr. and Clinton +football clubs. The Clinton team won by a score of 4 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~Several~ hundred college men braved the rainstorm, November +10, to witness the championship game between the Harvard and Wesleyan +elevens on Jarvis, Cambridge. The ground was wet and slippery. The +Harvard team as a whole showed marked improvement, and in the first +half played with great determination, scoring 32 points. In the second +half, however, the men weakened. The game was only two half-hours long, +and the total score was: Harvard, 50 points; Wesleyan, 2. The following +men made up the elevens: _Harvard_--rushers, Cumnock, V. Harding, +Carpenter, Cranston, Trafford, Davis, Crosby; quarter-back, G. Harding; +half-backs, Lee and Porter; full-back, Sears. _Wesleyan_--rushers, +Crane Pierce, Eaton, Gardner, Heath, Glenn, Faber; quarter-back, +Eggleston; half-backs, Floy and Slayback; full-back, Clark. Mr. Landon, +Wesleyan, was referee, and W. H. Corbin, Yale, ’89, umpire. + + * * * * * + +~Princeton~ and the University of Pennsylvania attempted to play +a championship game in Philadelphia, November 10, despite a heavy rain. +As it was impossible to forfeit the game, a course of action was agreed +upon to the effect that play was to be started and Princeton be allowed +to make a touch-down. The game was then to be called, and because of +a dispute awarded to Princeton by a score of 4 to 0. The teams were: +_Princeton_--rushers, Riggs, Cook, Tredinnick, George, Janeway, Cowan, +Bovaird; quarter-back, R. Hodge; half-backs, Black and Channing; back, +Ames. _University of Pennsylvania_--rushers, Van Loon, Cash, Wright, +Meirs, Gray, Harris, Wagenhurst; quarter-back, Vail; half-backs, Hulme +and Valentine; full-back, Hill. Referee, Mr. Price; umpire, Mr. Corwin. + + * * * * * + +~About~ 5,000 people witnessed the great game between Princeton +and Harvard, which was played November 17 on the University Grounds, +Princeton. It was perfect football weather. The Harvard men were +bothered considerably by the mud which covered the field. Princeton +being used to the grounds, played a splendid though somewhat rough +game. From the first it was seen that Harvard was overmatched, the +heavy rush-line of the orange and black withstanding every onslaught +by the crimson. In the first half Princeton secured three touch-downs, +but failed in every instance to kick a goal. In the second half, +after thirty-five minutes of desperate playing, during which the ball +traveled up and down the field, Princeton secured a touch-down and +kicked a goal. Harvard, a few minutes later, rushed the ball down the +field toward the home goal, and Davis made a touch-down from which a +goal was kicked. The result was: Princeton, 18 points; Harvard, 6. This +is the team that appeared on the field: + +_Harvard_--rushers, V. Harding, Davis, Trafford, Cranston, Carpenter, +Woodman, Cumnock; quarter-back, G. Harding; half-backs, Porter and Lee; +full-back, Sears (captain). + +_Princeton_--rushers, Riggs, Cook, Irvine, George, Janeway, Cowan +(captain), Bovaird; quarter-back, R. Hodge; half-backs, Mowry and +Black; full-back, Ames. Mr. W. C. Camp, Yale, ’80, was referee, and Mr. +W. H. Corbin, captain Yale eleven, for the first half, and Mr. E. L. +Richards, Yale, for the second half, were the umpires. + + * * * * * + +~On~ the Yale field at New Haven the Yale eleven ran up what is +thus far the largest score of the season, in a championship game with +Wesleyan, November 17. Although the latter eleven played an unusually +good game, it could not resist the excellent team and individual work +on the part of the Yale men. Gill and Stagg distinguished themselves, +as did Heffelfinger and Wurtenberg. The men were arranged as follows: +_Yale_--rushers, Stagg, Hartwell, Woodruff, Newell, Heffelfinger, Gill, +Wallace; quarter-back, Wurtenberg; half-backs, McBride and McClung; +full-back, Bull. _Wesleyan_--rushers, Floy, Glenn, Heath, Gardner, +Eaton, Johnson, Crane; quarter-back, Eggleston; half-backs, Hall and +McDonald; full-back, Slayback. Referee, Landon, of Wesleyan; umpire, H. +E. Peabody, of Harvard. Score: Goals, 11-65 points; touchdowns, 8-32 +points; goal from field, 1-5 points; safety by Wesleyan, 2 points. +Total, 105 points. + + * * * * * + +~Harvard~ defeated the University of Pennsylvania November 19, +after a rough battle in mud and water, on the University Grounds, at +Philadelphia, Pa. Cumnock, Sears and Porter played a splendid game for +Harvard, and Wagenhurst, Hulme and Hill did good work for Pennsylvania. +The score was 42 to 0 in favor of Harvard. The teams were: +_Harvard_--rushers, Crosby, Davis, Longstreth, Cranston, Trafford, +Woodman, Cumnock; quarter-back, G. Harding; half-backs, Porter and +V. Harding; full-back, Sears. _University of Pennsylvania_--rushers, +Wagenhurst, Sypher, Tunis, Meirs, Bowser, Cash, Ziegler; quarter-back, +Church; half-backs, Hulme and Colladay; full-back, Hill. Referee, R. N. +Corwin, Yale, ’86; umpire, L. Price, Princeton, ’87. + + * * * * * + +~What~ was undoubtedly the best game of the season was played +on the Polo Grounds, November 24, between Vale and Princeton, in the +presence of about 15,000 spectators. The day was admirably suited to +football, and the slight east wind was not strong enough to materially +aid either side. The teams were composed as follows: + +~Yale.~ + + F. W. Wallace, ’89 Left end rusher Weight, 150 + C. O. Gill, ’89 Left tackle “ 170 + W. W. Heffelfinger, ’91 S. Left guard “ 192 + W. H. Corbin, ’89, capt. Centre “ 185 + G. W. Woodruff, ’89 Right guard “ 183 + W. C. Rhodes, ’91 Right tackle “ 164 + A. A. Stagg, T. S. Right end rusher “ 150 + W. C. Wurtenberg, ’89 S. Quarter-back “ 138 + W. P. Graves, ’91 Left half-back “ 154 + S. L. McClung, ’92 Right half-back “ 152 + W. S. Bull, P. G. Full-back “ 161 + +~Princeton.~ + + R. E. Speer, ’89 Left end rusher Weight, 166 + H. W. Cowan, ’88 Left tackle “ 179 + H. K. Janeway, ’90 Left guard “ 203 + W. J. George, ’89 Centre “ 179 + W. M. Irvine, ’88 Right guard “ 166 + J. F. Cook, ’89 Right tackle “ 174 + D. Bovaird, Jr., ’89 Right end rusher “ 158 + R. M. Hodge, P. G. Quarter-back “ 134 + R. H. Channing, Jr., ’90 Left half-back “ 141 + J. Black, ’92 Right half-back “ 168 + K. L. Ames, ’90 Full-back “ 150 + +Yale’s rush line averaged 170 4-7 pounds, and the whole team 163 6-11, +while Princeton averaged 175 in the rush line and 164 9-11 pounds in +the whole team. + +Mr. W. A. Brooks, Jr., Harvard, was referee, and Mr. Fred Fisk, +Harvard, umpire. + +Play was begun at 2.22, Princeton having the ball and Yale the east +goal. Princeton opened with the V play, and at first gained ground, +but a few of these attacks seemed to weaken their rush line and Yale +successfully opposed the human battering-rams. There followed next +a great deal of open play, in which Cowan, Black, Janeway and Ames +distinguished themselves for Princeton, while Wallace, Gill, Corbin, +and McClung did admirable work for Yale. The kicking of Bull was +superb, and his excellent judgment in placing the ball aided Yale +materially. Gradually the ball was forced into Princeton’s territory +and several long punts and drop-kicks by Bull from the field landed the +ball back of Princeton’s line. At last Yale secured the ball on the +ten-yard line, it was passed to Bull, who succeeded in kicking a goal, +being enabled to do so by the splendid blocking of the rush line. Time, +35m. + +From the kick-off the ball was again forced toward the Princeton goal, +and when half time was called the ball was on the five-yard line. Score +at half time: 5 points to 0 in Yale’s favor. + +Second half.--Yale had the ball and played against the wind. Princeton +showed renewed strength, and the play continued near the middle of +the field. For twenty-five minutes neither side could gain any great +advantage, but after hard work on both sides Princeton was forced back. +Wurtenberg was disqualified, McClung taking his place at quarter, while +Harvey was taken on as half-back. Good rushing by their half-backs +gained about forty yards for Princeton. Yale then secured the ball, +and a kick sent it well into Princeton’s territory. Ames kicked, and +Harvey made one of the longest and most successful runs of the day, +passing nearly all the Princeton rushers. Strong rushes by Heffelfinger +advanced the ball twenty yards. Cowan was disqualified and Riggs +substituted. The ball was near the Princeton line, and attempts by Yale +to force it over having failed, Bull was given another opportunity, and +kicked a second goal from the field. But a few moments remained for +play, and, with the ball in the centre of the field, time was called. +Score at the end of the second half: 10 points for Yale; for Princeton, +0. + +The most noticeable feature of the game was the open play of Yale. +Princeton’s strong rush line, while doing admirable work, was not able +to take advantage of opportunities as quickly as should have been the +case. Yale was too quick, and her men were on the ball before the +Princeton’s half-backs could get started. + +In winning this game Yale won the championship for 1888. + + * * * * * + +~The~ last game of the intercollegiate football series was +played Thanksgiving Day, on the Polo Grounds, between Wesleyan and +the University of Pennsylvania. As both teams were evenly matched a +close game resulted. Walter Camp was referee, and Richard M. Hodge +was umpire. The teams, as they lined up at 2.30, were as follows: +_Pennsylvania_--rushers, Wagenhurst, Sypher, Dewey, Savage, Bowser, +Cash, Ziegler; quarter-back, Church; half-backs, Hulme and Colladay; +full-back, Hill. _Wesleyan_--rushers, Floy, Glenn, Heath, Gardner, +Eaton, Gibson, Crane; quarter-back, Opdyke; half-backs, Manchester and +McDonald; full-back, Slayback. + +The first half was marked by a very fierce style of play, and numerous +scrimmages resulted in more or less injury to the players. After +twenty-five minutes Ziegler succeeded in making a touch-down for +Pennsylvania, from which a goal was kicked. When time was called at +the end of the first half no additional points had been made, though +Wesleyan had tried desperately to equal the score. This she succeeded +in doing in the second half. However, after that Pennsylvania rushed +well, and the ball seldom went out of Wesleyan’s territory, and at +the end of the last forty-five minutes she had scored 12 points more, +winning the game by 18 points to 6 for Wesleyan. Altogether it was one +of the roughest games played this year. + + * * * * * + +~In~ the New England Intercollegiate Football Association a +series of interesting games has been played as follows: + +Oct. 27. At Boston--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 48; Amherst, +0. + +Nov. 7. At Amherst--Williams, 53; Amherst, 0. + +Nov. 10. At Hanover, N. H.--Dartmouth, 30; Technology, 0. + +Nov. 14. At Hanover, N. H.--Dartmouth, 36; Williams, 6. + +Nov. 17. At Williamstown, Mass.--Williams, 42; Stevens Institute, 4. + +Nov. 19. At Williamstown, Mass.--Stevens, 30; Dartmouth, 0. + + * * * * * + +~K. L. Ames~, ’90, the famous full-back, has been elected +captain of the Princeton team for 1889. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Intercollegiate football record is as follows: + + A: Yale. + B: Princeton. + C: Harvard. + D: University of Penn. + E: Wesleyan. + + ---------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----- + ~Clubs.~ | A | B | C | D | E | Won. + ---------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----- + Yale | -- | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 + Princeton | 0 | -- | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 + Harvard | 0 | 0 | -- | 1 | 1 | 2 + University of Pennsylvania | 0 | 0 | 0 | -- | 1 | 1 + Wesleyan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -- | 0 + +----+----+----+----+----+----- + Lost | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | -- + ---------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----- + + * * * * * + +~Yale~, last fall, made the largest total score ever made by a +Yale eleven--698 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ three highest scores made this season on the football +field were: November 3, Harvard vs. Amherst, 102 to 0; same day, +Princeton vs. Johns Hopkins, 104 to 0; November 17, Yale vs. Wesleyan, +105 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual Cornell-Lehigh football game was played in Elmira, +November 29, resulting in the defeat of Cornell by a score of 4 to 0. +The grounds never presented a worse appearance, and the mud was fully +five inches deep, with a pool of water covering one-half the area of +the territory. The game was called at three o’clock, and Lehigh won +the ball. In ten minutes she had secured a touch-down, but failed to +kick a goal. Then Cornell played better and got the ball into Lehigh’s +territory. At one time she was within a few feet of the line, but by +tremendous exertions Lehigh prevented Cornell from scoring, and when +time was called for the first half, the score was 4 to 0 in favor of +Lehigh. In the second half no scoring was done, though Cornell secured +a touch-down, which was not allowed by the referee. The game was thus +won by Lehigh, 4 to 0, although this has been protested by Cornell, who +claim that the game should go to them, by a score of 8 to 4. Mr. Ray +Tompkins, Yale, ’84, was referee, and H. M. Morton, Lafayette, ’87, was +umpire. + + * * * * * + +~A. J. Cumnock~, ’91, has been elected captain of the Harvard +team for 1889. + + * * * * * + +~William C. Rhodes~, ’91, has been elected captain of the Yale +team for 1889. + + * * * * * + +~The~ class games at Columbia College resulted as follows: +November 30, the class of ’92 defeated ’91 by a score of 12 to 8. The +same day, ’90 defeated ’89 by a score of 30 to 0. December 1, the +deciding game was played between ’92 and ’90. The juniors outplayed the +Freshmen, and won by a score of 28 to 0. C. H. Mapes, of Columbia, was +umpire, and Mr. W. Smith, of the Crescents, was referee. + + * * * * * + +~Three~ thousand persons, November 29, witnessed what was +undoubtedly the greatest football event that ever took place in the +West. The game was between a team made up of Chicago and other college +men, most of whom had played in some one of the famous Yale, Harvard or +Princeton teams, and an eleven representing the present students at the +Ann Arbor University of Michigan. + +The game took place on the grounds of the Chicago Baseball Club. It +was a victory for the Chicagos by a score of 28 to 4. Michigan had the +kick-off, and the game started with the teams in position as follows: + + MICHIGAN. POSITION. CHICAGO. + + J. Van Inwegan Right end A. Farwell. + S. S. Bradley Right tackle H. Hallin. + W. E. Malley Right guard B. B. Lamb, Capt. + H. M. Prettyman Centre F. G. Peters. + R. W. Beach Left guard E. L. Burke. + R. E. Hagle Left tackle A. S. Bickham. + L. MacMillan Left end B. Lockwood. + E. L. Smith Quarter-back B. Hamlin. + E. W. McPherran Half-back W. Crawford. + J. E. Duffy, Capt. Half-back J. Waller. + W. D. Ball Goal J. Cowling. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Cambridge Latin and High School eleven has won the +championship in the interscholastic football series of games for +the challenge cup, which was donated by a number of Harvard men to +encourage football playing in the preparatory schools of Boston and +vicinity. The cup, which is a very handsome one of solid silver, is +between eight and nine inches high and about the same in diameter. +The body of the cup resembles in shape half a Rugby football. About +the top of the cup is a band of olive leaves in raised silver, and +below this is another band on which is placed the name of the cup. +Upon the wide space below, which runs round the body of the cup, are +morning-glories and leaves raised in silver, the leaves being left +blank for the inscriptions of the names of winning teams and players +from year to year. At some distance below this is an imitation of a +ribbon in repoussé work, which runs around the cup and twines about the +handles, and on which are the names of the donors. The cup rests on +four lion-claws in heavy silver, and in each claw is a tiny football. + + * * * * * + +~Unfortunately~ the Yale and Harvard elevens did not meet during +the season. This was due to the refusal of the Harvard faculty to allow +the Harvard eleven to play Yale on the Polo Grounds on Thanksgiving +Day. Yale adhered to the strict letter of the constitution, which fixed +the Polo Grounds as the place where the championship game had to be +played. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harvard Freshmen defeated the Yale Freshmen, December 1, +on Jarvis Field, Cambridge, Mass., in the presence of a large audience, +by a score of 36 to 4. Lee, of Harvard, played a remarkable game, as +did Cranston, of the same eleven, and McClung and Heffelfinger for Yale. + + * * * * * + +~Lehigh~ is tied with the University of Pennsylvania in the race +for the championship of Pennsylvania. Both have won two games and lost +one, but in playing against last year’s champion, Lafayette, Lehigh won +both games, while the University of Pennsylvania lost one of them. It +would thus seem as if Lehigh had the superior team and the better claim +to the championship. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Advisory Committee of the Intercollegiate Football +Association met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Saturday evening, December +1. R. M. Hodge, of Princeton, presided. Yale was represented by W. C. +Camp, Wesleyan by H. H. Beatty, and the University of Pennsylvania by +W. S. Harvey. Harvard had no representative. Inasmuch as there was no +protest entered as to the championship, it was awarded to Yale without +further action. + +In considering the rules of the game the committee took occasion to +define the rule with respect to disqualifying a player for roughness +and foul tackling. It was determined that the phrase “unnecessary +roughness” included jumping on a prostrate player with knees merely, +and that the disqualifying of Cowan and Wurtenberg was needless, +because they were not breaking the rule as defined by the committee. +The next meeting will be in March, for the purpose of arranging a set +of rules to be presented to the convention of the Football Association, +which will take place the following month. + + +ICE-YACHTING. + +~In~ connection with Colonel Norton’s article on “Ice-yachts,” +the following record of all the races sailed for the challenge pennant +is kindly furnished by Commodore Roosevelt, to whom the author is +indebted for much valuable information, and for the illustrations that +accompany the article: + +Regattas for Challenge Pennant of America, open to all comers: + +1881, March 5, at New Hamburgh, N. Y., Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club +challenging New Hamburgh Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Phantom_, N. H. I. +Y. C. Course, 20 miles; time, 57m. 14s. + +1883, February 6, at New Hamburgh, Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club +challenging New Hamburgh Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Avalanche_, P. I. +Y. C. Course, 20 miles; time, 57m. + +1833, February 23, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., North Shrewsbury Ice-Yacht +Club challenging Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Jack Frost_, +P. I. Y. C. Course, 25 miles; time, 1h. 14m. 35s. + +1884, February 9, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., North Shrewsbury Ice-Yacht +Club challenging Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Haze_, P. I. +Y. C. Course, 20 miles; time, 1h. 5m. 30s. + +1885, February 14, at Poughkeepsie, New Hamburgh Ice-Yacht Club +challenging Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Haze_, P. I. Y. C. +Course, 20 miles; time, 1h. 1m. 15s. + +1885, February 18, at New Hamburgh, N. Y., North Shrewsbury Ice-Yacht +Club challenging Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Northern +Light_, P. I. Y. C. Course, 20 miles; time, 1h. 8m. 42s. + +1887, February 14, at Poughkeepsie, Hudson River Ice-Yacht Club +challenging Poughkeepsie Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Jack Frost_, H. R. +I. Y. C. Course, 16 miles; time, 43m. 40s. + +1888, at Crum Elton, North Shrewsbury Ice-Yacht Club challenging Hudson +River Ice-Yacht Club. Won by the _Icicle_, H. R. I. Y. C. Course, 12 +miles; time, 34m. 50s. + + +KENNEL. + +~At~ the meeting of the Board of Governors of the New Jersey +Kennel Club, held in Jersey City recently, the Bench Show Committee +reported progress. So far nothing has been decided as to the building +in which the show is to be held. It is probable, however, that the +Oakland Rink will be selected. It is centrally located, and is well +known all over New Jersey and the Heights. Mr. Peshall expressed his +intention of handing in his resignation at the next meeting as delegate +to the A. K. C. He is the oldest delegate, and, believing in rotation, +wants to make room for another member of the N. J. K. C. He is of +opinion that it would be for the good of the A. K. C. if delegates +were elected to serve for a stipulated period, not to exceed two years. +This would bring new material into the management of the A. K. C., and +would help to dispel the impression existing in the minds of many that +the club is managed by a clique. + + * * * * * + +~A meeting~ of the Connecticut State Kennel Club was held +at Bridgeport, October 30, A. R. Kyle in the chair. A number of +applications for membership were received and acted upon; constitution +and by-laws were adopted, and the following executive committee +appointed: John White (chairman), Bridgeport; E. Sheffield Porter, New +Haven; A. R. Kyle, South Norwalk; A. R. Crowell, Campville; Dr. Burk, +South Norwalk; Samuel Banks, Bridgeport; Sherman Hubbard, Bridgeport. +Also the following bench show committee: W. D. Peck, New Haven; A. R. +Crowell, Campville; E. F. Way, Hartford; A. R. Kyle, South Norwalk; +Dr. Jas. E. Hair, Bridgeport. It was the most successful meeting the +club has held, and from the way the applications for membership are +coming in it would seem that the dog-men in all parts of the State were +interested in making the club a thorough success. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. R. P. H. Durkee~, of Chicago, has purchased from Mr. +Sidney W. Smith the St. Bernard dog Burns, a well-known prize winner. +Mr. Durkee has also purchased the prize-winning bitches Gloriana +and Miscabel, from Mr. J. F. Smith, and Chieftainess, V. H. C., at +Brighton, from Mr. Edward Durrant. These dogs were selected and bought +for Mr. Durkee by Mr. H. L. Goodman, who went to Europe for the purpose +of selecting dogs for Mr. Durkee’s kennel. + + * * * * * + +~A correspondent~ of the French kennel journal _Le Chenil_ +recommends this method of measuring a dog’s height: One of my friends, +a veterinary surgeon, tells me of a method as simple and ingenious as +it is sure, to take a dog’s exact height at shoulder. Take hold of one +of the forelegs of the animal, and the dog, forced to support itself +on the other leg, holds it out stiffly and does not bend it, as is +usually the case when it sees the preparations for measuring. With this +precaution the height of a dog varies scarcely an eighth of an inch, +while without it the difference is often considerable. + + +LAWN TENNIS. + +~At~ Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., November 12, Pope and +Wilkinson beat Jackson and Crouch in the finals for the college tennis +championship, in doubles, by a score of 6-2, 6-4, 5-7. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Brooklyn Hill Tennis Club finished its handicap tournament +on the grounds, Nostrand Avenue and Herkimer Street, Brooklyn, November +1. In the second round of the mixed doubles Miss Shreve and T. W. T. +Maxwell defeated Miss and Mr. Hotchkiss by 6-5, 5-6, 6-1. The final +round was won by Miss Brush and J. C. Tatum, who defeated Miss Shreve +and her partner, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3. + +First prize in the ladies’ singles was won by Miss Hanly. She beat Mrs. +West in the final round after an exciting contest, 4-6, 6-5, 6-2, 6-3. +The final round, gentlemen’s singles, was not finished. Mr. Raymond and +Mr. W. Tomes played three sets, the score being in favor of the former, +6-1, 6-1, 5-7. The winner will be decided by lot. + + +ROD AND GUN. + +~The~ Salt Lake (Utah) Sportsman’s Club was incorporated under +Utah laws, August 25, 1888. President, M. B. Sowles; vice-president, +Thos. J. Almy; secretary and treasurer, H. M. Miller; board of +directors, M. B. Sowles, H. M. Miller, Thos. J. Almy, Charles Read, Wm. +M. Bradley, I. M. Barratt and Phillip Klipple. + + * * * * * + +~A gun~ club has been organized at Lost Nation, Ia., under the +name of the Lost Nation Gun Club. The officers are: President, L. +Scott; vice-president, M. Stevenson; secretary and treasurer, F. M. +Frazier; director, F. B. Nichols. + + * * * * * + +~The~ officers of the Commercial Rifle Club of New Orleans, La., +are: President, Frank Dumas; vice-president, Wm. Monrose; treasurer, +Charles Barnes; secretary, Geo. C. Hanser; superintendent, Wm. Marquetz. + + * * * * * + +~October 15, 1888~, the Salt Lake (Utah) Gun Club was organized. +President, Wm. M. Bradley; vice-president, Thos. J. Stevens; secretary +and treasurer, W. J. De Bruhl; board of directors, W. M. Bradley, T. J. +Stevens, W. J. De Bruhl, M. R. Evans, and W. F. Beer. + + * * * * * + +~In~ shooting for the Founder’s Cup at Harvard, November 1, +Messrs. Post and Mackay tied for first place, with a score of 12 out of +15. In shooting off Post won. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Fly Casters’ Association, of Albany, held a tournament, +October 27, which proved very successful. The judges were James H. +Manning, Charles B. Andrews and W. W. Byington. There were eleven +prizes, which were awarded as follows: + +Association class--Thomas W. Olcott, first prize, a Spalding split +bamboo rod; W. D. Frothingham, second, a Mills & Son standard split +bamboo fly-rod; W. G. Paddock, third, an automatic reel; Howard +Paddock, fourth, a Bray fly-book; Dayton Ball, fifth, fifty yards +metallic centre-enameled line; B. F. Reese, sixth, two dozen trout +flies; Stuart G. Spier, seventh, a trout basket. Amateur Second +Class--Chas. A. Gove, first, an L. Levison fly-book; H. A. Goffe, +second, a lancewood fly-rod; John M. Quinby, third, a gogebic reel; W. +Story, fourth, pocket tackle-case. + + * * * * * + +~The~ ducking season began, in Pennsylvania, November 1. The +lower Delaware and adjacent bays and inlets are said to be swarming +with ducks. Extensive preparations have been made in Philadelphia by a +club of well-known men, who call themselves “The Innocent Eight,” for +an active ducking season. Among the Innocents are: Messrs. Michael B. +Andrews, Clarence B. Kugler, Joseph Wright and Colonel William B. Mann. +Members of the club have purchased a “rigging” at a cost of $2,000. +It contains over a thousand decoys, many sink-boxes, both double and +single, and all the improved paraphernalia used in ducking. + + * * * * * + +~The~ season for ducking opened, in Maryland, November 1. Back, +Middle, Gunpowder and Bush rivers are all first-class waters for +duck shooting. The best duck shooting in the country is to be found +on the flats near the mouth of the Susquehanna River. On these flats +grow the choicest celery, which, combined with the shallowness of the +water, makes the spot most attractive to the fowl. The delicacy of the +food imparts to the ducks a flavor that has given the Havre de Grace +canvas-back a world-wide reputation. The State has passed stringent +laws governing the flats, and collects quite a revenue from the boats +engaged in shooting. A special police-force is maintained to enforce +the laws. + + +ROWING. + +~Harvard~ expects to have a rowing tank, similar to the Yale +tank, shortly. The old gymnasium will probably be used for the purpose. +An effort is also being made to raise funds for a new steam-launch. +Harvard rowing men recognize that they must show by deeds that they +deserve the support of the college. + +All the crews have left the river and are at work in the gymnasium. The +university crew is rowing on the machines and pulling chest-weights. +The number of candidates is small, but it will be greatly increased +after the vacation. With the exception of the freshmen, the class-crews +are not in strict training. Eighty-nine played football during +the fall for exercise; ’90 and ’91 are taking walks and pulling +chest-weights. The freshmen are rowing in the ’varsity room on the +machines. They are obliged to be through by five o’clock, and as they +have nearly three crews at work, the lack of room is very apparent, and +interferes greatly with their work. Their average weight is at present +nearly 156 pounds. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Cornell oarsmen are very ambitious to send out next June +an eight-oared crew, which, it is hoped, will beat Columbia, win the +“Child’s Cup” for the third and last time, and, if possible, win +against Yale. The whole amount needed for the purpose is estimated +at $2000; $500 for a new shell, and $1500 for crew and trainer. The +Cornell _Era_ recently began raising a fund for this object, and over +half the amount is already pledged, and the collections are coming +in at the rate of $200 a week. The young women connected with the +university have subscribed $100. There is no doubt but that the full +amount will be raised. Courtney will train the crew. + + * * * * * + +~By~ reason of the expense, the class crews of Bowdoin have been +given up. + + * * * * * + +~The~ famous old Atalanta Boat Club has now established winter +quarters apart from the boat club, and have settled down in an elegant +establishment on Fifth Avenue. The building is arranged and furnished +so as to provide every facility for indoor amusement while the water +is sealed in icy bonds. The billiard-rooms and bowling-alleys are +located in the lower part of the house, and the other apartments are so +arranged as to conduce to the comfort and enjoyment of the members. + + * * * * * + +“~Rock~” ~Kent~, one of the most promising scullers on +the Harlem River, is, it is said, about to give up rowing altogether. +He is one of the prominent members of the Metropolitan Rowing Club, and +his withdrawal from that organization, if the report be true, will be a +sad loss. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Union Boat Club, of Boston, which has a membership list +of 200 names, has elected the following officers for 1889: President, +Henry Parkman; vice-president, Edward B. Robins; captain, A. Van +Courtlandt Van Rensselaer; lieutenant, Warren F. Kellogg; treasurer, +Edward D. Blake; secretary, William R. Richards; directors, Arthur +B. Ellis, Courtenay Guild, Thornton H. Simmons; election committee, +William Appleton, J. F. Bush, Robert Bacon, William S. Eaton, Jr., +William S. Hall, James M. Olmstead, Henry T. Spooner, Guy Wilkinson. + + +SKATING. + +~The~ Lachine Skating Club held its second annual meeting +recently and elected the following officers: Mr. T. A. Dawes, +re-elected honorary president; C. Thos. Danford, president; +Albert Dawes, vice-president, and Wm. A. Shackell re-elected +secretary-treasurer. The following were selected for the committee: A. +P. Bastable, H. K. Danford, J. MacGowan, A. Noad, E. W. H. Phillip and +A. Perry. Several new members were elected. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the National Skating Association of +England was held at the Bath Hotel, Cambridge, Oct. 27, Mr. Neville +Goodman in the chair. + +The committee, in their report, congratulated the members on the +position of the association. Numerous attempts were made during +the past season to bring off the championship race, but when all +preparations had been made the changes in the weather upset the +arrangements and the meetings had to be abandoned.... The committee +were sanguine of being able to pay their way, but this could not be +done without gate proceeds. It was pointed out that scarcely any +sporting pastime was now participated in without a charge for admission +being made, especially when valuable prizes were given. Owing to the +paucity of members it was impossible to hold race-meetings without +relying upon a “gate” to meet the heavy expenses. Under the present +_régime_ this rule would have to be adhered to, but should funds allow, +free meetings would be held.... + +Mr. H. G. Few, R. S. O., Willingham, Cambs, was re-elected treasurer, +and Messrs. J. D. Digby and J. Newton Digby were appointed joint +honorable secretaries. Baron de Salis, of Holland, was elected an +honorary life member. + +The chairman, in accordance with notice, brought forward the question +of the definition of an amateur; and proposed that in lieu of the +present rule the following be adopted: “That an amateur is one who has +never competed in a skating contest for a money prize.” This gave rise +to discussion, the motion being opposed by the secretary, but it was +carried. + + +SNOW-SHOEING. + +~The~ following officers were elected by the Montreal Garrison +Artillery Snow-Shoe Club: Hon. presidents, Lieut.-Col. Turnbull +and Lieut.-Col. Oswald; Hon. vice-presidents, Major Cole and Capt. +Levins; president, Capt. Lewis; vice-presidents, Lieuts. Crathern, +Ogilvy and Foy; secretary-treasurer, Staff-Sergeant Cooper; assistant +secretary-treasurer, Gunner Wilson. Committee: Lieut. McFarlane, +Sergeant-Major Benton, Battery Sergeant-Major Murdock, Sergeant-Major +Wilson, Sergeant McDonald, Sergeants Drysdale, Bonet, Pingel, Gunner +Cokers, Trumpeter Shaw, Corporal Laurency. Delegates to Council +Committee: Captain Lewis, Sergeant-Major Jones, Staff-Sergeant Cooper, +Gunner Bremner. + + +SWIMMING. + +~J. Nuttall~, one of the foremost of swimmers in the English +amateur ranks, has cast his lot with the professionals, and, in his +first race for the 1,000-yard professional championship, which took +place at Lambeth Baths, Westminster Bridge Road, London, October 19, +he met J. J. Collier, ex-champion; J. Finney, previous holder of the +championship, and George Kistler, all first-class swimmers. The men +swam in a tank 40 yards long, and Nuttall took the lead directly after +the dive, holding it to the finish. Nuttall beat all previous records +from the outset, as the following times will show: + + *2 lengths 0m. 54s. + *4 lengths 1 55½ + *6 lengths 3 00½ + *8 lengths 4 08½ + *10 lengths 5 17 + *12 lengths 6 28½ + *14 lengths 7 38¼ + *16 lengths 8 48½ + *18 lengths 10 00 + *20 lengths 11 11 + *22 lengths 12 25½ + *24 lengths 13 40 + *25 (1,000 yards) 14 17¼ + + * Record beaten from the start. + +The previous best on record was by Finney, 14m. 43¾s. + + +TOBOGGANING. + +~The~ Essex County Toboggan Club recently elected the following +Board of Governors for the season of 1888-’89: John Firth, F. W. Hall, +E. P. Hamilton, Charles T. Minton, Clarence D. Newell, John H. Sprague, +Louis E. Chandler, Dr. F. A. Levy, Dr. G. B. Dowling, R. G. Hopper, +Frank Lyman, D. H. Carstairs, Charles Hendricks, N. B. Woodworth, and +C. F. Whiting. + + +YACHTING. + +~The~ schooner-yacht _Brunhilde_, Captain John J. Phelps, owner, +started on her second voyage round the globe November 1. Captain Phelps +is accompanied by his wife. The crew consists of ten men before the +mast. The _Brunhilde_ sailed direct for Bermuda. Captain Phelps has not +yet determined how long he proposes to remain away. + + * * * * * + +~From~ England comes the news that steps have been taken by +yachtsmen there as well as on this side of the Atlantic to have a +grand international race next May of sloop and cutter yachts in the +forty, fifty, and sixty foot classes. It is understood that the +Seawanhaka-Corinthian, Eastern and other clubs are arranging with the +English clubs for the race, which is to be settled in American waters +for prizes independent of the _America’s_ cup. + + * * * * * + +~As~ we go to press it seems probable that James Coates, +Jr., the Scotchman who owns the _Thistle_, will challenge for the +_America’s_ cup within thirty days. + + * * * * * + +~The~ report that another challenge for the _America’s_ cup will +shortly be issued from the other side of the Atlantic is again on the +rounds. A correspondent of the London _Times_ in Queenstown, Ireland, +has heard that the Jamiesons, of Irish whiskey and _Irex_ fame, have +been quietly building a large steel sloop, with the end in view of +challenging for the _America’s_ cup. Richardson, the designer of the +_Irex_, is said to be the designer of the new production. The author of +the story has even learned the fact that the intended challenger is to +be named the _Shamrock_. Mr. Jamieson has more than once been reported +to have designs on the cup, and it is barely possible that a challenge +may at some future day emanate from the Royal Irish Yacht Club, of +which he is a member. + + * * * * * + +~The~ winter quarters of the Newark, N. J., Yacht Club are at +740 Broad Street, Newark. The new rooms are cosily fitted up, and +members of the club and their friends love to linger in the parlors and +spin yarns of the water and about the men who go down to the sea in +yachts. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harlem Yacht Club a short time ago moved into its new +quarters, the old Randall mansion on East 121st Street. It was +previously occupied by the Eastern Boulevard Club. The present officers +of the club are: Commodore, James T. Lalor; vice-commodore, McEvoy; +secretary, T. J. Dempsey; corresponding secretary, W. J. Parker; +treasurer, H. M. Jones; measurer, T. P. Bates. + + + + +ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + [_This department of_ ~Outing~ _is devoted to answers to + correspondents seeking information on subjects appertaining to all + sports._] + + +_Scot, Boston._--For the game of lawn bowls you must have turf in the +finest possible condition. The dimensions of the ground should be about +forty-two yards long, and, if possible, the same breadth. There should +be ditches at both ends, about twelve inches wide and three inches +deep, with a bank about eighteen inches above the level of the lawn, +to stop the bowls. The reason why it is advisable to have the ground +square, is that one can then change the direction of play and so save +the grass. + + * * * * * + +_Chas. T., Baltimore._--Your horse is probably suffering from irregular +teeth. What you describe is called “quidding.” You should have a +veterinary surgeon to see to his teeth, and if necessary rasp them +down. If it does not come from the teeth, he is probably suffering from +catarrh, with sore throat, and when he is swallowing water you will be +able to notice a peculiar gulping effort. This, of course, would need +treatment. + + * * * * * + +_Breeder, Buffalo, N. Y._--The New Forest ponies are no good. They +have much of the blood of Marsk, the sire of the famous English +horse Eclipse, in their veins, but in spite of it they are about +as ill-looking animals as one can imagine, with most hideous heads +and necks. They are, however, hardy and useful. The best all-round +specimens of the Shetland that we have ever seen, certainly in America, +are the family of them exhibited by Mr. Pierre Lorillard at the New +York Horse-Show. They are of exactly the right stamp for that class of +pony, and the stallion, Montreal, was well described as having “the +build of a cart-horse and the carriage of a thoroughbred.” + + * * * * * + +_Matador._--The sword is passed between the skull and the first +cervical vertebra, in a perpendicular direction only. + + * * * * * + +_Fred, H. L., Brooklyn, N. Y._--The best method to render shoes +impervious to snow is to apply castor-oil. It must be applied twice, +after the boots have been warmed at the fire. Of course, the oil must +be used again at intervals, when the leather shows signs of needing it. +The best plan is to wash off all blacking first, and apply the oil to +the sole as well as the other portions of the shoe. + + * * * * * + +_R. S. B., Broadway._--The length of the Cambridgeshire course, at +Newmarket, England, is 1 mile and 240 yards. + + * * * * * + +_Gunner, Washington, D. C._--Strictly speaking, the correct plural is +with the s; but that letter is very commonly omitted. Indeed, among +sportsmen, it may be said that “snipe” is invariably used in the plural +as well as the singular sense; but naturalists use the plural “snipes” +as meaning the different species of snipe. With woodcocks it is more +usual to add the s, but many sportsmen omit it. + + * * * * * + +_Canine, Hartford, Conn._--(1) Your best plan is to wash the ears out +and brush in some green iodide of mercury twice a week. (2) Puppies at +the age of three months or so, often show crooked legs with enlarged +joints, but these generally come right later. + + * * * * * + +_Athlete, Cambridge._--You can obtain just the kind of jewelry you +require from Shreve, Crump & Low Co., Washington Street, Boston. They +also give special attention to designing and making prizes for clubs. + + * * * * * + +_C. A. S., New Haven, Conn._--Excellent shooting can be obtained at +Barnegat, Delaware and Chesapeake bays; for the last place Havre de +Grace is the usual starting-point. At Crisfield, Md., near the swamps +of the Pocomoke, geese and different kinds of ducks are abundant. +The trip, however, if you procured boat, sink-box, etc., at the more +popular places, would prove expensive. Good Ground, Long Island, on the +Great South Bay, is highly recommended, and, being off the usual line +of travel, should afford satisfactory shooting. We should hardly advise +you to go farther north at this time of year; and on the Maine coast +the birds are fishy to the taste. You could, however, get some sport +with the seals--with a rifle, for they are too shy for a shotgun. At +this time of year we would suggest Camden as a starting-point, where +you can obtain outfit and guides at a reasonable figure, while in the +back country you could get some woodcock and partridges. On the whole, +our advice would be to try Long Island or Barnegat Bay. + + * * * * * + +_John R. S., Indianapolis._--Although trotting as a sport has not +assumed any large dimensions in England, some English stock is still +imported to gain fresh blood. Mr. Fairfax, of Virginia, recently +purchased the stallion Matchless for 1,000 guineas from Mr. Brough, +of Londesborough Wold, Yorkshire. Trotting is, however, making some +headway on the other side, and a gentleman is at present laying out a +half-mile track at Aintree, near Liverpool, where it is proposed to +hold a meeting this year. + + * * * * * + +_H. B. P., Quebec._--(1) The Northwestern Amateur Rowing Association +has its headquarters at Detroit, Michigan. It was organized in October, +1868, and is composed of some 47 clubs. (2) The laws in regard to +“water” read as follows: + +(_a_) A boat’s own water is its straight course, parallel with those of +the other competing boats, from the station assigned to it at the start +to the finish. + +(_b_) Each boat shall keep its own water throughout the race, and any +boat departing from its own water will do so at its peril. + +(_c_) The umpire shall be sole judge of a boat’s own water and proper +course during the race. + + * * * * * + +_1158 Springfield, Mass._--(1) Road-books are issued by Connecticut +and Massachusetts. For former, write to Weed Sewing Machine Company, +Hartford, Conn.; for latter, to H. W. Hayes, 103 State Street, Boston, +Mass. (2) The States that publish road-books can make their own +regulations as regards selling them to persons not members of the +League. All the information and statistics are furnished by members to +the compilers free, and the idea of not selling the book to outsiders +is to retain the benefits afforded by the organization for members +only. It is thought by some that this will increase the membership. New +York State sells the road-book to outsiders for $1.50, and to League +members for $1.00. + + * * * * * + +_Whist-Player, Yonkers._--The best thing we have seen in the line of +card-tables, are those made by Keeler & Co., Washington Street, Boston. +The folding pattern is especially commendable. + + * * * * * + +_Paterfamilias, Springfield, Mass._--You will find that the repeating +air-gun made by H. H. Kiffe, 318 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, is the very +thing for your boy. + + * * * * * + +_J. E. M., Lynchburg, Va._--Chapped heels arise from exposure to wet +and cold, or from imperfect drying of the legs after washing. You will +find white lead or zinc ointment beneficial. + + + + +[Illustration: From a water-color painting by J. Carter Beard. Engraved +by H. Pflaum. + +A MOONLIGHT ENCOUNTER WITH RUSSIAN WOLVES.] + + + + + ~Outing.~ + + ~Vol.~ XIII. FEBRUARY, 1889. ~No.~ 5. + + + + +[Illustration: SLEIGHING] + +BY WILL H. WHYTE. + + Hark to the sleigh-bells--how they charm the ear + With crystal music exquisitely clear! + Watch the light sleighs, how merrily they go + O’er firm new roads macadamized with snow! + The skies are blue, the sunbeams, as they play, + Eclipse the splendors of a summer day, + And rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds blaze, + Beneath each horse’s footfall, with prismatic rays. + + --_G. Murray._ + + +When old Winter, the king of the Arctic Circle, issues from his polar +domain for his annual visit to southern latitudes, accompanied by +his stalwart henchman Jack Frost, he binds tight with icy chains the +great rivers and lakes, and even the mighty St. Lawrence bows to and +acknowledges his power. Then the country and roads lie deep beneath +the snow-king’s mantle, and man, who cannot hibernate like the bears, +adopts a mode of locomotion different from those he uses in the long +days of summer. The noisy wheel he replaces with the silent runner. + +In all northern countries, where the snow covers the ground to any +depth, the inhabitants use some kind of sleigh or sled to enable them +to travel during the winter. In the Arctic zone the Laplanders and +Esquimaux traverse their ice-bound land in low but comfortable sledges +drawn by reindeer or dogs. Around the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and in +sections north of Lake Superior, where the iron horse has not yet made +his appearance, the winter vehicle in use is the “traineau,” drawn +by a team of dogs. In Manitoba and the Canadian Northwest, until its +annexation and settlement some years ago by the Dominion, this was the +sole means of communication in winter between many of the scattered +settlements; and even now, in the far north, the mails are so conveyed. +In these days of high pressure, time is an object, and few would care +to spend fourteen days in a sleigh when fourteen hours by rail would +bring one to his destination. There are, however, yet living, old +travelers who could many a tale unfold of tragic adventure over frozen +field and flood--some even thrilling enough to stir the blood of the +reader of sensational novels. + +In those early days, when for four months in the year the sleigh +afforded the only means of transportation, it was not regarded as a +sport or pastime. The highways followed the windings and indentations +of the lakes and rivers, and were frequently blocked with heavy +snowdrifts. The ice made a shorter and more level path, and was +consequently preferred as soon as it was strong enough to bear the +weight of a horse and sleigh, so affording, during the colder months, +a pleasant road. But toward the spring of the year, when the returning +power of the sun honey-combed the ice, it made a dangerous track, +and many a sleigh with its living freight has disappeared beneath +the treacherous ice. Even without such tragic incidents, excitement +would often be afforded by the loss of horses and sleigh, and a weary, +perilsome walk to the nearest village or settlement. In those days no +one thought of leaving home without his rifle, for in wood and bush +lurked the ravenous wolf, and, still more to be dreaded, the Indian +of those days. Happily this has all passed away, and the present +generation travels by steam in comfortable cars, and the traveler +has no fear of being brained by a tomahawk or losing his scalp. His +sleigh-riding is limited to perhaps the next town or village, and +usually combines pleasure with business. + +In Dakota, Minnesota, and other northwestern States, and in Manitoba, +during the months of February and March, when that American product, +the “blizzard,” is on the trail, sleighing at any distance from +civilization is somewhat perilous. We have a vivid recollection of a +sleigh drive in the province of Manitoba, when for twenty miles we +never saw the horse that was drawing our sleigh. With fearful velocity +the blizzard overtook us, and in an instant the air was filled with a +whirlwind of snow. Covering our faces, we left our “shaginappi” pony to +follow the trail as best he could, trusting that somehow the sagacious +animal would find his way to some house or settlement. After many weary +hours, when hope was almost expiring, benumbed and nearly exhausted, +just as the shadows of night were closing in around us, our steed +suddenly drew up in front of a house, and the most gladsome sight we +ever beheld was the light in the window of that little shanty. A warm, +comfortable room and something to eat soon thawed us out, and after +seeing that our four-footed friend was well housed, we were soon sound +asleep, fagged out with our tussle. Never since have we yearned for a +similar experience. + +In lumbering, that great industry of Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, and +Canada, the sleigh and sled plays a very important part. When frost +makes the swamps firm and snow levels the ground, the lumber-camp is +in all its activity. The vast forest trees are cut and then easily +drawn on sleds to the nearest lake or river, whence in spring they are +floated to market. + +Ever since the days when the “lily flag” of the Bourbons floated over +“La Nouvelle France,” ice-trotting has been a Canadian winter pastime +on the great St. Lawrence River, either at Quebec, Three Rivers or +Montreal. In fact, in any of the inland villages, wherever a stretch of +ice can be found, may be seen the French Canadian, seated on a sleigh +after the style of a skeleton-sulky, no matter how cold or stormy it +may be. He is happy if he can show the good points of his trotter in +a race with a neighbor before an admiring audience of countrymen, and +when not racing he will spend hours speeding his horse over the glassy +track. The Canadian horse is hardy for his size and weight, unsurpassed +for pluck and endurance, and usually possesses good action and temper. +Many are descendants of Norman stock. Ice-trotting has always been a +favorite sport at Montreal, and many of the trotters of the present +day are descended from horses that have been used in this sport. Among +those that made a name for themselves on the ice forty years ago was +the well-known St. Lawrence. + +In Canada sleighing has attained the greatest pre-eminence as a +pastime, and perhaps in the whole Dominion it is nowhere so popular +as in the ancient province of Quebec. Here the climate is absolutely +unsurpassed for the thorough enjoyment of outdoor sports. When winter +once sets in a thaw rarely occurs, with the exception of one in +January, which seldom lasts longer than two or three days. Jack Frost +is the ruler of the weather. Consequently, though the air may be +cold, it is clear and dry and enjoyable, the roads hard and smooth, +the runners glide easily and quietly, while the bells jingle merrily. +All who can afford it keep some kind of a sleigh and horse, while +the livery-stables in the larger towns do a thriving and profitable +business. The country and city roads present a gay appearance. Every +variety of turn-out is there, from the home-made “cariole” and +French-Canadian pony of the _habitant_, to the handsome sleigh and team +of the millionaire. What a revelation would a procession of all the +styles of sleigh that have been in vogue since the settlement of the +province afford! Or even those of the present century. There would be +the little market-box, or “Berlin;” the ancient but still fashionable +“cariole,” on runners so low that a chance upset does not present much +danger; the trotting-sulky; the light but dashing cutter, a style more +in vogue over the border than in Quebec, and dozens of fashionable +equipages mounted on single or double runners and furnished with a +wealth of furs that would make a Russian prince envious. + +[Illustration: A MODERN TANDEM SLEIGH.] + +Montreal stands unsurpassed for winter vehicles. St. Petersburg, +the Russian capital, can perhaps compete in furs, but the Canadian +metropolis is unsurpassed in the beauty and variety of its sleighs. +Nor can the pleasure of sleighing be enjoyed to greater perfection +than in the “Royal City.” The clear, bracing atmosphere gives color +to the faces of the fair occupants of the sleighs; the merry music of +the bells, and the sound of the runners over the crisp and frozen snow, +all lend a charm to the sport, and furnish a tonic finer and far more +exhilarating than anything physicians can prescribe. Even the horses +seem to trot with a full instinct of enjoyment. + +What is more glorious or inspiring than a drive on a beautiful clear +Canadian winter’s evening? The night is glorious; possibly there is not +even a breath of wind to stir the mass of snow that covers the fields. +The stars twinkle and sparkle in the blue sky; the moon transforms the +snowy piles into heaps of sparkling diamonds and sketches in exquisite +tracery the outlines of trees and leafless branches upon the virgin +carpet beneath. The solemn stillness is only broken by the melodious +chimes of the sleigh-bells and the patter of the horses’ hoofs upon the +frozen crystals. + +If on such a night, with some fair companion at your side, you are not +moved to an appreciation of the beautiful in nature, then there is no +romance in your composition. If at such a time you cannot throw off +the petty cares and trials of the busy world, then, my friend, you +are past cure. How the jingle of a sleigh-bell will recall memories +of former drives! What visions will loom up of glorious nights, with +a charming companion carefully wrapped up in warm and cozy robes! How +easily did the sleigh slip along behind the pair of Canadian ponies, or +how gayly that chestnut or bay would step out without requiring all the +attention of the driver; for when eyes are sparkling in the moonlight, +and cheeks glowing ruddy in the crisp and frosty air, it is remarkable +what a tendency sleigh robes have to require one’s constant attention! +Under such circumstances a horse that does not require all your care is +a treasure, for you have plenty of occupation for your left arm keeping +the sleigh robes in their proper place, you know. Ah! those glorious +sleigh rides around Mount Royal. What can be compared to them, and what +an auxiliary they have been to that little god Cupid, many and many a +time! + + Let poets idly dream and sing + The beauty of the windy spring, + And in green fields go Maying: + Better by far is a winter night, + When snow lies deep and hard and white, + And the stars look down with twinkling light + On Nan and me out sleighing. + + The moonlight makes a fairer day-- + The restless horses seem to say, + “Oh, why are you delaying?” + They spurn the ground with flying feet, + The sleigh-bells tinkle clear and sweet-- + Life has never a joy to beat + Nannie’s and mine out sleighing! + + My love then nestles near my arm, + Among the furs so soft and warm, + And I, my heart obeying, + Bend down to see her beaming eyes, + Bend down to catch her loving sighs, + And oh! the time too swiftly flies, + When Nannie and I are sleighing! + + _Montreal Star._ + +Sleigh parties to many of the neighboring villages around Montreal +have long been a fashionable recreation. Large sleighs, that will +hold thirty or forty each, convey the party to some village hotel, +and there, in the ballroom, which is invariably a part of the +establishment, a merry and pleasant time is spent. + +In the larger cities of Canada there have existed for many years +driving clubs. These possess a greater or less degree of organization, +and are in operation only during the winter months. Montreal, Quebec, +Halifax and Kingston have all had their “tandem clubs.” Montreal and +Quebec have probably older organizations than the others. Since they +all were garrison towns, during the occupancy of the Imperial troops +the officers of the various regiments were among the chief factors in +keeping alive these clubs. Quebec’s Tandem Club is said to have been in +existence at a time which the memory of the oldest inhabitant reacheth +not. One of its oldest presidents is still living, and years ago drove +four thoroughbreds of his own breeding. A number of Quebec’s well-known +and wealthy merchants have been presidents of the club, and with Lord +Alexander Russell and the Earl of Caledon have frequently driven +four-in-hand around the streets of the ancient capital. The value, it +is said, of some of their magnificent outfits--sleighs, horses and +robes--often exceeded $5,000. In the days of the military, the club +usually consisted of five or six four-in-hands and thirty to forty +tandems, besides pairs and singles. This old club has never entirely +lapsed, and consists at present of the officers of the battery of +artillery which garrisons the Citadel, and the wealthier shipping and +lumber merchants. + +The Montreal Tandem Club, as a distinct organization for the pastime +of sleighing, was formed many years ago, during the occupancy of +the Imperial troops. In those days it was a most fashionable and +aristocratic assemblage, and usually mustered twice a week, Wednesdays +and Saturdays. It was an inspiriting sight to watch the long stream of +handsome equipages as they followed in line. Among those who handled +the ribbons with skill and dexterity were the old, gray-haired hero of +Kars, Lieutenant-General Sir Fenwick Williams, whose deep love of sport +endeared him to the Canadian youth; Sir James Lindsay; Sir W. Windham, +who earned the distinction of being the first to enter the famous +Russian Redan in the Crimean war; Lord Paulet (the handsome guardsman); +Lords Dunmore and Elphinstone; Major Penn, Colonel Bell, and many +others whose names we cannot at present recall. Two should, however, +not be forgotten--two whose names have since become well known the +world over--Colonel Wolseley, now General Lord Wolseley, and Lieutenant +Butler of the 60th Rifles, now General Sir Redvers Butler. Pleasant +days they were, and as the long line of four-in-hands, unicorns, +tandems and pairs filed past, filled with the happy and smiling faces +of the Canadian belles and gallant officers, many of the latter little +thought that in after-years, far from Canadian snows, they would find +soldiers’ graves, and “sleep the sleep that knows no waking” in lands +where such a thing as a snowflake was never dreamed of. + +After the withdrawal of the British troops, the Tandem Club for a +few years had a feeble existence; but in January, 1882, principally +through the exertions of some of the older members of the Montreal +Hunt Club, it was reorganized. Mr. Joseph Hickson, the general manager +of the Grand Trunk Railway was elected president, while in 1883 Mr. +Andrew Allan, of the well-known Canadian Steamship Company, was the +president--Mr. Joseph Hickson being again elected to the office in +1884. Every Saturday, at two o’clock, the club meets on Dominion +Square, opposite the Windsor Hotel. A gay and pleasing sight it is to +watch the smart “turn-outs” as they circle round the square before +making a start for the selected destination. A favorite resort is +Peloguin’s Hotel, at Sault-au-Recollect village, about seven miles from +the city, on a northern branch of the Ottawa River. A six-mile trip +eastward along the banks of the St. Lawrence, brings one to Longue +Pointe, while westward a favorite road leads through the suburb of Côte +St. Antoine, past the “Blue Bonnets,” to Lachine, about nine miles +distant. Other favorite drives are to “The Kennels,” the headquarters +of the Hunt Club, or round the winding, zigzag road to the park at +the summit of picturesque Mt. Royal. The time spent at the rendezvous +is usually about an hour, just enough for some light refreshments and +perhaps a dance or two. Should the weather prove somewhat stormy and +the sleighing heavy, a drive around town is the order of the day. + +The Saturday meet always draws a crowd of citizens to watch and admire +the handsome sleighs and horses. The cavalcade is steadily augmented +by the new arrivals until the signal for starting is sounded from the +coaching-horn of the leading four-in-hand. The four-in-hands always +take the lead, followed by the unicorns, which rank next. Next come one +or two randoms, and then follow a long line of tandems, then the pairs, +the rear being brought up by another tandem, which acts as whipper-in. + +Since the introduction of the Montreal winter carnivals, the sleigh +parade, or “Carnival Drive,” has been one of the week’s events each +year, and is a sight worth seeing. These drives are a commingling of +all sorts and conditions of men, wealth and affluence in the private +equipages of the wealthy merchants and members of the Tandem Club, +and rural comfort and simplicity in the humble but substantial outfit +of the _habitant_. The athletic clubs turn out _en masse_ in huge +sleighs of various shapes and designs, holding fifty to sixty uniformed +members, and drawn by eight, six, and four horses. There are double and +single sleighs, carioles, box-sleighs, light cutters, family sleighs, +_habitant_ sleighs, skeletons, sulkies, “haysleds,” Russian sleighs, +and nondescripts on runners impossible to classify, but all lending +their aid to make up a spectacle. + +Besides the fashionable Tandem Club, Montreal has other driving +associations. The contractors, who in most large cities are well off, +have a driving club, and visit the neighboring villages during each +winter. The Hackmen’s Association have turned out sleighs by the +hundred at the carnival drives, and their costly and handsome outfits +have been the admiration of all, many of the master carters having +sleighs that equal in style and finish those of the wealthy merchants. + +[Illustration] + + + + +ACROSS WYOMING ON HORSEBACK. + +BY LEWIS P. ROBIE. + + +During a recent winter it became necessary for me to leave Cheyenne +for Buffalo, Johnson County, in the northern part of the Territory. I +could reach Buffalo either by rail to Rock Creek on the Union Pacific, +thence by stage or team 250 miles, or by riding direct across country. +The latter route would be the least expensive, but older and more +experienced men advised me not to ride, particularly at that time of +the year. Severe blizzards were common in April, much rain had fallen, +and as I should have to cross many streams, which of course would be +swollen by the rain, it would be a hazardous journey. Besides, the +country to be traversed was entirely without towns or settlements, +and the distances were long between ranches and places of shelter. I +thought of the possibility of my horse falling lame, or of my losing +him altogether, or of being taken sick myself or disabled in some way; +and since I was only a “tenderfoot,” such a journey was, in my opinion, +as well as that of others, quite an undertaking. + +The first thing was to get a good horse, and I purchased a dark +mouse-colored one, eight years old, tough, and full of life, at the +same time kind and affectionate. I named him “Terry,” and he cost me +$75.00, with saddle, halter and bridle complete. I purchased a pair +of boots, leather _chaperajos_, broad-brimmed sombrero, blue flannel +shirt, revolver and cartridges, and attached to my saddle an overcoat +and “slicker,” a fur cap and mittens, and bought a good map of Wyoming +and a pocket compass. Thus equipped, I bade farewell to my friends in +Cheyenne, and on the morning of April 3 started on my eventful trip +across the frontier. + +The Magic City was soon far in the distance, as my horse covered the +ground with a pacing gait, peculiar to him. About five miles out I +climbed a high range, to take my last look at the city, and then +descended to the rolling plains beyond. A strong head wind sprang up +and retarded my progress considerably, so that it was not until after +twelve o’clock that I struck a ranch nine miles away, where I put up +for dinner. After enjoying a hearty meal, I re-saddled and continued my +journey on the stage road for about four miles, when I turned to the +left and followed a cattle trail to Pole Creek. + +The morning had dawned pleasantly, but now the weather looked very +dubious, and I could see a storm coming up toward the mountains, which +were almost hidden from view. It was almost four ~P.M.~ before +I reached Dyer’s sheep camp, on Pole Creek, about twenty miles from +Cheyenne. The storm and wind seemed to grow worse, and it was dark, +just as the rain came down in torrents, when I reached Lowe’s ranch, +on Horse Creek; and well it was that I did, for as night came on I +could hardly see two feet ahead of me. In crossing the creek Terry +stumbled and fell on his knees, but I pulled through all right, though +considerably wetted. Just as the cowboys were making the round-up I +rode into camp and was cordially received. Supper over, pipes were +lighted, and I played my flute for a while, but, being very tired after +my hard ride in such inclement weather, I soon turned in on a rough +bunk of blankets and fell asleep. + +My route now lay east for a few miles along the creek, and I rode along +lighthearted in the glorious morning. At Goodwin’s ranch I turned +north, on the stage road, and by noon reached Bard’s, at Little Bear +Springs. About six miles farther on I overtook a camp of freighters, +and had a pleasant talk with a few old-timers, all of whom thought my +trip would be rough, and told me that they would hesitate before taking +such a journey themselves. The scenery had varied little. From day +to day I crossed rolling plains, with thousands of cattle, sheep and +horses quietly grazing, with numerous antelopes and prairie dogs in +sight, and occasionally elk and black-tailed deer. Toward the west were +the Laramie Range of the Rocky Mountains, with their snow-white peaks +glistening in the sun. + +Time flew by, and for ten miles I rode in silence until I came in +view of a lone sheep-herder with his flock. Being interested in the +details of a sheep-herder’s life, I went over to where he was seated +on a ledge. He was dressed in rough, cowboy’s garb, his head bowed +between his knees as if he were in deep thought, smoking a pipe. As +his back was turned toward me he did not see me coming, and I rode up +to him and said: “A pleasant afternoon, sir!” He started, but regained +his composure in a second, and without taking his pipe from his mouth, +grunted a simple “yes,” not even troubling to look up. “Your sheep are +in good condition,” I continued. He raised his head suddenly, gave me +a wild, murderous look, but answered not a word. Concluding he did +not wish to be questioned, I proceeded on my journey. At Chugwater, +on inquiring about this strange fellow, I heard that many years ago +he lived in New England, was of good family, very well to do, and +exceptionally well educated and intelligent. He fell in love with a +girl, who jilted him, and he never could get over it, but left his +home, came West and started to herd sheep, living alone and shunning +all society. + +Toward sundown I ran into a prairie-dog town, where hundreds of these +little animals were running hither and thither, in and out of their +holes, and filling the air with their clatter and squealing. It was now +close to six o’clock, the sun was almost out of sight, and I was as +nearly as I could judge seven miles from the Chug. Terry, however, was +as impatient for his supper as I was, and at my “Get up, old boy!” he +started into a gallop, which he steadily kept up till the bridge was +reached. It was just seven o’clock as I rode up to the post-office at +Chugwater--twenty-nine miles that day, and sixty of my trip ended. + +This was one of the most important places on my route, containing a +post-office, stage station, a ranch hotel, a general store, and the +stock ranches of the Swan Land and Cattle Company, one of the largest +organizations of its kind in the world, operating 250,000 head of +cattle, and having three millions capital. It is also a lay-over for +the stages of the Cheyenne, Fort Laramie and Black Hills Company. There +was quite a gathering of ranchmen and others, on their way south to the +annual meeting of the Stock Association at Cheyenne, a very important +event to the cattle owners of Wyoming. + +[Illustration: I TAKE MY LAST LOOK AT THE CITY.] + +In the morning I arose early, with the intention of reaching by noon a +ranch called Hunton’s on the map. I found myself, however, so stiff in +the limbs, not being thoroughly used to the new saddle and the action +of the horse, that I concluded to allow Terry a run in the corral and +rest till the afternoon before starting. + +I passed the morning in looking into the workings of a model cattle +ranch, preparatory to the spring round-up, and was particularly +interested and amused in watching the men break some bronchos to the +saddle. The life of one of these “broncho busters,” as they are called, +requires much nerve and daring. Not unfrequently they are badly hurt by +the kicking and struggles of these fiery beasts. + +I had left the Chug scarcely more than three miles behind me, when, +on turning a bend in the trail, I came suddenly on a band of a dozen +or more antelopes, quietly grazing a short distance to my left. If I +had had a rifle I might have distinguished myself, but I could only +pop away at them with my six-shooter, much to the disgust of Terry, +who kicked and bucked till I was nearly thrown. Between four and five +o’clock, I reached Richard’s Creek, with four miles ahead of me to +Hunton’s, where I intended to spend the night. As I approached the +creek, I was overtaken by a brown, sunburnt individual, who, after we +had exchanged “Hows,” invited me to spend the night at his camp half a +mile down the creek. He was one of six who were on their way south to +Colorado for the purpose of gathering up three hundred ponies for the +round-ups in Northern Wyoming. + +After enjoying a rough but palatable supper of frying-pan bread, bear +meat and coffee, we lit our pipes, and with stories of frontier life, +Indian raids and adventures, interspersed with music on the violin, +flute and harmonica, the evening passed pleasantly. One has to put +up with anything in this country, and when I had to roll myself up +in blankets and sleep on the ground, it was not unexpected. I should +probably have slept well if, toward morning, I had not been awakened by +a rain and wind storm, which came up so suddenly that my coverings were +blown away, and I was well drenched before I could find shelter under +the camp wagon. It was soon over, however, and the morning broke clear +and pleasant. + +Soon after breakfast I started north, while the campers pulled out +in the opposite direction for Colorado. Terry felt lively from his +run on the plains, and I was at the ranch in less than an hour. There +were now before me twenty miles to the Laramie River, and then sixty +miles of very hard traveling over the foot-hills and mountains to Fort +Fetterman on the North Platte, where the worst part of the trip would +be over. All the afternoon, till the sun had nearly set, did I travel +over the monotonous plains without seeing a sign of human life. About +half-past five I heard a shot from my right, and, hastening over the +hill, saw a hunter fire again at an antelope which was among a small +“bunch” of cattle. Unless forced by want of water, or decoyed, these +timorous creatures seldom allow hunters to approach so near; but this +unfortunate in some way had got among the cattle, which were not afraid +of the hunter, and so it quietly stood its ground till the first +shot was fired, when it was too late to escape. The man proved to be +the owner of a ranch on the river that I was bound for. I dismounted +and helped him place the antelope, a fine young one, on his horse. +Then, leading our horses, we started for the ranch, three miles away, +anticipating with sharpened appetites the treat of fresh antelope for +supper. + +In the evening I was attracted by a camp-fire across the river, and +thinking I might get more information as to trails, ranches, etc., I +crossed the river on the logs. It proved to be a freighting outfit +bound for Cheyenne direct from Buffalo. They spoke of my probably +having a very hard pull to Fetterman, and thence I would be apt to +get lost and turned about, unless I stuck to the stage road, and they +advised me not to try to strike cow ranches, as I had planned. On +recrossing the river I thought that I could get over as before, on the +logs, but I missed my footing, made a misstep, and fell in. As I sank +down into the cold water of the river, I thought before I could get out +“my name would be Dennis;” but I grasped the logs for dear life, and, +crawling and struggling, reached the shore wet as a drowned rat. + +The next morning I was none the worse for my accident, or for being +obliged to sleep in wet clothing. I here made a trade with my saddle, +getting one lighter and cheaper, that would answer my purpose and save +my horse, as the former one weighed forty pounds, being a regular cow +saddle. + +The morning dawned very threatening, and as I rode into the hills it +began to snow. I reached Horseshoe Creek late in the evening, making +twenty-eight miles that day in the face of a severe snow-storm. Early +the next morning I started for Lebonte Creek, twenty-two miles away, +thinking to reach there by noon, and Fetterman, twenty-two miles +farther, that night. But, as I got farther into the foot-hills, I found +it would be impossible through the snow, which in places was very deep, +so that if I got through it in two days I would be lucky. + +[Illustration: THROUGH DRIVING SLEET AND SNOW.] + +For some ten miles I rode, admiring the magnificent view of the Rocky +Mountains, now plainly visible, with their snow-white peaks apparently +touching the clouds, when, on dismounting to walk up a long and steep +hill, I heard a clatter of hoofs behind, and on looking down the +hillside, was astonished to see one of the gentler sex coming in my +direction. All sorts of conjectures as to who she might be crossed +my mind, and I thought of stories, read long since, of “Calamity +Jane,” “Fearless Kate, the Female Highwayman,” etc., but I was again +surprised, as she approached, to find one of apparent refinement and +culture. I was thinking just how and what to say, when she bade me a +pleasant “Good-morning, sir! Rather cool”--presumably referring to the +weather, not to myself. I soon found use of my powers of speech, and we +chatted away at a great rate. The young lady was returning from a visit +to her nearest neighbors twenty miles down the creek, and lived at a +ranch which I hoped to make by noon. The remaining twelve miles did +not seem half so long as the first ten. + +At Lebonte her father made it exceptionally pleasant. I concluded +not to attempt to make the fort that day, but to accept their kind +invitation to remain till morning. In the evening, seated before the +open fire, we had a long and interesting conversation. This “Rose of +the Mountain” lives twenty miles from the post-office and nearest +neighbors, and she and her younger brother and sister have their ponies +and nature in its grandeur for their society. I made a trade with one +of her brothers, and for my watch obtained a fine Winchester rifle. + +During the night a storm came up, and in the morning I was confronted +by a regular Wyoming blizzard. I put on overcoat and slicker, crossed +the creek, and pushed into the mountains. After less than five miles, +I almost wished I had remained at the ranch till the storm was over. A +very high wind, accompanied by a driving, drifting snow, retarded my +progress, so I could hardly make three miles an hour. As I got into +the mountains, the storm increased in violence, and it grew colder. I +could hardly see the trail, and but for the government telegraph-poles +connecting Fort Russell with the north, which I had used as a guide +so far, I should surely have been lost. At Wagon Hound and Bed Tick +Creek I was obliged to make a crossing, where, had the water been a +foot deeper, I should never have been able to get over. As it was, poor +Terry almost gave up, the water was so cold and deep, and at Bed Tick +I had to go three miles east to find a place where I dared to enter +the icy water. A great part of the way I had to walk, fighting against +wind and snow, till late in the afternoon, when, utterly exhausted and +chilled, I dragged weak and tired Terry into Fort Fetterman, twenty-two +miles that day, and one hundred and seventy miles of my journey ended. + +[Illustration: AND LEADING OUR HORSES WE STARTED FOR THE RANCH.] + +Fort Fetterman is situated on a high plateau, at the base of which the +North Platte River winds its course for miles and miles, as far as +the eye can reach, through the finest grazing country in the world, +giving a view more extensive and grand than at any other point on my +route. The storm cleared toward sundown, and during the night the +characteristic Chinook wind of Wyoming came up--a dry wind, which blew +away and absorbed nearly all the snow. When I awoke the next morning +and looked out upon the vast expanse of plains and mountains, I was +astonished to find hardly a trace of the storm, except in isolated +places high up in the foot-hills. + +Fort Fetterman used to be a Government fort, but has been abandoned for +several years. It now contains two ranch hotels, several cow ranches, +a post-office, Government telegraph office, half a dozen saloons and a +general store, and is the largest place between Cheyenne and Buffalo. +It has the reputation of being the hardest point in the Territories, +being the rendezvous of all the cowboys in Central Wyoming. I kept very +quiet, and with the exception of a few disagreeable solicitations to +drink from some of them, I was not molested. I was a little concerned, +but not at all shaken in my purpose, by authentic reports from the +telegraph office, which connects with Fort McKinney, near Buffalo, +of serious disturbances among the Crow Indians, who had left their +reservation in Montana, and were only waiting for grass to make war on +the settlers in Johnson County. I concluded, however, if they were to +make a break, I would be as safe under the protection of the troops as +I would be here, where a tenderfoot was never known heretofore to live +more than ten days. + +[Illustration: IN CAMP FOR THE NIGHT.] + +A true story is told of a young man who was stationed here as a +telegraph operator. He belonged to the class designated dudes, whom +the cowboys love less than any other breed of tenderfeet. He was much +pleased with the country and life in the Far West, but he was not +satisfied with simply seeing the boys ride on horseback into saloons +and shoot the lights out, common everyday fights, and an occasional +lynching bee. He sighed for Indians and gore. He wanted to “spread +himself” fighting the wary redskin. Finally the cowboys thought they +would see if there was as much stuff in him as he bragged, so half a +dozen or more dressed themselves up as Indians, with paint, feathers +and tomahawks, and hid in a secluded place not far from town. In the +meantime our hero was informed that some Indians had been seen a few +miles up the river, and he was invited, if he wanted some sport, to +join in and add his great fighting ability to help the rest. So they +all started, but had hardly got out a mile or so when the secreted +pseudo-Indians commenced yelling and firing in the air. The would-be +Indian fighter, thinking they were an advanced guard of a host of +others, turned and fled with his hair on end, and did not stop till the +telegraph office was reached. He immediately wired to the Governor at +Cheyenne, “Dispatch troops at once; two thousand Indians are on us,” +and then hurried out to warn all to arm themselves for their lives. +The postmaster, whose office was in the same room as the telegraph, +directly sent another message: “Don’t deliver telegram just sent,” and +the return of the cowboys soon gave the trick away. They gave the St. +Louis tenderfoot no peace whatever. The territorial papers got hold of +the story, and one morning he packed his grip and silently boarded the +south-bound stage for parts unknown. + +Early on April 9 I crossed the North Platte River. At noon I reached +Sage Creek, and after resting an hour or so, left the stage road and +struck a trail to my right, leading, as I was told, to Andrew’s cow +ranch, on South Fork Cheyenne River, fourteen miles distant. I could +see by my map a ranch in that direction, so I felt perfectly safe in +venturing away from the telegraph poles, which had been my faithful and +silent guides hitherto. + +I was now leaving the mountains and approaching the sage-brush plains, +a most monotonous and dreary-looking country. For miles I plodded +along, alternately riding and walking, without seeing any sign of +human life, or anything to break the monotony of the sage-brush. About +half-past six, as I approached the river, I ran into a barbed-wire +fence, which, when followed up for a mile or so, led me to the door of +the ranch, where I dismounted and camped for the night. + +I left the ranch in fine spirits. I had gone perhaps four miles when +two men overtook me, passed, then turned and came back, scrutinizing +me and my outfit as they came. As they drew up, one said: “Where did +you get that horse?” Was it a case of mind-reading, or a mere freak, +that led me to match his impertinence by saying, “Stole him.” “Yes,” +he replied, “we know you did,” drawing out at the same time a warrant +for the arrest of a horse-thief. My bill of sale for the horse and +other papers sufficed, however, to prove that I was not the thief, and +Terry carried the proof of his identity in a brand under the saddle, +though answering strangely well in other respects to the description +of the missing horse. They apologized for their mistake, and bidding +me good-day turned toward the hills in the hope of capturing the real +thief. I felt much relieved as they disappeared, for a horse-thief once +caught in Wyoming stands but little chance for his life. + +After dinner at Warner’s, I turned to the left across the plains, +towards the stage road again, not seeing any stop for me nearer than +the Wyoming stage station at Antelope Springs. On the ranges adjacent +to Bear Creek and Stinking Water I came across many carcasses and bones +of dead Texan cattle, which had been unable to pull through the severe +winter, and as I turned north on the stage road I saw a lone buffalo. + +The sun had disappeared behind a lofty range of the Rockies as I pulled +up at the ranch at Antelope Springs, with only ninety miles ahead of +me to Buffalo. After supper the stock-tender suddenly asked for my +rifle, and almost within a second fired down the creek, where we found +that he had killed an enormous gray wolf. He then bought my rifle for +$15.00. I was told here that sixteen miles to the northwest I could +find a cow-camp, which would not make my journey more than five miles +longer, and would save an expensive stop on the stage road. I could +see no ranch designated on the map in that direction, but supposed +that it was a new outfit. So, the next morning I turned to the left, +and followed a very narrow and almost indistinct trail till late in +the afternoon, making fully twenty-five miles, without seeing any sign +whatever of a human habitation, when, upon looking ahead of me at the +sun, now near the horizon, I found that I was traveling due west +instead of going northwest, as I should have gone. The trail had been +growing much more indistinct for the last hour, so much so that it was +with great difficulty I could distinguish it at all. Near by was a high +bluff, which I ascended, and from which I had an extended view in all +directions--north, south, east and west, as far as my eyes could reach. +Not a sign of human life met my gaze. A few cattle in the foot-hills, +that was all. + +Lost! + +I thought it could not be more than twenty-five miles northeast to the +stage road, but was afraid that poor Terry would not be able to make it +with ten miles more to the ranch. Besides, as darkness came on, I might +get lost and turned about worse than ever. The best and only course for +me was to camp out all night and wait till morning. + +Acting on this decision, I descended into a ravine, beside a small +stream, which I found by looking at the map was probably a “dry” fork +of the Powder River, so called because during the summer months the +water dries up. Now, however, it was quite a creek, from whose cold, +clear water both Terry and I gathered much refreshment. Dry cottonwood +timber lay about in considerable quantity, and I soon had a fire. I +had been advised, if night should overtake me, to picket my horse near +what grass he could reach, with a chance of his being devoured by wild +beasts, rather than to let him run on the plains with a greater chance +of his getting away. The old frontier saying is, “It is better to count +bones than tracks.” I had about thirty feet of rope, with which I +securely fastened Terry to a scrub pine not far from the fire, where he +could partially satisfy himself with the bunch and buffalo grass that +abounds in the foot-hills. I piled on the wood for a big, rousing fire, +for as the night came on it grew very cold, though fortunately it was +clear. + +The night continued to grow cold, and I found it impossible to get any +sleep with my simple coverings of overcoat and slicker. Finally I built +two fires, and lying between them at length managed to get warm, and +was just falling into a gentle sleep when my ears were greeted with the +unearthly yelp of the coyote, or timber-wolf, which soon grew louder +and nearer, till apparently I was surrounded by hundreds of them. I +started up in alarm, drawing my revolver, and assumed a position of +defense, for I momentarily expected they would close in on me. But my +being awake, and the light of the fire, kept them at a safe distance, +though the yells and cries were kept up till late in the night. To +add to my misfortune, poor Terry, frightened at the uproar, broke his +fastenings and decamped. I was not supremely happy at the serenade, +but when I saw my faithful horse disappear in the darkness, my heart +sank within me. Even if I should live through the night, how could I +get out and reach food and shelter without Terry? I hoped, however, +that I might find him the next morning, as he had grown to be very +affectionate of late, so much so that he would eat out of my hand and +follow me at my bidding. Knowing that my only safety was in keeping a +bright fire steadily burning, I piled on the wood, plenty of which was +fortunately near at hand. Toward daybreak the wolves began to disperse, +and I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard their distant yelps, +thanking God that danger from that source was now over. + +As soon as the daylight enabled me to distinguish objects, my thoughts +were bent on finding Terry. I had hardly left the camp-fire when he +made his appearance through the timber, running directly towards me, +neighing, whinnying, and apparently much pleased to find me safe. + +I saddled, and, breakfastless, struck out northeast by the compass, +knowing that if I kept on in that direction I was bound to reach +the road. I pushed ahead as fast as possible, but my progress was +necessarily very slow, as my route lay through frozen mud, fallen +timber and gulches. Suddenly the horse stopped at a sandy place. I +urged him with whip and spur. He would not budge an inch. I jumped off +and tried to lead him over, but he would only pull back. I remounted to +see what he would do, and much to my surprise he went round and crossed +where the water was nearly three feet deep. “There must be something +the matter with the sand,” I said to myself. To satisfy my curiosity, I +rode back on the opposite side, and as the gray tinge of the breaking +day lighted up the surroundings, I was astonished to discover, a few +feet ahead of me, the horns of a cow sticking out of the sand. It +instantly flashed across me why the horse refused to cross. + +Late in the afternoon I arrived at Seventeen-mile Ranch, horse and +rider hungry, sleepy, and utterly exhausted. As soon as I lay down on +a rude bunk I fell into a sleep from which I did not awake till early +the next morning, with a little headache, but in other respects feeling +first-rate. I found that the boys at Antelope Springs bulldozed me into +leaving the road, as there was no cow-camp for a hundred miles in the +direction I had taken. + +[Illustration: A MUSICAL EVENING.] + +I had now seventeen miles to Powder River, and fifty from there to +Buffalo, with a stage station between at Crazy Woman Creek. I had +proceeded about two miles when I was overtaken by two cowboys racing. +Terry, plodding along at his usual gait, braced up as he heard them +coming, and started into a dead run so suddenly that I was almost +upset. He was bound not to be left behind, and surprised me by his +spirit after such a hard trip. Away we went for a mile or so, neck and +neck, till the cowboys turned to the left for their ranch down the +river. The incident gave me encouragement to think that Terry was all +right for getting there anyway. + +About four o’clock I reached the post-office at Powder River, the scene +of a noted Indian massacre a few years ago. Here I was overjoyed to +find letters from Cheyenne and home, the first I had received since +starting on my trip. The postmaster informed me that I could strike +a camp eighteen miles northwest that would save me enough distance +to make Buffalo at the end of the next day, but I had had experience +enough in trying to strike cow-camps, and concluded to stick to the +road, even if it did take me a day longer. So, very early the next +morning I started on the road, in a drenching rain, for Crazy Woman, +thirty-three miles. + +This was the most disagreeable day I had had during the whole trip, and +a very lonely ride. I saw nothing but a water-hole at Nine-mile Gulch. +The ranch here consists of only a bar-room divided by a curtain from a +room used for sleeping, cooking and eating, with the stables and corral +beyond. I had just entered the bar-room when I was accosted by, “Here, +stranger, come and have something. Turn out some more whiskey, Bill!” +I felt now I had come to what I had expected all along the line, an +invitation to drink, where to refuse would be to risk death; but I was +going to fight it out as long as I could. I replied, “Boys, you must +excuse me; I don’t drink.” + +“What’s that? Don’t drink? You ---- tenderfoot! I never had anybody +refuse to drink with me yet, and, I tell yer, you do what I say--you +drink!” drawing his revolver and pointing it at me. + +“Well, I’ll take some light drink,” I said, knowing they had nothing +but whiskey, “but I won’t drink that stuff.” + +“What do you take us for? We don’t have any ---- dude drinks here. You +do as I tell yer--_drink whiskey_!” + +I went over to the bar, took up the glass, and was about to drink, +when a thought occurred to me. I turned to the owner of the place, who +was turning out the drinks, and said: + +“Now, sir, I come here a stranger. I propose to attend to my own +business, and when I leave pay my bills and go on my way. The reason I +don’t want to drink is that the liquor will make me crazy. If I take +one glass I shall want five, and I shall not be responsible for what +I do. I appeal to you to see I get fair play. I’ll take a cigar with +the boys, but I would rather not drink.” To which the cowboy who had +insisted on my drinking replied: + +“That’s all right, stranger. If you don’t want to drink, you needn’t. +Here, have a cigar. Give him a whole box, Bill; I’ll pay for it.” + +I humored them for awhile, but preferring Terry’s dumb society to the +noise and disturbance of the drunken cowboys, I soon joined him. + +The storm cleared during the night and the morning broke very pleasant. +The “cow-punchers” had pulled out late at night for their ranch, and +congratulating myself that I was free from them, and had but twenty +miles more, I ate a hearty breakfast, and started for my last ride. I +was getting now into more of a farming country, where crops of oats +and wheat are very successfully raised by irrigation. The Big Horn +Mountains were plainly visible to the northwest, and together with +the foot-hills, which were covered with a green carpet of spring +grass, looked very fine. At ten o’clock I rode into Buffalo, heartily +congratulating myself upon the happy termination of a long and perilous +journey. + +[Illustration] + + + + +WINTER SHOOTING IN SOUTH CAROLINA. + +BY C. W. BOYD. + + +Notwithstanding boasted advancement in civilization, the love of +camp-life, with its unrestrained freedom and absence of care, is strong +in many a bosom, though the demands of duty and calls of interest may +lead one to suppress it. In my opinion, at any rate, there is nothing +so thoroughly enjoyable as to throw off the trammels of conventionality +and do as one pleases, without fear of restriction or comment. + +When, therefore, towards the latter part of February, after a winter +spent in town, without a chance to pull a trigger, my friend C---- +proposed a “camp-hunt” up the country, I was not slow to join him. I +was living at the time in the northwestern part of South Carolina, a +famous country for quail, though persistent hunting and the clearing +of heavy tracts of timber have made other game scarce. Having settled +our destination--a spot locally known as “Indian Camp,” on Fair Forest +River--and engaged the services of a teamster, with his two-horse +wagon, we set to work to make up our outfit. + +This, although it may seem a simple matter to the uninitiated, requires +some experience, in order to know just what is necessary. I must own +that, although not without some knowledge in the matter, I never went +on a trip of the kind without forgetting something that I afterwards +needed. In the first place, we took a tent, a cot apiece, blanket, a +couple of camp-stools, water-bucket, cups, and cooking utensils. The +staples of our commissariat (a very important department) were bacon, +flour, lard, coffee, sugar, a few dozen lemons, and last, but not +least, a little brown jug, which C---- _insisted_ on taking, saying it +would come in handy for carrying water when emptied of its original +contents. These things, with sundries too numerous to mention, and our +guns and cartridges, completed our outfit. We took two dogs, a pointer +and a setter, each thoroughly trained. + +As we had determined to go in style, the next point was to find a cook. +We were soon overwhelmed with applications, and the only trouble was to +make a good selection. We finally decided to take Barney, a somewhat +dark mulatto of gigantic proportions, a genuine Southern negro, with +thick lips, broad, good-humored face, and somewhat of a character in +his way. His accomplishments were considerable. From heeling a gamecock +to turning the jack in “old sledge” his skill was unrivaled among +his colored brethren. Not an event of importance took place in local +sporting circles of which Barney did not know, and of which he was not +_magna pars_, as Virgil puts it. Add to this that he was a first-rate +cook, and in social intercourse constantly inclined to risibility, +with a never-failing flow of conversation, and no one, I think, can +disapprove of our choice. + +We arrived at Indian Camp late in the afternoon, and immediately set +about making ourselves comfortable for the night, sending away our +conveyance with instructions to return for us in a week. We pitched our +tent at the foot of a steep, wooded bluff, a few feet from a spring, +whose cold waters sprang from a cleft in the rock. We soon had a fire +of dry branches crackling and blazing in front, with a goodly oak, +felled for the purpose, to serve as a back-log. After a hearty supper +and a glass of usquebaugh, we enjoyed a pipe and talked over our plans +for the morrow, and then retired, to dream of slaughtered quail and +turkey until daylight. + +With the first dawn we were up, soused our hands and faces in a +somewhat greasy tin-pan (it had been mixed up with the side of bacon +coming up in the wagon), and were soon discussing breakfast. A heavy +mist hung over us, shutting out from sight the tall cottonwoods on +the banks of the river, and the outlines of the hills beyond. This, +however, rapidly rolled away as the sun rose, leaving the landscape +clear and the weather just cool enough to be bracing. We decided to +employ our first day with quail, crossing the river, or, as it is more +generally called, creek, being about twenty yards wide, and hunting +the hillsides, where, as the weather had been very rainy lately, we +knew we would find most of the coveys. As the bottoms were in a very +miry condition, I put on a pair of rubber boots, but most sincerely +did I afterwards repent it, as, when I was tramping over the stony +hillsides, after the sun became warm, they were almost unendurable. + +We “crossed the river on a hickory log,” as the song says, and forcing +a way through a dense jungle of vines and canes at least twenty feet +in height, were just emerging on the other side, when, whir! whir! +whir! came the sharp and well-remembered whistle of retreating wings. +We dashed out into the edge of a field of young wheat, just in time to +see the last brown wing settling in the distance, and our dogs, which +had preceded us, rising from a dead point. The covey had been lying so +close to the edge of the canebrake that we walked right into them, not +knowing that our dogs had pointed. There is no use crying over spilt +milk, as the country people say, and so we started in pursuit. + +We had not gone half across the field when we saw my setter, that in +the meantime had half circled it, drop on the border of a patch of +brown straw, on the other side. We hurried across, but, on approaching, +were surprised to see the dog creep several yards forward, indicating, +of course, that the birds were moving, and consequently that we had +found a new covey, for after being once flushed and scattered the birds +always lie close. We moved forward cautiously, and, in my own case at +least, somewhat nervously, for it was my first shot of the season. +Suddenly--it always comes suddenly--the shock of rushing wings, and +bang, bang, bang!--bang! the three first reports almost simultaneous. +On searching the ground we succeeded in finding only one bird, much to +our chagrin, as we supposed we had made three shots without result. +This, however, was not the case, as while hunting in the direction the +flushed birds had taken, through a thicket of scrub-pine, we came out +into a new clearing, where some boys were burning brush, and there +found two more birds where they had dropped stone dead, several hundred +yards from where they had been shot. While hunting here we had the same +experience many times; in fact, I have never elsewhere seen quail that +were so hard to kill. We tramped all day, finding birds in abundance, +and towards evening had a fine bag, although the country was very +unfavorable for shooting, being extremely hilly, with numerous thickets +of scrub-pine, in which the birds would seek shelter after being +flushed. These were so dense that it was hard to get a glimpse of the +bird as he whistled away. + +On my arrival in camp I found my feet badly blistered by the rubber +boots, and determined to eschew them in future for any except wading +purposes. However, after bathing my feet in cold water and whiskey +I began to feel comfortable, and did ample justice to a supper of +smothered quail, etc. + +While we were cleaning our guns, an old negro named Ralph, with two +half-grown boys, made his appearance, and we derived considerable +amusement from their quaint notions and ready credulity. Even the old +man had probably never been a dozen miles from his native cabin in his +life. For a “dram” and some pieces of silver money they brought us eggs +and very tolerable butter, promising a fresh supply on the morrow. +In camp one is never troubled with sleeplessness, and we were soon +snoozing away comfortably under our canvas roof, dogs and all, except +when it became necessary to replenish the log-fire, which we had built +in front of the tent-opening to keep off the dampness. + +Next day, about four in the afternoon, being tired of tramping, I +determined “to take a stand” in the heavy timber near the banks of +the river, for any sort of game that might chance to appear. I took a +seat at the butt of a huge fallen poplar, with a maple swamp on one +hand, its swelling crimson buds already showing signs of spring, and a +canebrake on the other. It was almost too early in the afternoon for +anything in the game line to be stirring. But the forest was grand, +solitary and primeval. To the mind, however, accustomed to commune with +nature, there was nothing of loneliness, for innumerable voices of the +wood cried out, and the spirit of life was busy in the wilderness, and +its unrestrained freedom seemed to lift and stimulate the soul like +old wine. Here was a splendid field for an ornithologist. Rare birds +of many species flitted about from tree to tree, or rested in the cool +shade. Conspicuous above all for brilliancy of plumage, and also the +noise they make in the world, were the many species of woodpeckers, +from the white-and-black Indian hen, as large as a spring chicken, to +the minute sapsucker no larger than a man’s thumb. These kept up an +incessant hammering and boring that resounded throughout the forest +like the noise of a gigantic workshop. Here and there, on the highest +branches of decayed trees, lazy turkey-buzzards sat, stretching +at intervals their huge wings with a slumberous effort towards +the afternoon sun, while high in the air a pair of “rabbit” hawks, +disturbed from their perch, circled with shrill cries. + +Presently I heard the sharp bark of a squirrel, and a little fellow, +with his tail over his back, jumped over the ground for a neighboring +tree. I let him alone, for I knew, if undisturbed, he would be +presently followed by others; the old cautious fellows letting the +young and more rash bloods go first from the holes, from which, if the +coast seem clear, they follow. In a few minutes the woods appeared +full of them, chattering away, and jumping from tree to tree, eating +the young buds with such gusto that it seemed almost a sin to disturb +them. A sportsman or a hungry man, however, is not apt to indulge in +sentiment, and the hills were soon reverberating with the reports of +my breech-loader. C---- soon came to the spot to find out what all +the racket was about, and we managed to bag about twelve before the +others, frightened by the noise, regained their dens. Then we gave the +birds another turn, which lasted until we could not see to shoot, and +returned to camp. + +Near the tent stood a small haw-tree, on whose branches we strung up +our game so as to be convenient for use. By the end of the week it was +pretty well loaded. But it did not remain so for long. On Saturday +night a party of friends from town came up to visit us, and game and +other provisions disappeared with astonishing rapidity. + +We made a merry party that night gathered around the camp-fire, and +song, story and jest followed each other in rapid succession. With our +supply of lemons a huge bowl of punch was brewed. + +Old Ralph, scenting the good cheer from afar, came down from his cabin +on the hill with several other darkies, and their hearts were all made +glad with a “dram.” Tired and sleepy, about two o’clock I retired. The +last thing I remember seeing as I dozed off was R---- (who I think +staid up all night), seated on a camp-stool, explaining to the darkies +how earthquakes were caused by a certain unmentionable gentleman who +resides below, moving his furniture about with other scientific facts +and theories of a like kind. In the meantime his audience sat on the +ground, presenting a circle of black faces on which the firelight +shone, revealing open mouths and eyes as large as saucers, all of which +made a _tout ensemble_ that was ludicrous in the extreme. + +Next morning the weather was cloudy, and as it began to rain about +eleven o’clock, we procured a wagon, packed up our equipment, and +reluctantly abandoned our camp for the realms of civilization. + + + + +THREE DAYS’ GRACE. + + + The tiny slipper she had dropped + He lifted from the brookside dust, + And placed it on the dainty foot + That had so lightly held its trust. + + “Ah! Cinderella,”--but she waived + His homage of the eye and knee; + Half mockingly, half tenderly-- + “I am your debtor, sir,” said she. + + “Ay, and I wait the payment, love!” + She flushed, then laughed back, as she sped + From stepping-stone to stepping-stone: + “Give me three days of grace,” she said. + + He cleared the streamlet at a bound, + And whispered, gazing on her face, + “The favor is not mine to grant, + For all your days are Days of Grace!” + + _Sarah J. Burke._ + + + + +AMERICAN COLLEGE ATHLETICS. + +II. YALE UNIVERSITY. + +BY RICHARD M. HURD, + +Author of “A History of Yale Athletics.” + + +Yale student life has changed much in all aspects since the beginning +of the present century, but in no respect has the advance been more +marked, or the evolution more complete, than in the department of +athletics. + +The picture of the Yale student of eighty years ago, to whom the +words “physical culture” were unknown, and whose ideas of out-of-door +exercise were limited to an impromptu running or jumping contest, +a game of “one-old-cat,” or the kicking of a football, forms the +strongest contrast to the present Yale undergraduate life, with its +five branches of intercollegiate sports, its long and arduous months of +preparation for a contest, its highly organized system of management, +and its yearly expenditure of thousands of dollars. The difference +between what athletics meant to the student of that period, and +what they mean to-day, presents a more striking contrast, however, +than the change in their mere outward form. They were then passing +amusements, acting as a safety-valve for exuberant spirits; they are +now serious and absorbing pursuits scientifically studied, to which +are devoted the highest qualities of courage, skill and endurance in +their accomplishment, the greatest resources of experience, foresight +and generalship in their command, and the best organizing and business +ability in their management to be obtained in the undergraduate body. +In a word, the contrast lies between the student world of the old days, +which directed its best efforts into channels mapped out and set before +it by authority, and the body of modern students who find in all the +duties connected with athletics, the opportunities to develop by actual +experience, untrammeled by supervision, those qualities, of physique, +of organization, or of command, to which their tastes most tend. + +To forge, then, the connecting links between the Yale athletics of 1800 +and those of to-day, and to show how the latter have gradually grown +out of the former, will be the purpose of this article. + +Regarding it as settled that the sports of our predecessors were +confined to “one-old-cat,” or the kicking of a football, the first +indication of any interest in athletics occurs in 1826, when the +corporation appropriated $300 to erect gymnastic apparatus upon an +uncovered piece of ground. About 1840 there sprang up an annual game of +football between the sophomore and freshman classes, which has survived +to the present day in the form of an annual “rush.” To call this class +scrimmage football is a decided stretching of the term, as may be +judged from the contemporary description of a game whose participants, +attired in a unique grotesqueness of style, and with faces painted +in all imaginable hues, formed wedges and phalanxes, and charged and +scrambled with a most healthy rivalry, but in whom all knowledge of +football was evidently lacking. + +Turning to rowing, we find that to Yale belongs the honor of having +the oldest rowing club in America, four boats having been purchased +by the students in the spring of 1843, with the idea of rowing for +exercise and recreation, an idea hitherto unthought of. The system of +class boat-clubs prevailed at Yale until the first Yale-Harvard race in +1852 led to the formation of the “Yale Navy,” in which all the active +boat-clubs were consolidated. This first intercollegiate rowing match +originated as an advertising expedient in the mind of an enterprising +railroad man, who desired to bring into notice the Boston, Concord and +Montreal Railroad, then a new road. + +[Illustration: THE CREW--CHAMPIONS, 1888. + + G. R. CARTER, ’88 S. + + C. O. GILL, ’89. N. JAMES, ’90 (SUBS.). G. S. BREWSTER, ’91. + R. M. WILCOX, ’88 S. W. H. CORBIN, ’89. J. A. HARTWELL, ’89 S. + S. M. CROSS, ’88 (STROKE). F. A. STEVENSON, ’88 (CAPT.). + G. W. WOODRUFF, ’89 (SUBS.). R. THOMPSON, ’90 (COX.). +] + +[Illustration: WINNERS IN INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC GAMES, 1888. + + G. W. WOODRUFF, ’89. H. L. WILLIAMS, ’91. + T. G. SHEARMAN, ’89. C. H. SHERRILL, ’89. + W. G. LANE, ’88 (CAPT.). W. HARMAR, ’90. +] + +Of preparation for this race there was almost none, as may be judged +from the remark of a member of the Harvard crew, to the effect that +“they had not rowed much for fear of blistering their hands.” Harvard +won the race, largely owing to their superior boat, the _Oneida_, which +being probably the best of her class, deserves a description. She was +an eight-oared, “lap-streak” barge, thirty-seven feet long, three and +a half feet beam, quite low in the water, and fitted with gratings at +each end. Flat wooden thole-pins were used, a plain bar of hard wood +served as stretcher, and a red baize cushion covered each seat. The +oars were of white ash, and ranged in length from thirteen feet six +inches in the waist to twelve feet at bow and stroke. + +Occasional races were rowed between Yale and Harvard at Springfield +and on Lake Quinsigamond up to 1864. These were three-mile, turnabout +races, usually rowed in six-oared barges, although sometimes +four-oared and eight-oared boats would contend with them, in which case +an allowance of eleven seconds per extra oar would be made in favor of +the smaller boats. + +Baseball as an organized game was first played at Yale in 1859, but +it was not until 1864 that the formation of the Y. U. B. B. C., and +the three victories won by the first Yale nine caused it to become +a recognized college institution. Yale’s first intercollegiate game +occurred in this year, when she defeated the Agallian Club of Wesleyan +University by a score of 39 to 13 runs. For the next few years the game +continued to grow at Yale, some five or ten games a year being played, +mostly with professional clubs. Yale met Princeton and Harvard for the +first time on the diamond in 1868, defeating Princeton easily by 30 to +23. + +The game at this time, it will be understood, was a “natural” sort of +game, in which the individual capacities of the players counted for far +more than either team-play or training or science. Harvard defeated +Yale in their first game, and continued to do so until 1874, when the +tide was turned in favor of Yale, largely by the able captaincy and +fine individual playing of Mr. C. Hammond Avery, who broke the chain of +eight Harvard successes by winning four straight victories over Harvard. + +In 1872 a series of games, the best two in three, was substituted +between Yale and Harvard, in place of the annual game, and in the +following year the same arrangement was made between Yale and Princeton. + +[Illustration: HUNDRED YARDS RUN--THE START.] + +It will be seen that the chief need of the Yale nines up to this time +had been, not only a better knowledge of the game, but also greater +coolness at critical points, which faithful practice could alone give +them. The causes of Harvard’s uniform success were that baseball was +started earlier and on a more scientific basis at Harvard than at Yale, +and also because in and near Boston there were, in the early days of +baseball, many nines, professional and amateur, whose influence in the +way of example and practice tended always towards a high degree of +skill. + +Returning to football, we find that, owing to a lack of grounds, the +students having been forbidden to play on the city green, the annual +game was given up in 1858, and football was dead until 1870. In this +year it was resurrected by the classes of ’72 and ’73, who were +unusually enthusiastic over athletic sports, and becoming immediately +a popular game, a match was arranged with Columbia in 1872. In this +match twenty men played on each side, a game that consisted chiefly of +kicking, bounding and batting the ball, one of the rules being, “No +player shall pick up, throw or carry the ball.” Yale was outplayed and +defeated by Princeton in the following year, the latter displaying much +science. Two years later Yale attempted to play Harvard under what were +called “modified Rugby rules,” and the other colleges under the old +rules, with the disastrous result, which might have been expected, of +being defeated by Columbia as well as by Harvard. + +This brings us to the year 1876, which we will take as a starting-point +for modern athletics, and retrace our steps to the Yale-Harvard +races of ’64 and ’65. These were the races famous in Yale annals, +won by Wilbur Bacon and his crew of giants. These men were picked +out for strength, without regard to previous experience, and by dint +of tremendous efforts, combined with the best discipline, they were +transformed into very fast crews, despite their undoubtedly bad style. +The training they underwent was, as one of their number said not long +ago, “what no college crew could be asked to undergo at this time.” +During the two months before the race, in which their training lasted +in all its severity, they rose at six, walked and ran before breakfast +from three to five miles, and rowed four miles at speed both morning +and afternoon. Their diet was of the plainest, beef, mutton, toast, +rice, and weak tea being the staples, with few vegetables. The time +made by the ’65 crew, 17m. 47½s., for a three-mile turnabout race, +six-oared, broke all previous records, and was a noteworthy performance. + +From 1872 to 1875 inclusive, the regattas were very large, as many as +thirteen boats being entered in one race, and were characterized by +much fouling of boats, and great dissatisfaction. Stories are told +of crews fighting each other with their oar-blades when fouled, and +whether this be true or not, it is certain that the overcrowding of +the course and the impossibility of avoiding accidents had much to +do with the withdrawal of the Yale and Harvard crews in 1876. The +Yale crew of ’72, the worst that ever represented Yale, contained the +Freshman who, as captain and stroke of the Yale crews for the four +succeeding years, was destined ultimately to bring more improvement and +prestige to Yale rowing than any other individual ever connected with +it. + +It was in the early spring of 1873 that “Bob” Cook took his trip to +England to study rowing, in which, during some months spent among the +university oars of Oxford and Cambridge and the watermen of the Thames, +he largely acquired that complete mastery of rowing which has enabled +him to raise Yale to the first rank as a boating college. Among the +sacrifices that were made to enable Mr. Cook to go to England were his +being dropped a class in his studies and the pawning of a gold watch by +a Senior, now a Yale professor, in order to raise the necessary funds. + +It was after the three Yale victories in the University, Freshman and +single-scull race, in 1873, that by the energy of Mr. C. H. Ferry the +sum of $16,500 was raised to build the fine boat-house that Yale now +possesses. + +The year 1876, bringing as it did the formation of the Intercollegiate +Football Association, the introduction of eight-oared four-mile +Yale-Harvard races, and the presentation of the Mott Haven Cup, may be +taken as a starting-point for modern athletics. It is not so much that +there was any distinct stride in advance in this year, but rather that +with the better organization of athletic sports, better opportunities +were given for their development. + + +FOOTBALL SINCE 1876. + +In this year the American Rugby rules and the oval Rugby ball were +adopted by the association composed of Harvard, Princeton, and +Columbia. Yale declined to join this association, but defeated every +member of it, thus being virtually champion for that year. + +In the following year Yale desired to play with elevens, and the other +colleges with fifteens. No game was played with Harvard, but for the +sake of a game Yale consented to play Princeton with fifteens. The +game, which was a draw, was probably the best exhibition of football +thus far given in America. The only possible drawback was the fact that +weight and roughness were to some extent substituted for skill in the +Yale team. + +[Illustration: FOOTBALL TEAM--CHAMPIONS, 1887. + + F. C. PRATT, ’88 S. W. H. CORBIN, ’89. F. W. WALLACE, ’89. + S. M. CROSS, ’88. G. R. CARTER, ’88 S. W. T. BULL, ’88 S. + G. W. WOODRUFF, ’89. C. O. GILL, ’89. + + W. C. WURTENBERG, ’89 S. W. P. GRAVES, ’91. + H. BEECHER, ’88 (CAPT.). +] + +For the next two years football was played by fifteens, but since 1879 +it has been played by elevens only. In the fall of 1878, the Yale +Faculty permitted absence from recitation on account of football, to +enable the team to play Harvard in Boston, which action put football +on the same basis as baseball, and marked an epoch in its history. The +victorious Yale team, having defeated Harvard by one goal to none, were +met at the station at two ~A.M.~ by three hundred students, who +were thus probably the first to inaugurate the present custom of a +triumphant reception to the team winning an important victory. + +[Illustration: OVER THE HURDLES.] + +It was largely owing to the overconfidence of the Yale team engendered +by this game, that they were defeated by Princeton a few days later. +It was the more unfortunate that Princeton should have won this game +in that it caused them to introduce the “block” game, which has done +so much harm to football in America. The “block” game consists of a +defensive style of play, whose sole object is to prevent the scoring +of the opposing team, by which the college having won the year before +may still retain the nominal glory of the championship. For the three +ensuing years the Yale-Princeton games were draws. During these years +the Yale-Harvard games were all well-fought contests, the Yale men +winning by a more thorough understanding of the game, and by the aid of +fine individual players. + +[Illustration: POLE VAULTING NO. 1.--THE RISE.] + +In 1881, a change in the rules was made with the idea of destroying the +“block” game, by which safety touch-downs were made to count. This rule +could be avoided, however, by making touch-in-goals, which were only +technically different from safeties. + +Yale began her football season in 1882 three weeks earlier than usual, +and consequently played more practice games. In the Yale-Harvard game, +Yale forced the play, making a touch-down a few moments after play +began. The Harvard eleven, although they found themselves outmatched by +the “finest rush-line ever put on an American field,” to their credit +be it said, played the game for what it was worth and did not attempt +any “blocking” tactics. The chief feature of the Yale-Princeton game +was the long-distance kicking of Moffat for Princeton and of Richards +for Yale, which was described as resembling a game of lawn-tennis. The +most brilliant play of the game was the superb goal kicked from the +sixty-five-yard line by Haxall of Princeton. + +A new system of counting by points was introduced in 1883, by which a +goal from touch-down was made to count six points, a goal from field +five points, a touch-down two points, and a safety one. Up to this +time goals from touch-downs and from field had been equivalent, and +four touch-downs had equaled one goal. + +The Yale team of ’83 had a giant rushline averaging 185 lbs., while the +whole team averaged upwards of 173 lbs. In the Yale-Princeton game, +which was distinguished by many brilliant plays, Yale made a touchdown +and goal eight minutes after play began, after which no scoring was +done by either side. + +The Harvard Committee on Athletics having come to the conclusion +that football was a brutal sport, before the Yale-Harvard game, only +permitted it to be played on condition that the referee should be an +alumnus, and that he should have full power to send any player off the +field for unfair play, which was not in this sense to include offside +play. These conditions were incorporated into the rules of the game at +the annual convention, it being ruled that (1) a player can be offside +but once during a game, and (2) the referee shall disqualify a man for +three times intentionally delaying the game. In scoring, the system now +in use was introduced, a touch-down being made to count four points +instead of two, and a safety two instead of one. + +[Illustration: POLE VAULTING NO. 2.--CLEARING THE BAR.] + +The Yale eleven of 1884 defeated Harvard by 52 to 0, her eleven being +by far the poorest she had ever turned out, ranking fifth among the +college teams. In the Yale-Princeton game a goal from touch-down +was made by Yale just three minutes after play was called. Princeton +secured a touch-down, but no goal, and with the score 6 to 4 in favor +of Yale, the game was called before time on account of darkness, thus +making it technically “no game,” and depriving Yale of the formal +championship. + +[Illustration: POLE VAULTING NO. 3.--DROPPING THE POLE.] + +For the season of 1885 the Football Association embraced but four +members, Yale, Princeton, Wesleyan and Pennsylvania, Harvard being +forbidden intercollegiate football by the action of their Faculty. At +Yale one of the finest elevens ever turned out was formed from almost +entirely new material, and, although defeated by Princeton by six +points to five, this material has abundantly repaid the efforts made +in its behalf by forming the backbone of Yale’s magnificent elevens +of 1886 and 1887. In the first half of the Yale-Princeton game of +1885, Yale scored a goal from the field. In the second half, Lamar, of +Princeton, made his famous run, seizing the ball on a long, low punt, +and by clever dodging obtaining a clear field for a run, he made a +touch-down between the goal-posts, thus winning the championship for +Princeton. It was a marvelous feat, and one to be long remembered. + +[Illustration: THE NINE--CHAMPIONS, 1888. + + N. S. DALZELL, ’91 (subs.). J. C. DANN, ’88 S., c. + J. O. HEYWORTH, ’88 (subs.). S. Y. OSBORNE, ’88 S. (subs.) + S. J. WALKER, ’88, l. f. J. F. HUNT, L.S., c.f. + C. B. McCONKEY, ’88, s. s. + + H. McBRIDE, ’90 S., 1b. A. G. McCLINTOCK, ’90, r. f. + H. F. NOYES, ’89, 3b. G. CALHOUN, ’91, 2b. + A. A. STAGG, ’88, p. (CAPT.) +] + +In the fall of 1886 Harvard was readmitted to the association, and +proved that she had not been idle during her year of class football +contests by displaying better football than she had ever shown +before. In one of the most exhausting games ever played, Yale +defeated her by 29 to 4. In this game Yale, according to her usual +policy, forced the play from the beginning, obtaining two goals in the +first twelve minutes’ play. The Yale-Princeton game of this year was +something more than a disappointment to the thousands from New York, +New Haven, and elsewhere, who gathered in Princeton only to be soaked +by a fierce rain and to witness an unfinished game, in which good play, +owing to the slippery ground, was impossible. + +The resolutions adopted by the convention are worthy of record: + +_Resolved_, 1, That this convention cannot, as a convention, award the +championship for 1886. + +_Resolved_, 2, That Yale, according to points scored, should have won +the championship. + +In the fall of 1887, the chief innovation was the appointment of an +umpire, in addition to the referee, whose duty it was to prevent +and punish violations of the rules of behavior. No delays of over +one minute were allowed this year. Despite the heavy rain during +the Yale-Princeton game, which rendered brilliant plays impossible, +it was a very satisfactory game, being free from delays, slugging, +foul-tackling, etc. + +The Yale-Harvard game played at the Polo Grounds, New York, on +Thanksgiving Day, in the presence of some twenty thousand people, was +without doubt the finest game of football ever played in America, +and one which, owing to its freedom from disagreeable incidents, did +incalculable good in influencing popular opinion in favor of the +game. In the first half Yale scored a goal from field and one from +touch-down. The touch-down was made by the Yale centre, who, being +unguarded by the Harvard centre, instead of snapping the ball back when +the elevens lined up, kicked it a few inches forward, and, picking it +up, made a long run. Time for the first half was called just as the +Harvard back was making a run, and the Yale rushers not attempting to +stop him, he secured a touch-down too late to be counted. In the second +half Yale made a safety, and Harvard a goal from touch-down, making the +score 11 to 8 in favor of Yale. One of the Yale half-backs, however, by +a brilliant run of thirty-five yards, secured a touch-down, from which +a goal was kicked, which rendered the final score 17 to 8. + +The year 1887 was a most encouraging one to all lovers of football +in the elimination of many disagreeable features and in the adequate +enforcement of the rules by two officials. The last bugbear to football +that seems to be gradually disappearing is the practice of “slugging,” +or striking with the closed fist. What might be called a stricter +attention to business necessitated by the more intricate system of +team-play, aided by the appointment of a special umpire, has almost +completely removed this stumbling-block. Two dangers remain that must +be in some way overcome before the future of football is assured, and +these are “holding in the line” and “interference.” + +The different styles of play evolved at Harvard, Princeton and Yale +in this year showed a more marked individuality than is usually the +case. Harvard’s game was one of heavy rushing in its most aggressive +form, with but little kicking. Princeton, on the other hand, adhered to +their traditional game of agility, selecting their players for skill +and sacrificing strength and weight, while Yale possessed an all-round +team, capable of playing a rushing or a kicking game, and one which, +being ably generaled, suited its style of play to that of its opponent. + +There were but two games of interest in the fall of 1888, owing to +the unfortunate action of the Harvard Faculty in not allowing the +Yale-Harvard game to be played in New York. In the first of these +Princeton defeated Harvard by 18 to 6, the victory being won by +superior play, against a weak rush-line. The Yale-Princeton game was +a magnificent and stubborn contest, being won by Yale by two goals +from the field to nothing. Harvard having forfeited to Yale, the +championship remained in New Haven for another year. + +Football in American colleges, despite the severe crisis of 1884 and +1885, is at present in far better shape than it ever has been, and +promises to become a great national game on this side of the water, as +it has so long been on the other. + +The record that Yale has made in football is too good to be omitted. +She has won 93 out of 98 games played, having lost three games to +Princeton, one to Harvard, and one to Columbia. Since 1878, Yale has +lost but one game, and that by one point. In points Yale has won, since +points began to be counted, 3,001 to her opponents’ 56; in goals, 530 +to 19, and in touch-downs, 219 to 9. + + +ROWING SINCE 1876. + +By a vote of the Y. U. B. C., Yale withdrew from the general rowing +association and challenged Harvard to an eight-oared four-mile +contest, a challenge which she promptly accepted. For this race all +undergraduates of either college and all of the graduates of either who +were studying for another degree were declared eligible. The ’76 race +was an easy victory for Yale, being won by half a minute. Mr. Cook, +the Yale stroke, set the stroke about thirty-three, and did not vary +one point in the last two miles, while the Harvard stroke was very +irregular, ranging from thirty-five to forty a minute. The boats used +in this race were of cedar, and were the first eight-oared shells used +in America. In the fall of this year a picked four from the Yale crew, +stroked by Mr. Cook, won the international and intercollegiate regatta +of the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. + +The withdrawal of Yale from the general regatta, followed next year +by the withdrawal of Harvard, so effectually discouraged the smaller +colleges that no rowing was done by any of them for a number of years. + +The Yale-Harvard races, after being rowed at Springfield for two years, +were moved in 1878 to New London, where they have since been rowed. The +advantages offered by this place in the way of its easy access from +the great cities, its clear and straight course, and the “moving grand +stand” of platform cars running along the west bank of the river, are +so strongly in its favor that it appears probable that the races have +found their permanent home. + +The races of ’77, ’78 and ’79 were won by Harvard with increasing ease, +the first-named being won by seven seconds and the last by one minute +and forty-three seconds. The spectators in this year were amazed, +according to the papers, to see “how badly the Yale men rowed;” but +with this disgraceful defeat came the spur to greater effort, and for +the two ensuing years victory came to Yale. + +In 1882 there occurred the famous “eel-grass” race, the most +disappointing race ever rowed in America. The Yale captain, with the +assistance of Mr. Davis, devised a new style of boat in which the oars +were separated into pairs of starboard and port, by which device so +much room was required that the boat measured sixty-eight feet, or nine +feet longer than the average racing shell. The ultimate object was to +attain a high stroke, scientific principles being sacrificed to a sort +of “get there” way of rowing forty-two to forty-eight strokes a minute. +The story of the race is soon told. Yale led at the mile-and-a-half +by a length of clear water, and at the two miles, where Yale emerged +from the eel-grass, Harvard led by six lengths. The Yale crew gave a +splendid exhibition of “sand,” spurting right up to the finish line at +a forty-five stroke, and finishing half a length behind Harvard. The +fact that they rowed every individual half-mile excepting the fourth, +when in the eel-grass, faster than Harvard, sufficiently proves their +superiority. + +Under the same captain, the Yale crew adhered to the same style of +rowing in the following year, nor is it to be wondered at, considering +the fast time they made both at New London and in New Haven harbor. The +’83 crew, however, lacked the snap and life and the severe training +that alone can bring success to a crew rowing so incorrect a stroke as +they used. Harvard’s victory by fifteen lengths killed the so-called +“donkey-engine” stroke at Yale, which in itself was of more benefit +to Yale rowing than many victories. Mr. R. J. Cook again came to the +rescue of boating at Yale in 1884, and turned out the finest Yale crew +that had yet sat on the water, and one that lowered the record to 20m. +31s. + +In 1885 the Yale crew, as they rowed up to the starting flag, appeared +very heavy and very ragged, owing to the difference in height. They +were a powerful set of men, averaging 175½ pounds, wretchedly trained, +four being over-trained and four undertrained, and rowing a combination +Cook and “donkey-engine” stroke. Compromises in rowing are almost +invariably fatal, and so it proved in this instance, the Yale crew +finishing, very much distressed, some sixteen lengths behind Harvard. +The Harvard crew used one of the best strokes they had ever rowed, it +being characterized by a long, smooth pull, stronger in the middle of +the stroke than at either catch or finish, and by a well-controlled +slide at both ends of the stroke. + +In the past three years, owing largely to the personal efforts of Mr. +Cook, “the father of Yale boating,” in coaching a most faithful and +painstaking set of men, victory has remained with the Yalensians, and +Yale now leads Harvard in the number of eight-oared races won. The ’86 +race was a comparatively easy one, Yale winning by eight lengths, +while the ’87 race was a desperate struggle, won by but four lengths. +The race of last spring will be long remembered by Yale men as the +most crushing defeat ever administered to Harvard oarsmen. The strict +adherence on the part of the Yale crew to the principles of rowing +practised in the two preceding years, backed up by great enthusiasm +and assiduous labor, turned out a crew that rowed the course in 20m. +10s., lowering the record easily without being pushed. At Harvard, the +dissensions among the members of the rowing committee, their adoption +of antiquated English ideas in regard to boats, oars, rigging, etc., +and the curious notions of rowing held by Mr. Watson the chief coach, +turned out a crew that lost a length in the first ten strokes, and +crossed the finish line a quarter of a mile behind the Yale crew. +“Too many cooks spoil the broth,” is an old but true adage. Yale is +fortunate in possessing one Cook, who certainly makes most excellent +broth. It seems probable that, in view of the practical working of +their rowing committee, Harvard will either again seek the aid of +professional oarsmen, or select one man, such as Mr. Frank Peabody, or +Mr. J. J. Storrow, to have entire control of her boating interests. +The diet of the ’88 crew may be given as fairly representative of the +latest ideas in regard to this branch of the training. For breakfast +and supper the crew ate oatmeal, beefsteak, mutton-chops, eggs, and +stewed or baked potatoes; for dinner, roast beef, mutton, fricasseed +chicken, water-cress, potatoes, rice, macaroni, tomatoes and puddings. +Occasional ale was allowed, especially after the crew had rowed on +time, or on particularly hot days. The work of the crew occupied about +three hours a day, besides which as much work was done in pair-oars in +the mornings during the spring, as recitations would permit. + +The summary of Yale-Harvard races stands: Harvard 22, Yale 17; +Harvard’s lead being obtained between 1852 and 1870, when rowing was in +its infancy at Yale. + +It is interesting to notice that neither age, weight nor height have +any decided advantage among the Yale and Harvard crews, the oldest +crews having won seven times in thirteen, the heaviest five times in +thirteen, and the tallest four times in eleven. + +It would thus appear that the qualities that bring success in rowing +are not merely physical, to be computed mathematically, but that the +moral qualities of pluck and endurance, added to skill and judgment, +must be equally considered in selecting a typical rowing man. + +The average rowing man, physically considered, of Yale and Harvard +for the past twelve years has been a man 21¾ years old, 167½ lbs. in +weight, and 5 ft. 10½ in. in height. It is rather remarkable that the +average Yale and the average Harvard rowing man does not vary more than +a slight fraction in any of these three respects, despite the wide +differences between individual Yale and Harvard crews. + +The principles of good rowing laid down by Mr. Cook in the last two +years, and re-enforced by his constant attention, have resulted in a +settled style of rowing at Yale, which bids fair to be modified only +as the needs of individual crews may require. There are a few oarsmen +who still favor somewhat the rapid stroke of the ’82 Yale crew, +basing their arguments upon the fast times made by that crew both +at New London and on New Haven harbor. The answer to be made to the +advocates of their style of rowing is that they were a set of giants, +capable of rowing forty-five strokes to the minute for four miles, a +feat impossible to modern oarsmen. It is conceivable that the rapid +stroke, so much trusted in by professionals, might with men of immense +strength, who were incapable of attaining to the finish and detail of +a crew of the present day, turn out a faster eight than the “Bob Cook” +stroke with the same men, still it is much to be doubted. While with +the present tendency towards selecting light and muscular, rather than +beefy men, there can be no question but that the fastest rowing of +which they are capable will be done by the “Bob Cook” stroke, which +with its long swing and slow slide takes advantage of every pound of +impetus, and with its slow catch gives the oarsman between every stroke +a chance to recover his breath and nerve himself for the next pull. And +this present method of selecting material is more than justified by the +magnificent rowing of the ’88 Yale crew, which in the opinion of Mr. +Frank Peabody, the Harvard coach, could defeat any crew, amateur or +professional, English or American, that should be pitted against it. +In other words, the ’88 Yale crew made the finest exhibition of rowing +ever seen in America, and may be safely said to have been the fastest +crew that ever sat in a boat. + + +BASEBALL SINCE 1876. + +After the Yale successes in baseball in ’74 and ’75, the Yale nines +played much closer games with Harvard, although for the four succeeding +years the series of games was invariably won by Harvard. + +One of the Yale-Harvard games in 1877 was remarkable in that the +Harvard nine went to the bat only twenty-seven times, each player going +out in the order of striking. Not a single hit was made off Carter, the +Yale pitcher. In 1878 Yale defeated Harvard on her own grounds for the +first time, which inspired so much over-confidence in the Yale team +that they were defeated in three straight games by Harvard. This is +but one of many instances of the truth that college nines do best when +least is expected of them, and that it is confidence unfortified by +hard work which most surely issues in defeat. + +The Intercollegiate Baseball Association was formed in December, 1879, +with Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Amherst, Dartmouth and Brown as members. +Yale shortly withdrew from the association because it voted to allow +the playing of college men who had played on professional teams. +Series of games were arranged, however, with Harvard, Princeton and +Amherst, in which Yale won seven out of eight games, virtually winning +the championship. In her games with professionals Yale was singularly +successful, winning eleven out of thirteen played. + +From 1880 to 1888 inclusive Yale has won the championship, with but one +exception, when in 1885 Harvard won it by ten straight victories. In +1884 Yale and Harvard were tied for first place, and the deciding game, +played in Brooklyn, was won by Yale. + +The year 1885 was the most disastrous in athletics ever experienced +at Yale. The Yale nine, although possessing individual players of +merit, had no reliable pitcher, and lacked team play and discipline. +Yale’s first defeat in 1886 was in an exhibition game with Columbia, +whose brilliant team of this year defeated Harvard also. This team +was in reality a graduates’ nine composed mostly of Law School men, +and included graduates of Yale, Princeton, etc. The tie game for the +championship was played off in Hartford, between Harvard and Yale, on +the day after Yale’s victory on the water. The Yale nine, who had been +practising on the Hartford grounds while the Harvard nine watched the +race, played with great determination, and won by a score of 7 to 1. +The now famous battery of Stagg and Dann first came to the front in +this year. + +After this season’s play, Harvard, Princeton and Yale withdrew from +the Intercollegiate Association and formed a triangular league. Into +this “College League” Columbia was admitted, but after a few games she +withdrew owing to various difficulties. The first Yale-Harvard game in +1887, played in New Haven, resulted in a crushing defeat for Harvard by +a score of 14 to 2. The game was quite close until the eighth inning, +in which the Yale nine completely knocked Boyden out of the box, making +eight hits with a total of twelve, and allowing every member of the +nine to make a circuit of the bases. + +The baseball season of 1888 opened with a severe check to Yale’s +hopes in her defeat by Princeton in the first game played. The loss +of this game made it appear that Princeton, after having for several +years assisted Yale to the championship by winning a game or two +from Harvard, would now render a like service to Harvard. The first +Yale-Harvard game, however, was reassuring, Yale winning by 7 to 1. The +next game, played in Cambridge, being won by Harvard, 7 to 3, put an +entirely different aspect upon affairs, necessitating, as it did, in +order for Yale to win the championship, her winning the three remaining +games of the series. This difficult feat was brilliantly accomplished +by the aid of much “sand” in the Yale team. The most notable feature +was the game played in Cambridge, won by Yale, 8 to 0, in which Stagg +held the Harvard batters down to two hits. As was the case in 1886 and +1887, Yale’s chief strength this year lay in her battery, Stagg and +Dann. + +Yale’s baseball record is, on the whole, most creditable, she having +won 130 out of 177 college games played. With Harvard, Yale has won 32 +games and lost 30, while with Princeton Yale has won 33 and lost 11. +To other colleges than these two, Yale has lost but six games, two to +Amherst, two to Brown, one to Columbia and one to Dartmouth. In all her +games, with professionals as well as amateurs, Yale has made about 550 +more runs than her opponents. + +An innovation was made last fall in the matter of getting together a +university nine for practice games in the fall. During the winter the +nine practised batting daily in the baseball cage, and got in good +physical condition by gymnasium work and out-of-door running. A simple +machine, enabling the nine to practise sliding in the cage, was devised +last spring, and its results are evident in the number of stolen bases +accredited to the Yale nine in its past season’s play. + +The number of annual championships in Rowing, Football, and Baseball +since the establishment of intercollegiate associations in these +branches, won respectively by Yale, Harvard and Princeton is a source +of pride to Yale men, the numbers being: Yale 21, Harvard 7, and +Princeton 2. + + +TRACK ATHLETICS. + +Track Athletics at Yale started in 1872, about the time that the first +intercollegiate athletic meetings were being held in Saratoga. Yale +sent two representatives, born athletes devoid of instruction, to +the intercollegiate meetings of ’74 and ’75, who won a first prize +apiece each year. Fall games were started at Yale in 1875, and were an +unqualified success, the most interesting event being the running high +jump of Gale, ’78 S., who cleared 5 ft. 3 in., pronounced to be “the +finest amateur jumping ever done in America.” + +It is a curious commentary on the taste of this period that the hurdle +and the one hundred yard races were regarded as tame, while a three or +a seven mile walk was considered most interesting and exciting. The +presentation of the Challenge Cup, valued at $500, now commonly known +as the Mott Haven Cup, served as a great stimulus to track athletics in +all the other prominent athletic colleges except Yale, whose apathy and +indifference to this branch was so great that from 1877 till 1880 she +sent no representatives to the meetings. In 1880 Mr. T. Dewitt Cuyler, +of Yale, established a record of 4m. 37 3-5s. in the mile run, a record +which was not broken for seven years. From 1880 on, Harvard continued +to win the cup with an unvarying regularity, with Columbia a good +second and Yale a poor third. + +In 1882 one of Yale’s best runners appeared, Mr. H. S. Brooks, who won +the intercollegiate 100 yards and 220 yards for two years, doing the +100 in 10 1-5s., and the 220 in 22 5-8s. + +The famous 220 yards run between Brooks and W. Baker of Harvard, +occurred in 1884, and was a magnificent exhibition of running, Baker +winning in 22 2-5s. + +In 1886 the contest for the cup between Yale and Harvard was most +closely fought, resting as it did upon the decision in the 100 yards, +which was, at any rate, a very difficult decision to make. It is +hardly worth while to recount that Sherrill of Yale was cheered and +congratulated as winner, or that the decision rested with one judge, +a Harvard graduate, who alone, out of the three judges, witnessed the +finish, for Yale lost the cup. The policy of Yale men after defeat has +always been to make no excuses for failure, but to turn with greater +determination to the work of retrieving the past by victory in the +future. + +Yale has had a large number of fine individual track athletes in the +past two years, among them being Sherrill, ’89, amateur champion in +1887 for 100 yards, and easy winner this year in the intercollegiate +100 yards and 220 yards; Coxe, ’87, with his records of 101 ft. 1 +in. in the hammer throw, and of 40 ft. 9½ in. in putting the shot; +Ludington, ’87, who has hurdled in 16¾s.; Harmar, ’90, who has run a +mile in 4m. 32 2-5s., and Shearman, ’89, who jumps 21 ft. 7½ in. in the +broad jump, 5 ft. 8½ in. in the high jump, and pole vaults 10 ft. 3 5-8 +in. + +To the fact that Yale had so many crack performers in 1887 was due +her winning of the cup, aided by the fact that Harvard found very +strong competition from the other colleges in her events. Yale lost +the cup this year for the opposite reasons, having no luck in winning +events, and having but three crack performers left. As to men of medium +ability, Yale never possesses them, her success depending solely upon +her first-class men. It is a notable commentary on the system of track +athletics at Yale, that her three best performers this year won five +first prizes, and that these were the only ones taken by Yale. + +Until Yale follows in Harvard’s footsteps in training carefully and +skilfully a large number of men for her athletic team she can never +hope to compete on an equality with Harvard. And this will not be +possible at Yale until greater interest is taken in this branch +of athletics, and until the cup is valued as highly as a football +championship or a Yale-Harvard race. + + +LAWN TENNIS. + +The game of lawn tennis, first played in this country in 1875, was long +a popular game among college students before it became an object of +intercollegiate strife. In 1883, at the proposal of Trinity College, +an association was formed embracing Amherst, Brown, Harvard, Trinity +and Yale. This association has grown in numbers since that time, until +it has now eleven members, the added ones being Columbia, Lehigh, +Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Wesleyan and Williams. The +tournaments for the first two years were held in Hartford, and for the +last three years in New Haven. In the first year of the association two +tournaments were held, both won by Harvard, but since then one annual +championship has been held every fall. + +The difference in the expenses of the tournaments of 1883 and 1888, +will indicate somewhat the increased importance of this annual event, +the total expenditure in the first year being $8, while for prizes +alone there was spent last year $285. The number of college men who are +reckoned among the best players of this country, is worthy of note, +including as it does such names as Mr. R. D. Sears, Mr. H. W. Slocum, +Mr. J. Clark, Mr. G. M. Brinley, Mr. H. A. Taylor, and others. + +Mr. R. D. Sears, the well-known ex-champion of the United States, only +played once, in 1884, in the intercollegiate tournament, and was then +beaten, principally owing to the poor grounds, by Mr. W. P. Knapp, of +Yale, who of all individual players has the best record in the college +tournaments, having won two first prizes in singles and three in +doubles. In the five annual championship tournaments, Yale has won five +first places and three seconds, Harvard five firsts and one second, +Trinity one first and four seconds, Columbia one first and three +seconds, and Amherst one second. + +There are now in Yale five athletic organizations for the five +branches of athletics, each of which is a member of an intercollegiate +association for that branch. Each organization has its own president, +vice-president, treasurer and secretary, elected annually, of whom +the president is usually an academic senior, the vice-president a +scientific senior, and the treasurer and secretary either underclassmen +or, in the case of the boat club, a professor of the college. The +annual expenses of the various organizations are about as follows: +Football, $3,000; baseball, $4,000; crew, $5,000 to $7,000; track +athletics, $2,000 to $2,500; tennis, $250. Of these the football, +baseball and tennis associations are self-supporting, the Track +Athletic Association is very nearly so, and only the expense of +supporting the crew falls upon the students. In this the undergraduates +are assisted by graduate subscriptions, by glee-club concerts, and +by concessions from the railroads that run into New London, and from +the town itself. The Football Association, especially in lucky years, +nets the largest sum from its games, although there is usually also a +substantial baseball surplus remaining. + +A scheme of uniting all the organizations, with a common treasury, has +often been proposed; but it would seem to be inadvisable owing to the +probable increased expenditure, where each organization would not let +the others surpass it in expensive uniforms or luxurious living. + +To sum up what Yale has done for athletics would be entirely beyond the +scope of this article, and equally impossible would it be to calculate +what athletics have done for Yale. Suffice it to say, that Yale has +always been on the side of manly, fair and honest sport, and that +in the persons of such men as Mr. Robert Cook, Mr. Walter Camp, and +others, as well as in the devoted labors of many hundred athletes, with +the head as well as with the hand, she has always striven to advance +the science and elevate the tone of every athletic sport. While, as to +what athletics have done for Yale, leaving out of consideration the +lower purposes served of bringing glory and prominence to Yale among +American colleges, and the undoubted attraction of larger numbers of +students, athletics have turned out from Yale many hundreds not to +say thousands of men, manly and democratic in ideas, possessed of +constitutions able to endure almost any amount of work, and competent +to struggle and hold their own in whatever circumstances they may in +afterlife find themselves placed. + +The saying of Mr. Robert Cook applies to other sports as well as +boating: “A successful oarsman is always a successful man.” The +qualities absolutely necessary in athletics, of self-mastery, of +patience, of perseverance, of pluck, of endurance, and of obedience, +form the best endowment to a young man about to enter life. + + ~Note.~--The illustrations of the different groups of + athletic, football, baseball, lacrosse, and other teams in this + series of articles on college athletics, are from photographs by + Pach Brothers, of 841 Broadway. + + + + +A RUSSIAN WOLF HUNT. + +BY TOM BOLTON. + + +During the winter of ’82 business complications made it necessary for +me to take a journey into a wild and remote part of Russia. The house +with which I was connected had had some very unsatisfactory dealings +with one of its branches, and things had come to such a pass that a +visit from a member of the main establishment had become imperative. + +It was late in January when I had to make my start, and the weather +had been unusually cold. I could travel 750 miles out of my journey +of 1,000 by rail; but the balance of the trip would have to be made +by sledges, not a very rapid or convenient mode of transportation, +though it has the advantage of enabling the traveler to regulate his +time as he feels disposed. Being extremely fond of field sports, and +knowing that the section of country I was going to visit would, in all +probability, contain plenty of game, I carried my Colt’s breech-loading +shotgun and a fine Winchester repeating rifle, with a good store of +ammunition for both. + +Well, I arrived at the end of my railroad journey without any accident +or incident other than the regular daily skirmishes for meals and +hot tea at the not overclean stations. We were fortunate in having a +clear line, no snow having fallen for over a week--rather a remarkable +circumstance in Russia--so we were not compelled to dig out any +snowbanks, though this form of amusement is by no means unusual. The +morning after my arrival at Udalla I sent to make arrangements for a +sledge at the posting-station. This was soon done, and in an hour I +was clear of the town and fairly started on the second half of my long +journey. + +In Russia the sledges are generally roofed over--especially those used +for traveling--somewhat after the fashion of our buggies, and are very +low, so that, provided there are plenty of rugs and furs, one can make +a trip comfortably enough, and even sleep at his pleasure. The picture +in the mind of travel of this description is of three horses abreast, +gayly dashing along in fine style; but in my case the actual facts were +very different. Before we had gone two _versts_ from Udalla, the road +became very bad, for the snow was deep on each side of the track, and +though the track itself was broken, the snow was in great lumps. Over +these the sledge thumped and banged, while the horses stumbled and +floundered along as best they could. The driver, meanwhile, consoled +himself by alternately cursing the horses, the road, and his bad luck +at having to come out, with an occasional _vogtd_ at me for a crazy +Englishman who wanted to kill something so badly that he had to go +hunting in the dead of winter; my language and _impedimenta_ giving +rise to various unfounded rumors, while every one speaking English is +put down as an Englishman by the peasantry in this part of Russia. + +We reached the post-station, at the end of our first day’s travel, +long after nightfall. After a hot supper, I continued my journey all +night, taking a number of naps, but no regular sleep, because, as soon +as I began to doze, I would imagine my ribs to be a corduroy road, and +my vertebræ a troop of army mules crossing it and kicking off flies. +However, I managed to get along tolerably well, all things considered, +and had the satisfaction of knowing that my unfortunate driver was +having considerably the worse time of the two. + +During the fourth day’s journey, while we were passing through a very +extensive forest, several wolves came out into the road and followed +us a mile or more, but at quite a respectful distance. Their number +was too small to cause me any uneasiness, though my driver did not at +all like their presence, and the horses betrayed their alarm by their +evident desire to hurry along. One large black fellow tried to get up +some excitement, and howled most dismally, so I made my driver stop, +while I got out my heavy Smith & Wesson revolver. Taking a rest over +my left elbow, I let fly at his shoulder as he stood sideways to me, +and had the satisfaction of seeing him stumble forwards, and take to +the timber again with his friends at his heels. My driver told me that +a sledge had been attacked by wolves on this very road a couple of +winters before, and both horses and passengers eaten up, but that the +wolves had been rather scarce since. + +I had heard much about wolf-hunting as practised by the Russians of the +Steppes, viz., driving a sledge through the woods and over the plains +with a piece of meat dragging behind to attract the wolves, thus giving +the hunters in the sledge an opportunity to kill them. I had promised +myself to try this plan and have some sport in spite of the fact that +my driver told some blood-curdling tales of the fierceness of the +wolves when banded together and made desperate by hunger. + +[Illustration: WE ENTERED AN OPEN SLEDGE WITH THREE HORSES HARNESSED +ABREAST.] + +It was nearly night on the fifth day, before I arrived at my +destination, and, as may be imagined, I enjoyed a good night’s sleep, +as well as a much better supper than I had been having. + +The following morning I had to attend to the business that had brought +me so far. I soon discovered that only prompt action would save us +heavy losses, so I at once discharged the local manager, as well as two +collectors, whose honesty I had cause to suspect. This threw much work +on my hands, so I had very little time at my own disposal. However, I +managed to make the acquaintance of a Captain Komanoff, who owned a +small estate in the neighborhood, and who was devoted to sport in all +its branches. When I mentioned my desire for a wolf hunt to him, he +laughed and said he had been on several, and had generally had good +sport. He added that he would arrange to go with me whenever I should +be ready. + +In the course of ten days I had the rather complicated affairs pretty +well in hand, and as there had been a damp fall of snow, followed by +a frost, I concluded I could spare time for my hunt. Accordingly, I +notified Komanoff, and one clear, calm night we entered an open sledge, +that is, one without any top, and with three good horses harnessed +abreast, set out. + +I carried my shotgun, with a bounteous supply of cartridges loaded with +small buckshot, thinking it a better weapon than a rifle to use at +night, while Komanoff had an army carbine, carrying a large-sized ball, +with which, he told me, he had killed many a bear and wolf. Each of us +was also armed with a revolver and heavy hunting-knife. The driver whom +we had engaged for the night had a couple of pistols and a knife in his +belt, and as he was a plucky fellow and had hunted (or been hunted by) +wolves before, we were pretty well prepared for anything. Ivan (the +driver) took care that we also had a small basket of lunch and a bottle +of brandy, so we were quite in the humor to make a night of it. + +[Illustration: RUSSIAN WOLVES.] + +The snow was well crusted over, and easily bore our horses, thus making +a hard, level surface to travel over, also reducing the chances of +a capsize, which, if one were pursued, might give the sport a very +different ending from that intended. When well out from the village +and near the edge of the timber, the bait (in this case a quarter of a +calf, well rubbed with asafœtida and bound with straw) was thrown over +and allowed to drag at the end of a stout cord about forty feet behind +us. + +It was certainly a grand night, the moon being at the full, and the +reflection on the snow made objects almost as clearly discernable as +in the daytime. Far up on the northern horizon the Aurora Borealis +alternately flashed and paled, now throwing up bars and rays of violet +and gold, and again diffusing itself over the heavens in a soft but +ever-changeful glow. + +We had been riding slowly along for a couple of hours, when Komanoff +remarked: + +“I am afraid we shall have our trip for nothing; the wolves don’t seem +to be about to-night, and yet this wood is a famous place to look for +them.” + +“Don’t be uneasy, Captain,” said Ivan; “I am going to make a circle and +cross our track again, and I think you will have some shooting yet.” + +The words were hardly spoken before we heard, far off to our right, +the long-drawn, sepulchral howl of a wolf. He had evidently struck our +trail, and the veal smelled good, so he was yelling for his friends. +The team was at once stopped, while we listened and heard several more +howls in response. The horses heard them too, and at once showed their +fear by an attempt to get away, but Ivan had them well under control, +and only permitted them to walk, not wishing to blow them before the +beasts began to gather. + +“I see a wolf,” said Komanoff; “look away back there on our track, +right under the moon. Ah! and there are several more; I think they will +come along now.” + +Looking back, I saw several black objects coming out of the timber, +which we knew to be wolves, and the way they increased in size showed +they were following us at full speed. Every now and then several more +would dart out of the woods and join our pursuers; but not a sound was +heard, for wolves, unlike dogs, run mute. We now prepared to receive +them, and we removed our heavy outer coats so as to allow us a better +chance to shoot. The horses were allowed to trot, though it was all +Ivan could do to hold them, as they were pulling the sledge by their +bits, whilst they showed by their rolling eyes and quick backward +glances, their extreme terror. + +Our friends in the rear now numbered fully twenty, and to my surprise +they came rushing boldly on, as though we were no more to be feared +than some timid deer which they had cornered. + +When they had come within thirty yards I gave the foremost my right +barrel and instantly followed it with my left among the pack. I saw the +leader’s tail go up as he plunged forward on his head, and Komanoff +exclaimed that two more had dropped to my second shot. I fully expected +that the rest would scatter in all directions, but they did nothing of +the kind; they simply fell upon their defunct companions and tore them +to pieces almost before they had done kicking, and then immediately +resumed their pursuit of us. + +When Komanoff saw this he looked rather grave, and told Ivan it would +be well to head for home. “For,” said he, “when they eat each other in +that manner, it’s a sign that they are starving, and should a large +pack gather, we would have a poor chance of escape.” + +[Illustration: THEY FLUNG THEMSELVES ON THE OUTSIDE HORSE.] + +Accordingly, Ivan let his team go along at an easy gallop. The wolves +were again coming along in hot pursuit, and were almost in range, when +Ivan uttered a shout, and the horses made a sudden swerve, so that the +sledge was nearly upset. Komanoff and I were thrown in a heap in the +bottom, his gun being discharged by his fall, fortunately without doing +any damage. Quickly recovering ourselves, we saw that a fresh and large +pack of wolves had come out of the woods, and had nearly run into us, +causing the team to bolt at full speed. I fired right and left into the +thick of them (they were only a few yards away), while Komanoff began +to empty his revolver. + +This fusillade checked them for a few moments, till our original +pack had come up and joined them. Then, having devoured the slain, +they came for us again with redoubled vigor, their appetites having +evidently been sharpened by the taste of blood. As they closed upon us +we fired as rapidly as we could load, but without alarming them at all, +only a few stopping to bury the dead (in their stomachs), while the +main body tried to come up with our horses and sledge. + +Komanoff now cut our bait loose, for we had had all the fun we wanted. +As the wave of wolves, as one might say, rolled up over it, we fired +into the thick of it, and, as they were in a dense mass, must have done +considerable execution. But they were only delayed a moment, and on +they came again, their long, tireless gallop soon bringing them up with +us. + +It was indeed a fearful sight, and enough to shake the stoutest nerves. +There was that vast pursuing horde, crazy with hunger and wild with +lust of blood, dashing after us relentless as death. Their long black +bodies swept over the snow, the hindmost constantly leaping over the +foremost in their eagerness to press on, their eyes a-shine, with great +flecks of foam on breasts and sides, while the glimpses we caught of +their long white teeth showed us just what our fate would be should +there be an accident to team or vehicle. Komanoff turned to me and +said: “If they ever pass us and leap on the horses we are dead men. +Keep cool and shoot only those that try to pass on your side and I will +do the same on mine.” + +So we dashed on for a mile or so, keeping up a rapid fire, and +shooting a number of our dusky friends. They were thoroughly in +earnest, and made repeated attempts to get at our horses, but so far +we had been able to foil them, when suddenly a big gray fellow dashed +past on Komanoff’s side (who missed him), and flung himself on the +outside horse. Ivan shot at him as he did so, but the horse swerved +and stumbled, breaking both traces before he could recover himself. +The wolf fell as the ball struck him, but our team was now almost +unmanageable, and we were liable to be upset at any moment. Fortunately +Ivan kept his head, and succeeded in turning his horses towards a +deserted charcoal-burner’s hut, which he knew, and applied his whip +lustily, so we dashed forward with renewed speed. + +“I know where he is going,” said Komanoff, “but our chance is poor +unless the door be open; but it’s our only hope now, therefore be +ready to jump the instant I do. Take you the arms, while I help Ivan +with the horses.” + +A short distance farther and we sighted the cabin. The door was ajar, +and as we pulled up I tumbled out the guns, robes and lunch-basket, and +with a revolver in each hand faced our pursuers. + +Our sudden stop and the rapid crack of my pistols seemed to confuse the +pack, and checked them long enough to enable my companions to cut the +horses loose. They instantly dashed off through the forest, a portion +of our hungry assailants after them in hot pursuit, whilst we ran into +the house and barred the door in the faces of those that remained. In a +few seconds there was a perfect cloud of wolves round us, some of them +frantically digging at the walls, and others trying the door with their +teeth. Fortunately it was a stout one, or this story would never have +been written. + +After resting a little, we found a chink or two in the walls through +which we could shoot, and again opened fire. After we had knocked over +some twenty-five or thirty of them, the survivors drew off, though they +still continued to prowl round and fight over the bones of the dead, +for all we shot were instantly devoured by their companions. Meanwhile +we had contrived to start a fire, and having eaten our lunch we lit our +pipes and waited for day to break, thinking then our savage foes would +raise the siege. In this hope we were not disappointed, for as the +morning light became clear the wolves sneaked off one by one, casting, +however, many wistful glances in our direction. We gave them a few +parting shots by way of farewell, and as soon as the sun was fairly up +we came out of our house of refuge and started on our five-mile tramp +for home. + +We had not proceeded far, however, before we met a well-armed company +of men coming to look for us, as one of the horses had reached home, +and they judged from his condition, as well as the cut harness, that +we were in a scrape of some kind. We arrived home safely, and after a +good sleep were none the worse for our adventure. The other two horses, +however, never turned up, but their bones were found in the forest the +following spring not far from the hut, just where the poor animals had +been pulled down. + +This experience cured me of all desire for wolf hunting, and though +I spent several months at the post, and had plenty of sport, I never +cared to see a wolf again. + + + + +HERNE THE HUNTER. + +BY WILLIAM PERRY BROWN. + + +~Herne the Hunter~ was tall, brown and grizzled. The extreme +roundness of his shoulders indicated strength rather than infirmity, +while the severing of his great neck at a blow would have made a feudal +executioner famous in his craft. An imaginative man might have divined +something comely beneath the complex conjunction of lines and ridges +that made up his features, but it would have been more by suggestion, +however, than by any actual resemblance to beauty traceable thereon. +The imprint of strength, severity and endurance was intensified by an +open contempt of appearance; only to a subtle second-sight was revealed +aught nobler, sweeter and sadder, like faint stars twinkling behind +filmy clouds. + +Some town-bred Nimrod, with a misty Shakespearean memory, had added to +his former patronymic of “Old Herne” that of Windsor’s ghostly visitor. +The mountaineers saw the fitness of the title, and “Herne the Hunter” +became widely current. + +His place of abode was as ambiguous as his history, being somewhere +beyond the “Dismal,” amid the upper caves and gorges of the Nantahalah. +The Dismal was a weird, wild region of brake and laurel, walled in by +lonely mountains, with a gruesome outlet between two great cliffs, +that nearly met in mid-air hundreds of feet over a sepulchral cañon, +boulder-strewn, and thrashed by a sullen torrent, that led from a +dolorous labyrinth, gloomy at midday, and at night resonant with fierce +voices and sad sighings. + +Far down in Whippoorwill Cove, the mountaineers told savage tales of +adventure about the outskirts of the Dismal, yet, beyond trapping +round the edges or driving for deer, it was to a great extent a _terra +incognita_ to all, unless Herne the Hunter was excepted. + +“The devil air in the man, ’nd hopes him out’n places no hones’ soul +keers to pester hisse’f long of.” + +This was common opinion, though a few averred that “Old Herne ’nd the +devil wern’t so master thick atter all.” Said one: “Why, the dinged old +fool totes his Bible eroun’ ez riglar ez he do his huntin’-shirt. Onct +when the parson wuz holdin’ the big August meetin’ down ter Ebeneezer +Meetin’-house, he stepped in. The meetin’ was a gittin’ ez cold ez +hen’s feet, ’nd everybody a lookin’ at Herne the Hunter, when down he +draps onto his knees, ’nd holdin’ on by his rifle he ’gun ter pray +like a house afire. Wal, he prayed ’nd he prayed, ’twel the people, +arter thur skeer wuz over, ’gun ter pray ’nd shout too, ’nd fust they +all knowed, the front bench wuz plum full of mou’ners. Wal, they hed a +hog-killin’ time fur a while, ’nd all sot on by Herne the Hunter, but +when they quieted down ’nd begun ter luk fer him--by jing!--he wern’t +thar. Nobody hed seed him get erway, ’nd that set ’em ter thinkin’, ’nd +the yupshot wuz they hed the bes’ meetin’ old Ebeneezer hed seed in +many a year.” + +Once a belated hunter discovered, when the fog came down, that he was +lost amid the upper gorges of the Nantahalahs. While searching for some +cranny wherein to pass the night, he heard a voice seemingly in mid-air +before him, far out over an abyss of seething vapor which he feared +concealed a portion of the dreaded Dismal. Memories of Herne the Hunter +crowded upon him, and he strove to retrace his steps, but fell into a +trail that led him to a cave which seemed to bar his further way. The +voice came nearer; his blood chilled as he distinguished imprecations, +prayers and entreaties chaotically mingled, and all the while +approaching him. He fled into the cave, and peering thence, beheld a +shadowy form loom through the mist, gesticulating as it came. + +A whiff blew aside shreds of the fog, and he saw Herne the Hunter +on the verge of a dizzy cliff, shaking his long rifle, his hair +disheveled, his eyes dry and fiery, and his huge frame convulsed by the +emotions that dominated him. The very fury and pathos of his passion +were terrifying, and the watcher shrank back as old Herne, suddenly +dropping his rifle, clutched at the empty air, then paused dejectedly. + +“Always thus!” he said, in a tone of deep melancholy. “Divine in +form--transfigured--beautiful--oh, so beautiful!--yet ever with the +same accursed face. I have prayed over these visitations. I have +sought in God’s word that confirmation of my hope which should yet +save me from despair; but, when rising from my supplications, the +blest vision confronts me--the curse is ever there--thwarting its +loveliness--reminding me of what was, but will never be again.” + +He drew a tattered Bible from his bosom and searched it intently. +He was a sight at once forbidding and piteous, as he stood with +wind-fluttered garments, his foot upon the edge of a frightful +precipice, his head bent over the book as though devouring with his +eyes some sacred antidote against the potency of his sorrow. Then he +looked up, and the Bible fell from his hands. His eyes became fixed; he +again clutched at the air, then fell back with a despairing gesture, +averting his face the while. + +“Out of my sight!” he cried. “Your eyes are lightning, and your smile +is death. I will have no more of you--no more! And yet--O God! O +God!--what dare I--what can I do without you?” + +He staggered back and made directly for the cavern. The watcher shrank +back, while Herne the Hunter brushed blindly by, leaving Bible and +rifle on the rock without. Then the wanderer, slipping out, fled down +the narrow trail as though there were less peril from the dizzy cliffs +around than in the society of the strange man whose fancies peopled +these solitudes with such soul-harrowing phantoms. + +Thus for years Herne the Hunter had been a mystery, a fear, and a +fascination to the mountaineers; recoiling from men, abhorring women, +rebuffing curiosity, yet at times strangely tender, sad, and ever +morbidly religious. He clung to his Bible as his last earthly refuge +from his darker self, and to the aspirations it engendered as a bane to +the fatalistic stirrings within him. + +He was a mighty hunter and lived upon the proceeds of his skill. Once +or twice a year he would appear at some mountain store, fling down +a package of skins, and demand its worth in powder and lead. The +jean-clad loungers would regard him askance, few venturing to idly +speak with him, and none repeating the experiment. His mien daunted the +boldest. If women were there he would stand aloof until they left; on +meeting them in the road he would sternly avert his eyes as though from +a distasteful presence. One day the wife of a storekeeper, waiting on +him in her husband’s absence, ventured to say, while wrapping up his +purchases: + +“I’ve all’ays wonnered, Mr. Herne, what makes ye wanter git outen the +wimmen folks’ way? Mos’ men likes ter have ’em eroun’.” + +Herne the Hunter frowned heavily, but made no reply. + +“I’m shore, if ye had a good wife long with ye way up thar whur ye +live, she’d make ye a leetle more like a man ’nd less like a--a--” she +hesitated over a term which might censure yet not give offense. + +“Like a beast you would say.” He exclaimed then with vehemence: “Were +the necks of all women in one, and had I my hands on it, I’d strangle +them all, though hell were their portion thereafter.” + +He made a gesture as of throttling a giant, snatched his bundle from +the woman’s hand and took himself off up the road with long strides. + + * * * * * + +That night was a stormy one. Herne the Hunter was covering the last +ten miles between him and the Dismal in a pelting rain. The incident +at the store, trivial as it was, had set his blood aflame. He prayed +and fought against himself, oblivious of the elements and the darkness, +sheltering his powder beneath his shirt of skins where his Bible lay +secure. In his ears was the roar of wind and the groans of the tortured +forest. Dark ravines yawned beside him, out of which the wolf howled +and the mountain owl laughed; and once came a scream like a child, yet +stronger and more prolonged. He knew the panther’s voice, yet he heeded +nothing. + +At last another cry, unmistakably human, rose nearer by. Then he +paused, like a hound over a fresher scent, until it was repeated. He +made his way around a shoulder of the mountain, and aided by the gray +light of a cloud-hidden moon, approached the figures of a woman, a boy +and a horse, all three dripping and motionless. + +“Thank God! we will not die here, after all,” exclaimed the female, as +Herne the Hunter grimly regarded them. “Oh, sir, we have missed the +way. This boy was guiding me to the survey camp of Captain Renfro, my +husband, on the upper Swananoa. He has sprained his foot, and we have +been lost for hours. Can you take us to a place of shelter? I will pay +you well--” + +“I hear a voice from the pit,” said Herne, fiercely. “It is the way +with your sex. You think, though you sink the world, that with money +you can scale Heaven. Stay here--rot--starve--perish--what care I!” + +After this amazing outburst he turned away, but her terror of the night +overbore her fear of this strange repulse, and she grasped his arm. He +shook himself free, though the thrill accompanying her clasp staggered +him. For years no woman’s hand had touched him; but at this rebuff she +sank down, crying brokenly: + +“What shall I do? I should not have started. They warned me below, but +I thought the boy knew the way. Oh, sir! if you have a heart, do not +leave us here.” + +“A heart!” he cried. “What’s that? A piece of flesh that breeds endless +woes in bosoms such as yours. All men’s should be of stone--as mine +is now!” He paused, then said abruptly; “Up with you and follow me. I +neither pity nor sympathize; but for the sake of her who bore me, I +will give you such shelter as I have.” + +He picked up the boy, who, knowing him, had sat stupefied with fear, +and bade the woman follow him. + +“But the horse?” she said, hesitating. + +“Leave it,” he replied. “The brute is the best among you, but whither +we go no horse may follow.” + +He turned, taking up the boy in his arms, and she dumbly followed him, +trembling, faint, yet nerved by her fears to unusual exertion. So rapid +was his gait, encumbered though he was, that she kept him in view +with difficulty. Through the gloom she could divine the perils that +environed their ever upward way. The grinding of stricken trees, the +brawl of swollen waters harrowed her nerves not less than the partial +gleams of unmeasured heights and depths revealed by the lightning. +A sense of helplessness exaggerated these terrors among the unknown +possibilities surrounding her. + +It seemed as though they would never stop again. Her limbs trembled, +her heart thumped suffocatingly, yet their guide gave no heed, but +pressed on as though no shivering woman pantingly dogged his steps. +They traveled thus for several miles. She felt herself giving way +totally when, on looking up once more, she saw that the hunter had +vanished. + +“Where am I?” she cried, and a voice, issuing seemingly out of the +mountain-side, bade her come on. Her hands struck a wall of rock; on +her right a precipice yawned; so, groping toward the left, she felt as +she advanced that she was leaving the outer air; the wind and rain no +longer beat upon her, yet the darkness was intense. + +She heard the voice of the boy calling upon her to keep near. Into the +bowels of the mountains she felt her way until a gleam of light shone +ahead. She hastened forward round a shoulder of rock into a roomy +aperture branching from the main cavern. The boy lay upon a pallet +of skins, while Herne the Hunter fixed the flaring pine-knot he had +lighted into a crevice of the rock. Then he started a fire, drew out +of another crevice some cold cooked meat and filled a gourd with water +from a spring that trickled out at one end of the cave. + +“Eat,” he said, waving his hand. “Eat--that ye may not die. The more +unfit to live, the less prepared for death. Eat!” + +With that he turned away and busied himself in bathing and bandaging +the boy’s foot, which, though not severely sprained, was for the time +quite painful. Mrs. Renfro now threw back the hood of her waterproof +and laid the cloak aside. Even old Herne--women hater that he +was--could not have found fault with the matronly beauty of her face, +unless with its expression of self-satisfied worldliness, as of one +who judged others and herself solely by conventional standards, shaped +largely by flattery and conceit. + +She was hungry--her fears were somewhat allayed, and though rather +disgusted at such coarse diet, ate and drank with some relish. +Meanwhile, Herne the Hunter turned from the boy for something, and +beheld her face for the first time. A water-gourd fell from his hands, +his eyes dilated, and he crouched as he gazed like a panther before +its unsuspecting prey. Every fibre of his frame quivered, and drops of +cold sweat stood out upon his forehead. The boy saw with renewed fear +this new phase of old Herne’s dreaded idiosyncrasies. Mrs. Renfro at +length raised her eyes and beheld him thus. Instantly he placed his +hands before his face, and abruptly left the cavern. Alarmed at his +appearance, she ran toward the boy, exclaiming: + +“What _can_ be the matter with him? Do you know him?” + +“I knows more of him ’n I wants ter,” replied the lad. “Oh, marm, +that’s old Herne, ’nd we uns air the fust ones ez hev be’n in hyar whar +he stays. I ganny! I thort shore he’d hev yeaten ye up.” + +“Well, but who is he?” + +“Well, they do say ez the devil yowns him, not but what he air powerful +’ligyus. No one knows much ’bouten him, ’cep’n’ he’s all’ays a +projeckin’ eround the Dismal whar no one yelse wants ter be.” + +“Has he been here long?” + +“Yurs ’nd yurs, they say.” Tommy shook his head as though unable to +measure the years during which Herne the Hunter had been acquiring his +present unsavory reputation, but solved the riddle by exclaiming: “I +reckon he hev all’ays be’n that-a-way.” + +An hour or more passed. Tommy fell asleep, while the lady sat musing by +his side. She did not feel like sleeping, though much fatigued. Finally +she heard a deep sigh behind her, and turning saw the object of her +fears regarding her sombrely. The sight of her face appeared to shock +him, for he turned half away as he said: + +“You have eaten the food that is the curse of life, in that it sustains +it. Yet such we are. Sleep, therefore, for you have weary miles to go, +ere you can reach the Swananoa.” + +There was an indescribable sadness in his tone that touched her, and +she regarded him curiously. + +“Who are you,” she asked, “and why do you choose to live in such a +place as this?” + +“Ask naught of me,” he said, with an energy he seemed unable to +repress. “Ask rather of yourself who am I and how came I--thus.” + +He struck himself upon the breast, and without awaiting an answer again +abruptly left the cave. She sat there wondering, trying to weave into +definite shape certain vague impressions suggested by his presence, +until weariness overcame her and she slept. + +Hours after, Herne the Hunter reentered the cave, bearing a torch. +His garments were wet, the rain-drops clung to his hair, and his face +was more haggard than ever. He advanced towards the slumbering woman +softly, and stood over her, gazing mournfully upon her, while large +tears rolled down his cheeks. Then his expression changed to one that +was stern and vindictive. His hand nervously toyed with the knife in +his belt. Milder thoughts again seemed to sway him, and his features +worked twitchingly. + +“I cannot, I cannot,” he whispered to himself. “The tears I thought +forever banished from these eyes return at this sight. There has never +been another who could so move me. Though thou hast been my curse, and +art yet my hell--I cannot do it. Come! protector of my soul; stand +thou between me and all murderous thoughts!” + +He drew his Bible from his bosom, kissed it convulsively, then held it +as though to guard her from himself, and drawing backward slowly, he +again fled into the storm and darkness without. + + * * * * * + +The gray light of morning rose over the Dismal, though within the cave +the gloom still reigned supreme, when Herne the Hunter again stood at +the entrance holding a flaring light. Then he said aloud: + +“Wake, you that sleep under the shadow of death! Wake, eat, and--pass +on!” + +Mrs. Renfro aroused herself. The boy, however, slept on. Herne fixed +his torch in the wall, and replenished the fire. Then he withdrew, +apparently to give the lady privacy in making her toilet. + +She was stiff in limb and depressed in mind. After washing at the +spring, she wandered listlessly about the cave, surveying old Herne’s +scanty store of comforts. Suddenly she paused before a faded picture, +framed in long, withered moss, that clung to an abutment of the rock. +It was that of a girl, fair, slender and ethereal. There was a wealth +of hair, large eyes, and features so faultless that the witching sense +of self-satisfaction permeating them, added to rather than marred their +loveliness. + +The lady--glancing indifferently--suddenly felt a thrill and a +pain. A deadly sense of recognition nearly overcame her, as this +memento--confronting her like a resurrected chapter of the past--made +clear the hitherto inexplicable behavior of their host. She recovered, +and looked upon it tenderly, then shook her head gently and sighed. + +“You cannot recognize it!” said a deep voice behind her. “You dare not! +For the sake of your conscience--your hope in heaven--your fear of +hell--you dare not recognize and look upon me!” + +She did not look round, though she knew that Herne the Hunter stood +frowning behind, but trembled in silence as he went on with increasing +energy: + +“What does that face remind you of? See you aught beneath that beauty +but treachery without pity, duplicity without shame? Lo! the pity and +the shame you should have felt have recoiled upon me--me, who alone +have suffered.” He broke off abruptly, as though choked by emotion. +She dared not face him; she felt incapable of a reply. After a pause, +he resumed, passionately: “Oh! Alice, Alice! The dead rest, yet the +living dead can only endure. Amid these crags, and throughout the +solitude of years, I have fought and refought the same old battle; but +with each victory it returns upon me, strengthened by defeat, while +with me all grows weaker but the remorselessness of memory and the +capacity for pain.” + +She still stood, with bowed head, shivering as though his words were +blows. + +“Have you nothing to say?” he asked. “Does that picture of your own +youth recall no vanished tenderness for one who--self-outcast of +men--fell to that pass through you?” + +“I have a husband,” she murmured, almost in a whisper. + +“Aye, and because of that husband I have no wife--no wife--no wife!” +His wailing repetition seemed absolutely heartbroken; but sternly +he continued: “You have told me where he is. I say to you--hide +him--hide him from me! Even this”--he struck his bosom with his Bible +feverishly--“may not save him. I have prayed and wrought, but it is as +nothing--nothing--when I think--when I remember. Therefore, hide him +from me--lest I slay him--” + +“You would not--you dare not harm him!” She faced him now, a splendid +picture of an aroused wife and mother. “He is not to blame--he knew you +not--he has been good to me--and--and--I love him.” + +He shrank from the last words as though from a blow, and stood +cowering. Then he hissed out: + +“Let me not find him. Hide him--hide him!” + +Tommy here awoke with a yawn, and announced that his foot was about +well. Herne, closing his lips, busied himself about preparing +breakfast, which cheerless meal was eaten in silence. When they finally +emerged from the cave the sun was peeping into the Dismal below them; +bright gleams chased the dark shadows down the cliffs, and the morning +mists were melting. The storm was over; there was a twitter of birds, +the tinkle of an overflowing burn, and a squirrel’s bark emphasizing +the freshness of the morn. The pure air entered the lips like wine, and +Mrs. Renfro felt her depression roll off as they retraced the devious +trail of the night before. + +They found the lady’s horse standing dejectedly near where he had +been left. The fog, in vast rolls, was climbing out of the Dismal, +disclosing dark masses of forest below. The flavor of pine and balsam +slept beneath the trees, every grass blade was diamond-strewn, and +every sound vivified by the sense of mighty walls and unsounded depths. + +After Mrs. Renfro had mounted, Herne the Hunter swept an arm around. +The scene was savage and sombre, despite the sunlight. The intensity of +the solitude about them dragged upon the mind like a weight. + +“Behold,” he said sadly, “this is my world. I can tolerate no other.” + +She inwardly shuddered; then a wave of old associations swept over her +mind. Beneath the austerity of the man, beyond his selfish nurture of +affliction, she--for the moment--remembered him as he once was, homely, +kindly, enthusiastic and true. Had _she_ indeed changed him to this? +Or was it not rather the imperativeness of a passion, unable to endure +or forget her preference of another? Whatever the cause, her heart now +ached for him, though she feared him. + +“Come with us,” she said. “You were not made to live thus.” + +“I cannot--I dare not. It will take months to undo the misery of this +meeting.” + +“My husband--” + +“Do not name him!” he cried fiercely; then abruptly lowering his tone, +he said, with infinite sadness: “Ask me no more. Yonder, by that white +cliff, lies the Swananoa trail you missed yesterday. The kindest thing +you can do is to forget that you have seen me. Farewell!” + +He turned away and swung himself down the mountain-side into the +Dismal. She saw the rolling mists close over him, and remained +motionless in a reverie so deep that the boy spoke twice to her before +she turned her horse’s head and followed him. + + * * * * * + +Above the surveyor’s camp lay the Swananoa Gap, a gloomy, precipitous +gorge through which the river lashed itself into milder reaches below. +Mrs. Renfro found her husband absent. With a single assistant he had +started for the upper defiles, intending to be gone several days. They +told her that he would endeavor to secure the services of Herne the +Hunter as a guide, as one knowing more of that wilderness than any one +else. + +Here was fresh food for wifely alarm. Herne had never met her husband, +yet the latter’s name would make known his relationship to herself. +She shuddered over the possibilities that might result from their +sojourn together--far from aid--in those wild mountains, and made +herself wretched for a week in consequence. + +Meanwhile the transient fine weather passed; the rains once more +descended, and the peaks of Nantahalah were invisible for days amid a +whirl of vapor. The boom of the river, the grinding of forest limbs, +the shriek of the wind, made life unusually dreary at the camp. She lay +awake one night when the elements were apparently doing their worst. +Her husband was still absent--perhaps alone with a possible maniac, +raving over the memory of fancied wrongs. + +Finally another sound mingled with and at last overmastered all +others--something between a crash and a roar, interblended with +sullen jars and grindings. Near and nearer it came. She sprang to the +tent-floor and found her feet in the water. The darkness was intense. +What could be the matter? Fear overcame her resolution and she shrieked +aloud. + +A man bearing a lantern burst into the tent with a hoarse cry. Its +gleams showed her Herne the Hunter, drenched, draggled, a ghastly cut +across his face, with the blood streaming down, his long hair flying, +and in his eyes a fierce flame. + +“I feared I would not find you,” he shouted, for the roar without was +now appalling. “It is a cloud-burst above. In five minutes this hollow +will be fathoms deep. The tents lower down are already gone. Come!” + +He had seized and was bearing her out. + +“Save--alarm the others!” she cried. + +“You first--Alice.” + +In that dread moment she detected the hopelessness with which he called +her thus, as though such recognition was wrung from his lips by the +pain he hugged, even while it rended him. + +“My husband?” she gasped, growing faint over the thought of his +possible peril--or death. + +“Safe,” he hissed through his clenched teeth, for his exertions were +tremendous. With a fierce flap the tent was swept away as they left +it. About his knees the waters swirled, while limbs and other floating +débris swept furiously by. + +What seemed to her minutes--though really seconds--passed amid a +terrific jumble of sounds, while the rain fell in sheets. It seemed as +though the invisible mountains were dissolving. They were, however, +slowly rising above the floods. She heard Herne’s hard breathing, +and felt his wild heart-throbs as he held her close. Something heavy +struck them, or rather him, for he shielded her. One of his arms fell +limp, and he groaned heavily. Then she swooned away, with a fleeting +sensation of being grasped by some one else. + +Later, when she revived, there was a great hush in the air. Below, the +river gently brawled; there was a misty darkness around, and the gleam +of a lantern held before a dear and familiar form. + +“Husband--is it you?” she murmured. + +“Yes, yes,” said Captain Renfro, “I thought I had lost you. You owe +your life to Herne the Hunter. In fact, but for him I would have been +overwhelmed myself.” + +“Where is he?” she asked feebly. + +“The men are searching for him. Just as one of them got hold of you, he +fell back--something must have struck him, and the flood swept him off. +I tell you, Alice, that man--crazy or not--is a hero. We were on our +way down and had camped above the Gap, when the cloud-burst came. We +knew you all would be overwhelmed before we could get round here by the +trail; so what does Herne do but send us on horseback by land, while +he scoots down that cañon in a canoe--little better than an eggshell. +Risked his life in that awful place to get here in time. I insisted on +going with him at first.” + +“Just like you, George,” said the wife fondly, though in her mind’s eye +came a vision of Herne the Hunter battling with that Niagara to save +and unite the two, through whom his own life had been made a burden. +She sighed and clasped her husband’s hand, while he resumed: + +“I was a fool, I expect, for the canoe would have swamped under both +of us. He knew this, and ordered me off with a look I did not like; +there was madness in it. Well, we hurried round by the trail with one +lantern; Herne took the other. When we got here, you were apparently +dead, Herne and two of the men swept off--the camp gone from below, and +so on.” + +A cry was now heard. Several men hastened down, and soon lights were +seen returning. Four of them bore Herne the Hunter. One arm and a leg +were broken, and his skull crushed in; yet the wonderful vitality of +the man had kept him alive and sensible. + +“We found him clinging to a sapling,” said one. “But he’s about +gone--poor fellow!” + +Poor fellow, indeed! Mrs. Renfro felt the lumps rise in her throat as +she gazed upon that wreck, and thought. Presently Herne opened his +eyes--already filling with the death-mist--and his gaze fell upon her +face. + +“Alice,” he whispered, “my troubles--are over. This”--he tugged at +something in his bosom with his uninjured arm, when some one drew +forth his Bible, drenched and torn--“ this saved me. I could have +killed him--” he glanced at Renfro, who amid his pity now wondered. “I +could--but--I saved you. And--now--Jesus--have mercy--” + +These were his last words, for in another minute Herne the Hunter was a +thing of the past, and a weeping woman bent over him. After that there +was silence for a while. Then the wife said to her husband, while the +others removed the dead man: + +“It was his misfortune, not my fault, that he loved me. Has he not made +amends?” + +And the husband, with his hands clasped in hers, could find no other +heart than to say: + +“Aye--most nobly!” + +[Illustration] + + + + +AN OUTING. + + + Down country lanes, + O’er treeless plains, + And seas of prairie grasses, + I wheel along, + With cheers and song + To every breeze that passes. + + I leave the town, + Walls bare and brown, + The bustling, sordid masses-- + The business boom + Of counting-room, + The dandies, dudes, and asses. + + Awheel, awheel, + The miles I reel, + Afar from heated highways, + And odors greet + Of verdure sweet, + Along the country by-ways. + + By fields of grain, + O’er daisy plain, + Adown the pretty valley; + By drowsy kine, + By cot and vine, + So joyfully I sally. + + O, healthful steed! + My only creed, + Beyond dissent or doubting, + Is Nature’s way, + In holiday + Upon a summer outing. + + _Jay Gee._ + + + + +MEMORIES OF YACHT CRUISES. + +BY THE LATE CAPTAIN R. F. COFFIN. + + +No. IV. + +Despite the charms of the cruise on an individual yacht, much is to be +said in favor of the cruise in squadron. The cruise in the solitary +craft may be very pleasant at first, but it is apt to become monotonous +after a few days, unless the party on board has been most happily +selected. While _en route_ from port to port every craft bound in the +same direction is at once made a contestant in an improvised race, and +unless she, too, is a yacht, she is too easily disposed of. As has been +often proven, the slowest of the yachts is more than a match for the +fastest coasting vessel. Probably the fastest vessels encountered will +be the fishing schooners, and some of these nowadays sport nearly as +much fancy canvas as the yachts do. They are finely modeled craft, and +generally sail, as the yacht does, in good ballast trim. As a matter +of course, they are admirably handled, and occasionally the tedium of +the individual cruise is enlivened by a more or less spirited trial of +speed with a well-appointed fishing schooner. Always, however, so far +as my experience goes, these trials end in favor of the pleasure craft, +none of which can properly be considered slow, except by comparison +with some other yacht. Nothing proves more conclusively that yachting +means racing than the fact that the chief interest and pleasure of +the individual cruise arise from these chance contests with vessels +encountered _en route_. + +Now, in the squadron cruise all this is furnished to hand, and as +part of the regular order of things. Each passage between ports is a +race, and each yacht selects her class competitors, and cares for the +movement of no others in the fleet. Very much more now than formerly, +care is taken to have these races fair, and a matter of official +record. In some instances the New York Yacht Club has hired a tug to +accompany the yachts for the whole cruise, and from her the time is +taken accurately at the start and finish of each day’s sail. Commodore +Gerry (as noted in the September ~Outing~) has the regatta +committee on the _Electra_, and makes a specialty of having a correct +record of the daily runs kept, making manifold copies of the result, +and sending a copy to each yacht almost as soon as her anchor is down. +This increases the interest in the cruise immensely. The New York, +however, is the only club, except, of course, the American, which has +a steam yacht for its flagship, and certainly there are few commodores +who would take the trouble that Mr. Gerry does. I have no hesitation +in saying that he is, in this respect, the best commodore that the old +club has ever had. + +In the Eastern, the Atlantic, the Seawanhaka, and other clubs which +cruise in squadron, this matter of accuracy in timing is receiving +more and more attention each year. In the printed orders of the +commodore it is expressly provided that the first yacht to arrive at +a designated point shall note her own time, and then the times of all +that follow, and shall report the same to the commodore. The start is +not entirely fair, as it is made by general signal, and some yachts +must of necessity, where the squadron is large, be in a better position +than others. It is, however, the much-vaunted “one-gun start,” so +strenuously advocated--for no reason that I can think of except that +it is the style common in Great Britain. The British clubs, however, +rarely start a large fleet, and where there are but five or six yachts, +comparatively little trouble need be feared from permitting them all +to crowd upon the line at once; while if there were thirty, forty, +or more, vessels, confusion, and perhaps collision, would certainly +result. After all, what can be fairer than the present American method +of timing each yacht to a second at start and finish? + +It is the continuous series of races, then, which gives the squadron +cruise a charm lacking in all other forms of yachting; but it also has +other attractions. The interchange of visits between the guests on the +different yachts, the jolly dinners, the pleasant shore parties--all +these make the cruise exceedingly pleasant, and no club whose fleet +is at all respectable should fail to encourage it. None, of course, +can present such a fleet of fine vessels as the New York, Atlantic and +Eastern clubs; but much enjoyment may be had, even if the fleet is not +so imposing. The Knickerbocker Club can in numbers equal any, and its +short cruises--generally in the early part of July--have been very +enjoyable. The cruise of the Seawanhaka Corinthian Club this year was +a great success, although its fleet was not large. The Larchmont Yacht +Club has never yet found itself in a position to essay the cruise, but +as in all other respects it has placed itself in the front rank, it may +well be expected to in the future. + +The difficulty where the yacht is small is to accommodate the guests. +Roughing it is all very well in theory, but in practice it is +unsatisfactory. Men on a pleasure trip do not care to rough it. There +is also a difficulty in the small craft to find stowage for water and +ice, two prime necessities; but if the runs are made short, so that +the supply may be replenished daily, the small craft can manage very +well, and I think in the future the annual cruise will become as much a +regular feature of the yacht club programme as is the annual regatta. + +If I am not mistaken, the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club had its +first cruise in July, 1879, and it _was_ a Corinthian one, only a few +professionals being allowed on the yachts. Well, it’s all right for the +guests on board a yacht to take a pull at sheets or halliards once in +a while, but as for doing all the deck duty, turning out and washing +down the decks, cleaning the bright work, and making and taking in sail +continuously all day long, it is quite absurd. But this has to be done, +if the wind be paltry and baffling. But as for calling it amusement, I +think that when turning a grindstone becomes a pleasurable occupation, +then strict Corinthian yachting will be a pastime, and not until then. + +The Corinthian Club, on this its first cruise, assembled at Glen Cove, +and sailed thence to Black Rock, with a fleet composed of one schooner +and four sloops; among them the _Schemer_, then owned by Mr. C. S. +Lee, who was lost last March in the yawl _Cythera_. He was a very +intelligent gentleman, and one of the most skillful of the yachting men +of the time. + +Mr. Lee was one of the earliest converts to the cutter theory, and in +1881 he had the cutter _Oriva_ built from a design by John Harvey, who +at that time was in business in London. Her advent not only introduced +a new style in design, but also in workmanship, she being by all odds +the best constructed yacht ever built in this country. She was not as +narrow as the ordinary British cutter of her length at that time, and +would have been still better had she been given another foot of beam. +At that time, however, there was a mistaken notion on the part of those +most violently affected by the “cutter craze,” as it was called, that +the British yachts sailed fast because they were narrow. People wholly +ignored the fact that each builder made his yacht as broad as possible +under the rule, and as soon as it was relaxed the _Thistle_ was +produced, by far the most speedy cutter yet turned out from a British +yard. I think that, should a 90-foot boat be designed as a challenger +for the _America’s_ Cup, the _Thistle’s_ proportion of beam to length +will probably be exceeded in her, and that her success will be greater +than that of the Scotch challenger. + +At the time of this first cruise of the Seawanhaka Club, Mr. Samuel +J. Colgate, of the schooner _Idler_, was the commodore, but the fleet +on this cruise was under the command of its vice-commodore, Oliver E. +Cromwell, and the schooner _Eddie_ was the flagship. + +From Black Rock the fleet sailed to New London. At that port it was +joined by the _Muriel_, another of the Harvey cutters built in this +country, and which antedated the _Oriva_ by some three years. The first +spar plan of this cutter was entirely too small, and her performance +for her two first seasons only confirmed the centreboard men in their +opinions as to the superiority of the broad and shallow model. + +The Seawanhaka fleet went on to Newport, and later to New Bedford, +where the cruise practically ended, the flagship having carried away +her foremast on the passage from Newport. + +The cruise of the Seawanhaka Club in 1880 was under the command of +Commodore W. A. W. Stewart, who recently owned the yawl _Cythera_, +which he had purchased in England, and who was lost in her. His loss, +like that of Mr. Lee, who accompanied him as his friend and guest, +was most serious to the yachting interests of this city, and one from +which the Corinthian Club, of which these two gentlemen were the chief +supports, will hardly recover. + +The fleet of the club on this cruise was larger than in the previous +year. It had as schooners the _Wanderer_, Mr. James Stillman, and the +_Clytie_, Mr. Anson Phelps Stokes; and there were nine sloops, the +_Regina_ carrying the pennant of the commodore. The fleet assembled at +Glen Cove, July 13, and sailed thence to Morris Cove, at the entrance +to the harbor of New Haven, a most inconvenient stopping-place. It +is four miles from the city, has an inconvenient landing-place, and +except in the daytime there is no regular communication with the city. +No supplies of any kind can be obtained there. Still it is handy for a +fleet of small yachts bound from Glen Cove, being about half way to New +London. + +At this latter port, whither the fleet next proceeded, it remained +for a day, and had a sweepstake race between three of its sloops, for +the delectation of the lady guests at the Pequot House, with whom, of +course, the Corinthian “tars” were great favorites. This harbor will +always be a favorite stopping-place for yachts. From the first of June +until the first of October there is hardly a day that one or more of +the pleasure fleet may not be seen at anchor off the Pequot House, or +off the Edgecombe House, on the opposite side of the harbor. There +is good water clear up to the city, for the largest yachts; supplies +of all kinds are as abundant and cheap as in this city. There are +facilities for hauling out, and several well-appointed shipyards where +any kind of work on hull, rigging, spars or sails can be well done, at +a fair price. In the afternoon the wind as a general thing is fair for +a run up to the city, and in the early morning there is usually, during +the summer months, a light air from the northward to bring the yachts +back to the anchorage at the mouth of the harbor. + +The fleet this year, as in that previous, went on to New Bedford, where +some racing had been arranged. Stormy weather prevented this, and a +return to Newport was made, where the cruise ended. + +The Atlantic Yacht Club, this year, had a fine muster of yachts, +excelling, I think, that of any previous cruise. It left Whitestone +July 31, under command of Commodore L. A. Fish, the present owner of +the _Grayling_, with seven schooners and seventeen sloops. Its flagship +was the schooner _Agnes_, the same which capsized at her anchor, with +sails furled, while lying off Staten Island, in a hard squall last +June. Her mishap has always been a mystery to me, for although an +extremely shallow vessel, she had great initial stability. The squall +must have been extremely heavy. + +The fleet pursued its usual route from Whitestone to Black Rock, +where it remained over Sunday, and started the next day for New +London. Here, on Monday evening, a ball in its honor was given at the +Edgecombe House, and then, varying the ordinary route, it went to +Block Island. Two or three attempts have been made by different yacht +clubs to utilize Block Island as a stopping-place, but never with any +satisfactory result. The anchorage is bad, and the harbor is but an +apology for such. However, the Atlantic club desired to skip Newport +if it were possible. The passage to New Bedford from Block Island was +rather rough, and a stormy time there spoiled the hospitable intentions +of the New Bedford Yacht Club in its behalf. There is no port at which +the cruising yachtsman tarries, where he receives a warmer welcome than +at the city of New Bedford. It is a hard place to emigrate from. As a +harbor, however, it has its disadvantages; the entrance is narrow, and, +with the wind blowing in, large and sluggishly-working yachts have to +tow out. + +The Atlantic club went on to Cottage City and had a great time there. +Mr. Joseph Spinney entertained the members and guests at his cottage, +and there were fireworks on the yachts, etc. Next day the fleet sailed +for Newport. This plan of taking Newport in on the return to the +westward is an excellent one, and the beat back from Cottage City is +a better test of the qualities of the yachts than all the previous +runs have been. From Newport the club ran over to Greenport, where it +disbanded. It was by far the most successful cruise which the club has +ever had, and I doubt whether it has ever been improved upon; much of +this, of course, being due to its excellent commodore. Whatever Mr. +Fish undertakes he accomplishes, as a rule, successfully. + +The fleets of the New York and Eastern yacht clubs were joined in the +cruise of 1880, the Eastern club coming west as far as New London, +where it had to wait one day longer than had been expected on account +of the tardy movement of the New York fleet. They had been delayed by +calm weather on the passage from Glen Cove. Together, the two fleets +went over to Shelter Island, making a magnificent display in front +of the Manhansett House. From there, the combined squadrons sailed +to Newport and thence to New Bedford, where there was a set race in +which seven schooners and eleven sloops were started. The schooner +_Halcyon_, then owned by General Paine, made the best time over the +course, but the _Peerless_ captured the prize from her on allowance of +time. The _Halcyon_ was originally a New York yacht and only of fair +average speed; but after General Paine had purchased her, that skillful +yachtsman experimented with her to such good purpose that he made her +the fastest light-weather schooner in the fleets. For years, when the +New York yachts raced in Eastern waters, she regularly captured the +prizes. + +The _Peerless_, which won on this occasion on allowance of time, was +originally rigged as a sloop, having been built by the Poillons, in +Brooklyn, for Mr. J. Rogers Maxwell, the present owner of the sloop +_Shamrock_. She did not please the leading experts of the time, one +of whom christened her “the Bull Pup.” Mr. Maxwell, however, was not +discouraged, and he finally made of her a fairly fast sloop. He then +lengthened her and altered her rig to that of a schooner, and as such +made her the fastest second-class schooner in America. At the time of +this race she belonged to the New Bedford Yacht Club, having been sold +to Vice-Commodore Hathaway of that club. The two squadrons proceeded +together to Vineyard Haven, where, after the usual interchange of +courtesies, the Eastern club parted company, going on to Boston, while +the New York club returned to Newport, where it disbanded, having been +kept together for ten days. + +This was the year that the steel cutter _Vanduara_ came out in English +waters, and created such a _furore_. The New York yachtsmen on their +return from this cruise were greeted by rumors from across the Atlantic +that another bid was about to be made for the _America’s_ Cup. This +rumor did not trouble them much, but in the light of subsequent events, +it is tolerably certain that if the _Vanduara_ had come in 1881, as +threatened, she would have carried the cup back to England in her +locker. Fortunately, or otherwise--for I do not know that it would be +a misfortune if the cup was fairly captured by a foreign club--the +_Vanduara_ did not come, but the _Atalanta_ did, and was disposed of +with all ease. + +The schooner _Agnes_ was the flagship of the Atlantic club during the +cruise of 1881, once more carrying the pennant of Commodore Fish. +In number, the fleet was not as large as in the previous year, but +there were five schooners and twelve sloops in the squadron when it +left Black Rock, a very respectable fleet. The same old route was +pursued--New London, Shelter Island, Newport and New Bedford; but here +the monotony of the cruise was varied by a race, the entries comprising +four New Bedford and three Atlantic club schooners and six Atlantic and +seven New Bedford sloops. The New Bedford schooner _Peerless_ and the +Atlantic sloop _Fanita_ and New Bedford sloops _Hesper_ and _Nixie_ +were the winners in the several classes, so the honors were decidedly +with the New Bedford club, as it captured three out of the four prizes. + +The cruise of the New York Yacht Club for the year 1881 promised at its +beginning to be the most brilliant in its history. It assembled at New +London under the command of Commodore Waller, with the _Dauntless_ as +the flagship. By way of opening the cruise in an interesting manner, +Mr. Charles Minton, who was then the secretary, offered a $250 cup for +a schooner prize on the run to Newport the following day, to be taken +by the first yacht in, without allowance of time. It was shrewdly +suspected that the secretary believed that without allowance of time +there was no yacht in the fleet which could beat the _Dauntless_, on +board which he was sailing, and that he intended the cup as a prize for +the commodore. Had the start been made as arranged, all would have been +well; but at the hour named a fog hung over the harbor and Sound like a +pall, and there was scarcely any wind, so the race for the Secretary’s +Cup was declared off. + +In the afternoon, however, the fog lifted, a good breeze sprang up, and +the fleet started. When the schooner _Tidal Wave_ passed Point Judith, +there was not a schooner in the fleet which was not hull down astern +of her. It had been resolved to sail for the Secretary’s Cup the next +day from Brenton’s Reef Lightship to Clark’s Point, off New Bedford; +but in view of the performance of the _Tidal Wave_ in this run from New +London, she seemed a certain winner, and such a state of affairs was +particularly distasteful to Fleet-Captain Robert Center and the others +on board the flagship. + +What was to be done to avert the threatened calamity? I know not who +was responsible for the action, and should not state it if I did, +for it was peculiarly disgraceful. A half hour before the start, +Fleet-Captain Center rowed through the fleet and gave notice that no +yacht could sail for the Secretary’s Cup unless the owner was on board. +By a curious coincidence, as the elder Mr. Weller might have said, the +only yacht which did not have her owner on board was the _Tidal Wave_, +the yacht which had run all the other schooners out of sight on the +previous day. + +No meeting of the club had taken place in the meanwhile, and where any +one obtained authority for such an unheard-of rule it is impossible +to say. Captain Center, however, frankly admitted at New Bedford the +next day, that the action was taken solely with a view to barring +out the _Tidal Wave_. He, however, based his action on a personal +feeling against Captain “Joe” Elsworth, who, because he had sailed the +_Countess of Dufferin_ in her second race for the _America’s_ Cup, +had excited Captain Center’s ire. He had determined--so he said--that +Captain “Joe” should never again sail for a cup in the New York Yacht +Club. Since that time, as we all know, the club and the public have +been glad to avail themselves of Captain Elsworth’s skill, and he has +been an important factor in the preservation of the great yachting +trophy. After all, this disgraceful business was not at all necessary; +for although the _Tidal Wave_ started with the fleet, and although +Captain Elsworth did his best to get to Clark’s Point ahead of the lot, +the little New Bedford schooner _Peerless_, the once despised “Bull +Pup” of the New York experts, captured the Secretary’s Cup. + +Of course, after this plain expression of feeling on the part of the +officers of the club, Captain Elsworth could not consent to remain with +the squadron, and immediately left it. The result was the loss of the +only light-weather schooner that had any chance against the _Halcyon_, +and in the races which were sailed while the fleet was at New Bedford +for the cups presented by Mr. E. A. Buck of the _Spirit of the Times_, +the _Halcyon_, as usual, captured the schooner prize. + +This was rather a disastrous cruise, although it had promised so +fairly. Commodore Waller had gone to the expense of having a large +barge towed to New Bedford, and on board her a ball was given, the +music being furnished from New York. But there were several days of +foggy weather which interfered materially with the programme. Finally +a start was made, from Vineyard Haven for Boston, but, threatening +weather being encountered, the fleets returned to Vineyard Haven, +and the Eastern club concluded to part company and go to Newport. So +it was arranged that next day, if the weather was favorable, the New +York club should go on to Boston. During the day, however, there were +many defections, and next morning but a small fleet remained. The +commodore also was taken seriously ill, and the fleet was disbanded. No +cruise ever cost flag-officers so much money, and none was ever less +satisfactory. + +The Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club postponed its cruise this year +until August, hoping to have the British cutter _Madge_ accompany it, +but the canny Scotchman who had charge of her did not care to have her +speed measured with other yachts until her regular races came on. The +club made its muster at Whitestone on this occasion, and went from +there to Morris Cove. Commodore Stewart had his pennant on the schooner +_Sea Drift_, and his fleet was very small, there being, besides this +schooner, only seven sloops. Among these was the cutter _Oriva_, on +her first cruise. The cruise was very tame, and only extended as far +as Newport. It was the summer of President Garfield’s death, and he +was just hovering between life and death when the club started, a +circumstance which prevented some of the yacht owners from joining. + +Although the Seawanhaka club did not obtain much credit from its +annual cruise in 1881, it covered itself with glory by its matches +with the cutter _Madge_. There can be no doubt but that the two sloops +selected as the champions of the club in the _Madge_ contests were as +good as any of their sizes in the club. It is equally certain that +they were brought to the line in a miserably slipshod condition. The +fact was, that at that time the yachting men of this country had the +most thorough contempt for the British cutter. Captain Ira Smith, who +sailed the _Schemer_ in her race with the _Madge_, when his attention +was called to the miserably setting topsail on his yacht--an old one +borrowed for the occasion--shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh! +it’s good enough; anything will do to beat that thing,” pointing to +the cutter, which was lying a short distance away attired in one +of Lapthorn’s most perfect suits; and the captain’s remark exactly +expressed the general feeling at that time. + +Mr. Henry Steers, Captain “Joe” Elsworth, and many members of the +clubs had been to England and had seen these yachts sail, and knew +that they were speedy; but their utterances were received with +incredulity. “They sail well enough when compared with each other,” it +was said, “but put them alongside of our centreboard yachts and they +will be beaten easily.” The average Bay Shore boatman hitched up his +trousers and said oracularly: “It stands to reason them things away +down on their sides can’t sail; a boat has got to have bottom fur to +sail on.” + +Had the _Madge_ been the _Vanduara_, the _America’s_ Cup would have +gone back to Great Britain, beyond a peradventure. That was one chance +of which John Bull failed to avail himself; he has another this +season--will he avail himself of it? _Quien sabe?_ + + + + +ON BLADES OF STEEL. + +BY D. BOULTON HERRALD. + + +To the enthusiastic skater even the pleasures afforded by the enclosed +rink are manifold, but who will compare them to those offered by the +far-stretching reach of the frozen river or lake? + +However tastefully decorated the rink may be, it cannot bear comparison +with the arena supplied by Nature. Instead of flags and streamers we +have the green pines on the distant hill-tops, while closer at hand the +trees, clothed with leaves of autumn tints, are painted by Nature’s +brush. The carpet of brown, withered ferns and grass is dotted here +and there with drifted heaps of early snow. In place of long lines of +promenading, gossiping humanity, our boundaries are the barren shores, +their sameness relieved here by an upturned boat and there a stranded +log. Replacing the glare of the electric light, we have the sun’s +genial rays, or the softer and more beauteous moon. Gone is the damp +vapor that will ever arise from even the best-appointed rink, and we +can revel in the crisp and bracing air of autumn. Surely, then, is +outdoor skating entitled to the palm. In the rink the never-ceasing +round from left to right, and, at the sound of the bell, from right +to left, grows wearily monotonous, even though the most charming of +partners may glide by one’s side. Round and round the skaters promenade +in endless procession. You dare not go too fast nor yet too slow, for +the one will surely bring you into collision with some one who blocks +the way; the other will still more certainly run some one into _you_. + +But in the glorious open all is changed. Your skates locked on, away +you glide, fast or slow, turning and twisting without let or hindrance, +as fancy prompts your path. Do not go near that hole! Beware of yonder +stick! Though half hidden in the ice, it yet projects enough to catch +the point of your skate and give you an ugly “cropper.” Crack! You are +on thin ice. Keep nearer to the shore. Who is this coming up behind so +fast? He evidently wishes to have a “brush,” and you are not unwilling. + +So on you fly, past the creek, with timorous children and girls +covering its surface. They prefer to skate over the shallows to +trusting themselves upon the deeper river. Here’s the deserted pottery, +bleak and dismal, with sashes that hold naught but the ragged edges of +the panes that once kept out the weather--victims of the small boy and +his “sling.” And here the Fair Grounds, the long rows of whitewashed +stabling, grand-stand and buildings glaring in the bright sunshine. +The oblong race track recalls memories of the close finish between +“Little Vic” and “Chestnut Jim.” How your heart stopped still until +“Vic” showed her nose under the wire, a short head to the good, for she +carried your “pile” on her handsome shoulders! On and on, until the +bridge stops your progress. The ice beneath it is not of sufficient +strength to bear your weight. + +Then, after walking across the road and climbing the fences, you come +to the narrows, where the ice is ever frail. Keep well in, under the +trees, skate swiftly, and do not tumble, or you will surely get a +ducking. Halloa! the man ahead seems to be in difficulties. He has +fallen into a water-hole! Now, put on a burst and try to avoid meeting +with a like mishap. You near the victim as he stands over the waist in +water. His coat collar seems to offer a good hold--and the idea is no +sooner thought of than acted on. As you pass, you grasp him, and with +the impetus of your speed drag him from his involuntary bath to a spot +where the ice is firm. + +[Illustration: “PUT YOUR SKATES ON, MISS?”] + +He betrays ingratitude, however, of the basest description, for he +consigns you to a hotter place than--skating, because, forsooth, you +gathered some of his back hair in your fist. Well, such is life! “Men +were _ungrateful_ ever.” + +Now you near the worst place yet encountered, open water, with ice here +and there between the boulders on the shore. In and out you thread +your way, dulling the skate blades sadly on the stones; but soon the +obstruction is passed, and the “going” is again good. There, to the +right, is the tamarac swamp, where you have bowled over many a “bunny” +and many a grouse. There the wooded point where you had such a pleasant +picnic and met jolly Miss Jones. But duck your head, for here is the +railroad bridge, and in case of contact with those jutting iron bolts +your cranium would be apt to come out second best. + +Why, here we are at the locks already! A short four miles it has +seemed, covered in little more than twenty minutes. Now off with the +“acmes,” for why should one blunt them, or stumble over the portage +like a drunken man, when he can so easily unlock the skates and saunter +over comfortably? + +Another mile and a half is passed, and a second set of lock-gates is +reached, which must be crossed ere we can come to the lake-like expanse +on their farther side, made by the widening of the river. Halloa! there +is a sail, and a large one at that. What can it be? Oh, the ice-boat, +of course. How stupid of me not to think of it before. + +When we cross over the rise the boat comes into full view, dashing +along at high speed as it tacks from shore to shore. It is the only +craft of the kind in Central Canada, and is consequently regarded as +a wonderful machine. To me, however, it looks a crude affair indeed, +after the far-famed fleets that grace the frozen waters of the Hudson. + +Mile after mile we skim along, now jumping a crack, now avoiding a +miniature drift of snow. The sun is in my eyes, and I cannot keep a +good lookout. Suddenly I am startled by a warning shout, which brings +me to a standstill to discover that there is open water but a few feet +ahead. + +The shadows of evening are falling, so we turn homeward. The scenes +of the outward journey meet the eye again, mellowed in the deepening +twilight. At length we reach the landing, with a keen appetite for +dinner, and in a condition to thoroughly enjoy the after-dinner pipe +before an open fire, and the perusal of the latest novel. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +OUTDOOR LIFE OF THE PRESIDENTS. + +BY JOHN P. FOLEY. + + +III.--ANDREW JACKSON. + +The life of Andrew Jackson has been tersely described as “a battle +and a march.” Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, were all born +in the purple of slavery. They were the sons of wealthy planters; +educated at the best schools; provided with private tutors, and, with +one exception, graduated from the leading colleges of the period. +They moved in the best circles of society, and could choose whatever +profession or pursuit they pleased. Seats in the House of Burgesses of +Virginia awaited them as soon as they became of age, and whatever other +political preferment young native-born Americans could obtain under +the colonial régime was easily within their reach. Very different the +early life and fortune of Andrew Jackson, the fifth of the Southern +Presidents. + +Two years before he was born his father was a poor linen weaver in the +North of Ireland, beaten in the struggle for existence and preparing +with some of his relatives to emigrate to the new world. This little +colony, made up of Jacksons and Crawfords, landed at Charleston, in +1765, and immediately started for the Waxhaw settlement, which lay +partly in North and partly in South Carolina, in the region bordering +on the Catawba River. This point, no doubt, was chosen because a number +of colonists from the same part of Ireland had already made their homes +there. The Crawfords bought good land in the centre of the settlement, +while the Jacksons, not having the means to purchase, went on new land +some miles distant. There Jackson, senior, built a hut and began to +clear the woods around him. At the end of two years he became ill and +died. Mr. Parton, in his excellent life of President Jackson, tells us +that the widow, accompanied by her little family, brought the remains +of her husband in a rude wagon out of the wilderness to the Waxhaw +churchyard, and did not again return home after the interment. Instead, +she went to the house of a brother-in-law, and in a few days gave birth +to a son, whom she named Andrew. The log-house, where this event took +place on March 15, 1767, was at a point on the North Carolina side, +less than a quarter of a mile from the boundary line between the two +provinces; so that the hero of New Orleans, many years later, erred in +the matter of his nativity, when, in his celebrated manifesto to the +nullifiers of South Carolina, he addressed them as “Fellow-Citizens +of my native State.” Mrs. Jackson, at the end of three weeks, left her +eldest son to assist this relative on his farm and went with her second +son and the infant Andrew to the house of her brother-in-law, the Mr. +Crawford with whom she and her husband crossed the Atlantic two years +before. Crawford was then in comfortable circumstances. He had some +capital when he arrived, and, in addition, was a good, thrifty and +successful farmer. This was young Jackson’s home during the next ten or +twelve years. His life was indeed “a battle and a march,” and march and +battle began with his very infancy. + +North Carolinians have long and tenacious memories, and when, more +than a quarter of a century ago, Mr. Parton made a pilgrimage into +Mecklenberg County to collect materials for the life of the great +democratic chieftain, he was able to gather many an anecdote of +the early life of his hero. “He was a wild, frolicksome, wilful, +mischievous, daring, reckless boy, who loved his friends and detested +his enemies.” Truly, the boy was father of the man. He allowed no one +to impose upon him. On one occasion, we are told, some boys gave him a +gun loaded to the muzzle in order to see him knocked over when he fired +it. He was kicked over, and springing to his feet exclaimed: “If one +of you laughs I’ll kill him!” And there was no laughter. It is said +that the larger boys had trouble in getting along with him; but that he +was idolized by the smaller ones, who always found in him a protector +and a champion. “He was,” said one who knew him in youth, “a bully, +but never a coward.” In boyish games and sports of every description +he was thoroughly proficient. It was easy to make a wrestling match +when “Andy” Jackson was present; but, although tall and active, he was +not strong in proportion to his height, and was frequently thrown. He +was fond of running and jumping, feats in which he excelled. He was +addicted to gibberish or slang, and one of his favorite expressions +was this: “Set de case: You are Shauney Kerr’s mare and me Billy Buck; +and I should mount you and you should kick, fall, fling and break +your neck, should I be to blame for that?” Young John Quincy Adams, +who was born in the same year as Jackson, and who was at this time +studying diplomacy under his father in Europe, would probably have +fled in as great horror from his successor in the Presidency, if he +then propounded to him this problem, as in after years he fled from +him on the day of his inauguration. The woods of Waxhaw were full of +deer, wild turkey and other game, and owing to the household demands of +the colony, to hunt and kill them was much more of a necessity than a +pleasure. Jackson, it is needless to say, became expert with the rifle, +and the bird or animal that came within range rarely escaped with its +life. + +His mother’s ambition was to make him a clergyman, and in due time he +was sent to what in those days was called “an old field school.” By and +by he attended schools of a better class, at which lads were prepared +for college. Where the means to pay for this superior education came +from is not known, but it is believed that his mother was assisted by +members of her family in Ireland. Jackson was not a studious boy, so he +learned little except reading, writing, and arithmetic. His educational +equipment all through life was very light, but, nevertheless, his name +stands on the roll of the learned Doctors of Harvard, an act for which +the younger Adams never forgave his old university. When the colonies +decided to draw the sword, Jackson was a child nine years old, and the +war was half over before its tide rolled along to the banks of the +Catawba. From the very beginning, however, the Scotch-Irish settlers +of Waxhaw were as loyal and devoted to the patriotic cause as the +descendants of the Puritans who fell at Lexington and Bunker Hill. +Many of them and their children went into the army, among others Hugh +Jackson, Andrew’s eldest brother, who was “a man in stature if not +in years.” He was killed in the battle of Stono. Robert Jackson, the +second son, too young to bear arms, and Andrew were with their mother +when Tarleton’s dragoons swept along to Waxhaw. A body of militia was +taken by surprise and a large number killed and wounded. This was +Jackson’s first lesson in war. He was then about thirteen, and he and +his brother aided their mother in nursing the unfortunate victims +of the raid. Tarleton’s troopers rode hard and fast over the Waxhaw +farms, little dreaming that in one of its log-cabins they had left +behind them a rough, ungainly boy who in after years was destined to +defeat one of England’s ablest generals at the head of veteran soldiers +bearing on their conquering banners the memorable names of Talavera and +Badajos. Next came Lord Rawdon threatening to imprison all who refused +to promise not to participate in the war. Mrs. Jackson fled with her +two boys into the wilderness rather than make the pledge. A short time +after both sons were present in the engagement at Hanging Rock, near +Waxhaw, where the patriots were so nearly victorious. The defeat of +Gates brought the victorious Cornwallis to the little settlement, and +the terrified inhabitants, Mrs. Jackson and her children among them, +again fled before the soldiery. Andrew found a refuge in a temporary +home on a farm where he gave his services in exchange for his board. +His principal duties were fetching wood, driving cattle, picking beans, +going to the mill and the blacksmith’s shop. “He never,” says Mr. +Parton, “went to the blacksmith’s without bringing home something with +which to kill the enemy. Once he fastened the blade of a scythe to a +pole, and on reaching home began to cut down the weeds, exclaiming, +‘Oh! if I were a man I would sweep down the British with my grass +blade.’” The Jacksons were all home again in 1781, when the Waxhaw +country became quiet. + +Andrew was now fourteen, tall as a man, but without much bodily +strength. He and his brother thought, however, that they could be of +some service to their country, and from time to time joined small +raiding parties, organized to retaliate on the enemy. Cornwallis sent +a body of troops to suppress these disorders, and in a conflict the +Jackson boys were captured. Then occurred that memorable incident in +his life which so embittered him ever afterward against England. The +officer who had captured him, ordered him to clean his boots. Jackson +indignantly refused, declaring that he was a prisoner of war and +expected to be treated as one. A fierce sword-blow aimed at his head +was the answer. He warded it off with his arm, but the weapon struck +his skull, inflicting a wound on arm and head, the marks of which +remained to the day of his death. The brutal officer then gave the same +order to the brother. He, too, refused to obey and was prostrated with +a blow which nearly killed him. One day, while a prisoner, Andrew was +threatened with death unless he guided the troops to the house of an +obnoxious patriot. He pretended to comply, but went by a route which +gave the intended victim notice of their approach and enabled him to +escape. The two brothers were next marched off prisoners of war to +Camden, forty miles distant. They and their companions were treated +with horrible barbarity on the way. Forced to walk the entire distance +without food, they were not even allowed to drink the muddy water +by the wayside. In Camden jail they were nearly starved to death. +Small-pox broke out among the ill-fed and ill-clothed captives and it +became a very pest-hole. At length General Greene appeared before the +place and there were hopes of a rescue. Jackson cut through a knot-hole +in the fence and saw the operations in the field, which he reported +to his fellow-prisoners. The Continental troops were defeated and the +captives were in despair. But the faithful mother had not forgotten or +abandoned them, and one day she appeared offering to exchange for her +boys and some other prisoners, thirteen soldiers who had been captured +by the men of Waxhaw. Her sons were so worn-out by starvation and +disease that she scarcely knew them. What a journey that was home to +the Waxhaw! They could procure only two horses for the entire party. +The mother rode one; on the other was her son Robert, stricken with +small-pox and held in his seat by the exchanged prisoners. By their +side trudged Andrew, shivering with fever and ague, shoeless, almost +naked, his feet and legs bleeding and torn by rocks and briers. Still +the battle and the march! + +But the battle was only beginning for this seemingly ill-starred boy. +When peace came, sending sunshine and joy through all the land, this +heroic North of Ireland mother had been sleeping beside her husband +in the Waxhaw graveyard more than a year, and the orphaned Andrew was +striving hard to learn the trade of a saddler. His health was bad, and +his spirit seemed broken. Perhaps it was grief for the mother whom +he so deeply loved, and whose memory he revered all through life. +Gradually, however, the spring and buoyancy of his nature asserted +themselves. He made the acquaintance of some boys of his own age whose +parents had fled from Charleston, when it was captured, to Waxhaw, and +who were waiting for the evacuation to return. He was the owner of a +horse at this time, but it is not clear whether he obtained him by +gift or purchase. At all events, he ran races; very often rode them, +and, impartial history bids us say, “gambled a little, drank a little, +and fought cocks.” It was a rude age; the little society that existed +was demoralized by war, and there was no one to restrain, perhaps no +one even to advise, this young orphan boy. He followed his friends +to Charleston, “riding his horse, a fine and valuable animal which +he had contrived to possess.” His career in that city was wild and +reckless. He ran up a long bill with his landlord, which he paid by +a lucky throw at dice; the wager being his horse against two hundred +dollars. All at once his conscience seems to have smitten him. He +resolved to return home and reform. Never again through all his life +did he throw dice for a wager. His scheme of reformation did not, +however, include the abandonment of horse-racing and chicken-fighting, +for during the next two years his biographers continue to record many +achievements and adventures in this line. His other pursuits, if he +had any, are not known. Some say he taught school. If he did, teachers +must have been few and far between at that time in North Carolina. When +he was seventeen or eighteen years of age, he went to Salisbury to +study law. Unable to find an opening, he went to Morgantown, in Burke +County, where he was equally unsuccessful. At length he succeeded in +persuading Mr. Spruce McCoy, of Salisbury, a lawyer of eminence, and +subsequently a distinguished judge, to undertake his instruction. The +story of his career in Salisbury is a sad one, if certain traditions be +true. He was, according to some of his biographers, “the most roaring, +rollicking, game-cocking, horse-racing, card-playing mischievous fellow +that ever lived in Salisbury.” The portrait is probably from the easel +of a political enemy, or a well-meaning admirer, who deemed these the +highest qualifications a young man could possess. In the first place, a +life of this description involved the expenditure of considerable money +even in a small North Carolina town a century ago, and Jackson had +none. To suppose that he lived by gambling and horse-racing is absurd. +It is certain, however, that on one occasion he ran a foot-race there +under somewhat ludicrous conditions. The champion runner of the town +was one Hugh Montgomery. A match was made between him and Jackson on +these terms: Montgomery to carry a man on his back and get a start of +half the distance. Jackson won by one or two feet, “amid the laughter +of the town.” + +He received his license to practice law before he reached his twentieth +year. This he could not have accomplished if his life had been the +wild and reckless one which some writers would have us believe. +He left Salisbury immediately and went to live at Martinsville in +Guilford County. Two of his friends kept a store there, and he +probably assisted them, although, it is said, he earned a livelihood +by serving as a constable. The following year a friend of his was +appointed judge of the Superior Court in Tennessee. He appointed +Jackson public prosecutor. The position was not one for which there +were many applicants. In the first place, it led into the wilderness +where the red man was yet very successfully disputing the advance of +the pale-faces, and, in the next, the whites whom Jackson was coming +to prosecute were not much higher in the scale of civilization than +the native savages. Jackson induced some friends to accompany him in +quest of fortune and fame, and a start was made for Jonesboro’, then +the principal settlement in Eastern Tennessee. Thence they proceeded to +Nashville, where they arrived in October, 1788. The journey was full of +peril, and were it not for the watchfulness of Jackson one night the +whole party would probably have been massacred. Having a presentiment +of danger, he determined to sit up on guard. Toward midnight the +hooting of an owl fell on his ear. This was followed by another and +another, until in a short time all the owls in Tennessee appeared to +have collected overhead of them. Jackson suspected that these owls +carried scalping-knives and tomahawks, and awoke his companions. They +were troubled no more by owls that night. At Nashville he found as much +law business as he could attend to, and he set to work with his usual +energy and vigor. In his capacity of public prosecutor he was obliged +to attend court at Jonesboro’, which compelled him to make frequent +journeys through the Indian-infested wilderness. This was hard and +perilous work. No one dared attempt the trip alone, and travelers were +in the habit of making up parties in order to be the better prepared +for attack. Jackson one time was delayed, and his friends started +without him. He followed and soon came upon their track, and, at the +same time, the unmistakable trail of Indians immediately behind them. +This was a situation which would have caused ninety-nine in a hundred +men to turn back, but not so Jackson. Although his servant declined to +go with him he determined to push ahead, and divided his provisions +with his attendant, who turned homeward. Jackson came to a point where +the Indians had branched off with the intention of surprising and +attacking the whites with a certainty of success. At length he overtook +his friends and warned them of their danger. It was snowing heavily +at the time, and the entire party were turned away from the camp of +some hunters from whom they had asked shelter. When returning home +they again stopped at the camp, but every one of the hunters had been +scalped. + +Jackson now began to accumulate property, and he married Mrs. Robards, +establishing his home, the first he really ever had, in Nashville. This +was almost the first halt thus far in “the march and the battle” of +his life. It was not, however, the famous home called the Hermitage, +for that did not come until many years later. If money was scarce in +Tennessee at that time, there was an abundance of land, and six hundred +and forty acres, or a square mile of real estate, was the ordinary fee +for trying a case at court. Jackson was in fact a land speculator, as +well as a lawyer, and he was a purchaser whenever he could command the +money. So large were his possessions that he sold six thousand dollars +worth of land in one block to a gentleman in Philadelphia, and after +that large transaction for that time, had still several thousand acres +left. Some years later he engaged in business on his place at Hunters +Hill, thirteen miles from Nashville. This plantation embraced several +thousand acres, and he erected on it a house which was one of the +finest in that part of the country. In a smaller building near it he +opened a store and sold goods to the Indians through a small window. +His prosperity, however, received a sudden check. The Philadelphia +gentleman, whose notes he had taken for his land, failed, and the +protection of the notes devolved on Jackson, who had discounted them. +This he did at an enormous sacrifice. + +He determined to retrieve his fortune, and to that end enlarged his +operations in every direction. His slaves numbered one hundred and +fifty, and in their management he was greatly assisted by Mrs. Jackson. +He raised corn and cotton, which he shipped on his own boats. At his +large store he took produce of all kinds in exchange for goods. He had +on his plantation a cotton-gin, which was so recently invented that +it had scarcely ceased to be a curiosity. With it he cleaned his own +cotton and that of his neighbors, which was another source of income. +He was an excellent farmer and very proud of his crops, which were +nearly always good. But this was not all. In his youth he had been +exceedingly fond of horses, and his equine tastes grew stronger as +he advanced in years. He brought the famous “Truxton” from Virginia +to Tennessee and won fame and money as a turfman. Few races came off +in the country around in which his name was not among the entries, +and, as he ran his animals with care and judgment, he was a frequent +winner. His stable was in fact the best bred in all that section, and +proved a large source of income to him. Down even to the present day +there is a “Truxton” strain in Tennessee which is highly prized. In +addition he amused himself with an occasional cockfight. On at least +one occasion the ownership of six hundred and forty acres of land +depended upon the issue of the battle between the game birds. During +these years, while he was pursuing the avocation of a planter, of a +dealer in the goods of every description needed in a new country, of a +horse-breeder and of a speculator in land, he also found time to hold +various public positions. He was a delegate to the convention that +framed the constitution of the State; a member of the legislature; then +a congressman and a judge. His service in Congress was very brief, and +he resigned his position on the bench in order to recover the fortune +he had lost. Jackson was a good public officer. He was not a great +lawyer or jurist, but he fearlessly prosecuted every lawbreaker, and +his decisions were always honest. Every scoundrel in the territory was +his enemy, but he never quailed before one of them. + +While he was on the bench the sheriff one day told him that a ruffian, +who had been guilty of cutting off his child’s ear in a drunken +passion, was in the court-house yard, armed with dirk and pistols, and +defied arrest. Jackson directed him to summon a posse of citizens. The +sheriff reported back that the citizens were too terrified to act. “He +must be taken,” said Jackson; “summon me!” With a pistol in either +hand, Jackson walked into the yard and strode up to the outlaw, who at +once surrendered to him. + +Jackson possessed undaunted courage and nerve. A mob assembled one +time with the intention of tarring and feathering him. He was ill +in bed when a committee waited on him to communicate the cheerful +intelligence. “Give my compliments,” said he, “to Colonel ---- [the +leader of the party], and tell him my door is open to receive him and +his regiment whenever they choose to call upon me, and that I hope he +will have the chivalry to lead his men and not to follow them.” His +brave defiance cowed the mob. It dispersed, and its leader apologized +to Jackson. + +Long years after, while Jackson was President, he told a story of one +of his experiences during these frontier days, which we shall insert +here. + +“Now, Mr. B----,” said Jackson, “if any one attacks you I know you will +fight with that big black stick of yours. You will aim right for his +head. Well, sir, ten chances to one he will ward it off, and if you +do hit him, you won’t bring him down. Now, sir [taking the stick into +his own hands], you hold the stick so and punch him in the stomach, +and you’ll drop him. I will tell you how I found that out. When I was +a young man, practising law in Tennessee, there was a big bullying +fellow that wanted to pick a quarrel with me, and so trod on my toes. +Supposing it accidental, I said nothing. Soon after he did it again, +and I began to suspect his object. In a few moments he came by a third +time, pushing against me violently and evidently meaning fight. He was +a man of immense size, one of the very biggest men I ever saw. As quick +as a flash I snatched a small rail from the top of the fence and gave +him the point of it full in the stomach. Sir, it doubled him up. He +fell at my feet, and I stamped on him. Soon he got up, savage, and was +about to fly at me like a tiger. The bystanders made as though they +would interfere. Said I, ‘Don’t; stand back; give me room; that is all +I ask, and I will manage him.’ With that I stood ready with the rail +pointed. He gave me one look and turned away a bewitted man, sir, and +feeling like one. So, sir, I say to you, if any fellow assaults you, +give him the point in his belly.” + +Jackson fought several duels, killing his antagonist in one of them; +but these episodes in his life do not fall within the limits of this +paper. His military career may be said to begin with his appointment, +in 1802, to the command of the militia of Tennessee, although he was +not called into active service until the following year. Jefferson had +then completed the Louisiana purchase, and it was thought the Spaniards +would not be willing to acknowledge the authority of the United States, +and, possibly, might resist it. Troops were ordered to the frontier, +and if necessary were to be marched to New Orleans. Tennessee promptly +responded, and Major General Jackson discharged so well the duty +assigned him that he was thanked by the Federal Government. + +The ambitious, restless, brilliant Burr was at this time revolving in +his fertile brain the erection of an empire in Mexico, and looking +around for lieutenants to aid him in the realization of his dream, +his eye fell upon Jackson, whom he had doubtless met in Philadelphia +while he was Vice-President. In the summer of 1805 Jackson rode from +his plantation into Nashville. The little town was gayly decked with +flags and banners, and the streets were thronged with people from the +surrounding country. Aaron Burr was expected, and the demonstration +was in his honor. After an entertainment by the people of Nashville he +rode home with Jackson as his guest. Burr’s project appealed to the +imagination of Jackson and he offered his services. Next day Burr went +away. A year later he was again in Kentucky and Tennessee, and Jackson +again offered to join his expedition. The enterprise was then discussed +everywhere, but no one had suspected, or at least given expression +to, the suspicion that Burr’s plans were hostile to the interests of +the United States. Rumors of this nature, however, were soon afloat, +and Jackson laid the matter before Governor Claiborne. He at the same +time wrote Burr, declaring that if his designs were inimical to the +government, he desired to have no further relations with him. Burr was +tried shortly afterwards for treason. He was always one of Jackson’s +friends and entertained the highest opinion of his military capacity. +When Congress declared war against England in 1812, Burr said that +Jackson was the most capable general in the country. During the next +five or six years Jackson was in private life. + +The outbreak of hostilities with England called him again into the +field. The Mississippi Valley was loyal to the core and promptly +furnished a larger number of men than had been called for. Jackson, +at the head of 2,500 volunteers, descended the Ohio and Mississippi +to Natchez, where he received word from Wilkinson, at New Orleans, to +await further orders. Wilkinson was jealous of Jackson and did not +desire his co-operation if he could do without it. Jackson, angry +at the delay, went into camp. Later on he was enraged when, instead +of receiving an order to advance, he was instructed to disband his +forces 500 miles from Nashville. It was a cruel order to give; cruel +treatment of men who had so promptly rushed to the defense of their +country. Jackson resolved to disobey it. He would not abandon his men +so far from their homes. His quarter-master refused to furnish proper +supplies. Jackson solved that problem by borrowing $5,000 on his own +responsibility. The journey back was severe, and many of the men fell +sick. Jackson placed one of the sufferers on his own horse and walked +400 miles on foot. His officers and mounted men who were strong enough +followed his example and gave their horses to their companions who +had succumbed to the hardships of the march. One soldier became so +dangerously ill that it was proposed to abandon him. “Not a man shall +be left as long as life is in him,” said Jackson. He watched over the +sufferer as if he had been his own child, and saved his life. + +In the summer of 1813 the terrible massacre of Fort Mimms occurred. +The legislature of Tennessee authorized the raising of 3,500 men, and +Jackson began operations against the Creeks in the following October. +So great was his popularity that in a short time he had over five +thousand men under his command. His name soon became a terror to the +Indians, whom he mercilessly followed and fought whenever they dared +to oppose him. But there was a tender heart in the breast of Jackson. +After a fierce encounter at Tallahassee, an Indian woman was found +killed on the field. An infant boy lay on her bosom vainly striving to +satisfy his hunger. The child was brought within the lines and adopted +by Jackson. Mrs. Jackson, who had no children of her own, became as +attached to the little war-waif as her husband, and he grew to be a +fine youth. When he died Jackson was deeply grieved, and the remains +are buried at the Hermitage. The timely assistance rendered by Jackson +to the besieged at Fort Talladega prevented a repetition of the Fort +Mimms horror, for it was on the point of surrender when he appeared and +put the savages to flight. His own supplies now fell short, and his men +were threatened with famine. The volunteers in his command attempted +to leave for their homes, but were prevented by the militia. The +militia shortly after threatened revolt, and they were held in check +by the volunteers. Both parties next united and resolved to abandon +the field. Jackson rode to the head of the column and presenting his +pistol declared he would kill the first man who advanced. So dire was +the distress that he lived on acorns picked up in the woods. At the +Great Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River, Jackson struck the Creek +Indians a blow from which they never recovered. More than one thousand +warriors took their final stand at that point in a strongly fortified +camp. The battle was one of the fiercest in all our Indian annals. Six +hundred braves were killed, for they had resolved to die rather than +yield. Finally, the remnant of the band, their brethren nearly all +slain, laid down their arms on the now historic Hickory Ground, at the +fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. Among those who surrendered +was the famous Weatherford, the most valiant of all their leaders. + +The Waxhaw lad, who thirty-three years before had been struck down by +one of Tarleton’s officers for refusing to clean his boots, was now +Major-General in the Regular Army of the United States and in full +command of the division of the South. The war with England had been in +progress two years with varying success on either side. Florida was a +province of Spain, and its governor, while openly professing friendship +for the United States, had allowed British vessels to land supplies +in the harbor of Pensacola, where they were forwarded by officers +on shore to the Indians in arms against us. He resolved to attack +the place, and let Mr. Madison at Washington settle the difficulty +which was certain to follow with Spain as best he could. An appeal +for volunteers was promptly answered, and early in November Jackson +was drawn up in front of the place with a demand for an immediate +surrender. This was refused, and an attack was ordered next day. In a +short time he was in possession of Pensacola, and the British ships +were weighing anchor to escape the fire of his artillery. Fort Barancas +blew up as he was making preparations to assault it. He had no further +business in Pensacola, and resolved to leave, sending this note to +the governor: “The enemy has retired; the hostile Creeks have fled to +the forest, and I now retire from your town, leaving you to occupy +your forts and protect the rights of your citizens.” Then came New +Orleans, where the trained veterans of the Peninsula War were driven +to their ships by the raw levies of the Mississippi Valley. The story +is known to every school-boy. It did not end the war with England--for +the treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent before the battle was +fought--but it more than compensated for all our reverses during the +long struggle, and added an imperishable laurel to our military +fame. Praise of Jackson fell from every tongue, and the fighting +back-woodsman of Tennessee became the idol of the country. While the +whole Republic was resounding with laudation of his deeds and thanking +him in set addresses and formal resolutions from Congress down to the +smallest town council, his wife was awaiting him in a small log-hut in +the forest. Before the war the bankruptcy of a relative for whom he +was security had forced Jackson to sell everything in order to meet +his liabilities. To this humble home he returned from the city he had +saved. His next military service was in the Seminole War. Spain still +held the Floridas, and her officers were again secretly assisting the +savages against the United States. Without instructions, he entered +the Spanish possessions, seized St. Marks, and sent its officials to +Pensacola. The trial and execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister followed, +after which he captured Pensacola and Fort Barancas. Negotiations for +the cession of Florida were pending at the time, and Jackson’s action +became the subject of official investigation. He was sustained by +public opinion and Congress. In a trip through the Middle and Eastern +States he was everywhere received with the greatest enthusiasm. When +Florida was annexed, Jackson became the first governor of the new +Territory. His civil career was as vigorous and energetic as his +military one had been, but he resigned at the end of a few months, +and returned home to the Hermitage, which had in the meantime been +built. He was next elected to the United States Senate, and declined +the mission to Mexico offered him by Mr. Monroe. His defeat for the +Presidency in 1824 was a severe blow, and the next four years were +spent at his home near Nashville. In 1828 he swept the country, but his +joy was turned to sorrow by the death of his wife a short time after +his election. + +Jackson was the first President inaugurated with what may be called +military honors. He was surrounded by a body-guard of Revolutionary +veterans, militia and military companies from all quarters of the +Union. Martial music filled the air; the city was gayly decorated +with flags and banners, and when the ceremonies were over artillery +thundered out all over the capital. “I never saw such a crowd,” Daniel +Webster wrote. “Persons have come 500 miles to see General Jackson, +and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some +dreadful danger.” Jackson rode a magnificent charger to the Capitol, +cheered by thousands of admirers who lined the sidewalks and filled +every window and point of vantage. The reception at the White House +which followed presented some extraordinary scenes. Indian fighters +from distant Tennessee, hunters from Kentucky, trappers from the +Northwest, and a mob of office-seekers from all sections of the Union, +mingling with the refined society of the capital and visitors from +other cities, surged through the great East Room. They clamored for +refreshments, and in a short time emptied the barrels of punch that had +been provided for their entertainment. Large quantities of glass and +china were broken in the scramble, and the rush to see “Old Hickory” +and shake his hand was so great that his friends found it necessary to +surround and save him from injury. + +His favorite exercise was driving and horseback riding. He retired +about ten o’clock and rose early. He frequently took a short canter +before beginning the labors of the day, but his usual hour for +relaxation was in the afternoon. He was always accompanied by a +servant. Mr. Van Buren sometimes rode with him, but more generally his +nephew and Secretary, Mr. Donelson, who, with his family, lived at the +White House. The summers he spent at Old Point Comfort in Virginia. +There were occasional pilgrimages to the Hermitage, and trips North and +East which were ovations at every point where he stopped. He narrowly +escaped assassination, in 1834, while he was descending the steps of +the Capitol in a funeral procession. A crazy painter out of employment +fired twice at him without exploding the powder. On another occasion +he was assaulted while in the cabin of a small steamer, at the wharf +in Alexandria, by a Lieutenant Randolph who had been dismissed from +the Navy. He was seventy years old lacking eleven days when his second +administration closed. Like Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, he placed +the reins of government in the hands of his Secretary of State, and +immediately retired to the Hermitage, now as famous and as sacred to +his followers as Mount Vernon, Monticello or Montpelier. There, in +June, 1845, he died, surrounded by his grandchildren and favorite +slaves; his last words being an expression of the hope that he would +meet them all, black and white, in heaven. The march and the battle +were at last ended. + + + + +[Illustration: A FALSE START.] + + + + +THE JERSEY CITY ATHLETIC CLUB. + +BY CHARLES LEE MEYERS. + + +Ten years have elapsed since the idea of an athletic club for Jersey +City had its origin in the brains of two gentlemen. These were J. McF. +Tappen and D. R. Van Winkle, and to their number they added a third +counselor, W. J. Tait. From the action of this triumvirate sprang the +present flourishing organization known as the Jersey City Athletic Club. + +Support was quickly afforded. Soon some forty gentlemen were at work on +the scheme, and quickly organized themselves into a regular body. The +following officers were elected: W. J. Tait, president; J. McF. Tappen, +vice-president; E. N. Wilson, treasurer, and E. F. Emmons, secretary. +Matters immediately assumed such a flourishing condition, that the +membership reached a century before the second meeting. + +The idea uppermost in the minds of the originators, from the first +inception, was that the club should unite the social element with +physical culture, and so afford the exercises the air more of a +pleasurable pastime than simply hard work for muscle’s sake. Acting +on wise counsel, the executive officers of the new organization made +but a modest venture, and finding that the higher they went the lower +the rent, they secured a large garret over a row of brick buildings, +at 723 Grand Street. Their first home was, however, admirably adapted +for their purpose, for the rafters were very high, and afforded ample +space and accommodation for the disposal of climbing-poles, trapezes, +and other gymnastic paraphernalia. The work of fitting, ventilating, +painting, etc., was undertaken with a will; a new floor was laid, an +instructor--Mr. Louis Kline--engaged, club colors adopted (red and +blue, with an emblem of a red Greek cross on a blue ground), and the +club was in full swing. + +Directly the premises were completed, they were put to practical use, +and to the good effect of this vigorous action may be attributed the +fact that the club gave its first outdoor games in the spring of 1879. +These games consisted of five club events and four open events, and +were held at the West Side Driving Park. All the noted athletes of +the day competed, and a great success was scored. From this time the +club may be regarded as having established itself on a firm footing +financially and otherwise. Shortly afterwards it joined and became a +prominent member of the N. A. A. A. A., but has now, however, thrown in +its fortune with that of the Amateur Athletic Union. + +Meanwhile, in its private life, the club was thriving. The membership +increased, and more accommodation was needed. Room after room was added +on the floor beneath the gymnasium, among them being a billiard-room, +card-room, music-room, with piano and other instruments, and an office +for committee meetings. The original policy of an admixture of social +attractions was thoroughly carried out, and receptions, skating +parties, and a varied round of amusements followed each other in quick +succession, all serving to maintain the interest. + +So matters moved smoothly and pleasantly until the roller-skating craze +infected the city, and as the seductive influences of the slippery +floor, and the novelty of the fashion made themselves felt, gradually +the attendance at the club fell off, and it seemed as if a period of +darkness were in store for it. And indeed to the determined spirits +who, by their devotion, tided matters over, a deep and lasting debt is +owed. This danger, although at the time it looked really great, soon +disappeared. One by one the rinks closed, members of the club returned +to their proper allegiance, and affairs resumed their former prosperity. + +[Illustration: JERSEY CITY ATHLETIC CLUB HOUSE.] + +In the latter part of 1885 an epidemic struck Jersey City--it was +a “club fever.” All the men in the city were either organizing or +joining clubs. Clubs were formed for almost every purpose, social, +intellectual, literary, athletic, bowling, etc. The social element so +strongly developed by the ten or a dozen rinks, had to find an outlet, +and the movement flowed clubward. Among the first to recognize and +direct this curious fever was the Jersey City Athletic Club, and as a +consequence its membership filled up so rapidly that in November, 1885, +its rooms were entirely inadequate for the uses of its members, and it +was decided to build a club-house. + +The scheme for the enlargement of the premises had a very modest +beginning, for in the spring of 1885 a demand for further accommodation +in the matter of bowling alleys had been put forward. To meet this +the proposition was made that two alleys should be built on some +land adjoining the Alpha Rink. This by no means met with general +approbation, and it became evident that the membership was falling off, +and that the club was being deserted for its more enterprising rivals, +notable among which was the Palma Club, which had just completed a new +building. When, therefore, the “club fever” broke out, a club meeting +was held, and a proposition made that a committee be appointed whose +duty it should be to raise the large sum of $25,000 for building +purposes. Though the scheme was much derided, the committee was formed, +and comprised the following gentlemen: Messrs. J. C. Appleby, C. H. +Dickson, H. Hartshorne, and E. R. Grant. When this prompt and timely +action became known, it enlisted so many desirable recruits that in six +months from the inception of the building scheme the membership had +trebled, in spite of the fact that in the city four other large and +well-appointed clubs offered their attractions. + +[Illustration: WALKING TO WIN.] + +The plans were finally passed, and ground purchased for a sum of +$5,000, while the building to be erected was to cost $20,000. On the +first night the amount subscribed was $6,000, and thus assured of the +success of the venture the various committees perfected their work, +and on Thanksgiving Day, 1886, the building was finished. Then the +question arose how the completed building was to be furnished. The +solution of the problem proved easier than might have been expected. +The ladies came graciously to the rescue. A fair was organized to raise +the necessary funds, and the good work which had been done during the +months of preparation was apparent when, after the close of the fair, +which was open for ten days, the sum of $8,000 in cash remained as a +monument to its success. + +The new club-house stands at the corner of Crescent and Clinton +Avenues--almost the highest portion of “The Heights”--upon the brow +of the hill. The site is superb, commanding from the eastern windows +and tower a magnificent view of New York harbor and the surrounding +country. The style of architecture is modern Queen Anne. The basement +and first and second stories are of undressed brown-stone, and the +upper stories wood, with a slate roof. The tower forms a notable +feature; a roomy piazza on one side of the house and a large porch are +popular parts of the house in summer. The entrance is very spacious, +and opens into a large vestibule, and this again leads to a wide hall +running through to the billiard-room. + +In the basement are the bowling-alleys, six in number, fitted with all +the latest improvements, and built by the best makers in the costliest +style. In fact, so well is their construction carried out, that the +claim that they are among the best of their kind in America is fully +justified. The active use to which they are put every night vouches +for the interest displayed in the pastime by the members. On the left +of the bowling-alleys is the wheelroom, which affords storage for a +large number of wheels, and gives easy egress to the street through the +side-doors. + +[Illustration: PUTTING THE SHOT.] + +On the first floor, the offices and the card-room are on one side of +the hall, and on the other the parlor and the library. The last now +contains some three hundred volumes of standard books, and additions +are constantly being made; in addition, a large supply of monthly +and weekly periodicals is taken. A large open grate is a feature of +this room; the furnishings are throughout easy and luxurious, while +its situation, being in the base of the tower, allows the light to +enter from three sides, rendering it most comfortable and suitable +for its purpose. The entire wing is occupied by the billiard-room, +which contains four billiard and two pool tables. The room is lighted +directly from three sides and indirectly from the fourth, and therefore +has the best facilities for lovers of the game to display their skill +with the cue. Off this room are coat-rooms, etc., and a complete +barber’s shop. + +[Illustration: THE RUNNING BROAD JUMP--LANDING.] + +On the next floor is the gymnasium, which is one of the finest in +the country. From the floor, which measures eighty by fifty feet, +there is a space of forty feet to the peak of the roof. Every kind +of apparatus that has been invented for exercise and to further +muscular development is represented, while the lofty rafters make the +swinging rings, climbing ropes and poles a notable feature. Off the +gymnasium and in the wing are the spacious locker-rooms and baths. +Around three sides runs a spacious gallery, and on the mezzanine floor +is situated the large music-room, at the back of the gallery, and +looking out on the gymnasium. On the fourth side is the stage--while +the gymnasium itself makes a splendid auditorium. It is used on the +occasion of club performances, and having a seating capacity of 800, +with the large gallery and music-room as a foyer, it makes an ideal +amateur theatre; and again, when the annual receptions are held, it +makes a capital ball-room--all the apparatus being removable. The +stage itself is replete with every convenience--handsome drop-curtain, +scenery, etc.--and there is a fine wardrobe of costumes. The method of +construction permits the wings to be run out when occasion demands, and +while not in use the stage is lifted back against the wall, and the +proscenium shuts up flat against the stage, much like the closing of +an accordion, so giving the entire floor except a few feet for other +purposes. + +[Illustration: HIGH JUMP NO. 1--THE RISE.] + +The value of the club’s property amounts to about $45,000, and its +income reaches $18,000, a sum large enough to allow considerable +addition each year to its possessions, besides paying current expenses. +The membership, which has a limit of 650, reaches 625. The original +object of the club has been fully attained, for it has added greatly +to the social life of the city. An element of its success has been the +absence of internal dissension; all work together for the common good, +sinking personal differences, and never allowing them to hamper any +public project. The rules are strict: no liquor can be brought into, +sold, or drunk in the house; no gambling or games of chance are allowed +by the State laws, and are also prohibited by the club rules under +penalty of expulsion. + +The bowling team is the club’s joy and pride. At the close of the +season of 1886-7, however, the team was last on the list, having won +only four out of twelve games. This was to be expected, as the alleys +had been in use only a few months; but in the season of 1887-8 the +team won ten out of a possible fourteen games, and gained thereby the +championship of the Amateur Bowling League. This league is composed +of the Jersey A. C., New York A. C., Orange A. C., Brooklyn A. A., +Roseville A. C., Elizabeth A. C., and Palma Club. Of these the +Elizabeth Club had never been beaten on their own alleys until the +Jersey City Club lowered their colors, rolling the highest score in +the tournament upon their alleys in contest with them. The tournament +commenced in November, 1887, and the twelve scheduled games were +finished with a tie for first place between the Jersey City, New York, +and Palma Club. The Jersey team won the deciding games in good style, +defeating successively the Palmas and the New Yorks, and winning ten +out of fourteen games. + +[Illustration: HIGH JUMP NO. 2--OVER.] + +After the tie was made, the three clubs drew as to who should play +first, the J. C. A. C. drawing the bye. The New Yorks played the Palma +Club, the latter winning. This left the J. C. A. C. to play the Palma +Club upon the alleys of the N. Y. A. C., and it was a game worth +recording. At the end of the third frame the Palma score was 102 pins +ahead, and it looked as if the game was won. Neither score changed +much until the end of the sixth frame, when the score of the J. C. A. +C. began to show a little improvement. By this time the excitement +was growing, and the spectators began to be interested. All eyes were +strained upon the pins at the end of the alleys as one of the crack +bowlers carefully poised the huge ball in mid-air, taking careful aim, +when suddenly, with an eerie screech, a wild-eyed, consumptive cat, +with arched back and bristling fur, darted like a streak of darkness +diagonally across the alley. All the boys shouted, and were convulsed +with laughter at the strange apparition, coming from nowhere and +disappearing as mysteriously as it had come. The claims of the rival +clubs were loud as to the significance of the visitant, the Palmas +claiming it as their mascotte, the J. C. A. C. boys claiming it as +a “hoodoo” for the Palma score, and so it proved. By this time the +excitement had spread all through the house, and the men swarmed down +into the alleys. + +Slowly the score began to change its aspect, until, by the final frame, +when the Palmas had finished their play, they were eleven pins ahead of +the J. C. A. C., who had one more man to roll. When on the first ball +he made a “strike,” counting ten, he was seized by the enthusiastic +team and carried around upon their shoulders. Each of his following +shots proved to be a “strike,” and brought up the score of the J. C. A. +C. to a total of 43 pins above that of their opponents. A large model +of the cat, done in cotton, five times the size of the original, with +heroic verses telling of its famous run, and its “hoodoo” influence, is +one of the proud possessions of the club, and adorns its rooms. + +Among other trophies are the prizes for a match contest between the +Orange A. C. and the J. C. A. C. The team is composed of Messrs. A. M. +Ryerson, captain, F. Cavalli, J. H. Curran, O. D. Stewart, A. H. Brown, +E. R. Grant, G. E. Hogg, J. A. Davis, E. Klein and H. W. McLellan. +Bowling tournaments between the members of the club for prizes help to +promote good play and develop champions. + +The baseball team has won a number of local victories, and interests +a large number of members. Having, however, no regular grounds to +practice on, the team contents itself with playing against local club +nines. + +The club is extremely strong in wheelmen, having among its members +75 per cent. of the Hudson County Wheelmen, who form the largest and +strongest cycling organization in New Jersey, and one which is hand in +hand with the J. C. A. C. It was proposed at one time to amalgamate, +but the H. C. W., not wishing to lose their identity, compromised by +nearly all becoming members of the J. C. A. C. Among their wheelmen, +Charles E. Kluge possesses a world-wide fame. His records on the “Star” +and tricycle, and latterly upon the crank machine, are well known, +while his world record for twenty-five miles stands unrivaled. Others +who have carried the club’s name to the front upon the racing-track +are E. P. Baggot, E. M. Smith, W. P. Smith, and C. A. Stenken. On the +whole, however, the members are more devoted to rolling up mileage on +the road than rolling down Father Time on the track. + +The achievements of the athletes of the J. C. A. C. belong rather +to its past history than to its present. For the first years of its +existence the club gave spring and fall games and their success was +unquestioned. The novelty, however, wore off and the great difficulty +in reaching the trotting track, which was the only available ground, +prohibited an attendance sufficient to make them a financial success. +So, after money had been lost steadily for the sake of the sport for +some years, the games were abandoned, although the club athletes +continued to score successes in the field and on the track. Among these +were Hugh McMahon, whose best on record at the hurdles stood for a +number of years, A. D. Stone, G. Y. Gilbert, and Charles Lee Meyers. A +feature of the club athletics consists of runs from the house across +country and return, and a series of races in its gymnasium, such as +obstacle and potato races. + +In the spring of 1885 it gave an entertainment which brought together +all the noted athletes of the day as performers, among them being L. E. +Myers, F. P. Murray, Robt. Stall on the rings, G. Y. Gilbert, and many +others of the same class. + +In 1887 the Boxing and Wrestling Championships of America were given +under the auspices of the club and in its gymnasium. + +The original idea, which has been mentioned before as existing in +the minds of the originators of the club, has been well carried out. +In order to obliterate from the minds of the ladies the inherent +prejudice against all men’s clubs, the rooms were at first thrown open +to them every Thursday evening, a dance was given every month, and a +ladies’ class formed in the gymnasium. The result of this diplomacy +was made apparent when the furnishing of the new club-house had to be +accomplished. After their noble efforts in this cause, the question +arose how to recompense them for their devotion, and how to place them +in possession of all the club privileges without cost (for the club’s +gratitude could do no less), and yet not make them members. + +This difficult problem was solved by giving up to the ladies the +afternoons of Tuesday and Thursday of each week and also Thursday +evening, and having an informal dance once each month. At these times +all privileges are free to ladies, and numerous groups enjoy themselves +bowling, playing billiards, pool, cards, and often getting up an +impromptu dance in the gymnasium. This feature is naturally one of +the most attractive to the members, and among the ladies themselves +the club is a very popular place. It has not so far interfered in +the smallest degree with the exercise of the members’ privileges, as +they can use all the club’s advantages on these occasions, courtesy +of course giving preference to the fair sex, and indeed it has been +of unexpected benefit to the club. Ladies, by telling their friends +of the beauty of the club-house and the enjoyment to be obtained on +its ladies’ days, have induced their male friends to join the club. A +grand ball is given annually to the ladies, the first one in the new +club-house being in honor of the ladies’ services during the fair. In +January, 1888, Governor Green and all his staff of State officials +honored the Club Ball by their presence. + +Another prominent characteristic of the club is musical ability. Almost +the first action of the club after its organization was to give an +entertainment which took the form of a minstrel show, with only the +members as performers. These shows grew better year by year, until +in the fall of 1885 the club produced “The Mikado,” which had a run +of two nights and splendid success. These plays were given in a local +theatre and were “in black,” with most of the dialogue localized. In +the fall of 1887, having its own theatre, the club took a step forward +and produced “Erminie,” in black, with a remarkably successful run of +four nights. Shortly after this the club orchestra was organized, and +is now one of the notable features of every entertainment. In April of +last year, “Patience” was produced for three nights, but this time with +the assistance of the wives, sisters and sweethearts of the members, +and exactly as written, with every detail. Such a splendid success +was scored that its repetition was almost a necessity, so it was +again given the month following, making four performances. The entire +performance was marked throughout by the most careful attention to +artistic effect, and in this it was quite a triumph. + +In such ways the club has retained the sympathy and co-operation of the +ladies. For instance, when “Patience” was produced, they contributed a +major part of the attraction by splendid singing and acting. + +The club is in the height of its prosperity. While the substantial +reasons for its existence continue, there seems no doubt of its +standing and permanency. + + + + +MY BOAT. + + + The frolic waves are dancing bright + Across the moon’s broad path of light: + My lovely boat-- + A swan afloat, + Holds o’er the waves her long white throat: + From either side + The waters glide + In silver flashes of laughing foam, + And she skims the sea + In an ecstasy + Of joy, returned again to home. + + _Arthur Cleveland Hall._ + + + + +ON A CANADIAN FARM IN MIDWINTER. + +BY W. BLACKBURN HARTE. + + +By decree of the inexorable _res angusta domi_, I left my native +England in the last days of the year of grace 1886, for Canada, with +the determination of becoming a farmer. I was a cockney to my backbone, +and had not the slightest idea of farming, but still I was young and +hopeful, and I imagined that this happy consummation would take but a +very short time to accomplish. Many a night, while lying in my bunk +during the passage across the Atlantic, I built _châteaux en Espagne_ +innumerable, and galloped over limitless acres of which I held the +freehold. Alas! my castles have since been irretrievably mortgaged to +Doubt and Despair, and if the reader will give me his kind attention +while I relate my experiences, we will together watch these castles of +cards topple to the ground. + +Upon my arrival at Montreal I at once advertised for a situation on +a farm, for I had more ambition than capital or collateral security, +and consequently was unable to immediately blossom forth into a landed +proprietor. To my great delight I received three or four answers from +farmers in different parts of the country, each of whom represented +that _his_ farm was situated in the very heart of the garden of Canada, +and desired me to come on without delay. Subsequent experience led me +to the conclusion that Canada was one immense garden--of snow, and +remarkably well ventilated. After a little thought, I decided to place +myself and accompanying transcendent abilities at the disposal of a +gentleman--evidently a public philanthropist--who, judging from the +friendly warmth of his communication, appeared to have been anxiously +looking forward to my arrival on this continent. + +The next day I boarded a train going east, and after a two hours’ +journey arrived at my destination, which was only fifty miles from +the metropolis. I had reason later to thank my stars that I had not +decided to begin my career as a farm-hand in the neighborhood of the +“Rockies,” because in that case my return to civilization would have +been well-nigh impossible, considering the state of my exchequer. The +name of the village was Knowlton, in the province of Quebec. Some of +my readers are doubtless acquainted with the locality. + +A negro conductor passed through the car and announced in stentorian +tones, first in French-Canadian _patois_, and then in English, the name +of the station, and looking out of the window I saw a noble edifice +which appeared to have been blown together, “promiscuous-like,” on a +very windy day, and then tarred over. This was the waiting-room and +station-master’s sanctum combined; in fact, it was the station. There +was not the ghost of a platform, but a low fence surrounded the rear of +the shanty. The station-master, as I afterwards found out, was a man of +exceedingly portly dimensions, and was greatly impressed with a sense +of his own importance, so there was little room in the shanty for aught +else beside himself and the stove. + +The whole population of the place, about twenty-five or thirty persons +all told, counting one or two of the canine genus, were assembled +in the yard to witness the train come in. This appeared to be the +only dissipation of which the villagers were at any time capable. +They looked like so many badly packed bundles of cloth, and spoke a +villainous gibberish, which would confound the natives of La Belle +France. I fancy I was looked upon as a sort of natural curiosity. +Certainly I was the “observed of all observers” upon that occasion, and +caused no little diversion. I stood and watched the departing train +until it was out of sight, and then sat down upon my chest. To confess +the truth, I did not feel in the best of spirits. The prospect seemed +less inviting now that I was, as it were, plumped down, out of all +civilization, upon the scene of my new labors. + +My benefactor, the farmer, now approached me, and introduced himself by +suddenly bawling in my ear, “Now then, young feller, get up, and take +hold of t’ other end of this box. Great Scott! what a terror, anyway. +What ’ev you got in it, anyhow?” + +Mr. Wiman, for that was the gentleman’s name, had never seen me before +in his life, but he jumped to the conclusion that I was “his man,” +because, as he afterwards explained to me, I looked “so English, you +know.” I guessed, too, that a stranger in those parts was rather a +_rara avis_. + +We carried the box to his sledge, which he had kindly brought down to +drive me up to the farm. Taking a seat beside him, I inquired what +distance his place was from the village. + +“Well, I guess it’s something over five miles--more or less,” was his +reply. + +We drove on for a long time in silence, and I began to think that there +was a considerable difference between a five-mile drive in the “old +country” and a similar distance in Canada. I ventured to hint as much +to Mr. Wiman. He burst into a hearty laugh. + +“Bless yer! I should jist reckon there _is_ a difference. That’s all! +We keep up with the times on this side ’ev the water. This ’ere is a +live country, sir--a live country!” + +I did not quite understand how the advanced state of the country should +so materially alter the mileage, but kept my own counsel. I could not +help, however, reflecting that despite the fact that I was now in a +land of enlightenment and progress, I had never seen such a dismal, +dreary landscape in my life. Nature in her sterner aspects cannot so +quell the soul of man as when she presents herself in merely bleak +desolation. There was nothing but snow, which almost blinded me with +its dazzling whiteness, and certainly added to the depression of my +spirits. + +At last Mr. Wiman drew rein at a wayside _auberge_ and told me to wait +a few minutes until he returned. This was comforting. The atmosphere +was not 90° in the shade--it was 20° below zero! I jammed my hard +felt hat down over my face, under the impression that by getting my +head into it as far as possible I should keep my ears from dropping +off. Foolishly enough, I had neglected to purchase a fur cap when in +Montreal, and now bitterly repented my want of forethought. + +The first quarter of an hour did not seem so very long, as my mind was +occupied with hundreds of conflicting thoughts, and those inevitable +“first impressions” which chill one’s cherished hopes. But when a +“few minutes” slowly dragged itself into a good half-hour, it struck +me that the Canadian method of reckoning the flight of time must be +conducted on the broad basis which characterized the mileage. I rubbed +my hands with snow to keep them warm and prevent them from freezing, +and jumping off the sledge I paced rapidly up and down, under the +veranda in front of the hostelry, to induce circulation. I had read +something and heard more about the climate in this part of the world, +and was afraid that unless I was extremely careful I should coagulate +into one complete block of ice. At last my patience was exhausted, and +I determined to go in quest of my employer. I found him, the centre of +a small circle of _convives_ assembled around the stove, discussing +in broken French and English, thick with authority and liquor, the +question of commercial union. + +I nervously asked him when he intended to resume his journey. He +replied by pointing to a vacant seat, and asking me to take “something +hot.” I was half frozen, and readily accepted the offer. + +“Sorry--hic--sorry I forgot you,” he said, with a cheerful smile. + +“Don’t mention it,” I replied politely. “I’m still alive.” + +In another hour or so the party broke up, leaving Mr. Wiman decidedly +none the better for his potations. In fact, he was wholly unfit to have +charge of the horse. + +He took my arm, and staggering out into the cold again, we found the +horse lying down in the snow, almost stiff, and the sledge overturned. +It was dark. In Canada there is no twilight. It is a sudden transition +from day into night, and I began to wish myself back in Montreal. +However, after many kicks and objurgatory coaxings, the poor beast +was induced to stand up, and righting the sledge and replacing my +belongings, we again took our seats. Mr. Wiman then handed the reins +to me with instructions to drive “home,” and fell fast asleep on my +shoulder. I did not, of course, know the road in the least, but the +horse did. He had been left for a “few minutes” on many occasions +before. I could not refrain from inwardly making comparisons between +the brute and his master, not altogether favorable to the intelligence +of the latter. I also did not forget to thank God for the brute’s +endowment, as otherwise we should in all probability have been buried +beneath the snow, which, in some places, was over ten feet in depth. +As it was, the ride was not unattended with danger, as it was hard to +see the track in the dark, and every now and again the poor animal slid +up to his neck in the snow, and only extricated himself after severe +struggles. The farmer awoke at intervals, when the sledge was almost +overturned, but he kept his seat wonderfully. This, of course, was the +force of long habit. I have heard of tipsy sailors preserving their +equilibrium in the same marvelous fashion. Wiman would then encourage +the horse with a few sanguinary expressions, and again relapse into the +land of Nod. As this may be getting wearisome to the reader, I will +only mention one other incident of that memorable drive. + +Just in front of the homestead we encountered a very large drift, and +as the horse endeavored to scramble through it, the sledge upset and +deposited both of us at least a couple of feet under the snow. I was +the first to get my head above the surface, and began to search for +my companion and my box. I found the son of Bacchus coiled up quite +content. After sundry kicks he realized his position, and clutching the +sledge with both hands, instructed me to let go the traces and free +the horse. This I did, and, after many attempts, the unfortunate beast +regained his feet. + +In a few minutes more we were safe in the barn, and having watered and +fed the horse, we made our way into the house, which, from what I could +make of it, was simply another barn of somewhat greater pretensions. +But even this looked very inviting after my late experience of the +Canadian roads. + +The floor of the kitchen, sitting-room and drawing-room--a domestic +combination, which we now entered--was almost covered with snow that +had entered through the doors on either side. An enormous stove +or range was placed in the centre of the room, and the walls were +decorated with pictorial representations, mostly culled from the +Christmas issues of various illustrated periodicals. A deal table, a +kitchen dresser, sparsely laden with crockery of assorted patterns and +culinary utensils, and a few rickety chairs, completed the inventory of +furniture. + +Mr. Wiman pointed to a plate of hash which stood upon the table--which, +it is almost unnecessary to mention, was quite innocent of a cloth--and +told me “to get outside of it.” I did not require a second invitation, +but fell to like a hungry wolf. + +Just then a female voice from an adjoining room shrieked out, “Is that +you, Nathan?” to which the gentleman in question, who was tugging at +his boots in a fruitless endeavor to remove them, responded in the +Canadian affirmative, “Yah.” + +“H’ain’t you ’toxicated?” + +“Yah.” + +“As usual,” resumed the voice, not angrily, but with a philosophical +mixture of sadness and good-humor. + +“Yah.” Wiman had a fondness for this peculiar monosyllable. “Come and +take off these darned boots. They don’t mind me.” + +At this frank confession I could not help laughing aloud. This brought +Mrs. Wiman, for it was she, to the door, attired in a dilapidated +dressing-gown and a pair of very masculine carpet slippers, with an +old hussar undress uniform jacket thrown over her shoulders, the whole +surmounted by a huge nightcap. Her strange appearance did not tend +to decrease my mirth. The good woman, however, was not in the least +indignant at my rude behavior, and, indeed, seemed to enter into the +joke herself. I introduced myself, and was then asked a great many +questions respecting the art of milking, etc., to which I replied +with some diffidence, as my knowledge of such matters was not very +extensive. As a boy, I remember gazing in at the entrance of a dairy in +our street by the hour together, dreaming of green fields and babbling +brooks, but I had never seen any cows there. The principal object that +attracted my attention was--what? I won’t disclose. The joke is too +ancient. + +When I had finished my sumptuous repast it was nearly one o’clock in +the morning, and Mrs. Wiman took up a candle, minus a candlestick, and +showed me up to my room, which was on the next and top floor. I stuck +the candle on the floor in the farther corner of the room, out of the +wind and snow, which again made its appearance through the half-wrecked +window. There was no furniture of any kind in the room, with the +exception of a low truckle-bed. + +I was then left alone, as I thought, but on looking towards the bed +I noticed that it had already an occupant, who reminded me of what +Robinson Crusoe must have looked like after having been deprived of his +barber for a twelvemonth. I crept silently into bed, generously giving +my companion the greater half of it, and laid awake, thinking over the +events of the past few hours, until it was almost daylight, when I +fell into a troubled sleep. I seemed to have been asleep only a few +minutes, however, when an alarm clock, which I had not noticed standing +in the recess of the window before retiring, began to make its presence +known in a very demonstrative manner. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, +invoking anything but blessings upon the devoted head of the inventor +of these execrable “utilities.” My partner turned over and uttered a +groan, and then becoming aware of my presence, he said, “Thank ’evin +you’ve come at last.” Somehow I could not find it in my heart to echo +this sentiment. + +“Why?” I asked. + +“’Cause, I’ll be able to leave now.” + +“Oh. But how is it that you are going?” + +“I guess you’ll soon find out why. Anyway, there’s no time for talking +on this ’ere farm. Shove on yer things and foller me.” + +This was not very encouraging, but I did not hazard any further +remarks, and was soon ready to follow my Job’s comforter. I began to +think that life on a Canadian farm was not all _couleur de rose_. When +we reached the kitchen, he lit a couple of lanterns, and we stepped out +into the yard, nearly up to our waists in snow. That fellow Thomson, +who sang of the sluggard and enlarged upon the advantages of early +rising, never put his theories into practice. If he had tried getting +up at four ~A. M.~ in picturesque Canada, in the depth of +winter, he would have tuned his lyre to a different strain. + +We then went into the stable, and Jim (my partner) gave me a bucket +to fetch some water for the horses, also a shovel with which I was to +find the pump. This was not an unnecessary precaution. The pump was +situated somewhere about one hundred yards from the barn. The wind had +been very boisterous during the night, and the snow had drifted in deep +reefs over a mile long, and the pump was completely buried. Finding +that I was not very successful in my search, Jim joined me, and by our +united efforts we at last discovered it. I am certain that no old-time +Californian miner was ever more delighted at striking gold than I was +when we found that pump. I thought I should lose my ears before we +uncovered it. + +On returning from this voyage of discovery we were met by Mr. Wiman, +who told me to follow him and “milk.” The cow-barn was at the far +end of the yard, and housed over fifty head of cattle. Another tramp +through the snow! I noticed that this place was far warmer even than +the house, which I rightly attributed to the animal life within its +walls. This “milking” was a practical test of my abilities which I +had not been looking forward to with any great eagerness. I will pass +over this experience, which even after this lapse of time makes a cold +sweat start out upon my brow. Suffice it to say, that after one hour of +pulling and tugging, with great beads of perspiration rolling down my +cheeks, to the utter disgust of the cow, and at great personal risk, +I succeeded in obtaining sufficient lacteal fluid for, at least, one +cup of tea. By this time breakfast was ready for me; I was ready for +breakfast, and the meeting was adjourned. + +The _pièce de résistance_ was the hash of the previous evening, +re-hashed; but farm work does not foster one’s epicureanism, and I ate +like an alderman. When I had finished my meal I drew my chair up to the +stove and produced a pipe, thinking that an hour was allowed for each +meal. I was soon informed to the contrary, however, by Mr. Wiman, who +burst into a hearty laugh. + +“Ah, that’s English, don’t cher know? It won’t wash out ’ere. I’d +advise you to follow Jim, and larn ’ow to ’itch on a team for drawing +bark. We don’t di-gest our food in this country, yer know. It’s got ter +take its chance.” + +The next thing to be done was to water the cattle, which was no +easy task. The spring, or watering-place, was in the centre of the +field adjoining the yard, at a distance of half a mile, and was only +distinguishable by a tree which stood close to it. We procured a shovel +and hatchet, and after a great deal of shoveling we came upon the +trough, which was filled with solid ice at least a foot in thickness. +I suggested that a little dynamite kept upon the premises would be a +handy article in winter, at which witticism Jim surrendered all the +smile that was left in him after a protracted spell of farm-labor. At +last we broke the ice sufficiently for two cows to drink at once, and +Jim told me to run up as fast as my legs would carry me and turn out +six cows, as otherwise the water would freeze again. The reader may +think that this verges upon exaggeration, but I can assure him, or her, +that on more than one subsequent occasion I had to break the ice a +second time within the space of a quarter of an hour. + +When all the cows had been watered, there was “clearing-out” to be +done. This was not a particularly clean occupation, but it was, at +all events, far warmer. Then came feeding, which with our careful +management took a great deal of time and a surprising amount of hay. +Jim was always thinking of his master’s best interests. He explained +this carelessness by confiding to me that he had worked for twelve +months for “glory,” that is, without remuneration, beyond bed and +board. He said that this was the only way in which he could get a +portion of his arrears from his respected employer. I had also agreed +to come upon the same terms during my novitiate, and had indeed paid +a small premium, but I had not anticipated such a lengthy term of +apprenticeship. + +Wiman now entered and announced dinner, a call to which we quickly +responded. Mrs. Wiman appeared to have quite a genius for making +hashes; indeed, she was a rustic Soyer. As I had by this time learned +to expect, the chief dish was a resurrection of the morning’s meal, +with sundry vegetable additions. I was very hungry, but I must confess +indulged in irritants (_i. e._, pepper and salt) to an extent which +would have put to shame an Anglo-Indian with a cast-iron interior. +Pastry was a sybaritic innovation which had not then found its way into +this part of the Dominion. + +We passed the afternoon in much the same way as the morning, and worked +until 7.30 ~P. M.~, when we supped on bread and cheese and went +to bed. + +The next day was Sunday, a day which in the dear “old country” is +usually kept holy, with an exemption from all toil not absolutely +necessary. My first Sabbath on the farm had almost slipped away before +I remembered what the day was. Thinking that the farmer had also made +a mistake, I mentioned the matter to him. He seemed quite surprised at +my religious scruples, which he regarded as another evidence of British +insular retrogression, and remarked that all days were alike to him. +And so it proved, for we spent the whole of that afternoon ploughing +snow, which drifted again almost as quickly as it was furrowed. + +In the evening Jim broached the subject of his resignation to the +“boss,” who blankly refused to accept it, and informed him that +if he wanted to go he must walk to the station, as he would see +him--ahem’d--before he would allow him the use of a horse and sleigh. +As I have said before, the village was considerably over five miles +from the farm, and to walk there through the snow was out of the +question. It meant almost certain death. + +But Jim avowed his intention of performing this feat, and very early +on the following morning he rose, packed up his scanty wardrobe, and +departed. + +Just before daybreak, about two hours after Jim’s exit, the infernal +clock rang out my doom. Upon reaching the barn I hung my lantern upon a +hook in the beam above, and sitting down upon my milk-stool, commenced +operations upon one of the cows. + +Suddenly I heard a voice at my elbow. “I can’t go through that +wood--it’s haunted.” A little bit scared myself, I turned round +abruptly, and in the dim light encountered the white face of the +adventurous Jim. Pulling myself together, I rather hastily demanded +what uneasy spirit could find pleasure in being out in such beastly +weather. + +“Well, you come with me, and see if there ain’t a ghost.” + +Curious to know what had frightened the fellow, I took down the +lantern, and together we sallied forth into the snow. We had hardly +reached the middle of the meadow when a dark object came rushing +towards us, and a sepulchral “bur-bur” sent Jim flying back in the +direction of the barn. + +“There it is!” he cried, in a voice full of terror. + +I held the lantern aloft and shouted, “Who’s there?” + +“Bur-bur,” was the reply. Then I ascertained the name and condition +of this perturbed spirit. It was a _calf_! It suddenly dawned upon me +that I had noticed the barn door was open when I first came down, and +I immediately came to the conclusion that Jim had let the ghost out +himself when he went in to put on his boots, which he was in the habit +of leaving in the barn when his day’s work was over. + +When Jim received a personal introduction to his ghost, he grew as +courageous as Bob Acres before he came into actual contact with pistols +and cold lead, and shouldering his bundle again he started forth, just +as daylight was dawning in the east. I gave him my pouch of tobacco to +render his journey less irksome, and that was the last I ever saw or +heard of poor Jim. + +The weather for the next three weeks was comparatively fine, and I got +along far better, and sometimes managed to find time to indulge in the +luxury of a “farmer’s holiday,” viz., chopping wood. Mr. Wiman seemed +to be, on the whole, very well satisfied with me, and encouragingly +informed me that he had no doubt but that I should get into working +order by the time work commenced, which, in his opinion, was not +until the spring, when ploughing, etc., began. This was something of +a revelation to me. In my intense ignorance of farm matters I had +imagined that there was already plenty to do. + +It now became forcibly evident to me that I was not intended for a +farmer. A daily communion with nature appeared every day less like the +celestial “all beers and skittles” I had previously conceived it to +be. The smoky London I had left became by comparison with my present +surroundings a very seventh heaven of felicity. I began to long once +more to relapse into a unit in one of the world’s great loveless hives. +I communicated my desire to Mr. Wiman. He would not hear of my leaving +him until the expiration of three months, vowing that I had agreed +to stay for that term, and threatening that if I attempted to leave +without his sanction, he would “have the law of me.” I had made no such +agreement, but I saw that it would not help me to make a disturbance, +and so restrained my natural indignation at such treatment. However, I +determined to seek pastures new, and prepared my traps for flight at +the first opportunity which offered itself. + +I had not long to wait. A few days after my skirmish with the “boss,” +he had to attend to some very important business at a neighbor’s farm +about two miles farther east. Now or never was the time to escape. +I immediately began my preparations by harnessing the best horse in +the stable to a sledge. Everything was packed, so there was only the +transfer of my chest from my room to the sledge. But how should I +accomplish this without arousing her ladyship’s suspicions? The fates +were propitious. I had barely finished harnessing the horse, when Mrs. +Wiman’s stately form emerged from the house, with a hatchet in her hand. + +“Where are you off to?” she inquired. + +“Oh, I’m going to the wood to draw bark,” I replied, leisurely +surveying the straps to disarm suspicion. + +“S’pose you’ll be back in time for dinner,” she said, picking her way +across the yard and entering the corn-bin, where a plentiful supply of +killed cow was always kept. + +“Oh, yes,” I answered. “And I guess when I return I’ll be jolly +hungry, so please cut off a double dose for me,” I added, venturing +upon a little joke as a kind of farewell. Then I darted across the +yard, and went up to my room--I don’t know how many stairs at a +time--and, by a herculean effort, shouldered my box, hurried down +again, almost breaking my neck in my haste, and had it on the sledge +before I had breath enough to say “Jack Robinson.” I was just in the +act of covering it over with some sacks when Mrs. Wiman reappeared with +a huge piece of raw flesh in her hand. She comprehended the situation +in a flash. + +“So you are a-going to draw bark, are yer? Not to-day, my beauty!” I +cannot lay much claim to this distinction, and so remained modestly +silent. Men cannot receive flattery with the same brazen effrontery +which characterizes the least beautiful members of the softer sex. + +“Now just take that ’orse out, afore I come and ’elp yer,” she +continued. “And be lively about it, my fine feller.” + +I was now fairly seated ready to start, and catching up the reins I +lashed the horse, and we plunged out of the yard. + +“Stand away, there, ma’am. Look out, or there’ll be a circus on this +farm!” + + * * * * * + +What a drive that was! The snow began falling in heavy flakes, and I +had only a very slight acquaintance with the road, but we went like the +wind. Here we go through a drift! Capsized?--no, another miracle in our +favor. The horse stumbles--he’s down? No, Providence again! Shall I be +too late for a train? I have not the least idea of the time-table, but +drive as if a whole legion of excited women in old huzzar jackets, with +streaming hair and vengeance in their hearts, were after me. + +Ah! there’s the lake, and over yonder is the railway station. The wind +blows in my teeth; my blood tingles with excitement, and the horse, +entering into the spirit of the affair--bolts! Yes, I have lost all +control over him. He throws up his head, sniffs the keen air, and +taking the bit between his teeth, tears through the snow, scattering +it in clouds on either side, like a thing possessed. Here is another +dilemma. Supposing he should take it into his head to gallop on right +past the station, and return home by a short cut known only to himself. +I hardly know now whether I should accentuate this period with a +mark of interrogation or exclamation. I think a very large? would be +the most suitable, as somewhat expressive of the chaos of horrors +presented to my mind as the possibility of such a contingency arose. I +cannot express what my feelings were at that moment; I leave the reader +to draw his own inferences from the--? + +The station at last! Thank Heaven! The runaway tears into the yard, but +not deeming himself capable of clearing either the fence or the shanty, +he comes to a dead standstill. I’m saved! I rush into the shanty, where +I find the station-master fast asleep in his chair. My hurried entrance +awakes him, and he starts up red in the face with anger and surprise, +at such a display of energetic impatience in his private domain. + +“What do you want, young man?” he asks, severely. + +“I want a ticket for Montreal. When does the next train start?” + +“Is that all ye disturbed me for? Well, I guess,” he replied, with +provoking deliberateness, again settling himself comfortably in his +chair, “I guess you’re afraid of being late, ain’t you? I likes +punctual young men, that I do!” + +“When does the train start?” I cried, angrily. + +“Well, I rather think she’s got to get here first. _But_, if all’s +well, she’ll start from this ’ere dee-pôt in three hours’ time.” + +Three hours!--three mortal hours to wait. Horrors! Why, that gave time +for Wiman to return home and start in pursuit. I paced up and down the +yard like a caged lion, glancing every few minutes in the direction of +the lake. At length the train came in sight, and almost simultaneously +I noticed a team galloping with incontinent haste through the blinding +snow, half-way across the lake. + +It was a race between the iron horse and thews and sinews. On they +come. Which will be the first in? With breathless interest I glance +from one to the other. + +Hurrah! the train is in. My baggage is checked and in the van. + +“All aboard there! Right away!” + +Here comes Wiman through, puffing and blowing like a grampus; and +standing with easy grace upon the platform of the hindmost car, there +goes “yours truly.” + + + + +A NIGHT PADDLE. + + + Amid the lilies in the marsh + The frogs in solemn chorus croak; + The owlet’s hooting, weird and harsh, + Is sounding from the hollow oak. + And far upon the hillside dark + I faintly hear the foxes bark. + + Across my face the bat’s light wing + Just brushes with a strange dismay; + And from the shores some frightened thing + Slips softly down and swims away. + A fish leaps up--a silver flash, + ’Mid widening ripples--and a splash! + + A thin, wan spectre of the moon + Is rising late behind the hill; + The strange mad laughter of the loon + Peals o’er the lake--then all is still. + Amid the reeds, a gleaming spark-- + A fire-fly dancing in the dark. + + I hear the heart of Nature beat! + The world of men is far away. + O Soul, thy tameless brothers greet! + Thou art, to-night, as wild as they. + The savage blood is coursing fleet! + My heart with Nature’s heart doth beat! + + _M. E. Gorham._ + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Open ~Window~.] + + +BASEBALL. + +~The~ legislative work of the season of 1888 ended with the +conventions of the National League and the American Association; the +former being held in New York on November 21st, and the latter in St. +Louis on December 5th. What was accomplished by the two organizations +will unquestionably lead to an improvement in the working of the +professional baseball business in 1889. Not only were the playing rules +of the game greatly improved--though there is still room for further +advancement toward a perfect code--but a movement was made toward the +adoption of a system of salaries for players, more in accordance with +the merit of the individual, and with the increase in the financial +success of the clubs as a whole, than is possible under the previous +star systems with its fancy salaries. The plan of grading salaries +which was adopted at the League convention, and which could not be +successfully carried out without the co-operation of the American +Association, was virtually endorsed by the latter at their December +convention by the appointment of a special committee to work out with +a similar committee of the League a plan of grading salaries. These +committees meet in New York in March, 1889. Neither organization took +action at their respective conventions as to the adoption of the +double umpire plan, which is the only true solution of the umpire +difficulty. The American Association, by reducing the salaries of +umpires to figures below those paid to their lowest-salaried player, +took a decided step backward, as it is a short-sighted policy to +discourage the entrance of the best class of men into the corps of +umpires. The onerous duties of a capable staff of umpires exceed in the +value of the work done those of the most important players of the club +team, and they should be placed on a par with the best players in the +matter of salaries, especially in view of the fact that good umpiring +conduces as much to the financial success of a club as the work of +successful battery players. Thousands of patrons were driven from ball +grounds last season by the disgraceful rows which were induced by +unsatisfactory umpiring, and this fact should be borne in mind when +arranging the umpire salary question of 1889. + +The movement, inaugurated by the editor of the Dublin _Sport_, in favor +of the introduction of our national game, as one of the established +sports of Ireland, naturally excites great interest in the United +States. It is to be hoped that it will be followed up until the +American game is practically inaugurated in Dublin. Since the baseball +teams now in Australia have decided to return by way of Europe and the +British Isles, an opportunity will be afforded our Irish friends to +see how the game is played by our professional experts. It will give +a great impetus to the game if the efforts of _Sport_ in organizing an +Irish professional team can be practically carried out in time for the +season of 1889. It only needs some of the Yankee energy and enterprise +illustrated so strikingly in Mr. Spalding’s Australian tour to make the +Irish movement a decided success. As Colonel Fellows says, “There’s +millions in it!” + + ~Henry Chadwick.~ + + * * * * * + + +BOWLING. + +~No~ game has taken a greater hold on the public than bowling. +The game has always been very popular at summer hotels, and most of +them have half a dozen alleys. One reason of its popularity is that +both sexes can join in it, as in lawn tennis; and though, of course, a +man has a great advantage, there are ladies in New York who can hold +their own with the majority of the men. This was shown last year at the +Knickerbocker Bowling Club, when the ladies’ aggregate scores were but +a few points behind those of the men, and a score of 232 was made on +one occasion by a lady. So great a demand for alleys has arisen that +several have been specially built in such a way that portions of the +building can be cut off. Thus several clubs use the same building, and +yet the members of the one club need not intermingle with the members +of the other. + +Of the physical advantages derived from this exercise it is unnecessary +to speak, but on the matter of appropriate dress some few remarks +may not be out of place. A lady’s dress should not have too abundant +skirts. They should be plain and fitting to the figure as the hand +is apt to catch in flowing draperies. The bodice should be tight at +the waist and loose in the arms, to allow ample room for the play of +the muscles. It is impossible to bowl properly in a tight bodice that +restricts the action of the chest and shoulders. For the same reasons a +man’s costume should be loose and easy. Care should be taken to wrap up +well after bowling. The exercise heats the body and a chill is easily +taken. + +As a rule, people are inclined to over-bowl, _i. e._, they will insist +on using a ball too heavy for their strength. A “strike” can be made as +easily with a ball of medium weight as with a very heavy one, and not +one man in ten or woman in a thousand is capable of using the latter. +The ball should be held firmly and a short run allowed of about six to +ten feet. The ball should leave the hand easily and smoothly so that no +decrease of pace or deviation of direction occur from the ball bumping. +The center pin should be aimed at. It is well not to aim too much in +the center of the pin, as the ball is apt to “cut” through and take +only the center pins, a result usually alluded to as “hard luck,” when +it is in reality bad play. It does not pay to use too great exertion, +for a medium pace ball is as effective as a very fast one, and the +strongest cannot keep up the pace through a long game. Complaints are +often made that the fingers get sore and raw from bowling. A little +alcohol applied in the morning and evening and occasionally a little +alum rubbed in will be found very efficacious. + +One thing is absolutely necessary, viz.: that there shall be efficient +boys to place the pins exactly on the proper marks. A boy can if he +chooses defeat the best bowler by misplacing the pins. This may not be +visible to the bowler, but it will make a vast difference when the ball +reaches the pins. + + ~C. S. Pelham-Clinton.~ + + * * * * * + + +THE CANOEING SEASON. + +~Each~ year marks a decided advance in the popularity of +this delightful sport. It appeals to a great variety of tastes +and temperaments. It can be enjoyed on almost any sheet of +water from a small stream or pond to the ocean itself. It is so +many-sided--cruising, paddling, sailing, racing, exercising--that any +one who has a taste for aquatics must be interested in it, even if +not to the extent of owning a canoe. The season of last year was a +memorable one in many ways. The coming season promises to be a still +more remarkable one in the line of racing and the perfection of the +sailing-canoe, on which a great amount of thought, work and money have +been spent. + +It is not probable that any one canoe will be able to beat the ’88 +record of the _Eclipse_--seventeen first prizes and four second prizes +out of a total of twenty-one races--but it is quite likely that canoe +_Eclipse_ will find a worthy rival, as the last races of the season +showed canoe _Fly_ to be quite her equal if not her superior in point +of speed under sail. + +The canoe is limited in size by the Association rules to a length +of sixteen feet, with a beam of thirty inches for that length. The +problem, therefore, is to get the very best lines for this size of +boat, and the best sail plan. It is wonderful that the speed of the +canoe has been so increased from year to year, each season showing a +marked advance over the previous one. It does seem as though the limit +must soon be reached unless some better material than wood can be +invented to build the boats of. The fact must also be considered that +these racing-canoes are not simply racing-machines, but generally good +honest boats, capable of a variety of uses and remarkably safe for +navigation. The most minute details of construction and rig receive +great attention, and all sorts of experiments are tried with the hope +of increasing the speed a few seconds in a mile. That 1889 will show +some new boats of marked speed is certain from the amount of building +and designing now going on--although there seems to be little chance of +any international matches being arranged. + +More is written and said of the racing-canoes than of others, but the +fact remains that the cruising-canoe increases at many times the rate +of the racers. Cruising appeals to so many--racing to the few--canoeing +has “come to stay.” As racing is now carried on the sport presents +almost as many purely scientific problems as yacht-racing and building. +The solving of problems is a universal occupation--and all the canoe +problems will not be solved for a generation at least, so there is no +fear of the interest abating. + + ~C. Bowyer Vaux.~ + + * * * * * + + +FOILS AND FENCING. + +~An~ encouraging feature in the athletic improvement noticeable +throughout the country is the increase of the devotees of the foil. +Fencing is acknowledged to be the accomplishment _par excellence_ of +the nobility and gentry. To its practice may be attributed much of +the grace and dignity of deportment conceded to the seigneurs of the +ancient regime. There is no exercise that assists so materially in +keeping the members of the body in good all-round condition during the +winter months. We hear of active work being indulged in by members +of the leading athletic clubs in New York, Washington, Baltimore and +Boston. At the New York Fencers’ Club Captain Nicholas has his hands +full and is giving more lessons than ever before. Three days in the +week he devotes to a large class of lady pupils; friends, sisters or +relatives of the male members only being admitted to the privilege of +the elegant _salle d’armes_ of this club. + +Professor Regis Senac is fully employed at the New York Athletic Club, +and with such pupils as Messrs. Lawson, Bloodgood and others to point +to, it is no wonder that his _clientèle_ is a strong one. + +The Knickerbocker Fencing Club is undoubtedly one of the most perfectly +appointed and most thoroughly workmanlike _salles d’armes_ in this +country. With the services of such an able and accomplished swordsman +as Monsieur Louis Rondell, it is not surprising that some very fine +exhibitions of clever fencing may be witnessed in the rooms. M. +Rondell also has a promising class of lady-fencers. He says that +his fair pupils seem to thoroughly enjoy the sport and enter more +enthusiastically and spiritedly into the bouts than his _protégés_ +of the sterner sex. Great things are promised in the way of a grand +_salle d’armes_ in the new building that will soon be the home of +the Manhattan Athletic Club. Those who don the “double diamond” will +see that fencing is not neglected. In fact, they have now, under +the tuition of Louis Tronchet--a graduate of the famous college of +Joinville les Ponts, and the present champion of America--a very +promising class. + +With such an enthusiastic following as this fascinating accomplishment +now boasts of, it is somewhat surprising that a champion amateur +tournament is not instituted. We hope that the present season will not +be allowed to pass without an attempt of the kind being made. We feel +sure the leading clubs in Annapolis, Baltimore, Washington, Boston and +other cities will be glad to send representatives. Will not some one +take the initiative? + + ~Charles E. Clay.~ + + * * * * * + + +PEDESTRIAN CONTESTS. + +“~The~ noblest study of mankind is man,” quoth Pope; but since +these words were written man has been presented in new aspects which +would have made the poet open his eyes in wonder and amazement. What +would our forefathers have thought if they had been told that a man +could be treated as an automatic machine, and be set going and kept +going for a certain length of time? What would they have thought if +they had been told that a man would succeed in covering 623 miles in +six days? Yet marvelous as such a performance appears even to a man +of the present day, it seems probable that the limit of endurance and +pluck has not yet been reached. The outcome of the contest between +the four great walkers of the world, Littlewood, Albert, Rowell and +Herty may and very possibly will eclipse the new record. The remarkable +feature of the last “go-as-you-please” is that no less than ten men +shared in the gate receipts--a record hitherto untouched. The excellent +condition of Littlewood at the end of his task speaks volumes for +the thoroughness of his training, and the other contestants who had +undergone a course of preparation, suffered remarkably little from +their efforts. The management of the show was all that could be desired +in the hands of Mr. O’Brien and his able colleagues. + + ~Sporting Tramp.~ + + * * * * * + + +DOG CHAT. + +~The~ Executive of the National Dog Club at its last meeting +passed the following resolutions: + +“That the American Kennel Club be formally notified that the National +Dog Club of America is ready, and will be pleased to aid it in +advancing the interest of the breeders and exhibitors of this country. + +“That should the American Kennel Club desire to confer with the +National Dog Club, the latter, on receiving such expression, will meet +it in the person of Dr. J. Frank Perry, the chosen representative of +the Executive Committee. + +“That hereafter at all bench shows there shall be appointees of the +Executive Committee of the National Dog Club to take charge of the dogs +of those of the club’s members who are unable to attend; to see that +such dogs are properly benched, fed, watered, groomed, brought before +the judges, etc., and at the end of the show to superintend their +reshipment. The expense of such service to be borne by the National Dog +Club.” + +A committee was appointed to consider the expediency of “listing” the +breeders of America, with the ratings of each as regards fair dealing. +Twenty new members were admitted to the club. + + * * * * * + +~The~ American Kennel Club will do well to bury the hatchet and +meet the N. D. C. half way. Far more good can be accomplished by united +action. No fitter representative could have been chosen by the National +than Dr. J. Frank Perry, the honored president. + +That is a bold venture, their proposed appointment of attendants at all +bench shows, to take charge of members’ dogs. But it is a praiseworthy +one, and will act as a most tempting bait to those fanciers who like to +get their money’s worth. + + * * * * * + +~However~, the American Kennel Club has not been idle. They have +not only drafted a new constitution and by-laws, materially differing +from the old, but they propose to publish a Kennel Gazette and to form +a club of associate members. This last scheme seems a great mistake. +It is intended as a rival to the N. D. C.; but instead of being an +autonomic association, it will be entitled to one representative in the +counsels of the A. K. C., just as if it were a club of the local stamp, +“run” by one man. As it is hoped that the unattached representative +breeders will join, it will clearly be seen what an utter farce the +thing would be. A body of our leading breeders would have no greater a +representation than the one-man figure-head clubs! + +The Kennel Gazette, it is proposed, will publish the prize lists, etc., +of shows held under its rules, judges’ reports on their respective +classes, and the official news of the American Kennel Club. President +Belmont will provide financial support for the venture. + + * * * * * + +~The~ detailed report of the last American Kennel Club meeting +has not been received up to the time of writing, but the telegraphed +synopsis conveys news that is gratifying in the extreme. + +When kennel editor of the lately defunct _Sport_, of Montreal, a +case was brought to my notice which I thought demanded the fullest +ventilation. It was nothing less than the fraudulent substitution of a +borrowed dog for a dead one that had been entered at the Westminster +Kennel Club’s Show in ’87 by a Mr. J. F. Campbell, of Montreal. I +exposed the matter editorially and demanded that it should be brought +before the A. K. C. for consideration. The culprit blustered, and +threatened me with a suit for libel; but I was determined to see +justice done, and had all the papers bearing on the case placed in the +hands of a friend who “licked” them into shape, and forwarded them to +an A.K.C. delegate, a friend of his, to be submitted at the earliest +meeting of the club. Judgment in the case has at this last mentioned +meeting been delivered, and John F. Campbell is declared suspended +for one year and ordered to repay the amount of the prize-money +fraudulently won by the Yorkshire terrier “Bertie,” alias “Sir Colin,” +to the Westminster Kennel Club. The A. K. C. is slow, painfully slow, +but in this instance it has “got there all the same.” + +Last year witnessed the importation of a great number of high-class +dogs. As a rule, in previous years, we have been content with buying +second, third or no-class-at-all specimens in England; but not so in +1888. First, that king of all St. Bernards, the giant Plinlimmon, +was exchanged for five thousand one hundred and thirteen good Yankee +dollars (the highest price ever paid for a dog). Then, the hardly +inferior Burns is soon to cross the pond, and Lysander and many other +grand specimens of the mighty Alpine breed. The mastiffs, Orlando, +Baldur and others, must not be omitted from the roll, nor the great +English setters, Champion, Comet, Howard, Blue Nell and others. Gordon +setters have also had added to their ranks the Champion Beaumont and +his kennel mates, and the Irish setters, too, have several recruits. +Nor must the many spaniels, Sussex, Field and Cocker, be forgotten. + +From present indications, moreover, it would appear that we are to +see other new faces from across the water on the show benches this +year. Mr. E. M. Oldham, of New York, has gone to England, intent on +purchasing some Black Spaniel flesh of the highest quality, especially, +though low be it spoken, something with which to trail Bridford +Negress’ colors in the dust. He also gives out that it is his purpose +to import some Clumber Spaniels, the best obtainable; and I truly hope +he will, for they are a grand breed, and are deserving of a far larger +share of public favor than is at present accorded them. Our Canadian +cousins have the best dogs of this breed and our State-bred specimens +stand no chance in competition with them. + +“Scotch” Baillie, of Lexington, Ky., has also crossed the seas, on the +purchase of dogs intent. Gordon setters will probably head his string; +but be on the lookout for something else. Our people are recognizing +more fully each succeeding year the satisfaction to be derived from +owning high-class specimens of man’s best friend. They think like an +acquaintance whom I overheard say: “I love a dog, but hang it, life’s +too short to waste affection on a cur, when a thoroughbred can be +bought for a small outlay!” + + ~Dogwhip.~ + + + + +OUR THEATRICAL PLAYGROUND. + + +THE ENGLISH EXOTIC. + +Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. Potter have possession at present of the two +theaters occupied immediately before their coming by Booth and Barrett, +and Mary Anderson. The Langtry and the Potter are types of a class of +dramatic exotics which have, of late years, come into prominence. They +represent nothing in art; their schooling, teaching, and social life +have tended to unfit rather than prepare them for work on the stage. +If Mrs. Langtry had not obtained prominence in one way or other and as +a beauty in England before she turned her attention to play-acting, +no American manager would have troubled himself to introduce her to +the American public as an actress. Without the notoriety she achieved +abroad she never would have been accepted in this enlightened country +by the theater-going public. Like a thoroughly sensible and practical +woman she saw a chance to make a fortune here and took advantage of the +opportunity. She is now playing to large houses at the Fifth Avenue +Theater. When Booth and Barrett appeared there the attendance was +not nearly so great. This fact alone speaks volumes for the artistic +intelligence of American theater-goers. Make hay, Mrs. Langtry, while +the sun shines! + + +THE AMERICAN EXOTIC. + +Mrs. Potter is another type of the hot-house actress. Her great +drawback is that she is an American, and Americans, though +protectionists in the main, strange to say, dearly love the foreign +article in the way of imported talent. It took Mrs. Potter some time +to make up her mind whether or not she should adopt the stage as a +profession. It was all right to be an amateur actress, but to be a +professional actress was another thing. However, she finally made the +plunge, and now she is a full-fledged actress of the Langtry type, +without the slightest chance of making anything like the fortune the +Lily has already piled up. Strangely enough Mrs. Potter succeeded +Miss Anderson at Palmer’s Theater, just as Mrs. Langtry succeeded Mr. +Booth at the Fifth Avenue. There is no other great city in the world +where a similar state of things could exist. Edwin Booth, one of the +greatest actors of his time, succeeded by Mrs. Langtry, a professional +beauty, and Mary Anderson, who has won her position on the stage by +earnest toil, hard work and persistent study, followed by Mrs. Potter, +an amateur fledgeling of two seasons professional growth. _Miserere, +Domine!_ + + +A DRAMATIC GEM. + +One of the best and most interesting plays New Yorkers have had an +opportunity of enjoying for a long time is “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” +as at present played at the Broadway Theater. It is a dramatic gem of +the purest water, and will long continue to interest play-goers who +have a taste for the refined in art in preference to the meretricious. +Mrs. Burnett’s charming story has lost nothing of its beauty by its +adaptation for the theater. As a novel it is interesting; as a stage +story where its personages appear and take form before the footlights +it is a delight. + + +IRISH ROMANCE. + +Edward Harrigan, when he produced “The Lorgaire,” at the Park Theater, +made an entirely new departure in his dramatic work. Laying aside +for the time being the task of drawing pictures of New York life +at the present day, he entered into the field of romance, and on +Irish soil gathered together the material with which he has woven +his story together. Apart from the dramas of Boucicault it is one of +the best Irish plays written in years. Unlike the machine-made Irish +play of the revolving stars, which are generally made up of a song, +a jig, a priest and a handful of English soldiers, Mr. Harrigan has +endeavored to picture an Irish story in dramatic form on the stage, +as Carleton, Lever, Maxwell and Griffin sought to relate their tales +as story-tellers in their books. If “The Lorgaire” did not catch the +fancy of theater-goers as quickly as “a local” might have done, that +is nothing to be wondered at. The new drama offered at the Park will +enhance Mr. Harrigan’s reputation both as a writer and a player. + + +ENGLISH REALITY. + +Pinero has written many good things for the stage, and though they may +not live much beyond the present day, they are as enjoyable as anything +we have in contemporaneous dramatic literature. “Sweet Lavender,” the +latest of Mr. Pinero’s works, is now in the full tide of success at +the pretty Lyceum Theater. It well deserves the victory it has won. +Mr. Le Moyne, who plays the part of a good-hearted old barrister, with +a fondness at times for his cups, is the best thing that accomplished +actor has ever attempted. It is not, however, Mr. Le Moyne’s acting or +the acting of any particular member of the Lyceum Theatre Company which +wins approval. It is the decidedly English atmosphere of the work--the +setting, scenes, properties, business and everything connected with the +play--that shows with what care “Sweet Lavender” was prepared; and with +such preparation it is not a matter of surprise that the public crowd +the little theater to take a look at this picture from nature. + + +REAL GAIETY. + +As intimated in a previous number of ~Outing~, the London Gaiety +Company, with Nellie Farren as the bright particular star of the +organization, has made a deep impression on American theater-goers. +The feeling entertained by some people that Miss Farren and her ways, +and the ways of the company by whom she was surrounded, were too +thoroughly English to meet with recognition here, proved erroneous. +The theater-goers of this city are not limited by such narrow +boundaries. It was not Miss Farren’s nationality or the nationality +of her company that was to undergo a test, but Nellie Farren and the +London Gaiety Burlesque Company as artists. With a burlesque not +adapted for an American audience--for “Monte Cristo, Jr.” is anything +but bright in dialogue--they won the favors of New Yorkers. Even +with the disadvantage of a poor book, they succeeded in convincing +the public they could act, and dance and sing themselves into +appreciation as burlesquers. Moreover the Gaiety Company did not rely +wholly on the ability of Nellie Farren and Fred Leslie for all the +supply of burlesque entertainment as is too often the case with such +organizations. After a short trial, New Yorkers rather fancied the +new comers, and toward the end began to regard them as favorites. The +success of the return visit of the London Gaiety Company to the United +States is pre-assured, notwithstanding the movement of Louis Aldrich, +Harley Merry, and others. + + ~Richard Neville.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Among the Books~] + + +~A breath~ of warm summer air seems to dispel for a moment +the cold rawness of the winter day, as one turns over the pages of +that most exquisitely executed volume of French drawings--“Plages de +Bretagne et Jersey,” by “Mars,” (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie.). +Intensely Gallic are these drawings, and just as dainty and attractive +as one would expect from the clever artist whose work they are. The +bathing-dresses of Trouville are no longer strangers to these shores; +but it seems as if the book fairly teems with suggestions for the +amphibious maiden preparing for a summer campaign by the sea. + + * * * * * + +~A really~ remarkable novel, with a purpose, and that purpose +strongly defined, is “Dr. Ben,” by Orlando Witherspoon (Boston: Ticknor +& Co. 1888). The existence of the purpose, instead of decreasing the +interest of the book by dwarfing the other incidents, in this case +only heightens and increases its power. The plot is strengthened by +its existence, and the story fairly abounds in incident, thrilling +enough to satisfy the most insatiate novel-reader. It is extremely +sensational, but the character-sketching, humor and pleasing style +suffice to relieve the book of the brand of morbid sensationalism. The +utmost sympathy is evoked by Ben’s character, his misfortunes, and his +ultimate recovery, and the fascination exercised is so intense that +scarcely one reader will lay the book down without finishing it, and +what is more, carrying off an impression vivid enough to last for years. + + * * * * * + +~Nothing~ marks the increased popularity and importance of the +cycle more than the rapid growth of its literature. “Rhymes of the Road +and River,” by Chris. Wheeler (Philadelphia: E. Stanley Hart & Co.), is +a volume to meet with a ready acceptance from every lover of the wheel +and oar. The author shows his genuine ardor for these sports in every +page, and imbues the products of his pen with this spirit. The comic +poems strike us as particularly good, even though in some the author +prove untrue to his first love, as, in “The Lay of a Recreant,” + + “Two within a buggy, boys, behind a trotting mare, + The devil take the bicycle that can with that compare!” + + * * * * * + +~To~ cyclists the modest, unpretentious account of a really +noteworthy cycling trip, which is contained in “Pedal and Path,” by +George B. Thayer (Hartford: Evening Post Association), must have +proved of considerable value, while to the outside public it cannot +fail to be interesting. The distance actually traveled by wheel was +4,239 miles, and the work and fatigue undergone were extreme. Mr. +Thayer tells his story in a pleasant, chatty style, well adapted to +the original form his writings took--newspaper letters--and furnishing +pleasant light literature in book-form. There is rather an undue amount +of personalities, as regards appearance of people encountered, etc., +and some few passages savor of a _naïveté_ which might prove somewhat +embarrassing to a young lady reader, but these are minor faults. + + * * * * * + +~To~ the jaded palate of the habitual novel-reader, anything +new and sensational is acceptable, however wild in its conception. +We should imagine, therefore, that “The Heart of Don Vega,” by +Alfred Allen (Westerly, R. I.: George G. Champlin, 1888), will meet +with considerable appreciation among a certain class. Novelty, +sensationalism, horrors and tragedies abound in the little volume, and +are withal strung into a very readable story. + + * * * * * + +~Among~ the best books for the benefit of the younger members of +society are the following published by Messrs. Lee & Shepard, Boston: +“Up the North Branch” forms the fourth volume of the Lake and Forest +Series, by Capt. Charles A. J. Farrar, and is an exciting narrative +of sport and adventure in the wilds of Maine. It is bound to hit the +fancy of every boy. “Biding His Time,” by J. T. Trowbridge, is a story +of the adventures and subsequent good fortune of a poor Ohio lad. +“Mother Goose’s Melodies” and “Songs of Our Darlings” are cheap and +well printed collections of old familiar nursery rhymes. “The Readings +from the Waverley Novels”--edited by Albert F. Blaisdell, A.M., are +a capital selection of just such passages as will catch the youthful +fancy. + + * * * * * + +~A day-book~ of pretty thoughts, strengthened by scriptural +quotations, is to be found in “Pansies for Thoughts,” from the writings +of “Pansy”--Mrs. G. R. Alden--compiled by Grace Livingston. (Boston: D. +Lothrop & Co.). The selections are apt and happy, while the appearance +of the little volume is most charming. + + * * * * * + +~The~ holiday number of “Sun and Shade” (Brooklyn: The +Photo-Gravure Co.) is extremely handsome. The reproductions are +a marvel of art, that of Raphael’s “Madonna della Sedia” being +particularly striking, while “See-Saw,” by John Morgan, makes a most +charming picture. + + * * * * * + +~Pithy~ and appropriate sentiments are found in the little +pamphlet, “Stray Notes from Famous Musicians,” compiled by G. H. C. +(Boston: Oliver Ditson & Co.). No page can be opened without some +tersely worded truth impressing itself on the mind. + + * * * * * + +~The~ volume of music, entitled “Classic Tenor Songs” (Boston: +Oliver Ditson & Co.), is one which fully justifies its title. It will +prove a valuable addition to the existing collections of songs for male +voices. + + * * * * * + +~A capital~ specimen of what can be done in compiling a +university record is afforded by “The Yale Banner,” Louis L. Barnum, +editor and publisher. The make up of the volume is all that can be +desired, and the portrait groups form an interesting feature. + + * * * * * + +~We~ have received the “American Newspaper Annual” for 1888, +issued by N. W. Ayer & Son, Philadelphia. It forms an extremely +complete volume, and is of great service to advertisers. + + + + +[Illustration: AMENITIES.] + + +SHE ONLY SHOOK HER HEAD. + + + “Dear Madge, you’re the joy of my heart, + And the pride of my life! + Please name the near day + You’ll be my true wife.” + But she only shook her head, + (A blonde head) + And said, “Nay, nay, I cannot wed.” + + (In a season or so, + As I’ve reason to know, + She went to Pau, + And married + A lord, + Or an earl, + Or a count.) + + “Dear Kate, _you’re_ the joy of my heart, + And the pride of my life! + Pray name the dear day + You’ll be my fond wife.” + But she only shook her head, + (An auburn head) + And said, “Nay, nay, I cannot wed.” + + (In a season or so, + As I’ve reason to know, + She, too, went to Pau, + And married + A duke, + Or a prince, + Or a king.) + + “Dear Fan, you _are_ the joy of my heart, + And the pride of my life! + Now, sweet, name the day + You’ll be my dear wife.” + But she, too, shook her head + (A darling head), + And said--Nay, nay, I’ll not tell you what she said, + Only this: a month from to-morrow we wed. + + N.B.--(’Tis the joy of my heart + And the pride of my life + That I lost Madge and Kate + And got Fan for a wife.) + + _A. A. P._ + + + + +[Illustration: ~Pleasure, Travel and Resorts~] + + +~The~ acclimatization of the wild turkey has been tried with +great success in Austria. Count Breuner, on his estate at Graffeneck, +turned down three males and four females with the result that there is +now a flock of 580. In addition, some 150 have been shot on neighboring +estates. The largest weight yet recorded is 19 pounds. + + * * * * * + +~A curious~ incident is reported from England. The Catswold +hounds, Gloucestershire, recently found three foxes, and after a good +run two foxes at once were killed at a place called Postlip. + + * * * * * + +~According~ to report, Prince Henri de Bourbon and the Princess, +who are traveling in India as the Comte and Comtesse de Bardi, have +been badly hoaxed by some person or persons, who are alleged to have +given them tame tigers and cows to shoot. The cows one can understand, +but tame tigers! Such may be found in the possession of dervishes +in temples, but we doubt if any are available for turning out and +shooting. A tiger so tame as that would be worth several hundred pounds +to any circus proprietor. + + * * * * * + +~The~ London _Sunday Times_ publishes the following from its New +York correspondent: + +“One of the rarest and finest specimens of big game ever mounted has +recently been presented by Mr. Royal Carroll to a Fifth Avenue club, +where it hangs over the mantel in the smoking-room. It is the head of +a Harris deer, which Mr. Carroll recently shot in that part of Africa +made famous by Rider Haggard’s novels. The deer is jet black, save +only his face and ears, stood 14.2, weighed 400 pounds, has backward +curving horns like the ibex, and is the only specimen of the species +in this country. The glowing descriptions which Mr. Carroll gives of +his adventures with big game in the jungles of India and the forests +of Africa have given considerable impetus to a department of sport in +which we have permitted our English cousins to far outstrip us, and +several expeditions similar to Mr. Carroll’s are now being planned.” + + * * * * * + +~Lieut.-General Burton~, in “An Indian Olio,” refers to the +increasing scarceness of large game in India. After pointing out how +the intrusion of the railway with the “diabolical screech of the steam +whistle,” and “the demoralizing puff and snort of the rushing engine,” +and the “evil odor of coal gas” penetrating the forest, acts upon such +shy animals as the bison, he shows what the natives have to do with +it. “Guns have of late years come much more generally into use with the +natives. Where there was, fifty years ago, perhaps only one matchlock, +a venerable flint musket, in a village, there are now a dozen, and +natives have got much more into the habit of killing game--the eatable +animals for food, the fierce and dangerous beasts (potted from a safe +shelter) for the Government reward. I knew a party of natives go out +under supervision, in fact, in pay of Brahmin (save the mark), with a +big jingal, or wall piece, carried between two of them, until they came +upon the fresh tracks of a herd of elephants. They then crept to within +ten or fifteen paces and tied the jingal, ready loaded, and laid for +the biggest elephant, to a tree trunk, lighted a slow match and retired +to a safe distance. Presently the great weapon, which had been pointed +straight for the vitals, behind the shoulder of the elephant, exploded +with a report like that of a small cannon echoing through the forest.” + + * * * * * + +~Among~ the features of New York life which particularly strike +the visitor is the extreme elegance and luxury of the Hoffman House +baths. The comfort of indulging in a thorough cleansing after the +inevitable discomforts of travel, whether by sea or land, is sufficient +to induce every traveler to visit them. But, moreover, residents of +Gotham find that nothing so conduces to general health, or is so +efficient a foe to rheumatism, neuralgia, or other “evils that the +flesh is heir to,” as the Turkish bath. The result is that one and all +fly to this, the best appointed establishment of the kind in the city. + + * * * * * + +~Everybody~ is going to Paris this year to the Exposition, +and in this age of progress it is no great undertaking to cross the +ocean, nor is one compelled to forego many comforts while traveling. +True, some dissatisfaction is expressed from time to time at the want +of proper accommodations in English hotels. This criticism does not +apply, however, to the magnificent _Hotel Metropole_ in London, which +has already come under the favorable notice of many Americans, and +is fast making new friends. Situated conveniently to the business +portion of the city, while at no great distance from society’s haunts, +it furnishes home comforts to the weary traveler, and affords every +possible convenience and luxury. + +An equally excellent and not less pretentious “hostelry” is the +magnificent _Victoria Hotel_, one of the finest hotel buildings in the +world, and conducted in a manner sure to please the American tourist. +Its large number of patrons speak of it in terms of the highest praise. +At either house rooms may be secured by cable from New York. We would +advise tourists in 1889 to make sure of their apartments certainly by +telegram from their landing-places in Britain. + + + + +[Illustration: ~Glances at our Letter File~] + + +~The~ following communication will have much interest, +especially to our college readers: + +The December number of ~Outing~ says: “The first game of +football in the United States was played in New Haven, in 1840, between +the class of ’42 and ’43 of Yale College.” I am a graduate of the class +of ’28. Immediately after the opening of the fall term in 1824, the +then Freshman class were summoned to a class meeting, at which they +were informed that by an established custom from time immemorial it +devolved on the Freshman class to furnish footballs for the use of +the college. The time-honored custom was recognized at once by the +class and by every succeeding Freshman class during my student life. +The games were played on the upper part of the public square directly +in front of the college. There were frequent contests between the two +lower classes; but the great games, played as often as convenience and +weather allowed, were contested by the whole body of the students, +divided into two parties known respectively as “North Entries” and +“South Entries.” There were then standing on the college campus four +dormitory buildings, each having two halls or entries. Those students +who roomed in a north entry, or if rooming anywhere north of the +central building, known then as now as the Lyceum, were on one side; +the rest of the students were on the other. Those were famous games, +where three or four hundred men engaged in earnest contest. The +long-used ground was necessarily abandoned when the civil authorities +decided, in 1828, to build the State House upon it. + + ~Yalensis Sexagenarius.~ + + * * * * * + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~: + +~Dear Sir~,--I was extremely pleased to note in your Open Window +of the January edition that a word was spoken in behalf of rabbit +coursing. Since the late cases at Hempstead an intolerable amount of +nonsense has been written in the daily and weekly publications, and +wholesale condemnation has been meted out to this sport, presumably +by people who have never seen coursing, either with greyhounds or +terriers. Those who have will, I feel sure, join with me in affirming +that there is certainly no more cruelty in one sport than another; +as is the greyhound to the hare or jack rabbit, so is the terrier to +the ordinary rabbit, and in both cases the chance of escape is, in +truth, but very small. But in rabbit coursing, as usually practiced +in England, the rabbits are both found and coursed on their “native +heath,” and therefore they have a very considerable advantage. I +am not, however, trying to defend this or any other sport from the +imputation of cruelty, for in every field-sport, properly so called, +cruelty must exist. What better antidote exists to the emasculating +tendencies of our boasted nineteenth century civilization? Or, who will +contend that the natural propensity of the Englishman, as affirmed by +the French, “to go out and kill something,” has not had much to do +in placing the old country in her present position? I fail to see, +myself, why the imputation of cruelty, which every journalist seems +to be trying to fix on rabbit coursers, should not equally well apply +to a man who will fire a gun at a partridge or pheasant. But with the +curious logic of the present day, such is by no means the case. In +conclusion, I must apologize for trespassing so far on your space, and +heartily congratulate ~Outing~ on having spoken bravely on the +matter. It is too frequently the case that where one publication leads, +the others follow like a flock of sheep. Yours respectfully, + + ~An Old-Time Sportsman~. + + * * * * * + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~: + +~Dear Sir~,--In the January number of ~Outing~ there is +among the Answers to Correspondents a point which I should like to see +developed in your valuable magazine. It is in reference to the new +Forest ponies, about which some questions had been asked by “Breeder.” +The words to which I specially refer are, “they are handy and useful.” +In proportion to their inches, ponies can accomplish vastly more +work than full-sized horses. In fact, this remark applies equally +well to donkeys. Why is it that we see no donkeys and scarcely any +ponies put to do useful work in America? In England the costermonger’s +“moke” has become proverbial, and it is an inspiriting sight to see a +well-tended donkey trotting cheerily along, with a heavy load behind +him of which he makes most marvelously light. And, again, in London +every small shop-keeper has one ambition at least, and that is to own a +fast-trotting pony, and a smart cart, in which to take the “missus” for +her Sunday outing. The same pony pays very amply for food and lodging +by taking goods to customers’ houses during the week. How different +is it in New York! Here we have broken-down old car-horses, with very +palpable ribs, dejectedly sauntering wearily along in the shafts of the +street vendor’s wagon, and the smart pony and the patient “moke” are +unknown. + +Can not and will not ~Outing~ do something towards inaugurating +a movement to popularize the smaller and more useful breed? Yours truly, + + ~A Lover of Animals~. + + * * * * * + + _To the Editor of_ ~Outing~: + +~Dear Sir~,--I have read with great pleasure Mr. Hallowell’s +article on Harvard Athletics, and look forward to the account of Yale +pastimes, which I understand are to be described in the February +number. I am not a graduate of either institution, but I like to +read about them and the other colleges and learn of their doings in +athletics, and the method ~Outing~ has adopted of presenting +from time to time an account of some college athletic organization is +to be highly commended. We all know the position athletics nowadays +hold in the collegian’s life, and the many objections which the +uninformed raise to an indulgence in sport on the part of students. +~Outing~ is doing a noble work in showing that good results from +them, not harm. + + ~A Westerner.~ + + + + +[Illustration: OUR MONTHLY RECORD] + + + ~This~ department of ~Outing~ is specially devoted to paragraphs + of the doings of members of organized clubs engaged in the + reputable sports of the period, and also to the recording of the + occurrence of the most prominent events of the current season. On + the ball-fields it will embrace _Cricket_, _Baseball_, _Lacrosse_ + and _Football_. On the bays and rivers, _Yachting_, _Rowing_ and + _Canoeing_. In the woods and streams, _Hunting_, _Shooting_ and + _Fishing_. On the lawns, _Archery_, _Lawn Tennis_ and _Croquet_. + Together with Ice-Boating, Skating, Tobogganing, Snowshoeing, + Coasting, and winter sports generally. + + Secretaries of clubs will oblige by sending in the names of their + presidents and secretaries, with the address of the latter, + together with the general result of their most noteworthy contests + of the month, addressed, “Editor of ~Outing~,” 239 Fifth Avenue, + New York. + + +TO CORRESPONDENTS. + + _All communications intended for the Editorial Department should + be addressed to “The Editor,” and not to any person by name. + Advertisements, orders, etc., should be kept distinct, and + addressed to the manager. Letters and inquiries from anonymous + correspondents will not receive attention. All communications to be + written on one side of the paper only._ + + +ARCHERY. + +~The~ increased interest in archery continues. The unpleasant +weather about Thanksgiving Day no doubt prevented many bowmen from +shooting, who otherwise would have taken part in the contests at +Crawfordsville, Ind., on that day. The following are the scores +received from L. W. Maxson: + + Crawfordsville, Ind. 1st 24 2d 24 3d 23 4th 24 Total + Will H. Thompson 24-124 21-107 14-148 22-110 91-489 + + Cincinnati, Ohio. + W. S. Gwynn 24-130 20- 90 24-110 23-125 91-455 + B. R. Byerly 19- 99 23-115 19- 95 23-101 84-410 + C. R. Hubbard 17- 77 20- 92 17- 73 21-103 75-345 + S. H. Duvall 19- 65 18- 88 17- 71 24-112 78-336 + + Brooklyn, N. Y. + G. C. Spencer 23-123 22-120 20- 90 21-101 86-434 + + Dayton, Ky. + J. T. Shawan 18-104 22-106 19- 81 19- 89 78-380 + J. P. Newman 16- 62 18- 94 18- 90 20-104 72-350 + Chas. Longley 21- 95 20-108 18- 76 16- 70 75-349 + H. W. Longley 17- 83 21- 97 17- 85 16- 62 71-327 + R. Venables 19- 79 20- 74 14- 58 15- 77 68-288 + C. Heeg 13- 53 13- 75 15- 55 12- 48 53-231 + W. C. McClain 9- 29 8- 28 9- 41 11- 43 37-141 + + Chicago, Ill. + H. S. Taylor 80-378 + B. Keyes 78-376 + E. I. Bruce 76-322 + + Dayton, Ohio. + A. Kern 18- 88 19- 89 20- 86 22- 88 79-351 + E. B. Mumma 22-100 17- 83 17- 63 19- 89 75-335 + J. A. Mumma 17- 75 17- 83 15- 69 16- 80 65-307 + R. D. Wells 10- 50 3- 17 9- 37 6- 18 28-122 + + Washington, D. C. + S. C. Ford 17- 83 22- 94 20- 84 21-107 80-368 + L. W. Maxson 23- 99 23-133 23-117 21- 91 90-440 + + * * * * * + + +ATHLETICS. + +~The~ Athletic Association of the Twelfth Regiment of the +National Guard held its annual fall games at the Armory, December +17. The night was most disagreeable and the weather inclement. The +following is a summary of the events: + +Sixty-yards handicap run; first round; winners to run in second trial +heats--First heat, M. Keating, N. Y. A. C., 10 feet, 7s. Second heat, +E. E. Barnes, O. A. C., 5 feet, 6 4-5s. Third heat, P. E. Dehnert, S. +I. A. C., 10 feet, 7 1-5s. Fourth heat, T. I. Lee, O. A. C., 3 feet, 7 +1-5s. Fifth heat, W. E. Hughes, P. A. C., 6 feet, 7s. Sixth heat, A. H. +Hutchings, S. I. A. C., 6 feet, 7s. Seventh heat, E. C. Bowman, A. A. +C., 8 feet, 7s. Eighth heat, W. P. Henery, O. A. C., 2 feet, 7 1-5s. +Ninth heat, C. G. Bolton, N. Y. A. C., 5 feet, 7s. Tenth heat, W. H. +Morgan, New York City, 8 feet, 6 4-5s. Eleventh heat, R. R. Houston, +P. A. C., 7 feet, 7s. Twelfth heat, G. W. Petty, K. C. C., 8 feet, 7s. +Second round; winners to run in final; second men in each heat to run +in a third trial heat, the winner of which shall run in final--First +heat, Lee, 7s.; Keating, 2. Second heat, Hutchings, 6 4-5s.; Bowman, 2. +Third heat, Morgan 6 4-5s.; Houston, 2. Third round; winner to run in +final--First heat, Bowman, 7s. Final heat, Hutchings, 6 4-5s.; Morgan, +2. + +Half-mile novice race; first round; first five in each heat to run in +final--First heat, H. W. Paret, N. J. A. C., 2m. 31s.; F. B. Monell, L. +I. W., 2; C. P. Stillman, New York City, 3; F. R. Farrington, O. A. C., +4; T. Atkinson, B. A. A., 5. Second heat, E. L. Sarre, H. Y. M. C. A., +2m. 32s., W. M. Moore, 7th Regt. A. A., 2; C. A. Simmen, New York City, +3; H. Gray, O. A. C., 4; C. B. Waite, New York City, 5. Third heat, +C. Curtis, Y. M. C. A., 2m. 25 2-5s.; J. O. Jenks, P. A. C., 2; C. C. +Greene, S. I. A. C., 3; A. Nickerson, S. I. A. C., 4; G. H. Christ, New +York City, 5. Final heat, Nickerson, 2m. 17 4-5s.; Curtis, 2; Jenks, 3. + +440-yards handicap run; first round; first and second in each heat +to run in final--First heat, G. Y. Gilbert, N. Y. A. C., 9 yards, 58 +3-5s.; F. S. Greene, N. B. C., 9 yards, 2. Second heat, A. Brown, P. A. +C., 9 yards, 58 3-5s.; E. E. Barnes, O. A. C., scratch, 2. Third heat, +W. F. Thompson, S. I. A. C., 9 yards, 59 2-5s.; E. Lentilhon, Yale A. +A. and N. Y. A. C., 9 yards, 2. Final heat, Green, 57s.; Barnes, 2; +Thompson, 3. + +One-and-a-half-mile handicap run--E. Hjertsberg, O. A. C., 15 yards, +7m. 25s.; T. A. Collett, P. A. C., 55 yards, 2; W. D. Day, I. A. C., +100 yards, 3. + +220-yards handicap hurdle race; first round; winners to run in final +heat--First heat, W. H. Struse, S. I. A. C., 3 yards, 30s.; F. C. +Puffer, O. A. C., 2. Second heat, A. Prentiss, S. I. A. C., 8 yards, 29 +4-5s.; F. S. Greene, N. B. C., 6 yards, 2. Third heat, B. G. Woodruff, +Y. M. C. A., 10 yards, 30 2-55.; E. McMullen, A. A. C., 10 yards, 2. +Final heat, Prentiss, 29 3-5s.; Woodruff, 2. + +One-mile handicap walk--W. A. Berrian, M. A. C., 5 seconds, 7m. 23s. +W. Pollman, P. A. C., 5 seconds, 2. W. Donaghy, P. H., 20 seconds, was +at first adjudged the winner in this event, but after a good deal of +wrangling the men were placed as above. + +Two-mile handicap bicycle race; first round; first and second in each +heat to ride in final--First heat, E. I. Halstead, N. Y. A. C., 6m. +40 4-5s.; W. Schumacher, L. I. W., 55 yards, 2. Second heat, W. E. +Findlay, N. Y. B. C., 120 yards, 6m. 37s. J. Borland, B. B. C., 125 +yards, 2. Final heat, Halstead, 6m. 32 1-5s.; Borland, 2. In the final, +while Schumacher and Findley were spurting side by side, Schumacher +fell and Findley fell over him, receiving a terrible fall. He was +carried away unconscious, but fortunately received no serious injuries. + +One-mile relay race, open to teams of four men from any company in the +Twelfth Regiment; contestants to wear fatigue uniform. Co. B, H. F. +Reichers, C. J. Leach, F. M. Tyson, D. Melville, 4m. 30s.; Co. I, J. J. +Stein, H. E. Hocher, A. F. Bertram, E. Cudlipp, 2. + +Obstacle race, handicap; open to members of Twelfth Regiment--F. M. +Tyson, Co. B, 1m. 25 2-5s.; I. C. King, Co. B, 2. + +Everything passed off pleasantly. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Christmas paper chase of the American Athletic Club +started from Four Corners, S. I., the trail covering twelve miles +of rough country. The hares, W. H. White, V. Goode and J. Bailey, +with eight minutes’ start, were not caught. The hounds included A. +S. Malloy, E. White, J. J. McMullen, G. A. Ganz, E. Bowman, G. C. +Sauer, H. A. Hertz, W. Bernard, W. H. Rose, S. Green, S. Levien, H. +F. Reichers, J. Oppenheimer, J. Roberts, L. Levien, W. Camerar, J. J. +Craft, R. Storey, C. Dieger. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Twenty-second Regimental Athletic Association will give a +tug-of-war, open to colleges only at 650, regulation belt, to be pulled +February 16. The entries will close February 9. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Elizabeth, N. J., Athletic Club recently elected the +following board of officers for the ensuing year: President, H. E. +Duncan, Jr.; vice-president, W. C. Phelps; secretary, E. S. Coyne; +treasurer, M. B. Heibner; trustees, W. M. Oliver, W. C. Phelps, +S. Toby, G. Griffen, and F. W. Pond. The club has no outstanding +obligations; there is a goodly sum in the treasurer’s hands; the club +property is valued at $7,000, and the members see their way to erect a +building in a fashionable quarter, and equip it fully. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the Riverside Athletic Club, Newark, +N. J., was held last month, when the following officers were elected: +President, J. K. Gore; treasurer, F. H. Presby; secretary, J. D. Mills; +first lieutenant, W. A. Martin. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first annual meeting of the Oritani Athletic Club, of +Hackensack, N. J., was held recently, and the following gentlemen were +elected officers for the ensuing year: F. A. Anthony, president; J. +B. Bogart and G. M. Fairchild, Jr., vice-presidents; C. J. Van Saun, +recording secretary; J. Z. Ackerson, corresponding secretary; G. W. +Berdan, the Rev. Arthur Johnson, A. Trowbridge, and W. M. Johnson, a +board of governors. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Manhattan Athletic Club games were held, December 15, in +Madison Square Garden. About 2,000 people were present, rather a small +gathering for so important an event. The treatment, according to the +_Sun_, to which the reporters of the daily press were subjected by the +managers of the affair deserved condemnation. It was announced that +Mr. Myers, the runner, was ill, but he very kindly consented not to +disappoint the public, so gave an exhibition, with Danny Tompkins as +pace-maker, but fell behind his indoor record of 1885. The following is +a summary of the events: + +One-and-a-half-mile walk, handicap--Won by F. Tillistrand, W. S. A. C., +75 yards; E. D. Lange, M. A. C., second; F. A. Ware, M. A. C., third. +Time, 12m. 8 3-5s. + +Sixty-yards run, handicap--Final heat won by W. M. Mackdermot, M. A. +C., 12 feet; H. L. Dadman, W. P. Ins., 12 feet, second; J. McCarty, G. +A. A., 9 feet, third. Time, 6s. + +Tug-of-war, handicap--Won by Manhattan Athletic team, scratch (D. +T. Brokaw, J. Senning, D. S. Low, J. F. Johnson). The only other +contending team was the Cables of Jersey City, with a handicap of 6 +inches (John Filce, W. Cuff, M. Cuff, M. Hanne). + +One-mile run, handicap--Won by Thos. Owens, W. S. A. C., 100 yards; +A. S. Vosburg, C. C. A. A., 85 yards, second; W. T. Young, Spartan +Harriers, London, 73 yards, third; time, 4m. 33 4-5s. Young led until +the last half lap, when Owens and Vosburg closed and beat him out. +Conneff ran gamely and finished fourth. Conneff’s time, 4m. 37 2-5s. + +One-mile walk, novice--won by T. McIlvaine, C. C. A. A.; C. H. +Nicholas, Brooklyn, second, and C. Lardiner, W. S. A. C., third. Time, +7m. 49 3-5s. + +Running high jump--Won by Z. A. Cooper, M. A. C., 10 inches, 6 ft. 1 +in.; W. M. Mackdermot, second; L. D. Wildman, Stevens Institute, third. +Cooper’s actual jump, 5 ft. 3 in. + +Half-mile run, handicap--Won by H. L. Dadman, M. C., 39 yards, in +2m. 1 2-5s., by four yards; A. B. George, Spartan Harriers, London, +second; J. A. Forbell, Brighton, A. C., 31 yards, third. George, the +Englishman, caught a Tartar in young Dadman, who is but a boy. The +Englishman led 100 yards from home, but the boy had great speed and won +easily. + +Throwing 56-lb. weight for height to beat M. O’Sullivan’s record of +13 ft. 9 in.--Mitchell, as was expected, beat all previous records, +reaching 15 feet. + +Attempt by Lon Myers, the middle distance professional runner, to lower +his own half-mile record in the Garden, time, 2m. 2s. Myers’s time, 33, +66, 1.40 3-5, 2:11, failing by nine seconds. + +Putting the 24-lb. shot--Lambrecht and J. S. Mitchell, both of M. A. +C., tied at 32 ft. 7 in. There has been no putting with this odd weight +for a number of years, and both men beat the best previous record by +over four feet. + +250-yards novice race--Won by J. A. Smith, Crescent A. C.; J. M. +Hewlett second, and J. A. Lanthorn, C. C. A. A., third. Time, 30 2-5s. + +Two-mile bicycle race, handicap--Won by G. F. Brown, Kings Co. W., +15 yards; J. H. Ganson, M. A. C., 16 yards, second; H. A. Keller, +Thirteenth Regiment, 150 yards, third. Time, 7m. 30s. In the final heat +all four contestants fell and were piled in a heap. Fortunately no +one was hurt, and all remounted and finished the race. Kingsland, the +Southern rider, who started from scratch, was unplaced. + +250-yards hurdle race, handicap--Won by C. F. Bostrick, Crescent A. C., +8 yards; H. S. Young, Jr., M. A. C., 5 yards, second. Herbert Mapes, C. +C. A. C., 3 yards, third. Time, 32 2-5s. + +440-yards run, handicap--Won by J. C. Devereaux, M. A. C., 10 yards; W. +J. Carr, Brighton A. C., 25 yards, second; C. P. Ward, W. S. A. C., 15 +yards, third. Time, 54 3-5s. + + * * * * * + +~The~ second cross-country race of the Athletic Club of the Schuylkill +Navy took place December 14, over a course in Fairmount Park, extending +from the Malta Boat House to and around Belmont Mansion and return. The +distance was 5½ miles, over a rough course. The following members of +the club took part in the run: Paul E. Huneker, W. P. Myrtelus, W. H. +Rocap, J. C. Graham, P. J. Siddall, Abbott Collins, W. B. McManus, John +Y. Parke, and E. F. Van Stavoren. Myrtelus finished first, time, 35m. +2 2-5s.; Rocap second, time, 35m. 17½s.; Graham third; Huneker fourth; +Siddall fifth, and Parke sixth. Edward Flood acted as referee, and Fred +Allen, T. H. Cameron, and R. M. Camanche were the judges and timers. + + * * * * * + +~The~ games given under the auspices of the Seventh Regiment +Athletic Association were held in the regiment’s big armory in this +city December 8. The gathering of ladies and gentlemen to witness the +events was very large. The prizes were gold and silver trophies to the +first and second in each event. The track was ten laps to the mile. + +Officials--Referee, Lieut. Walter G. Schuyler, staff; judges, Capt. +Daniel Appleton, Co. F, Capt. J. Thorne Harper, Co. I, Capt. Charles E. +Lydecker, Co. H, Lieut. George W. Rand, staff, Lieut. Walter S. Wilson, +Co. E; judge of walking, William Wood, N. Y. A. C.; handicapper, W. +G. Hegeman; starter, Prof. George Goldie; timekeepers. Corporal F. W. +Colwell, Co. F, Mr. John H. Abeel, Jr., Co. K; clerk of the course, +Private George B. Barcalow, Co. B. + +93-yards run, scratch--H. C. Jones, Co. C, 1; G. R. Martin, Co. H, 2; +time, 10 3-5s. + +130-yards run, scratch, for the regimental championship--C. L. +Jacquelin, Co. G, 1; W. C. White, Co. B, 2; time, 15s. + +Half-mile walk, scratch--Open only to those who had never won a prize +at walking--William McKee, Co. E, 1; S. Frothingham, Co K, 2; time, 4m. +1s. + +440-yards run, handicap--J. P. Thornton, Co. C, scratch, 1; F. H. +Crary, Co. H, 12 yards, 2; time, 59s. + +Tug-of-war--As Company H was the only one to enter a team no contest +took place, but an exhibition pull was given, in which Company H beat a +picked team by two inches. + +One-mile bicycle race, scratch--Herbert Janes, Co. I, 1; S. V. Hoffman, +Co. K, 2; time, 8m. 53 1-5s. + +Running high jump, scratch--Alexander Stevens, Co. F; height, 5 ft. 4 +in. + +220-yards run, handicap--C. L. Jacquelin, Co. G, 5 yards, 1; E. L. +Montgomery, Co. I, 11 yards, 2; time, 27s. + +1000-yards run, handicap--G. Y. Gilbert, Co. B, scratch, 1; W. M. +Moore, Co. I, 50 yards, 2; time, 2m. 26 2-5s. + +Sack race, 50 yards--J. C. Westlake, Co. I, 1; C. L. Jacquelin, Co. G, +2; time, 8s. + +220-yards hurdle race, handicap--C. F. Bostwick, Co. G, 6 yards, 1; C. +S. Busse, Co. F, 15 yards, 2; time, 29s. + +One-mile walk, handicap--F. A. Ware, Co. B, scratch, 1; Thomas +McClelland, Co. E, 55 seconds, 2; time, 7m. 25s. + +Half-mile run, scratch; for regimental cup--Alex. Stevens, Co. F, 1; +Herbert Jones, Co. I, 2; time, 2m. 30s. + +Wheelbarrow race, two laps, handicap--C. S. Busse, Co. F, 8 yards, 1; +F. H. Crary, Co. H, 8 yards, 2; time, 51s. + +One-mile run, handicap--P. R. Irving, Co. K, 100 yards, 1; F. Vores, +Co. E, 100 yards, 2; time, 4m. 45s. + +Three-legged race, one lap, handicap--C. L. Jacquelin and C. S. Busse, +6 yards; time, 25s. + +Two-mile bicycle race, handicap--C. T. Burhans, scratch, 1; H. Janes, +75 yards, 2; time, 6m 52s. + +Team race, four laps, scratch--Co. B, G. Y. Gilbert, F. A. Ware and W. +C. White, 1, by 11 points; P. R. Irving, H. L. Bloomfield and H. W. +Warner, Co. K, 2, with 16 points. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the Manhattan Athletic Club was held +December 10. The officers, with the exception of President Carr, the +vice-presidents, and Treasurer Walton Storm, who hold over, were +elected as follows: Secretary, Charles C. Hughes; first lieutenant, +Charles M. King; second lieutenant, John Black; trustees, E. F. Hoyt, +L. A. Stuart, J. M. Tate, James Magee, Warren Sage and George F. Linlay. + + * * * * * + +~A new~ Athletic Club has been formed in Minneapolis, which +bids fair to be an influential organization. Recently it had a grand +entertainment at the Opera House, and a programme arranged by Professor +Charles Duplessis was carried out very effectively. The charter members +of the club as it now stands number 100. With a few exceptions they are +as follows: + +A. W. Grismer, S. P. Jones, H. C. Chapin, R. R. Rand, H. J. Pyle, S. +B. Hall, R. de Freville, C. M. Palmer, W. E. Haskell, J. W. Molyneux, +James Gray, C. M. Shultz, W. Wettleson, B. J. Mullany, W. A. Edwards, +M. R. Thurlow, L. D. McLain, C. A. Ostrow, E. A. Taylor, R. E. Park, +P. H. Beall, J. O. Davis, H. C. Stebbins, H. T. Black, A. H. Bare, G. +S. Dammond, R. H. Gallagher, S. Kelliher, A. R. Walker, W. T. Pauly, +B. Bryan, J. L. Kearney, J. E. Luck, E. M. Christian, W. M. Wright, J. +W. Field, W. B. Wheeler, J. H. Steele, S. Baker, F. D. Larabee, F. H. +Boardman, O. Abbott, J. Rose, F. M. Rowley, F. J. Scudder, A. K. Skaro, +J. G. Skaro, E. J. Morrison, J. Scanlon, J. C. Harper, A. Poehlin, G. +Rallis, T. Gallagher, E. H. Crane, C. A. Brown, W. H. Curtiss, W. A. +Schoenbaum, J. McNall, J. C. Black, C. G. Goodrich, E. W. Goddard, C. +H. Babcock, A. Nagle, F. A. Parker, C. D. Parker, F. G. James, J. L. +Amory, P. C. Most, E. E. Graham, A. P. Erickson, F. W. Eastman, A. +J. Blethen, A. T. Rand, H. J. Neiler, L. Harrison, F. B. Drischel, +C. W. Darling, J. Boyer, N. Whitney, W. B. MacLean, F. W. Maynard, +G. A. Dusigneaud, W. C. Martin, George Caven, Sam Morton, H. Hock, +H. Griffin, H. Libby, C. Libby, C. W. Dana, L. Watson, H. Watson, H. +Saulspaugh, J. C. Callahan, C. L. Jacoby, E. M. Murphy, W. Hays, J. +W. Burton, Theo. L. Hays, M. Breslauer, S. C. Lewis, Bert Goodhue, Ed +Blomquist, W. W. Lewhead, G. A. Berwin, A. J. Berwin, P. A. Halther, +Pat Gibbons, H. C. Hanford, and A. R. Taylor. + + * * * * * + +~An~ athletic tournament was held, December 15, at the First +Regiment Armory in Chicago, under the auspices of Company C, First +Infantry, I. N. G. There was a good attendance of athletes, and many +ladies were present. + +The event of the evening was the six-round sparring match for points +between W. W. Wade and Thomas Morgan, the winner to carry off a +handsome diamond medal. The contest was well fought, and both men +showed evidence of being pretty well winded when the referee, amid much +applause, declared. Wade the winner. + +The fencing bout between the Misses Jennie Hepburn and Josephine Friel, +pupils from Mrs. Roundtree’s Gymnasium, was won by Miss Jennie Hepburn, +who was thereupon presented with a handsome pair of foils by Company G. +The remainder of the programme was as follows: + +Heavy-weight collar-and-elbow wrestling between James Curran and Albert +Zimmerman; won by Curran in 1 minute and 30 seconds. + +Light-weight sparring between Frank Gebbard and William Church. + +Middle-weight catch-as-catch-can wrestling between Walter Moore and +George K. Barrett; won by Barrett. + +World’s champion Indian club swinger, A. H. Rueschau. + +Feather-weight sparring, Messrs. Wood and Frazier. + +Queen of clubs, Miss Hilda Rueschau. + +Scientific sparring. + +Græco-Roman light-weight wrestling, Messrs. Smythe and O’Day. + +Middle-weight sparring, Messrs. Arthur and Toomey. + +Fencing lesson and attack double. + + * * * * * + +~Considerable~ dissatisfaction is shown by Amherst students +at the lack of interest in athletic sports. The football team met +with little success, and general sports have but few followers. An +effort will be made to arouse the students to a sense of their duty +to support, with muscle or the welcome dollar, the various athletic +games. A felt running track, canvas covered, has been put down in the +gymnasium, and some good results may be looked for in the spring. + + * * * * * + +~The~ cross-country race for the championship of Yale University +was held on Saturday, December 8, with only six entries. The course was +laid starting from the south end of the Field due west to Lake Maltby, +around it, and back to the Field by way of the Derby road, a distance +of about six miles. Lloyd, ’91, was the first man in, time 35 minutes, +followed by Holton, T. S., two minutes later. Reynolds, ’91, Ryder, +’91, and Hinckley, ’89, also finished in the order named. Sherill, ’89, +acted as starter and judge. The winner received the cup emblematic of +the cross-country championship, and the second and third men were also +awarded prizes. + + * * * * * + +~Strenuous~ efforts are being made by the students and alumni of +Phillips Andover Academy to raise a sufficient amount to warrant the +erection of a new gymnasium building. The want of proper facilities for +gymnasium work and the absence of a running track have hindered the +students from achieving much in this branch of sport in late years. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Athletic Association of Trinity College held a +hare-and-hounds December 8. The hares were given a start of eight +minutes. Fourteen hounds followed. The course was between eight and +nine miles, over a stiff country. The hares were in first, with the +leading hound but three hundred yards behind. The first hound received +a silver-plated vase, the second a silver medal. + + * * * * * + +~Hare-and-hounds~ and cross-country runs are very popular just +now among college men. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the Manhattan Athletic Club games, December 15, Samuel +Crook, Williams, ’90, gained the title of champion in three events--the +standing high and broad jumps, and three standing broad jumps. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Brown University Athletic Association has a large number +of men at work in the gymnasium under a competent trainer. Each man is +training for the events he is best fitted to enter, and two tug-of-war +teams have been put to work. + + * * * * * + +~The~ thirteenth field day of the Athletic Association of the +University of California occurred December 5, and was one of the most +successful and satisfactory ever held. The list of events is as follows: + +100-yards run--T. McGee, ’91, first in 10 4-5s.; J. B. Garber, ’92, +second. + +220-yards run, handicap--F. W. McNear (scratch), first in 24 2-5s.; +Wright, ’90 (5 yards), second. + +Mile run, handicap--E. R. Rich, ’90 (scratch), first in 5m. 23½s.; E. +Bunnell, ’91 (45 yards), second. + +Putting 16-pound shot--J. Bouse, ’91 (scratch), first with 35 ft. 6 +in.; De Winter, ’92, 2½ ft., second. + +100-yards run--F. W. McNear (scratch), first in 10 3-5s.; E. Mayes (2 +yards), second. + +Half-mile run--E. C. Hill, ’90, first in 2m. 10 2-5s. + +100-yards run, three-legged race--Lakenan, ’90, and Gates, ’91, first +in 12½s. + +120-yards hurdle race--H. C. Moffitt, ’89 (scratch), first in 19s.; J. +Bouse (10 yards), second. + +440-yards run--F. W. McNear, first in 53½s. + +Throwing 12-pound hammer, handicap--Morrow, ’91, 8 ft., first with 102 +ft. 6 in. + +Running long jump, handicap--W. A. Wright, ’90, 1 ft., first with 19 +ft. 5 in.; F. W. McNear, ’90 (scratch), second. + +One-mile relay race--Won by ’91 in 3m. 47 2-5s, with the following +team--Gallagher, Fisher, Gates, T. Magee, and Head. + +Tug-of-war--’89 vs. ’91, won by ’91; ’91 vs. ’92, won by ’92. + +In six of the above events--putting 16-pound shot, half-mile run, +three-legged race, 440 yards, throwing 12-pound hammer, running long +jump--the University records were broken. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the Lincoln College sports, Oxford, England, which took +place December 4, F. J. K. Cross added yet another to his list of +records. The day was almost perfect for running, the atmosphere +being clear and mild, with almost a dead calm, while the track was +in faultless order. In the open-quarter handicap, with a field of +excellent sprinters, he had to yield starts ranging to 32 yards, and +the general impression was that he would not be placed. The pace was +forced from the first, and at the 100-yard post the men were all in +a bunch. The finish was most exciting, but Cross, having undoubtedly +the best position, on the outside, won by half a yard. The time was 49 +2-5s., which is the fastest ever made by an Englishman over a level +track. + +In the other events, L. H. Stubbs and C. A. Pease displayed good form, +the former winning the 100, the 120-yards handicap and the long jump, +while Pease easily took the half-mile handicap and mile. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Inter-Varsity hare-and-hounds between Oxford and +Cambridge was run, November 30, over an eight-mile course at Oxford +in a pouring rain. There were two hares and five hounds for each +university. Pollock-Hill, Oxford, took the lead at once and maintained +it throughout, finishing with a lead of a hundred yards in 47m. 52s. +The race resulted in favor of the Light Blue by 13 points, the scores +being--Oxford 21 and Cambridge 34. Of the nine contests which have +taken place, Cambridge has won seven to Oxford’s two. + + * * * * * + +~Measurements~ taken by Dr. Seaver, last fall, of the Freshman class +at Yale show that the physical development of the 326 men, taken +as a whole, is very good. These measurements are of young men from +almost every State in the Union, and may be looked upon as fairly +representative of the class of men who enter college, and will, with +some few exceptions, be applicable to the other large colleges as well. +Except in particular cases, there is a noticeable absence of over or +under developed men in the class of ’92. The tallest man is 6 ft. 2 +4-5 in., the shortest 4 ft. 9 5-8 in. The oldest is 26 years 2 months, +the youngest 14 years 10 months (an exceptionally youthful age). The +heaviest member of the class weighs 200 and the lightest 86½, pounds. +Only 17 per cent. of the academic Freshmen use tobacco, and 25 per +cent. of the students in the Scientific School. + + +BASEBALL. + +~Keefe~, the great pitcher, will coach the Amherst nine during the +season. + + * * * * * + +~Regarding~ the prospects of the Yale nine for the coming +season, it is said that Stagg has absolutely refused to play. Dalzell, +change pitcher of last year’s nine, is showing great promise, however. +Dann has left college. With a new battery, it remains to be seen +whether Yale can retain the championship which she has held for three +successive years. + + * * * * * + +~The~ University of New York will attempt to put a first-class +ball nine in the field in the spring. + + * * * * * + +~Baseball~ men at Princeton are somewhat handicapped in their +practice by the loss of the cage which was blown down during the +summer. The gymnasium is not suitably equipped for winter practice, and +there is almost no opportunity for batting. King, ’89, the captain, +will probably pitch; Brownlee, ’89, and Brokaw, ’92, are candidates for +the position of catcher. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Athletic Committee of Harvard University has granted +the two petitions presented by Captain Willard in behalf of the +members of the nine. The first petition was for the employment of a +professional coach, and named for approval Mr. Clarkson of the Boston +nine. The second petition was for permission to play practice games +with professional teams. On the first petition the committee voted, +“That the management of the nine be authorized to employ J. G. Clarkson +as coach for the season of 1888-9, to act in the gymnasium or on the +athletic grounds of the university.” + + * * * * * + +~An~ effort is to be made to form a baseball league, which is to +consist of Lafayette, Lehigh, Rutgers and Stevens. + + * * * * * + +~Madison~ University will attempt to join the New York State +College League in the spring. To raise funds for the purpose, the +students have resolved to give a series of concerts, the first of which +was held Dec. 7, and netted $110. + + +BICYCLE. + +~F. A. Elwell~, of Portland, Me., is arranging for a cyclists’ +tour through Europe next summer. The pace will be an easy one, so +that ample time will be given for sight-seeing. It is expected the +party will reach home about the 1st of September, and the cost of +the trip will be about $400 per capita. The party will be limited +to twenty-five, and Ireland, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, +Holland and Belgium will be visited. + + * * * * * + +~Last~ spring a bicycle was run into on Broad Street, +Providence, R. I., by Patrick H. Collins, an expressman, who, according +to the evidence, refused to pay any regard to the warning whistles of +the rider. The wheelman’s hand was broken and his machine seriously +damaged. Collins was convicted in the lower court of a violation of the +law requiring him to drive reasonably to the right of the travelled +centre of the highway, and took an appeal. A short time ago the Court +of Appeals sustained the lower court, deciding that a bicycle is a +vehicle, and entitled to all the protection afforded other vehicles. + + * * * * * + +~John S. Prince~ is to manage the bicycle department of the new +Coliseum in Omaha, a building 300 by 170 feet, with a bicycle track +20 feet wide and 10 laps to the mile. The building will seat 10,000 +people. A six-day race is being arranged. Inside of the cycle track is +a horse track 17 feet wide. + + * * * * * + +~Chicago~ will have a six-day bicycle race next, and it will +possibly take place in the Exposition building. + + * * * * * + +~Interest~ in wheeling matters has been on the increase in +Cincinnati, and there is every prospect that the State meet will be +held there in 1889. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Harvard-Technology road race was held Saturday, December +8, over a nine-mile course through the Newtons. The race was close and +exciting, and resulted in a victory for Harvard. The start and finish +were on Watertown street, Newton. Technology entered eight men and +Harvard six, but only the first five men from each club were counted. +The men finished in the following order: + + 1. Greenleaf, Harvard, 10 points. + 2. Norton, Tech., 9 “ + 3. Williston, Tech., 8 “ + 4. Brown, Harvard, 7 “ + 5. Barron, Harvard, 6 “ + 6. Rogers, Harvard, 5 “ + 7. Webster, Tech., 4 “ + 8. Holmes, Harvard, 3 “ + 9. Warner, Tech., 2 “ + 10. Hutchins, Tech., 1 “ + +Total--Harvard, 31 points; Technology, 24 points. Officers of the +race--Referee, R. H. Davis, of Harvard; judges, H. M. Waite and F. C. +Jarecki, both of Technology. + +Greenleaf’s time for the nine miles was 36 minutes 23 4-5 seconds, +which is very fast considering the condition of the roads. Norton +and Williston, of Technology, were very close to him at the finish. +The others were some distance behind, owing to a delay at a railway +crossing in West Newton. Bradly, of Technology, took a bad header near +the finish and was unable to go on. + +The banner subscribed by the clubs, jointly, now belongs to Harvard. + + * * * * * + +~At~ a meeting held December 13 by the Harvard Bicycle Club, +the following motion was unanimously carried: “That the Harvard +Bicycle Club challenge the Yale Bicycle Club to a road-race next June, +immediately after the final examinations, leaving to Yale choice of +distance and course; the number of competitors to be from five to ten. +If Yale chooses a course at New Haven, they are to allow Harvard $8 per +man towards the expenses; but if a course near Cambridge is chosen, +Harvard shall allow Yale $8 per man.” + +If this plan is carried out it will add another to the list of +championship contests between the two colleges, and a race like the +one proposed will tend to lift bicycling from the comparatively +insignificant place it now holds as a college sport. + + +CRICKET. + +~The~ following cricket team, organized by Major Warton, left +England for the Cape per s. s. _Garth Castle_:--Major Warton, Messrs. +C. A. Smith, captain, M. P. Bowden, E. J. McMaster, B. A. F. Griese, J. +H. Roberts, A. C. Skinner, and Hon. C. J. Coventry; Abel, Read, Briggs, +Fothergill, Wood, and F. Hearne. Sir Donald Currie has presented a +Challenge Cup, which is to be presented to the Colony, and will go to +the team representing Griqualand West, Natal, the Transvaal, for Orange +Free State, which makes the best approximate show against the English +team. After that it will remain the subject of annual contest. + + * * * * * + +~The~ games scheduled for the Philadelphia cricket team, which +will visit England next season, are as follows: July 2, 3, Trinity +College; July 4, 5, Gentlemen of Ireland; July 8, 9, Gentlemen of +Scotland; July 11, 12, Gentlemen of Liverpool; July 15, 16, Gentlemen +of Gloucester; July 18, 19, Surrey; July 22, 23, M. C. C.; July 25, 26, +Kent; July 29, 30, Hampshire; August 1, 2, United Service; August 5, 6, +Sussex; August 8, 9, Oxford or Cambridge University. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Belmont Cricket Club, of Philadelphia, has elected these +officers for 1889: President, John P. Green; vice-president, William L. +Longstreth; clerk, James F. Fahnestock; corresponding secretary, Milton +C. Work; treasurer, Henry W. Cattell, M.D. Board of directors, William +Nelson West, J. Allison Scott, Clarence North, Joseph H. Rastall, W. N. +Brown, William L. Longstreth. + + +CURLING. + +~The~ Montreal branch of the Royal Caledonia Curling Club +recently elected the following officers for the ensuing year: Messrs. +David Brown, president; Geo. Brush, vice-president; Rev. James +Williamson, secretary; Rev. James Barclay, chaplain. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the annual meeting of the Montreal Curling Club, on +December 15, the election of officers resulted as follows: President, +F. Stancliffe; vice-president, W. I. Fenwick; representative members, +A. T. Paterson, James Williamson; chaplain, Rev. J. Williamson; +treasurer, R. W. Crompton; secretary, E. L. Pease; committee of +management, C. E. Smyth, C. W. Dean, R. W. Shepherd, Jr., D. +Williamson, A. F. Riddell; skips, A. T. Paterson, R. W. Tyre, W. I. +Fenwick, F. Stancliffe, D. Williamson, C. W. Dean, R. W. Shepherd, Jr., +A. F. Riddell. + + +FENCING. + +~A fencing~ club was formed at Harvard, December 13; Sig. +Castroni will be the fencing-master, and the club has guaranteed him +a salary which will be raised by paying fixed prices per lesson. +Thirty-five men signed as charter members. The officers are E. P. +Rawson, ’90, president; L. M. Greer, ’91, vice-president; F. T. +Goodwin, ’89, secretary; J. S. Beecher, ’90, treasurer. + + * * * * * + +~An~ effort is being made at Columbia to form a fencing club. +Many recent graduates are experts in this branch of sport, and would +doubtless aid the scheme in every way. + + +FISHING AND SHOOTING. + +~The~ Niagara County Anglers’ Club, a flourishing organization, +is making an effort to secure greater uniformity in the present State +fish and game laws. At a recent meeting a committee was appointed +which will enter into correspondence with the various sporting clubs +throughout the State, in order to learn their views regarding the +advisability of the move. The Secretary of the Niagara County Anglers’ +Club, Mr. W. H. Cross, may be addressed at Lockport, N. Y. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Michigan Fishing and Hunting Association is the title of a +new organization of gentlemen just formed in Detroit, with a capital of +$20,000 in 200 shares. One half the shares have already been taken. The +association has already selected a site, and will shortly erect thereon +a handsome edifice 80 × 60 feet, containing forty rooms, including +billiard-rooms, ladies’ parlors, a large dance hall, kitchen, etc. +It will be finely finished, and in every respect a model club-house. +The cost will be between $6,000 and $7,000. The construction has been +placed in the hands of the contractors, and is to be rapidly pushed to +be in readiness for opening early in the season. + + * * * * * + +~The~ first move ever made for a systematic protection of +fish and game in and about Barnegat Bay “is the organization of a +corporation known as the Bounat Gunning and Fishing Association,” by a +number of famous New Jersey gunners and fishermen. It will stock its +preserves with both game and fish. The members favor only legitimate +sport. Under its charter the association has the right to prosecute +all pot-hunters who violate the New Jersey game laws. The club-house +will be situated on Lazy Point, about fourteen miles below Barnegat +Bay Inlet. Among the stockholders are ex-Congressman Charles Haight, +Sheriff Fields, County Clerk Patterson and Surrogate Crater, all of +Monmouth County; Thomas A. Ward, ex-Judge Morris, Robert Drummond and +Harold E. Willard. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the Mak-saw-ba Club of Chicago was held +recently at the Sherman House. The following officers were elected +for the year: President, R. B. Organ; vice-president, W. P. Mussey; +treasurer, Joel A. Kinney; secretary, C. S. Petrie; board of managers, +R. B. Organ, W. P. Mussey, T. B. Leiter, C. S. Petrie and W. H. +Haskell. Among other business transacted, rules were passed requiring +that shooting must cease at sunset and not begin until after sunrise; +also forbidding the use of two guns in one boat and the use of rifles +on the marsh. The club has decided to follow the example of the +Tollestone Club, and distribute feed for the ducks during the season. +The club is in a flourishing condition. + + * * * * * + +~The~ woodcock shooting season ended in New Jersey December 1. +Taken altogether it was a bad season. Birds were few. It is probable +that the privilege of shooting woodcock in summer will be restored by +the Legislature. + + +FOOTBALL. + +~The~ convention of the Eastern Intercollegiate Football +Association was held at Springfield, Mass., Friday, December 7. +Delegates from Boston Technology, Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst, +and Stevens Institute were present. The protest with regard to the +Technology-Stevens game was considered, and the game was awarded to +Technology. Inasmuch as Dartmouth and Technology tied for first place, +no championship was awarded, but a resolution was passed that in +case of a tie in the future, the winners of the previous year should +retain the championship. The following officers were elected for the +ensuing year: President, W. Merrill, of Technology; vice-president, +M. H. Beecher, of Dartmouth; secretary, R. A. Hopkins, of Williams; +treasurer, A. Smith, of Amherst. + + * * * * * + +~A recent~ alumnus, in a letter to the _Princetonian_, advocates +the appointment of professional umpires in football as the only way of +securing fair decisions. He suggests Mr. Edward Plummer and Mr. George +Goldie as men who would acceptably fill the position. + + * * * * * + +~Students~ at the University of California, Berkeley, Cal., +enjoy the good fortune of being able to play football during the +winter. Chas. Thompson, ’89, has been chosen captain of the team, and +close and interesting games may be looked for with neighboring clubs. + + * * * * * + +~William Odlin~, ’90, has been chosen captain of the Dartmouth +Football Team for the next season. M. H. Beacham, ’90, was elected +manager, and A. H. Baehr, ’90, president of the association. + + * * * * * + +~A game~ took place between the universities of Cambridge and +Edinburgh, December 6, at Cambridge. The visitors won the match last +year, but the same fortune did not attend them this time, as they were +defeated by the Light Blue by one goal to two tries. The game was, +however, a closely contested one, and in the first half Edinburgh had +the advantage. Failure to kick goals from tries may be said to be the +cause for defeat. + + * * * * * + +~Four~ Rugby football teams from Montreal played at Ottawa on +Thanksgiving Day. The following is the result of the matches: McGill +College Medicos defeated Ottawa College second fifteen by 16 to 1; +Montreal second fifteen defeated Ottawa City second fifteen by 6 to 0. + + * * * * * + +~The~ match on the Metropolitan grounds between the Britannias +of Montreal and the Atlantic City team, resulted in a victory for the +former by 11 points to 2. + + * * * * * + +~The~ match for the championship of the Dominion, November +29, between the Montreal first fifteen, champions of the Province of +Quebec, and Ottawa College first fifteen, champions of Ontario, was a +draw; neither side scored a point. The match was a series of scrimmages +from beginning to end. The teams were as follows: _Montreal_--Backs, +J. D. Campbell (captain), A. A. Hodgson; half, A. S. Browne, A. E. +Abbott; quarter, H. Cleghorn; forwards, R. Campbell, P. Barton, F. +W. Taylor, Edward Black, A. L. Drummond; F. Matthewson, A. G. Fry, +A. D. Fry, J. Louson and G. Geo. Baird; field captain, J. J. Arnton. +_Ottawa College_--Back, F. Devine; half-backs, M. Cormier and J. +Murphy; quarters, M. Guillet and W. F. Kehoe; forwards, A. Hillman, +O. Labrecque, P. O’Brien, M. McDonald, J. Curran, D. McDonald, C. +Fitzpatrick, P. Chatlin, D. McDonald and W. McAullay; field captain, M. +F. Fallon. Referee--J. Rankin, Queen’s College, Kingston. + + +HOCKEY. + +~The~ annual meeting of the Canadian Amateur Hockey +Association was held in the Victoria Rink, Montreal, on November +16. Representatives from most of the hockey clubs were present. The +election for the ensuing year resulted as follows: President, Mr. J. +Stewart; first vice-president, A. Shearer; second vice-president, D. B. +Holden; secretary-treasurer A. Hodgson. Council--H. Kinghorn (McGill), +S. Lee (Crystal), T. Arnton (Victoria), A. G. Higginson (Montreal). + + * * * * * + +~The~ first match of the season, for seven gold medals, was +played in the Victoria Rink, Montreal, on December 15, between the +Victorias and the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association team. The teams +were as follows: + + M. A. A. A. POSITION. VICTORIA. + + Paton Goal J. Arnton + Stuart Point T. Arnton + Cameron Cover point J. Campbell + Hodgson { } E. Barlow + Lowe { } J. Kinghorn + McNaughton { Forwards } A. Elliott + Findlay { } B. Waud + Umpires--Messrs. Wardlow and Black. + Referee--Mr. Crathern. + +Summary of the games: + + First game, M.A.A.A. Lowe 5 mins. + Second game, Victorias Kinghorn 2 mins. + Third game, M.A.A.A. McNaughton 8 mins. + Fourth game, M.A.A.A. Lowe 26 mins. + + +LACROSSE. + +~For~ the first time in the history of Harvard lacrosse, the +candidates for the teams have had regular practice in the fall. The +prospects of the ’varsity and freshman teams are good. Seven men of +last year’s ’varsity team will probably be on next year’s team. The +other positions will have to be filled by men whose acquaintance with +the lacrosse stick is limited. + + * * * * * + +~Students~ at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N. J., are +developing a liking for lacrosse, and the prospects of a representative +team this season are good. + + * * * * * + +~It~ is stated on good authority that the Lacrosse Club of the +University of the City of New York, which has been in existence for +many years, will be allowed to die. Its place will probably be taken +by the club at the New York College, which is somewhat better off +regarding practice grounds and student support. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Detroit Lacrosse Club suggests that an International +League be formed, taking in Detroit, Windsor, Chatham and some Michigan +towns. + + +PEDESTRIANISM. + +~The~ gross receipts of the last professional six-days’ walking +match, which ended in Madison Square Garden December 1, netted +$19,316.50. Of this the management received fifty per cent. and the +balance went to the contestants, to be divided proportionately among +them. The score at the finish was: + + Miles. Yds. + + Littlewood 623 1,320 + Herty 609 ---- + Moore 553 1,100 + Cartwright 546 ---- + Noremac 442 440 + Hart 539 1,100 + Howarth 536 440 + Connor 536 ---- + Golden 534 440 + Mason 528 660 + Taylor 450 880 + Campana 450 220 + Elson 421 1,540 + Peach 262 880 + C. Smith 201 1,540 + + +RACQUETS. + +~Several~ exciting contests at racquets took place at the New +York Racquet Club courts last December, a feature of which was a match +for the professional championship of America between Albert Wright, the +leading marker of the New York Club, and the English player, Boaker, +the principal marker of the Quebec Racquet Club. In some preliminary +practice games, in which Boaker gave odds to Robert Moore--the other +marker of the New York Club--the latter had the best of it; but in the +games for the championship, Boaker bore off the honors, as will be seen +by the appended score: + + Boaker 15 15 12 13 10 15 15--Total aces 95 + Wright 10 4 15 18 15 7 8--Total aces 77 + +Total aces by service, Boaker 13, Wright 17. Time of game, 1 hour 17 +minutes. + +Referee, Mr. Lawrence Perkins. Scorer, Mr. Stewart. Umpire for Boaker, +Mr. E. W. Jewett. Umpire for Wright, Mr. Paul Dana. Marker, Robert +Moore. + +In the first two games Boaker showed marked superiority in play, but +in the next three games Wright pluckily rallied and took the lead. The +fourth game was the most closely contested of all, the score standing +at 13 all at the end of the seventeenth innings. Then Boaker set the +game at 5, and Moore won by 5 to 0, making a total of 18 aces to 13. In +the sixth and seventh games Boaker showed his superiority in strategic +play, and he finally came in victor in four out of the seven games +played. It was the best exhibition of racquet playing seen at the court +during the year. The match took place December 8. + + +RIFLE AND TRAP SHOOTING. + +~Al. Bandle~, of Cincinnati, and Rollie O. Heikes, of Dayton, +Ohio, shot a match at live pigeons at the Fair Grounds, Dayton, Nov. +29. The conditions of match were 100 live birds, 30 yards rise, +Hurlingham rules, for a stake of $250 a side. There were over 2,000 +people present. Promptly at two o’clock the match was called. Mr. +George Wells, of Covington, Ky., was chosen as referee. Owing to +darkness the match was not finished, eight birds being left over until +the following day. The scores were: + + Killed. Missed. Total. + + A. Bandle, first day 84 8 92 + “ “ second day 8 0 8 + -- -- --- + 92 8 100 + + R. O. Heikes, first day 82 10 92 + “ “ second day 5 3 8 + -- -- --- + 87 13 100 + +The second day the attendance was small, the day being cold, raw and +cloudy. Heikes’ friends immediately challenged Bandle to a match for +$500 a side, to be shot in Cincinnati Christmas Day, same conditions. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Second Gatling Battery, National Guard, New York, held a +prize shoot at Creedmoor Thanksgiving Day. The Overton Medal was won by +A. L. Klein. + +The champions’ match for a $300 medal was won by Driver G. R. Kelly, +W. B. Lowe, second, and S. D. Coborn, third. In the honorary members’ +match Capt. A. H. Baker won 1st prize, C. J. Doran 2d. E. C. Webb won +the revolver match; S. D. Coborn 2d, H. J. Jordan 3d. Prizes were also +won by Capts. Nutt and Limberger, Lieut. Castell, Sergt. Yugman and +Corp. Lennon. A banquet was served by Capt. Limberger after the shoot. + + * * * * * + +~Thanksgiving~ Day at Elkwood Park, near Long Branch, Miss +Annie Oakley and Phil. Daly, Jr., shot a match at 50 live birds for a +handsome gold badge; Mr. Daly shooting at fifty-five and Miss Oakley at +fifty birds. Mr. Daly won, missing but seven birds, Miss Oakley missing +8. There was a large crowd to witness the shooting. + + * * * * * + +~A new~ Gun Club has been formed at Topeka, Kansas. It had a +shoot Thanksgiving Day, using Peoria blackbirds. + + * * * * * + +~At~ Arlington, Md., Nov. 29, Wm. Graham and H. Capron shot a +match at 25 live birds for $50 a side. The conditions were: 25 birds +each, Graham standing at 28 yards rise, and using a 12-gauge gun, with +one hand only; Capron standing at 30 yards, using a 10-gauge, with both +hands. Hurlingham rules. E. C. Hall, referee. The match resulted in a +tie, as follows: + + W. Graham 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 24 + H. Capron 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 24 + +The tie was then shot off, and resulted as follows; + + Graham 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 + Capron 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 8 + +Graham won the match. + + * * * * * + +~At~ Troy, Kansas, November 27, Dr. Dinsmore, with a 32-40, +185 calibre rifle, did some fine shooting at 500 yards. The score in +detail was: 5, 5, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5--48; 5, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, +5, 5--49; total, 97 out of a possible 100 points. This, with so small +a calibre as a 32, is extraordinarily fine work. In fact it would be +considered fine with any kind of a rifle. The Doctor also shot a fine +score with the same rifle off-hand, at 200 yards, his scores being: 78, +85, 88, 82, 88--421--possible 500 points. + + * * * * * + +~W. W. Bennett~, on Thanksgiving Day, at Walnut Hill, made the +following scores at 50 yards on the standard target with revolver: +92, 92, 89--273; and on December 1, made the following scores, same +conditions: 94, 89, 89, 89, 89--450. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the Southern California Trap Tournament, held at Riverside, +Cal., Mr. M. Chick, of San Diego, won the Selby champion medal for the +third time against all comers in Southern California--killing 88 out of +a possible 100; 50 single and 25 double rises. During the meeting Mr. +Chick shot at 160 blue-rocks and broke 148. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Wichita, Kansas, Trap Tournament was held under very +adverse circumstances, the weather being very disagreeable. Some fine +shooting was done by Messrs. Stancer, Swiggett, Brown and Smyth. Mr. +Stancer shot at 396 and killed 358, only missing 38, which is an +exceptionally fine record. + + * * * * * + +~The~ contest for the Standard gold medal at Cleveland, Ohio, +between the West End, Rockford and Locksley gun clubs, resulted in a +victory for the West End Club, the total scores being: West End, 171; +Rockford, 158; Locksley, 145. The medal has to be won three times +before it becomes the property of either club, and until won, the +highest score on the winning team wears it. The same day the West End +Club held their badge shoot, which was won by Mr. W. Bell, who also +wears the Standard badge for three months. + + * * * * * + +~There~ were about 200 present to witness the match at Starr’s +Driving Park, Baltimore, Md., between Mr. Fred Kell, of Baltimore, and +Mr. W. Graham, the Englishman. Graham held one hand behind him. The +match was for $100 a side. It resulted as follows: Fred Kell, 20; Wm. +Graham, 20. The conditions were twenty-five birds. The twenty-second +bird of Graham’s was lost through his going to the trap with his gun +unloaded, and calling pull, which cost him the match. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Rod and Gun Rifle Club of Springfield, Mass., paid a +friendly visit, by invitation, to the Broad Brook, Ct., Rifle Club, +recently. A very enjoyable day was spent at the targets and also at the +dinner table. The Broad Brook Club will visit Springfield at an early +date. + + * * * * * + +~The~ celebrated Zettler Rifle Club, of New York City, have a +champion medal. Captain B. Walther won it the second time with 115 out +of a possible 120. + + * * * * * + +~At~ Walnut Hill, Boston, Mass., a short time ago, Mr. J. +B. Fellows, the well-known amateur rifle and pistol shot, made the +following scores at 50 yards with a 22-calibre pistol: 93, 92, 90, +88, 93--456. Mr. W. W. Bennett holds the professional record for same +distance with a total of 470 points. + + * * * * * + +~Major James P. Frost~, Brigade Inspector of Rifle Practice, +M. V. M., has obtained permission to organize a rifle team from the +Massachusetts State troops to go to Europe next summer to compete +against teams across the ocean. It is proposed to leave about the +middle of June, and to be gone a month or six weeks. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Schuetzen-Verein, of San Antonio, Texas, held their +tournament in November. The prizes aggregated in value $642. In the +off-hand team contest the winners were: + +San Antonia S. V., score 350, $17; Cuero Rifle Club, 326, $10.20; San +Antonio Rifle and Gun Club, 308, $6.80. + +In the Individual contest the winners were: + +Ed Steves, Jr., 93; S. V. Pfeuffer, 92; Alois Altmann, 87; Ern Seffel, +86; Earnest Steves, 86; G. Altmann, 84; W. J. Suter, 84; A. Steves, +84; A. Holeyapfel, 84; R. Krause, 84; L. Simon, 83; P. Nulm, 83; E. +Gruene, 83; F. Scholl, 83; I. P. Samer, 82; O. Forcke, 82; Chas. +Hummel, 82; A. Altmann, 81; W. Forcke, 81; H. Faust, 80; Ad. Wendler, +80; Dr. A. Herff, 79; H. Arnold, 78; J. Muschel, 78; A. Guenther, 78; +Ed. Mittendorf, 78; T. Herff, 77; H. O. Journeay, 77; E. Dosch, 77; H. +Vanseckel, 75; H. Clemens, 75; H. L. Fowler, 74. + +There were 94 individual riflemen who took part in this contest. The +conditions were, 5 shots at 150 yards, muzzle rest, and 5 shots at 250 +yards, standard target. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the last meeting of the Houston, Texas, Schuetzen-Verein +the following scores were made at 200 yards, three shots at rest, +possible 30: W. Kamin, 27 points won at 117 yards, off-hand, two shots, +possible 30; W. Keiler, 29; O. Erichson, 29. + + * * * * * + +~The~ American Field Championship Cup, won by L. S. Carter, is a +magnificent piece of work. It was to have cost originally $200; but the +artist elaborated his designs, so that $300 will be nearer the figure. + + * * * * * + +~A friendly~ rifle match was shot at Troy, Kansas, between Dr. +R. S. Dinsmore, of Troy, and Dr. G. I. Royce, of Topeka. Both used +Dr. Dinsmore’s rifle. The scores were: Dr. Dinsmore, 78, 78, 79, 77, +80--392; Dr. Royce, 72, 70, 76, 76, 74, 76--368. + + * * * * * + +~Company G.~, California National Guard, is considered the crack +rifle company in the State. At the late State shoot 43 men made 1,488 +points out of 2,150. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. J. A. Huggins~, of Pittsburgh, Penn., made in a rifle match +at 200 yards, off-hand, with a 32-calibre rifle, within the rules of +the N. R. A., the unprecedented score of 440 points out of a possible +500 in 50 shots. The same day he also made 436, same conditions. These +scores beat all previous records, being the record for 50 and 100 +shots. The American standard (Hinman) off-hand target was used. + + * * * * * + +~Officers~ of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Animals stopped a rabbit coursing meeting that was in progress at +Hempstead, L. I. There were over 100 visitors present, among them Mr. +and Mrs. S. D. Ripley, Mr. and Mrs. A. Belmont, Jr., Mrs. S. S. Sands, +Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Dodge, Miss Morgan and Miss Bird. + +Mr. A. Belmont, Jr., had expended a great deal of time and money to +make the meeting a success. The following gentlemen appeared before +Squire Clowes: A. Belmont, Jr., Theo. Rutherford Beach, John Doty, +William Reardon. They were charged with wilfully, unlawfully, wickedly +and unjustifiably mutilating and killing an animal. The trial was set +for the following Friday, when the court room was crowded. The jury +returned a verdict of not guilty, and there was a great outburst of +applause when the verdict was announced. + +It is to be hoped that Mr. Bergh will see that to follow in the +footprints of his late uncle in all things is not the proper thing. No +one will assist him more than the true sportsman. But for him to array +himself against the legions of true sportsmen is sheer folly, as he +will do himself and the cause he represents more harm than good. If +such sport can be stopped it is hard to say where it will stop. + + * * * * * + +~Pistol~ and revolver shooting is having quite a boom throughout +the country. At St. Louis, recently, some fine shooting with a pistol +has been done, Mr. L. V. D. Perrett making the following scores at 50 +yards on a Standard American target: 87, 85, 87, 83, 86, 82, 91, 86, +80, 87--854. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Miller Rifle Club of Hoboken, N. J., and Our Own Rifle +Club of Newark, had a match at the Miller’s quarters, Hoboken, +recently. The target used was the Zettler ring. The scores were: Our +Own Rifle Club, 2,380; Miller Rifle Club, 2,356. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. E. C. Mohrstadt~ won the handsome gold medal of the St. +Louis Pistol Club, with the good average of 81-4--11; Fred A. Todde +second, with 80-8--13; W. Bauer third. Mr. Bauer made the highest +single score of 93 points out of possible 100. They will hold a +tournament July 15-19, 1889, when $700 will be offered in prizes. + + * * * * * + +~At~ Dover, N. H., November 29, the following scores were made +at 200 yards off-hand, with match rifles: H. M. Wiggan, 100 shots, 82, +89, 82, 80, 81, 87, 80, 88, 79, 73--821; J. B. Stevens, Jr., 90 shots, +73, 82, 73, 80, 78, 67, 77, 80, 78--697; G. H. Wentworth, 60 shots, 86, +91, 79, 88, 84, 92--520. + + * * * * * + +~The~ following were the best scores made by the Zettler Rifle +Club, December 11, 10 shots each, gallery target and distance: G. +Zimmerman, 115; L. Flach, 115; M. B. Engel, 115; F. Lindkloster, 114; +J. H. Brown, 113; A. Bertrandt, 113. + + * * * * * + +~A team~ match was shot December 1, at Springfield, N. J., +between teams captained by E. D. Miller and C. Johnson; teams of three +men, 50 clay pigeons each. The scores were: Miller’s team--E. Miller, +43; A. Sickly, 43; W. Sopher, 38--123. Johnson’s team--C. Johnson, 39; +I. M. Roll, 40; D. Conover, 34--112. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Williamsburgh Schuetzen Gesellschaft elected these +officers at their annual meeting: Captain, Charles Horney; first +lieutenant, Geb. Krauss; second lieutenant, A. Hoffman; secretary, J. +Richards; treasurer, K. Sohleich; first shooting-master, G. Kleinbut; +second shooting-master, W. Horney. + + +ROWING. + +~The~ first intercolonial university eight-oared race was +rowed October 6, on the Lower Yarra course, from Humbug Beach to +the Gasworks, a course of about two miles and a half in length. The +universities represented were Sidney, Adelaide, and Melbourne. Sidney +struck the water first, but Melbourne and Adelaide dashed off with +the lead, the former at 38, and Adelaide rowing at 39. The latter’s +coxswain steered badly at first. Melbourne gradually went to the front, +reaching the winning post first in 13m 5s., Adelaide four lengths to +the bad, and Sidney about six lengths further behind. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the Fairmount Rowing Club of +Philadelphia was held last month. The election resulted as follows: +President, E. B. Pyfer; vice-president, J. W. Harrison; corresponding +secretary, J. Watermeyer; financial secretary, L. C. Moore; treasurer, +C. Pressendanz; captain, G. W. Mitchell; Coxswain, C. Tierney; +directors, W. Brownell, E. F. Brownell, C. Pressendanz, N. C. Upton. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Vesper Boat Club of Philadelphia at its annual +election selected the following officers: President, A. R. Parsons; +vice-president, H. Thomas; treasurer, C. F. Grim; recording secretary, +B. Hooley; corresponding secretary, G. King; Captain, G. S. James; +first lieutenant, G. Hooley; second lieutenant, J. Hutchinson; third +lieutenant, H. W. Mende; house committee, J. Leibert, T. Park; inquiry +committee, F. Munson, G. Hooley, H. Thomas; naval delegate board, A. +R. Parsons; financial committee, A. F. Cottingham, J. Hutchison and G. +Hooley. The club is flourishing. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Mystic Boat Club of Newark, N. J., elected the following +officers for the year: President, H. M. Darcy; secretary, F. W. Mercer; +captain, F. H. Glaze; lieutenant, A. J. Barclie; trustees, E. H. +Osborne, C. L. Winters, F. Barclie, S. Depue and S. Durand. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the Manayunk, Penn., Rowing Association +resulted in the election of the following officers: President, J. A. +Maguire; vice-president, G. Martin; secretary, F. Wall; treasurer, F. +Milon; steward, M. McLaughlin; captain, J. W. Caffrey; lieutenant, P. +W. Maxwell; directors, G. Martin, G. Cassidy, F. Milon, J. Wall and M. +McLaughlin. + + * * * * * + +~All~ previous individual mileage records of the Minnesota Boat +Club have been beaten by Mr. Herbert W. Brown, who rowed 1,135 miles +during the season of 1888 just closed. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Dauntless Rowing Club elected the following board of +officers for the present year: President, J. H. Redfield; first +vice-president, T. H. Froehlich; second vice-president, Chas. M. Hall, +Jr.; secretary, E. H. Anderson; treasurer, L. M. Edgar; captain, M. +F. Connell; first lieutenant, F. S. Polo; second lieutenant, C. A. +McIntyre; trustees, W. F. Bacon, J. J. Duff and F. F. Burke. + + * * * * * + +~At~ the annual meeting of the Catlin Boat Club of Chicago +the following officers were elected: President, Charles Catlin; +vice-president, Harry A. Cronin; secretary and treasurer, T. P. +Hallinan; lieutenant, James McCormick; captain and trainer, Charles +Goff. The president and vice-president were elected as delegates to the +Mississippi Valley Rowing Association, and Messrs. Harris, Huehl and +T. W. Reading were chosen as delegates to the Chicago Navy. The Catlin +Boat Club is in a prosperous condition, having a membership of forty. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Yale Freshmen have challenged the Harvard Freshmen to an +eight-oared two-mile straightaway race, to be rowed at New London next +June. For several years the Yale Freshmen crews have challenged the +Harvard Freshmen, but the latter have persistently declined, fearing +that it would develop material for the Yale University boat. There is +little prospect that Harvard will change her policy toward Yale. + + * * * * * + +~Both~ the Yale and Harvard crews have begun systematic +training, which will increase in severity as the season advances. +Much is expected by Harvard men of the tank, which has lately been +completed, and which will put them on an equal footing with Yale in the +matter of preliminary training. + + * * * * * + +~Much~ interest has been aroused among college men by reports +that a race had been arranged between Cambridge, Eng., and Yale, to be +rowed April 14. At Yale it is said that no negotiations had been begun +with Cambridge, but something would undoubtedly be done to bring about +a race. The date announced, April 17, is out of the question, inasmuch +as the severe winter prevents all outdoor practice. The time best +suited to the rowing men here would be during the long vacation. But +that might not suit the Englishmen. Altogether it will be a hard matter +to arrange a race which will be fair to both contestants. + + * * * * * + +~Intercollegiate~ boating has received an added impetus by the +decision of Cornell, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, +to row an annual race at New London about the same time as the +other ’Varsity races. The plan was originated by Columbia, and on +December 12, E. Klapp, representing Columbia, met T. G. Hunter, of +the University of Pennsylvania, and C. G. Psotta, of Cornell, at +Philadelphia, and an agreement was drawn up and signed by the three +representatives, stipulating for an annual three-mile race between +eight-oared crews with coxswains, to be held between June 10 and 25, on +the Thames at New London, the exact date to be named on or before April +1. Columbia has also been invited to contest for the “Childs’ Cup” with +Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania, but will probably decline, +because great extra expense would be involved. The Harvard-Columbia +race will be rowed this year as usual, as it was only set aside last +year by the consent of both colleges. + + +SKATING. + +~The~ National Amateur Skating Association of the United States +held its annual meeting last December, and elected the following +officers for 1889: President, G. L. M. Sacks, M. A. C.; vice-president, +Gus C. Walton, N. Y. A. C.; secretary, S. J. Montgomery; treasurer, +J. B. Story; captain, W. B. Curtis; first lieutenant, G. D. Phillips; +second lieutenant, H. M. Banks, Jr. + +The association announced its determination to hold its fourth annual +amateur championship meeting in the vicinity of New York City, Jan. 17, +and following days. The programme was as follows: + +Jan. 17.--220-yards and 5-mile races. + +Jan. 18.--1-mile and 10-mile races. + +Jan. 19.--Figure skating. + +This is what is now arranged and intended, but as the association +has no control over wind and weather, it cannot guarantee a strict +execution of its programme. The committee can only say they will +endeavor to give the contests as above announced. If on either of the +announced days no good ice can be found, the whole programme will be +postponed from day to day until there is good ice. + +The events open to the amateur skaters of the world are: Figure +skating, 220-yards, 1-mile, 5-mile and 10-mile races. Gold medal to +first, silver medal to second, and bronze medal to third in each +contest. Entrance-fee, $1 for each man for each event. Skaters unknown +to the committee must submit satisfactory proof of their amateur +standing. Entries closed Monday, Jan. 14, to S. J. Montgomery, +Secretary National Amateur Skating Association, P. O. Box 938, New York +City. + +It is also probable that there will be special races at quarter-mile +and half-mile for prizes offered by president and vice-president. + +The following is the programme of the association for figure skating +contest. The object of this programme is to set forth the movements +of figure-skating so as best to test the proficiency of skaters, and +in an order that will economize the strength of the contestants. The +movements are arranged under comprehensive, fundamental heads, designed +to include everything appertaining to the art. It is to be understood +that whenever practicable all movements are to be executed both forward +and backward, on right foot and on left. It should be continually +borne in mind that _grace_ is the most desirable attribute of artistic +skating. + + 1. Plain forward and backward skating. + + 2. “Lap foot”--as field step and in cutting circle. + + 3. Outside edge roll, forward. + + 4. Outside edge roll, backward. + + 5. Inside edge roll, forward. + + 6. Inside edge roll, backward. + + 7. Figure eight on one foot, forward. + + 8. Figure eight on one foot, backward. + + 9. Cross roll, forward. + + 10. Cross roll, backward. + + 11. Change of edge roll, forward--commencing + either on outside or inside edge. + + 12. Change of edge roll, backward--beginning + either on outside or inside edge. + + 13. (_a_) “On to Richmond;” (_b_) reverse “On to Richmond.” + + 14. (_a_) “Locomotives,” forward, backward, side-ways--single + and double; (_b_) waltz step (not to be done + on the point of the skate). + + 15. Spread eagles, inside and outside edges. + + 16. Curvilinear angles; (_a_) single, double, chain, + and flying threes, beginning on inside or outside + edge; (_b_) turns from outside edge to outside edge, + or from inside edge to inside edge, forward and backward. + + 17. Grapevines, including “Philadelphia twist,” etc. + + 18. Toe and heel movements, embracing pivot + circling, toe spins (_pirouettes_), and movements on + both toes, etc. + + 19. Single flat-foot spins and double-foot whirls. + + 20. (_a_) Serpentines on one foot and on both feet; + (_b_) change of edge, single and double. + + 21. Loops and ringlets on inside and outside + edges, simple and in combination. + + 22. Display of complex movements, at the option of the contestant. + + 23. Specialties, embracing _original_ and _peculiar_ movements. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Canadian Amateur Skating Association held their second +annual meeting in the Victoria Rink, Montreal, on Nov. 21st, and +elected the following officers for the ensuing season: President, +Lieut.-Col. Fred Henshaw; first vice-president, Mr. G. Geddes, Toronto; +second vice-president, Mr. H. V. Meredith; third vice-president, Mr. L. +Pereira, Ottawa; secretary-treasurer, Mr. A. E. Stevenson; council, H. +M. Allan, W. G. Ross, J. A. Taylor, J. A. Findlay, F. M. Larmouth, W. +D. Aird, L. Rubenstein, R. A. Elliott, F. W. Barlow. + + * * * * * + +~A race~ for the half-mile skating championship of the world +took place at Amsterdam, Holland, on January 8, between Joseph F. +Donoghue, of Newburgh, N. Y., and Alexander Von Panschin, of St. +Petersburg, Russia. Donoghue fell during the race and Von Panschin won; +time, 1 min. 25 3-5 sec. Donoghue afterwards skated over the course +against time and covered the half-mile in 1 min. 27 2-5 sec. The next +day, January 9, Von Panschin won the one-mile race also. His time was +2 min. 59 sec. The American champion, Donoghue, was second, his time +for the mile being exactly three minutes. G. Smart, of England, won the +one-mile international professional handicap in 3 min. 9 sec. + + +SNOW-SHOEING. + +~Le Canadian~ Snow-shoe Club, of Montreal, have elected the +following officers: President, J. A. St. Julien; first vice-president, +E. J. Bedard; second vice-president, Alf. Lussier; secretary, C. O. +Lapierre; assistant secretary, W. Pilotte; treasurer, J. E. Clement; +committee, L. N. Moreau, A. W. Beauclaire, N. Malette and H. Blanchard. +The club decided to hold weekly tramps to Cote des Neiges. + + +THE KENNEL. + +~New York~ (the Westminster Kennel Club) is out with its premium +list for its February show. The prizes offered for the dogs in the +large dog classes are $20 to first, $10 to second, $5 to third and the +club’s medal to fourth. The next grade of classes get $10 to first, $5 +to second and medal to third. The specials are valuable, and include +the mastiff club cups, valued at $600; the St. Bernard club cups, +valued at $140; the kennel prizes of $25 each for the best kennel of +four of each of the following breeds: Pointers, mastiffs, St. Bernards, +bloodhounds, deer-hounds, greyhounds, foxhounds, hunting-spaniels, +beagles and English setters, Irish setters, black-and-tan setters and +collies. The inducements are great to exhibitors, and the show bids +fair to be as well attended and as successful as heretofore. + + * * * * * + +~The~ committee of the American Kennel Club held a meeting +December 28, 1888, and decided upon the following matters, which are +herewith printed for the benefit of the readers of ~Outing~: + +1. The American Kennel Club Stud Book, after the completion of the +present volume, will be issued annually, will contain a full index, and +will be published bound in cloth. + +2. Numbers will be assigned upon the receipt of each entry, and will be +published monthly in the _American Kennel Gazette_. + +3. Registry in the stud book can be made _only_ upon the following +conditions: + +1. Where sire and dam are already registered or are directly descended +from dogs already registered in said book. + +2. Where dogs possess an authenticated pedigree, extended back three +generations. + +3. Where dogs (not eligible under the provisions as above required) +have won not less than two first prizes in the regular classes at any +show recognized by the American Kennel Club. + +4. All entries for the stud book will be published in the issue of the +_American Kennel Gazette_ following the receipt of said entry to enable +the correction of any errors that may appear. + +5. The fee for entry in the stud book will remain as heretofore. Fifty +cents for each dog entered. + +6. All dogs shown at any show held by a member of the American Kennel +Club, and not already registered in the stud book, _must_ be registered +in the _American Kennel Gazette_, the fee for such entry will be +twenty-five cents. + +7. The _American Kennel Gazette_ will be published on the last Thursday +of each and every month. + + Yours truly, + ~A. P. Vredenburgh~, Sec’y. + + * * * * * + +~The~ following is a list of the dog-show fixtures for February: + +The first annual dog show of the Columbus Fancier’s Club, at Columbus, +O., will be held at Columbus from February 5 to 8; Thomas R. Sparrow, +secretary. + +From February 7 to 12, the first annual show of the Hudson River +Poultry, Dog and Pet Stock Association, will be held at Newburgh, N. Y. +J. H. Drevenstedt, of Washington, N. J., is the secretary. + + * * * * * + +~The~ Detroit Kennel Club recently lost fifteen valuable +dogs that had been raised for stock purposes by a strange epidemic, +resembling pneumonia. Examination of the lungs of a number of the dogs +was made soon after death, and they all bore evidence of the same +disease that characterizes the lungs of human beings who have died from +pneumonia. It seems from information received from different parts +of the country that the mysterious malady is quite general, and not +confined to any given section. + + * * * * * + +~The~ annual meeting of the New England Kennel Club was held +recently at its rooms, Hamilton Place, Boston. In token of his long +services to the club as treasurer, that pleasant gentleman and +enthusiastic spaniel-man, W. O. Partridge, of Boston, was tendered a +suitably engrossed testimonial by the club. The following officers +were elected for 1889: President, F. B. Fay; vice-president, E. H. +Moore; secretary, J. W. Newman; treasurer, Geo. A. Fletcher. Executive +committee, the officers and J. E. Thayer, Jean Grosvenor, Frank M. +Curtis, J. H. Long, Dr. J. G. W. Werner. + + +YACHTING. + +~The~ Toronto Yacht Club and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club have +decided to consolidate, and after May 15 next will be known only as the +Royal Canadian Yacht Club. + +The fusion of these two organizations will make the Royal Canadian one +of the strongest yacht clubs in the world, with a membership of 650. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. C. D. Mosher~, of Amesbury, Mass., who built the phenomenal +launch _Buzz_ last season, whose mile record is 2 min. 8 sec., is now +designing a steam yacht twice the size of the _Buzz_, but on the same +lines. + + * * * * * + +~Mr. S. Austin~, Jr., of Philadelphia, has purchased of Mr. +Jacob Lorillard his yacht _Anita_. Mr. Austin paid $22,500 for the +_Anita_, and Mr. Lorillard is now having designs made for his fiftieth +yacht. + + + + +[Illustration: + + Drawn by A. C. Corbould. + +“ONE FAIR PURSUER GOES AT IT WHERE THE HUNTSMAN LEADS.”] + + + + + ~Outing~. + + ~Vol. XIII.~ MARCH, 1889. ~No. 6.~ + + + + +FOX-HUNTING. + +A DAY IN THE SHIRES. + +BY HENRY H. S. PEARSE (“PLANTAGENET”). + + +There is a touch of original barbarism in all field sports--at least +that is what our critics say, and I am prepared to put aside all cause +for controversy by admitting without hesitation that there is much +truth in the charge. Nay, more, I am even disposed to know the very +quality that squeamish sentimentalists condemn, and to regard the +spirit of sport in its most ferocious outbursts as the very antithesis +of cold-blooded, wanton cruelty. + +If proof were required that the most typical hunting-men are not +insensible to animal suffering, one need only point to their tender +care for horses and hounds, with which they have bonds of sympathy +utterly inexplicable to people who are not sportsmen. A keen, bold +rider may gallop his horse to a standstill in the rapture of hot +pursuit, or put him at an almost impossible leap, staking life and +limb and neck of man and beast against the chance of holding a place +in the first flight, but when that effort is over his hand will rival +a woman’s in the tenderness of its caresses for the noble brute that +has answered so generously to touch of whip or spur. This combination +of fierce daring and feminine weakness has never been more elegantly +expressed than in Whyte Melville’s stirring song, “The Place where the +Old Horse Died.” The man who will jest at his own scars, and make light +of a broken rib or a dislocated shoulder, can be moved to infinite +pity for an injured hunter. But even if the capacity to greatly dare +and stoically endure were only to be attained by the sacrifice of +sympathy with animal suffering, it would, I fancy, be worth cultivating +by any race in danger of overcivilization. Such qualities may be +characteristic of original barbarism, but no nation has yet been +able to find satisfactory substitutes for them. As tending to their +development, there is no pursuit within reach of ordinary citizens in +an old and populous country that can for a moment compare with the +moving accidents of fox-hunting. Very few sportsmen, however, stand in +need of this excuse for the passion that possesses them. + +A defense of the chase on high moral grounds would sound to them very +like cant, and a fox-hunter worthy of the name may well dispense with +the services of an apologist. If there be any foreigner who believes +that the sturdy manhood of Great Britain is in danger of being played +out, let him make a tour of the rural districts of the island from +November to March. Taking a map of ordinary scale, one cannot put his +finger on any spot outside the densely peopled cities, between Land’s +End and John O’Groats, and say, “Here is a place where the music of +hounds is never heard!” Every county has its two or three, and some a +dozen, packs of fox-hounds, hunting here up to the outskirts of busy +towns surrounded by networks of railways, and there amid the stillness +and silence of mighty mountain ranges far from “the madding crowd.” +On rugged heights where no horse could find secure foothold, their +loved bell-like chorus may be heard cleaving the thin air and echoing +from rock to rock, with the accompaniment of shrill cheers from sturdy +hillmen who follow on foot from morn to even-tide without sign of +fatigue. These, however, are rather the by-ways of sport, and to make +acquaintance with fox-hunting in its more conventional phases one must +needs follow great Nimrod’s footsteps to the classic fields where Hugo +Meynell, John Ward, Osbaldiston, Assheton Smith, Anstruther Thomson, +and many other masters of woodcraft graduated. Not there will one find +the science of hunting practiced in its highest development; but there, +alone of all countries in the world, may one see the art of riding to +hounds illustrated in every variety of style. + +[Illustration: A FOXY VARMINT.] + +To describe hound work, pure and simple, with the incidents of a +long hunting run, I should have to take as my theme a fixture in +some remote provincial hunt, where plough and pasture alternate with +deep woodlands. A day with wild Jack Parker, of the Sinnington, and +his trencher-fed pack, among Yorkshire dales; or with Mr. Lawrence’s +half-bred Welch hounds in the coverts of Monmouthshire, or with any +of the Devonshire fox-hounds, where open moors and densely wooded +coombes are the haunts of foxes, wild as their native hills, would +best illustrate the science of woodcraft, and all the minutiæ about +which Beckford, Delmé, Radcliffe, and the author of “Notitia Venatica” +discoursed so learnedly. + +We might then begin with the earth-stopper, on his lonely midnight +rounds in storms of snow or rain. Following the track of his ambling +pony, and guided by the pale gleam of his lantern through the mists, we +might watch him as he bent to work under the dripping twigs of bramble +and hazel, or rolled a great stone into the mouth of some cavernous +hole among a “clitter of rocks,” as they say in the west country. We +might learn from him much concerning the dissipated habits of the red +race--male members of which follow very much the customs of men about +town, devoting their nights to feasting or flirtation and their days +to rest and sleep. In regard to the latter, no bachelor of the Albany +could be more fastidious in the choice of quarters. Should a belated +worker find the door of his regular abode closed against him, he always +knows where to seek cozy shelter in the warmest corner of a gorse +covert, or the dry top-growth of a grassy hedgerow. In the spring-time, +when his “fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” he is apt to wander +far from his familiar haunts and make his bed wherever the first flush +of dawn lights on him. All these are habits of which the earth-stopper, +in his nocturnal watches, takes careful note, and he knows the exact +hour of every season when improvised doors should be stopped at night +to keep the gay old dog out, or put to after daybreak to shut the vixen +securely in. + +[Illustration: THE ROAD-RIDING DIVISION.] + +About such details as earth-stoppers and their duties, however, the +merry sportsmen who throng the midland shires concern themselves only +when a brilliant burst is brought to a premature end by the cunning +fox slipping into a drain that has been overlooked. Hunting the dray +of a wild rover from his midnight foraging grounds to some distant +lair is also a tedious detail of woodcraft in which the Meltonian would +disdain to take part, even if he could tear himself from his bed at +the chill hour when our grandfathers’ sport began. There are not many +countries nowadays so scantily stocked that this preliminary to a find +need be resorted to, but in some very provincial corners of the land, +and notably among Welsh mountains and Cumberland fells, the custom is +still pursued. Fashionable midland fields would dwindle to very small +proportions indeed if half a dozen coverts were drawn blank, and the +ardor of thirsting youths would ooze away if they had to watch hounds +patiently puzzling out a cold scent for an hour or two before the fun, +fast and furious, began. Yet their languid regard for creature comforts +is only a harmless affectation after all. The first note of horn or +hound sends the hot blood tingling through their veins, and when once +they have thrown off the cloak of conventional unconcern, it must be a +formidable obstacle that can balk them, and a long run that takes the +keen edge off their rivalry. + +If we elect to throw in our lot with glorious Tom Firr and the Quorn; +to meet Will Goodall with his Pytchley bitches at Weedon or Crick; +Frank Gillard and his bright Belvoir tans at Piper Hole, where the +“partickler purty landscape” of Belvoir Vale unfolds a pleasant +prospect before us; or Gillson and the Cottesmore at Langham’s +far-famed Ranksborough gorse, there will be nearly the same brilliant +galaxy of sporting celebrities, only with a different setting. Let us +make for ourselves, then, an imaginary fixture at some centre that is +surrounded by the most characteristic features of all these favored +countries, and watch the gay cavalcades from different points converge +at the trysting-place. + +A few farmers, well mounted, neatly attired in black coats and +workmanlike cords, and bearing about them no visible signs of +depression, are first to appear at the meet. Then follow rough-riders +of the Dick Christian order, on raw young ones, qualifying for hunters’ +certificates, or queer-tempered animals that need some schooling yet, +though the season is far spent, and many a hard run ought to have +taken the devil out of them. The Leicestershire rough-rider is _sui +generis_, and his exact counterpart is not to be found in any other +hunting country that I know of. Long training has made him amenable +to every form of discipline exacted by the M. F. H., and he is never +out of his proper place, no matter what other people may be doing. +He betakes himself now to a quiet out-of-the-way corner where hounds +are not likely to come within reach of his restive horse’s heels, and +whenever the rush for a start may begin, he will display marvelous tact +in getting clear of the ruck to cut out a line for himself. His nether +limbs have been battered out of all shapeliness by frequent fractures, +so that he seems to have no grip of the saddle, and his hands look too +rigid to yield the fraction of an inch in play; but somehow he has the +knack of sitting like a jackanapes, never off, and he can squeeze the +veriest jade over a stiff line of country. + +There is a blaze of scarlet along the lane yonder, and flashes of +white between the thorn fences as the hounds are brought up, followed +by groups of gorgeously arrayed gallants. The huntsman and his whips +are turned out in the perfection of neatness, their breeches spotless, +and every item of equipment scrupulously bright. The twenty couples +of hounds have the glossy bloom of faultless condition, as if this +were only the beginning instead of the fag end of a hard season. And +now the throng grows denser every minute. The master threads his way +through a maze of vehicles and a mass of horsemen, exchanging courteous +greetings with friends or strangers alike. Four-in-hands, tandems, and +smart buggies come in quick succession to choke the crowded highway. +Covert-hacks are dexterously exchanged for hunters. Fair damsels throw +aside wraps and newmarkets to appear in all the bewitching simplicity +of dainty habits, or the more pronounced combinations of masculine +cut, with open coats, snowy vests, folded cravats, masher collars, and +all the latest triumphs of sartorial ingenuity. There is mounting in +hot haste, for the word has been given to draw a favorite gorse brake +not two miles away, and that is a sure find. The February sun-shine +is screened by soft clouds, “the wind in the east most forbiddingly +keen,” and all the conditions favorable to a brilliant run, if only +a stout traveler can be induced to lead pursuers across the fair +pastures that stretch far away to a hazy line of coverts yonder. The +keen-faced huntsman, lithe, wiry and active as a boy yet, gets his +hounds through the thicket of restless heels with quiet coolness which +no confusion can ruffle. Then begins an eager rush for short cuts to +the covert-side, only restrained by the master’s imperative “Hold hard, +gentlemen! Let hounds go first, if you please.” A Yorkshire dealer, who +has been extolling the young horse he bestrides as a wonderful fencer +who does not “jump from here to there, but from here to yonder,” begins +looking already by way of putting these exceptional leaping powers to +the proof, but he will have quite enough of that in the legitimate +course of things before the day is over. + +[Illustration: “IT IS THE HORSE IN AND THE MAN ON THE RIGHT SIDE.”] + +At length the foremost squadrons are marshaled quietly, in compact +order, beside a five-acre brake--all keeping a little down wind so that +the fox may be forced to break covert towards that inviting stretch +of verdant pastures with its heavy thorn fences, tall bullfinches, +stiff oxen and gleaming brook, brimful from recent rains. If kindly +fortune should take us that way, how soon the field will be squandered, +the faint-hearted follower stopped, and the reckless brought to grief! +There is little danger that hounds will chop their fox before he can +get well away. He must be a sound sleeper indeed if the tramp of five +hundred horses and the voices of his foes have not roused him to alert +action before our huntsman’s “Loo in yoi, wind him, bo-oys!” gives +peremptory notice to quit. + +[Illustration: “AND TOPS THE NEXT GATE.”] + +There is no sign of movement, however, except where the hounds are +working through tangled growth of sedge and brier with ceaseless +waving of their “rush-grown tails,” as Somerville phrases it, and for +a while no whimper is heard. Impetuous spirits are beginning to be +a little dashed by the dread that this brake may for once be blank; +then a light challenge is heard from a bitch that never lies, and the +huntsman answers with a cheer. To that sound every hound flies eagerly, +and the chorus of their music clangs like a carillon. Another brief +pause, while hearts beat high, hats are thrust tightly down, horses are +pressed up to their bits, and the squadrons stand in severed ranks like +cavalry waiting for the bugle to sound a charge. + +Now there rises at the far corner, clear and shrill, a “Gone away!” +that electrifies everybody. Hounds are out in a twinkling as their +huntsman dashes forward with a spirit-stirring “Hoic, holloa,” and +a few short, sharp blasts of his horn. Then the headlong rush of a +hundred horsemen sweeps like a thundering mountain torrent down the +slope. In that glowing stream a few dark habits flutter, and all the +first flight men and women charge a blackthorn fence abreast. By this +time the pack is half a field ahead, rising with ferocious dash, and +skimming like a flock of wild doves over the grass. Three or four men +are down in the ditch, more than one loose horse is sailing along in +gay career, rejoicing to be free, and the boldest riders have to harden +their hearts as they face a ragged bullfinch with a broad grip towards +them, and a stiff ox-rail a yard or two on the far side. Some take a +strong feel of their bridles and pull back into a hand gallop, hoping +by a double effort to negotiate the obstacle cleverly; others send +their horses out at steeplechase pace, riding for an almost certain +fall, but trusting that by sheer impetus they may be able to clear +the timber or smash it. There is a sharp crunching of thorn twigs, a +repeated rapping of hoofs on the timber, a loud crash as one gallant +horse breasts the rail, shivers it into atoms, staggers, and recovering +himself, goes on again in hot pursuit; the dull thuds of some heavy +falls, and then all who are left of the line that swept so proudly +down hill at the outset speed on, a shattered section of their former +strength, but with two dainty habits still proudly holding their places +in the first flight. + +The road-riding division has been swiftly scattered in all directions. +One column is galloping hard towards some well-known coverts five +miles off. Regardless of the fact that our fox would have to travel +dead up wind every yard of the way to reach there, these skirters +place confidence in their pilot, who boldly asserts his knowledge of +the hunted one’s point, because he has taken “that very line twice +before.” It is strange how some men, who might go straight enough +across country if left to their own devices, will often follow the +lead of a rank impostor of this order simply because he can ride +like a demon after dinner “across the walnuts and the wine,” and is +always taken at his own valuation until found out. Nobody ever saw +him perform the daring feats he has been credited with, but many have +followed him mile after mile on the “’ard ’igh road,” and kept the +secret carefully to themselves, lest in exposing him they should have +to confess how they also rode the run. Not that one exposure would +abash him much, for he has always a variety of excuses ready to explain +why he failed to get through the crowd at the start, or took a wrong +turn at a critical point, and so had to make up his lost ground by a +short cut. Resplendent in garb of closest conformity with conventional +ideas--a single-breasted coat, long in the waist and with square-cut, +ample skirts, beneath which are just visible the faultless folds of +breeches that fit like skin about his knees; boots without a wrinkle +or a blemish in the brilliancy of their enamel; delicately tinted +tops that are not the fraction of an inch too long or too short for +Fashion’s fastidious eye; a cravat which quaint old Jack Parker would +say “must have been starched and ironed on him,” and a gardenia in +his button-hole--this youth is, from the crown of his polished silk +hat to the buckle of his silver spurs, the perfection of scrupulous +neatness, and the ideal presentment of a Meltonian sportsman; but his +riding to hounds is a melancholy delusion. Conspicuous by the obtrusive +correctness of his “get up,” he is the centre of much misplaced +admiration among the fair at every meet; and, equally conspicuous now +as he heads the torrent that rolls down a lane, he is the subject of +misplaced confidence also. + +Once thrown into the wake of such a pilot and fairly committed to a +road, while Leicestershire hounds are flying like swallows over the +grass four fields away-- + + “Not a nose to the ground, not a stern in the air,” + +even you, bold rider, know how next to impossible is the chance of +getting to them again. Like a stout swimmer caught in a rapid, from +which all struggles to escape are vain, you can only float on with the +foaming current, deafened by its din, paralyzed by its force, and hurl +anathemas at the unconscious head of that weak being whose example +led you to plunge into mid-stream. If he had shown the white feather +palpably you would never have followed him; but it is the boastful +funker’s characteristic that he never gives you cause to suspect the +fear that is in him. He looked up to the last stride like going at that +bullfinch, but just then the hounds seemed to swing round a little. He +saw this, and in a second was shaping his swift course for the nearest +gate; you hesitated, thinking he must surely know the country best, +and, having hesitated, were lost. + +Let me not be misunderstood. I condemn no man merely because he shirks +a big jump, for not all of us have the nerve or the confidence, the +horsemanship or the quick, resolute judgment to hold our own with +hounds when they are racing hard over a strongly-fenced country. Such +gifts in combination are not vouchsafed to one in every hundred, +even among those who hunt with the Quorn, and he who frankly admits +that nothing would tempt him to put his horse at any obstacle more +formidable than a sheep hurdle may be a sportsman to the backbone, +worthy of our highest respect; but Leicestershire is not quite the +country for him. Only a man’s assumption of courage and attempts to +cloak his cowardice make him and the action ridiculous. Nor would I +for a moment hint, as John Warde once did, the fastidiousness which +marks Meltonians in matters of hunting costume is a sign of effeminate +weakness. A perfectly dressed man is never out of place except in +the ruck; and to do the most foppish youths justice, it must be said +that funking is not their characteristic fault. Digby Collins, one +of the quietest, boldest, and best riders to hounds in his day that +any “provincial” country, or the shires for that matter, could boast, +summed up the exquisite’s character in brief when he said: “Your true +hunting dandy would as soon think of omitting those minutiæ and obvious +sacrifices to the Graces as he would of turning aside from a nasty +place for fear of soiling them; and if he can carry his splendors well +to the front for forty minutes from Ranksboro’ Gorse or the Coplow, nor +fear to smirch them in the muddy waters of the Whissendine, who shall +blame him?” + +There are half a dozen of this type holding their own now in the first +flight, from whose doings our thoughts have been for a few brief +moments turned aside. Dandies they are in every detail, scrupulous even +as to the correct length and width of the bow above their boots, and +fond of personal adornment as the bewitching maiden whose white-vested +habit has flashed past them once or twice, and whose presence has +nerved them to all that man dare do. The wiry huntsman, full of dash +and fire for all his fifty years, rides straight as he rode it from +Waterloo Gorse nearly a quarter of a century ago; and the master, +hoping to shake off the incubus of exuberant youth, puts his horse at +the stiffest timber, where nothing but fine nerve in a crisis can save +him from a crushing fall. But neither these nor the hounds, turn which +way they will, can get half a field away from those half-dozen dandies +who charge an oxen as their soldier forefathers did a line of infantry, +and count fifteen rapturous minutes with the Quorn as worth a cycle of +slow hunting in Clayshire. + +As the line of chase bends down wind a little, and the bitches can no +longer drive at topmost speed, they are in danger of being overridden. +One youth, more reckless than the rest, lands over a double almost on +top of the pack. The master’s reprimand is muttered in D minor, but +he looks unutterable language, against which the thickest hide should +not be armor-proof. The offending youth, however, speeds on with +unruffled composure, his imperturbability reminding one of another +thrusting pursuer in a distant hunt whose propensity for pressing +hounds off a line the M. F. H. ironically rebuked by requesting him to +take particular care not to jump on one of them, as it was a special +favorite. Not a jot abashed, the youth replied: “I have a shocking bad +memory for hounds, and I am afraid he will have to take his chance with +the others.” + +If our fox had held on up-wind he could not have stood before hounds +another mile at the pace they drove over those first ten meadows. But +now the line bends with a sharper curve from the easterly breeze, and +the speed slackens somewhat, but only just enough to let the second +flight up as we find our faces set straight at the brook that never +fails to thin a Leicestershire field. We can already see the willow +trees that mark its course. One ragged thorn fence and two furlongs +of furrowed water-meadow lie between us and the yawning channel. That +fence does not look forbidding; but ride at it carefully, for old gaps +unmended mean that there is some other obstacle beyond. It may be +broad, it may be deep, and the branches droop as if over a ditch, but +you cannot afford to chance anything now. A crumpler here would take +half the remaining breath out of steeds already sorely pressed, and you +will want it all for a bigger effort presently. That warning came not a +minute too soon. The old horse pricks his ears, but his rush had best +be restrained. Sloping ground on the far side tells of a deep drop, and +the horse that goes fast at that will want ready hands controlled by +iron nerves to save him as he lands. There goes one! With just a turn +too much speed put on at sight of a broad ditch and rotten banks, he +spanned the chasm, but that drop was more than wearied forelegs could +stand as they struck the steep slope. A falter, a peck, a heavy thud, +and the rider executes a somersault two yards clear of the prostrate +steed. Now watch how a workman deals with the obstacle. He seems to +go at it just as fast, but by a firm, light feel of the mouth he has +collected his horse for a supreme effort. The impetus is just enough +and no more; the distance has been measured to a nicety; the hunter, +well bred and high mettled, leaps “from the hand” without a pause, +lands lightly as a bird, and like a bird skims on again. + +There has been no check yet, but just a brief pause where the fox +changed his course, and hounds are driving on as if he were now only +a field ahead of them. The scent is breast-high and they have no need +to stoop to it. Nor do they throw their tongues freely; the pace is too +good for that. Like cavalry charging with a broad front, they carry +what sportsmen call a good head. At every twist and turn there is keen +rivalry for the lead, as first one and then another flashes out in +front and swings to the scent like a yacht keeling over on a new tack +or a swallow turning in mid-air. There is just a shrill whimper then, +and the whole pack wheels to it as if at word of command. Fifteen +minutes, full of more incidents than can be crowded into the hours +of an ordinary day, have passed since our fox was halloa’d away. The +hundreds from among whose thundering heels the tail hounds had to make +hazardous way as we sped over the first broad meadow, have dwindled +down to a twentieth of their number, and now we are heading straight +for the sluggish brook, which is so full now that we cannot see where +its slimy banks have been worn hollow by the slow curves and eddies of +its summer current or the first rushes of winter floods. + +The riding and spurring o’er Canobie Lea was as nothing to the rush +with which men wheel right and left, galloping hard to find a gate and +avoid the water. It is + + “No shallow dry ditch, with a hurdle to screen it, + That cocktail imposture a steeple-chase brook; + But the flood-fretted banks tell as plain, if we mean it, + The less we shall like it the longer we look.” + +How that “dream of the Old Meltonian” rings in our ears as we clench +our teeth hard, sit down in our saddles and ride for the brook! There +are not twenty followers left with the pack now, and not more than half +of them look as if they mean going. + +The quiet, determined horseman who negotiated that last awkward drop +so cleverly (typical of the best man of any country, whether in +Leicestershire or the most remote provinces), is taking a line of his +own, but without any sign of shirking or hesitation. At one point a +light thorn-fence half screens the brook, and he goes for it at that +point, well knowing that the roots of bushes will give him firm ground +to take off from; and as to the sort of place on which he may land, +he is content to take his chance. Catching firm hold of his horse’s +head, but so lightly that there is no perceptible increase of pressure +on bit or bridle, he sends an electric thrill of sympathy, along the +reins. A strong squeeze of the knees, just one touch of the spur, and +they go at it best speed. Like a bullet the good steed flies through +the screen of slender twigs, hangs a brief beat of time above the +glittering water, and with just a scramble where the hollow bank gives +way, is on _terra firma_ once more. It was a yawner indeed--broad as a +Lincolnshire dyke, deep enough to engulf horse and rider, and gloomy as +the Styx. One fair pursuer goes at it where the huntsman leads, and, +thanks to her pilot’s quick eye for selecting a sound place, gets over +cleverly. The other races hard at a bend where ceaseless eddies have +worn a wider channel. The little teeth are clenched tightly, and every +nerve in her slender frame is tingling with excitement. The gallant +thoroughbred shares this feeling, and, big as the effort is, he will +not be balked. With nostrils dilated and quivering, eyes straining +forward, and every muscle at tension, he bounds boldly forward, and +rather by impetus of speed than any palpable exertion of his own, flies +across the broad chasm. It is a hair’s breadth too much at this point +even for his superb leaping powers to compass; the hind feet drop in, +but fortunately find hold on a lower submerged shelf. The rider’s +lithe, light figure is instinctively thrown forward, the plucky steed +has his head, and by a second effort such as the underbred cocktail +seldom makes, he carries his rider safely ashore, shakes his dripping +quarters, and a minute later is speeding on beside the pack again. + +On either hand the splash and gurgle of waters tell that somebody has +gone down. In the one case it is the horse in, the man on the right +side, with reins in hand and rueful contemplation on his face; in the +other it is a man in mid-stream, spluttering and gesticulating for +the help of a friendly hunting crop, while his recreant steed, with +sweating flanks and straining eyes, looks over the brink at him. + +A minute later hoofs are clattering hard against the unyielding oak +of stiff post and rails, whereat one horse, that has been done to a +turn in his efforts to catch the first flight, rises impotently out of +sticky ground. His knees hit the top bar, which scarcely bends before +the weight, and turning heels over head, he falls heavily on his rider. +Fortunately the ground is soft and there are no ribs broken, but all +the fiery spirit has been pumped out of both horse and rider by this +disaster. Now we cross one of the modern curses to fox-hunting in the +midlands--a newly cut railway--go slowly over the next field, jump the +bank and binders up-hill into a roadway, and then come to our first +real check at the end of twenty fast minutes. + +Up to this point there has been more riding than hunting; but what +Meltonian has eyes for hounds, or cares about them, while they lead +the field at highest speed if only they furnish musical accompaniment +enough for him to ride by? Those twenty minutes, full of dash and keen +rivalry, are to him worth all the slow hunting runs ever chronicled, +and the delight of watching hounds puzzle out a cold scent or drive a +fox through dense woodlands where no man can ride to them, and when +only by their sonorous music one can know which way the tide of chase +is rolling, is to him a sensation unknown. At this first check, which +means that either the fox will beat his pursuers or that they will +have to hunt him patiently to death, the man who comes out simply to +ride would fain go home again, were it not that a fresh fox may be +found presently, and another fast scurry give him the opportunities of +steeplechasing distinction for which his soul craves. + +There is a popular superstition that the typical Leicestershire +huntsman is very much of the same mind on these points--that, having +got off the line of one fox, he will neither give hounds time to make +their own cast nor complete the work with painstaking science himself, +but will simply fling forward in a half-circle, like an over-eager +hound. That, if he fails to hit off a scent in this dashing fashion, +he will gallop straight to the nearest brake and find a fresh fox, +thereby getting credit for a wonderfully clever cast from those who +have been too far behind to see what happened, or too inexperienced to +know. These things, or something like them, happen, it is true, when +hounds come to their first check before there has been time to shake +off the crowd. A huntsman who could not practice little deceptions of +this kind at times without making either his pack or himself hopelessly +wild, would be as useless in the shires as a hound that had not the +courage to thread its way among hundreds of heels, and slip through the +torrent of mad pursuers when the “gone away” has been sounded. I have +seen such methods resorted to with brilliant success by Will Goodall of +the Pytchley, by Neill of the Cottesmore, and Tom Firr of the Quorn, +when the throng pressed so persistently that hounds had no chance to +hunt. But the perfection of breeding and training is attested by the +fact that, though frequently lifted thus, all three packs will stoop +readily to a scent when they have room, make their own casts with dash, +not waiting with heads up for their huntsman to help them whenever +they come to a difficulty, and hunt a cold line as cleverly as any +“provincial” pack. + +There is not much time to “leave ’em alone,” or practice slow tactics +now, for the thunder of road-riders rolls down the wind, and in a few +minutes more the presence of hundreds may spoil all that would have +been possible with a field of only fifty followers. Still the huntsman +will not hurry. The hounds probably know more than he does, and he +knows enough to be sure that a mistake made at the first check can +rarely be retrieved. There is a little feathering and waving of sterns +on the line our fox has come; then a few couples try forward without +success, and then, as if actuated by one impulse, they all swing round +in a wide self-cast. In this there is no flashy wildness, but perfect +steadiness and close work, yet nothing to suggest the style of harriers. + +See one hound as he circles round, stops suddenly, stoops to the +furrow, feathers along it for a few yards, and then throws his tongue +lightly. “Hoic to Festive! hoic together! Hurrah for the blood of +Belvoir Fallible!” shouts the huntsman, all animation in a second +at the sound. Every hound flies to where Festive spoke, but they do +not stop to “quest” the scent and make sure of it for themselves, as +harriers would. Each, jealous of honors and striving for the lead, +flies eagerly forward to feel for the line a few yards in advance of +his rivals. So, one after the other, they take up the cry until all +burst out in a clamorous chorus, and speed over the open once more. + +Luckily, we are set going just in time, and straight for a line of +frowning bullfinches, where network of thorns to be bored through, +and ox-rails and ditches to be got over somehow, would stall off the +faint-hearted. A minute later the road-riding division in all their +might would have been upon us, but now they are left behind again. +There is a gorse covert ahead, where fresh foxes are sure to be on +foot, and if only we change to any of these, our hunted one may save +his brush after all. But Will, the whipper-in, slips round as fast as +he can to the fox side as hounds dash into the cover. + +A red-roan steers away when he gets there, but it is not the right +animal, and Will stops the leading hounds when they come to him. Then +all is silence. But what is that old bitch doing in the dry ditch +beside the boundary fence? Our huntsman has one eye on her, the other +on the uplands a field or two off. Yes, that’s it. Something brown is +stealing along a furrow. The fox has never gone into this gorse, but +skirted it, his cunning telling him that he might thus delay pursuers +and throw them off on a false scent. Two or three light touches of the +horn bring hounds to him. In a cluster they follow him as he crashes +through a bullfinch and tops the next gate. He takes them along as if +they were running in view, but at one wave of his hand when he comes +where the fox was last viewed, they spread out like a fan, own to the +scent with notes of joy, and take us on again mile after mile, their +pace quickening as the power of horses to rise at a leap begins to flag. + +A welcome breathing space comes when hounds enter a chain of woods in +which our fox is certain to pause for a while. But here the huntsman +gives his quarry little time to rest. His voice rings out in answer +to every whimper from a hound he can trust, and so they keep driving +straight through for the far end. Evidently our fox is a stout-hearted +traveler, who does not mean to dwell and be caught like a rat in a +trap. He will run until he can run no longer, and then die like a +gentleman. Shall we be there to see, or is the end yet afar off? + +The bold first flightman, whose example disproves the fallacy that a +hard rider neither cares nor knows anything about hound work, shall be +our guide still. Watch him as he moves quietly through the rides of +this wood--his eye quick to take in all that each hound is doing, his +ear sensitive to every sound, while he may seem to be noting nothing. +He knows instinctively, though he may never have seen the pack before, +when a hound is lying with the reckless clamor of youth, or with the +half-closed mouth and faint whimper of long-continued weakness for +riot, or when another is telling the truth with hot outspoken tongue. +Directly that last welcome sound reaches him, followed by Will’s +view-halloa, he is out of the wood like an arrow from the bow, and with +the pack as it comes together in the open. + +Two fields have been crossed, and we begin to realize that the fox’s +point must be a well-known stronghold of the neighboring hunt where +tree-tops can be seen in the hazy distance; but his gallant effort to +reach it is in vain. We see by the way hounds begin to twist and turn +that the hunted one’s sinewy limbs are beginning to fail him, though +his courage holds out to the last. There is no need to nurse your horse +any longer, for the chase is near its end, and you may push over wet +meadow or deep plough without fear. You cannot override hounds now +or turn them from the line, for see, their hackles are up; that low, +fierce growl means that they have caught a view of the sinking fox, and +the shrill scream that makes every fibre tingle with excitement is a +death-knell. + +A minute later the clear “Whaw! whoop!” rings out over the tattered +remnants for which hounds are struggling and wrangling. The superb +young horsewoman, whose daring deeds have put many a bold Meltonian +to shame, is handed a trophy which Diana might proudly hang at her +saddle-bow, for it is the brush of as good a fox as ever led his +pursuers a fast forty minutes over Leicestershire pastures. + +It may justly be objected that a run like this is not typical of the +terrific rush as of a whirlwind, the brilliant burst for fifteen +minutes with hounds racing every yard of the way from find to +finish, and the reckless rivalry that goes to make up all that is +most characteristic of a run in the shires. But my answer is, that +these fast scurries are not fox-hunting, and I have chosen rather to +describe the incidents of a run that may be seen once in a season, but +not oftener, in the much vaunted shires; or with the “blue and buff” +followers of the Badminton or the tawny coats of Atherstone; with the +Warwickshire, the Fitzwilliam, the Cheshire, the Vale of White Horse, +or any of the leading provincial hunts. + +Of the minutæ of wilder sport in countries where hounds must do all +the work and mere riding is at a discount, I shall have to write in +another article. The happy hunting-grounds of old England are being +rapidly hemmed in by railways and curtailed by the abnormal growth of +manufacturing centres, but fox-hunting flourishes still, and there are +many counties wherein the cheery notes of horn and hound may be heard +from October to May. + + + + +SPANIEL TRAINING. + +BY D. BOULTON HERRALD. + + +~Many~ a dog is ruined for the field by injudicious training. +With all the good intentions in the world he trains his puppy to +retrieve, using a stick or a stone, and encourages him to chase the +sparrows in the street, because, forsooth, he thinks that checking him +would have the effect of blunting his hunting enthusiasm when on game. +The result is a dog that reduces the birds to a pulp while retrieving +them, and who rushes about the covert at railroad speed, hundreds +of yards ahead of the gun, flushing the birds far out of range, and +chasing everything he sees, until, exhausted, he is forced to return to +his master and rest. + +The following lines are penned especially for the benefit of the +sportsman (and his name is legion) who pursues this mode of training +(?) in the hope that his next spaniel, taught under the rules laid +down in this article, will be at least an improvement on the one he at +present owns. + +Before commencing work, remember that you must always be firm but kind, +and that above all things you must not lose your temper with your +pupil. Never give in to the dog; always make him do what he is told. +Be sure that he knows what he is being punished for when it becomes +necessary to do so, and don’t delay the punishment long enough for him +to forget for what he is being corrected. Do not stint your praise when +he does well. + +The first lesson to be taught is retrieving. The nearer the puppy is to +two months old the better, in my opinion, for our purpose. Some writers +recommend waiting until he has lost his milk teeth and the new ones are +well grown in, as they say that a dog taught to retrieve before getting +rid of these first teeth is apt to be hard-mouthed in retrieving birds, +etc.; but the experience of the writer has been that if properly +taught, however young, the puppy will not develop that evil habit. If a +youngster of any “go,” he can be taught more easily at that age, though +a dull one cannot be taken in hand so early. + +Roll an old and soft woolen sock into a ball, then sit down and call +your pupil to you. Push the ball in his face to attract his attention +to it, making him try to take hold. Then, throwing it six inches away, +say, “Go fetch it, Jack” (as we will call him), motioning him towards +it with the right hand at the same time. If he refuses to pick up the +ball, go to him, and, placing it in his mouth, force him to go with you +to the place you threw from, making him hold it until you have said, +“dead bird!” or “dead!” Should he refuse to give up the ball, force his +jaws open with the thumb and second finger of the left hand inserted +at the base of the jaws, removing it with the right, saving the while, +“Dead! dead!” Never _pull_ anything away, as he will pull too, and a +nice state your partridge or duck would be in were such a proceeding +permitted. He _must_ be taught to drop whatever he is carrying when +commanded to do so by voice or sign. For a sign, hold up the right +hand, with the forefinger erect and the rest folded. Never let him +worry nor mouth anything. + +Should he pick up the ball, and run away, refusing to bring it to you, +take him behind the shoulders and drag him to the place where you +were sitting when it was thrown. Make him hold the ball until you get +there, and then proceed as hereinbefore directed. He will soon learn +this lesson. Throw the ball farther and farther as he progresses, and +continue until he is perfected in it. + +When he has learned to retrieve the thrown ball he can be advanced a +stage. Show him the bail, not letting him take it, and, saying “Dead!” +place it on the ground and walk away, telling him to follow. After +going a few steps, turn, and, waving the hand in the direction in which +he is to go, say, “Go, seek dead!” Should he fail to understand your +meaning, go back, show him the ball, and, after again taking him away +some little distance, order him to get it and then deliver to you. + +When three or four months old, if he is perfect in his other lessons, +take, say, a game bird’s wing, or in default of that, a fowl’s, show it +him, and, putting him out of the room (I am supposing that you teach +him in the house), shut the door. Then hide it where it can easily be +found, and let him in, saying, “Go, seek dead!” motioning the direction +in which he is to quest. Continue this for some time until he does it +perfectly, hiding the wing in out-of-the-way places about the house as +he progresses. + +Never let his search be a fruitless one. If he cannot find for himself, +show him the hiding-place, and make him fetch the wing to the place +from which you sent him. + +To teach the puppy to retrieve from water after he has learnt to do +so on land, take him, when the water is warm, to a shelving beach. +First throw his ball to the water’s edge (for this work fold some cork +shavings in it), then into the water far enough to force him to wet his +feet, and so on, farther and farther, until at last he is obliged to +swim. This should be gone about gradually, and with extreme care, so +as to give him confidence in his powers. Above all things do not throw +him into water over his depth, as it will only tend to make him dislike +it, and may ruin him for water retrieving altogether. It is well to +make your pupil retrieve sometimes _in the dark_, as if only worked by +daylight he is apt to depend too much on eyesight, which practice must +not, of course, be tolerated for a moment. + +The next lesson to be taught is “coming to heel.” When you are out +walking, and he is running ahead, call sharply, “Heel, Jack--heel!” +forcing him behind you at the same time. Should he try to break away, +tap him smartly with your whip or walking-stick, saying, “Heel! heel!” +Continue this until he will come in at once when called, and thrash him +if he breaks away without the order to “hie on” or “go on.” To teach +this, wave the hand forward while verbally giving the order, and run a +few steps onward. This lesson will be easily inculcated, and it will be +to him the most welcome order he has to obey. + +Few spaniels in this country are trained to drop to shot or command; +but presuming my reader to be desirous of giving his pupil a finished +education, I will describe an easy mode of teaching it. Order him +sharply to “drop!” when standing beside you, at the same time forcing +him to the ground by placing the knee on his shoulders, and keep him +there for a few moments, saying “Drop! drop!” Then removing your hand +or foot from off him, say “Up!” making him rise. When ordering him to +drop, hold your right (or left) arm erect above the shoulder, so that +in time he will associate the uplifted arm with the verbal command. In +due course he will drop at the signal alone. Do not allow him to get up +until ordered to do so, whether you walk away and leave him or not. + +Next take some firearm, a muzzle-loading horse-pistol for choice, and, +commanding him to drop by voice and sign, fire it. In time he will +associate the report with the other orders to drop, and so “drop to +shot.” + +Never weary your pupil; stop the lesson before he tires of it. Always +have him alone with you when at work, as his attention must not be +distracted from the matter in hand. _Never deceive him._ It is well to +reward him now and again for good behavior with some dainty of which +he is fond. Use the whip as little as possible; but when you do whip, +_whip soundly_. + +And now for the field. On arriving at the covert in which you purpose +beginning operations, order him in; instinct then teaches him to quest +for a scent. At first allow him to range at will to put a keen edge +on his appetite for the work, and do not check him when so hunting. +If he goes too far away, hide carefully and make him find you without +assistance from you. He will think he is lost, and be wary of going too +far in future. + +When he begins to enjoy his work thoroughly you can begin to curb his +ranging propensities. If he runs too far, call “Close, Jack--close!” +and should he persist in doing so, thrash him, repeating the while, +“Close! close!” He should not be allowed to range farther than twenty +or twenty-five yards from the gun. + +Should he give chase to a flushed bird, shout “Ware chase, Jack!” and +if he persists, call him in and thrash him, repeating the order whilst +doing so. If he springs a hare and attempts to chase her, shout “Ware +fur, Jack!” and calling him to where you stand, scold and thrash him. +He must be broken of noticing “fur” at all hazards. + +When you shoot the first bird over him order him to “go seek dead!” +motioning the direction in which it fell. If he cannot find it, go and +find it for him, then pointing to it, say “Dead!” and calling him to +follow, go back to where you stood at firing, and order him to get it. +If he refuses to pick the bird up, put it in his mouth and force him to +carry it to where you stood. Order him to put it down, and praise and +make much of him, and ten to one next time he will retrieve. Use every +endeavor to kill the first bird you fire at to his flush. + +After this, “practice makes perfect,” and the reader will in time own a +dog of whose accomplishments afield he may be proud. + + + + +LAWN TENNIS IN THE SOUTH. + +BY H. W. SLOCUM, JR. + + +The remarkable interest displayed in lawn tennis throughout the North, +and the increasing popularity of the game, as shown each year by the +multitude of new players and new clubs, have been fully equaled in +the South during the past two seasons. The Southern interest is an +awakening one. The athletes of that section have become aware, only +during the last few years, that lawn tennis is a game which fully +develops every muscle, and at the same time possesses the elements +of excitement and competition which render any athletic game more +attractive. + +The Southern Lawn Tennis Association, which was organized in the +fall of 1887, made it a part of its constitution that “no club which +is situated north of Wilmington, Delaware, should be admitted to +membership in the Association.” So we may well take a line drawn east +and west through Wilmington as the northern boundary of the Southern +tennis field; and what a vast field it is! Winter visitors to the South +find the game in full swing in every town from Wilmington, Delaware, +to St. Augustine, Florida. Tournaments are held in the largest cities +of the extreme South in the middle of winter, and the turf is as green +and the temperature even more delightful for lawn tennis than the +Northern players enjoy at Newport where the tournament for the National +championship is held in midsummer. + +The enthusiasm of the extreme South has reached its highest point +in St. Augustine, Florida, where a valuable challenge cup has been +offered, to be played for in February or March of each year. The cup +was last year contested for by only a few Northerners, who happened +to be sojourning in Florida, and was won by Mr. H. G. Trevor, of New +York City. It has lately been reported, however, that a special Pullman +car, finely equipped, will convey to the scene of conflict Northern +contestants in the next tournament, to be held in the month of March, +1889. The St. Augustine Lawn Tennis Club has recently become a member +of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, and the coming +tournament will be held under its auspices. + +To reach the centre of Southern interest and enthusiasm, however, we +must travel far north of St. Augustine and visit three large cities, +viz., Washington, the national capital, Baltimore and Wilmington. In +Washington, particularly, the game has taken a long stride forward; +and what place could be better adapted for such a sport? Its climate +is such that the “tennis fiend” may enjoy his favorite game all the +year round. Turf courts can be used as late as December and as early +as April, and during the intervening months practice on asphalt is +sufficient to keep the eye and the hand well “in.” Some years ago a few +members of the Metropolitan Club built an asphalt court on I Street, +and since that time there have been few winters when the court has not +been in constant use. On many occasions the snow has been shoveled +away to afford an afternoon’s amusement. The members of the different +foreign legations have been accustomed to use this court, and during +the past few years Lord Sackville-West, the unfortunate victim of +American politics, was an almost constant attendant, usually as a +spectator. On this court Mr. W. V. R. Berry and Mr. H. W. Slocum, Jr., +played almost daily during the winter of ’84 and ’85, and Mr. Berry +showed the value of his winter practice by capturing most of the rich +prizes offered at Northern tournaments during the following summer, his +rank among expert players being second only to the champion, Mr. R. D. +Sears. Mr. Berry is almost a giant in stature, and few of his opponents +in tournaments of that summer will be apt to forget his strong and +accurate “smashing,” which was the feature and chief strength of his +game. + +Prior to the summer of 1887, tournaments for the championship of the +South had been held on the grounds of the Delaware Field Club, at +Wilmington, that club being a member of the United States National Lawn +Tennis Association, and the tournaments being held under its auspices. + +During the latter part of that summer, a few active spirits in +Washington, the most prominent of whom was Dr. F. P. MacLean, conceived +the idea of organizing an association, to be composed exclusively of +clubs situated in the South, and of holding an annual tournament for +the championship of the South, under the auspices of that association. +Up to this period no tournaments had been held in the District of +Columbia, except a few local contests, which had aroused little or +no enthusiasm. There were probably not more than ten clubs in the +city, and most of these were composed of but few members. To Dr. +MacLean, more than any one else, was due the interest which was now +newly excited. His enthusiasm was contagious, and active preparations +were begun for the first tournament of an association which was not +yet in existence. It was decided to hold the tournament in October, +and circulars were sent to all of the prominent clubs of the South, +inviting their members to contest in the coming tournament and share in +the organization of the Association. + +The responses were numerous and favorable, and on the 30th of October a +meeting was held at Wormley’s Hotel, in Washington, at which delegates +from the Baltimore Cricket Club of Baltimore, Md., the Delaware +Field Club of Wilmington, and other smaller clubs scattered through +Virginia and Maryland, met representatives of the prominent clubs of +the District of Columbia. A permanent organization was effected, to be +known as the Southern Lawn Tennis Association. Dr. F. P. MacLean was +elected president, Mr. Leigh Bonsal, of the Baltimore Cricket Club, +vice-president, and Mr. C. L. McCawley, of the Columbia Athletic Club, +of Washington, secretary and treasurer. It was resolved that no club +situated north of Wilmington, Del., should be admitted to membership in +the Association. + +The first tournament of the Association was successful, far beyond +the anticipation of its promoters. It was held on October 30, and the +following days, at the United States Marine Barracks. The championship +of the South, in singles, was won by Leigh Bonsal, of the Baltimore +Cricket Club, and the same player, with L. V. LeMoyne as partner, +secured the honor of the doubles championship for his club. Washington +was obliged to rest content with second honors, R. B. Goodfellow +securing second place in the singles, and C. L. McCawley and R. S. +Chilton the same in the doubles. The tournament was ably managed by a +committee composed of Dr. MacLean, W. V. R. Berry, and C. L. McCawley. +The prizes were donated to the Association by two prominent firms of +New York City, A. G. Spalding & Bros. giving a challenge cup for the +singles, to be won two years before it became the property of the +holder, and Peck & Snyder presenting two silver cups to the winners of +the doubles championship. + +[Illustration: GROUP OF CONTESTANTS--TOURNAMENT OF THE COUNTRY CLUB OF +MARYLAND. + + A. W. TOMES. TOM PETTITT. F. V. L. HOPPIN. + A. H. S. POST. F. MANSFIELD. + + R. V. BEACH. YATES PENNINGTON. A. L. RIVES. +] + +[Illustration: CLUB HOUSE, BALTIMORE CRICKET CLUB.] + +The success of this initial tournament of the Association greatly +encouraged its officers. Many of the contestants had been hitherto +unheard of, and some of them coming from clubs located in small +towns and villages of Virginia and Maryland, had shown skill of no +mean order. Particularly surprising was the play of Mr. Abel John +Layard, a young Englishman, and a member of the Winchester Club, of +Winchester, Va., who, during the progress of the tournament, played a +very interesting exhibition match with Mr. W. V. R. Berry, and showed +remarkable skill. His play demonstrated anew that the skill of the +average Englishman in lawn tennis is superior to that of the average +player in this country. It is equally true, however, that we are +approaching nearer and nearer to the English standard of excellence, +and that in a few years our experts will be able to meet the best +players of England on even terms. + +This tournament virtually ended the lawn tennis season of 1887 in the +South. Its effect was noticeable, however, in the largely increased +number of clubs and players in Washington and its vicinity. The +officers of the Southern Association were not idle during the winter. +It was determined that the next championship tournament should be held +in the spring, and that the grounds of the Baltimore Cricket Club +should be used, in order that the city of Baltimore might share in the +newly awakened interest in lawn tennis. Early in the month of May, +however, the most active players of Washington arranged a tournament +for the championship of the District of Columbia, believing that such a +competition would develop players who might represent Washington with +honor in the championship tournament at Baltimore. + +It is unquestionably true that tournament practice, as a promoter +of skill, is far better than any other. The player competing in a +tournament is continually alert and strives hard to win every point, +while one who has no such incentive is apt to become indolent and +indifferent as to success, in which condition he is little apt to +improve. Two days in a tournament is worth more than a week of ordinary +practice to one who desires to improve in skill. + +The committee in charge concluded to hold the tournament on the courts +of Kendall Green, the ably conducted Government college for deaf mutes, +at the head of which is the well-known Dr. Gallaudet. Two tennis +organizations ordinarily use these courts; the one composed mainly of +the college professors, and the other almost entirely of the students, +some of whom have become quite proficient, and are always among the +most interested spectators of any important match played at Kendall +Green. + +Having secured these grounds, the committee made the tournament +additionally attractive by adding two events for ladies, both a singles +and a doubles competition. There are no ladies in the District whose +skill rivals that of the seemingly invincible Miss Robinson of Staten +Island; she appears to be in a class by herself among the lady players +of this country, and the only ambition of a majority of her opponents +is to do as well as possible against her; but there are many of +considerable skill, and the entries in these two events were sufficient +to make them very interesting. The championship of the District of +Columbia, in ladies’ singles, was won by Miss Bayard, a daughter of +the Secretary of State, who had often demonstrated the strength of +her game while a member of the Delaware Field Club of Wilmington. The +contest in ladies’ doubles was won by Miss Bayard and Miss Safford. The +championship in men’s singles was rather unexpectedly taken by Mr. John +Pope, who had shown a considerable knowledge of the science of the game +when representing Cornell University in the Intercollegiate tournament +of the previous year. Mr. Pope’s most troublesome competitors were Mr. +R. B. Goodfellow and Mr. C. L. McCawley, both of whom showed marked +improvement in their play. Mr. McCawley, with Mr. Stevens as a partner, +succeeded in winning the final round of the doubles from Messrs. +Woodward and Davidson, and thus carried off that championship. + +[Illustration: CLUB HOUSE AND TENNIS COURTS--COUNTRY CLUB OF MARYLAND.] + +The success of this tournament and the good play shown did not, +however, appear to materially affect the result of the next +championship meeting of the Southern Association, held on the grounds +of the Baltimore Cricket Club, on June 13 and following days. +Washington was represented by some of its strongest players, who made +a creditable showing. Messrs. Bonsal and LeMoyne, however, who, as a +result of continued practice together, showed admirable team work, +succeeded in winning the double event for the second time, and thus +became the owners of the two cups presented by Peck & Snyder. A new +champion made his appearance in the singles. Mr. A. H. S. Post gave by +far the best exhibition of skill that had up to that time been seen in +the South, and won the championship without much trouble. Mr. Post is +only seventeen years of age, and as his play is not free from some of +those faults and weaknesses common to young players, it was greatly to +his credit that he succeeded in wresting victory from opponents of so +much greater experience. His strokes are at times positively brilliant, +and, though he often shows inexcusable carelessness and an apparent +lack of steadiness, it was demonstrated that his game possesses real +strength by the closeness of the match which he played with a strong +opponent, Mr. Q. A. Shaw, in the open tournament held at Narragansett +Pier last summer. Mr. Post is undoubtedly one of the most promising of +the young players, and the development of his skill will be watched +with interest. + +Though the two tournaments held at Washington in the fall of ’87 and +the spring of ’88 did not produce a player capable of winning the +championship, yet their beneficial influence was shown in the improved +play of the greatly increased number who followed lawn tennis as +a pastime. There were about ten clubs in existence two years ago. +There are now seventy, and the total number of players, as estimated +by the “Capitol” newspaper, is two thousand. If a devotee of lawn +tennis, who is anxious to improve but does not himself wish to compete +in a tournament, will observe carefully the methods of different +contestants who are struggling to win the prizes, he is certain to +obtain some hints which will be useful to him and strengthen his game. +Thus did these tournaments result in a substantial improvement in +play throughout Washington. Among the most expert, and among those +whose improvement has been most rapid, may be mentioned Messrs. Oscar +Woodward, C. L. McCawley, John Pope, R. B. Goodfellow, John Davidson, +W. P. Metcalf, and Dr. J. L. Wortman. No list could be complete without +adding the name of Mr. W. V. R. Berry, who established his reputation +as an expert some years ago, and who now appears to have joined the +ranks of retired veterans. + +Some few years ago a club, social in its nature, was organized by +several gentlemen of Washington, prominent among whom was Mr. John F. +Waggeman. A clubhouse and grounds were secured on the Bladensburg road, +at a point located in the State of Maryland, but only a short distance +from the boundary line of the District of Columbia, and not more than +three or four miles from the centre of the city of Washington. The club +is known as the Country Club of the State of Maryland, or the Highland +Country Club, and it was designed to occupy the same relation to the +city of Washington as the country clubs of Boston and New York hold +to those cities. One of the earliest sporting features added to the +club was a tennis court, and it at once occurred to the ever active +mind of Dr. F. P. McLean, who was a member and interested in the club, +that this would be a grand place in which to hold a large lawn tennis +tournament. Tournaments for the championship of the South had been held +under the auspices of the Southern Lawn Tennis Association; but it had +been required, as a condition of playing, that a contestant should be a +member of a club belonging to the Association, and, consequently, only +a resident of the South was able to compete. + +Dr. McLean knew that the Middle States Championship had been won by +Mr. R. D. Sears, a resident of New England, and that the New England +championship is at the present time held by a New Yorker. He felt that +a tournament for the championship of the South, open to all comers, +whether from the North or the South, would excite general interest, +and would, moreover, give the residents of Washington an opportunity +to witness the skillful playing of the Northern experts, who, it was +hoped, would be induced to compete. + +As a first step, the Country Club of the State of Maryland applied +for membership in the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, +with the idea of holding the proposed tournament under the auspices of +that Association. The application was granted and authority given to +the club to hold the tournament for the championship of the Southern +States. This action, of course, placed the National Association in an +attitude of apparent rivalry to the Southern Association. The latter +had already held a tournament at Baltimore, as has been related, and, +naturally, would not recognize any champion for the year except the +winner of that tournament. The rivalry was more apparent than real, +however, as Dr. McLean, the president of the Southern Association, +was one of the originators, and, in fact, the most active in the +management of the Country Club tournament. The apparent conflict and +championship complication will not be experienced in the future, as it +is probable that the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, +whose membership is now limited to single clubs, will at the next +annual meeting engraft into its constitution a clause under which other +associations may be admitted to membership in the older organization, +thus making it a central and undisputed authority in lawn tennis +throughout the United States. Under such a clause the Southern +Association can become a member, and only one annual tournament for the +championship of the South will hereafter be held. + +Dr. McLean spent a great part of last summer in visiting Northern +tournaments and extending to Northern experts an invitation to compete +in the Country Club tournament. To each one was offered the hospitality +of the club during the tournament, and Dr. McLean finally succeeded +in securing the entries of several players prominent in the North. +In the meantime active preparations were being made at the Highland +Country Club. A more interesting place for such an event could not be +selected. The club is located, as before noted, on the old Bladensburg +road, about three or four miles from Washington, and one or two from +the village of Bladensburg. The club-house is in the centre of a +large area of level ground, every foot of which is rich in historical +association. On this very ground occurred, in the year 1814, one of +the most important conflicts of the war of that period, the battle of +Bladensburg, and on one side of the lot, close to the main road and +distant only three or four hundred yards from the club-house, is a plot +of ground particularly interesting as being the scene of the many duels +which have made the name of Bladensburg famous. + +The club had at this time but one lawn tennis court, and as soon as +the tournament became an assured fact, it was at once decided to lay +out four more. A description of the means by which these courts were +finally constructed will not be uninteresting to one who proposes +to build a court of clay or dirt, the materials used in this case. +September had already arrived, and as it was proposed to hold the +tournament during the latter part of that month, there was but little +time for the construction of courts; but a plot of ground was easily +leveled, a foundation of some solid material laid, and a mixture of +dirt and clay filled in. At this point it seemed as if fate were +against the club, for rain began to fall before the mixture had +commenced to solidify, and rain continued to fall for one whole week, +until the space occupied by that dirt and clay assumed the aspect of +a quagmire. The rain ceased only a week before the time set for the +tournament, and it was at first feared that it could not be held; but +the ingenious idea of some brilliant mind saved the day. An old negro +farmer, with a small army of mules at his command, lived near by, and +both he and his mules were at once sent for. The old fellow brought +his fourteen mules to the club, and they were turned loose upon the +quagmire of clay and dirt. They tramped and stamped over it from +daylight until eleven o’clock at night, and at the end of the third +day of tramping, the Highland Country Club had as solid a piece of +ground as could be desired. A few irregularities on the surface were +easily smoothed away, and four courts were laid out, good enough to be +used by the most exacting of lawn tennis experts. + +The tournament was held on Tuesday, September 25 and the following +days, and could hardly have been a greater success. Mr. F. Mansfield, +of the Longwood Cricket Club, Boston, Messrs. F. V. L. Hoppin and H. +A. Ditson, of the same club; Messrs. Ludington and Beach, of Yale +University; Mr. Dean Miller, of New York; Mr. F. W. Kellogg, of New +Haven; Mr. A. W. Tomes, of Brooklyn, and Mr. J. W. Smith were among +the entries from the North, and all of these gentlemen enjoyed the +hospitality of the club. The most expert of their Southern opponents +were Mr. A. H. S. Post, the champion of the Southern Association, +representing Baltimore, and Messrs. Davidson, Woodward, McCawley, +Rives, Goodfellow, Metcalf and Wortman, all from the District of +Columbia. There were in all thirty-six contestants, making it by +far the largest tournament ever held in the South, as well as the +greatest in interesting features. Dr. McLean had secured the presence +of Thomas Pettitt, the professional champion of the world in court +tennis, and also remarkably expert in lawn tennis. Pettitt played +two exhibition games during the week, one with Mr. A. H. S. Post, in +which he successfully conceded odds of fifteen, and the other with +Mr. Mansfield, to whom he was unable to give the same odds, and was +defeated. Pettitt’s game is a model of good form, and delighted the +spectators. + +The play in the tournament proper demonstrated that Southern form is +not yet up to Northern, for, as the contest approached the final round, +it was found that the four men left to battle for the prize were all +representatives of the North. They were Messrs. Mansfield, Miller, +Hoppin, and Smith. The final round was contested by Messrs. Mansfield +and Miller, and was won easily by the former, who thus became the +second champion of the South for the year 1888. In this connection a +word or two in praise of young Mr. Post is not out of place. Having +already won the Southern championship at Baltimore, he might well have +refused to risk the loss of that honor by competing in the Country Club +tournament. Mr. Post showed true spirit in preferring to play, and +although beaten in one of the early rounds by Mr. Hoppin, undoubtedly +stands at the head of Southern players. + +[Illustration: F. MANSFIELD, CHAMPION, HIGHLAND COUNTRY CLUB +TOURNAMENT.] + +The success of Mr. Mansfield was particularly gratifying to those +who have been familiar with his undoubted skill in practice, and +disappointed that he could not exhibit the same skill in tournament +play. His experience demonstrates plainly that “confidence” is a +most important factor in the success of a lawn tennis player. Mr. +Mansfield’s trouble has been a lack of that factor. He has one day +played a practice game of unusual strength and the next been beaten in +a tournament by some player much his inferior in skill, and only by +reason of lack of confidence in his own ability. Sincere modesty, such +as Mr. Mansfield’s, will make a man extremely popular among lawn tennis +players, but it may be regarded as a settled fact, that when two men, +at all equal in skill, meet in a lawn tennis contest, the one who has +the most thorough confidence in his own ability to win will surely be +the victor. + +The double event was won by Messrs. Mansfield and Hoppin, but in +the final round Messrs. Davidson and Metcalf, the crack Washington +team, gave a good exhibition of double playing and won one set from +the victors. This brought to a close a most successful tournament, +and the Northern players returned to their homes with a very high +opinion of Southern hospitality. A feature of the visit, which will be +remembered with much pleasure by all, was their call on the President +of the United States. One morning about thirty of the players boarded +a hay-cart, the property of that “same old negro” and drawn by two of +his mules, were taken to Washington, shown all points of interest, +and, finally, invaded the White House, where they were presented to +President Cleveland. + +As we leave Washington, with its multitude of small clubs, and arrive +at Baltimore, after an hour’s travel by rail, a widely different +condition of affairs is presented; for in this city the lawn tennis +interest is almost entirely centred in two clubs, the Baltimore Cricket +Club and the Towson Club of Towson, a suburb of Baltimore. Of these +two, the Cricket Club is by far the more prominent. It is an old +organization, having been founded in 1874, but it was not until 1878 +that the club, then quite small in membership, leased grounds at Mount +Washington, also a suburb of Baltimore and situated about six miles +from the city, on the Northern Central Railroad. The railroad runs +numerous trains to Mount Washington, and the drive to the club, through +Druid Hill Park, is a most pleasant one. + +As its name signifies, the Baltimore Cricket Club was originally +organized for cricket purposes. But after lawn tennis was introduced +as a club sport in the year 1879, that game rapidly became so popular +with the members that the interest in cricket has decreased, a fate +somewhat similar to that which has befallen this scientific game in +our own St. George’s Cricket Club of New York. The rapid rise of lawn +tennis in popular interest could not be more plainly demonstrated than +by the experience of the Baltimore Cricket Club. Its tennis courts +were originally laid out on a part of the cricket field, but the game +became so widely played that it was found necessary, in 1884, to grade +an additional plot of ground, to be used for tennis alone, upon which +there are now ten excellent turf courts. This number was thought to be +ample, but the past season has shown the necessity for still larger +accommodation, and preparations are now being made for the construction +of four dirt and four additional turf courts. A number of improvements +were made during the past summer, the most important of which was the +erection of a large and picturesque club-house, for the use of both +tennis and cricket members. Ladies do not contribute to the finances +or take any part in the management of the club, but become members by +courtesy. A small house has been erected for their use, and some of +their number, notably Miss Bonsal and Miss Latrobe, have shown much +skill in lawn tennis tournaments of the North. + +Tournaments open only to members of the club are usually held in the +spring and fall. In these contests Mr. Leigh Bonsal has uniformly +proved himself to be the club champion, until the past summer, when +Mr. A. H. S. Post, the holder of the championship of the Southern Lawn +Tennis Association, captured that honor. The last club tournament, a +handicap, was held in October, 1888, and Mr. Post conclusively proved +his superiority by winning it, though conceding considerable odds to +all contestants. Mr. W. J. Bell and Mr. A. D. Atkinson, both very +young players, won the doubles. Among other experts of the club are S. +Taggart Steele, H. M. Brown, R. B. McLane, Jr., L. V. Lemoyne, Yates +Pennington, and Frank Bonsal. With a total membership of over two +hundred, and a lively interest in sports of every nature, the Baltimore +Cricket Club is perhaps the most prominent athletic club of the South. +Next in importance in Baltimore is the Towson Club of Towson, which +does not boast of so many players, but embraces in its membership a +number of those who also belong to the cricket club. It has seven good +turf courts, and is particularly popular among ladies of the city. + +At Wilmington, Delaware, is located one of the most flourishing clubs +of the Southern section. The Delaware Field Club was organized in +1882, grounds were secured and buildings erected in 1883, and the +club was incorporated in 1885. Since that time it has made its mark in +the athletic world in more ways than one. Lawn tennis has always been +the favorite sport of the members, and it now seems to be definitely +settled that the lawn tennis world is indebted to the Delaware Field +Club for the introduction of “progressive tennis,” a novelty founded on +that once popular craze, “progressive euchre.” + +[Illustration: A. H. S. POST, CHAMPION, SOUTHERN LAWN TENNIS +ASSOCIATION.] + +The club was one of the earliest to join the United States National +Lawn Tennis Association, and in 1886 a tournament for the championship +of the South, held on its grounds under the auspices of that +association, was won by Mr. C. B. Davis, of Lehigh University. Mr. +Davis was thus the first champion of the South, both in singles and +doubles, for he also captured the latter event with Mr. R. H. E. +Porter, of Lehigh, as a partner. An open tournament, held in 1887, +was likewise won by Mr. Davis, but on this occasion his partner in +the doubles was Mr. A. G. Thomson, of Philadelphia. The grounds of +the club will accommodate at least twenty-five courts, and as many +as eighteen are in almost constant use. Out of a total membership of +two hundred, about eighty are active lawn tennis players, and in this +number are included several ladies, the most expert of whom is Miss +Florence Bayard, a daughter of Mr. Cleveland’s Secretary of State. Of +the club tournaments, which have been held since 1883, Mr. W. S. Hilles +has succeeded in winning three, including that of 1888, while Mr. J. +E. Smith was known as club champion in 1887, and Mr. J. L. Tatnall in +1884. Other leading players of the club are Mr. W. C. Jackson, the +present champion of Cornell University, Mr. H. B. Bringhurst, Jr., and +Mr. A. H. Smith. It is now believed that the next annual tournament of +the Southern Lawn Tennis Association will be played on these courts, +and everything points to the continued prosperity of the club. + +Looking back over these brief sketches of lawn tennis in Washington, +Baltimore, and Wilmington, we find that tournaments for the +championship of the South have been held since 1886. The following +table gives, in a condensed form, the facts relating to those contests. + +TOURNAMENTS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE SOUTH. + + ------+------------------+-----------------+-------------------- + YEAR. | HELD AT | SINGLES CHAMP’S | DOUBLES CHAMPIONS + ------+------------------+-----------------+-------------------- + 1886. | Del. Field | | + | Club. | C. B. Davis. | Davis & Porter. + | | | + 1887. | U. S. Mar. | | + | Barracks, | | + | Wash., D. C. | Leigh Bonsal. | Bonsal & Lemoyne. + | | | + 1888. | Balt. Cricket | | + | Club | A. H. S. Post. | Bonsal & Lemoyne. + | | | + 1888. | Highland C. C., | | + | Wash., D. C. | F. Mansfield. | Mansfield & Hoppin + ------+------------------+-----------------+-------------------- + +The coming season promises to be a most interesting one to the +lovers of lawn tennis throughout the United States, for it is hoped +and expected that England will send some of her most expert and +representative players to contest for our national championship at +Newport. Let the South, also, send in its entries. Certain it is, that +if the same interest and general improvement as has been shown during +the past two seasons mark the future development of the game in that +section, it will soon be able to send representatives who will win +laurels among the most skilful. + +[Illustration: CLUB HOUSE AND GROUNDS, WILMINGTON FIELD CLUB.] + + + + +SNOWSHOEING IN CANUCKIA. + +BY JAMES C. ALLAN. + + +[Illustration: THE CLUB HOUSE.] + +Snowshoeing is surely one of the most fascinating of sports. To the +uninitiated it might appear strange that there should be any pleasure +in ambling along over the snow in a manner somewhat resembling the +ungraceful waddle of that unornamental bird, the domestic duck, and +with feet hampered by the weight and the inconvenient form of a pair of +ungainly snowshoes, so-called. + +To a certain extent our captious critic would be right; the source +of enjoyment is to be found in the accessories of the sport, and in +the knowledge that under him are many feet of yielding snow, in which +he would be helplessly floundering but for the aid of his trusty +_raquettes_. + +Then there is the peculiar indefinable charm of the winter scenery, the +beautiful effects of the sunset on the dazzling expanse of snow, scenic +effects perhaps even more entrancing when the pale moonlight casts +ghostly shadows here and there, and brings into brilliant prominence +some snow-crowned elevation in the landscape. I cannot do better than +quote the glowing description which a noted American writer gives of +the appearance of the country over which he tramped on one of his first +excursions on “the merry snowshoe”: + +“The mountain rose up behind us, covered with snow. Away toward the +declining sun the landscape spread as far as the eye could reach, with +low white hills away off on the horizon. Between the hills and the +foreground flowed the river under its cover of ice. The red, wintry sun +now low in the heavens, touched the prominent points of the rolling, +snow-covered country with crimson, while the far-off clouds that stood +motionless in the sky were of all the hues of the rainbow, and these +varied tints were in turn faintly reflected on the broad expanse of +spotless snow.” + +The snow, let it be borne in mind, is not of the nature or consistency +of that which falls in softer climes; it is so fine, so dry and loose +as much to resemble flour, only infinitely whiter, and of dazzling +purity. + +[Illustration: MR. J. G. ROSS, CHAMPION SNOWSHOE RUNNER, CANADA.] + +As many of my readers very probably have never seen a snowshoe, a short +description of its form and construction may not be amiss. It consists, +broadly speaking, of a framework composed of a long, narrow piece of +hickory wood, over which is stretched a network of thongs, or cords, +made sometimes of strips of deerskin dried and prepared in a peculiar +manner, and sometimes made of the intestines of animals. This network +is called the “gut.” The hickory rod of which the frame is to be made, +after having been steamed and steeped in boiling water, and so rendered +pliable, is placed edgewise and then bent round somewhat in the shape +of a tennis-bat, with an oval-shaped front, and the two ends joined +together at one extremity and tapering off to a point corresponding to +the handle of the tennis-bat. The total length of the shoe is about +three feet, the extreme width from thirteen to sixteen inches. Across +the oval and fitted into the inside of the framework by mortises, are +two bars or battens of wood, each of them five or six inches clear of +either end. In front of that cross-bar nearest the fore part of the +shoe is an open space, and over the bar a deerskin thong is fastened, +forming an aperture for the reception of the great toe. The thong is +then crossed over the top of the foot, passed around the ankle once +or twice and then tied. This leaves the heel free to move in any +direction; the toe works in and out of the opening in the shoe, and +in lifting the shoe in making a step forward its weight rests on the +toe. When placing the foot down again the toe touches the snow first. +Occasionally the framework is adorned with tufts of many-colored wool. + +The size and shape of the snowshoe varies according to the requirements +or the taste of its owner. Some are nearly round and present a squat +appearance; others again are long and narrow, and resemble somewhat in +shape the Norwegian _ski_. + +For a tramp over untrodden or “virgin” snow, of course a large shoe +of considerable area is desirable; for racing purposes over a beaten +track, a smaller shoe is used. The regulation width of a pair of +racing shoes is not less than ten inches of gut; the weight, including +strings, must not be less than one and a half pounds. + +The Indians and the half-breeds seem to enjoy a monopoly of the +manufacture of snowshoes, and of toboggans as well. + +The snowshoe enabled them, in former days, to traverse with ease, when +in pursuit of game or on the warpath, leagues of wilderness otherwise +impassable in the winter season; the toboggan they used as a sledge on +which to drag their provisions or to convey to camp their slaughtered +game. + +It is true that there is in use in Norway an implement somewhat similar +to the American snowshoe, called a “_ski_,” and composed of a couple +of long, narrow slabs of wood, one for each foot, painted and turned +upward at both ends. The ski, however, is principally used for sliding +down declivities and jumping crevasses; it is ungainly and awkward to +use on level ground. The aid of a staff, or alpenstock, is necessary in +skiing, and a description of it hardly comes within our province. + +“Raquettes” was the name originally given by the hardy Canadian +_coureurs du bois_ and the _voyageurs_ of the Hudson Bay Company to the +snowshoe, and we can easily imagine of what inestimable value it must +have been to these adventurous individuals in their trips of almost +incredible length, difficulty and peril. To the present day hardly a +farmhouse in all broad Canada is without its pair of snowshoes, and +they are generally of the sturdy, old-fashioned kind, long and broad +and substantial. + +[Illustration: HOMEWARD BOUND.] + +In hunting the moose and the caribou, in the wilder parts of the +Dominion, the snowshoe plays an important part. The crust on top of the +snow is insufficient to sustain the weight of these heavy animals; they +break through it at every stride, its sharp edges lacerate their legs, +and the hunter can follow their course guided by the blood-marks on the +snow. Sustained by his trusty shoes, he soon overtakes the laboring +game, and a well-directed shot puts it out of misery. + +But it is in its aspect as a sport, as a means of healthful recreation, +that we have principally to consider snowshoeing. Of late years many +clubs have been formed all over Canada, and in those parts of the +neighboring Republic favored with the slightest suspicion of the +“beautiful,” and of all these the premier, in point of seniority, is +the Montreal Club, founded in 1840, and composed originally of twelve +members. + +As Canada is the home of snowshoeing, so is Montreal, _par excellence_, +the leading city of Canada in this branch of athletics, both on account +of the severity and the long duration of its winters, the natural +advantages possessed by the city as regards its situation, and the +widespread devotion among its young men to sports in general. + +And of all the hardy winter sports snowshoeing is easily the first. +Tobogganing and skating rise in public estimation and decline, but +snowshoeing, like Tennyson’s “Brook,” “goes on forever,” and is +continually gaining ground, as any one who has been so fortunate as +to witness one of those unique winter carnivals in Montreal, and to +gaze upon the hosts of picturesquely clad athletic young “knights of +the shoe” in their attack upon the marvelously beautiful ice castle may +well believe. + +[Illustration: _Old Time Rendezvous._] + +In place of the one solitary club of twelve members in existence in +1840, Montreal may now boast of dozens. The old Tuque Bleue Club, +_alias_ the Montreal, has now a membership of 2,000. The St. George +has, perhaps, half that number; other principal organizations are the +Emerald, Argyle, Le Trappeur, Le Canadien, St. Charles, Maple Leaf, +Wolseley, Vandalia, Royal Scots, etc., while other Canadian cities are +not far behind. + +Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec, St. Hyacinthe, Winnipeg, Brandor, Souris and +Portage la Prairie have all sent their representatives to the Montreal +Ice Carnivals, and now St. Paul and Minneapolis, those twin cities of +the American Northwest, have caught the fever and are enthusiastic in +their emulation of their Canadian brethren. + +A snowshoe club is organized in much the same manner as other athletic +associations. It has its president, vice-president, secretary, +treasurer, and last, but by no means least, its entertainment +committee, whose pleasing duty it is to provide amusement for their +fellow-members at the club rendezvous when half the tramp is over and +the “boys” are resting previous to their return home. + +The costume of the snowshoer is at once comfortable, singularly well +adapted to its purpose, and picturesque in the extreme. The head is +protected by a gaudy knitted woolen cap, with brilliant tassel, and +is called a _tuque_, in the Norman French of the Canadian habitant, +who used it first of all. Then there is a coat with capote, and +knickerbockers made usually of white blankets with many-hued border. Of +late years, however, colored blankets have come into favor and bid fair +to rival the white in popularity. Around the waist the coat is drawn +together by a sash; colored stockings and deerskin moccasins, and, of +course, snowshoes, complete the costume. Each club is distinguished +by some peculiarity in the uniform of its members; for example, the +Montreal club affects a blue _tuque_, red sash and red stockings; the +Knights of St. George, or the “Saints,” as they somewhat arrogantly +style themselves, a purple _tuque_ with white stripes, purple sash, and +stockings of Tyrian hue also. So with the other clubs. + +[Illustration: _Rendezvous of To-day_] + +An entire outfit, including complete costume and snowshoes, may be +procured for less than twenty-five dollars, and the suit under ordinary +circumstances will outlast several winters. Some of the boys who have +plenty of cash, or better opportunities of obtaining the articles than +the rest, invest in buckskin hunting shirts and fringed leggings. They +are made by Indians and half-breeds in Manitoba and the Northwest, and +are, of course, more expensive than the blanket suits. + +In Montreal it is usual for each club to tramp out on one evening in +each week, and to take a more extended tour across country on Saturday +afternoons. + +On the evening appointed for the tramp the boys meet at their +club-rooms; shoes are strapped on, the president leads the way, the +members follow in Indian file, and the whipper-in brings up the rear +to give the novice or the lazy a lift, and off they go. Let us suppose +we are taking the route usual for evening tramps, partially around and +up over a spur of Mount Royal, thence across country for about a mile +and a half to our rendezvous. The pace increases, and, excepting an +occasional nip at one’s ears, Jack Frost is forgotten as we warm to +our work. “Number off,” cries the president. “No. 1, No. 2,” and so on, +until the whipper-in responds, “No. 60; all up.” + +What a pretty picture the long line of ghost-like shadows makes, as it +silently winds in and out in the light of the moon! Now they disappear +from view for a moment or so as they plunge through brushwood; they +race down gullies, clamber over fences and mount hills, until at last +the goal of their desire is reached at mine host Lumpkin’s, or at the +Athletic Club-house, where, after enjoying the programme provided by +the committee, and perhaps refreshing the inner man, we take up our +homeward march, and, our starting-point attained, separate for another +week, or until the following Saturday afternoon. + +It is a popular though erroneous idea among the uninitiated that +snowshoeing in the night is done by torchlight. Torches are never used. +This notion probably owes its birth to the fact that at the various +carnivals snowshoers have used torches, purely, however, for effect, +and rather against their will. + +A new member of the club or a distinguished visitor is generally +welcomed by his future comrades or his hosts by “bouncing” him. +The victim is seized by as many as can lay hold of him and is +unceremoniously flung skyward, or, more correctly, ceiling-ward, and on +his descent from on high he is caught again and the ceremony repeated +two or three times. He is not allowed to fall, however. He suffers only +in his wind and perhaps his nerves. + +In snowshoeing the fatigue and consequent stiffness are great at first, +but with practice this soon wears off, and the motions become easy +and rapid. Of course, it is hardly possible to travel on snowshoes as +rapidly as afoot on dry ground, yet, nevertheless, the speed obtained +is not inconsiderable, as the records of snowshoe racing will show. For +the various distances these are as follows: + + Min. Sec. + 100 yards, 12 + 220 “ 26 + 440 “ 1 08 + ½ mile, 2 33 + 1 “ 5 42½ + 2 “ 11 52¾ + 3 “ 20 18½ + 5 “ 33 43 + +Mount Royal Steeplechase, distance about 2 miles, 500 yards, 17m. 20s. + +The last record, as well as others, is held by Mr. James G. Ross, +perhaps the fastest all-round amateur who ever buckled on the +“raquette.” + +It is not an uncommon thing, however, for clubs to traverse thirty, and +even eighty, miles across country in a tramp. A tramp from Montreal to +St. John’s is a regular annual event with the Tuque Bleues. + +I will conclude by quoting the words of a well-known litterateur, who +had been induced by the genial president of a certain club to come out +for a tramp with his club: + +“Thus briefly was I brought to know that our winter sports are a means +of health and good spirits to all who take part in them. They quicken +the circulation, clear the brain and lighten the heart. No such good +is got out of the formal drill of a gymnasium as there is out of a +snowshoe tramp or a toboggan slide, under the broad sky with pleasant +companionship. Men with kinky spines, sluggish livers and narrow +chests--get blanket suits, moccasins and snowshoes, and use them soon +and often. They will dispel your pains and aches and gloomy views of +life.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +HOW TO CYCLE IN EUROPE. + +BY JOSEPH PENNELL. + + +A desire for independent traveling is growing daily. The reasons for +this are various. It may be the person who wishes to indulge the desire +is eccentric and eager to make a show of himself. It may be economy +which prompts him to leave a railway carriage and foot it. It may be +because he imagines it to be “English, you know,” though let me assure +him that this is one of the many myths about the English. Englishmen as +a rule are not great cycling tourists. More Americans, comparatively, +have toured in England and on the Continent than Englishmen themselves, +and the number is increasing daily. Or it may be that the tourist +wishes to see the country in the only way it can be properly seen; and +this is probably why in the winter and the spring so many Americans +write to me, as the representative in England of the League of American +Wheelmen, and ask for information about roads and routes. + +I presume this last to be the real reason for the growth of independent +traveling, and I leave out of consideration all walking tours, because, +after having walked in one year 500 miles and cycled nearly as many +thousand, I feel justified in saying that walking is not for a moment +to be compared with cycling. I may some day compare these two modes +of traveling, but just now this is not my purpose. What I say about +cycling applies equally well to riding and driving, though of course +you cannot ride or drive continuously the same number of miles you can +cycle. I can very well remember the state of dense ignorance concerning +the means of independent traveling in Europe, in which I was six +years ago, as well as the almost utter impossibility of obtaining any +definite information. Six years, every one of which has seen at least +one tour, have, however, given me some little experience. + +If you are a rider of an American cycle, of course it will be necessary +to bring your machine with you. Ask the steamship authorities whether +to crate it or not. If it is a bicycle, and you carry it without +crating, they may charge nothing. There is no duty on entering England; +but if you ride an English machine, I should advise you to sell your +present mount and make arrangements, either with the dealer you know +in America or the firm itself in England, giving them three or four +months to get your machine ready and to have it awaiting you at their +agents in Liverpool, Southampton or Glasgow, or wherever you may land. +Tell the makers what sort of a tour you propose taking, and you will +probably find that they will understand your needs better than you. If, +however, you are confident you know exactly what you want, you may be +able to make suggestions. + +Before leaving America--though I suppose what I say applies equally +well to Australians--join the Cyclists’ Touring Club. From their +offices you will receive a vast amount of useful information concerning +your tour. You can also obtain route-books, maps, guides, etc. +Americans should apply to F. W. Weston, Savin Hill, Boston, Mass.; +Canadians to H. S. Tibbs, 26 Union Avenue, Montreal; Australians and +Indians to S. A. Stead, 19 Tabley Road, Holloway, London, N. The +subscription is the equivalent of two shillings and sixpence, and +the entrance fee is another shilling. Any amateur cycler can become +a member without trouble. Another thing to be provided is a Baedeker +guidebook for the country over which you wish to tour. In it you +will find the rates of the various hotels, and of course you will +go to those which suit your pocket, remembering that now you are an +independent traveler, and that if you do not like the outside of an +hotel, there is no reason why you should go in. The C. T. C. hotels in +England are mainly respectable, and with the hand-book you know where +you are going. But the C. T. C. rates, except in the large towns, are +frequently an advance upon the ordinary rates. You will find it almost +impossible to obtain breakfast before eight o’clock in the morning, in +many places before nine, without considerable trouble. A breakfast will +cost from one to three shillings, according to the hotel: On leaving +the hotel it is necessary to fee the boots and the waiter, but sixpence +goes quite as far as half a crown. + +In riding, keep to the left, Englishmen differing in this, as in +so many other respects, from all creation. Do not ride on the side +paths or you will be promptly arrested. It is useless to expect any +cycler you meet to be more civil to you than the driver of any other +conveyance. Cycling clubs in England are not what they are in America +or on the Continent. Therefore you need not look for any of those +attentions bestowed upon the touring cycler at home, though you may +encounter some very delightful fellows. Of course, it is a very good +thing to have letters of introduction. + +At noon, in any save the large towns and on market days, you will not +be able to get a hot dinner without waiting a long time. But you will +probably find excellent cold roast beef, or you can eat a succession of +lunches of bread and cheese and drink a modicum of bitter ale, called +beer. My practice is never to eat much in the middle of the day when +touring. The succession of small lunches and short rests is better than +a single long one. Coffee taverns--that is, temperance houses--may be +found everywhere, but they range from very good to very bad, and you +had better investigate them before deciding to stay overnight. It is +unnecessary and quite useless to bargain for anything in England. Your +lunch will cost from sixpence to two shillings, and you should give the +waiter a penny for every shilling. You will have to order your dinner +in the evening in the majority of places, and in the small towns it is +wiser to have what is called a “meat tea,” that is, a chop or a steak, +one or two vegetables, jam and tea; or else a cold supper, that is, +cold meat or fowl, salad, a tart and cheese. + +If you arrive wet, you will find it possible to have your clothes +dried, and very well too, as innkeepers in England rather expect +to have to perform this duty. In fact you may receive many little +attentions which are very pleasing, and there is a cozy, homelike +feeling about an English inn which one finds nowhere else. It is not +necessary to inflict the fact that you are an American upon everybody +you meet; they have seen Americans before, and they probably knew it +before you opened your mouth. I have seen it stated and hinted that one +can obtain a room in an English inn or hotel for sixpence or ninepence +a night. This is, of course, absurd. You can, if you go to a house +with the sign “Accommodation for Travelers; beds, sixpence a night.” In +the same way, in America, you can go to a station-house for nothing, +or to a tramps’ lodging-house for almost as little. It is necessary +to count upon spending about eight shillings or two dollars a day for +touring in England; but it is possible to do it for half that amount, +though not comfortably or decently. Even this is a moderate figure, and +is less than the C. T. C. rate. + +In London I can recommend the Charing Cross Hotel, and, I believe, +Burr’s private hotel in Queen Square. There are thousands of hotels in +London, but both of these are central, and can be reached on the wheel. +London streets, however, require very careful riding, owing to the +rapid driving, and, to the American, the fact that everybody seems to +be on the wrong side of the road. + +I have presumed that you are a practical cycler, and therefore that you +will carry whatever you are in the habit of taking with you at home, or +will send your baggage from one place to another as you do there. In +England it is wiser to use the Parcel’s Post, as the express is very +unreliable. Personally, I either ride a safety or a tandem tricycle, +and, whether alone or with my wife, always carry every thing we want on +the machine. We are consequently perfectly independent, and have been +out for six weeks at a time. + +On leaving England for the Continent, unless money is absolutely no +object, you must go to France by Dieppe, Havre or St. Malo. By Calais +or Boulogne the charges are extortionate, and you will have to pay in +the custom-houses. The greater part of Belgium is paved with Belgian +blocks, over which you cannot ride. To Holland you can go by way of +Amsterdam, and I believe the riding is fairly good over the brick +roads, but I have never been there. The principal attractions in Norway +seem to be the cheapness and the scenery, and for both you have to walk +about as much as you ride, which is not my idea of cycling. Anyhow, it +cannot be compared to Switzerland, and the reason it is so much talked +about in English cycling papers is because it is a fine pot-hunting +ground for racing men. + +Of Spain I am entirely ignorant, and the accounts of this country all +contradict each other with the most wonderful unanimity. No reliable +data of the roads have yet been obtained. I hope to go over them +myself before long. But in the first place, to visit any foreign +country you must understand something of the language, the more the +better. + +The following, which is a portion of an article I contributed to the +_Pall Mall Gazette_ a short time since, contains all that need be +said on touring in France: “You must provide yourself with good road +maps, showing the main road, the _routes nationales_ and the _routes +départementales_. There are, of course, byroads all over France--that +is, _routes communales_ and _routes vicinales_--but it is never safe, +save in the south, to make short cuts or detours or to trust to these +byroads in any way. They are frequently as bad as the others are good. +Stick to the high-road. Work out on your map the route you wish to +follow. You can buy excellent road maps of Hachette or of Phillips. The +maps sold by the Cyclists’ Touring Club are not up to date, and you are +compelled to purchase four sheets when you may only need one. Recently +I was detained in Avignon for having these maps in my possession, being +told by the _préfet_ of the department of Vaucluse that it was illegal +to carry them, as in France they are made and sold for the private use +of the War Department. How true this is I do not know. I have usually +carried them, and never before had any trouble. However, they are +becoming rather out of date, and Hachette is bringing out new series +all the time. + +“Supposing you land at Dieppe, your machine will be taken to the +custom-house, whither you should accompany it. If you can succeed in +satisfying the officials that you intend to leave the country with +your machine within three months, they will not charge you duty, and +will not, unless you ask for it, give you a receipt. If you do get a +receipt--this is, of course, the lawful method--you will be obliged to +deposit 50f., only two-thirds of which will probably be returned to +you when you leave the country. But the French Government has usually +been very accommodating in this matter, though at Calais the duty or +the deposit is nearly always demanded. If you wish to go by train from +Dieppe, have your cycle registered, for which you pay a penny if it +is under 56 lbs. Two people can take a tandem for the same money, if +it is under 112 lbs. But do not stand on your dignity, and write to +the papers, and make a frightful row, because the Swiss, German, and +Italian railways compel you to pay a big price whenever you carry a +cycle on their lines. Their rules are not those of France. In frontier +stations you need never be surprised at any regulations. + +“But let us suppose that you intend to ride away from the station at +Dieppe. You are hungry, having been landed there at five o’clock in +the morning. Have your coffee in any café on the Place, or in the very +expensive one in the station. And this is the point where, if you want +to live inexpensively, you must remember the customs of the country. +In the station you never see a Frenchman, and on one occasion I paid +two francs and twenty-five centimes for the privilege of having a +pot of coffee and rolls and butter there. The next time, I went to a +café in the street leading from the pier to the Place. It was full of +townspeople, was more gorgeous, the coffee was equally good, and I paid +seventy-five centimes. Why I should pay a franc and a half for having +my coffee on the pier, I am unable to see. Cafés are always good, and +charge just about half the price of an hotel or a station restaurant, +and the French traveler, as a rule, does not take his coffee in the +hotel unless he is in a great hurry. He goes to the café across the +street, reads his morning paper, and pays half the price. The landlord +does not object; it is the custom of the country. For lunch, if I know +the town where I am going, I stop, not at the swellest restaurant on +the boulevard, nor at the dirty _estaminet_ of the workman--I object +to one as much as to the other--but at a decent, clean, middle-class +restaurant, where it is the exception if I do not fare very well at +the cost of about a franc and a half. And how do I find it? Either +by using my own eyes, or by asking the first decent-looking man who +comes along. If it is between half-past ten and one in the day he will +probably be on his way to or from his own breakfast, and will be only +too glad to show you the place. If you do not like the place, there is +no reason why you should go in. If it is good, and the people are jolly +and talkative, as they usually will be, ask them for a good hotel, of +the sort they, as Frenchmen, would go to, in the town where you purpose +to spend the night. They will tell you readily. It may be the first, +or more likely the last, on Baedeker’s list; it may not be there at +all. If it is a very swell place, don’t be afraid to go in if Frenchmen +have recommended it; if it is very disreputable on the outside, and the +proprietor in cook’s cap and apron rushes out to meet you, do not turn +away, for he will probably greet you as warmly and give you as good a +dinner as you have ever had in your life. You will find at the table a +lot of jolly commercial travelers, who will take pleasure in giving you +a list of hotels from one end of your route to the other. And what will +it cost you? The dinner will vary from two and a half to three and a +half francs, and your room from one and a half to two and a half, and +there will be no extras. Totting this up, we have eight francs fifty +for the day. Say you give the waiter half a franc. That makes nine. + +“But the next night, being a touring cycler, you have not reached the +town where you intended to stay, owing to something of interest on the +road, or you have passed beyond it. You will stop in a decent, clean +_auberge_ by the roadside--and you will find many--or in the best inn +in the village, where your bill will be about four francs for lodging, +dinner and coffee. And so, in the course of two or three weeks, instead +of exceeding an average of seven francs a day, you will fall below it. +This is the way Frenchmen do. This is the way men like Louis Stevenson +have done. And this is the plan I like to follow; not to go to an hotel +where one has to pay for the dirty swallow-tail and bad English of the +waiter, the sham plate and the stupid _table d’hôte_; nor, on the other +hand, to stint one’s self and to glory in saving a sou here and doing a +man out of a franc there; but to quietly adapt yourself as much as you +possibly can to the habits and customs of the people, of the middle +and characteristic class, whose country you are visiting. If you do not +like to do this and cannot afford the swell hotels, you had better stay +at home.” + +Very much the same conditions exist in Italy and Switzerland. In Italy, +however, you must bargain for everything; you must even know how much +your candle is going to cost you before you go to bed, and how much you +are to pay for the waiter and chambermaid. In Germany one lives more in +English style. The laws of the road are the same in all these countries +as in America. + +Many of the hills on the Continent, owing to their S-shaped curves, are +very dangerous. In England one finds warnings everywhere for cyclers. +You can ride or be pulled or pushed up behind a diligence over every +pass in Switzerland that is used by vehicles. On the Continent you will +find yourself everywhere legally treated as the driver of a carriage. +Carry a passport, and do not regard all foreigners as fools and thereby +make a fool out of yourself. Do not regard yourself as the first man +who ever visited the place, and do not try to paint the town red. I +admit these foreigners do not understand our little ways. + +As to touring singly or with a party, that is your own affair, not +mine; only I can warn you it is rather lonely work to cross a great +country by yourself. If there is anything I have not made clear, write +to me to the care of ~Outing~. I shall be only too glad to +answer your questions. + +[Illustration] + + + + +AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY. + +BY ELLERSLIE WALLACE. + + +When we come to criticise photographs _as pictures_, we find that one +great defect is to be found in their small size. It is true that the +perfection of detail and fine finish compound for this in a measure, +but it has often been said that one good print of 11 × 14 inches, or +larger, is worth dozens of the little scraps made on 5 × 4 and 4 × 3 +inch plates. It has lately become too much the fashion to advise the +use of small sizes, and to depend upon some enlarging process when +a print of good size is wanted. The idea of making small negatives +and enlarging them afterwards seems fair enough, and it is, indeed, +successfully done in many cases; but if such a size as 10 × 12 were +settled upon, we should advise that the negatives be made direct, and +the prints not enlarged from, say, 5 × 7 or 5 × 4 inch negatives. +All experienced operators agree that the making of negatives for +enlargement requires great skill and care. Remembering how greatly the +cost of making photographs has been reduced, and what excellent outfits +can now be had for a moderate sum, we feel justified in advising those +who aim at good artistic results to begin boldly with plates of a fair +size--certainly not less than 8½ × 6½, or, better, 10 × 8 inches. + +Now, since the first thing to be considered in the selection of a +photographic outfit is the size of picture desired, and the next the +character of work to be done, let us here say that the difficulties of +obtaining clean, good results increase with the increase of size to a +certain extent, and the expense of making the picture increases very +materially. Nevertheless, in spite of the various processes for making +large prints from small negatives--enlarging processes, as they are +technically termed--we repeat that we should not advise the purchase +of very small cameras, unless mere amusement is the only thing to be +considered. Plenty of fun can undoubtedly be had out of the little +“detective” cameras now so commonly used, but more satisfaction will be +felt in a nice collection of views or portraits on plates measuring, +say, five inches by eight or ten inches by eight, the camera for which +would be too large to be conveniently concealed as the smaller sizes +are: + +Since the introduction of the gelatine dry plate, and the consequent +simplifying of the chemical part of the work, large-sized photographs +may be made with far greater ease than formerly, and to those of our +readers who have devoted any attention to art matters we will suggest +one of the larger-sized cameras for plates, say fourteen inches by +eleven, as offering more scope for the artistic treatment of fine +subjects, particularly landscapes. + +The size of plate and camera being settled upon, the next thing is +to get a suitable lens, and this is often no easy matter. In most of +the detective cameras the lens is supplied as a part of the outfit, +but one intending to provide himself with a regular photographic +apparatus ought to have some knowledge of lenses before purchasing. +Without going into too great detail in the matter, we may say that +some general distinctions between the different varieties of lenses +should be borne in mind, as follows: (1) Lenses including an ordinary +angle or amount of subject, say forty to fifty-five degrees on the +base-line of the picture, and of tolerably long focus; and (2) +wide-angle lenses including eighty degrees, or even more, and of very +short focus. It would be natural for the purchaser to imagine that that +lens which included most subject would be best, but as a general rule +the contrary is true, namely, that the longer-focus lenses are the +more practically useful and give the more pleasing pictures. There is +another distinguishing characteristic between lenses that are “single” +or “doublet.” The former are cheaper, but quite good enough for +average landscape work, while the latter are indispensably necessary +for architectural subjects and the accurate copying of anything like +maps, plans, engravings, etc. To those who are disposed to be very +economical, we may say that the front lens of an opera-glass will make +excellent photographs. It should be unscrewed from the barrel, and +set in a short tube with its flat side facing the view; or, in other +words, it should have its position just reversed from what it was in +the opera-glass. A stop of suitable size is then set in front of it at +a distance equaling one-fifth of its burning focus. + +It should be remembered that the _perspective of the photograph is +made by the lens_, and cannot be altered by the operator, except in so +far as he provides himself with a number of lenses of different focus +and angle, so as to be able to treat different subjects with lenses +suitable to their peculiarities, using each lens _pro re rata_, as the +doctors would say. + +It may not be generally known that experienced outdoor operators are +pretty well agreed upon certain proportions between the focus of the +lens and the size of plate, as affording the most pleasing pictures, +and being most useful in the long run. We should thus choose an 11-inch +focus lens for the 8½ × 6½ plate, a 9-inch for the 8 × 5, etc., or, +in other words, _one whose equivalent focus was about equal to the +diagonal of the plate_.[5] But let us take this occasion to say that we +cannot too strongly insist upon the desirability of the photographer’s +having more than one lens irrespective of the size or style of his +pictures. We ourselves have worked with lenses of 11-inch, 7-inch, and +5½-inch focus on the 8½ × 6½ plate, and succeeded in a great variety +of subjects. The 11-inch was probably used five or six times where +the 7-inch was once, while the 5½-inch was only resorted to on rare +occasions where the peculiarities of the subject required a very wide +angle. + +We enter into this matter at some length because the artistic qualities +in landscape photographs will be found to depend in great measure +upon the ability of the operator to include just the desired amount +of subject on his plate from any given point of view; for the latter +cannot always be changed so as to favor the lens. Then, also, it must +not be forgotten that every change in the position of the camera will +change something in the view; the whole character of the picture may +be altered by shifting the apparatus a little in one direction or the +other. A speaking proof of this is seen when examining the results +obtained by the members of photographic clubs and societies after +having been out for a field-day; here we often see two photographs of +the same subject, where the men have stood side by side, one being +complete as a picture, while the other fails in its effect simply +because the lens has been a few inches or a few feet farther to the +right or left, and has omitted or included some object which has been +the making or marring of the picture. + +Another prominent defect in photographs, taken as a whole, is that they +are usually made in fixed sizes in spite of varieties or peculiarities +of subject. How unpleasant it is in the case of a fine panoramic view, +where the interest lies in the extended horizontal sweep rather than in +the sky or foreground, to see things forced into a nearly square plate, +say 10 × 8 inches, which gives entirely too much space above and below, +with insufficient length! On the other hand, how empty the ends of a +long, narrow 8 × 5-inch plate appear if some isolated and rather square +object, such as a villa or group of trees, occupies the centre! Many a +picturesque subject, dealing in high and narrow lines, will be utterly +ruined if crowded on a square-shaped plate--street views in cities, +for example, made near to churches with high steeples. Here we must +either have a long, narrow plate, or use a lens of short enough focus +to reduce the whole scale of the picture so that it can be afterwards +trimmed to suit the subject. Here we see an additional reason why the +plate should be of a good generous size to start with, and the outfit +of lenses complete. If we had only a small plate on which to make the +view, the trimming might make the finished print too small to be worth +anything. + +Let us now consider the shape of the picture, or plate, together with +the proportions existing between its boundaries or sides, premising +that while here and there a print may be trimmed square, circular or +oval, to suit some particular subject, the oblong shape will be by far +the most generally useful. + +If we compare two plates, one measuring 8½ × 6½ inches and the other +8 × 5, we find that the diagonal line connecting two opposite corners +is 1¼ inches longer in the former than in the latter. We also find that +the former has a clear space 1½ inches wider than the other, extending +over the whole of the long dimensions of the plate, together with +another space half an inch wide at the narrow end. To put it in other +words, the 8½ × 6½ plate differs from the 8 × 5 both in shape and in +size, but offers considerably more surface with but a slightly longer +diagonal. This latter has an important relationship to the covering or +defining powers of the lens, for, supposing we wanted a lens to just +cover the plate, we should have to select one the diameter of whose +field or circle of light was equal to the diagonal of the plate--_not_ +to its base line, for in that case the plate would not be covered. +Again, if we desired a lens to give perfect sharpness up to the corners +of a given size of plate, we should reckon by the diagonal, and not by +the base line. + +A little study of perspective is most highly to be recommended to those +who desire their pictures to be truthful and pleasing. Now, by this +we do not at all mean that our readers should wade through ponderous +volumes filled with mathematical problems and long equations, but that +they should, for instance, set themselves to consider such facts as the +following: If an empty box be set on the end of a long table with its +hollow facing the student, it will be observed that the bottom and the +sides are in a certain proportion to each other, and that the lines +of junction between them appear to recede at a certain angle. If the +box now be moved up to within twelve inches of the face, these lines +of junction will be seen to stand at much more obtuse angles, besides +which the sides will appear broader in proportion to their height +than when the box was at a distance. Let him now consider that the +principles here involved would hold true in the photographing of street +views, and many other subjects where both near and distant objects were +included. For if a wide-angle lens be employed, all the receding lines +in the picture, such as cornices of buildings, railroads, curbstones, +etc., etc., will stand at much more obtuse angles than when a +narrow-angle lens is used; the terms “wide-angle” or “short-focus,” on +the one hand, and “narrow-angle” or “long-focus,” on the other, being +indiscriminately used by the photographer. + +This great obtuseness of angle in the perspective of pictures made +with wide-angle lenses, is sometimes the cause of most unsightly +and ridiculous pictorial failures. It will be seen at once that the +objection to using very wide-angle lenses is that, owing to this great +obtuseness of angle of the perspective lines, distant objects will +appear unnaturally dwarfed in size, while those near at hand will come +out immensely larger than they ought to. A few trials on street views +with a lens including, say, eighty degrees of angle, with prominent +objects close in the foreground, will soon prove the truth of what +we have been saying, and sometimes well-known localities will be so +changed in the photograph that no one would recognize them. We are +thus met by the paradox that the perspective of the photograph, while +mathematically correct, is false to the eye. + +These ideas of perspective will be found very useful in photographing +architectural subjects, wide-angle lenses often being indispensable +here. Caution must be observed in using them on these subjects, +however, for if the buildings stand in confined positions, where +there is no room to move the camera backward, the picture will have +an unnatural effect, and might be compared to the eye of an observer +trying to see something that was too close for convenience. + +In portraiture, the perspective will suffer very much if the distance +between the sitter and the lens be too small, and the lens of too wide +an angle. In this case, the cheeks will look too narrow in proportion +to the length of the face, while the hands and feet will be absurdly +larger than they ought to be if at all obtruded. The head, and indeed +the whole figure, will look more rotund and more life-like if a fair +distance--say twice the sitter’s height--is kept between the lens and +the sitter. If this should give too small a picture, a lens of longer +focus will have to be used. Objects look broader when taken near at +hand with wide-angle lenses. Interior views of buildings, halls, etc., +where there is plenty of room to keep the camera well back, will not be +found difficult, but the interiors of small private houses and rooms +will often be very unsatisfactory subjects because there is not room +for the camera to be set well back and give a life-like, natural effect. + +Photographs of long, narrow objects will be great failures in the +pictorial point of view if the camera be brought too close, and so that +the nearer portions are unduly magnified while the more distant become +dwarfed in size. Here we see one of the principal reasons why the +photographer should have lenses of different focus, so that if he is +compelled to take an unfavorable point of view he may not be confined +to one focus and angle. + + To be continued. + + + [5] The equivalent focus of a compound lens is taken as equal to + the focus of a _single lens_ which would form an image of the + same size. + + + + +EVOLUTION OF FORM IN COLLEGE ROWING. + +BY E. M. GARNETT. + + +I.--~The Harvard Stroke.~ + +~Scientific~ rowing may be properly called a modern luxury. It +may be said, with a moderate degree of certainty, that neither the +Greeks, the Romans, nor yet the early English, were in the habit of +pulling themselves about in ten-inch shells provided with anti-crab +swivel rowlocks and ball-bearing slides. Had any one of them been +caught in such an act he would have been condemned, in all probability, +to drink the hemlock, or worshipped as a wizard. Of course, from time +immemorial there have been certain vague principles regulating the +application of the weight of the body to the oar. But up to the time +when that eccentric genius lubricated the seat of his boat and the +seat of his trousers with some fatty substance, and slid his greasy +way to victory, rowing was much more a matter of brute strength +than of exquisite skill. And with the evolution of the sliding seat +from the crude but effective idea, possibilities were offered for +great improvements in the art of pulling an oar. During the last +twenty years new inventions and radical changes in the rigging of +boats have necessitated a departure, not only from former methods of +rowing, but also from its recognized tenets. The principles are not +immutable--as some would have us believe. For example, it is a physical +impossibility, with some styles of rigging, to apply much power at +the end of the stroke. Still, different systems have their ardent +supporters, and the superiority of one over another is apparently a +mooted question. + +According to some aquatic enthusiasts, it is the best plan to let the +men get into a boat and pull: time and a little intelligence will +remedy their faults. Others urge that it is only necessary to master +“the few essential principles,” and, as Mr. Julian Hawthorne says, “the +refinements will take care of themselves.” Still others, who treat with +withering scorn the opponents of “form,” lay great stress upon the +absolute importance of sedulous attention to the minutest details. + +In support of this first view, numerous instances have been cited of +rough, awkward professional crews “yanking” and “yawing” their way in +ahead of the best trained and disciplined amateur oarsmen, and, as one +writer upon rowing aptly says, “casting despite upon the traditions +of the art.” Indeed, until recent years it has been the current +belief that a good amateur crew was no match for a set of skilled +professionals. And the apparent truth of this opinion was never better +illustrated than by an impromptu race rowed on the Charles River in +’78 or ’79--I forget the exact date--between the famous Bancroft crew +and eight of the best oarsmen that could be gathered together from +the purlieus of Boston. It is true the professional crew was made +up of such celebrities as Ross, Plaisted, Gorkin, Faulkner, etc., +but before that morning they had never sat together in a boat. Their +boat, by the way, differed utterly in rigging from those they had been +accustomed to, and, in fact, was the worst and most dilapidated the +Harvard Boat-house could afford. After a preliminary “paddle” down to +the starting-point--the Brookline Bridge--the race was rowed over the +regular two-mile course. Well, it is related--and I have it from one of +the victors--that by the time the celebrated Harvard crew reached the +Union Boat-house their untutored rivals had carried their boat into the +house and were nonchalantly wiping her off. + +Now, why did this crew, composed as it was of the heaviest and +strongest men that had ever sat in a Harvard boat, who moreover, by +their irreproachable “form,” had crowned themselves with glory at New +London, allow themselves to be so lamentably defeated by a set of men +who labored under almost every possible disadvantage? Evidently there +was some potent influence at work. Although the hardy and callus-fisted +members of the professional crew gained a precarious livelihood in arts +which did not sap their physical vigor, yet the superior endurance +of the crew as a whole can hardly be urged as an excuse for such +an overwhelming defeat in a two-mile race. We are left the bitter +alternative, then, of shocking the æsthetic sensibilities of our +amateurs by the inevitable conclusion that the professionals possessed +superior skill. + +Now, intelligent amateur, before turning away in disgust, reflect a +moment. What is skill? What is form? Are they synonymous? + +Skill is that which in almost every sport--in sparring, in fencing, +in wrestling, in baseball, in tennis, etc., etc., other things being +equal--enables one to win. Like elegance in writing, it is “the +exquisite adaptation of means to ends.” In rowing it is that management +of the body and oar--other things being equal, of course--which is +conducive to the greatest speed of the boat. + +“Form” in rowing is not so easily defined--for what would satisfy +the most rigid exactitude in one system would be found defective in +another. In general terms, however, it may be called, in crew rowing, +“the graceful and nice management of the body and oar which contributes +most to the appearance of similarity and uniformity throughout the +crew.” + +Now, it is true the professionals did not row with backs as straight, +nor with a swing as even as the canons of good “form” call for, but +they possessed the all-important secret of economizing all their +strength and time. They not only knew how and when to apply their +weight to the oar, but were fully alive to the necessity of holding +the oar in the water no longer than it could do good, and in the air +as short a time as possible. These and other less perceptible virtues, +which such a constellation of aquatic lights will always possess, are +generally obscured by the rugged and uncouth appearance of their body +work. + +But this body work, as far as the effect is concerned, though by no +means all that can be desired, is not so very bad after all, for the +swing of one man across the boat is counteracted by the swing of +another. This fact, coupled with the firm, strong, simultaneous finish +of the stroke, will effectually prevent the rolling of the boat. + +On the other hand, the Harvard crew, whose “form” would have sent an +æsthete into rhapsodies of praise, were skillful enough in their own +peculiar way, but their rowing itself was unskillful because radically +wrong in principle. But didn’t it enable them to win at New London? +Yes, to be sure; but always against the same system or an inferior one. + +The defeat of a well-trained amateur crew by a set of professionals +does not, then, necessarily bring the traditions of the art of rowing +into disrepute. “Form” without skill must always succumb to skill +without “form.” The combination of the two should be the goal of the +aquatic ambition. And the one need not be detrimental to the other. It +is all very well to scoff at “form” and rest placidly content to let +the refinements take care of themselves. They won’t, and the result +will be a lot of irremediable faults. + +In sparring, or, still better, in fencing, what is called direction, +_i. e._, the precision of one’s aim, will be greatly affected by the +slightest deviation of the hand from its proper position. The man who +adheres to this principle through all the complications of attack and +defense will be indeed a formidable antagonist. A master must pay the +strictest attention to the details of his art. Then why not in rowing, +where the object is to get in ahead of your adversary, and where the +lightest touch of the flat of the blade to the water will add its +mite to diminish the speed of the boat? Besides, the acquirement of +the details will always add zest to one’s pleasure in the sport. Few +sensations, indeed, are more pleasing than that of shooting through +the water in a frail shell with a clean, strong sweep of the oars, +especially when that sensation is flavored by a consciousness of a +complete mastery over the situation. + +To become an adept in the art of rowing does not demand the patience of +a Palissy, nor yet the sagacity of a Socrates. True, a certain class of +men of rare physical and intellectual torpidity will never master the +correct methods, but to a man moderately well endowed as to mind and +body, they are quite accessible. + +Perhaps those practical gentlemen who scout the idea of “form,” and +seem to believe that by some secret process sufficient excellence will +be attained if the men get into a boat and pull, are like some of +George Eliot’s good people of Raveloe, who supposed “there was nothing +behind a barn door because they couldn’t see through it.” + +Now, the essential thing is to first get hold of the correct principles +of rowing, and then apply the refinements to them. The result will be a +winning crew every time. And this happy combination and its inevitable +consequences were brought about for the first time in the history of +college boat-racing at Harvard in ’85. That is to say, the principles +involved in the stroke of that year are the best that have yet been +discovered. They, the principles, mind you, are identical with those +believed in by Hanlan, the father of them--Teemer, Gaudaur, O’Connor, +and all the crack scullers of the present day. And these principles, +the fruits of years of experience and unremitting toil in the +acquirement of a method that would enable men to win races and their +daily bread, it is natural to suppose, should be pretty nearly correct. + +It is a great mistake to believe these men so deficient intellectually +that they are forced to rely principally upon brute strength to put +their boats through the water at the highest possible rate of speed. +Rowing is not such a subtle and complex thing as all that. Is it not, +to say the least, a bit of conceit on the part of amateurs to presume +that with all their transcendent intellect they can, by a few years of +intermittent devotion to a sport, acquire a more rational knowledge of +it than men like Hanlan, who give their lives to it? + +It is the same with professionals in any sport--in sparring, in +fencing, in baseball, etc.--what amateurs can compete successfully with +them? + +But let us see what prodigy was warmed into being by the genial light +of correct principle. + +Until 1885, college boating-men had failed--inexplicable it almost +seems--to keep pace with the modern improvements in rigging and +consequent advance in the science of rowing, which professionals had +been for some years familiar with. They were under the able tuition +of Mr. Faulkner, the veteran but progressive coach and bow-oar of +both the champion “four” of America and of the champion “pair-oar” of +the world, and adopted “in toto” the rigging and system which had won +him such marked distinction. The result surpassed their most sanguine +expectations. + +After the new stroke had been pretty well mastered, a series of +impromptu races with the best crew of professionals that could be +scraped from the Charles was gotten up. This crew was composed of +Hosmer, Faulkner, Gorkin, Casey, and others, including the burly Jake +Kilrain, an oarsman as well as pugilist, and now at the summit of his +fame. As they were given the _best_ shell in the boat-house, and _one +week_ in which to _rig_ it and “_get together_,” they were really +superior to the crew which so mercilessly defeated the Harvards in ’78. +Well, the Harvard crew not only forced them to take their back-wash +for two miles, but in a number of half-mile spurts cleared them each +and every time a full boat-length in the first quarter mile. Pretty +conclusive evidence, is it not, taken in connection with the unusually +light weight of the ’85 crew, and the comparatively _short time_ they +had _rowed together_ under the _new regime_, that the new system was +superior to the old? + +It proves abundantly, also, that “form” and skill will triumph, even in +a spurt, over skill alone. Some one--that is, some one who _did not_ +see these races--will say, perhaps, “Oh, the professionals allowed +themselves to be beaten!” For the benefit of the more skeptical, I will +say, that on one occasion, when the struggle of the professionals was +more than usually hopeless, I had the distinguished honor of occupying +a vicarious position in the bow of their boat. The genial Jake Kilrain, +who, by the way, oftentimes, in a spirit of jocose repartee, has beaten +me cruelly about the head, was, besides myself, the only amateur +(oarsman) in the boat. Spurred on by our frantic stroke’s disgusted and +unorthoepical plaint, “Aw, yoose amatoors don’t back me up!” we leaped +madly against the stretcher at the rate--it seemed to me--of about +fifty-five strokes to the minute. No! there was no lack of sincerity in +that boat. + +Moreover, the pride of a professional is wounded to the quick when an +amateur happens to subvert the natural order of things by defeating +him. Indeed this particular set, in an ebullition of amazement, +admitted that the “amatoors” could show their rudder to the best +professional crew that ever sat in a boat. But so long as the +professionals, no matter what principles of rowing they may build their +faith upon, persist in sacrificing “form” to skill, so long must they +suffer defeat at the hands of a crew who preserve both these elements. + +As the two leading universities, Harvard and Yale, have experimented +in the last five years with every recognizable system of rowing, +from the slow, stately and intensely amateurish English stroke to +a hideous exaggeration of the professional style, the history of +college boat-racing during this period will afford the best means of +illustrating and demonstrating the superiority of one method over +another. Let us gird on our polemical armor, then, and enter the lists. + +There is probably no athletic event in America which excites such +universal interest and enthusiasm, among amateurs at least, as the +annual boat-race between Harvard and Yale, on the Thames. + +Weeks before the “eventful day,” windy interviews with the Nestors of +the rowing world appear in the daily papers, rooms are engaged at the +hotels in and about New London, the enviable owners of yachts prepare +for the sail, and every one is speculating upon the chances of his +favorite college adding to its list of victories. “Straight tips” and +wiseacres are equally plentiful, and equally inefficient in increasing +one’s store of knowledge. + +At the race the river is dotted with gayly bedecked steamboats, +yachts, and small craft of every description, the banks are lined with +people, and the observation train, which from a distance looks like +a huge colored snake, is a blue and crimson mass of bunting-waving, +horn-tooting, yelling, frenzied collegians. It is not an exaggeration +to say that fully fifteen thousand people annually witness the race. + +Is it not strange that among all this crowd of intensely interested, +over-excited spectators it would be extremely difficult to find a +single person sufficiently informed to give one an adequate explanation +of the causes leading to the defeat of one crew by another? For, +especially when there is a great discrepancy in the times made by the +two crews, there is always a reason beyond the overstrained condition +of No.----, the slowness of the boat, or the eel-grass course, why one +crew should cross the finish line a quarter of a mile in the lead. + +But no! the spectators, though their native fancy for mystification is +tickled by the triumph of skill and “form,” are quite impermeable to +their constituent elements. They seem to follow the principle laid down +in Hudibras, that + + “Still the less they understand, + The more they admire the sleight of hand,” + +for they certainly seem more delirious than their more experienced +fellow-men. + +It is not remarkable that men who acquired their knowledge of rowing +when the art was in its infancy, and quite innocent of the time and +labor saving contrivances now in vogue, should allow their ideas +to grow rusty or fail to keep abreast of the times. It is rather +extraordinary, though, that many college boating-men of to-day, who +have had ample opportunity to study the principles involved in the +various strokes, should be unable to elucidate the reasons for their +particular styles of rowing. And this sad fact has been the indirect +cause of some of the most disheartening defeats at New London. + +There has always been at college a sort of Bœotian haziness of ideas +regarding the merits of this or that way of pulling an oar. And +while the last few years--thanks to Mr. Storrow--have seen a certain +development in the inquisitive instincts of college boating-men, +indecision and uncertainty as to the virtues of the different systems +of rowing seem still to prevail at Harvard. + +The mooted question of superiority is confined practically to the +English style of rowing; that introduced in ’85 by Mr. Storrow, and the +so-called Bob Cook stroke. + +In the following brief sketch of what the last five years of college +boating can show, let it be borne in mind by those who see their +long-cherished convictions ruthlessly attacked, that all excuses for +the defeat of one crew by another must be considered as necessary +adjuncts to the attempted demonstration. + +In 1883, Yale, under the tutelage of that aquatic Archimedes, Mike +Davis, made a radical departure from the stroke which had been brought +over from England some years previously by Mr. Cook, and introduced, +with slight modifications, at both Yale and Harvard. + +Although this stroke, which had failed to bring victory to Yale in +’82, was almost the same in principle as that which defeated her, and, +therefore, could not be held responsible for the defeat, yet she saw +fit to discard it for the unique ideas of Mr. Davis. + +The boat was made unusually long, to provide for a novel method of +seating the men in pairs, all of Mr. Davis’s latest inventions were +introduced, and phenomenal results were expected. Whatever good there +may have been in these inventions, the fact remains that in the race +Yale rowed a short, rapid, jerky stroke, while Harvard adhered to the +long, slow, English style, and won with comparative ease. + +The experiment having failed, the next year Yale returned to her former +method of rowing. But, aided by her experience of the past, as well as +by a few valuable hints, it is said, from one of the famous Ward crew, +she had the rare good sense to improve upon her previous conception of +the English or Bob Cook stroke--for the sake of convenience, I shall +call it English at present. As to the exact share Mr. Ward had in the +amendment I do not speak with authority, but regarding the character of +the difference between the strokes rowed that year by Yale and Harvard +I speak whereof I know. + +After the first two miles it was patent that Yale had the race well in +hand. Her oars were in the water longer and in the air a shorter time +than Harvard’s. Every man in her boat threw his weight more directly +against the stretcher, and instead of holding his slide on the recover +until his arms were straightened and the body was swung forward from +the waist, he diminished materially the time the oar would otherwise +have been in the air by starting his seat and shoulders immediately +after extending his arms. He used his legs more, and “hung” less at +both ends of the stroke. The slow, stately sweep of the Harvard crew +succeeded in bringing them in about fifteen lengths behind their happy +rivals. + +It is true, the speed of the Harvard boat was affected by a number +of important changes which she was compelled to make, prior to +the race, in the composition and seating of the crew. But despite +this fact, which could not alone account for such an overwhelming +defeat--especially as the substitutes were good oars--she had the +strongest and heaviest crew that ever represented a college. + +In 1885, as we have seen, there was a revolution in rowing at Harvard. +It was not until the early part of winter that Mr. Storrow, in the +face of a certain amount of passive opposition, took the rather +daring step, by engaging Mr. Faulkner as coach, of throwing overboard +all those principles which, it is supposed, had won Harvard many a +splendid victory. An entirely new system of rowing was inaugurated, +and there was much grumbling and dubious head-shaking at the issue. +Yale, on the contrary, was highly elated at Harvard’s adoption of the +“professional” stroke. Her crew, be it said, was deemed so strong as +to earn the appellation of the “Yale giants,” while Harvard’s was not +only unusually light, but, with two exceptions, was composed of men +who had never before sat in a ’Varsity boat. Save with the brave but +meagre minority who believed in the new régime, up to a week before +the race Yale’s success was a foregone conclusion. Well, the race, as +one disappointed wearer of the blue expressed it, was a “procession.” +Yale, vulgarly speaking, carried the bucket. Harvard jumped into +the lead the moment her oars struck the water, and though averaging +about thirty-four strokes to the minute after the first spurt, to +her opponent’s thirty-seven, increased her lead at every stroke. On +the last mile there were twenty-five boat lengths between the two +crews. Harvard’s rowing was remarked upon, though little understood, +by all who saw the race. So little effort was apparent in her style, +that the uninitiated were at a loss to account for the speed of her +boat. While it was manifest that the “Yale giants” were not as well +trained as the Harvard men, it was palpable to the merest tyro that the +immense distance between the two crews was due to causes other than +the physical condition of the rowers. Although, be it remembered, Yale +had _improved somewhat_ upon the English stroke, yet the laborious +wastefulness of her style was in sharp contrast to the _ease_ and +_dash_ of the Harvard stroke. + +The moment Harvard’s blades gripped the water every man in the boat, +with a spring from the stretcher and simultaneous heave of the +shoulders, threw his whole weight into the oar, and kept it there +until the stroke was finished. The blades were covered throughout the +stroke, and remained in the air as short a time as was consistent +with the avoidance of “rushing” the slides. There was hardly the +slightest perceptible “hang” of shoulders or hands at either end of the +stroke. Although the body work was not all that could be desired, the +“watermanship” or action of the blades was as smooth as the stroke of a +piston-rod. + +On the other hand, after making all due allowance for the air of +general wretchedness which always surrounds a defeated crew, and for +the halo of perfection about the victors, Yale’s rowing was really bad. +Before the last mile was reached the desperate tugging of her men, the +not infrequent splashing of her oars, and other symptoms of fatigue, +showed plainly that the pace was too hot for her labored style of +rowing. But her reputation for pluck and doggedness was never better +sustained. In spite of the conscious hopelessness of the struggle, her +efforts throughout the race were titanic. + +After the race the usual exculpatory rumors developed the intelligence +that the stroke of the Yale crew had been lifted from a sick-bed, and +supported, tottering and nerveless, to his seat in the boat. Either +this was a laudable attempt to apotheosize Mr. Flanders, or else his +powers of recuperation must have been miraculous, for no man ever +pulled a pluckier and more apparently powerful oar. + +The next year, 1886, Harvard went down to New London with her +crew of ’85, with a single exception, presumably strengthened by +an additional year’s experience. Yale, on the other hand, had a +comparatively new set of men. The race was the closest for several +years, but ended in the defeat of Harvard by about _five lengths_. +This may seem incomprehensible at first sight, but Harvard labored +under a combination of untoward circumstances, which alone were enough +to account for a defeat of _five lengths_. She was compelled by an +accident which happened to her shell prior to the Columbia race, to +row in an old class tub, which possessed the additional defect of +_shorter slides_ and _outriggers_ than her _style of rowing called +for_. The shorter stroke, which this change necessitated, was visible +to all who saw the race. Add to this the fact that, through Yale’s +aversion to rough water, the race was postponed and rowed up the river +in the evening; that Yale, who had the east side, where the swift +current which with the incoming tide flows up the course for a mile +and a half, was permitted to jump ahead at the start; that Harvard +had the dead water on the west side; that in spite of her rough water +and ill-rigged tub, after Yale had left her lively current, Harvard +gained four or five lengths upon her, and we have sufficient reasons to +account for a defeat of _five lengths_. Nor is this all. The hopes of +the advocates of the English or Bob Cook stroke, so-called, must fall +to the ground like wilted rose-leaves when it is considered that Yale +rowed as _nearly the same stroke_ as Harvard as close attention and the +exercise of some intelligence during a limited time could make it. If +the diligent reader of newspaper interviews doubts this truth he should +have been at the Thames during the race weeks of ’85 and ’86. + +In noticeable contrast to her “watermanship” of previous years, and +in a laudable attempt to improve upon it, Yale exaggerated the rather +flat feather of the Harvard oars. But she had almost mastered the idea, +so conspicuously absent in the English stroke, of throwing the whole +weight of the body, the moment the oar gripped the water, directly +against the stretcher. Had the race been rowed in the rough water and +wind of the morning, the exaggerated feather, the noticeably longer +“hang” at both ends of the Yale stroke, and the weaker “finish”--which +last fault must always fail, against a strong wind, to keep the boat +jumping between the strokes--would have conspired to defeat her. + +In 1887, Harvard, after winning an exciting victory from the fastest +crew Columbia ever sent out, and lowering the intercollegiate record, +was again defeated by Yale, this time by about seven lengths. Her twice +happy rivals deserved all the approbation showered upon them by their +overjoyed supporters, for their rowing was magnificent. They had almost +the same crew as in the previous year, and had still further modified +their style in conformity with the stroke rowed by Harvard in ’85. +Indeed, to connoisseurs the only perceptible differences between these +two strokes were the longer “hang” of the Yale oars before entering the +water, the slightly stronger “catch,” the slower start of the shoulders +on the “recover,” and the weaker finish. As the wind blew down the +course, these defects did not tell against her. As for her time, it +would have delighted the rhythmic sensibilities of a Wagnerian. + +Harvard, on the contrary, through her inability throughout the year +to secure the regular services of a coach, and on account of her +comparatively raw crew, did not adhere as closely in practice as +in theory to the standards of ’85. After the first two miles, the +punishing work her rather young crew[6] had undergone _three days +previously_ in the Columbia race began to tell upon her. They began +to “clip” still more off their already short stroke, and their rowing +became slightly ragged. + +These reasons will answer the question, “Why was Harvard defeated _by +seven lengths_?” and, taken in connection with the fact that Yale +rowed in a boat as similarly rigged as Harvard’s as a foot-rule and +the faculty of imitation could make it, will deal a death-blow at any +marked individuality which the Yale or Bob Cook system of rowing may +now be said to possess. Waters, of Troy, is the boat builder to both +colleges. The innuendo, I hope, is quite fathomable. + +It is not my intention to cast any slur upon Yale. Indeed, her whole +progressive course under the skillful guidance of Mr. Cook, who knows +a good thing when he sees it, but is not the aquatic god some would +make him, has been marked by rare good judgment. I am merely marshaling +my evidence for a final onslaught upon the system of rowing in vogue +before ’85. + +In 1888, a committee of four graduates, only one of whom had rowed +in recent years, was appointed to take charge of boating matters. +Naturally enough they strove to inculcate in the crew those principles +with which they were most familiar, viz., those which pertained to +the English or Bancroft system of rowing. Despite the fact that the +method introduced by Storrow had brought about the overwhelming defeat +of the Yale giants in ’85, despite the manifest adoption by Yale of +the essential features of this method, and her consequent successes, +and despite the marked improvement in the speed of the boat since ’85, +the crew of ’88, we are told, endeavored to “_unlearn the radically +wrong principles_” of the three previous years. The endeavor was +pre-eminently successful, and what was the result? A crushing defeat, +such as had never been seen upon the Thames. At one time in the race +there was almost half a mile between the two crews. Yale, naturally +enough, retained the principles, the efficacy of which she had tested, +and gave even a better exhibition of rowing than the Harvard crew of +’85. + +My standpoint is well illustrated by a letter to the New York _Spirit +of the Times_ of September 29th, upon “Why Yale beats Harvard.” The +letter is written by a man “who has done for Harvard good work with +the oar.” Among other good things he says (the italics are my own): +“The Yale and Columbia crews of 1886 beat Harvard _after close races_ +because they adopted to a considerable extent the _same system and +ideas_ that Storrow had taught Harvard the year before. Yale beat +Harvard again last year because she still believed in and practiced +the same system, while Harvard seemed to have _endeavored to forget +as much of it as possible_. The _contrast_ between the styles of +rowing of the Harvard and Yale crews in the race was _most striking_. +The Yale crew carefully covered their oars at the beginning of the +stroke, and kept them covered to the end, maintaining a firm pressure +throughout, the appearance of their oars in the water reminding the +observer of the Harvard crew of ’85, but otherwise their work was far +superior to the Storrow crew. The Harvard crew seemed to have forgotten +the accepted principles that govern the management of the oar in the +water; their blades made a _complete circle_, and but a _small arc_ of +its circumference entered the water, the oar being _fully covered but +an instant of time_. In their _body work they followed the principles +taught by Bancroft_, but did not attain the smoothness which Bancroft +himself, and his more skillful pupils acquired. In this respect they +_tried to follow the English system_, and seemed to _have adopted the +English style of rigging_, for their slides were noticeably shorter +than those of the Yale crew. The whole course of the committee clearly +showed their incompetency to direct the crew.” And again: “It is +reported that before coming to New London they rowed a series of races +with a scratch crew, composed of substitutes and old rowing-men about +Boston, and _were beaten again and again_, although the men in the +scratch crew _had never before sat together in a boat_.” + +Rather a striking coincidence with the feat of the ’78 crew who rowed +the same stroke, is it not? + +So much for what the history of college boating during the past five +years can show. The supporters of the English system of rowing are +welcome to any solace they may derive from a perusal of it. + +It seems incredible that any doubt as to the superiority of one system +of rowing over the other should still linger in the minds of Harvard +men. + +But the result of last year’s race leaves them, no doubt, “more +troubled than the Egyptians in a fog.” + + To be continued. + +[Illustration] + + [6] The average age of the Harvard crew was about 21, the stroke + being 18; while Yale’s average was about 24, her stroke being + 29. + + + + +[Illustration: STATE-COACH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND.] + + + + +COACHING AND COACHING CLUBS. + +BY CHARLES S. PELHAM-CLINTON. + + +[Illustration] + +In “Tom Brown’s Schooldays,” that ever-popular book, there is a sketch +of coaching which stands unequaled for concise and graphic description, +and which will bear repetition. Tom was starting for Rugby by the +coach, and his father is seeing him off. They hear the ring and rattle +of the four fast trotters and the town-made drag, as it dashes up to +the “Peacock.” + +“‘Anything for us, Bob?’ says the burly guard, dropping down from +behind and slapping himself across the chest. + +“‘Young gen’l’m’n, Rugby; three parcels, Leicester; hamper o’ game, +Rugby,’ answers the hostler. + +“‘Tell young gent to look alive,’ says the guard, opening the hind-boot +and shooting in the parcels, after examining them by the lamps. ‘Here, +shove the portmanteau up atop--I’ll fasten him presently. Now then, +sir, jump up behind.’ + +“‘Good-bye, father--my love at home.’ A last shake of the hand. Up goes +Tom, the guard catching his hat-box and holding on with one hand, while +with the other he claps the horn to his mouth. Toot, toot, toot! The +hostlers let go their heads, the four bays plunge at the collar, and +away goes the ‘Tally-ho’ into the darkness, forty-five seconds from the +time they pulled up.” + +Considerable more romance about this than a departure from the Grand +Central or Jersey City depots. There was much fun on the road in those +days, and the jehu generally had a stock of old jokes that he let off +at the box-seat passenger day after day. For instance, a crusty and +stingy old curmudgeon who had neglected to “dampen the whistle” of +the driver in the proper fashion, and who grumbled at the wet weather, +would be greeted with, “Why don’t you invest a penny in a Yarmouth +bloater? and you’ll be dry all day, I’ll warrant.” Things are more +staid now, and the Irish coachman who demanded “Shall I pay the ‘pike’ +or drive at it?” is happily gathered to his fathers, and life and limb +are in the hands of a less humorous but more sober set of drivers. + +From one source I learn coaches were first introduced into England in +1580 by Fitzallan, Earl of Arundel, before which time the customary +mode of travel was on horseback. The Queen used to ride on a pillion +behind her chamberlain. Another history says that in 1564, Booner, a +Dutchman, became Queen Elizabeth’s coachman, proving that she must have +had a coach. In 1619, however, things had so improved that Buckingham +drove a coach and six. + +A very authentic history says that the first coach in England was built +in 1555, for the Earl of Rutland, by Walter Rippon. This maker must +have been the Brewster of his day, as he made a coach for Queen Mary, +and in 1564 built a state-coach for Queen Elizabeth, presumably the one +that the above Booner drove. Hackney-coaches came into vogue in 1605, +and in 1640 the stage-coach was first adopted. It was built to carry +six or eight persons, and was hung upon leather straps. + +In 1662 six stage-coaches were running, and in 1673 stage communication +was started between Exeter and Chester and London. No less an authority +than Sir Walter Scott says that in 1755 the speed of a stage was +frequently but four miles an hour. A year previous to this, however, +steel springs had been invented, and in 1784 it is authentically +stated that the average speed was eight miles an hour. Prior to this +rapid increase of speed, the Lord Mayor of London’s state-coach +was built in 1757, and weighed the trifle of three tons, sixteen +hundred-weight. In 1762 a royal state-coach was built for George +III. which weighed four tons, and which is still used on full state +occasions, being drawn by eight cream-colored horses. + +Through the efforts of Mr. John Palmer, M.P. for Bath, in 1784 the +mails were entrusted to the care of the coaches, the first mail-coach +leaving London on the 8th of August of that year. Until 1834 the +mail-coaches were not allowed to carry more than three outside +passengers, while the ordinary stages carried four inside and fourteen +outside. + +[Illustration: STATE-COACH OF KING CHARLES II. OF ENGLAND.] + +It was at this period that gentlemen began to “tool” not only their own +but public coaches, and the amusement, which in many cases combines +business with pleasure, has been continued ever since. Smedley, the +novelist, creates a character in “Frank Fairleigh,” under the name of +the Hon. George Lawless, who shows how thirty to fifty years ago this +fashion had come into vogue. + +The spirit of the times was such that in 1807 the first club was +established, under the name of the Bensington (_Oxonicé_ Benson) +Driving Club, the number of members being limited to twenty-five. There +were four meets in a year--two at the White Hart, Bensington, near +Oxford, and two at the Black Dog, Bedfont, near Hounslow. There was no +annual subscription; but each member paid £10 on his election. After +the first sixteen years of the club’s life, the meetings were entirely +confined to Bedfont, as being more easy of access. Here it was that +the wine of the club was kept, and hence it was that, after dining, +the members “dashed home in a style of speed and splendor equal to the +spirit and judgment displayed by the noble, honorable, and respective +drivers.” Among these were the “Squire of Squerries,” the father of +fox-hunting; Sir Henry Peyton, who, like his descendant Sir Thomas, +drove grays, and introduced the second ferrule on the whip; the Marquis +of Worcester, Sir Bellingham Graham, Mr. Charles Jones, and Mr. John +Walker, who drove the Bognor coach. + +[Illustration: COLONEL DELANCY KANE’S FOUR-IN-HAND.] + +This was very quickly followed by the Four-Horse Club, founded in +1808 by Mr. Charles Buxton, which existed only about twenty years. +The members included Mr. Warde, Sir John Peyton, Lord Anson, the +Marquis of Worcester, Sir Bellingham Graham, Lord Sefton, and a host +of others. This body used to meet twice a month in Cavendish Square, +and its meetings, wrote “Nimrod,” were “perhaps objectionable as making +unnecessary parade.” What would he have said of the Magazine meets? The +Four-Horse Club was also known as the Barouche Club, and, according +to “Nimrod,” as the Whip Club; but Lord William Lennox would seem +to imply that the Whip Club was a distinct society, inasmuch as it +used to meet in Park Lane and drive to Harrow-on-the-Hill, instead +of meeting in Cavendish Square and driving to Salt Hill, as was the +custom of the Four-Horse members. In “Hit and Miss” Charles Mathews +caricatured the many-pocketed drab coat, with its buttons the size of +a crown piece; the blue waistcoat, with its inch-wide yellow stripes; +the plush breeches, and the three-and-a-half-inch hat, that formed the +club uniform; and the celebrated comedian offended many of the foremost +coaching men by the travesty. Joey Grimaldi also made capital out of +this somewhat startling dress. A drab coat was formed out of a blanket, +a purloined cabbage was used as a bouquet, plates formed the buttons of +the coat; the opportune appearance of a cradle and four cheeses enabled +a coach to be built, while a toy-shop furnished four blotting-paper +horses. + +[Illustration: THE FOUR-IN-HANDS IN CENTRAL PARK.] + +[Illustration: FAMILY TRAVELING COACH, 17TH CENTURY.] + +About 1820 the Four-Horse Club came to an end, but was resuscitated +about two years later, only to be dissolved again. + +The Bensington Driving Club kept on, and was joined, in 1838, by the +Richmond Driving Club, under the presidency of Lord Chesterfield. +The meets of this club took place at Chesterfield House, and the +destination of the club was Richmond. The R. D. C., however, only had +a short life, and the parent society, the B. D. C., was alone in its +glory till 1852, when it came to an end. + +Then came an interregnum of about four years, until it occurred to +the late Mr. William Morritt, of roans and yellow coach celebrity, to +establish the Four-in-Hand Driving Club--this is its real name--of +which the Duke of Beaufort and the late Sir Watkin Wynn were original +members. In 1870 the Coaching Club was started, and this completes +the list of clubs--past and present--formed in England for the +encouragement of the difficult art of driving four-in-hand. On the +books of these societies are to be found the names of all the best +coachmen of the time; and it may be doubted whether the institutions +of the present day may not fairly anticipate a longer life than was +vouchsafed to their predecessors. + +For some time it was a legitimate boast that no other country could +show a sight equal to the English coaching meets; but the monopoly in +that, as in other lines connected with sport and pastime, is at an end. + +Sundry attempts, but wholly unsuccessful ones, have been made to +organize meets of other vehicles than coaches. Once there was a meet of +tandems in Hyde Park, but it was a sorry exhibition. Then a sleighing +meet was tried; but the only result of the venture was to show that +England is not quite the place for an experiment of that kind. Later +came the meet of trotters, a yet more ludicrous affair, so it is only +necessary for some one to organize a meet of “pickaxe” teams, to have +introduced to the British public every variety of driving not in common +use. + +So much for coaching in England. In America its history does not +run back quite so far; but, in 1697, John Clapp, a New York Bowery +innkeeper, is recorded as having a hackney-coach built for him, and +must be booked as the first of the “cabbies” whose extortion give New +York such a name among travelers. + +We hear of the first private carriage in 1745. In 1750, the Rev. Mr. +Burnaby, writing of New York, mentions Italian chaises as the proper +means of conveyance in his time, excepting in Virginia, where coaches +were used and required six horses to drag them. They require that +number now in most parts of that State, particularly in the winter and +spring. + +Boston is said to have had a stage in 1661, and in the middle of the +eighteenth century a stage-line was established between that city and +New York. Stages were, however, very little in use until 1786, at which +time there were only three carriage builders in New York. The “boom” +must have commenced about then, as I learn from an article on coaching, +written by Miss Jennie J. Young some fifteen years ago, that during +the next three years the number had trebled, and that there were five +livery yards as well. + +[Illustration: TRAVELING COACH, 18TH CENTURY.] + +During the next two decades the number had grown to twenty-nine, which +would have been further increased had it not been for the enormous +cost of production, a complaint that prevails a hundred years later. +Most people, therefore, imported their coaches. Among these was +Washington. Mr. J. T. Watson describes his coach as follows: “It was +cream-colored, globular in its shape and capacious within, ornamented +in the French style with cupids supporting festoons and wreaths of +flowers emblematically arranged along the panel-work, the figures and +flowers beautifully covered with fine glass, very white and dazzling to +the eye of youth and simplicity in such matters. It was drawn sometimes +by four, but in common by two, very elegant Virginia bays, with long +switch tails and splendid harness, and driven by a German, tall and +muscular, possessing an aquiline nose.” A handsome vehicle in its time, +no doubt, but one that would appear as an advance guard of Barnum’s in +these days of workmanlike simplicity. + +A less gorgeous vehicle, but equally curious, was lately, Miss Young +says, in the possession of Brewster, of Broome Street. “It was built +in 1801 by Leslie, of London, and was brought to this country on +the occasion of a matrimonial alliance between the families of Van +Rensselaer and of Vischer. The body is painted yellow, and on the +panels are the arms of both families. The lining is green. The wheels +are high, and the body, instead of being let down between them, is kept +as far from the ground as possible. The driver’s seat is also pushed up +to the highest possible altitude.” + +At the commencement of this century three stages were enough for the +requirements of the travelers from and to this city. One of these ran +from the corner of Wall and New streets to Greenwich, and the other +ran from the Bull’s Head to Harlem and Manhattanville respectively. +Twenty-five years made a vast difference in the travel by road, and +the country roads being improved a large number of coaches left this +city daily, among them being daily mails to Albany, Philadelphia, +Westchester and Danbury; and there was a day mail between this city +and Boston. This did not last long, as the advent of steam-cars sent +the coaches to the rightabout, or relegated them to the interior where +steam had not penetrated. + +Then came a long period before the time-honored sport was renewed. + +It is said that in 1860 there was only one private four-in-hand in +the Union, which was of English build, and belonged to Mr. T. Bigelow +Lawrence, of Boston. It eventually passed, on his death, into the hands +of Brewster & Co. While in their hands it attracted the attention of +Col. William Jay and Mr. Thomas Newbold, and was purchased by them, the +copartnership being increased by Mr. Frederick Bronson and Mr. Kane. +Three years later, in 1863, Wood Brothers built a coach for Mr. Leonard +Jerome; Mr. August Belmont imported one from England, and during the +next decade coaches were imported by Mr. Bronson, Col. Delancy Kane, +and Mr. James Gordon Bennett, whose importation was afterward purchased +by Mr. William P. Douglas. + +Curiously enough, the organization of the Coaching Club was started +abroad, several gentlemen, among whom were Col. Delancy Kane and Col. +W. Jay, being the prime movers in this idea. In 1875 the organization +was effected. The first parade was held in 1876, and six coaches made +their appearance. Many of the names that were included on the roll in +the first year are still represented on the box-seat; Mr. Frederick +Bronson and Col. William Jay were, however, the only two who put +in an appearance at the meet last May. The others are James Gordon +Bennett, William P. Douglas, Leonard Jerome, Delancy Kane, Nicholson +Kane, Thomas Newbold, and Mr. Thorndike Rice. This list was speedily +augmented, and included August Belmont, senior and junior, Hugo S. +Fritsch, George R. Fearing, Theodore A. Havemeyer, G. G. Haven, +Frederick Neilson, Fairman Rogers, Francis R. Rives, G. P. Wetmore, +Pierre Lorillard, Augustine Whiting, and Augustus Schermerhorn--all +names that are interesting to students of the history of the sports of +the past twenty-five years. + +The membership was originally twenty-five, but so popular has the club +become that it has been deemed advisable to increase the number, and +the limit now stands at forty-five, with only one vacancy, and plenty +of applicants. The uniform consists of a dark green cut-away coat with +brass buttons, and a yellow striped waistcoat, the buttons bearing +the initials C. C., and having the bars as a design. The club only +comes before the public twice a year, one of these occasions being the +annual meet in the Park, and another being the annual drive to some +spot within about fifty miles of New York. At these times the club is +greeted by a large portion of the New York public, and when the weather +favors the annual meet it takes all the energies of the “sparrow +police” to keep the road clear for the coaches. + +Very few of the members have ever driven public coaches, so the rule +that obliges members of the English coaching clubs to have previously +driven a public coach, would be prohibitory here. Col. Delancy Kane +is about the only member that has done so in England, and he was, +with Colonel Jay, Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick Bronson, the prime +mover in the “Tantivy” which ran for several seasons from the Hotel +Brunswick to the Country Club at Pelham. Last year Mr. Hugo Fritsch and +Mr. Frederick Bronson ran this venture, but I fancy that the returns +were by no means commensurate with the expenses, and that they lost +money. It seems a pity that no one is public-spirited enough to follow +in their footsteps, as after all the expense is not so very vast, and +it would give the prestige that many strive for in other ways. Colonel +William Jay was the first president of the club, and he still retains +that position, leading the van in the parades, and sits at the head of +the table at the dinner which follows. + +The parades have been attended with very few accidents, and indeed the +whole history of amateur coaching in America is singularly devoid of +exciting incidents. The Central Park gates are wider than those of Hyde +Park, and the example of a noble lord who not very long since took a +wheel off and quietly “dumped” his load on the sidewalk, has not as yet +been emulated. I have heard of a case in which a four-in-hand and a +street-car tried conclusions to the detriment of the former, and one or +two of the starts at Jerome have been fraught with considerable peril +to those who were on the coach. Fortune favors the brave, however, and +Jerome luckily has not such a tremendous hill on the way home as has +Goodwood, the historic racecourse situated above the beautiful park of +the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. To this course some thirty private +four-in-hands make the trip from the different country houses and towns +in the neighborhood. + +[Illustration: “THE CAMBRIDGE TELEGRAPH,” WHITE HORSE TAVERN, FETTER +LANE, LONDON.] + +About ten years back, Lord Charles Beresford, of “Condor” fame, was +driving his coach home from these races; on the seat beside him was +Lady Folkestone, and another lady was among those behind. When a couple +of hundred yards through the park had been compassed, a sudden block +occurred on the road, and Lord Charles, to save running into some of +the carriages in front, swung off the road onto the grass. The jerk +broke the chain of the “skid,” and the coach ran away with the horses. +The hill at this point is very steep, and the pace was simply terrific. +The coach swayed from side to side, but did not turn over; the horses +were going at a mad gallop, and a stumble meant instant death to all. +Down the hill they plunged, Lady Folkestone never moving or saying a +word, and the rest of the party, with teeth set, grimly facing the +end that seemed inevitable. The bottom of the hill came at last, and +over the rolling sward tore the horses. Finally, about a mile and a +half from the bottom, they came to a stand, not a strap broken, and +no damage of any kind done. Lord Charles could not release his hands +from the reins, and they had to be forced from him. Since then he can +never depend on them, as any strain seems to paralyze him, and at one +or two meets of the Coaching Club he has been obliged to relinquish the +“ribbons” in consequence of the horses’ pulling. This all reads like +a traveler’s yarn to those who do not know the steepness of the hill; +but Lord Charles told it to me himself, and added that the only thing +lost was the whip. This could hardly occur at Jerome, as there are no +precipices to encounter. + +The annual drive of the Coaching Club is quite a feature, and some very +charming trips have been made. Last year the chosen spot was “Idle +Hour,” the beautiful country seat of Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, at +Oakdale, L. I. The start was made on June 2, at 9.30 ~A. M.~, +from the Brunswick Hotel, Col. Jay “handling the ribbons.” Idle Hour +was reached by six ~P. M.~ Changes were made at Flushing, +Lakeville, Garden City, Belmore, Amityville, Bayshore, and Islip; the +different gentlemen horsing the coach and driving the several stages +being Messrs. F. A. Havemeyer, F. Bronson, A. Belmont, Jr., Delancy +Kane, and Prescott Lawrence. The return journey was made on Monday, +the changes being made at the same places, and at six o’clock, dusty +and thirsty, the members of the C. C. drew up at the door of the +Brunswick. It was the eleventh annual drive of the club, the other +places visited having been the country seats of A. J. Cassatt and of +Fairman Rogers, at Philadelphia; Mr. Frederick Bronson, at Greenwich +Hill, Conn.; Mr. Francis Rives, at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson; Col. +William Jay, at Bedford, N. J.; Theodore Havemeyer, at Mawah, N. J.; +Pierre Lorillard, at Rancocas, N. J.; Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, at Hyde +Park, and Mr. Schermerhorn, at Lenox, Mass. The trip made in 1878 to +Philadelphia was a long one, the entire ninety miles being accomplished +in about seven hours and a half. The route was divided into nine +stopping-places, these being Newark, Rahway, Signboard, Six Mile Run, +Princeton, Trenton, Hulmeville and Holmesburg--the drivers being Col. +Delancy Kane, F. R. Rives, P. Belmont, Jr., T. A. Havemeyer, G. P. +Wetmore, Hugo O. Fritsch, F. Bronson, G. R. Fearing, and Fairman Rogers. + +The meets which take place on the last Saturday in May have for the +two past years been subject to atmospheric depression, which has had +a deteriorating effect on the attendance and on the spirits of those +present; but, rain or no rain, the meet takes place. Only seven coaches +were in line last year, which shows that, however much the “art” may be +appreciated in New York, the increase in the number of coaches during +the past decade has hardly kept up with the corresponding increase in +the membership of the club. + +Colonel Jay drove a pair of useful golden chestnut wheelers and gray +and roan leaders to his red and yellow coach. His leaders were not +quite as showy as the gray and chestnut leaders that he had last year. +Dr. Seward Webb’s coach was black and yellow, his horses being four +well-matched chestnuts. Mr. Prescott Lawrence’s coach has a primrose +body with yellow carriage, and his cross-team of chestnut and brown +wheelers, with roan and gray leaders, were as good as any on the +ground. Mr. Fairman Rogers drove bays and grays, and Mr. Hugo Fritsch’s +coach was drawn by brown and bay wheelers and bay and roan leaders. Mr. +E. N. Padelford deserted the traditions of the club and brought a “stag +party” in his white and blue coach horsed by four bays. Mr. Frederick +Bronson had a useful pair of brown wheelers with chestnut and brown +leaders. Weather has a great deal to do with these parades, and there +seemed a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the spectators, and a lack +of the pleasurable animation on the part of those on the coaches, which +is necessary to make a meet of the Coaching Club a perfect success. + +Let us hope, in the interest of this grand sport, that the sun may +shine very brightly on the last Saturday of next May, that the number +of coaches be quadrupled, and that all the beauty of New York occupy +the seats on the tops of the different drags. + + + + +SALMON FISHING ON LOCH TAY. + +BY “ROCKWOOD.” + + +~Partridges~ and pheasants have just come under the protection +of the Close Time Act, and the gun has been laid in its old place +on the rack, there to remain till the 12th of August, when the +grouse-shooting opens; the greyhound courser is thinking of the near +approach of Waterloo, when, on the plains of Altcar, at Liverpool, the +Blue Riband of the Leash will be fought for amongst the cracks of the +“longtails;” the fox-hunters of the shires are hard at it and keen as +ever, though their horses are leg-weary and suffering from overreaching +and attendant sprains of the sinews, when we fly north from London by +the London and Northwestern Railway _en route_ to Loch Tay for the +early spring salmon fishing. + +Every Scottish lake has had its poet. Scott and Christopher North have +in prose celebrated the praises of Loch Lomond. The Gaelic bards, like +Robb Donn Mackay, have sung of Loch Maree, the silent and majestic, +beloved of all the lakes by Her Majesty the Queen; but Loch Tay is +the loch of the angler and the sportsman. It is, _par excellence_, +_the lake home_ of the Scottish salmon, that fish which, viking-like, +cruises annually along the west side of the German Ocean, and with +health and vigor charges mill-lades, linns, weirs, and a hundred other +obstacles, with all the fury of a Highlandman on a battle-field, +and not a little of the Celt’s cunning in dodging round the ends of +stake-nets on his return to his native waters. + +The Purdies and the Kers of the Border may swear by the superior charms +of killing “a guid Tweed fush.” On the Solway Dee they will contest +for the merits of their own waters, and where the Dee of Aberdeenshire +sweeps through the woods of Invercauld and down under the shadow of +the windows of Balmoral, the Farquharsons and the Gordons, adepts at +throwing a long fly, will hold in contempt the anglers of less favored +streams. Each riverman has his opinion, yet all are agreed that Loch +Tay is the premier fishing loch. + +[Illustration: “FROM KENMORE TO KILLIN.”] + +This magnificent sheet of water drains, by means of the rivers Dochart +and Lochy, the large range of hills which guard central Scotland from +the storms which sweep across the Atlantic past the North of Ireland, +and to whose accompaniment of heavy seas Mull, Skye, and other of the +Hebridean islands form a huge breakwater. Loch Awe takes the drainage +of the west water-shed, the river Awe carrying it through the Pass of +Brander to the Atlantic. Loch Tay gathers all on the east and north +and carries it by means of the silver Tay right across Scotland to the +German Ocean, through varied and unsurpassed scenes of beauty. Onward +the river flows, under the walls of stately mansions, once the homes of +fierce chieftains, now the residences of enthusiastic sportsmen. Among +these the most noted is Murthly Castle, where Sir John Millais every +year makes known to the salmon the lightness of the hand required to +successfully apply a brush to canvas. + +[Illustration: THE BOATS STARTING--KILLIN.] + +But the train whirls northward, through counties renowned in hunting +song, past old coaching “half-way” houses, famous in the history of +the English mail coach. Here the travelers of sixty years ago used to +hold merry jinks, whilst the coachman fretted and the guard shouted +and four good steeds pawed the sward, anxious to start on the next +stage. On between blazing furnaces, the coal ground of the iron horse, +past reeking coal pits. Descending those dark shafts and traveling +along every corner of the mine, you will find British sportsmen, each +as ready and as enthusiastic in backing a horse or a greyhound as his +master, the wealthy mine owner and member of the Jockey Club. Over +the Cumberland hills, where wrestling is still the favorite pastime, +as in days of yore, to merry Carlisle, that old English border-town +which was the scene of many a fierce battle between Scotch and English. +Skirting Gretna Green, where runaway couples were hitched tight by the +old blacksmith in the days when marriages were made more binding than +now, Bectloch summit is crossed, and soon the train crosses the Clyde +valley. At Stirling Junction carriages have to be changed, and while +the setting sun is gilding the western sky, we dip from Killin old +station, beyond Callande, down into the lovely valley of the Dochart, +to Killin, the capital of Breadalbane and the head fishing quarters +of Loch Tay; and this, too, only twelve hours after leaving Euston +Station, London. + +All the time the talk has been of fish and fishing-rods, of big fish +that were caught and the far bigger fish that escaped. The angling +romancer has a special license as regards story-telling. Rarely, +indeed, does he fail to take full advantage of his privilege. But in +the journey up the talk has been all of the past; now it is all of the +future; the hope is of the morrow. + +Stewart, the landlord of “The Royal,” is too busy looking to the +comfort of his guests to answer all the questions so eagerly put by +the new-comers; but the boatmen of the lake stand near, ready to shake +hands with old patrons and to tell them that in the late floods “the +fish have jist been literally croodin’ into the loch, till there’s +scarcely room for them unless they lie heids and thraws [head and foot] +like bairns in a bed.” The Scottish boatman does not promise so much +as his Irish brother, who said that the snipe in the bog were “jist +jostlin’ wan another, sir,” but he does not find it advantageous to +damp your spirits with prospects of indifferent sport. A shilling or +so will make them happy enough in the back bar of the hotel. There, +in Gaelic, they will hook and kill salmon which they gaffed long ago +for old sportsmen long since dead, for the ranks of _the_ opening-day +fishers of Loch Tay have of late been very much thinned of veterans. + +Before breakfast the early-rising angler will have time to explore +Killin, which is beautifully situated within the peninsula formed +by the confluence of the rivers Dochart and Lochy. The great Dr. +McCulloch, most charming of all writers on Scottish landscape, says: +“Killin is the most extraordinary collection of extraordinary scenery +in all Scotland; unlike everything else in the country and perhaps on +earth, and a perfect picture gallery in itself, since you cannot move +three yards without meeting a new landscape. A busy artist might here +draw a month and not exhaust it. Fir-trees, rocks, torrents, mills, +bridges, houses--these produce the great bulk of the middle landscape, +under endless combinations; while the distances more constantly are +found in the surrounding hills, in their varied woods, in the bright +expanse of the lake and the minute ornaments of the distant valley, in +the rocks and bold summit of Craig-Cailliach, and in the lofty vision +of Ben Lawers, which towers like a huge giant in the clouds--monarch +of the scene.” This picture we can endorse, having seen Killin in all +seasons of the year, when the Dochart in spate was foaming and churning +among the rocks and the tree-roots of the numerous wooded islands; +where the bluebell and fox-glove bloomed bonnily on the banks of the +Lochy in early summer, and again where the red glow on the upper +mountain betokened that the grouse-hiding heather was in full bell. But +the angler loves it best when Ben Lawers has on his nightcap of snow. +No matter though a snow-shower sweeps like spin-drift before a squall +and makes him shiver as he watches the rods at the stern, if he have +the shelter of the bays and the “saumont” is in a taking mood. + +But the “halesome parritch” is reeking on the breakfast table, and +every angler, be he Scotchman or not, will be wise if he puts the +contents of a “coggie” and some rich milk from a Highland cow within +him. They will keep heart in him and cold without all day, besides +“man,” as his boatman will tell him, “they mak’ gran’ bottoming for +the whisky ane maun keep drinking.” Breakfast over, the boats are soon +manned where they lie at the lochy a few minutes’ walk from the hotel +door. This leads to a description of the system of fishing which is +pursued on the lake. + +Except the reserved water of the Marquis of Breadalbane, the +proprietor, who keeps a favorite portion for himself and his guests, +the rights belong to the hotel proprietors, whose houses are situated +on the lake. Kenmore Hotel has four boats and about eight miles of +water at the east end of the loch, and across its whole breadth. Killin +Hotel has six boats, and its beat extends to about eight miles, also +across the whole breadth. Bridge of Lochay Inn, with three boats, has +the same water as the Killin Hotel. Ardenaig Inn has two boats, and +Lawers Inn, at the foot of Ben Lawers, two boats. The regulations at +these hotels are the same, each boat being allowed to carry only two +rods at £5 per week, or 25 shillings a day; if two anglers are in one +boat, at 30 shillings a day, all fish caught to be the property of the +angler. Two boatmen are necessary, and these are paid 3s. 8d. per day, +the angler allowing them luncheon only when he feels so disposed. This, +no doubt, looks very costly, but when the sport obtained is considered, +in reality it seems very cheap. Take the following score made by Mr. I. +Watson Lyall, made through the favor of Lord Breadalbane a few years +ago: + + Feb. 5.--Opening day, after two o’clock ~P. M.~, + 8 salmon, 28, 23, 23, 21, 20, 19, + 18 and 16 lbs. 168 + + Feb. 6.--6 salmon, 32, 20, 20, 18, 19, 17 lbs. 126 + + Feb. 7.--4 salmon, 20, 19, 23 and 18 lbs. 80 + + Feb. 8.--Weather too stormy for fishing. -- + + Feb. 9.--6 salmon, 32, 17, 22, 19, 21, 17 lbs. 128 + + Feb. 10.--Stopped at two o’clock, 2 salmon, + 30 and 19 lbs. 49 + --- + Total for five days’ fishing, 26 salmon, + weight lbs. 551 + +Not bad fishing that, and far from costly when salmon is selling in +London at two shillings per pound. + +[Illustration: “HE LOOPED THE LINE ONTO THE OTHER ROD.”] + +The fish, which rarely weigh under twenty pounds, fight strongly, +and carry out as much as eighty yards of line at a single rush, so +that they always give magnificent sport before being landed. For +some reason or other which cannot be explained, they will not rise to +the fly. Phantom minnows of the ordinary form are used, with small +screw-propellers at the nose to make them spin, and the better they +spin the more likely is the angler to be successful. On arrival at the +fishing-ground, the rods, which as a rule are fourteen feet long, are +fixed in little forked rests and so made to point sternward at an angle +over the gunwale. Forty yards of line are let out to trail (some allow +as many as sixty yards), and a small stone is placed upon a part of +the line under each of the rods. When these stones are jerked off, the +watchful angler knows that he is fast in a fish. There are, of course, +certain favorite bits of water, and these the boatmen take the rods +over with great care. + +[Illustration: “WAS OBLIGED TO SIT DOWN WITH SUCH A STORM ON.”] + +The Loch Tay tackle has for some reason or other remained very heavy, +and so boats cannot be taken close inshore for fear of the lines +fouling the rocks or the weeds, which grow in many places in rich +profusion at the bottom. And yet in these waters, near the shore, the +most of the salmon are to be found lying in wait for food. Last year +the heaviest salmon of the year--a magnificent forty-pounder--was +caught with the lightest tackle and lightest rod ever used, and so +there is very likely to be a considerable reform in Loch Tay trolling +rods within the next few years. The capture of this fish is worth +relating. + +Mr. Geen, of Richmond, Surrey, a famous angler of southern waters, had +determined to use the very finest tackle, notwithstanding remonstrances +from fellow-anglers and boatmen. He made up his mind that with lighter +tackle he could “troll” his phantom a few feet nearer the surface than +with heavy tackle, an undoubted advantage in the bays, and that with +a line less likely to be seen a fish was far more likely to take the +bait. A light rod, he moreover thought, would kill a fish once caught, +quicker than one which had neither spring nor balance, so he used +what might be classed as an ordinary fly trouting rod of cane, with +greenheart top. All the epithets of derision to be found in the Gaelic +dialect were hurled at this determined innovation. Mark the sequel, and +with it the adventure, one of the greatest feats of perseverance with a +salmon under difficulties ever known in any angling water. + +One of those sudden squalls which come down on Loch Tay and raise lumpy +water in the centre came up. To seek shelter from it, he directed his +two Highland boatmen to keep as near the shore as possible, so as to +come circling round on the landward side of the fleet. This was close +to a bold bluff known as Fat Man’s Rock. It was well on to five o’clock +in the afternoon, and he had not struck a fish. Suddenly the stone +sprang off the line under his inner rod as the boat swept round, and +the reel began to run with a desperate speed and noise. + +“We have got hold of the county,” said his boatmen--this being an +ironical way of saying that he had hooked the land. + +“No, we’ve not; it’s a fish,” said Mr. Geen, seizing the rod. + +A fish, and a good one it was, too, for away it went seaward for 100 +yards with a rush which staggered the boat, and then, salmon-like, +jumped into the air. It was not long, however, before it returned to +the place it was hooked, and here it began to be most troublesome +among the rocks. These troubles, however, were small compared with +what were to follow. As they reached deeper water again, his holder +began to handle with much success, apparently, for he got him almost +within reach of the gaff. _Almost_, but unfortunately _not quite_. +James reached out, but miscalculated his distance, caught the line, +and Mr. Geen felt something slip. His heart fell. Was he free? No! for +immediately the music of the reel was heard again, and he was off, this +time right to the bottom, sunk like a newly harpooned whale. There he +assumed the customary sulky disposition. In vain they tried to drop +stones on him. He was fully sixty yards down, and the stones no doubt +never dropped near him. The weight of the rod was tried on him, with +the result that six feet broke off at the top. + +[Illustration: “HE WAS CAUGHT IN THE BACK FIN.”] + +Darkness was now gathering, and the boats were crowding down homeward +to Killin and the Lochy Hotel. There was little sympathy on the part of +boatmen and sportsmen for the gentleman with the light tackle and the +cane rod. Some said he had hold of “the county,” others that his fish +was a small one, too much for his rod, and some betted him two to one +that he would not get it. One gentleman hailed him and said: “I will +stand by you all night, and watch the result.” This gentleman, though +he had not touched a fish for three days, was rewarded in the next five +minutes by a salmon on his own line--the recompense of true sympathy +with a fellow sportsman. + +But what was to be done, and how was the rod to be mended? “Row quietly +out, James, so that I may cut all my trolling line” (the line which is +used outside the boat), “and I will put him on the other rod.” This +was slowly done, till the line was fastened quietly on the second +rod; though for precaution it was still, for the time, kept fast on +the broken rod. The broken rod was then slipped by cutting off the +connection, and once more Mr. Geen was prepared to fight in earnest, +but this time against almost pitch darkness. + +“We maun raise him, sir; he’s a deed fish,” said James; “he’s like a +stane at the bottom.” + +Inch by inch for sixty yards of line did James draw him up. At last he +said: “I have come to the first swivel.” Still no fish showed the white +of its belly. Up and up an inch or two more, and then-- + +“She’s gone, James!” said the holder of the rod, breathless with +excitement, as the boatman made a lightning movement. + +“Yes, sir. Give him the gaff!” and the next instant the magnificent +fish was in the boat. Yes, there he was, _hooked by the back fin_. No +wonder, indeed, that he was hard to lift. The reason that he had been +hooked foul was because he had somehow got a turn or two of the line +round his body, and while the hook had been jerked out of his mouth at +the first time of gaffing, it slipped round and fouled him. + +It was eight o’clock when the boat got back to Killin, and the whole +village, man, woman and child, turned out to learn of this wonderful +exploit, which will long be talked of on Loch Tay side. + +Because Mr. Geen fought and killed this salmon successfully, it would +be absurd to argue that all men who fish under the shadow of Ben Lawers +should follow his example and fish with tackle of the finest quality, +and rods as springy as a tandem whip. It will be argued by many that +the difficulties in landing the fish were partly his own creation, +_i. e._, the use of a rod which was not equal to the heaviest Loch Tay +fish. We have had the pleasure of handling the rod, which is one of +Canter’s best make. We have no hesitation in saying that though a lady +might handle it without fatigue, it would prove far more fatiguing to a +fish than the stiff rods at present in use on the lake. A salmon would +come quicker within reach of the gaff when such a rod were wielded by +good hands--and a man with bad hands will never make a good steersman +or a clever man on horseback. + +An invention made by Mr. Geen we liked much. It is a telescopic extra +length of rod which drops off when the butt is seized and a fish is +about to be played. This arrangement permits the point of the rod, in +trolling, to be lowered, so that the angle between the phantom and the +point is made more oblique, and the more oblique the angle is made +the higher in the water will remain the lure. This is a matter of the +utmost importance with revolving baits, as the screw will not work +at times unless kept going almost parallel to the waterline, and the +illusion remains incomplete. If any one is exercised in his mind about +this, let him take a phantom and attach head and tail to something +which will whirl round at the rate of six or eight revolutions +per second, and he will understand the necessity. Hooks and all +disappear, and you see but a small fish, and so does the salmon. Stop +the revolutions and you see a fish with hooks, barbs, and everything +else. I believe the double-screw propeller, which I saw some years +ago, though not successful when applied to ships, would do well for +phantoms, as giving one extra spin. However, it might raise the Gaelic +bile to say too much, and when that is raised there are more than +broken rods flying about. + +[Illustration: “THEY HEAVED HIM UP INCH BY INCH.”] + +When the fishing on Loch Tay palls on the angler, he may have some +capital off-days in the neighborhood, a drive up Glenlocky being a +favorite. The hotel is noted for its good horses. Then one can have +a sail up the lake in these little fresh-water models of Atlantic +greyhounds, _The Lady of the Lake_, and _Alma Carlotta_, to Kenmore. +These pretty little steamers were designed by Mr. G. L. Watson, whose +name is so well known in the yachting world. At Kenmore the beautiful +grounds of Taymouth Castle may be visited, and they are well worthy +of it, as there is nothing to beat them in either the Highlands or +Lowlands of Scotland. Three miles beyond Kenmore is Abergeldy, where +are the celebrated Banks of Abergeldy, whose praises the poet Burns has +celebrated in undying song. The ascent of Ben Lawers may be made from +Ben Lawers Inn, and a grand view of the Taymouth district be obtained, +as it is the fourth highest mountain in Scotland. + +As a rule, many of the off-days are spent nearer home, and a much +frequented spot is the old ruins of Finlarig Abbey, close to Killin, +and situated on the banks of the lake. One of the smoking-room stories +tells how on one occasion, before an off-day party had been arranged +by Stewart the landlord, a Macgregor had been bouncing about his +famous ancestor, Rob Roy, in a manner which would have astonished the +famous cateran himself. These, if not taken with a pinch of snuff, +would denote that the Macgregor was always jumping rivers at the +widest points, and playing at hop, step and jump from Ben Lomond to +the Cobbler, and from the Cobbler over to Ben Lawers. Common report +makes Rob out to have been a very clever gentleman cattle-lifter, but +when a Macgregor gets hold of a few southern anglers over a tumbler of +toddy in the smoking-room of a Scotch hotel, he is allowed to make him +execute performances worthy of Jupiter. And “ye must na’ doot the word +o’ a Macgregor, for ye ken it has aye been true, no like the word o’ +the Cammells, which has never been kept.” + +To get a joke out of a real genuine Macgregor was quietly suggested, +and next day it was fully carried out. In the large hotel drag the +Macgregor of the party was allowed to continue his marvelous sketches +of the old chief’s exploits. + +“But,” said a Saxon of the party, “how does it happen that all the +places of interest connected with the Macgregor family are associated +with escape? In Loch Lomond you are pointed out his Cave of Refuge; on +the burn at Inversnead, the place he jumped when pursued, and the same +in the Lyon--all, too, when fleeing from a Campbell.” + +“A Cammell, did you say? A Macgregor flee from a Cammell? Never! It +takes ten Cammells to make a Macgregor turn his back. Say a hundred +Cammells and you will be right. Rob Roy flee frae a Cammell? That’s +impossible! No; when his foot was on his native heath, and his good +broadsword in his hand, all the dead Cammells that are in the ill place +itself would never have made him run. Sir, you do not know the speerit +o’ the Macgregors!” + +“But they were a lawless, useless lot,” was the interruption of another +knight of the rod, “and the country around here never did any good till +they got rid of them in the old-fashioned Scotch way.” + +“What do you call the old-fashioned Scotch way?” + +“Oh, the gallows; dancing Gillie Callum and the Highland fling from an +ash bush, with three feet of daylight below them.” + +“And who dare do that with a Macgregor?” was the response, in tones of +thunder. + +Fortunately the skirr of the brake on the wheels of the trap, as +Stewart took a pull at his horses, stopped the conversation. It +heralded, also, our arrival at the old castle gates. The castle +of Finlarig was in stormy times the residence of the Breadalbane +Campbells, and the “auld laird” who occupied it made short work of such +as were not Campbells who were found straying in the neighborhood. +As the party walked in quietly, Stewart whispered to Mrs. Campbell, +the guide, “When ye come to the hangman’s-tree ye maun say ‘saxty +Macgregors’, instead of sax.” + +“Guid save us, Mr. Stewart! Saxty Macgregors!” was the astonished +reply, “that would be the hale clan o’ them!” + +“Never mind; say saxty,” was the whispered answer. + +The old ruins having been well explored--the Macgregor fuming all +the time because “Sassenach fushing-men” would persist in making +comparisons in its favor with the dirty old fox-kennel-like caves +in which Rob Roy used to live--the party was then shown the old +gallows-tree. + +“Thet’s the plece,” said Mrs. Campbell, “where the auld laird hanged +saxty Macgregors one morning before his breakfast.” + +“Gregarach, woman! ye dinna say sae. It could na be saxty Macgregors,” +was the indignant response of Rob Roy’s descendant. + +“Saxty Macgregors, I say--saxty Highland vagabonds, if ye like; a +half-dizzen [dozen] at a time. And a bonnie braw mornin’s work, nae +doubt, it would be for the country side!” + +“Saxty Macgregors allow themselves to be hanged! Hoots, woman, ye be +bletherin’; they could nae have been true Macgregors!” + +“_True_ Macgregors? Weel, I’ll no say that; the Lord never made sich a +thing as a _true_ Macgregor.” + +“And never anything but false Cammells. Saxty Macgregors!” and the +champion of the old clan fairly wept for his unfortunate countrymen. +Had the Maccalumore himself looked in and a claymore been handy, there +would have been more tragic narrative. Humbled before the Sassenachs, +he remained silent till the graves of Black Duncan and the old Campbell +chief were pointed out, and then he had his revenge. + +Jumping into the vault, he shouted to the attendant piper to play up +“Macgregor’s March.” He then danced on the stones above the grave +till the sparks were flying from the hobnails of his heavy boots. +Ever and anon, as he wheeled and jumped, he uttered the words, “Saxty +Macgregors!--hang saxty Macgregors! the scoundrels! Blaw up, piper, a +guid auld Macgregor reel tune, Rothermurchis Rout, or anything with the +music o’ the deevil in it. I could dance over a Cammell’s bones for a +fortnicht!” + +Mrs. Campbell possibly did not relish the performance as much as the +“Sassenach fushing-men,” but very wisely did not interfere. Had there +been a hatchet on the spot, the gallows-tree would soon have been +removed and flung into the vault or hollow. Fortunately there was +nothing better handy than the old headsman’s axe of the Stuart period +(James Rex) given in the picture. + +The Macgregor told no stories in the smoking-room that night about the +feats of his ancestors, but if any “Bleck McFlea” roused him in the +night-time, he was heard murmuring “Saxty Macgregors!” and then letting +forth his opinions of the whole Clan Campbell in certain Gaelic words +which are forbidden to be used by the Free Kirk in preaching Gaelic +sermons. The little story of the gallows-tree at Finlarig Castle, +where he was fair effronted afore the “fusher’s folk,” still haunts +him, and he shows this by sudden fits of temper, which seemed to worry +him when on the streets. But the smoking-room at Killin reeks with +fishing stories and anecdotes of the kind, and more than one number of +~Outing~ would be required to give them as they are given, over +a tumbler of good Scotch whisky toddy, after a long day in the boats +when salmon fishing on Loch Tay. + +[Illustration: “HE WAS SENT HOME TO BE STUFFED.”] + + + + +SONNET. + + + The moon shone full upon the tide, + On whose dark, heaving bosom wide + The white light broke, till far and near, + With dancing jewels, silver-clear, + The sullen waves were glorified. + + We spoke no word--all beauties vied + To charm our souls; and, satisfied, + We felt no care, no doubt, no fear-- + For there we vowed, in accents dear, + To walk life’s pathway side by side. + + _Howell Stroud England._ + + + + +WINTER SHOOTING IN FLORIDA. + +BY F. CAMPBELL MOLLER. + + +With the middle of December the upland shooting in the Eastern States +comes virtually to an end. To be sure, a couple of weeks remain before +the curtain of legal protection descends over the game still to be +found in the dead fields and snow-whitened coppices on the first day of +the new year, but the remnants of the quail bevies are wild, and, in +much shot-over districts, begin to approach in their watchful behavior +and antics the typical wariness of the hawk. As for the ruffed-grouse, +one needs to be a thorough workman, both in shooting and stalking, to +render even a tolerable account of these birds. The last woodcock was +seen nearly a month ago, this mid December day, as one fired and missed +him among the black alders, and he is up and away on the next stage of +his journey to the swamp-lands of the Carolinas or the Mississippi. + +The sportsman resident of the country may at this season of the year +have an occasional sun-gilded winter’s day with the setters, when the +breeze comes warm from the south. But more often will he be listening +to the tinkling, musical notes of his beagles as the brown hare leads +them a circling chase through the brier-fields, or the deeper notes of +the fox-hounds will strike upon his ear as they echo among the gray +cliffs of the brown-treed mountain-side. + +Yes, it may not seem to be quite the correct thing to my English +readers, but we shoot foxes from a “runaway” in the rough, wooded, +hilly country of the Eastern States, where it would be impossible to +ride to hounds, and gladly do we accept this chance to rid our farmers +of this destroyer of game and poultry. + +After the 1st of January, comes the exodus of fashion, sport and +ill-health from the rigors and blizzards of a Northern winter, and many +are the queries from brethren of the gun, visiting for the first time +the land of Spanish-moss and palm-trees, to those who have shot quail +among the wild violets and sweet jessamine in the Carolinas during +early springtime, or “plugged” alligators in some muddy “backout” of +the Upper St. John. + +No matter whether he knows how to use a gun or not, nearly every man +off for an outing in the South thinks it necessary to take with him +some such weapon for the destruction of animal life. This fact, in +brief, is sufficient reason for the scarcity of game along the shore +and in the waters of the traveled portion of the St. John’s River. +Continual bombarding has driven the denizens of flood and field to +remoter districts, and if one wishes really good sport, he must +literally hunt for it. + +The majority of men going South solely for sport take the Charleston, +Savannah or Fernandina steamers, continuing by rail, if necessary, to +their destination, which is certainly the most economical procedure, +especially if one’s dogs be taken. This should always be done, if +possible, as a dog fit for a sportsman to shoot over can rarely be +hired or even bought in Florida until the end of the season. + +If quail-shooting be the expressed desideratum, one had better confine +one’s self to the Carolinas or to Georgia, both for quantity and proper +ground to shoot over. But if he desires a variety, such as snipe, deer, +’gator and quail shooting, all on diverse grounds, lying, however, in +the sweep of a short radius from the spot he makes his headquarters, +Florida must needs be his objective. + +If one is not going below the Carolinas, a rifle will be an unnecessary +encumbrance. Bird-shooting alone will be obtainable unless you visit +the wild mountainous country far from the paths of the Northern +tourist. Here the shotgun and buckshot are the chief agents used in +killing deer, and, in this sport as practiced in that section of the +wildwoods, one must nearly always be able to ride well; and unless one +is shooting on some friend’s invitation, he must also pay well for the +auxiliaries necessary to secure a shot at the denizens of the woods. + +The same directions will apply to “jumping” deer with dogs from among +the stunted scrub covers of the Florida brakes. One generally shoots +from horseback at the small deer of this region, because the saddle +affords a much better opportunity of seeing over the clumps of dwarf +oaks or palmettos than would be obtained on foot. + +For alligator shooting a heavy bored rifle--especially an express--will +be indispensable. A forty-four calibre repeater will, however, be +found to answer very well for all-round work on the river. And here, +let me at once dissipate any tyro’s fallacious belief regarding the +invulnerability of the American saurian, save in the eye. I have +known them--aye, big ones at that--to be killed with buckshot from +a close-carrying shotgun, at a distance of thirty-five yards by +planting a few pellets behind the fore-shoulder, and in the thinner +skin of the lateral abdominal walls. Frequently a second or even a +third shot at close range will be necessary to finish them as they lie +floundering in the shoal and blood-stained shore-waters by the side of +a half-submerged old tree-trunk. But more of ’gator shooting anon. + +Tweed clothes of light color and loosely woven texture should be worn +for Florida sporting, as it is warm shooting there even in midwinter. +When shooting or outing generally, it is much better to increase the +thickness and warmth of the underclothing as the coolness of weather +renders such advisable, than to encumber one’s movements by heavy coats +and trousers. A pair of thick, oil-tanned grained-leather knee-boots +with legs made as narrow as permissible, to be worn with thick-ribbed, +long hose, will be found the best shoeing to be used in the Florida +bottoms. The long boots, coming over the buttonings of the snug-fitting +knee-breeches of whipcord--not knickerbockers, mind you--where they +fasten just above the swell of the calf, will be found the most +comfortable and consistent rig, whether splashing through the sloppy +prairies, along the river after snipe, or tramping the waste fields in +the clearings between the pine woods. Should you wear ankle-boots and +the baggy knickerbockers, always don a pair of thick leathern leggings +as an indispensable precaution against the musical and larksome rattler. + +Along the St. John’s, from Magnolia to Enterprise, increasing +proportionately as one nears the latter place, fair sport may be had +with all the before-mentioned varieties of game by driving or boating +far enough into the recesses of the back country, away from the spots +easily reached by the average hotel lounger. But for really good +shooting one must get over into the Indian River region, or, better +still, the Hummocks on the Gulf coast, and especially about Homassassa, +if he wants good accommodation and an abundance of deer, quail, and +snipe as well as bass fishing. Below Lake Georges and extending toward +the Everglades is an immense breadth of country, comparatively unknown, +rich in sport and adventure to the exploring tourist who is willing to +endure much rough travel by canoe and portage, and to pitch his tent o’ +nights in the great dense swamp-lands. + +In Florida, quail are mostly shot in the open of the stubble fields +or clearings, or in the slight cover underlying the tall, shadowy +pine-lands, for the simple reason that the “thickets” in the far South +are almost impassable. I remember once following a bevy of quail, +flushed from an old maize field, into a bordering covert of prickly +plum, cactus and palmetto, with the same indifference with which I +generally plunge into the many-stemmed alder-brake or waist-high +cat-briers at home. I shall never do it again. Let the bevy go! Start +up a fresh one, and trust to your skill in “driving” them into lyings +more favorable for your purposes, if not for theirs. + +For shooting in the country back from one’s hotel a wagon and pair +will be needed, and, unless you are well acquainted with the region, +a driver and guide combined, be he “Cracker,” “Nigger” or Indian. As +most of these gentry do a little pot-shooting themselves, in season and +out, they will generally insure you good sport, particularly if the man +is made to understand that an extra “tip” may be forthcoming, when you +return in the evening, proportionate with the amount of game found. + +A deal of shooting is done driving through the rough country, among +the pine woods, leaving at times the sandy road for miles together, +provided the undergrowth be not too dense. And with the dogs quartering +on each side of the wagon, one has but to get out and shoot when a +point is obtained. + +I find No. 10 shot, backed by a heavy charge of powder, the best size +for shooting Southern quail, which, by the way, are a trifle smaller +than the Northern bird, although identical in all other respects. No. +10 shot is also the proper size for snipe. Some capital bags of these +migratory birds may be obtained even on the meadows--or prairies as +they are called in Florida--suburban to Jacksonville. + +But quail and snipe shooting in the South, with trifling differences +as to covert, haunt and lyings, inseparable from the richness of the +tropical setting and coloring, will be found so analogous to the same +sport in the North that further comment is unnecessary. However, it +will prove a new and delightful experience to the Northern sportsman +to flush birds, as is frequently done, in the scent-laden atmosphere +amid the glorious coppery splashes of color of an orange grove, and see +through the tree-stems the blue St. John’s flashing its sapphire width +in the warmth of golden sunlight, and the solitary giant palm rising +here and there along the far, sandy shore. + +A day with the alligators is not bad sport when properly undertaken and +provided for; and the hide, teeth and feet will put you in possession +of much valuable material to be made into bags, leggings, slippers, +shoes, whistles, and gun-racks. But since the utility of the ’gator’s +hide has been discovered, they, too, are fast disappearing from the +places wherein they formerly abounded. + +This sort of sport does not demand an early morning start. The best +time to approach within easy range of the alligators is while they are +taking their siesta at midday or early afternoon, sunning themselves +on the bog burrocks, which, in lieu of a beach, mark the line of +demarcation between the waters of the bayou and the swampy forest +bottoms. + +Your skiff and man--who, by the way, should be a good paddler and +familiar with the haunts of the quarry you intend pursuing--having +been engaged over-night, you may breakfast as late and as leisurely as +you will, provided you have not too far to row to your proposed ground +before high noon. So, enjoy your repast of fresh fish and game of the +region, after having previously coolingly and deliciously prepared +your palate with a goblet full of pure orange juice from fruit plucked +that morning. Your sable attendant is waiting outside in the warm, +genial sunshine, in which all of his color love to work for periods +almost indefinite, and relieves your waiter first of all, because to +him the most important, of the luncheon hamper, grinning the while, +and giving a soft “chaw! chaw!” as he hefts its portentous weight and +eyes the claret and beer bottles protruding from one of the partly +raised lids. This all being to his entire satisfaction, he will pick up +your macintosh coat and shotgun and precede the way to his boat. You +take a gun as well as a rifle, as doubtless you will get some shots at +ducks and shore-birds as you row to the creek and back, especially the +latter, because the evening flight will then be on. + +Your man may have pulled you for nearly an hour, and as you near a +bay which marks the outlet of a creek leading to the lagoon where you +intend paddling for ’gators, an object well out from shore attracts +attention. It looks like a water-logged dead branch floating under +water, save for three knotty protuberances rising above the placid +surface. It is the snout, orbital bone and topmost spinal joint of a +’gator, at least eight feet in length, judging the distances between +the slightly exposed portions of his scaly frame. No use firing at him; +even if one did hit the small mark he gives at 200 yards, he would +only be lost, for a dead or wounded alligator will always sink to the +bottom, and there, where that old chap is floating in silent content, +the water is much too deep to use the long boat-hook or the grapnel to +fetch his body to the surface. + +Entering the bayou, the darky exchanges the oars for a thing he calls +a paddle. Not as delicately shaped is it as are those you have used +about Bar Harbor or on the Adirondack lakes, but it will answer the +purpose admirably. You seat yourself in the bow of the boat with your +repeater across your knees. There is a fascination in this coasting +along the weird, shadowy banks of the tropical creek, with its wealth +of beautifully and vividly colored birds. Rounding into the entrance of +the lagoon one sees a flock of white heron with wings glistening and +flashing in the sunlight as they fly over yonder moss-hung headland; +and the brilliant flamingo dyes with a gliding streak of salmon-pink +his reflected flight in the shaded, still waters underlying the wild +tangle of the wooded shore along which your boat is silently creeping. +The skiff rounds the headland. + +“Look yaar, sah! Dere he be--ole ’gator on a lorg.” + +“Where? where?” is hastily whispered, as you anxiously scan the +shore-line for a hundred yards ahead. Nothing, however, meets the +inexperienced eye but a wild reach of water-grass, rushes, bog-burrocks +and partly submerged fallen tree-trunks. + +“Dar, sah! under dat big cypress, ’bout ten rod ahead, and lying on de +lorg on de show. Shoot, or he’ll be orf next minit,” hurriedly whispers +your “gillie.” + +“Ah! there he is.” One holds just back of the fore-shoulder. Bang! +“He’s hit!” Then his tail wildly beats the air, and he rolls into the +water, which just covers but does not conceal his frantic contortions, +only to expose himself to a second shot as he flounders up on some +sunken logs. The man has grasped the oars after the first shot, and is +rowing rapidly to the spot where the mud and spray are being whirled +vigorously about. + +“Give him a shot in the neck.” Missed! but no matter. + +Now we’re within twenty yards of him. “Stop, Joe; don’t row up any +farther. Keep well out of the reach of his tail.” Now, pump another +ball at his head or neck to break his cervical vertebræ. “Good!” He +rolls off the log, but “rolled off dead, shoo,” says woolly-head, +showing his ivories, and getting the long-pointed hook ready for use +when the blood-stained waters shall have cleared away. + +While the darky busies himself with removing the alligator’s skin, you +start off for a shot at a flock of teal which has come dangerously +near, and perhaps you also secure some plover. There is every reason to +be satisfied as you turn your boat down stream for home. The waters are +aglow in the evening sun; not a breath of air is stirring; everywhere +calm and quiet. You puff away at your pipe, and as you gaze at the +’gator skin in the bottom of your skiff, you find a use for every tooth +and every inch of hide, and you picture to yourself the pleasure you +are going to give to numerous friends. It is well to dispose of your +cargo in this way before you make your landing, for there at the wharf +you will find assembled the usual contingent of pretty girls waiting +for the evening steamer and the return of the different boating and +shooting parties. Hard-hearted will you have to be to withstand the +pleadings for mementos, etc., and there is every probability that when +you reach your hotel all that you have left will be the memory of a +pleasant afternoon with a ’gator. + + + + +THE CRUISE OF THE FROLIC. + +BY S. G. W. BENJAMIN. + + +There is no cruising-ground on the coast of the United States equal +to that around Massachusetts Bay, and north as far as Portsmouth. The +ports are frequent and generally easy of access, and the variety of +scenery, the picturesque nature of the coast, the sea flavor about +the character of the people, and the quaintness of the towns of that +region invest it with singular raciness and an endless variety of +charm. Our yachtsmen are fast finding this out, although I think one +can better enjoy and appreciate these attractions when cruising in a +small five-tonner than in a large yacht, or in the company of a fleet, +for there are many curious nooks which only such a wee ship, off on a +roving commission by itself, would think of visiting. And it is this +very dodging among these odd corners of our coast that adds especial +zest to the enjoyments of your cruising yachtsman. + +So much by way of preface to the statement that a lot of jolly sons of +Gotham made up their minds, on a certain summer in the eighties, to fly +the hurry of Wall Street and the temptations of a sinful metropolis for +the pure breezes of ocean, following in the wake of the sea serpent and +of the Pilgrim discoverers. + +No seaport in America offers so many small craft handy for inexpensive +cruising as Boston. And hither Benton, our Corinthian skipper, and +the writer of this log hied in search of a suitable sloop or schooner +obtainable at a reasonable sum. The keel sloop _Frolic_ was finally +selected, and put into proper condition by the addition of fresh paint, +new cushions and curtains, a yawl, and the like. Charts and compass, +lead and fishing-lines, a new cable, and a stock of provisions, +including a supply of fluids, were also put on board; the rigging +was set up anew, and last, but not least, the crew was engaged. It +consisted of one pock-marked, grizzly-bearded mariner, whose appearance +was not altogether in his favor. But he came well recommended; had been +mate of a brig, it was stated, and had also sailed in many yachts. +He declared himself able and willing to pilot us into every port as +far as Eastport, to do “light cooking,” to serve as steward, and bear +a hand in working the sloop; he was, in fact, a paragon of nautical +excellences. My experience has led me to doubt those who lay claim to +such versatility and virtue, whether on land or sea, whether in matters +horsey or matters marine. But Mr. Brown was the best who offered, and +was therefore regularly enrolled on the ship’s list of the _Frolic_. + +Scarcely was everything in readiness when Will Hallett and Frank Weller +arrived from New York, and made signals from the wharf that they +desired to be taken on board with their traps. For them the proposed +cruise was one of unusual interest, as they were novices in cruising, +although not altogether ignorant on the score of boat sailing. They +anticipated no end of fun, far more, doubtless, than is generally found +in these summer wanderings along the coast, which are sources rather +of quiet, healthy relaxation than of stirring adventure, and we older +hands thought it unwise to quench their young ardor. + +There was little wind, but the weather was fine, and it was hoped +that with the sunset a breeze might come up that would float us down +to Marblehead before midnight. While Brown was loosening the sails a +propitiatory libation was offered to Neptune or his representative +in those waters. All hands then fell to and set the mainsail and +gaff-topsail, and got up the anchor. It was two hours yet until the +turn of the tide, and with this to aid the sloop we might easily drop +down past the islands, and the moon would light the night watches. But +as evening drew on the light westerly air entirely died away, followed +shortly after by signs of a fog from the bay. + +Under the circumstances the sloop was headed toward Long Wharf, and +anchored, amid a cluster of yachts and coasters, south of the main +channel. About midnight, the night being very still and ghostly, and +a heavy, dripping fog lying on the water, through which the moon and +the nearer anchor-lights were barely visible, Benton was aroused by a +steady thump, thump, thump. He recognized the sound at once. A large +schooner, swinging with the tide, was bearing down on the sloop, +threatening to carry away her main-boom. For Benton and Brown to rush +from the cuddy in _vestibus naturalibus_, bestride the damp boom and +jump into the boat and pull the stern of the sloop out of the way, was +but the work of an instant. But, as everything was dripping with fog, +the Spartan simplicity of the costume produced a chill which it was +thought best to modify without delay by a searching prescription of rye. + +The following day opened windless and foggy. In the middle of the +forenoon the fog lifted and showed a sullen, ominous offing. By noon a +breeze set in from the northeast. + +“Let’s get up the mainsail,” said Benton. + +“You ain’t agoin’ to sea to-day, be you?” asked Brown. + +“Why not?” + +“Don’t you see the wind’s dead ahead? We’ll have a dead beat of it down +to Marblehead, and if it comes on to blow I guess we’ll get caught out +and have to run for a lee, and the fog on the coast just as thick as +mud.” + +“Oh, I guess not. At any rate, there’s a breeze, and we’ll try it! +We’ve got a chart and compass, and if it don’t blow harder than this +we’re sure to fetch up inside of Marblehead Light before dark.” + +Reaching down to Apple Island, through the main channel, the _Frolic_ +fetched a tack up to Shirley Gut, a tortuous channel between Deer +Island and Point Shirley, which is impassable except for small vessels. +The tide was running out, while the long swell was rolling in. The two +meeting on the bar made a mass of boiling foam that looked a great +deal more savage than it was in reality, if met with a steady eye and +a firm hand at the helm. The tacks here were short, and the _Frolic_, +carrying a stiff weather helm, and buoyant as a duck, rapidly and +gracefully shivered her sails. and fell off on the other tack every +time, flinging the spray aft in sheets. But we were soon clear of this +and riding on a green swell enveloped by a mizzling fog. Now and again +a coaster suddenly loomed out of the mist and hailed the yacht to learn +the bearings of the land. The bold red cliffs of Nahant and Egg Rock +were successively passed. Ram Island, off Swampscott, and Roaring Bull, +off Marblehead Neck, were gradually seen, or rather the cold white +foam that beat against their faint coast line; then the cruel ledge +called Tom Moore’s Reef, which the sloop passed with a rush, glad to be +clear of such a dread foe under the lee beam. Soon after, Marblehead +lighthouse was hailed with satisfaction, for the rising sea and strong +gusts coming with growing frequency, made it desirable to reach a safe +anchorage before nightfall, now rapidly approaching with the settled +foreboding gloom of a gathering storm. Moll Pitcher, the presiding +witch of those shores, was evidently brewing foul weather. + +Rounding the Light, and easing off the mainsheet, the _Frolic_ flew +down the little port and took a snug berth near the quarters of the +Eastern Yacht Club. That night it blew great guns, and rained in +torrents; but with both anchors down and plenty of scope, in one of the +snuggest harbors in the world, we realized that there is nothing more +cozy under such circumstances than the cuddy of a trim yacht, with a +warm supper and a jolly game of whist. + +The _Frolic_ was not much to boast of in the way of size or splendor, +but she was comfortable, and that is the chief thing. She was +thirty-two feet long over all, and twelve feet beam, and, of course, +a keel boat. A centerboard box so reduces the space in the cabin of +a small cruising yacht that it should be avoided. A small stove was +placed in the forepeak, leaving a narrow transom for the sleeping +quarters of the crew. The skipper and friends entirely occupied the +main cabin, as it was called with a certain grim humor, where we had +just five feet of head-room. + +The day broke pleasantly, contrary to expectation, the blow being +merely a summer storm. It was Sunday morning, and all hands except +Brown went ashore to buy beans and bread for breakfast. That meal +over, we turned out for a quiet smoke, when Brown followed instead +of remaining below to wash the dishes, a homely but necessary duty +which falls on the crew in small yachts. If there be no crew, strictly +speaking, the passengers are naturally expected to contribute their +labors toward the domestic duties of running a sloop down the coast. +It was evident from the look and manner of the aforesaid Brown that +trouble was brewing in the forecastle. + +“It looks like good weather for running down to Gloucester, Mr. Brown,” +said Skipper Benton; “how soon do you think you’ll be cleared up below?” + +“I guess you’ll have to go without me,” replied Brown, gruffly. + +“How so? What’s up now?” + +“Wall, you see, this ’ere job ain’t what I calkilated on. ’Tain’t for +me, who’ve been mate of a brig, to be washing of dishes and cooking of +food. ’Twan’t so understood when I agreed to go in this ’ere sloop. +I’m willin’ for to steer my trick and bear a hand in making sail and +the like o’ that; but I understood I was to be skipper aboard, and not +steward. I ain’t goin’ on no such job as you are givin’ me; you’ll have +to find somebody else in my place.” + +“But you understood perfectly well what we expected you to do, and I +can bring witnesses to prove it. What you are after is perfectly plain; +you want to get an increase in the wages I agreed to give you.” + +“Well, and what if I do? You don’t expect me to keep on with you at a +dollar and a half a day, and work in this blamed fashion?” + +“I certainly did, and I could hold you to your bargain. But we’d rather +have you go at once, without another word. We’ll put you ashore, and +the sooner you clear out the better. We want no lily-fingered hands on +this sloop.” + +Brown growled and grumbled, evidently disappointed at the result of the +mutiny, but Benton was firm. + +The boat was hauled alongside, and the mutinous crew was rowed to the +nearest wharf. Lest he should poison the loafers on the wharf against +us, one of the party kept within earshot of him, while another went in +search of a man to take his place, which was by no means an easy thing +to accomplish under the circumstances. Happily Benton had acquaintances +among the sea-folk of Marblehead, and by their aid was soon able to +engage Uncle Joe, who came on board the _Frolic_ immediately after +bidding his wife good-bye. His only fault was his age. He was really +too old for service, having passed a good part of a long and well-spent +life on the Banks. In other respects he was an admirable specimen of +a Marblehead sailor; a clear, honest blue eye gleamed under a broad +brow, frosted with white, and a thick snowy beard fringed the lower +part of his bluff yet kindly features. He had seen seventy winters, +yet stood erect and firm as when he first walked a schooner’s deck; +his conversation was a racy combination of simplicity and shrewdness. +Uncle Joe’s outfit for the trip was comprehended within a cotton +handkerchief. He was a steady smoker of the pipe, but had sworn off +from anything stronger than tea and coffee. + +Ten minutes after he came aboard, the _Frolic_ was under weigh and +bowling across Salem Bay with a stiff westerly breeze abeam. There +is not a finer yachting port in America than Salem Bay, with its +cluster of islets protecting it from easterly gales, and the group of +little harbors--Marblehead, Salem, Beverly, Manchester, and the Misery +diverging like the fingers on a hand. For sea picnics in which ladies +and children can join, there is no water safer, and at the same time +more attractive on our coast. + +The _Frolic_ stowed her jib at Misery Island, and came to anchor in its +little port, where a boat may make a landing on its miniature beach +in all weathers. A quiet night was passed there, and in the morning, +while some of our party were bathing, Benton strolled over to the +east side of the Misery and painted the beautifully colored rocks of +House Island, close at hand. We hasten to add that he did not actually +paint the rocks themselves, but made a sketch of them on canvas. This +explanation is given because many on that coast would not so understand +the phrase. A friend of mine went down to Salem from Boston to take +studies of old schooners. Seeing a rusty, picturesque craft lying at +Derby Wharf, he said to the old skipper: + +“How long are you going to be here, for I should like to paint your +schooner?” + +“You needn’t bother yourself about a paintin’ of her. I guess I can do +all the paintin’ she needs,” replied that ancient worthy, squirting out +the tobacco juice, and not condescending to look up from the sail he +was mending. + +There was to be a yacht race that day at Marblehead, and toward noon +the _Frolic_ stood out toward Halfway Rock to see the racers on the +home-stretch. The wind was sou’west, a green hump of a sea was heaving +up foam to the southward, and the sky looked very hazy to windward. In +other words, it was blowing a smoky sou’wester. + +Glancing often and anxiously toward that quarter, Benton said: + +“I don’t altogether like the look of things to windward; it’s going to +blow, and I’m thinking we had better be making tracks for port.” + +“I don’t think it’ll amount to anything; it’ll go down with the sun; +don’t you think so, Uncle Joe?” asked Frank. + +Thus appealed to, the old salt, puffing vigorously on his pipe, closely +scanned the offing, and said, “I don’t know about that; it looks kinder +measly to windward; one can’t tell much about these sou’westers; they +don’t never tell what they’re goin’ to do; but I guess ’twon’t be no +harm done if we stand in and smoothen the water a mite afore it comes +on to blow. I’m thinkin’, too, we’d better haul the topsail while we +can.” + +“Aye, aye, take her in, Uncle Joe,” replied Benton, as a smart +puff laid the _Frolic_ down to her trunk. Scarcely was the topsail +stowed than it became necessary to take a reef in the mainsail as a +precautionary measure. The sloop was headed for the Marblehead shore in +order to have a lee if the breeze should develop into a heavy squall, +as now looked more than probable. The racing yachts were now sweeping +by, burying their lee rails and reefing down for the coming blow. + +All went well, however, until we came abreast of Marblehead harbor. +One glance at that port was enough. The water, an inky black, was +furrowed and lashed to foam by a furious squall that was advancing with +frightful rapidity. I have never seen the surface of the sea look more +wicked. + +“Now, boys, be lively! Let go all!” cried Benton, grasping the tiller +with both hands and bracing his feet for a good hold. + +Frank sprang to the jib downhaul, while the others let go the mainsail +halliards, just as the squall struck the yacht. The jib went down on +the run, but the throat halliards jammed, and the pressure on the +canvas was such that the sloop failed to fall off with the helm hard +up. She lay over on her side, half buried in the water, and in the most +imminent peril. Springing up the mast and hanging to the hoops, Frank +started the gaff. As soon as this was done she began to pay off before +the wind. But for the mainsail being reefed the _Frolic_ would have +gone down; as it was, her standing room and cuddy were half full of +water when she righted. + +Brought down to balance-reefed mainsail, the _Frolic_ was steered +handsomely under the lee of Peach’s Point and came to anchor in +Doliber’s Cove. During this exciting episode a small schooner, caught +as we had been, capsized and went down in shoal water, and the crew +clung to the mastheads until picked up, while in every direction +vessels were seen carrying away spars and sails, and running for a lee. + +The squall proved short as it was violent. In two hours everything was +balmy and serene, and we decided to steal across the bar by moonlight, +leaving it to circumstances to guide us. The idle wind of evening +wafted us to the entrance of Manchester port, and under the jib we let +the sloop drift until she brought up in the mud and eel-grass, for it +was ebb tide. We lay half dozing and dreaming on deck until the turning +tide lifted the yacht, and a light air from the southward coyly filled +the jib. Thus we glided until fairly among the wharves of a wee little +haven inclosed by hills, houses and thickets. The mud-hook was dropped, +and with every prospect of a good night’s rest after the vicissitudes +of an exciting day, we all turned in, but, as it proved, alas, not to +sleep. + +The quiet of the cuddy was suddenly broken by a strong English +monosyllabic exclamation. Then Frank was heard to give his cheek a +smart slap; expressions more or less desperate were now heard from +every quarter of the cuddy with alarming frequency and distinctness. It +was too true--the ubiquitous, merciless and innumerable musquito had +invaded the _Frolic_. He came attended by ten billions of miniature +demons thirsting for blood and buzzing a song of triumph, like the +distant tuning up of an orchestra of bagpipes in an approaching +thunder-storm: these atmospheric sharks drove us pell-mell on deck, +but there they seemed not less numerous and infuriating. At length, +as a relief, the dingey was drawn alongside, and leaving Uncle Joe to +look out for the yacht, the rest of us slowly paddled about the little +port. There was no fault to find with the night. It was absolutely +serene. The sky’s fathomless purple was without a cloud, spanned by +the Galaxy’s illimitable train of mystic splendor reaching up from the +south. The moon was at the full, and its argent light turned the little +fishing haven into a cave in the land of dreams; by that magical glow +old farmhouses and barns were transformed into fairy pavilions, and +the fireflies darting hither and thither appeared like the flicker of +torches lighting phantom halls. A weather-worn schooner leaning against +a barnacled wharf might have passed for Cleopatra’s barge, as she +lifted her moon-silvered masts against the stars, her maintruck jeweled +by a planet. The stillness was almost awful. “Dear God, the very +houses seemed asleep!” At intervals only a melancholy whippoorwill in +a distant thicket dared to utter its complaint on this perfect summer +night. + +Toward dawn the tide began to slacken, and with a line attached to the +end of the bowsprit we towed the _Frolic_ to the mouth of Manchester +port. Finding no mosquitoes there, and no likelihood of a breeze to +disturb us for some hours, we again dropped anchor and enjoyed a +delicious slumber until the noisy cocks on the neighboring shores +insisted that we awake and see the dawn. + +What can equal the solemn splendor of a summer dawn in such a spot! +A gradual glow deepened in the cloudless east, and the morning star +shimmered on the brow of the coming day, casting a quivering trail of +silver on the pale, glassy surface of the ocean. The shores of islet +and mainland were thinly veiled by a gray gauze of mist, and the songs +of awakening birds came from far and near. The metallic beat of oars +on the tholes, heard faintly in the distance, announced that the early +fisherman was going forth to catch the early fish. Benton, who had been +quietly feasting his artistic eye with this enchanting scene for some +time, when the vane of the Manchester-by-the-Sea church caught the +first flash from the sun bursting above the sea, put his head down the +companion-way and shouted: + +“Come, boys, come! Turn out! Sun’s up, and we’ve no time to lose if we +are going to get to the Shoals to-day!” + +“Oh, pshaw! why not let a fellow sleep awhile?” yawned Hallett; but +the discipline of the ship, or rather the delicious fragrance of the +morning air, could not be resisted, and ere long the seductive aroma +of coffee was noticed stealing from the cuddy. Breakfast dispatched, +all sail was made, and before long the _Frolic_ was abreast of Kettle +Cove and the pretty settlement of Magnolia. After passing the Cove the +breeze freshened, and when off Gloucester harbor the kites were taken +in, as the puffs off the land were fresh and frequent. Standing across +Milk Island Channel, then impassable owing to the tide, we sailed +around Thatcher’s Island, whose trim granite lighthouses, 130 feet +high, towered grandly above us. The wind here was very fresh, and the +_Frolic_ fairly scooted. To make it easier going we took the dingey on +board, laying it across the cabin trunk. The day was fine, and many +sails were seen, including those of a number of yachts. Having safely +passed Hallibut Point, as the day was warm notwithstanding the breeze, +it was deemed prudent to go below and partake of what Dick Swiveller +called a “modest quencher.” + +Uncle Joe being weary, and Frank being willing to show his seamanship, +he was left for a few moments in charge of the tiller, the sloop being +under mainsail and jib, and the wind on the port quarter. He knew how +to steer reasonably well, and we never knew exactly how it happened +that at the precise moment that Benton declared the lemonade to be +exactly right the _Frolic_ gybed her main-boom and went over almost +on her beam ends. We were all thrown together in a heap; and as for +the lemonade--well, the less said about it the better, for it mingled +with the flood of water that deluged the cuddy. Puffing and blowing we +scrambled on deck, where, happily, nothing had been carried away, but +we had a close squeak of it. + +After this drenching we found the sloop was just abreast of the +entrance to Essex. As we were off on a cruise to nowhither except the +land of fun, it suddenly occurred to us that none of us had ever been +to Essex. Why not put in there and take a look at things? Out came +the chart, which showed a clear but narrow channel hedged by shifting +shoals, and with sandbars on each side. The weather being fine, we +were soon inside the snow-white sand-hills of the bar, and came to an +anchor, as the channel thence to Essex is tortuous, beset with rocks +and impassable, except with a favoring tide. + +The sunset came on serenely, the golden glow tingeing the white +sand-dunes where lay an old wreck. The plaintive wail of the sandpipers +hopping on the sand gave an indescribable effect to the quietude of +the scene. How pleasant was our long chat that evening with our pipes! +Sometimes one spun a yarn of the sea, and then followed an interlude of +silence, or a bit of humor that elicited a genial laugh. The stars were +thick that night and the dews heavy when we turned in to enjoy a night +of calm repose, after voting that there is no out-of-door sport that +offers more charms than cruising in a yacht. + +The _Frolic_ was left in charge of Uncle Joe the next day. There was +a dead calm and promise of a continuance of the same for a day or +two, so we started for Essex in the dingey. It was a pull of five or +six miles along a winding channel, but we proceeded in a leisurely +manner, stopping at various attractive spots on the way. One of these +was Cross’ Island, in mid-channel, a hilly islet containing a clump of +trees to relieve its bareness. A few shanties were scattered along its +slopes, of which the oldest were thrown up years ago for the gentlemen +who were in the habit of spending a week or two in October shooting in +the neighborhood for water-fowl. One of these shanties was on a rock +at the water’s edge, having bunks built into the sides as in a ship. +On our return from Essex, two of our party passed the night there, and +the sound of the tide rushing under the shanty as one lay in his bunk +conveyed the impression of being at sea. + +We found Essex a quiet, old-fashioned village of two or three thousand +people, offering no special attractions beyond the stock of provisions +we obtained there. It was formerly one of the chief ship-building +ports of New England; but now one sees only here and there a fishing +schooner or coaster on the stocks. The most striking characteristic of +the population of that worthy burg is, that the people belong mostly to +three families: the Burnhams, Storys and Choates. If one should throw +a stone in the streets of Essex, the chances are three to one that it +would hit some one bearing one of those names. It is evident that, as +in Plymouth, the people are still largely of the old New England stock, +a hard-headed, sturdy, close-mouthed, shrewd, sensible, conservative +race, not easily swayed, not given to sentiment, but liable to +occasional impulses of popular feeling that surprise one who would +not look for it in that quarter. During the period of the witchcraft +delusions, the people of Essex yielded to the notion that the devil was +marching on their place with a legion of evil spirits. + +Leaving Frank and Will at Cross’ Island, Benton and the writer returned +to the _Frolic_ towards evening. Uncle Joe was seen quietly smoking +his pipe on deck, and was rejoiced to see us back. The position of the +sloop was exposed, and he was old, and did not care to be in charge +alone all night. The boys promised to be back in good season the +following morning, hoping to come off in a passing dory. But either +they failed to get such conveyance as early as expected, or they found +life on the island too agreeable, for they did not put in an appearance +until afternoon. The breeze was then too light to reach any place +before night, and we were forced to lie at Essex until another day. + +The sky looked hazy at sunset, the sun was yellow, and the surf had a +deep hollow roar on the bar, all signs indicating a gathering storm of +some duration. We therefore moved the _Frolic_ a little north of the +berth where she was lying, and kept a watch on deck all night, lest +it should come on to blow before dawn. I do not know of a more wild +and desolate scene on our coast than where the _Frolic_ was anchored, +especially at low tide; on all sides white sands and dunes, or gray +sands reaching miles and miles, and the air filled with the spray from +the ever-rolling surf, beating on the bar from age to age. + +It was scarcely dawn when the writer, the watch on deck having fallen +asleep, was awaked by a cold sensation on his side exactly like a snake +creeping up his leg. That it must be a slimy reptile was the first +thought that flashed across my mind, the more naturally, perhaps, +because I once had a centipede leisurely creep on the bare skin from +the ankle to the knee. But as soon as I was wide awake, I realized that +the _Frolic_ was lying aground on her bilge, and that the bilge-water +was pouring into the lee bunks. Either she had not been pumped dry the +night before, or her garboard had opened with the strain of lying high +and dry. That we should be left by the tide in such a position was due +to the extreme low ebb, and the fact that the boat had swung out of the +channel. In any case there was nothing to be done but await the course +of events. + +The sun arose out of a cloud-bank, and the weather looked threatening, +but while we were waiting, two of the party walked off across the +sands to obtain fresh milk from the house where Rufus Choate was born, +which was in plain sight of the bar. While they were gone we put our +oil-stove into the dory alongside, and put the kettle on. The crabs +were running out to sea by the myriad, and when the water was boiling +we picked them out of the water and tossed them into the kettle. It is +needless to say that that portion of our breakfast that morning was +fresh and appetizing. + +By the time the breakfast was eaten it became evident that the sooner +we found another port the better, as the wind was piping up out of +the northeast and the sea was rising so fast it would drive us ashore +when the _Frolic_ floated. But as the tide rose we saw to our surprise +that the _Frolic_ did not rise with it, but had settled and lay on the +sand like lead, while the water flooded her lee decks. There was not +a moment to be lost. Unshipping the block from the jaws of the gaff +we attached it to one end of a hawser, at the other end of which was +an anchor. This we carried out into deep water in the dingey; then, +bowsing on the throat halliards, we brought the _Frolic_ upon an even +keel, when she floated. In ten minutes we were under mainsail and jib +and beating out to sea. The _Frolic_ staggered under that canvas, but +was forced to carry it in order to meet the heavy sea and tide and +hold her own in the quick, short tacks in a narrow channel, hedged by +sand-shoals white with breakers. + +Fairly past that danger, we had to face the question as to the course +to be followed. To beat up to the Isles of Shoals or Portsmouth against +a freshening northeaster on a lee shore, seemed foolhardy unless for a +good reason. We had to choose between running for Cape Ann and a lee, +or heading for Newburyport, by way of Plum Island Channel, Ipswich +Bay, its entrance being on our lee beam. This being a _terra_ or _aqua +incognita_ to us all, offered the zest of novelty. We decided in its +favor _nem. con._ The helm was put up and the sheets eased away, and +the _Frolic_ galloped over the high seas like a racehorse. The channel +here follows the southern shore of the bay past the light-house. That +was the only course for us to take, but under the exhilaration of +the sea wind we recklessly headed directly over the bar, a piece of +folly to which I now look back with amazement, as it was absolutely +unnecessary. The _Frolic_ steered rather wildly with a quartering sea, +and the swell rose steep, hollow and furious as we approached the bar, +which had been bare and above water two hours before. Happily for us, +the _Frolic_ whooped over the bar on the top of a great roller, and a +moment after we were gliding in smooth water. Had the sloop gone in on +the fall of the sea she would have left her bones there, and perhaps +her crew as well. + +It was a short run from the turning-point to Grape Island, a section +of the long, low breakwater called Plum Island which has been thrown +up in the course of ages to protect the pastoral shores between Essex +and Newburyport, and offer a hunting-ground for sportsmen. Plover, +sand-pipers, rail and duck abound there, and the hummocky character +of the surface of the island, tufted with sedge and salt grass, and +intersected with creeks, offers fine opportunities for stalking the +game. Many a rare spirit has found solace on those lonely island moors +in the fall of the year in times past, and the region is haunted by +legends of wrecks and sporting characters, who have made it a “happy +hunting-ground.” One story may not be generally known concerning a +certain well-known worthy of thirty years ago, remembered for handling +the long-bow as well as the rifle. + +“Sand-peeps?” said he to one, who was asking about game on Plum +Island--“sand-peeps? why, bless you, there’s millions of them! I +crossed over to the island one afternoon in October, and left the dory +in a creek. Then I just clamb a little hill and up flew an all-fired +big flock of sand-peeps. I up and let fly both barrels at them, but I +aimed a leetle too low and they all flew away; but just to show you how +thick they are, I picked up a bushel-basket full of legs! A fact!” + +There was a cheap hostel, a sort of fifth-rate saloon “for transients,” +on Grape Island. The piazza overlooking the sea had a certain +attraction, and we decided to try our luck there for a chowder. +A clam-chowder was what we got, served without any assumptions +of cleanliness. We were waited on by a tall, slender woman, dark +complexioned and wearing large yellow earrings. She had been handsome +once, but now wore that spiritless, faded look one sees so often in +our seaport towns down east, as if hardship, disappointment and a diet +of saleratus biscuit had filled life with a general disgust. She was +evidently of the mixed race one sees in that region, formed by Pilgrim +stock intermarrying with the Portuguese who settled at Marblehead and +Cape Ann. The chowder was poor and the beer very small beer indeed, but +I look back with intense pleasure to the hours idly passed that summer +afternoon on the porch of the inn, quietly smoking and gazing over +the green slopes of Ipswich dotted with peaceful farms, the winding +steel-gray waters of the channel, the russet moors of the island, and +the vast expanse of ocean deeply blue and flashing with white crests. + +The storm we had expected seemed deferred to another day, for the sun +set clear and took away the wind with it. In the twilight a little +whiffling air came up from the sea, and we concluded to run up to +Ipswich. But the wind died away, and at ten o’clock we were merely +drifting with the tide, under the jib. The sky was clear, but the moon +was still not risen, and it was exceedingly dark. It was a weird night, +whose silence was only broken by the sudden, startling scream of a +seabird, the distant boom of the surf and the swash of the tide on the +shallows and against the bow of the yacht. We became aware, at last, +that the hills were closing in around us, and the anchor was dropped +within a few yards of the shore. + +We were awakened by the low of cattle, apparently not a dozen yards +from the sloop, and the rumble of a wagon over a bridge. But on putting +our heads above the companionway we could see nothing, the fog was so +dense, excepting here and there the faint ghostlike form of a tree. +There was nothing until the dripping mist thinned out for a moment and +enabled us to discover that we had run up the Parker River, and were +anchored within a stone’s-throw of Oldtown Bridge, a venerable stone +structure erected in 1718. If we had continued 100 yards farther than +we did in the dark, the _Frolic_ would have carried away her mast +against the bridge. + +The tide left us this time flat on the ooze of the river bed; there was +nothing to be done but go on a foraging expedition after milk, eggs, +fresh bread and meat, all of which provisions were now scant in our +lockers. The village seemed to number about a dozen houses and as many +barns, and the people appeared to have been born and brought up in a +fog, to judge from the obfuscation of their faculties. They acted as if +they had been asleep since the days when pirates made descents on the +coasts, robbed henroosts, cast sheep’s-eyes at the women folks and hid +treasure in caves. The good people glared at us as if they had never +seen respectable men in sea-boots, blue-flannel shirts and sea-caps. +The young girls peeked at us through cracks behind the doors, giggling +in a most entertaining manner. We little thought when we set sail +that we were destined to give as much pleasure to these simple-minded +rustics of Newbury Oldtown as an Italian with a barrel-organ and +monkey, nor that we should be the cause of such breaking of the tenth +commandment on their part. The barnyards were well stocked with cows, +and healthy brahmas were cackling before every door; but at every house +we were told in the most emphatic manner that milk and eggs were not +to be found in Oldtown at that particular time. One man plucked up +courage to answer a few of our questions, but like the rest, his cows +were short of milk and his fowls did not lay enough eggs to pay for +their keeping. To take these people at their word, Oldtown was the +most godforsaken spot on the globe. One dried-up specimen of womanhood +was hanging out her clothes on the line when we appeared at her gate: +hearing the latch click, she looked around sharply and received a +shock that must have shortened her days. Exclaiming, “Sakes alive!” +she dropped the garment from her hand, rushed into the house and +slammed and bolted the door in our faces. It was useless to apply for +provisions there. + +Finally, at the very last house in the village we found a family who +actually asked us to walk in, offered us seats and a drink of milk, +and supplied us with fresh eggs, milk and buns for a reasonable price. +Their hospitality was thoroughly appreciated and is not forgotten. + +When the fog rose the wind rose also, a regular stiffener out of the +northeast. The little _Frolic_ beat up the exceedingly narrow and +winding channel under a press of sail, working beautifully in the +short tacks with her lee rail buried half the time. When we reached +Newburyport the drawbridge flew up, and dashing through we anchored +in the Merrimac, near the railroad-bridge, at three ~P. M.~, +just as it began to screech out of the northeast; and howl it did for +two days, while the rain fell in torrents. The _Frolic_ hung on, with +both anchors down, and a long scope of cable. But when the wind backed +into the nor’west the second night for an hour or two, and blew down +the swollen river, which ran like a mill-race, it looked as if the +yacht would drag her anchors and be blown on Plum Island or out to +sea. Luckily everything held, and the wind was soon back in the old +quarter. We had a fine period of leisure during the gale for sleeping, +reading up all the old novels on board, and living like fighting-cocks +on shore, where we found a fine old negro, whose thrifty wife has no +superior on that coast for roasting chickens and cooking coffee. + +It came out fine after the gale, the wind soft and bland and the sea +as enchanting as if it had not been doing its level best to shift the +sands of Newburyport bar and strew the coast with wrecks. We hung out +all the muslin and stood over to the Isles of Shoals. After dining at +the Appledore, we started for Portsmouth. The glow of a superb sunset +suffused land and sea and sky as we slid past the Whaleback Light and +anchored in the Piscataqua, off Newcastle. + +The following morning, when the flood-tide set in, we ran up past +Pull-and-be-dam Point, and the other intricacies which render the +approach to Portsmouth a matter of care and patience, and anchored +in a creek opposite the Navy Yard. Here we were detained for nearly +four days by a dense fog, sometimes accompanied by rain, which made +it inexpedient to run along the coast. While lying at Portsmouth we +repeatedly availed ourselves of the hospitalities of the Rockingham +House, a small but admirable hotel. Finally the fog cleared away, +and, in company with several other yachts detained like the _Frolic_, +we were able to put to sea. Our long detention at the last two ports +made it necessary to head for home. We passed the first night of our +return voyage at Pigeon Cove. The entrance is only wide enough to admit +the passage of one ship. The following day we towed the _Frolic_ out +in a calm, and took a breeze off Straitmouth Channel. The tide being +well up, we concluded to try this hazardous passage, which is only +reasonably safe at high tide with a leading wind. We were bowling along +quietly and comfortably, when in a most unexpected manner the _Frolic_ +landed on the top of a rock scarce four feet below the surface. She +was caught only by the stern-post and the bow lay loose. The rock was +evidently steep and pointed, for the yacht rocked dangerously from side +to side and threatened to capsize. We all ran forward to the bow, and +our weight depressed the bow and caused the stern to float. Our escape +was such a relief that we felt it essential to offer a libation to +Bacchus. + +Once through the channel, we took a staving nor’west breeze, which +swept us down to Point Shirley by four o’clock. By careful manœuvring +we succeeded in bringing the _Frolic_ safely back to her berth opposite +Long Wharf in time to go on shore and take a bath, followed by a jolly +dinner at one of the excellent restaurants with which Boston is better +supplied now than it was only a few years ago. + +Thus ended a cruise which was attended by no remarkable adventures +nor extended over much time, but was none the less attended by much +pleasure as well as decided advantages to the health of all concerned. +We earnestly recommend a similar experience to the reader, simply +adding that cruising on that coast requires experience in things +nautical, and is sufficiently hazardous not to be trifled with by those +who are ignorant of seamanship and boat-sailing. Before closing, the +writer would suggest that for cruising and dodging from port to port, I +find the schooner rig preferable to that of the sloop, and should not +again select a sloop for such a purpose. Small schooners of the size +of the _Frolic_ are much more common in New England than New York. But +such are the advantages of this rig that it is singular it is not more +the fashion for cruising in an inexpensive manner. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: Editor’s Open ~Window~.] + + +FOR VOLUME XIV. + +~Outing~ closes its thirteenth volume with this issue. The +many readers that have come to us since we began the volume last +October furnish an unmistakable evidence that ~Outing~ has +given great satisfaction to the lovers of sport. Slowly and steadily +~Outing~ has improved. But the changes hitherto made have not +been so marked as those about to be made. + +The success of ~Outing~ has been brought about by striving to +present, in the most attractive dress, both artistic and literary, +only such subjects as appeal, directly and closely, to the tastes and +proclivities of the ever-increasing army of genuine lovers of sport and +recreation. + +In the fourteenth volume of ~Outing~, the best literature, +descriptive of every phase of legitimate sport as participated in by +ladies and gentlemen, will predominate. + +In the hands of such mighty hunters as the late Gen. R. B. Marcy, +Lieutenant Robertson, Mr. G. O. Shields and Capt. Jack Crawford, the +crack of the rifle will be heard in the pages of ~Outing~. The +almost inaccessible fastnesses of the gigantic mountain chains which +traverse America and provide a very paradise for the lover of the +biggest kind of game hunting will be penetrated, and the thrilling +scenes and exciting adventures of following the elk, moose, bear, deer +and other game will be presented to our readers. + +The streams, rivers and lakes of this continent afford finer fishing +than any other quarter of the globe. The salmon of the St. Lawrence +and Saskatchewan, the lordly muskallonge of the Nor’west, the bass and +trout of a thousand streams from Maine to California offer such sport +as is not to be mentioned in the same breath with what one gets on the +fly-whipped waters of Scotland, Ireland and Norway; and ~Outing~ +will present to its readers authentic records of the experiences of the +best known adepts of this most fascinating sport. + +Nothing is more remarkable in the general athletic revival of to-day +than the great attention that is given to the physical recreation and +development of the fair sex. This good work ~Outing~ has always +fostered, and to lead our gentle sisters into the joyous sports afield, +we will offer them articles on camping, rowing and swimming, and also +practical hints for horsemanship and fishing. + +Recognizing that the dog is the sportsman’s best friend and most +constant companion, ~Outing~ is ready with a series of papers +on the breeding, breaking and training of the different breeds of dogs +used in the chase. Mr. Mercer will treat of Clumber Spaniels, Mr. +Anthony of Pointers, and other writers will write of setters and hounds +for deer-coursing, hunting, etc. + +For the sportsman who, over lea and bracken and swamp and meadow +and upland, follows the partridge, the quail and the woodcock, +~Outing~, in the coming volume, will have a rich treasure of +useful as well as interesting reading. We have reminiscences of duck +shooting in Canada, California, Oregon and other celebrated haunts, not +forgetting, of course, the pleasures of Chesapeake Bay and the delights +of the Carolinas and Florida. + +In the field of general athletics, ~Outing~ may justly claim to +have done much; and the appreciation already manifested in our Club +and College articles by all classes of readers has determined us to +give this branch of our work its full share of prominence in the coming +volume. + +Summer field sports will, of course, find ample representation in +~Outing~. Mr. H. J. Slocum, Jr., Mr. Taylor, and other prominent +players and writers on Lawn Tennis, will fully describe the interest +taken in this widely popular game. Articles will appear on tennis on +the Pacific slope, the South, and the more brilliant achievements +at Newport, Staten Island, Orange, and other fashionable centres of +the game. Cricket in England, Australia and America will be fully +discussed, while Baseball, Lacrosse, and the popular pastime of Lawn +Bowls, will be the themes of handsomely illustrated articles. + +Rowing has at all times been a most popular exercise among college and +club men, and ~Outing~ will publish a very valuable series of +papers on the ~Evolution of Form in College and Amateur Rowing~. +The recognized leading authorities on this subject have prepared these +articles, and they will be one of the most attractive features of the +coming numbers. While properly representing the brethren of the oar, +~Outing~ has by no means forgotten the wielders of the paddle, +and canoeists will find many a pleasant sketch of cruising and camping +in the summer pages of ~Outing~. + +In Yachting matters ~Outing~ has always led the van, and we +propose to present to our aquatic friends a fine galaxy of yachting +literature during the coming season. The Larchmont Club will open the +ball, and this article will be followed by others on the Seawanhaka, +Eastern, and other prominent organizations. The illustrations for +these articles will embrace reproductions from photographs of the +leading flyers and “cracks” in each fleet, and the whole will be a most +valuable collection of modern boats. + +The marvelous results that can be obtained by the modern instantaneous +camera, and the comparatively little trouble given by adding an outfit +to one’s camp or field kit, makes photography a prominent feature in +any expedition nowadays. In fact, photography may be aptly called a +picture diary, which chronicles scenes and episodes more vividly and +graphically than the most brilliant and epigrammatic collection of +notes. ~Outing~ will, therefore, furnish a series of short, +pithy papers on photography, and Mr. Ellerslie Wallace, who writes the +articles, is an instructor from whom all will be proud to learn. + +Continent may differ from continent, nation from nation, in language, +religion, and government, but sport is cosmopolitan, its literature is +universal, its followers are brothers all the world over. Thus we find +sportsmen in Europe are just as eager to read the doings by “flood and +field” in America as Americans are interested in all that appertains +to sport across the sea. ~Outing~, then, must of necessity be +international, and with this idea in view the Editor and Manager of +~Outing~ went to Europe recently to look over the field in +England and on the continent, and returned bringing many MSS. and +illustrations with him in his portmanteau, and his pockets lined with +contracts for articles that will make the fourteenth volume an evidence +of a good work done. + +“Plantagenet,” whose name is familiar wherever English sport is known, +will contribute regularly hereafter, and his introduction in this issue +is sufficient to acquaint those who never read his writings with the +great gain this connection brings to ~Outing~ in the department +of hunting and racing on British soil. + +“Rockwood,” who has heretofore occasionally written for our pages, will +hereafter address us at frequent intervals on sport with the _Rod and +Gun_. “Redspinner,” than whom none writes better of the pleasures of +Walton’s disciples, will contribute a series of papers. Mr. Dalziel, +who has become one of the best living authorities on the _Kennel_, has +taken in hand the kennel interests in Great Britain; and Mr. R. H. +Moore, the clever English dog-artist, will furnish the illustrations, +so that ere Vol. 14 closes the friends of the Kennel will have secured +with its six numbers a pretty good history on matters canine in +England and America. Lady Arnold has contributed a series of articles +on _Yachting_, to be followed by valuable papers on this subject from +other writers. A special correspondent has been sent by ~Outing~ +to the Mediterranean, and Yachting in Southern Europe will be the topic +of a series of valuable papers to our yachtsmen. + +Friends of the wheel have been specially cared for, and Mr. Joseph +Pennell, who needs no introduction to cyclers, is now engaged on a +series of articles and illustrations that will give ~Outing~ a +new look altogether. But, aside from these and other valuable papers, +we have the pleasure of announcing the return of Mr. Howarth from the +Azores, whither he was sent by ~Outing~, at great expense, with +cycle, gun, and camera, to explore the islands of the sea; and the +articles on _Cycling in Mid-Atlantic_, illustrated by Harry Fenn and +Joseph Pennell, will prove one of the greatest attractions that any +magazine ever offered to its readers. Lady Brierly will contribute +papers on the horse; and last, but not least, the greatest of sporting +writers, Capt. Hawley Smart, is now completing a sporting novel for +~Outing~ that will run through at least six numbers, and be one +of the best stories ever given to magazine pages. + +~Outing~ has spared no pains to secure the best artists to +illustrate its excellent literary material, and with such a staff at +our command as Harry Fenn, Henry Sandham, A. C. Corbould, Joseph +Pennell, M. J. Burns, R. H. Moore, J. W. Fosdick, Marie Guise, Eugene +Bauer, and others of minor note, the readers may look forward to seeing +each subject that is illustrated done ample justice to. + +~Outing~ having thus an international field to work in, the +American editors have called to their assistance a thoroughly competent +English editor, whose authority and reputation on all sporting topics +is admitted on both sides of the Atlantic. For this most important +position we are happy in obtaining the services of no less a light than +the world-renowned “Borderer,” who for the past decade has been one of +the leading contributors to every publication of reputation in England, +and whose knowledge and judgment in sporting matters is second to none. +He needs no further introduction from us; let him speak for himself. + + + * * * * * + + +INTRODUCING OUR ENGLISH EDITOR. + +I cannot outdo the Ethiopian in changing the color of my skin--even +in putting on a new coat, the color must be the same. The question of +its fitting is a serious one, and you know, readers, how uneasy and +uncomfortable a thing it is to wear a new garment for the first time. +You feel like a marked man. When a schoolboy you were pinched by all +the other boys in commemoration of the event, and however proud you may +have been of the fit, it took the edge considerably off your conceit to +be asked, “Who’s your tailor?” + +And now that my old garment--the delight of many a play hour, the +warm friend of my youth, the custodian of my body in many a sport, +the well-worn aid to health and strength--has been thrown aside and +taken to the old-clothes shop to be refitted, I find myself very like +the nervous schoolboy about to run the gauntlet of fresh critics, and +perhaps ruthless ones; critics who know not the Borderer of old; who +have not followed his rambling prose through many years, and caught the +drift of his sporting thoughts; critics, too, whose tastes may not be +so thoroughly in harmony with his as those of yore. And yet, perhaps +the fear is greater than the reason for it, and on the score of plenary +indulgence at starting, I shall try to make my new garment, the English +editorship of ~Outing~, as appreciable as possible to my new +acquaintances. Would that I could say with Oliver Goldsmith-- + + “He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, + For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.” + +~Outing~ is now our pet. Through it Borderer can speak to the +world of sport. + +What makes Jack a dull boy? The lack of ~Outing~. + +“Funny name, that,” exclaimed a friend of mine the other day, “but, +after all, very expressive.” + +How we all look forward to our ~Outing~! Even those who have +little chance of enjoying it. Do not they also count the days of its +possible coming? Every one to his taste. We are off, like greyhounds +from the slips, eager for sport, recreation or travel. Here still +oftener, and for a modest sixpence, is ~Outing~, to make you +learned in sport all the world over, and more worthy of your real +happy outing when it comes. As money and modes of locomotion increase +and multiply, so will ~Outing~ flourish until it spreads its +happy pages, like eagles’ wings, throughout the world. Neither sea nor +land will stop the echo and re-echo of its outspoken thoughts, and +proportionately great will be the responsibility of its utterances, as +well as of those in whom it will confide as authors. To be a sportsman +is one thing--to write of sport is another. “I must be cruel only to +be kind,” says Shakespeare. So truth, honesty and uprightness shall be +our leading characteristics. A true sportsman should be bold as a lion, +steady as a rock, quick as an arrow, ’cute as a coon, cautious as a +man, hard as nails, sober as a judge, with the temper of an angel, the +eve of a lynx, the voice of a siren, and the nerve of a hero. + +Taking these mighty attributes with us, my readers, let us launch our +good ship on its transatlantic voyage. Let us fancy ourselves like +bold Æneas of old, about to venture on new scenes, and interview the +grandees of far-off countries, carrying with us the dauntless standard +of sport. Ever foremost in the fray, ever aloft as the acme of delight, +ever where virtue and destiny call--then Borderer’s reward will be +signaled by the boundless success of his new venture-- + + ~Outing~. + + ~Borderer.~ + + * * * * * + + +DOG CHAT. + +Negotiations are now in progress between the presidents of the National +Dog Club of America and the American Kennel Club, with the object of +bringing about some amicable arrangement between factions, and it is +quite on the cards that ere this is read they will have amalgamated, +the members of the N. D. C., in all probability joining as associate +members of the A. K. C. The objectionable feature of the “associate” +scheme, insufficient representation, has been eliminated. Every 100 +members will be privileged to elect a representative who will be on the +same footing as the delegates of the kennel clubs. This should prove an +eminently satisfactory arrangement. + +It has been made evident that public sentiment leans to the elder +organization (another demonstration of the incomprehensibility of _vox +populi_), and kennel matters, to all appearance, will be best advanced +by every one’s falling into line, and thereby securing a voice in the +government of dogdom. The A. K. C. makes fair promises, which, if +fulfilled, should satisfy all. If they fail, why, the traces can be +again kicked over. + +This will be a busy season in dogdom, as an important show is +scheduled-for each week from January to the end of April, and others, +not as yet announced, will probably run well on into the month of May. +Truly may it be said that dog shows are advancing in public favor when +such can be the case. + +The four important Field Trial meetings (those of the Indiana, Eastern, +Southern and American F. T. clubs) are now things of the past, and +taking them as a whole they have not received the liberal patronage of +former years. As usual, the Memphis and Avent Kennel of Tennessee has +swept everything before it, and equally, of course, the blood of old +“Count Noble” is again to the front. + +The Hempstead fox-terrier coursing has caused a considerable stir +of late. While I am not in sympathy with the proceedings of the +“Alphabetical” Society in this matter, I cannot make out just where +the “sport” comes in in seeing a benumbed and scared “bunny” chased +and killed by terriers. We are told that the “course” frequently takes +less than thirty seconds’ time to decide, and that the rabbit _never +escapes_. Now this, to my way of thinking, damns it as a field sport, +the fascination in which is the element of uncertainty it contains; +the knowledge that your skill and training, or your dog’s, is pitted +against the natural cunning and quickness of the beast or bird pursued, +and in the knowledge that the quarry has a chance for its life. Take +away this and I am sure field sports will lose many of those who are +at present devoted to them. Give the rabbits fair “law,” a chance for +their lives, then it will be a legitimate sport. + +An extraordinarily high-priced lot of greyhounds recently changed hands +under the hammer in London. They were the property of Mr. Dent, who has +given up coursing for the present. The puppy Fullerton was sold at 850 +guineas to Colonel North, while Bit o’ Fashion was bought by the same +purchaser for 200 guineas, also Miss Glendyne for 510 guineas. Huic +Holloa fetched 350 guineas, and Jester 190 guineas. The prices paid +throughout were high. + +The English St. Bernard, Prince Battenberg, who once beat Plinlimmon, +is for sale. His owner, Mr. King-Patten, announces that he has received +an offer of 2,000 guineas for the dog, from an American. I fear some +one has been “pulling his leg.” + + ~Dogwhip.~ + + * * * * * + + +COLLEGE SPORTS. + +Exceptionally fine weather, October temperature, has made it possible +for active college youths to practice various pastimes which are +usually relegated to obscurity or the gymnasium during the cold winter +months. Games of ball, lacrosse and tennis have been played in the open +air, and in some places crews have been out in their frail shells. That +boating will be very popular this spring seems assured if the interest +shown by Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and the University of +Pennsylvania in the doings of their respective crews is any indication. +With the return to college from the Christmas vacation the serious +work of training conscientiously and intelligently began, and now the +weeding-out process will soon begin. Harvard naturally expects great +things from the tank. In January, the crew was able to do some rowing +on the Charles, which, with work in the gymnasium and in the tank has +given the crew a very good send-off. At no time previous has there +been so wide-spread an interest in correct, scientific rowing as at +present, and every effort is made by the captain to get the most out +of his crew, not as one ordinarily would suppose, by getting his men +to develop muscle and pull for all there was in them, but by studying +the possibilities of each member and so combining them according to +scientific principles as to yield the best results. This method is in +vogue at Harvard and at Yale, where Bob Cook and prominent graduates, +members of former crews, for months before the great race, consult and +figure upon the material at hand, and endeavor to get it into shape. + +The other sports, baseball and track athletics, are not being neglected +by their admirers. The fleetfooted sprinters have been taking part in +the several meetings of the Amateur Union and the National Association, +and are consequently in comparatively good trim. With this attention to +sport which the majority of college youths give, even in the many small +institutions which can not boast of possessing well-equipped gymnasiums +and track facilities, there is fast growing up a race which will be as +superior to the men of to-day as the present generation of young men is +superior to those of twenty years ago. + + ~J. C. Gerndt.~ + + + + +[Illustration: ~THE OUTING CLUB.~] + + +WHAT YACHTING COSTS. + +What does yachting cost? That to be able to own and properly maintain a +large yacht a man must have a good solid bank account to draw upon, is +a truth; but that one in very moderate circumstances may enjoy all the +pleasures of yachting is also true. Where there is one man who is able +to own and run an _Electra_ or a _Volunteer_, there are hundreds of +Corinthian yachtsmen who have “fun alive” with boats of from fifteen to +forty feet in length. + +To state exactly, or even approximately, what yachting costs is +well-nigh as difficult as to guess the correct number of hairs on a +man’s head. But a very good general idea may be obtained by drawing +deductions from well-known data. + +If old Commodore John C. Stevens, the first flag-officer of the New +York Yacht Club, were alive to-day, he would be surprised as well as +delighted to observe the wonderful growth and improvement yachting has +made since his time, nearly half a century ago, and no doubt he would +hold up his hands in amazement at the increase in the luxuriousness of +the appointments of a yacht during the same period. + +The New York Yacht Club was organized in 1844, by Mr. Stevens and +others, and was the outcome of the first organized effort ever made +in this country to popularize yachting. The yachts of those days were +few in number, and of small tonnage, The _Maria_, Commodore Stevens’ +last yacht, though in her time a giant among her sister yachts, would +be rated as only of average size compared with the larger pleasure +craft of to-day. Her appointments, too, though far superior to those of +her contemporaries, were very commonplace and inexpensive as compared +with the palatial luxuriance of the interior fittings of any of the +large yachts now afloat. To spend $20,000 at that time in building and +equipping a yacht was considered extraordinary, if not a financial +impossibility, for any man except Commodore Stevens, who, as the owner +of nearly all of Hoboken and Weehawken, was estimated to be about the +wealthiest man in America. + +Since the organization of the New York Yacht Club, however, and +especially since the success of the yacht _America_ in England, each +succeeding year has witnessed a multiplication of yachts, an increase +in their size, and especially an augmentation of the luxuriance of +their furnishings that have excited the wonder and admiration of the +yachting world. + +The yachts _America_, _Julia_, _Una_, and _Widgeon_, of the early +period of American yachting history, were prodigies of their day and +generation in respect to speed and size. All four were productions +of that famous designer, George Steers, and were invincible against +vessels built by other designers of the period. In this respect +Edward Burgess, of Boston, concededly holds to-day the place occupied +by George Steers thirty-five years ago; and the former designer’s +_Puritan_, _Mayflower_, _Sachem_, and _Volunteer_ have to-day a +relative standing among yachts very much like that which George +Steers’ productions enjoyed in their generation. + +The total cost of all the yachts of forty years ago was less than +that of Mr. William K. Vanderbilt’s yacht _Alva_ alone. Two hundred +thousand dollars would have been sufficient to buy the entire fleet. +Year by year the amount of money expended for yachts has kept pace with +the steady increase of the wealth of the country, till now it exceeds +several millions of dollars annually. What the magnificent fleet of +vessels which constitute the squadron of the New York Yacht Club to-day +cost to build, rig, spar and furnish, represents an outlay of more than +$3,500,000. The yachts at present enrolled in the New York Yacht Club +number 184. Of these sixty-seven are schooners, sixty-five sloops, +cutters and yawls, forty-six steamers and six launches. The tonnage +of these 184 vessels aggregates 18,000 tons. The very best estimate +obtainable from figures shows that it costs $200 per ton to build, rig, +and fully furnish the average American yacht ready for cruising. + +Instead of the one yacht club of 1844, there were on May 1, 1888, 101 +incorporated yacht clubs in America. Of the yachting associations not +yet advanced to the dignity of incorporated bodies, there are doubtless +from two to three times as many more. These clubs are to be found in +almost every harbor on the great lakes, and on every bay, lake, river +and creek from one end of the land to the other. In fact, wherever +there is a sufficient body of water to sail some kind of a boat +upon, there will surely be found some sort of an association for the +promotion of yachting. From very careful estimates made from records +of yacht building, rigging and furnishing, which have been kept for +years, the total tonnage of all sailing or steam vessels owned and +run exclusively for purposes of pleasure in this country, on May 1, +1888, was 203,575, representing an aggregate money-value investment of +$40,715,000. In view of these large figures, and they are increasing +every year, the widespread and increasing interest taken in yachting +events is hardly to be wondered at. The money estimate must be more +than doubled, too, when “running expenses” are considered. + +It is with a yacht very much as it is with a horse--it is not so much +the buying as the keeping that makes the money go. The first cost +of a yacht is, of course, very heavy, and it is estimated that this +outlay, with the money spent in keeping the boats and running them, +annually puts in circulation millions of dollars. The greatest item +of expense in running a yacht is the pay of the crew. A vessel like +the _Volunteer_, for example, gives employment for six months of the +year to fifteen men. Mr. Vanderbilt’s steam-yacht _Alva_ carries a +crew of 100 men, and the smaller of the cabin-yachts, say of about +twenty-five tons, require, to properly handle them, a sailing-master, +cook, and three men before the mast. All told, the yachts of the New +York Yacht Club furnish employment of this kind to more than 2,500 +men, to whom the yacht owners pay not less than $125,000 per month +for six months of each year, or $750,000 for the six months. As the +average number of yachts belonging to each of the 101 yacht-clubs of +the country is thirty-three, the result shows that there is, or was +on May 1, 1888, a total of 3,333 yachts enrolled in the incorporated +yacht clubs of the United States; and carrying out the extensions +as based upon the estimate of the New York Yacht Club, the results +show that these 3,333 yachts give employment to 45,289 men, to whom +wages amounting to $2,264,450 are paid monthly, or the enormous sum +of $13,586,700 for a season of six months. It may be not altogether +proper to base the number and pay of crews for the yachts of the whole +country upon figures of the New York Yacht Club, for the vessels of +that club undoubtedly ton higher on the average than the vessels of +the less prominent clubs; but it must be remembered that in getting at +these figures only the incorporated associations have been considered, +and the hundreds and even thousands of yachts belonging to minor +associations, and the many yachts which fly the flag of no club at all, +have not been taken into the calculation. From this point of view, the +figures for crews and their salaries as given above furnish about as +good an idea of the totals as it is possible to obtain. + +Again, a yacht which is kept up in good shape has to have her rigging +renewed constantly, and then there are the items of new sails, +repainting and overhauling on the dry dock. These expenses cannot be +estimated, and it is simply impossible to make a respectable guess, but +it amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. + +One of the largest, and in some respects the largest, item of expense +in running a yacht is the steward’s department, but it is impossible +even to approximately estimate what is annually spent in this very +important department. One yacht owner may spend $15,000 a year +entertaining a great number of guests at his table, while another man, +with the same yacht may find one-third of that amount ample for the +same purpose; but the sum of money put in circulation for ship stores +and table furnishings may safely be put down as double the sum per +month paid to the crew and officers in wages, or $1,500,000 for the +yachting season of six months of the fleet of the New York Yacht Club +alone. Thus the total amount of money put in circulation in one season +by the yacht owners of this one club will not fall short of $3,500,000. + +If the expenditure for maintaining the 184 yachts of the New York Yacht +Club is $3,500,000 a year, it is not improbable that not less than +$7,000,000 is spent on the 3,333 pleasure and racing craft of the 101 +yacht clubs of the entire country for a like period of time. + +There are other expenses which can be neither classified nor estimated, +such as, for instance, the hiring of extra men for races; the payment +of prize money to the crews of race-winners; repairs following +collisions, running ashore, carrying away of sails and spars, and a +thousand-and-one other things. Altogether, it is not overestimating the +case to say that American yacht owners put $7,000,000 into the hands of +workmen and tradesmen last year, and this amount bids fair to increase +annually. That which is put into new boats is not included in this +calculation at all, and easily amounted to $1,000,000 more. + +The steamers and the large sloops built of recent years have tended to +very greatly augment the expenditure of money on yachts. The steamers, +especially, are a very expensive luxury. With them the coal bill is an +additional and large item. + +Some very wild estimates have been made as to what it costs to run one +of the largest steam-yachts. It has been said that it costs Jay Gould +$3,000 a day to run the _Atalanta_. This is absurd. Vice-Commodore +E. A. Bateman, of the American Yacht Club, who owns the steam-yacht +_Meteor_, once was heard to say that he ran her at an expense of $35 +a day; and several years ago, when Mr. James Gordon Bennett owned the +_Dauntless_, and was commodore of the New York Yacht Club, he is said +to have remarked that it cost him $25,000 a year to entertain his +guests alone. Probably the most expensively run yacht to-day is the +_Electra_, the flagship of the New York Yacht Club. It is said that she +costs Commodore Gerry $35,000 a year. But a yacht of fifty tons, if +economy be practiced, and she be not raced, may be run at a very modest +cost. + +Many thousands of men enjoy all the sport to be had out of +pleasure-sailing in a craft whose first cost, completely equipped, was +but $1,000 or less. Such a yacht can be run at a very slight expense. +Craft of this kind are called “single-handers,” from the fact that +it requires but one man to handle them. Their number is large at +present, and they are rapidly growing in popular favor. If the cost of +such vessels, of yachts which are not enrolled in any club, and the +boats of the numerous canoe-clubs, were added to the figures given as +representing the amount invested in the pleasure vessels of the United +States, the aggregate would be something enormous. + + ~ROBERT DILLON.~ + + +HOW’S THIS FOR BASS? + +There are odd places in and around the waters of New York where the +enthusiastic fisherman can find plenty of sport at his favorite +pastime. One day, toward the close of September, W. E. Sibley, of this +city, an angler of some repute, and a companion, Mr. Del. Ruch, of +Clifford’s, Staten Island, set out to troll for striped bass in the +Great Kills. After they had trolled for some time, and had landed only +a few one and two pounders, the sport grew tame, and Del. Ruch left +Sibley’s boat and joined another fisherman to change his luck. Instead +of Ruch finding luck it came to Sibley. In a few minutes after Ruch +had left, Sibley’s troll was seized, and he found himself struggling +with a bass of more than ordinary fight. A lively tussle took place. +The fish had no idea of surrendering, and for half an hour the fish and +the fisherman had a nip-and-tuck time of it. Finally the bass, wearied +and worn out, yielded slowly, and when it was brought alongside of the +boat it showed up magnificently. It was a monster. Though conquered, +the fish was not captured. A difficulty arose regarding the ways and +means about getting it into the boat. There was no gaff-hook handy. Mr. +Sibley was perplexed. The thought of losing that bass, when it was so +near and yet so far, nearly unnerved him. He was equal to the occasion, +however. Holding the line stiff, Sibley ran his hand along the fish, +slipped it in beneath the immense gill covering, and lugged the big +fellow into the boat after a great effort. When measured and weighed, +it lacked just half an inch of three feet, and tipped the scale at +eighteen pounds. It is said to be the largest striped bass on record +caught within twenty miles of New York. + + + + +OUR THEATRICAL PLAYGROUND. + + +“THE PLAYERS.” + +Perhaps the most notable event in the players’ world, with which the +new year was ushered in, was the presentation by Edwin Booth to the +organization of leading actors known as “The Players,” of a magnificent +club-house in Grammercy Park. As the old year drew to a close there +assembled a brilliant audience of players and guests, and at the +stroke of twelve Mr. Booth handed over the deed to the property to Mr. +Augustin Daly, of “The Players.” Mr. Booth closed his presentation +speech in the following happy manner: “Though somewhat past the season, +let us now fire the Yule-log, with the request that it be burnt as +an offering of ‘love, peace and good-will to The Players.’ While +it burns, let us drink from this loving cup, bequeathed by William +Warren of loved and honored memory to our no less valued Jefferson, +and by him presented to us; from this cup and this souvenir of long +ago--my father’s flagon--let us now, beneath his portrait and on the +anniversaries of this occupation, drink: To the Players’ Perpetual +Prosperity.” + +Mr. Daly responded appropriately in behalf of the club, and after a +general grasping of hands, all adjourned to feast around the generous +board. In every way this new home is most complete, and the decorations +are handsome and solid. In the lounging room are two oil paintings by +Joseph Jefferson. Beside them hangs Sir Joshua Reynolds’ celebrated +portrait of David Garrick. There is also a Gainsborough, and a portrait +of John Gilbert by J. Alden Weir. A goodly collection of dramatic +literature fills the library on the second floor, Mr. Booth having +presented 1,200 volumes, and Mr. Lawrence Barrett 2,000, besides a +large number of rare works from Augustin Daly, T. B. Aldrich, Stanford +White and others. An excellent maxim is found directly above the great +seal of the order, which is inserted in the ornamental brickwork under +the mantelpiece. It reads thus: + + “Good friends, for friendship’s sake forbeare + To utter what is gossip heare + In social chatt, lest unawares + Thy tongue offende thy fellow-plaiers.” + + +OLD ENGLISH COMEDY. + +For his annual comedy revival Mr. Daly has chosen Capt. George +Farquhar’s “The Inconstant; or, the Way to Win Him.” This play has not +been seen in this city since 1873, and in Mr. Daly’s hands the somewhat +doubtful _morale_ of the play has been improved, and thus the revival +was practically a first performance of the play. The change to suit +modern ideas has been admirably effected, though possibly the fifth +act might have been subjected to closer censorship. It is needless to +say that Mr. Daly’s band of players acted their parts well. The public +has come to accept that as almost a foregone conclusion. Miss Rehan as +_Oriana_ is the same person that has pleased us so long, but in the mad +scene she strikes a key that is almost pathetic. The “Inconstant” may +be looked upon as a success. + + +SHAKESPEARE AT PALMER’S. + +Play-goers in New York have no reason to feel dissatisfied with +the feast spread before them this season. Shakespeare has not been +neglected for the newer generation of writers. Rarely has a play, +however, been put on the stage in a more complete way, with greater +magnificence and attention to details, than “Antony and Cleopatra.” +Mr. Abbey has spared no expense, and surely it would be difficult to +find an actress to look the part better than Mrs. James Brown Potter. +Whatever may be her faults, she has succeeded in ridding herself of +some of them, and in gesture, walk and pose this improvement is most +marked. She still lacks facility in expressive speaking. Thus the +presentation is of a spectacular sort, and on that fact will have to +depend success or failure. The single scene which perhaps impresses the +interested spectator most is revealed in the entrance of _Cleopatra’s_ +barge--“a bizarre painting of Egypt’s historical convoy, with its +flowing sails of magenta, its glittering front and sides, its silver +oars, its fawning slaves, and, over all, the tinkle of drowsy music.” +The acting version of the play is by Mr. Kyrle Bellew, who himself +assumes the character of _Antony_. He is not a roystering old ruffian; +one does not behold scarred limbs and grizzled locks. The _Antony_ of +Kyrle Bellew is tender in speech, soft in action, and ever the lover. +The play is scheduled for an extended run, and will doubtless receive a +generous share of attention. + + +MACBETH. + +At the Fifth Avenue Theater Mrs. Langtry has been acting _Lady +Macbeth_, and has won a good measure of success, which deserves +recognition for the reason that her conception of the part differs from +that acceptable to most Americans. Charlotte Cushman’s _Lady Macbeth_ +was a grim, imperious virago, and we have accepted that version as +the true one. In Irving’s celebrated revival of the play, Ellen Terry +presents a coaxing, loving, charming contradiction to the Cushman +model. Mrs. Langtry has chosen a middle path. While not wholly able to +cope successfully with the part, she gives a thoroughly interesting +portrayal. In the sleep-walk scene she is bravely original. Utterly +sacrificing her comeliness, she comes out from her bedroom like a +veritable corpse from a tomb, a figure to shudder at in a theatre +and to fly from if met near a churchyard. While her reading of this +particular scene will call forth some condemnation perhaps, considerate +judgment must also accord praise. + +The _Macbeth_ of Mr. Charles Coghlan was thoughtful, but hardly +satisfactory. It lacks the fire and passion which make the character +such a strong one in the hands of some actors. Mr. Joseph Wheelock, +as _Macduff_, was as successful as that conscientious actor usually +is in all he undertakes, and he called forth the enthusiasm of all by +his painstaking work. On the whole the venture may be looked upon as a +success. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration: ~Among the Books~] + + +“~The~ Harvard Index” for 1888-89 is a very complete directory +of the students and the various literary and sporting organizations in +college. A valuable feature is the list of best-on-record performances, +both collegiate and other, for America and England. + + * * * * * + +~One~ of the best and most artistic college annuals is the +Princeton, 90, “Bric-à-Brac.” Some of the drawings are quite elaborate, +and very much to the point. The records of the doings of the different +associations, and the list of students, are as complete as it was +possible to make them. + + * * * * * + +~A series~ of interesting books is issued by the well-known +house of Lee & Shepard, under the general title of “Good Company.” +The name is well bestowed, and the thoughtful reader will find, as he +becomes acquainted with the various members of the company, that there +is much which he can note with profit. Not only is the company good, +but the dress is neat and inviting. The books before us are: “The +Lover,” by Steele; “The Wishing-Cap Papers,” by Leigh Hunt; “Fireside +Saints,” by Douglas Jerrold; “Dream Thorpe,” by Alexander Smith; “A +Physician’s Problems,” by Charles Elam; “Broken Lights,” by Frances +Power Cobbe, and “Religious Duties,” by the same author. + +The same publishing house has issued a new edition of Rev. P. C. +Headley’s biography of “Fighting Phil.” This book, intended for young +readers, well describes the life of the dashing general, and at this +time, when his personal memoirs are receiving such marked attention, +the simpler story of Rev. Mr. Headley will be widely read by boys. + + * * * * * + +~An~ excellent library of sports and pastimes, the Badminton, +is being issued by Longmans, Green & Co. Those who are seeking for +knowledge on any of the subjects dealt with will find the results of +many years’ experience written by men who are in every case adepts at +the sport of which they write. There have already appeared, “Hunting,” +“Fishing,” “Racing and Steeple-chasing,” “Cycling,” “Athletics and +Football.” The latest additions to the library are “Boating” and +“Cricket.” The former volume is by W. B. Woodgate, a veteran oarsman; +the latter by A. G. Steel and the Hon. R. H. Lyttelton. The text is +handsomely illustrated, and in every respect are the volumes to be +recommended. Every sportsman should have a complete set of this series +of books; they are an ornament to any library, and the information +contained in them such as can not readily be obtained in other books on +sports. + + * * * * * + +“~Cruisings~ in the Cascades,” by the well-known author G. O. +Shields, is in the press of Rand, McNally & Co., of Chicago. It is a +record of an extended hunting tour, made by the author in the Cascade +Mountains in Oregon, Washington Territory, and British Columbia. The +work is handsomely illustrated from drawings and from instantaneous +photographs taken by Mr. Shields. + + * * * * * + +~An~ entertaining work, not only for grown people, but also for +boys, is John Augustus O’Shea’s “Military Mosaics.” The author has +tried to be faithful to truth, and the language used is as close an +approach to that which men would speak under the circumstances as can +well be given in print. This effort on the part of the author is to be +heartily commended, since boys are naturally anxious to know if things +are what they seem. In the author’s words, “There is not an event set +down which did not happen, or might not have happened, and to the +soldier’s life, as to all others, there is a seamy side.” Thus we are +told of hardships, fatiguing marches, exposure to all sorts of weather, +and are impressed with the fact that the chief pleasures of warfare are +those of memory. Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., London, are the publishers. + +The same firm has brought out “Orient and Occident,” a journey east +from Lahore to Liverpool, by Major-General R. C. W. Reveley Mitford. +It is a description of a home-coming by routes little traveled. China, +Japan and the United States are successively visited, and as the +author drifts from place to place he rather pleasantly gives us his +impressions. The text is embellished with illustrations from sketches +by the author. + +A useful book for the yachtsmen who wish to spend some time cruising in +the Mediterranean is “Shooting and Yachting in the Mediterranean,” by +A. G. Bagot. Of course the yachtsman always provides himself with guns, +and is ever ready to “pepper away.” However, it is rather the rule that +he fails to bag his game. In “Shooting and Yachting” he will find much +useful information on this point, as well as learn of localities to be +visited, dangers to be avoided, etc. Not the least valuable part of +Mr. Bagot’s work are the practical hints to yachtsmen, and the list of +yacht-clubs with which the book closes. Allen & Co., London, are the +publishers. + + * * * * * + +~The~ author of the “Book of the Black Bass” has issued through +the press of Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, a supplement, which he +calls very happily “More About the Black Bass.” In it he presents the +latest developments in the scientific and life history of this best +of American game fishes, and describes the most recent improvements +in tools, tackle and implements. The little work appears at a most +opportune time. + + * * * * * + +~In~ his “Hunting Notes” “Borderer” gives a valuable resumé of +the season’s work. While of no direct interest to the American reader, +these notes present an admirable picture of the way hunting is done in +Old England, and to those who follow the hounds in this country, and +their number is increasing from year to year, a perusal of “Hunting +Notes” will be profitable and entertaining. The publishers are A. H. +Baily & Co., London. + + + + +[Illustration: AMENITIES] + + +I’M SINGLE NO LONGER, YOU KNOW. + + ’Twas while kneeling at beauty’s fair shrine, + In the years that I fain would regain, + Spinster Fate drugged my vintage of wine, + And entangled me fast in her skein. + In the days ere my star’s sudden wane, + I was thought a most handsome young beau, + But I’m now called “decidedly plain,” + For I’m single no longer, you know! + + Edith said that my eyes were divine + As we strolled thro’ the green country lane-- + That the girls thought my figure was fine, + I discovered from sweet Mary Jane; + But alas for a once happy swain, + With the virtues of one year ago! + I am met with a haughty disdain, + For I’m single no longer, you know! + + Tho’ these ballades and rondeaux of mine + Had the verdict of “quite in the vein,” + They say now I am shunned by the _Nine_, + And my verses are ruthlessly slain. + Tho’ by courtesy we are called twain, + ’Tis my wife that comprises the Co., + And of course I’ve no right to complain, + For I’m single no longer, you know! + + * * * * * + + In a word, to conclude the refrain, + I have hung up my fiddle and bow, + I have mortgaged my castles in Spain, + For I’m single no longer, you know! + + _Sanborn Gove Tenney._ + + + + + -------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + +FOR A PRESENT WHAT COULD BE BETTER THAN A SUBSCRIPTION? + +[Illustration: SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE] + + Among the Artists represented are: + + ELIHU VEDDER. + J. ALDEN WEIR. + J. W. TWACHTMAN. + M. J. BURNS. + WILLIAM HOLE. + GEORGE HITCHCOCK. + J. FRANCIS MURPHY. + WILL H. LOW. + W. H. GIBSON. + J. D. WOODWARD. + ROBERT BLUM. + C. JAY TAYLOR. + ALFRED KAPPES. + ELBRIDGE KINGSLEY. + BRUCE CRANE. + WALTER L. PALMER. + + +SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE. + +_Christmas Number Now Ready._ + +The completion of the second year of ~Scribner’s Magazine~ +will be signalized by the publication of a remarkably beautiful and +interesting =Christmas Number=. There will be about _sixty +illustrations_, one-third of them full-pages of rich design. + +=ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON= will contribute a second instalment +of his romantic novel, “_The Master of Ballantrae_,” strikingly +illustrated by William Hole. + +=H. C. BUNNER’S= “_Squire Five Fathom_” is a delicate and finely +imagined story. C. Jay Taylor of _Puck_, will fully illustrate it. + +=REBECCA HARDING DAVIS= will tell a story of life at a wayside +station in the North Carolina mountains. Illustrations by Alfred Kappes. + +=W. M. TABER= will contribute an unusually ingenious tale of a +mystery entitled “_Three Bad Men_,” with illustrations by Francis Day +and M. J. Burns. + +=JOHN J. à BECKETT= will tell the story of a sentiment. Its title +is “_The Roses of the Señor_,” and it will be illustrated by Robert +Blum. + +=WILL H. LOW=, the artist, will describe the origin and rapid +growth in the United States of the art of making stained-glass windows; +with beautiful reproductions of windows by La Farge, Armstrong, Tiffany +and Lathrop. + +=WINTER IN THE ADIRONDACKS= will be picturesquely described by +Hamilton Wright Mabie, and elaborately illustrated by W. Hamilton +Gibson, Bruce Crane, J. Francis Murphy, and J. D. Woodward. + +=LESTER WALLACK’S= Reminiscences will be concluded; fully +illustrated with portraits--one, taken last summer, representing Mr. +Wallack at his country home, with his favorite dog at his feet. + +=GEORGE HITCHCOCK=, the artist, will write of Botticelli. +Illustrations from drawings by the author. + +=ILLUSTRATED POEMS= will be a feature of the number, one of them, +“~The Lion of the Nile~,” containing four pictures by ~Elihu +Vedder~. + +=MR. STEVENSON= concludes for this year his series of monthly +papers with “_A Christmas Sermon_.” + + The publishers of ~Scribner’s Magazine~ aim to make it + the most popular and enterprising of periodicals, while at all + times preserving its high literary character. 25,000 new readers + have been drawn to it during the past six months by the increased + excellence of its contents (notably the Railway articles), and it + closes its second year with a new impetus and an assured success. + The illustrations will show some new effects, and nothing to make + ~Scribner’s Magazine~ attractive and interesting will be + neglected. + +Price, 25 Cents a Number; $3.00 a Year. + +CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 743-745 Broadway, N. Y. + + + + +FRAUDS IN POROUS PLASTERS. + + +Those who cannot originate, =imitate=, and all so-called Porous +Plasters are only fraudulent imitations of =ALLCOCK’S=. If you +want the genuine article, be certain not only to ask for + + “=ALLCOCK’S=,” + +but look well at the plaster and see that this + + =Trade= + + [Illustration] + + =Mark= + +is on every one. None are genuine without it. + + + + +ROYAL + +[Illustration: FULL WEIGHT + +ROYAL BAKING POWDER + +ABSOLUTELY PURE + +TRADE MARK + +ROYAL + +BAKING POWDER + +ROYAL REGISTE] + + BAKING + + POWDER + + Absolutely Pure. + +This powder never varies. A marvel of purity, strength and +wholesomeness. More economical than the ordinary kinds, and cannot be +sold in competition with the multitude of low test, short weight, alum +or phosphate powders. _Sold only in cans._ ~Royal Baking Powder +Co.~, 106 Wall St., N.Y. + + + + + GOLD MEDAL, PARIS, 1878. + + =BAKER’S= + + Breakfast Cocoa. + +[Illustration] + +Warranted =_absolutely pure Cocoa_=, from which the excess of +Oil has been removed. It has _more than three times the strength_ +of Cocoa mixed with Starch Arrowroot or Sugar, and is therefore far +more economical, _costing less than one cent a cup_. It is delicious, +nourishing, strengthening, easily digested, and admirably adapted for +invalids as well as for persons in health. + + * * * * * + + =Sold by Grocers everywhere.= + + * * * * * + + W. BAKER & CO., Dorchester, Mass. + + GOLD MEDAL, PARIS, 1878. + + =BAKER’S= + + Vanilla Chocolate + +[Illustration] + +Like all our chocolates, is prepared with the greatest care, and +consists of a superior quality of cocoa and sugar, flavored with pure +vanilla bean. Served as a drink, or eaten dry as confectionery, it is a +delicious article, and is highly recommended by tourists. + + * * * * * + + =Sold by Grocers everywhere.= + +W. BAKER & CO., Dorchester, Mass. + + + + + UNITED STATES + + ~Government~ + + AND OTHER DESIRABLE + + ~Securities~ + + FOR + + INVESTORS + + Harvey Fisk & Sons, + + BANKERS, + + 28 Nassau Street, New York. + + + + + J. & W. TOLLEY’S “PARAGON” + + HAMMERLESS GUN. + +[Illustration] + +=AFTER ELEVEN YEARS’ TRIAL= in every sporting country, now stands +unequalled for SAFETY, DURABILITY, EASE OF MANIPULATION and GENERAL +EFFICIENCY. + +Prices, $79, $100, $125, $150, $175. + + The Highest Possible + Excellence. + The Most Elegant + English Guns. + + +LONG RANGE WILDFOWL GUNS. + +[Illustration] + +Guaranteed performance of 10-bore at 100 yds.; 8-bore at 120 yds.; +4-bore at 150 yds. + +Shooting certificate accompanies each gun. Full particulars in detailed +catalogue mailed free. + +=AMERICANS= wishing a perfect gun should call to be accurately +measured, and we will build gun while they are in Europe. + + 1 CONDUIT STREET, REGENT STREET, LONDON. + + + + + LORENZ REICH, + IMPORTER OF THE CHOICEST AND PUREST + HUNGARIAN WINES, + Commended by the most Eminent Medical Men + of this Country. + +[Illustration: UNGAR-WEIN. NULLUM VINUM NISI HUNGARICUM Tokayer +Ausbruch REGISTERED 1872] + +THIS IS TO CERTIFY that I have examined Mr. Reich’s ~Tokayer Ausbruch~, +~Tokayer Maslas~, and ~Budai Imp.~ I take great pleasure in commending +these wines to the medical profession because of their _purity_. + + R. OGDEN DOREMUS, M.D., LL.D., + +_Prof. of Chemistry and Toxicology, Bellevue Hospital Med. Coll., and +Prof. of Chemistry and Physics, Coll. City of N. Y._ + + Tokayer Ausbruch and Tokayer Maslas, Vintage of 1874. + + =Somlayai Imp.= (White Wine), and =Budai Imp.= (Red Wine), + =Vintage of 1874.= + + SLIVOVITZ (Prune Brandy), 1868. + + Sherries from the Vineyards of J. J. V. VEGAS, Frontera, Spain. + + RAYAS, PALO CORTADO, AMONTILLADO PASADO, SANTO TOMAS. + + ALSO, SOLE AGENT U. S. A. AND CANADA, FOR THE FOLLOWING BRANDS + CHAMPAGNE: + + MOIGNEAUX PERE ET FILS, DIZY, CUREE DE RESERVE, TRES SEC, PRES + EPERNAY. + + LORENZ REICH, The Cambridge, 334 Fifth Avenue, New York. + + Branch Office, 70 State St., Chicago, Ill. Telephone Call, + 318--39th St. + +_All orders promptly filled and shipped to any part of the United +States. Beware of Impositions, as unscrupulous dealers are buying up my +empty bottles._ + + + + + The Kodak Camera + + Anybody can use the ~Kodak~ without learning anything about + photography, further than the mere operation of pointing the + camera and ~PRESSING A BUTTON~. No dark rooms or chemicals + necessary. The camera is loaded for =100= pictures. + + ~The Kodak System~ is a ~DIVISION OF LABOR~ whereby + all the work of finishing the pictures is done at the factory, + where the camera is sent by mail to be reloaded, and is available + for those who have no time, inclination or facilities for learning + photography. + + Any Amateur can, of course, finish his own pictures if desirable. + + If you want to know more about the Kodak, send for a copy of the + Kodak Primer: a beautiful illustrated pamphlet containing Kodak + photograph, free, by mail. + + The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co., + + PRICE, $25.00. ~Rochester, N. Y.~ + + _For sale by all Photo. Stock Dealers._ + + -------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Outing; Vol. XIII.; October, 1888 to +March, 1889, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUTING; VOL. 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