For the Benefit of City Nimrods 



Paradoxical as it is, although always ready to laugh 

 and sometimes even sneer at rural people and their habits, 

 this is the time of the year when nearly every city-bred 

 person is thinking of a vacation in the country. 



And now, dear reader, if you are anticipating a quiet 

 week or two in a country boarding-house, do not read 

 another word of this story; but if you are an active being 

 with proclivities for learning the ways of the woods, 

 streams, guides and other wild things — read and mentally 

 digest. The matter hereinafter contained will not 

 take up any room in your cerebral cavity, and it is more 

 than likely that one or two of the following words of 

 caution may occur to you at a crucial moment, and 

 prevent a situation that might make you ridiculous, or 

 precipitate you into real danger. 



Twenty years of engineering, hunting, fishing, guiding, 

 sailing, etc., from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from 

 Hudson Bay to the Gulf, have convinced me that a gun 

 and a canoe are the two most frequent sources of danger 

 to the amateur. It would be arduous to attempt to 

 make a list of all the dangerous acts to be avoided by 

 visitors in the wilds on their first outing. It would 

 probably be too long to read in a lifetime. Such a 

 document might be compiled by the same efficiency 

 engineer who was employed by one of the large railroad 

 companies to standardize the necessary shop operations 

 used in repairing a wrecked freight car. As no two cars 

 were damaged in the same way, the engineer thought 

 it would be quite an expensive job to undertake. The 

 company told him to go ahead just the same. He 

 found that it took 78,000 standardized operations on 

 file in the company's office to have them properly 

 equipped with rules by which to repair any wrecked 

 car. Now, I am convinced that 78,000 new ways for 

 wrecking the human body are devised by vacationists 



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