EDITOR'S CORNER. 



SUBSCRIPTION RECEIPTS FOR 3 YEARS 

 AND 9 MONTHS. 



Read the deadly parallel columns: 



1895. 1896. 1900. 1 90 1. 



January ... $379 $723 $3,205 $3>9<>3 



February .. 256 693 2,151 3,267 



March 300 1,049 1,9*9 3-7 10 



April 342 645 1,570 2,760 



May 292 902 1,377 2 >303 



June 307 770 971 2,016 



July 345 563 854 2,000 



August 306 601 1,262 2,245 



September . 498 951 1,464 i,94° 



October . . . 438 969 , 1,842 



November . 556 1,054 2,060 



December . 652 1,853 4,742 



$4,671 10,773 • 23,741 



September shows a gain of $480 over the 

 same month last year. Paddy Marlin will 

 tell you it isn't so, but if you will call here 

 I will show you the 1,560 letters in which 

 these 1,940 subscriptions came. And thus 

 will I prove Paddy another kind of a liar. 



THE FOOL WITH A GUN. 

 From Portland, Me , Press. 



When will the vandalism of the people 

 on picnics, the summer visitors and the 

 loafers with guns cease? No sooner does 

 a noble eagle soar over a neighborhood, 

 where one of nature's most magnificent 

 birds has not been seen for years, than 

 some fool runs for a gun, and does his 

 best to slay the emperor of the skies. Let 

 a pair of sea gulls, tired for a time of the 

 dashing of the waves, retire to the banks 

 of some inland river, as the people of the 

 inland rivers like to go to the sea, and 

 the presence of the gulls will not be known 

 there a day before every old gun in the 

 community will be loaded for the inno- 

 cent and interesting visitors. President 

 Roosevelt's ambition to kill something 

 big, indulged in civilized regions, would 

 overcome every emotion of beauty or 

 sympathy with the animal children of 

 the Almighty. President Roosevelt prac- 

 tices his ambition in distant places where 

 mountain lions may be spared with ad- 

 vantage to civilization ; and he would 

 scorn to rob a New England landscape 

 of a lordly eagle, or break up the harm- 

 less domestic establishment of the sea 

 gull. But all his imitators have not had 

 his opportunities for reflection; and the 

 only hindrance to the indulgence of their 

 thoughtless vandalism is their general in- 

 ability to shoot. Unfortunately, the party 

 of tourists who distinguished themselves 

 at Bennington, Vermont, recently in- 

 cluded one, and that one a woman, who 



398 



could shoot. She succeeded in killing 

 the giant turtle of Lake St. Catherine, 

 at Bennington. This placid inhabitant 

 weighed 268 pounds, and a local scientist 

 places his age at over 200 years. In a 

 moment this living and marvelous relic 

 of antiquity was wiped out. Of himself, 

 and from the standpoint of intellectual 

 attainment, the giant turtle was, of 

 course, lacking in interest. So are many 

 human beings who chance to survive 100 

 years or more, but we show great in- 

 terest and solicitude for them always, 

 not because of their intellects, or of 

 what they remember, but because of 

 the things of the past that they have 

 looked on. The last man who had seen 

 Bunker Hill battle was taken with great 

 parade to see the Prince of Wales, not 

 because the veteran remembered much 

 of the battle except the smoke and noise, 

 but because he had been there, and was a 

 living reminder. Without for a moment 

 intending to compare a glorious veteran 

 of the Revolution with the self-centered 

 turtle of Bennington, we nevertheless 

 claim that the turtle was entitled, from 

 what he had lived through and the stir- 

 ring things he had seen and heard 

 in his turtlish way, to some of the con- 

 sideration we give to those human 

 beings in whom the blood of life has 

 coursed more than the allotted years. 

 This turtle was 50 years old, and of 

 mature judgment as turtles go, when 

 the chivalrous Montcalm took command 

 of the men of the Three Lilies in Canada, 

 and sent the Algonquin savages howl- 

 ing down through Vermont. He was 

 nearly a hundred years old, in the prime 

 of a turtle's life, when the spirit of '76 

 awoke, and could not have failed to hear 

 the clarion voice of Ethan Allen sum- 

 moning the Green Mountain Boys to the 

 taking of Ticonderoga. A few years later, 

 when the tide of war rolled again 

 that way, he must have heard the cannon 

 of Stark and the musketry of the Hes- 

 sians as they fought the battle of Ben- 

 nington. And yet, blood that beat quicker 

 at all these things, must be spilled en- 

 tirely because some summer visitors had 

 never seen such a creature before, and 

 one lady could shoot well. 



SHORT SIGHTED COMMISSIONERS. 

 A subscriber in Evansville, Ind., sent me 

 a clipping from a local paper, stating 

 that the_ County commissioners had caused 

 a big ditch to be cut in order to drain a 

 good sized lake near that city. The result 

 was that tens of thousands of fish were left 



