284 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



PfOVEMBEB 11, 1880. 



iiig ll.raliii!.' I'L-L's Hull, ihij fiinos have iii sluul liatchiug, supci- 

 wxliug oih, r ;j|.|.;ii;iiiis by reuson of compactness and the 

 I'aciJity >> illi ■nliicli tiny can be worked. "We will watch for 

 reports of its use this winter at Gloucester and other places 

 ■where the cod mil be hatched. 



YARNS. 



DAKK cloads arose, about the lime we did, to repulse the 

 wooing Idsses of the morniuir sun, and gro-^'ing every 

 moment more and more threatening, finally struck a moun- 

 tain top and sprung a leak. Saint Swithin ! how it rained! 

 < iolden showers for the corn, emerald for the gra.ss, ruby lor 

 the clover. The wind howled dismally and forced his way 

 into the parlor. He does not knock at your door as a gentle- 

 man would, and enter in a modest, unobtrusive manner, but 

 he kicks the door open and stalks in like the rough rider that 

 lie ia, overturning everything as though lie were the boss aud 

 Bole proprietor of tlie rancli. 



A thorouglily bad day fills its proper place in the angler's 

 cal.mder. It is put there i)artly to make the better ones more 

 ultr,ietive by comparison. A whole season of .superlativelj^ 

 perfect daj-s woidd bring in its train a sort of contempt, or 

 perhaps unthankfulness ; but sandwiching U7ilucky and un- 

 pleasant ones between adds infinitely to the charms of the 

 perfect angling day, wlicn the wind is just right, the ripple 

 just high enough and (he fish a-biting. 



"This is one of my days," says Tyro, after breakfast has 

 been disposed of, ''and I expect, as yoa are all to be housed 

 for a few hom-s, to hear JIunchauscn outdone, jinglers can 

 outdo the most famous story tellers of any other profession." 



"How do you account for it, and why do you associate 

 with men who have so little regard for probity ?" 



"It seems as though the rarified atmosphere up here has 

 an expansive effect, and is conducive to exaggeration of fish- 

 ing and hunting exploits. It not onlj' braces up a man 

 physicidly, but his conversation gets braced uii. and some- 

 times so high and well sustained that a judge and jury ivould 

 be deceived into accepting as truth his most inflated flight of 

 laney. 1 associate with them, trying by so doing to cor- 

 rect their bad habits." 



' ' You are an ass, Tyro ; but whether you inherited or 

 achieved or had assminity tlu-ust upon you I am not prepared 

 to say, but that you are an ass I do afBrm." 



"Well, now, J.ick, all hard names aside, I have yet to 

 meet the man who, as an angling historian, is strictly truth- 

 ful. My experience is this ; I care not how honest a man is 

 in his business relations aud his ordinary everyday transac- 

 lions, that same man will not tell things exactly as they are 

 wlien he recounts his adventm-es by field or flood. Toil- 

 liwtrate my position : I went fishing one day with a clergy- 

 man. We -went to one of the fishing slatious on Staten 

 Island. We caught seven wcaldish " 



"I don't believe you caught seven weakflsh." 



'■Hear me out and then contradict me ; but allow-, for llie 

 sake of argument, that we did catch seven wealUisb. When 

 we came ashore we met a party who had been out nearly 

 a week.. They wanted some jNew York pajiias we had, and 

 for which they gave us half a dozcji more wealiJish. That 

 clergyman showed those fish as paa-t of his catch. He did 

 nut, I will say to his credit, claim to have caught them. If 

 his friends inferred that he did he was not going to disiibuse 

 their minds by telling things as they were and damaging his 

 reputation as an angler. You are all the same. Y'ou all 

 utter these little libs with the most unblushing mendacity, 

 y'ou guard your reputations as skillful anglers more zealously 

 than anj' other quality you may possess, and knowing this 

 1 take very little stock in fi.sh stories. I never knew a man 

 to guess an.vw-hcre near the weight of his fish. He always 

 exceeds the mark. There are plenty of men whose words I 

 would unhesitatingly accept in regard to anything but fish- 

 ing, and on that subject 1 would not believe (hem under oath. 

 Munchausen tells few fish }-arnB because he knew that the 

 guild of anglers were thoroughly competent to keep up their 

 end, and would probabily be able to grandly discount his 

 most extravagant stories: and I admire and honor his judg- 

 ment. He w^ould prove in comparison the embodiment 

 of strict veracitj'. You anglers lie artistically and grow to 

 lielievo your own piscatorial falsehoods. It is blow, blow, 

 brag, until the familiar quotation, "Tliat'safish story," has 

 become a synonym for every improbable and impossible yarn 

 you can spin. No angler hears a brother angler'.s experience 

 but he either pronounces it fishy, or procecils lo draw some- 

 thing still more wonderful from his own we! l-filled storehouse 

 of fiction." 



"There is a well-defliied vein of epiteful jealousy running 

 through your speech. Ton, Tyio, never had any luck fishing. 

 Thfttislcnownof allmen. Your opportunities have been golden, 

 but you never could take advantage of them. You are 

 totally lacking in almost every qualification that the ariglcr 

 requires. You have no ptiticnce. You are excitable. You 

 lu-e mechanically clumsy and stupid. Put a rod in yom- 

 bauds aud you arc a pathclic picture of igiiorance and .awk- 

 wardness. Vou cannot learn to tie a decent knot. 1 have 

 speid hours with yuu vainlj' endeavoring to teach yon how 

 to fasten your hooks, and yet you know to^dqiy as little about 

 it as a child. I gave you up years ago." 



" Pcnsontd abuse is one thing and facts another. There 

 was Barney Whistler, one of the most truthful men that over 

 lived- A friend asked him to substantiate a statement re- 

 garding some fishing excursion. ' Excuse me,* said Barney; 

 ' you will have to swear to your own lies, for I Iiave alll cuu 



do to manage and remember m^^ own.' You young fellows, 

 however, are not hidf as bad as the old veterajis. They are 

 the most uncou.scionable old braggarts in existence. Not, 

 however, from any intentional tendency to falsehood, hjut 

 from an xmrestralned habit of hai'mieas exggeration that took 

 possession of their sovfis, aud through the lapse of ages has so 

 thorouglily fortified its position that it is impossible to dis- 

 lodge it. 1'heirs are genuine fish stories, to wliich tliey cling 

 with baraacle tenacity. It does not take them long to make 

 a bull-frog attain tlie proxiortions of an elcphtmt. The fish 

 they have caught are like Talstaff's men in buckram — ex- 

 aggerated lo an idmost mdimited number. But these rusty 

 old chroniclers can Siifely be consigned to the category ot 

 'have beens,' who h.avc no proof of their passed-away 

 prri\v<-s.s save iu their own imsnbstaittiated assertions. They 

 ditpri'ciute everything o[ the present, aud say, ' When T was 

 on the Restigrinclie, or the Beaverkill, in '45, then Ihere was 

 fishing.' The still small vuiee of conscience never smites 

 them; but little fault will you hud with them for that. 

 You will all be in tlie same lioat after a few seasons more. 

 The wrinkles will gallier, slowly perbap.s, but surely; the 

 eyes fail, the limlis grow weak, the blood run sluggishly 

 through the veins, the voice will tremble, imperceptibly at 

 first, but the quaver will come; yet the tongue wiU never 

 weary, while memory yearningly reverts to the long-ago 

 angling days, to you tlie brigblest tints in Time's ever- 

 changing kaleidescope. Then your talk will be wise and 

 reminiscent aud ofttimes thin. I'll stick to that, although I 

 say, good olfl friends of the rod ;md reel cveiy where, I for- 

 give yon all, and may the evenings of .N'our lives be a sunset 

 witliout a cloud." Mti.i.AED. 



T 



CENTRAI. PARK. 



[HE condition of Centrtf Park is a disgrace to the city, 

 and a disgrace which is month by month gro'(fing more 



flagrant. 

 1 1 is asking too mucli that commissioners, who receiTe their 



•appointment through'no greater special fitness for office than 

 the color ot their political creed, should .appreciate aiHi_res|)eci 

 the designs of the landscape artists who planned I be Park; 

 and it is therefore a matter of no surpri,5e that those designs 

 arc ignored and friisrr:tted. But there are other, and to the 

 general public more pannl, ^sigus on every band of Ibc ineoiii- 

 pelcnce of the present m.anagement of New York's pleasure 

 ground. From Eiflb avenue to Eighth avenue, and from 

 Fifty-ninth street to One Ilundi-ed and Tenth street, the visi- 

 tor is confronted by glaring evidences of shiftlessness and neg- 

 lect. ■■ 



The w-alks are untidy, the concrete broken and the wire 

 fences straggling and di.sjoinied. The mall is mtiddy, and 

 thi'ough its centre runs a narrow wall? of rotten planks. 

 Here, unless the visitor exercises considerable agility in get- 

 ting out of the Tiay, be is jostled and bruised by the rampant 

 goat teams which, with their_noi.sy, impudent and rowdyish 

 attendants, monopolize that part of the Park. 



The stone bridges arc marred by the hundreds of idiots' 

 names scrawled over them, and many of the wooden bridges 

 are rotten and iiatchy. 



The arbors and rustic ■works are rotting and falling to 

 pieces, without even the pretence of being patched. 



The blanks of the lake are seamed with the roadways of the 

 huge rats, which vermin, with the English spiuTOWS, ore the 

 most nametuns aud conspicuous members of the animal king- 

 dom to be se<-n in Central Park. 



Add to all this that the Park tiolicemen upon assuming their 

 uniform become at once thereby deaf, dumb and blind, aud 

 that the walks and rambles are infested by "gangs" of boys 

 aud roughs who salute the ears of the lady passers-by with 

 oaths and obscenity, and we have ii ready explanation of the 

 fact that decent people arc year by year shunning the Park 

 and relegating it to the undi.spvited and destructive possession 

 of the great unwashed. 



If the Obelfsk ever reaches its proposed site, it will be a 

 most fitting circumstance that this monument of the ruins of 

 the East shoidd be erected amid the ruins of a great public 

 park of the Western world. 



Wc understand thai it is Cor an operation of suhstantitilly 

 this ualure that Messrs. G. W. I'uruerand J. A. Uossareuow 

 held in sJ.'iOU ball each to appear for oxaminalion Nov. 10. 



.&X.LEOED GtiN Fbattdb. — J. A. Ross, of the firm of G. W. 

 Turner &Knss, IT Dock Square, Boston, Mass., was an-est- 

 edlaat week by a speeiid ;igent df Ibe Post tblicc. b.r alleged 

 violation of the postal law, wbich forbids tlie mailing nf cir- 

 culars concerning a scheme to deceive ami defraud the public 

 by obtaining money by false pretenses. This firm has dis- 

 tributed throtighout the rural districts, and by means of such 

 "papers as -wiU publish their advertisement, voluminnns circu- 

 lars sotting forth estraordin.iiy bargains in lirearms. <Jne 

 particular form of inducement held out is the eillei- to send 

 for a certain amount a gim, rifle or revolver worth several 

 times the price asked for it, the purchaser in reality receiv- 

 ing a weapon which he could bxiy in a reputable gun store 

 for less than he bad paid Messrs. Turner and Ross. 



We have inspected one of the breech-loading shot guns 

 which was sent to a pm'chaser who wi'ote for one of the guns 

 styled "The Empress, Extra, No. 5," represented to be the 

 highest grade of a first quality BoneliUl or Tolloy. The price 

 asked and paid was ."ji-OO. The gmi 'was, to the best of our 

 judgment, the lowest grade of a Bonehill that is made with 

 all the improvements, and it bears the name "Henry Tolley," 

 uyidcutly a play upon the name of the well known firm of 

 J. & W. Tolley. This gun coidd be duplicated in any repu- 

 table gun store for $35 or $40. It is in no sense a t'^0 gun, 

 as represented, nor even a -$50 gun. 



Sh fyfirfsmm gimmt 



A PRiVIlUE FIRE ON THE SEVIER. 



Bt CoSltOPOLITAS. 



AFTER a long and tiresome dav's march wc went Into 

 camp on the west bank Of the Sevier, near old Desoret 

 City, at 4 r. m-, -weary, dusty, hungTv, thirsty aud irritable ; 

 ?"*;.'■!?? ''PP'^^'"'*"'^? °/ "".'■'••'""ping place did not add much 

 . 1 ^ .. I, ^,^.|j^ ijjj shade, and the water, 



nt, tecme-if with millions of ani- 

 uen and animals were obliged to 

 ■ious mud for neai-ly forty feet. 

 ild a sf>ri of causeway of rushes, 

 ndles ',ve placed in position the 

 pjdv' failed, and we Were as 



to our contentment, for th 



which was brackish and s 



nialcula-. To get at it the 



wade through soft and tcr; 



An attcmjJt was made to 1 



but failed, for the more 1 



more were needed, tmtil lla> 



badly ofl' as ever, and so pive up Ibe attempt. The Sua 



came dovvn as hol as Toi)lict, but ere long we had up our 



tents, and beneath the canvas roofs compai-atiVo comfort was 



attained. 



Our chief and myself occupied a wall lout, which, com- 

 ptxl-cd to the little dog-housjs of the men, was a palace. 

 With my pipe of Durham, mid lolling on my rnattress, the 

 ill-humor 1 had lieeu safl:ering from for several horns gradu-. 

 ally evaporatol But ,„„ .., ,,-i.,, ^r.... ^h.. f.^.^'h and 

 turned in Ins blanKels. :: ; ;, - „ ■ , , ,„,t,,^ 



matizing the coniurv, ll:.' i ,, ^'i, , ,|, ,,,,,, water 



in particular, for aiier =.-v,r.i ,u.M, Ml. I. ;, ,;,„::„ r !„. bad 

 given It up m despair. 



"My ilcarboy," said I, "why make sneU <! fass? Why 

 not compound a grand big jorum of milk punch and dro^vn 

 your sorrows in the flowing howl '/" 



A grunt was the only response- Again I repeated mv 

 quer\\ Mdl no reply. 



" Well,'" said I-, "'if you are too lazy to do yoiu" duty as a 

 an tiiui an ofiicer, I shall niy.self make a pimch and drink 



"Look here, Pills, what is the use of tanta^.ing a fellow 

 Ibal way ? "i on know very uell that all om- liquor is gone. 

 Ord beggcl the best )),_,( i In when lie started; and where 

 tne Old ^( 1,'iteb can ynu lind milk in this blank blank prai- 

 rie, unless jou expect to gel it from the old bell mare?" 



1 answered by running my hand inside my rag pillow and 

 Itrmging out a quart, hottle of brandy, the last of Iweuly-fonr 

 brothers, which had been reserved for- use in ease rattlers shoulrl 

 altack the camp. My companion beameij, ami when he saw 

 me extn,ct from my liavcrsaek a can of Br.rdeu's condensed 

 milk, eagle bnmd, he leaped to liis feet and favored me with 

 an ursine hug. 



"Hoolcyl Hooby:" shonied lie to the cook, "put On a 

 kCtUe of that wah r find bring it to aboil." 



This was to kill liic animalculte. While the water was 

 being prepared sugiu- was procured and an old nutmeg 

 found, and we anxiously awaited a chance to compoimd the 

 much needed medicament. 



By this time the sun was giadnally siukiug, and as the 

 shaddw.s lengthened, insects began i.M:ome ou"t and disport 

 Ibeiaselve., around us, inii'h tn unr di.scoinfort. Musquitoes 

 by Ibe miHion.s, billiiULsof bugs and undtitudinous moths 

 frollickcd and gamboled. For awhile I amused myself catch- 

 ing some as specimens, but as they became more numeroas 

 I was forced to beat a retreat to the open air. Mottbore 

 the torments manfully, having in anticipation "a balm in 

 Oilead." But be eventually .succumbed, and veiled: "For 

 gor.dness sake. Pills, build a fire aud smudge "into the tent!" 



As I proceeded to tear tip the long Indian (jrasa with which 

 om: camping gioimd was covered, to serve as fuel aud leave a 

 clear space for the fire so that it might not spread, Hooley 

 advanced to the tent ami said, "Here, Leftmant, ia the 

 wather. It has bilcd, but I cooled it in the river, and ye can 

 use it now." "Go ahead with your flre and I'll bring the 

 punch," said Slott. 



I looked carefully around to see that there was no danger 

 of the tall grass isnitiug, wet my fingia- and held it up to see 

 if any wind could be felt ; all appeared safe, and I struck a 

 match and soon had a blazing and smokinir fire, and with my 

 hatlfaimed the smoke into the tent. 'Suddenly 1 felt a 

 breath of wind from the east which in a second was followed 

 by a dust swirl. I rushed to stamp out the fire, bat in less 

 time than it takes to write the aceouut, some embers wei'e 

 blown into the surreunding grass and a terrific flame sprang 

 up whicli was friglnful to contemplate. I stripped off my 

 coat to beat it, and called, " Jlott, quick.' help me to put this 

 fire out: the grass has caught." But he. intent onlv on hi.s phar- 

 maceutical mainjinlaiioii, or thinking I was joking, refused to ■ 

 stir. i\ly yells brought the men iii caiiqi'to nry side, and, 

 with blankets and overcoats, we fought the flre and triecl to 

 keep it down and away from the tents, but in vara. Motl, 

 finding it no joke, rushed out and hammered away like the 

 rest. In a few moments onr tent took fire aud we attempted 

 to pull it down, .lustasllie last rnpe was loosened, Molt 

 yelled, or rather scre;mjed. " (jur punch, our punch," and 

 sijrang into the tent, determined to rescue it, and, while do- 

 ing so, down it came on top of him, aflre in a dozen places; 

 but w itb a perseverance worthy of a better cause he held fast 

 tu thepmiuikin and emerged from the ruins with it in his 

 bands. He quickly placed it, as he supposed, in a secm^e 

 lihiee, and joined the fire-fiirhting crowd. The flames still 

 cipi'ied resistlessly on, and in less thim ten minutes had 

 swept over the entire camp, with the exception of the place 

 where the wagons were paiked, and went rushing out to- 

 ward the west ■with ever-increasing fury, until only a long. 



II the <V. 



low line of fire Was visibl 



We rested from ou 

 aroimdusto ascertain 

 up, the arapajos of tla 

 ■«'as a general wailing 

 menta. Sly valise and gun-case 



distance. 

 ■ .and ruefully looked 

 : ':'-■}' i!i[t vas burned 

 } so.r( lu'd, aud there 

 Ild damaged outer gar- 

 ere liadly bmued; several 



of om- blankets barely held together, aud a number of bottles 

 containing specimens had burst. In short, we were in a 

 bad fix. The men. old momitameei-g and travellers, did not 

 dare e.x]3ress tlieir feelings too openly iu the presence of their 

 commanding officer, but the poor "tender foot" pilgrim (for 

 such I was) came in for a fair .share of expletives for stupidi- 

 ty and greenness. I Imew I deserved all that could be said, 

 and held my pence. 



My friend walked up to me and coollysaid: "See here, old 

 fellow, did you see any Hung of my blouse?" "No; where 

 was ifi"' "In the tent." "I exTect it is burned uj), 



