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FOREST AND STREAM. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



DEVOTED TO ElELD AND AQDATIC SPOKTS, PRACTICAL NATURAL litSTORY, 

 FlSHtltJLTUKH, TBK PROTECTION OF C+AMB, PRESERVATION OF FORKt!T8, 

 ANII TUB IKCCLOATIOM IN MEN AND WOMKN OK A BKALTHY INTEREST 

 IN OOT-DOOB RECREATION AND 8TODT : 



PUBLISHSD BY 



<§0*e&t mid ^treaty ^uhUshing <$>om$mi%, 



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TKHHS, FOTJK DOLLARS A YEAH, STRICTLY IN ADVANCE. 



Advertising Rates. 



Inside pages, nonpareil type, 26 cents per line ; ontslde page, 40 oenta. 

 Special rates lor three, six and twelve months. Notices In editorial 

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 or they will not be Inserted. 



No advertisement or business notice ol an immoral character will be 

 received on any terms. 



V Any pnblisher inserting oar prospectus as above one time, with 

 brief editorial notice calling attention thereto, and sending marKed oopy 

 to us, will receive the Forest and Stream for one year. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUAEY 2, 1879. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, intended for publication, must be ac- 

 companied with real name of the writer as a guaranty of good faith 

 and be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Company 

 Names will not be published If objection be made. No anonymous com- 

 munications will be regarded. 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of Olubs and Associations are urged to favor ns with brief 

 notes of then- movements and transactions. 



Nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that may 

 not be read with propriety in the home circle. 



We cannot be responsible for dereliction of the mail service if money 

 remitted to ns is lost. 



ts~ Trade supplied by American News Company. 



Sensible Holiday Presents. 

 FOREST AND STREAM. 



Oluba can obtain subscriptions to Forest, and Stream and 

 Rod and Gun at $3 per annum. Now, at the beginning of 

 the year, is the time to start new clubs ; subscriptions to be- 

 gin Jan. 1. The circulation of Forest and Stream is now 

 distributed among 2,400 post offices in the United States and 

 Canada, and over 100 in foreign countries. Twenty-nine 

 foreign countries are represented. 



Forest and Stream Tournament.— This tournament for 

 Gallery Rifle shooting, open to all rifle clubs in the United 

 States, will be held at Coniin's Gallery at 1,222 Broadway 

 about the first of February, 1879. Nine clubs were repre- 

 sented last ye8r, and this year we hope to see double that 

 number of cntriep. 



. H«H . 



The Team of 1878. — The letter we publish in our rifle 

 columns, read by Captain Jackson before his team, should 

 rouse the N. R. A. directors to do at a late period what should 

 have been attended to a long time ago. The Palma has now 

 been home from Paris for some months, and in place of being 

 locked in the Tiffany vaults, it should be in the hands of 

 Captain Jackson and his men. If the directors will but use 

 half the energy of the Boston captain a match may be secured 

 for the season of 1879, and the old interest in long-range sport 

 be revived. Of course should a match come off it will be in a 

 measure a Boston show, and this gives the more opportunity 

 for the N. R. A. directors to show that it is a national body 

 over which they preside, and not a mere adjunct to the First 

 mid Second Divisions N. G. 8. N. Y. 



The Teue and the Fanciful.— It is said that the late Ma- 

 jor Wbyte-Melville confessed his inability to write anything 

 interesting about the fox hunts which he had really attended, 

 while we all know that he could give a most spirited account 

 of a hunt that had never occurred. Indeed, we suspect that 

 Very few persons could write entertaining sporting sketches 

 did they not light up the sober narrative with their own fancy. 

 Plain narrations of shooting, fishing or fox hunting, when 

 told without embellfeumcnt, may be models of truthful 

 Btories, but they may go begging for a reader. It is all very 

 well for the captious writers to say, stick to the facts. We 

 have Bomething more with them. 

 Needless exaggeration, willful perversion oE truth and misrep- 

 desirable in sketches of Bporting 

 travel and i in any other branch of literature, 



But clothe the dry bones. 



HAPPY NEW YEAR! 



WE not only wish our readers a " Happy New Tear," but 

 can almost promise it. The forecast is auspicious of 

 a brighter future than many past years have enjoyed. With 

 a very general adjustment of financial difficulties, the adapta- 

 tion of men's requirements to changed circumstances, and the 

 severe lesson of practical economy well learned, prosperity 

 seems almost assured ; and where prosperity is, there happi- 

 ness and content dwell. May these twin blessiogs be the 

 Penates of every household where Forest and Stream enters 

 with its annual greeting. 



Happy New Year ! The Forest is as wide as our beloved 

 land, redolent with the odor and freshness of perennial spring; 

 the Stream gushes pure and refreshing from its pellucid foun- 

 tain, generous in its life-giving properties. " One touch of 

 Nature makes the whole world kin." So does the magic in- 

 fluence which emanates from the forest and the stream per- 

 vade the wide circle of our devoted patrons, making us all 

 homogeneous in our tastes and brotherly in our relations. 

 Substantial evidences of the beneficence of this kinship have 

 we enjoyed this holiday season ; not, we protest, through the 

 kind offices of a mythical Santa Clans (whom we delegate to 

 the children), but through and out of the fullness of good will 

 of the.'givers, on whom may the blessings of the grateful re- 

 ceivers forever rest. 



To-day there are evergreens in every household. Hopes 

 and promises and good gifts are wound like a wreath of 

 brightest flowers around the chain of our life's servitude, 

 concealing the links which so often rust and wear into the 

 heart and flesh, and make existence irksome. It will be 

 time enough to mourn when we come to the places where 

 these looked for flowers lie withered upon the inevitable 

 finality. The old year is dead, and the ashes of the Yule log, 

 which erst cheered his exit with a ruddy blaze, are cold upon 

 the hearth. It was a most happy conceit which designated 

 the closing months as the " embers of the dying year." 

 Let us be grateful that Christmas comes, like a last cheerful 

 flash, to relieve the chill and gloom of their expiring. And 

 now that the New Year has begun, let us take joy of its aus- 

 picious premonitions. Let us at least be happy in the antici. 

 pation, though the realization may never come to all of us. 



Many tried and valued friends of this journal have departed 

 this life th; past year. We feel their loss in common with 

 friends who claim the right of kinsfolk to do chief honor to 

 their memory ; but we cannot withhold a tributary tear for 

 some with whom we have followed the field together, and 

 others whose sympathy of tastes and close correspondence had 

 allied our hearts to theirs. Their footprints are seen in all the 

 forest aisles and along the margins of many streams ; the old 

 dog mourns under the vacant chair, and Rods and Guns are 

 hung up forever ; but if, in the long hereafter, they find no 

 actual realization of the ideal "Happy Hunting Grounds," 

 let us hope that they may find grateful rest under the Tree 

 of Life, and satisfying draughts from LiviDg Fountains of 

 whose waters all are invited to partake freely. 



Ot our labors during the past year we have but little to say 

 here. The record of our endeavors has been presented to 

 our readers weekly, and the increasing favor we receive justi- 

 fies us in believing that they have been acceptable. We hope 

 we have done some good. The mission which wo undertook 

 at the outset was to inculcate morality in field sports ; to 

 studiously endeavor to promote a healthful interest in out- 

 door recreation, and to cultivate a refined taste for natural 

 objects. The support given to our enterprise at and since the 

 beginning, encourages us to persevere. We believe that 

 physical culture is absolutely essential to our manhood and 

 well-being, both as individuals and as a nation ; and we also 

 believe that by fostering the natural inclination for exercise 

 inherent in us, boys and men will not only become more 

 scholarly but more Christian. Accordingly, we plant another 

 mile-stone here at the beginning of a new year, not only as a 

 tally of passing time, but as a stepping-stone of progress; 

 and lifting up our eyes over the propitious outlook, gird our 

 loins with alacrity for our next leng-distance walk, hoping 

 that the entrance-money of new subscribers wdl be large, and 

 the reward of accomplishment munificently renumerative. As 

 we are not rich enough at present to give each of our 10,000 

 subscribers a gold watch and a new suit of clothes, the best 

 we can do is to thank theni for their good will and valuable 

 aid hitherto, and wish them many and abundant returns of 

 the "Happt New Yeas." 



THE O'LEARY-CAMPANA MATCH. 



BARNUM, we believe, first formulated the proposition 

 that Americans not only enjoyed being humbugged, 

 but were willing to pay handsomely for the privilege. Bar- 

 num has made several snug fortunes out of his sapient dis- 

 covery, but never did the hero of the woolly horse himself 

 originate a more cunningly-devised and successful catch- 

 penny scheme thau that just enacted at Gilinore's Garden. 

 The history of the whole thing is briefly this ; A newspaper 

 reporter heard of Campana's walk at Bridgeport, Conn. He 

 saw in it the chance of a big speculation. The first and only 

 necessary thing was to "write it up.'' He wrofc 

 Others wrote it up. Every one read it. Then, as had been 

 planned, the O'Leary-Campana match was announced, and 

 the anxious public was invited to pay their shekels and see 

 the show. They paid their shekels and saw the show. It 

 was pretty generally understood in the early part of the .week 



that the whole proceeding was a hippodrome from the word 

 " ' Go !'" (uttered at one o'clock Monday morning) ; but des- 

 pite this, the Garden was daily crowded with people eager to 

 see the farce. The returns show a total attendance of 50,000 

 people, and the men who pulled the strings pocketed over 

 $20,000 net. 



To one who was not too blinded and choked by the dust 

 and smoke, nor too disgusted with the spectacle of Campana's 

 suffering, there was much of humor—very low humor, to be 

 sure— about the walk. There was more that was thoroughly 

 disgusting. It is said that tbe only way to arouse the South 

 African ox from the mire is to roundly swear at him in Dutch. 

 "Old Sport " was for the time being an ox, or rather a whole 

 yoke of oxen. They swore at him in High Dutch ; they re- 

 viled him in Low Dutch, in English, French, Italian, Chinese, 

 Choctaw ; oaths cut a la Chatham street, and ribaldry served 

 up in Fulton Market style. The slums sent up their most 

 accomplished blackguards, and the blackguards did their 

 work thoroughly, conscientiously and with untiring devotion. 

 The weary " lepper " brightened up only when they showered 

 upon him the choicest epithets in their extensive repertoire. 

 He seemed to gain renewed vigor by heartily returning the 

 unsavory compliments. His whole course was a triumphal 

 procession amidst the choicest tributes of Billingsgate. Once, 

 indeed, when he was hobbling and staggering along, and some 

 one cried out, " Soy, Sport, you old bluefish, cheese 'em 1" 

 the old man brightened up immediately, pulled off his red 

 shirt, and wanted to swallow the man as a bluefish would 

 a squid. Why his attendants should have objected to a little 

 mauling, we are at a loss to conceive. It would certainly 

 have been a most fitting episode. As it was, the " Old Stag " 

 cheered up wonderfully, went on his way rejoicing, rubbing 

 his shining poll and swearing with increased strength. 



To discuss the subject with tbe seriousness it merits, we 

 may only say that the exhibition and its surroundings were 

 thoroughly disreputable. The audience was for the most part 

 a congregation of the coarsest classes. The bar did an 

 enormous business. It was an inspiring sight to see the 

 wrangling throngs leaving their blackguarding of Sport for a 

 fresh clamor at the counter. It was still more inspiring to 

 witness the police thrusting the thirsty crowd back that they 

 might themselves have a turn at the cheering glass. The at- 

 mosphere was horribly foul and thick with tobacco smoke 

 dust and the exhalations of drunken men. Breathing it ten 

 minutes made the average spectator choke and cough. That 

 O'Leary and his companion were able to live in the garden 

 six days, walking as they did, is simply a marvel of human 

 endurance. A fish would die in water half as foul. It is no- 

 matter of wonder that O'Leary was spitting blood before the 

 conclusion of the match. Walking in such a vitiated atmos- 

 phere could be no fair test of his real power as a pedestrian. 

 The Hippodrome is probably as good a hall as could have 

 been secured for the purpose, but at the best it was stifling, 

 and for a man to submit to semi-suffocation was only a form 

 of slow suicide. O'Leary's pluck and endurance were under 

 these conditions, wonderful. His walk had elasticity to the 

 end. But otherwise O'Leary has done much better walking 

 before. We all knew he could accomplish the feat he has 

 performed. It has won for him no new honor. We fail to 

 see where it has benefited any one save in a pecuniary way. 



It is for the interest of generous rivalry in sport and the ele- 

 vation of the tone of public contests of skill that such exhibi- 

 tions as that of last week and all like them should be dis- 

 couraged. We would gladly see them done away with. They 

 are in no way healthy in their influence ; thoy serve no good 

 end ; they degrade pedestrian contests below the level of 

 prize-fights, and have not one redeeming feature, 



THE VALUE OF CAPT. BOYTON'S 

 EXPERIENCE. 



p the restless strife for wealth, the ceaseless toil and strug- 

 - 1 - gle for a foothold in the world of business, our people are 

 apt to overlook the merits of many a worthy invention which 

 should redound to our own fame. But we seem not to have 

 the time for other thoughts than those of the " almighty dol- 

 lar," and with a fretful wave of the hand pass over to other 

 nations the cire of developing and applying to their full some 

 of the best thoughts of America's sons. ' 'Is there money in 

 the thing?" Yes, but it will take time and capital to Durse it 

 from a small beginning to full blown popularity. Then it is 

 not for the American, for unless he can see a fortune in his 

 enterprise within the short space of a few years he is apt to 

 toss from him with a shrug as unworthy his attention any 

 article, any idea, unless " there is money in the thing." 



This is what has happened to the Merriman Life Saving 

 Suit with which the gallant Boyton has been astonishing for 

 some years past the rural, and the urban population of Europe 

 from the Thames in the dreary north to the Tiber and the 

 Bay uf Naples under the blue skies of sunny Italy. When 

 the new life-saving suit was first brought out in America 

 many exhibitions were given in oui own waters, and crowds 

 of the curious collected to see the sight, the same a3 they 

 would rally to any other free show ; but none had time to 

 spare to give more than a passing thought to the many points 

 of excellence which the invention possessed or to its con version 

 purposes, A few cheap medals and a little public 

 notoriety was all that the inventor and hia agent reaped; so 

 they turned their attention to foreign fields, with what success 

 the rapid rise into popularity and general use of the Merri- 

 man suit abroad attests. Much is to be attributed to the 



