THE REFERENDUM 



575 



BOOK TALKS 



"The Sa-Zada Tales," by W. A. Frazer, is 

 most beautifully illustrated by Arthur Hcm- 

 ing. Heming is a careful student of animal 

 life and an all around outdoor man himself, 

 and a hunter who has had sufficient cxperi- 

 eence to write many interesting volumes 

 without using up the abundance of material 

 he has stowed away in his most valuable and 

 interesting note books. It is worth while to 

 lake a look at "The Sa-Zada Tales" on ac- 

 count of the illustrations of Mr. Heming. 

 As far as the stories themselves go they are 

 in the familiar nature story line; but are not 

 destined, we think, to make the stir created 

 by the Jungle Tales or those interesting ani- 

 mal novels by Ernest Thompson Seton. 

 Apropos of this talented writer we notice the 

 following item in "Out Door Life." The edi- 

 tor, in speaking of the bears of Yellowstone 

 Park, says: "It is this very grub pile, back of 

 the Fountain Hotel which has been immortal- 

 ized by one of Thompson Seton's works. 

 Ernest, it seems, had never seen a wild bear 

 before (and never has since, except one in a 

 trap, caught for him by John Goff), and, in 

 order to study their characteristics he says 

 he dug a pit large enough for himself to en- 

 ter and placed some boards or rails over it, 

 leaving cracks large enough for him to peer 

 through. Over these rails he says, after he 

 secreted himself in the pit, the garbage was 

 dumped and he says he watched the bear 

 for a long time and took nose to nose 

 sketches of them and heard them fight and 

 growl and saw wonders no other man has 

 witnessed before or since." 



We think our friend, the editor of "Out- 

 door Life," is a little too hard on Brofher 

 Seton. Personally, we have visited this spot 

 ourselves, and, although we looked in vain 

 for the hole said to have been dug in the 

 snow-like geyser formation which forms the 

 ground about the garbage heap, still it makes 

 little difference 'to us whether Mr. Seton ac- 

 tually dug this hole or not. Of course, such 

 a proceeding would be unnecessary, because 

 anyone can view the bears safely from a dis- 

 tance of ten or a dozen feet ; but even this is 

 a matter of little importance. The fact re- 

 mains that Seton has given us some of the 

 most fascinating and interesting animal 

 stories ever written, and, if we were to force 

 him into the narrow and matter of fact do- 

 main of science, we would lose a great and 

 talented story teller. We think his tale of the 

 "Sand Hill Stag" is a classic. Seton, too, has 

 our sympathy, inasmuch as he has started 

 scores of imitators who turn out stuff which 

 is neither science, poetry nor literature, and 

 which, if our wild friends were posted in 

 law, would give them good grounds for suits 

 for damages of defamation of character. 



Apropos of this latter class of writers, 

 Theodore Roosevelt, in his book which we 

 have mentioned above, says, in speaking to 

 "Dear Oom John" (John Burroughs) : 



"I wish to express my hearty appreciation 

 of your warfare against the sham nature- 

 writers — those whom you have called 'the 

 yellow journalists of the woods.' From the 

 days of ^Esop to the days of Reinccke Fuchs, 

 and from the clays of Reinecke Fuchs to the 

 present time, there has been a distinct and 

 attractive place in literature for those who 

 write avowed fiction in which the heroes are 

 animals with human or semi-human attri- 

 butes. This fiction serves a useful purpose in 

 many ways, even in the way of encouraging 

 people to take the right view of outdoor life 

 and outdoor creatures; but it is unpardon- 

 able for any observer of nature to write fic- 

 tion and then publish it as truth, and he who 

 exposes and wars against such action is en- 

 titled to respect and support. You in your 

 own person have illustrated what can be done 

 by the lover cf nature who has trained him- 

 self to keen observation, who describes accu- 

 rately what is this observed, and who, finally, 

 possesses the additional gift of writing with 

 charm and interest. 



"And we might add, as the lazy man did 

 after he had nailed the Lord's prayer to the 

 head-board of his bed, each night, as he 

 pointed to it with his thumb, exclaimed, 'Oh, 

 Lord, them's my sentiments.' ' : 



Since Mr. Beard has achieved such great 

 success with his "American Boys' Handv 

 Book," "Jack of all Trades," "Outdoor Handy 

 Book," and his articles for boys in Recrea- 

 tion and other periodicals, there have grown 

 up a number of other writers who are ambi- 

 tious to get a foothold in the same field. 

 There are plenty of boys in the world and the 

 /field is a big one; but it is not necessary, 

 neither is it professional courtesy on the part 

 of these writers, to imitate Mr. Beard's books 

 in size and style of cover and to copy his in- 

 ventions for their contents. 



We have before us "The Boy Craftsman," 

 which is gotten up in the same style as one of 

 the Beard books and upon looking through 

 the contents we find that it describes how to 

 build a log cabin and carefully gives credit 

 to the log cabin and cottages by Mr. Will- 

 iam S. Wicks. At the same time, the dia- 

 gram or plan of a log house, shown on page 

 187, shows the clay fireplace which was in- 

 vented and first published by Mr. Beard. 

 This might excite the suspicion of anyone 

 familiar with the Beard books and cause him 

 to believe that they were not unknown to the 

 writer ; and, when we turn to page 293 we 

 find not onlv one of Mr. Beard's inventions, 

 apparently but slightly altered to escape the 

 copyright law, and wearing his identical title, 

 "A Back Yard Toboggan Slide." 



The rest of the book, which w r e have only 

 glanced through, seems to be good enough in 

 the carpentery line to have published without 

 using material which so closely resembles the 

 inventions and plans of Mr. Beard and which, 

 combined with the shape, size and cover de- 

 sign, makes it appear as if the author and 



