442 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



L.Itn.Y 3. 1884. 



taken an advanced step and limited ballast and crew, and 

 several races each year are open to such boats; but there is 

 little encouragement given them, and their increase is very 

 slow. 



Looking in the East, however, we rind a totally different 

 condition of things, doubly encouraging, not only from the 

 number of boats, but from their general good qualities. 



The race of the Beverly Y. C. last August brought out 

 289 entries of all lengths from 60 feet down to 13. Only 21 

 of the 173 that started were over 30 feet, and most of the 

 remainder were about 20 to 24 feet loadline. Of the 75 

 starters in the Hull Y. C. open race a week later but 12 were 

 over 30 feet, most of them being nearer 20, and all honest, 

 handsome and able little boats, whether cutters, sloops or 

 cats. It is well worth a journey to South Boston to see the 

 fleet at anchor there— several hundred little ships -small in 

 size but trim and shapely in hull and rig, and each one repre- 

 senting a crew of at least two ardent sailormen ; or, it is 

 better yet to go in winter, when all the boats are hauled up, 

 and when one can count the keels, the number increasing 

 faster each year, while the centerboards are growing fewer, 

 many lying ashore from season to season. 



Of the general qualities of the boats now so common 

 there, no better evidence is needed than a look over our late 

 files. Vayu, Neva, Caprice, Fad, Carmita and the others 

 there shown are but types of dozens of similar craft, whose 

 names head each list of winners — Hera, Gem, Lily, Beetle, 

 Banneret, Transit. If Boston can boast such a fleet, why is 

 New York so far behind? 



There is no lack here of suitable water. A draft cf five to 

 seven feet can be carried without difficulty, or if that is the 

 trouble, less can be taken, while good qualities are retained. 

 Certainly our sailormen are no less bold and daring or less 

 skillful than their Eastern brothers, and there are builders 

 who are competent to turn out such boats as would be needed. 



Whatever the hindrance may be, the men interested must 

 look only to themselves for its removal, they can expect 

 neither sympathy nor help from the sandbaggers or the larger 

 clubs, but must depend on their own exertions. 



Several attempts have been made to form an association of 

 boat owners, but all have failed, and at present almost the 

 only clubs offering any inducements to owners of small fixed 

 ballast craft are the Seawanhaka, Knickerbocker and New 

 Jersey yacht clubs. An association is needed that will make 

 a specialty of boats of thirty feet and under, prohibiting 

 shifting ballast, limiting crews, and enforcing such rules as 

 will encourage a true Corinthian spirit, and make it possible 

 for a man to own a yacht and enjoy real sport, both cruising 

 and racing, with a reasonable outlay of time and money. 

 Such a club once established would never lack support, and 

 its value would soon be appreciated by the larger clubs, 

 whose constant complaint is a lack of amateurs for their Cor- 

 inthian races. 



RIFLE SHOOTING NOT DECLINING. 



THERE is a cry going up from those who see only what 

 lies on the surface, that rifle shooting in this country 

 is on the wane, and that the sport of target practice is soon 

 to die out. There is really nothing to justify any such 

 croakings, and he who indulges in them is plainly a very 

 short-sighted person. The only ground upon which such 

 an assertion could be founded is that the newspapers are 

 paying less attention to the subject and are allowing the 

 marksmen to enjoy many a day of exciting rivalry without 

 the accompaniment of notoriety. There was a time when 

 every shot fired on the range at Creedmoor was duly entered 

 in the next morning's journals; now a regiment goes out for 

 its regular practice and may, perhaps, get a two-line notice 

 in some of the papers. Publishing scores and making them 

 are two entirely different matters. Even in the papers more 

 particularly devoted to the sports of the field, there is a 

 recognition of the fact that the score of each weekly practice 

 match of each rifle club in the country may, with profit, 

 give way to articles of general interest, in which topics of 

 more permanent importance are discussed for the benefit of 

 all. 



It is, indeed, true that there is a lull in the sport of rifle 

 shooting compared with the excitement which held sway 

 several years ago. This is particularly true in this locality, 

 where the international fever ran very high; but to-day, 

 taking the country through, there is an abundance of rifle 

 shooting, and on many a range scores of marksmen are get- 

 ting all that delightful combination of work and relaxation 

 which rifle shooting alone can bring. Persons of sedentary 

 occupation still find a rare profit to weary brain and listless 

 fingers in an hour or so spent with friends upon the lawn 

 w T here the varying fortune of the mimic warfare help to 

 keep the interest sharp and the rivalry brisk. These gentle- 

 men do not seek to have their doings set forth in black and 

 white through the press, but it is absurd to conclude from 

 this that there is nothing going on. 



The slovenly control which has been shown in the manage- 

 ment of the Creedmoor range has done much to create this 

 impression, erroneous though it be, that rifle shooting is on 

 the decline. The range of the National Association seems 

 destined to show its worst season in that of 1884. That this 

 should be so is not at all surprising. The range has really, 

 by the closing of the railroad which ran to it, been cut off 

 from the metropolis, and is truly nothing more than an 

 abandoned rifle range. There is a roundabout way of get- 

 ting to the place, but it is so far removed in tiros and 



travel from this city that it has ceased to be looked upon as 

 a practicable shooting ground. 



What IS ew York really needs is a convenient range for 

 off-hand out-door practice. It shoidd not be of less range 

 than 200 yards, and we think that such a shooting park, 

 properly located and equipped and liberally managed, would 

 be a success as a private speculation. There is a good deal 

 of nonsense, as we have at times taken space to say very 

 emphatically, about the manner of practice pursued by the 

 National Guard of this city and Brooklyn. The thousands 

 of officers and men in the dozen regiments here organized 

 would form a clientele to such a range as we suggest, and 

 there would besides be a large outside patronage. 



There are plenty of convenient spots about this city for the 

 establishment of such a system of butts as would be required. 

 We have no real estate scheme to further and therefore men- 

 tion no localities, though an energetic man or company equal 

 to the occasion would soon find the spot, and a moderate out. 

 lay would fit it up safely for the work in hand. Such an 

 open air gallery could be made an attraction to any popular 

 resort, and with it Creedmoor would soon be given over to 

 its ante-range condition of daisies and desolation. It is a 

 magnificent range, but if it cannot be put in use, an hundred 

 instead of a dozen miles may as well separate it from this city. 



We only repeat, then, that because Creedmoor has been 

 made the victim of a dog-in-the-manger management is no 

 reason for thinking that all is blue in the rifle shooting- 

 horizon. We need civilian marksmen to keep our regular 

 and militia army shooters up to their work, and that need, we 

 think, will always be supplied. 



STARVING TO DEATH. 



THE brief dispatch in Monday's papers from the Piegan 

 Agency in Northern Montana was probably read by but 

 few of our readers. Even to those who saw it, it did not 

 mean much. Northern Montana is a loug way off, and be- 

 sides that the Piegans are "only Indians." This is what the 

 dispatch says : 



Helena, Mon., June 30.— Major Allen, Piegan Indian Agent for 

 Northern Montana, reports that the Indians are dying fast from star- 

 vation, the food supply at the agency being very scant. The car- 

 penter has furnished thirty coffins in the past month, hut it is be- 

 lieved that the deaths are fully thrice that number, as the Indians 

 have a great dislike to burying their dead, preferring the old custom 

 of placing the bodies in trees or in stone piles on high hills. The 

 death rate is greatest among children from five to twelve years of 

 age. In another week the supplies will be entirely exhausted, and the 

 3,000 Indians on the reservation will be left to starve, or subsist on 

 the cattle of the settlers. Trouble is feared. 



If now we had heard that in some town down in Mississippi 

 or up in Minnesota, three thousand people were perishing of 

 hunger, we should, probably, feel somewhat interested. The 

 mayors of cities would be telegraphing to each other, con- 

 sulting what measures had best be taken to relieve those who 

 were in need. The daily press would publish appeals, and 

 call for subscriptions, the Federal Government would place 

 its servants and its supplies at the service of the relief com- 

 mittees. But these Piegans are "only" Indians — let them 

 starve. 



It is true that the Indian does not enjoy starvation much 

 more than the white man does, and while he takes little 

 pleasure himself in dying of hunger, he is even less contented 

 to watch his hollow-eyed squaw as she sits beside the robe 

 on which lies his poor little miserably starving child. The 

 little ones go first. They are the weakest of the tribe; if 

 thev are without food they must perish. The women are 

 stronger and can endure more, and the men have still greater 

 powers of resistance. So we find, naturally enough, that 

 the mortality is greatest among the children from five to 

 twelve years of age. Poor little things; we can't help feel- 

 ing a little sorry for them. Not that they are dying— that is 

 rather a subject for congratulation than for pity ; but that 

 they should suffer so while they are dying. However, they 

 are "only Indians." 



The Piegans have for a long time been in a most miserably 

 destitute condition. The buffalo on which they have always 

 depended have been destroyed and they have now literally 

 no means of support. They are not in any sense an agri- 

 cultural people, their sole food being meat, with the wild 

 berries, which they gathered and dried. But the game is 

 gone, and with it, unless immediate assistance is given, must 

 go this pitiful remnant of a once powerful nation. 



We do not know who it was that in "bitter sarcasm first 

 called the Indians the "wards of the natiou." They arc- 

 such wards as Mr. Squeers had in his school, or, to come 

 down to actual and recent facts, such "wards" as Shepherd 

 Cowley had in his "home" in this city, and starved to death 

 there. 



We do not profess to be sentimentalists. We know the 

 West and the feeling there as well as we do the East. We 

 have traveled and lived and fought with Indians. We know 

 what they are better than ninety-nine out of every hundred 

 men, be they Eastern or Western. The Indian is a human 

 being like the white man, he loves his wild free life as well 

 as we love our life, his wives and children as well as 

 we do ours. He has his pleasures and sorrows as 

 well as we. The treatment of the Indian by the 

 United States Government has always been shameful, 

 and the disgrace which attaches to us on this account 

 can never be effaced, and is only paralleled by the way in 

 which the British Government treated the East Indians 

 Each year adds to the grievousness of the injusti"*' with 



which these peoples are being treated. We have fairly con 

 quered them in war, and have driven them on to their reser 

 vations, and now we keep them there to starve. What- 

 would be thought of a man who drove a lot of steers into his 

 corral or barnyard, and kept them shut up there without 

 food? The law would be invoked to punish him without 

 delay, yet this is what we are doing with the Indians. 



What recourse have these people? What hope have they? 

 Surely it is better to break out, to raid the settlements, to 

 have the excitement of war, even if they die in battle, than 

 to perish miserably of starvation on the reservation. If they 

 do break out, at least they will have plenty to eat, for are not 

 the Montana prairies covered with cattle? No wonder 

 trouble is feared- Perhaps some one up there remembers 

 the Cheyenne outbreak a few years ago, when tue terrified 

 Indians fled from the reservation in the Indian Territory to 

 which they had been moved, and crossed Kansas and 

 Nebraska, perpetrating atrocities too frightful to be men- 

 tioned on the families of the innocent settlers, and killing 

 men, women, children and cattle. Why should not the 

 Piegans in Northern Montana do the same? No wonder 

 "trouble is feared." 



Even now it is not too late to avert this imminent danger. 

 The Interior Department should, without delay, telegraph 

 the agent to purchase the supplies necessary to temporarily 

 relieve the suffering of these people, until some measures 

 can be taken for their permanent relief. But the case is 

 pressing, and aid, if to be of use, must be given at once. 



8 UMMEB SHOOTINi;. 

 r |^HE first editorial on game in the first number of Forest 

 ■*- and Stream, published nearly eleven years ago, pro- 

 tests against the summer shooting of woodcock. Each year 

 since, at the coming of the summer, we have raised our 

 voice in condemnation of the practice, and by "line upon 

 line and precept upon precept" have endeavored to instill 

 into the minds of the public the great importance of pro- 

 tecting our game birds until they were full grown and full 

 fledged. The summer shooting of woodcock is admitted by 

 nearly all who indulge in the practice to be a murderous and 

 destructive business. Not only are the broods exterminated, 

 but in many instances the old birds share the fate of the 

 young; and, unless by chance, the breeding grounds are bar- 

 ren the succeeding year. This is especially the case where 

 the breeding grounds are one side from the regular line of 

 flight, and we have known many such places that remained 

 desolate for years. 



There is another very important point in this connection 

 that we do not remember to have seen discussed. Every 

 close observer of the habits of the woodcock is acquainted 

 with their different notes, and has heard the signal with 

 which the occupant of some choice bit of feeding ground 

 calls from the sky the companion whom hehears approaching. 

 We have often, for hours at a time, lingered on the borders 

 of some favorite flight ground, after it had become to a dark 

 to shoot, listening to the music of their rustling wings, 

 and have often heard the call of some bird in 

 the covert to all appearances cause the quick- 

 beating pinions to cease their flight and settle 

 near the place. Now who shall say that in this flight 

 from their breeding grounds in the north they do not pass by 

 resorts that were once famous, simply because there is no 

 one at home to let them know that the locality is desirable 

 and to bid them welcome. The point we think worthy of 

 consideration. We believe that with the abolition of summer- 

 shooting the fall flight would gradually increase and that in 

 a few years in a large proportion of our once famous "fall 

 coverts" the querulous whistle of gentle PMtiJwfa would be 

 something more than a tradition. 



In some portions of the country woodcock may be legally 

 killed now, although more than one-half of the States that 

 legislate upon the subject have fixed the date at least a 

 month later, and one-half of these put off the evil day still 

 longer. We shall preach no homily upon the enormity of 

 the offense of him who breaks the laws, nor read a lecture 

 to the 'individual who chooses to broil his brains in the 

 scorching heats of midsummer in the lawful pursuit of so- 

 called sport, nor do we propose to repeat the arguments upon 

 the subject which are familiar to all, but we earnestly appeal 

 to all lovers of woodland sports to hear tily join with us in our 

 elf oris to rescue from Iris impending fate this beautiful sprite 

 of "wooded copse and bosky dell." Not alone in behalf of 

 the present generation do we urge the protection and preser- 

 vation of this royal bird. We plead in behalf of the sports- 

 men of the future, those who are to come after us, that 

 through the rapacity of those who have charge of their 

 patrimony, they be not cheated out of its enjoyment. 



The Earth and the Sin.— Some of the savants are 

 trying to prove that the earth is older than the sun. We do 

 not care whether it is or not, but we are prepared to show 

 that the joke about the man who shot New Jersey mus- 

 quitoes for woodcock is much more ancient than our 

 esteemed contemporary the Sun, in whose editorial columns 

 it appeared the other day. 



Not the Rangeleys.— The name Rangeley Lakes is a 

 mis-nomer for the Androscoggin Lakes. Rangeley is the 

 smaller and upper one of the four great lakes composing the 

 Androscoggin chain, the headwaters of the Androscoggin 

 River, 



