211 



suddenly comes upon her maiden stand, as staunch and 

 firm as any old hand at it. After admiring her a short time 

 she becomes a little nervous and seems at a loss to know 

 what is expected of her. A simple "steady, Gyp," is all 

 that is necessary, and there she stands a perfect picture. I 

 step forward, and soon flush a bevy of some thirty birds, 

 but do not shoot, as they are only about a quarter grown. 

 The pup seems bewildered, a single word is sufficient. 

 "Down charge, Gyp, good dog, good dog." I am amply 

 paid for all my trouble in bringing up and house-breaking 

 her. She is a success, and I am satisfied. The birds all 

 struck for very thick cover, where we found it impossible 

 to follow them. So we spent the remainder of the day, all 

 shooting well and in luck, with the exception of Dale, who 

 only had some five or six shots all day long, it being too 

 much exertion for him to climb fences or beat runs, conse- 

 quently we were always ahead of him, and of course had 

 the shooting all to ourselves. Just before dark we started 

 on the back track, stopping only once where we had put 

 up our firs* bevy in the morning, expecting to find them 

 out feeding. We had no sooner struck in the stubble be- 

 fore Fred came to a dead stop, a lemon and white setter 

 hunted by Eea backed him beautifully, and Gyp came up 

 on the other side and stood like an old 'un. What a sight 

 to look upon! Either of us would have given considerable 

 for a photographer for just five minutes. Whir! whir! 

 — Bang! bang! off go the bevy, minus two. It being too 

 dark to cover any more, or to follow them, we let them go 

 on and start forborne, sorry that we can't have longer days. 

 The next morning we were at it again, but can only have 

 some two hours' shooting, as we start for New York in the 

 afternoon. We hardly get into cover, before our dogs 

 are standing and we spring a fine bevy and get two. Now 

 our sport commences. "Fred" stops, Harry's gun comes 

 up, and down comes a fine one. "Gyp" makes game, up jump 

 two, one quartering to the right and one straight from me. 

 I knock down both in fine style, and in a short time up get 

 two more. I cover both and drop them, but can only find 

 one, and cannot spare time to look carefully for the other, 

 so am compelled to leave it to find the rest of the party, 

 who have done nothing, with the exception of Harry, who 

 had killed all his birds, as Rea said, "in fine style." We 

 find it time to stop; we can hardly leave the birds 

 but boats and cars have a mean way of starting on time 

 (sometimes), so we have to bid the birds a long farewell, 

 regretfully 'tis true, but manfully. By twelve o'clock we 

 returned to our quarters, a brace of tired, wet, and hungry 

 sportsmen, but with ieelings considerably alleviated by the 

 result of our bag. Some sixty quail, three pigeons, and 

 one gray squirrel footed the score, and we are in hopes of 

 another trial next season, when we can have more time and 

 make better connections. We made many very pleasant 

 acquaintances, and found them all warm, genial and hos- 

 pitable fellows, and we were exceedingly sorry to leave 

 them. To any and all of your readers we advise them to 

 try Cambridge for quail, or as they call them down there, 

 partridge, and we can heartily recommend the Bramble 

 House, kept by our fellow sportsman Vernon Rea. 



A. P. V. 



LOOSE LEAVES FROM A SURVEYOR'S 

 JOURNAL. 



"EsJUN whiskey." 



We were following a gig path around the rapid, when 

 we came in view of a rough log shanty, evidently thrown 

 up in haste and ready to be vacated at a moment's notice. 

 This was a whiskey trader's camp, far in the woods, miles 

 from any settlement, and though there was a severe United 

 States penalty against either giving or selling an Indian 

 intoxicating liquors, yet more than one individual I wot 

 of made small fortunes by doing the latter. Old Antonio 

 — a Kanuck — was one of the most successful of these for 

 several seasons. He sold whiskey that probably cost him 

 not over ten cents per gallon (made up of high wine, water, 

 oil of vitrol, and he only knew what else) to the poor In- 

 dian for a dollar, took their maple sugar (large quantities 

 of which, and of a good quality, are made by the squaws 

 in the spring) at three cents per pound, thus getting 33i 

 pounds of sugar for ten cents. After making up a load of 

 sugar, with perhaps a bale or two of furs, &c. , he would 

 ship them down the river on an easily constructed raft to 

 the settlements, fifty or sixty miles below, where the sugar 

 was freely bought from eight to ten cents cash, or twelve 

 cents in trade— a pretty good profit. 



As we were passing, we noticed four or five of the red- 

 skins laid out by the side of the shanty, evidently oblivious 

 of all passing events — dead drunk, sure. But one young 

 and rather good-looking fellow, that probably had no 

 sugar or mink skin to barter (and their credit is not of the 

 best) was sober. He came up to me (the rest of the boys 

 had gone by), and with a leer of the most supreme con- 

 tempt on his face, pointing to the recumbent bodies, he 

 said: "Gausch darn fool, Injun drunk; give Injun fippunce 

 buy cracker; Injun hungry." 



I looked at the poor fellow, and an idea struck me, rather 

 a demoralized one I must confess, and hardly to be approved 

 of by the Evangelical Alliance. I had heard of the sudden, 

 almost lightning-like effects of Indian whiskey, and I want- 

 ed an occular demonstration. Here I had the material be- 

 fore me. Though not a chemist myself, it is with great 

 satisfaction that I look upon a successful chemical experi- 

 ment, when there is no danger or personal inconvenience 

 to myself connected therewith. I took out a sixpence, and 

 looking the Indian in the eye, said: "If I give you this you 

 will buy whiskey and get drunk like those fellows there." 



He replied: "Me honest Injun, no drink; me hungry In- 

 jun." "Well, here then," giving him the coin, "you go 

 in there and get % some crackers; don't you buy whiskey." 

 Thus, you see, I gave him the benefit of the doubt (if doubt 

 there was), and quieted my conscience. He seized the 

 piece with chuckling avidity. I pretended to go on by the 

 shanty, but I noticed a window on the farther side, around 

 to which I whipped as soon as he had entered the door. It 

 gave me a clear view of the only room in the place, at the 

 back end of which was a rough slab bar, and behind that a 

 bloated specimen of a half-breed, ready to deal out the 

 liquid— what shall I call it? 



It was a sight to see that Indian walk up to that bar, and 

 with all the air of a Wall street millionaire (before the 

 crash) plank down his coin. The barkeeper set on the 

 counter an old-fashioned smooth glass tumbler, holding, I 

 should judge, about half a, pint, then raised from below 

 and placed beside it a black half -gallon bottle or jug. The 

 Indian, taking it in both hands, filled the tumbler to the 

 brim. "Pretty good drink," I thought, "means to get his 

 money's worth in quantity, at any rate." With both hands 

 again he then carefully raised up the glass, his eyes glisten- 

 ing with eager anticipation; viewed the liquid first on one 

 side, then on the other, then on top, then underneath, gave 

 a grunt, tipped back his head, placed it to his lips and did 

 not remove the glass until the last drop had disappeared 

 down that cavernous throat. 



Then spoke the barkeeper, who evidently knew Indian 

 character, and from many an experience what would hap- 

 pen "Now git out, out with ye!" The Indian gave a 

 grunt of deep satisfaction, turned around, paused a mo- 

 ment (and even then the drunken leer was visibly spreading 

 over his countenance), started for the door, stopped, reeled 

 twice, caught against one side of the door, bore over to- 

 ward the other, caught again, gave another reel and a 

 swing, and in a twinkling he was around the corner and 

 down among the others— gone! My life, is it possible! 

 Several of the boys watching my motions had come back 

 and joined me at the window. 



We went around, and we poked, we kicked that Indian; 

 we pulled his hair, his ears, his nose. He w r as drunk, dead 

 drunk, too drunk to grunt — clean gone. 



"Boys," I said, "I. want to see some of that whiskey." 

 We went in. I called for "something to drink." The pro- 

 prietor brought out a cut-glass decanter. "No," I said, "I 

 want some out of that big black bottle." "Oh no," he re- 

 plied, "that is Injun whiskey, this is first rate, best corn, 

 cost me 28 cents a gallon." "No, but* I want the other, 

 and it was only his fear that we might be deputy United 

 States Marshals, or kick up a row, that finally, with many 

 apologies and protestations, he brought it out. I poured 

 certainly not over a teaspoonful into a tumbler and filled it 

 about one-third full of water. It turned it the color of old 

 lead. I tasted it, and like a fool, let a small portion pass 

 down my throat. Christopher Columbus! it was red hot 

 lava; a potato right from the pot was nothing to it. It 

 scorched, it burned and seared all the way down, and after 

 it got there l drank tumbler after tumbler of water, but it 

 would not wash out. It lasted me, that fire, all the day. I 

 had had enough of Indian whiskey, being thoroughly con- 

 vinced that between my internal organs -and that element 

 there could be no affinity. 



No wonder- it laid out those fellows so suddenly. I 

 should have thought they would never have waked up. Is 

 it longer a matter of astonishment that the Lo's are passing 

 so rapidly from the face of the earth ? Jacobstaff. 



OYSTER PIE. 



JUVENAL'S writings seem to show that as early as A. 

 D. 60, the Romans enjoyed the oyster. Sallust 110 

 years afterwards, is loud in his praises of the bi-valve, 

 though slightly indifferent to the early Briton, as he 

 remarks. "These wretched Briton's, after all there is 

 something good about them, they produce oysters," 



It was Sergiws Orata the Coste of that early period, w T ho 

 went regularly into the oyster business, for as Pliny says 

 "he did not do it because he loved oysters, but because 

 there was money in it." The Romans not only eat them 

 off the half shell, but cooked them, for says athencBus 

 "They are eaten raw and sometimes roasted, they had, too 

 a custom of seathing them with mallows and docks, (per- 

 haps like our cellery)' and with fish, which was esteemed as 

 very wholsome." How to cook oysters has, however, run 

 through the strange phrases. In the twelfth centuiy, (it 

 was indeed a dark age) they absolutely used the oyster for 

 dessert. Here is a receipt for cooking the cherry stone 

 or blue point of that period. "Shyl him (shell your oyster,) 

 and seeth him in wyne and inhare (their) own': broth." So 

 far so good, and not at all objectionable. "Take almandes 

 blaunched, grind him and ayle (mix) with floer of lys (rice) 

 and do (put) the oyster thereinne. Cast in powder of gyn- 

 ger, moult (much) sugar, macy's (mace) and seeth it not too 

 thickc." We'cannot exactly recommend this for an oyster 

 stew. 



Rules and regulations in regard to catching oysters are, 

 too, of old date, for in the time of Henry II (1154) a com- 

 pany of free dredgers paid annually to the crown the sum 

 of twenty-three shillings and f'ourpence for the right of 

 getting them. 



We have so far sketched quite lightly some of the oyster 

 history, but here comes in an important question. Some 

 years ago a subject agitated the whole people, and that was, 

 how much lager beer it would take to intoxicate ; now the 

 question of to-day is how many oysters will it take to satisfy 

 a hungry man. If Vitellius, the great Roman emperor 

 whetted his' appetitp with 1200 oysters, what am on nt of 



real nourishment is there in an oyster, sufficient for a normal 

 blessed man with an ordinary stomach? 'For his daily nour- 

 ishment a man of fair size and strength, employed in usual 

 labor, requires a quantity of* food equal to twelve ounces 

 about of nitrogenised matter. According then to this calcu- 

 lation, a man to do a day's work on oysters alone, would 

 want to eat somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred 

 good big oysters. Perhaps some of our native Indians, 

 who in old days existed on oysters alone, consumed this 

 quantity, for how account otherwise for the enormous 

 heaps of shells they have left as evidences of their oyster 

 devouring capabilities, on the banks of many of our estu- 

 ajfes. 



'There is a sad and wierd story of an oyster eater, which 

 still floats around the wharves of Baltimore, where oyster 

 boats do congregate. One morning, 'twas years ago, the sloop 

 Martha Mary came from some oyster bed on the Chesapeake 

 laden gunnel deep with prime oysters, and was moored 

 safely along a Baltimore wharf. The skipper pleased with 

 the prospects of his voyage, lounged on the wharf, awaiting 

 a customer. There came to this Captain, a lean lank and 

 sallow faced man, who said with a cavernous voice, "I 

 would eat some oysters ?" "Plenty on board there!" was 

 the bluff reply. '"But I would pay for what I eat" inter- 

 posed the stranger. "All right, go aboard, eat your fill, for 

 a quarter," cheerily replied the skipper, for in those early 

 times oysters were worth not more than fifteen cents a 

 bushel. "Willingly," said the thin man producing with 

 alacrity the old Spanish quarter with the pillars on it, the 

 coin of that time, and drawing a large rusty oyster knife 

 from his pocket. Then the thin roan opened the hatch of 

 the little vessel and dived below. 



The Captain went to his breakfast. The meal over, he 

 returned to his sloop deck. Below he heard the measured 

 click of an oyster knife. He thought little about it, only said 

 "he has a good appetite." Oysters were not rapid of sale 

 that day, as two more oyster smacks had came in, and 

 purchasers were slack. "Makes no matter" said the Cap- 

 tain, "the weather is cold, them oyster is sound, and they 

 will keep in prime order for a week." That Captain went 

 to dinner. Again he faced his little vessel's deck, and still 

 he heard the monotonous, incessant "click," "click," from 

 below, w orking away with mechanical regularity. Anxious- 

 ly then that Captain strode along, and -was full of fear. 

 As the sun set, still the click of the oyster knife was heard. 

 In terror the Captain fled from his smack. Next morning 

 early, as he approached the wharf, still his affrighted ear 

 heard the click- He could stand it no longer. Rushing 

 below, scattering aside whole heaps of empty shells, he found 

 the lean, lank and cadaverous |man, still opening away at 

 the very bottom of the vessel. "They was good," said the 

 cadaverous man, swallowing with artistic flirt a singularly 

 large oyster, "but scarce as salty as I like em, ef I had had 

 a cracker, or just a dash^of vinegar, mebbe I might have 

 engyed em more. See here, Capting, its jest a case of 

 knife with me. This ere oyster knife, and he held up the 

 attenuated blade, worn now to the size of a small pen knife 

 "wanrt good steel or I might have bed my fill," and saying 

 this he slowly and deliberate^ climbed up the hatchway, 

 and still lank and lean disappeared in the distance. This is 

 the story of the oyster fiend, as whispered about in a low 

 voice among professional oyster openers of Baltimore, and 



just as it was told to Shrewsbury. 

 -*♦♦ 



POTATO PADDING. 



Gay says: 



"Leek for the Welsh, to Dutchman butters dear, 

 Of hardy Irish swain potato is the cheer." 



Peter Cicca, in 1553, calls the potato papas, while Clusins 

 some forty odd years later calls it taratoufli. Now one 

 Thomas Harrist, in 1586, calls our Murphy openawk. Lord 

 Bacon says potado roots, and thus severely writes about it : 

 "If potado roots be set in a pot filled with earth, and then 

 the pot with earth be set likewise within the ground some 

 two or three inches, the roots will grow much greater then 

 than ordinarily." 



South American Indians called the potato papas, arracha 

 and battata, which is quite comfortably near our rendering 

 of it, though before w r e got to it quite, and settled down on 

 it permanently it ran through the mutations of batata, batata, 

 patatOr, potata and potiato. In the Pennsylvania Gazette of 

 1756 (Benjamin Franklin being the high-toned, enterprising, 

 spirited and accomplished editor) there is an advertisement 

 as follows : "Just imported, and sold by John Troy, mas- 

 ter of the Snow Polly, a parcel of choice Irish potatoes, and 

 a few good servant men and women at Mr. Sim's wharf, 

 near Market street." 



It is difficult to state whether the elegant gentleman who 

 lost his heart and his head in Queen Bess' time, did abso- 

 lutely introduce the potato into England and Ireland. Sir 

 Walter Raleigh's claims are, however, fair. There is an 

 old Cork ballad as follows : 



"By Raleigh 'twas iilanted in Youghal so gay, 



And Munster potatoes are famed to this day. 1 ' 



_ In 1619 potatoes were in England perhaps something 



like pineapples are to-day, worth a shilling a pound; even as 



late as 1796 potatoes — early ones — were sold in London at 



five shillings a pound. 



There are lots of pleasant associations clustered around 

 potatoes. The boyish escapade, the Robinson Crusoe life 

 in the fields, where for three mortal days a wild urchin 

 lived on pototoes roasted stealthily at night in the ashes of 

 a smouldering fire, the carap life, where the potato was 

 cooked by the camp fire, and such finer remembrances of 

 the potato, as the wonderfully cooked potato of the Cafe 

 Procope (a cafe Oliver Holmes loved) and the delicate mor- 

 sels of Saratoga Lake. What says the rustic verse? 

 "The sweetest devarishin that's under the sun 

 Tf to sit by the ftre till the p'rates are done." 



^k Peach Blow^ 



