THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN'S JOURNAL 



Entered According to Act of Congress, lu the year isSI, by the Forest ana Stream Publishing Company, In the Office of the Librarian of ;Congres3, at Wasnlngtoi 



Terras, $4 a. Year. 10 Cts. a Copy.l 

 Six TOo'x, S3. 'JTUree Id's, SI. / 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1881. 



U 



iv, New Vork 



CONTENTS. 



EdITOBIAIj :— 



Death Traps ; Tho Flying Clay Pigeon ; Notes 117 



The 'Poseum ib Served 418 



Tub Sportsman Tourist :— 



Two Weeks 'With the Bass and Pickerel ; GrasH Biver ; 

 Northern New Hampshire ,; ,, 460 



Natuuai. History: — 



Notes ou Some English Bird3 : 'I'rec-Climbing Woodckucks ; 

 Guinea Hen Hybrids 452 



Game Bag and Gun :— 



Are They Monopolies J Killing Deer iu tho Adirondfteks j A 

 New Michigan Club-Houso : : Hounding vs. Still-Hunting; 

 Notes 456 



Sea and Biver Fishing : — 



'Seonset Oattage Life ■ That Medal ; " Josephine," the Em- 

 press of the Catskills ; In the Heart of the Alleghanies ; 

 Our Philadelphia Letter : To Drive Away Mosquitoes.... 455 



Trout in Canada .....'. 459 



Fish CinvrrmF, :— 



fteport of the New Hnmpahire Commission ; Beport of the 

 . Nebraska. Commission 456 



The Kennei, :— 



My Mrat Chicken Shooting ; Timothy D. Gladson ; Cooker 

 Spaniels ; Notes 456 



Deift Proot Exchanges 458 



Bekle and Trap Shooting 459 



Yachting and Canoeing : — 



ThoPo;r Man's Yacht; Buffalo Y. C: An Open Letter to 

 the Seawanhaka Y. C; Salem Bay Y. 0,; Atlantic Y. C.j 

 Yquiua; Inter-State Bace 460 



Answers to Correspondents 461 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



The Forest and Stream is the recognized medium of entertainment, 

 instruction and Information between American spoilsmen. 



Communications upon the subjects to which Its pages are devoted 

 are Invited from every part of the country. 



Anonymous communications will not be regarded. No correspond- 

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The Editors cannot be held responsible for the .views of correspond- 

 ents. 



All communications of whatever nature should be directed to the 

 Forest and Stream Publishing Company. 

 Subsi-.rlptioiiN. 



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FOREST AND STREAM. 



Thursday, July 7. 



'Pobstjm Stoeibs are now in order. 



Do not forget that the same rules of health hold good in 

 the camp as at home ; and in particular that a full allowance 

 of refreshing sleep is necessary to repair the waste of tissue 

 duing the working hours. The good results, which would 

 otherwise follow a week in the field, are too often prevented 

 by a neglect of the ordinary hygienic principles of correct 

 living. Sound sleep and plenty of it. Remember that, and 

 arrange the programme of your trip so that the hours for 

 sleep may not be curtailed nor broken. 



There is great deal of anti-rnonopoly talk nowadays, 

 and it is not to be wondered at that the formation of 

 large game clubs and ihe occupation of immense tracts of 

 desirable shooting land should be looked upon with alarm by 

 some of those who are thus shut off .from former privileges, 

 A correspondent in this issue suggests that such clubs are 

 akin to monopolies. There is abundant argument on the 

 other side of the case ; and the club members can doubtless 

 give good reasons for their course. But is not the hint a 

 fair one that some days might be set apart for the benefit of 

 opposed parties who may not be club members ? 



DEATH TRAPS. 



ONCE more the community is startled by a frightful "ac- 

 cident" in which a number of precious lives are sacri- 

 ficed to the clumsy ignorance which has so long characterized 

 the modelling of small yachts in America. It is safe to say 

 that the "accident" to the Mohawk some years ago was a 

 most serious set-back to the development of the sport in our 

 waters, and now we are called upon to chronicle a second 

 edition thereof in the capsizing of a cabin sloop in the Sound 

 under oven more aggravated conditions and far more flagrant 

 in the display of stupidity. So thoroughly incapable and 

 willfully perverse does our style of modelling seem in the 

 light of these frightful and ever-recurring horrors that we 

 lose patience and fail to find words strong enough to paint in 

 contempt and ridicule the pig-headed humbuggery which 

 seeks safety in beam instead of iu low weights. It is, in our 

 mind, an open question whether the builders of such despi- 

 cable man-traps as the sloop in question and her entire class 

 of light-draft, flat-floored caricatures are not open to the 

 charge of deliberate manslaughter, and most of their skippers 

 or owners amenable to the laws for the grossest recklessness 

 and downright imbecility. That people entirely unacquainted 

 with such matters and unahle to tell one boat from another 

 should become innocent victims to their temerity in going 

 sailing iu death traps is, perhaps, natural enough, however 

 unfortunate. Everybody cannot be expected to know the 

 dangers besetting a type of boat radically faulty in concep- 

 tion, the treachery of the thing being hidden beneath paint 

 and varnish. But it may well be questioned whether the 

 originators of the death traps cannot be legally held account- 

 able for the havoc they create. Brought up from youth to 

 the profession of building and modelling, there can be no 

 possible excuse iu mitigation of their responsibility for exe- 

 crable work which capsizes tmder bare poles ! "When a doctor, 

 in performing a surgical operation, evinces a lade of pro- 

 fessional skill he is sent to jail, and the family of the patient 

 have a just cause of action fordamages. Where a yacht builder 

 sells to his customer, a green hand perhaps, a thing that cannot 

 stand up in a squall without a rag on her, where is the differ- 

 ence ? The victims of his gross ignorance count up by the 

 hundreds every season, and it cannot be long before the law 

 must be invoked for theprotection of the public. Unfortunately 

 the builder is not always solely responsible for the traps he 

 launches, which arc heralded in the lay papers as "models of 

 strength and beauty" by verdant pens totally in the dark 

 about tho real state of things, deceived into praises by cabin 

 tinsel, superficial neatness and decoration, when a decided 

 stand against the multiplication of death traps would save 

 many a new aspirant for innocent and beneficial recreation 

 from an untimely grave in the deep. 



We protest in the interests of the general public and the 

 sport of yachting against the construction of the miserable 

 sailing machines having nothing but beam to depend upon, 

 neither body nor low weights, sparred far beyond reason in 

 the pursuit of an oft refuted " theory" that a flat floor and 

 light draft are necessary to speed. It has been shown in 

 practice over and over again that a good, wholesome boat, a 

 safe one at that, is the equal of the machine in point of speed 

 and her superior in every other quality. Although late years 

 have seen a marked modification of sentiment in their favor, 

 we are still hampered with a class of old fogies unwilling to 

 learn from experience, and criminally averse to anything 

 having the color of a change from the ancient, insipid and 

 thoroughly baseless "rot" with which their minds have been 

 poisoned while in the shops as apprentices taking aboard all 

 the transparent hallucinations of men absolutely ignorant of 

 the first elements of mechanics, and utterly at a loss for a 

 rational system upon which to build for their customers in a 

 way combining speed with safety. In the narrowness of 

 tLeir minds and illiberality of their spirit there can be but 

 one way to accomplish what they seek, and that is a slavish 

 submission to the antediluvian lore passed along from man 

 to man, padded, colored by the imagination, almost wholly 

 devoid of truth, and a laughing stock to persons conversant 

 even in a moderate degree with the common lever of statics 

 aud the rudiments of dynamics. Even the little boy whit- 

 ling out a chip hangs lead to the keel, and sees his plaything 

 safely bound o'er the ripples of a mill pond, now nearly plumb 

 holding her way through calms, then struck down by 



a squall without consequence or damage, always 

 coming back to a normal position, and reaching 

 the opposite side in- safety— blow high, blow low, 

 rain or shine. That same small boy displays in his crude ef- 

 forts a more thorough appreciation of che forces at work and 

 the mechanics necessary to meet them in the right than his 

 sage, white-haired sire, who builds wide and fiat "to make 

 her stand up," or to accommodate that peculiar classof so-called 

 yachtsmen whose disgust is aroused lest they can berth a 50- 

 ft, ship on a mud flat with a few inches of water, and for the 

 attainment of which they are prepared to sacrifice without 

 murmur the very first essential— safety— a good design and a 

 valuable boat should possess. The future of yachting on 

 small tonnage would be hopeless indeed and a grand sport, 

 confined to the wealthy few were the light not already break- 

 ing. 



In the East outside weights and keels have become general, 

 and in New York the drowning — year in, year out — of most 

 estimable citizens cannot fail to bring about the cure. Put 

 some more brains into yacht modelling, or else let us have 

 Government inspection to insist upon sound proportions and 

 a full outfit for all emergencies, or the great million will nev- 

 er be got to look upon yachting as anything else than a. tight- 

 rope performance, and making one's final will must become 

 a step as politic as it now is necessary before going off for ah 

 hour's sail when the sky is not clear and "probabilities" 

 guaranteed from "Washington. That we have not yet been 

 able to solve the problem of building safe and fast as well is 

 a disgrace to those responsible for the present fleet. Surely 

 there have been opportunities enough, for many an owner 

 would prefer to put his money into something which shall be 

 safe first and fast next. Yet he goes to the builder in whom 

 he puts his trust and the latter, forsooth, to make the boat 

 safe, gives a "little more beam and a little less depth," and 

 leaves it to Forest and Stream to recount the disaster and 

 trace the drowned when the machine first strikes a combina- 

 tion of adverse circumstances, iguomiuiously turning the 

 beast wrong side up. Now, in the name of common sense, 

 why must we in New York continue in such evil ways ? 

 Have not deep boats like Elephant, Vixen, Fanita, Intrepid 

 and others of New York ; Hesper, America, Lillie, 

 Gael and a host of keel sloops in the East shown 

 themselves fast, smart and uncapsizible? Was not 

 Peerless, schooner, improved by outside lead ? Has Agnes 

 not done well this season with ballast below the garbabrda ? 

 Does Crusader lag for a similar reason ? If the whole mat- 

 ter of keel and low weights were still in the realms of ex- 

 periment only, well might the builders be excused from 

 risking their reputation and little all 'in something likely to 

 be a failure. But there is no longer any experiment about 

 it. Practice has shown that keels and outside weights, with 

 the necessary concomitant of brains, can hold their own for 

 all-round work with the old-fashioned theories of light draft 

 and beam. Some of the most sorry failures of the season 

 are boats, small and large, built on the silly brained "skim- 

 ming over the water" delusion one is so apt to meet with as 

 the stock in trade of many a yacht-builder's "faith." If 

 some builders refuse to take the initiative, we trust the large 

 public reading our columns will place their orders with 

 those who have sufficient intelligence to keep abreast of the 

 small boy's toy, and who are able and willing to learn. Shake 

 off the dusty shop lore for once, look facts in the face, and 

 have courage to back your opinions against the hearsay dia- 

 tribe which holds such powerful sway over those whose busi- 

 ness it ought to be to lead and not to tow behind. To solve 

 the question between light draft traps and honest yachts, no 

 better plan can be proposed than a close examination of the 

 model yachts sailed by their professional makers on the lakes 

 of the parks. Ask them if they would have a wide dish with 

 a board or a well-proportioned hull with keel and lead, depth 

 and moderation in beam. Their answer, whatever it may 

 be, will have been obtained through a vast deal of experience, 

 and we stake our reputation that they will bear us out in 

 the assertion that speed and safety are attainable in a yacht 

 with just the same ease we now produce capsizing traps, 

 which are not always fast at that. As for a yachtsman who, 

 to keep his boat on a flat, will deliberately choose a machine 

 to save himself half an hour's journey in reaching the craft, 

 he is past salvation, and in his case the verdict some day 

 may be : Served him right ; he is beyond the pale of com- 



