Mat 11, 18»«.| 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



407 



Forest and Stream in the World's Fair. 



As Seeji, by Our Staff Correspondents. 



"FOKEST AND STREAM" WoELD'S FaIK BUREAU. 



There are sixty-five millions of people in the United 

 States. Stand the population up in line, divide the line 

 into squads of lao or 150 each, and take out one person 

 from each squad; then you have the state of things last 

 Monday. It was only a collection of broken squads that 

 staid home. The rest were at 'Chicago and at the World's 

 Fair. While so much of America converges here, shall 

 we talk wholly of jacksnipe and of trout? It would not 

 be joiirnalism; for out of tliat world's per cent, now 

 gathered here, there is too strong an inner per cent, of 

 sportsmen eager to see what sijorl^manship means to-day, 

 and what it will be after the studies and comparisons of 

 the World's Fair are past; and out of the home-staying 

 per cent, there are so many who wish to know about 

 things they are not yet privileged to see. No words will 

 fully do for this. No words, and indeed no picturing of 

 any sort can bring to the mind the impres- 

 sion made by the genie city itself as it lies 

 out in its simple power. It compels the 

 eye and the soul most sti'ongly for itself. 

 Neither could any writer nor any artist 

 depict what lies within the great white 

 buildings, even had he all the white 

 paper or all the canvas that he wished. 

 The condensation of interest is too much. 

 The focus is too strong. It blinds, it con- 

 fuses. No lime light can reproduce it. 

 Still, the paper which does not recognize 

 this focus of interest, and which makes no 

 attempt at a record of this most thrilling 

 story of the years, stamps itself as hope- 

 lessly un-American and quite unworthy of 

 place in a calling whose main requisite is 

 that of thoixghtfuhiess. Some sort of a 

 record, and such as time and space may 

 permit, Forest aisd Stream will offer to 

 the readers who rely u]pon it to be always 

 up with the times. 



June a Good Time. 



Matters at the Fair are now rapidly 

 reaching the stage of completion, but are 

 not yet fully completed. This makes little 

 real difference, for no one can see the 

 whole in a day, or in a week, and any 

 one building will be enovxgh for a day's 

 occupation; still, in view of these little 

 finishing touches yet to be, and more 

 especially in view of the wretched weather 

 of early spring here, it is perhaps safe to 

 say that June will be the best month for a 

 visit to Chicago. The weather will then 

 be more settled, and so will room rent and 

 restaurant charges. Moreover, June is the 

 best iishing month in the Wisconsin and 

 Michigan North Woods. Come to Chicago 

 in June, see the Fair, and then take a fish- 

 ing trip! If you do this, 1893 will he a red 

 letter year in your book for a long, long 

 tmie. 



Two Un-American Things. 



The Fan- is not American, but cosmo- 

 politan, as one leaxns early in his first visit 

 to it; but there are two things about it 

 which impress me as im-American One 

 is the sword carried by the Columbian 

 guard. As an ornamental part of the uni- 

 form, this snickersee may be very well, but 

 as an instrument of peace it is worthless, 

 and as an instrument of war — well, I 

 should think it would make an American 

 angry to have a sword flourished over him by an officer. 



My other grievance is the camera license. You have 

 to pay $3 every time you take a camera into the grounds, 

 and it mustn't be larger than a 4x5 camera, and you 

 have to sign an iron-clad agreement not to make stereo- 



did so, and a very hearty breakfast, too, but when the 

 porter presented his bufl'et bill he refused to settle. 



"I thought you told me this breakfast was on the car," 

 said he. 



"It am, sah, it wuz, sah," said the porter. 



"Well," said my friend, "if it's on the car, why don't 

 you take the bill to the car? Don't bother me this way." 



Even after the porter was later paid, he didn't exactly 

 realize the point of this, but when it struck him he 

 laughed for half a day. It used to double him all up, 

 clear down into Mississippi. I fear the French waiters 

 here wiU not be so fine of wit as that, and that the best 

 way to take lunch "on the grormds," is to carry it along in 

 your coat-tail pocket— unless the restaurants reform. StiU, 

 I wish that the ladies and gentlemen who have formed 

 the habit of making the Forest and Stream space a pic- 

 nic ground, would please brush the crumbs off the chairs 



CAPT. JOSEPH W. COLLINS. 

 Chief Department Fish and Fisheries, World's Columbian Exposition. 



when they get through. Part of the force is absent- 

 minded, and also has new trousers this spring. 



Instructive Exhibits. 



There is always something fascinating in the outlines of 



scopic views or anything else out of the pictures you take a well made boat under sail. Many visitors gather about 



—indeed, I am not clear that they allow you to take any ' -i---"!"" ^i-- c?'- t — „^ qi-.-ap n„ o*.„„,„ 



pictures at all after they get your $3. This is an unfor- 

 tunate idea It is monopoly too much. The people helped 

 in part to pay for these buildings and it is their right, in 

 X^art, to survey them, if they do so without injury, and 

 to study them and to bear aAvay the lessons of 'them. 

 The amateur photographers of this country are now so 

 large a body, and their craft is so useful and so natural 

 an one upon an occasion like this, that it seems the 

 privilege, or more properly speaking, the right of seeing 

 the Fair witli a camera miglit have been guarded a little 

 less selfishly. Outside of this, I question whether a man 

 lias not as much right to view these great buildings 

 through the crj^stal lens of a camera as through the crys- 

 talline lens of his eye. The latter is for himself only. 

 The former may be for his friends or family who are not 

 able to use their own eyes there. The facts that aU ex- 

 positions tax cameras, or that there is money in doing so, 

 hardly reconciles me to the $3 a day, the 4x5 and the 

 iron-clad agreement — which latter, in my humble opinion, 

 doesn't amount to a pinch of snuff, legally speaking. 



Lunch "On the Grounds." 



To take lunch at one of the restaurants on the grounds 

 requu-ed a long pm-se this week. Pork and beans was a 

 dish only milhonaires could afford. The management 

 very promptly sent away these forty thieves, and they 

 will lower prices or leaA-e the grounds. Outside the 

 grounds the prices are about as they always were, and not 

 at all unreasonable. In speaking ck this I am constrained 

 to remember an incident that once befell when I happened 

 to be journeying "^^th a facetious friend. We were just 

 outside of Cau-o, and a httle late, and the porter came 

 tl I rough with the usiral inquiry, "Will you wait tiU the 

 station, sah, or take breakfas' on de car?" 



"I will take breakfast on the car," said my friend. He 



the display of the St. Lawrence Skiff, Canoe and Steam 

 IjanncliCo., which shows eight boats, running from the 

 16ft. single-hand canoe up to a 30ft. fin-keel. The boats 

 are very handsome, Tlie exhibit is under the charge of 

 Mr. Loeb, of A. G. Spalding & Bros. There being a rumor 

 that the Spaldings had bought out the St. Lawrence people 

 and so made their first step into the boat trade, I saw Mr! 

 Gerould, manager for the Chicago house, and asked him 

 about it. 



"We have not bought out the St. Lawrence folks," said 

 he, "but we may possibly have some of their stock. You 

 may say that our relations with them are very intimate." 



This is in the Anglers' Pavilion, whose exhibits I have 

 already briefly mentioned in part. On beyond, where Mr. 

 Comstock has painted some green grass on the boards to 

 make his tent scene more realistic, I found in said tent a 

 low hanging cot, two of which the Protean accommo- 

 dated nicely. Perhaps I am losing my nerve, or getting 

 old, but it did seem to me that I would rather sleep on 

 that cot than on the ground. Incidentally we hauled out 

 the cot and six of us stood up on it. This belongs to the 

 exhibit of the Gold Medal Camp Furniture Co. , who show 

 a fine lot of furniture of the contortionist, collapsable, con- 

 densable sort, but all able to carry weight. 



Near by the above, Mr. Head, representing INIr. J. B. 

 Thui-ston, patentee, shows a nice and apparently very 

 useful device, called an "interlocking rod ferrule." 

 The female ferrule is split and caiTies a sliding ring which 

 closes it tightly when pushed up over the male ferrule 

 after inti-oduction of the latter. The wood of the rod 

 does not run down into the male ferrule, which tapers 

 slightly. It is claimed for this joint that it is tight, and 

 can always be released with ease, not being affected by 

 swelling of the wood. 



Steel Rods. 



The Horton ]\Ifg. Co. have in a fine lot of their Bristol 



steel rods, and in the product they seem to have mastered 

 the torsional action or "side bend" which is so great a 

 quality of the split bamboo. The steel rod of to-day is 

 quite different from those of earlier years, and is light 

 and graceful to a degree once unthinkable for so stern a 

 material. 



Split-Bamboo Rods. 



The Kosmic case shows thirty rods of magnificent finish. 

 One, a trunk rod in blue satin case, is marked $500. One 

 baby rod, 7ift. long, weighs only Ifoz., but has a card 

 saying $75 is necessary to take it. Yet another rod, of the 

 same price, weighs only 3ioz., though it is S^ft. long. 

 There is a "Tourist fly-rod" valued at $200, a 5ft., 5oz. 

 single-piece frog-casting rod with ivory grip, at $350, and 

 a line of all sorts, fly and bait, at lesser cost. The sections 

 of unglued bamboo are shown in illustration of the process 

 of maniffactm'e of these sterling tools. The Spaldings 

 also have in their case a half -mount of a 91b. 3oz. brook 

 trout, taken at the upper dam, Eangeley, "on a 6ioz. 

 Kosmic." This is a very pretty case indeed, 



A Horsehair Braid. 



Just in front of the glass case wherein the State of 

 Missouri has some old-gold catfish, the head of a bass that 

 weighed 14ilbs., and a full fine of other celebrities, there 

 is a little braiding machine presided over by a boy abovrt 

 the size usually known as "kid." The boy braids a line 

 made of silk and horsehair- mixed, something of the sort 

 one I. Walton used to write about. 



An Ancient Spoon. 



Near bj^the horsehair "kid" is the inter- 

 esting show case of the J. T. Buel trolling 

 baits, small, but comiDlete, and showing 

 many different styles of artificial lures for 

 use in troUing. Perhaps the most interest- 

 ing thing there is the big German silver 

 table spoon, with a single hook soldered in 

 tlie end, and with half the shank left on 

 for attaching the line. This spoon is not 

 pretty, and looks as though it had seen 

 better and cleaner days, but it has a history. 

 Its card says, "The original spoon hook. 

 Designed by Julio T. Buel, 1834." Here 

 again is progress shown, almost dramatic- 

 ally, and certainly usefully. Such are the 

 uses and benefits of a World's Fair. 



State Exhibits. 



Missouri and Ohio confine their fish ex- 

 hibits mostly to mounted specimens under 

 glass. Wisconsin will have aquaria and a 

 fine exhibit, but is very backward. Penn- 

 sylvania wiU probably lead in this build- 

 ing. Col. Gay now has the work nearly 

 done in his fine department. Much thought 

 and much money have been spent in this 

 M^ork, and the residt is artistic in its con- 

 formity to the intentions of the exhibit. 

 The decorations of the lower section, where 

 the aquaria appear, is of rough cork bark, 

 the upper decorations being of cedar bark. 

 The arch to the main entrance is covered 

 with cedar barif, and the arch proper is 

 sm-moimted by the keystone emblem of 

 the State. Col. Gay has got the aquatic 

 whiskers all on his aquaria, but no fish as 

 yet, his water works being not yet finished. 

 When he turns on the hose he will have a 

 cascade, a river, a dam, and a Rogers fish- 

 way in full operation shown in the dam; 

 The other day there was a ladder left 

 standing by a workman along the face of 

 the rock wall where the cascade is to be 

 and just above the Rogers fish ladder. A 

 waggish bystander explained to a friend 

 that the fish went up over the dam by the 

 fish ladder, and up over the cascade by the 

 plasterer's ladder. This is now one of the 

 standard jokes of the Pennsylvania exhibit. 



A Limitless Fund. 



There is a hmitless fund of interest for 

 sportsmen, and the attempt, to cover the 

 great field thoroughly is a discouraging one at the start. 

 Next week one should look into the great Manufactures 

 Building, and try to find what all the gun men are doing. 

 The Government fish exhibit in the east annex of the 

 Fisheries deserves separate mention. E. Hough. 



909 Security Building, Chicago. 



There is not a departinent at the World's Columbian 

 Exposition but what has an endless array of attractions. 

 There is not one, howevej', in its special field, which is 

 more interesting and complete than that of the fisheries. 

 The different implements of the sport and trade, from the 

 tiny trout hook to the harpoon; from the small minnow 

 nets to the large nets used in deep-sea fishing and which 

 are at one swoop capable of taking whole schools of fish; 

 and from the tiny canoe to the large fish boats are all 

 there. To attem]pt any general description would be worse 

 than useless. Every exhibit requires time and study to 

 appreciate it. Every exhibit has its own special history 

 and development. The sub-divisions of each branch' are 

 endless. Nevertheless, there is hardly a detail but what 

 is illustrated by an object lesson of some sort, mostly a 

 complete illustration. 



I was exceedingly fortunate in finding that Capt. J. W, 

 Collins, the Chief of the Department of Fisheries, could 

 s^jare a half hom- last Friday in showing me aroimd and 

 giving a general explanation of the exhibits. In reply to 

 the question as to how his department in respect to instal- 

 lation would comxjare with other departments, he said: 



' 'Exhibits are more advanced in this building than any 

 other one on the grounds. Excepting the Russian and 

 Brazil exhibits, which are now en route, they may be said, 

 to be practically complete. Two or three States are 

 behind hand on account of late appropriations and bad 

 weather. Oregon is in such a jjosition that it cannot 

 complete its exhibit till after the spring pack of salmon. 

 However, under rules of exhibiting, perishable goods can 

 be brought in late." 



"What time did you begin the duties of your office, 

 Captain?" I asked, 



"I organized my office here in January, and it has been 

 something of a hustle ever since, I sent out from 500 to 



