FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. ,3, 1898. 
Confabulations of the Cadi. — II. 
The Cadi Discourseth on Professionals and Amateurs. 1 
The Cadi, being a man of good sporting blood, was the president 
and moving spirit in the local gun club, most of whose members 
lived in the country town about three miles from the Cadi's home. 
He, though all but an invalid, as will shortly be more fully ex- 
plained, was far away the best shot in the club, and therefore gradu- 
ally became unpopular, in so far as much adverse talk behind his 
back was concerned. There was much private denunciation of 
his greed, and brave propositions as to whether it were best to bar 
him entirely or impose a handicap on him. 
It was known that the Cadi had accepted some free ammunition, 
and had been the recipient of a gun as a gift, and it was generally 
believed that he was receiving also a small salary for shooting 
the same gun, all of which was very irritating to those who shot 
and paid for their own guns and ammunition, though several 
of them had made an attempt to secure such goods free, but had 
failed, which made them still more hostile to the good Cadi. 
The poverty of the latter seemed to render any action unneces- 
sary either as to a bar or a handicap, for each shoot seemed to be 
the Cadi's last, owing to his financial embarrassments, or state 
of being always "dead broke." However, the Cadi's wife always 
managed to scrape eggs enough at the last moment to defray 
his entrance in the first sweep, and once so fixed he was fully 
equipped for the day, and certain to return home with money 
enough to buy tobacco, snuff and flour to last n month; at all 
events the tobacco and snuff were a certainty to himself and 
wife, while the members who were less expert perchance were 
forced to obtain tobacco and snuff on credit for the same length 
of time. 
For these and others reasons there were many private consulta- 
tions of the club members, all of whom assented to the crying 
need of barring the offender. The whole matter, however, was 
balked for many weeks by the reluctance of each one to take the 
initiative in bringing it to a climax. One after another was 
elected to the office of club delegate to notify the Cadi personally 
that he was persona non grata, but each in turn gave most ex- 
cellent reasons why some one else could do the matter with 
more grace and precision, and retired in favor of said some 
one else. Thus, while they were all agreed, each one wanted the 
other fellow to do the unpleasant task. 
The Cadi's two companions also were fellow club members. 
Upon them he could rely every day in the week for companion- 
ship in general, and to a certainty while his cider barrels were 
not empty. One of the two was Si Simpkins, commonly called 
Moke; the other was Ephraim Strange, two entirely opposite 
characters. Moke was on the negative side of every proposition, 
and would not be convinced on any point, however simple, while 
Ephraim, who strove to be popular, would assent to any absurdity. 
Moke at length was secured to convey to the Cadi the state of the 
club's sentiments, by the device of declaring that it was some- 
thing which he dare not do, while Ephraim, by a few of Si's 
blandishments, was easily cajoled into jointly assuming the un- 
pleasant office. Thus they became a committee with full powers 
to act as they deemed best — and as they felt as the other club mem- 
bers did, namely, that the Cadi could shoot too well to please them, 
no further instructions were deemed necessary in the way of 
answers to the Cadi's arguments, nor was it even considered that 
he had any to make, or that there were any. 
As hinted at hereinbefore, the Cadi was not a well man. It 
was indeed a lucky circumstance that he had such natural legal 
abilities, and was so much sought to settle the differences between 
neighbors, otherwise a cold, unfeeling public would have branded 
him surely but unjustly as a loafer, instead of esteeming him 
for his useful genius. 
Loafer he was not, in spite of the fact that he placed his 
chair on the west side of the house in the morning soon after 
he had eaten his breakfast, following the shade around as the 
sun came upon him till the evening hours brought night and 
comfort. He was not a well man, he assured his friends. There 
was some occult disease slowly but surely sapping his vitals, 
which was seriously aggravated by any attempt at manual labor; 
consequently he always sat or moved about with an air of great 
langour, the air of a martyr, who wears a placid exterior to con- 
ceal interior suffering. Even when, gun in hand, he set forth in 
quest of squirrels, rabbits or possum, he walked with the 
dignity of a Cadi and the lassitude of an invalid, till he was well 
out of sight of home and neighbors. Then, with a free field 
and the spirit of the hunt upon him, he was as vivacious and as 
enduring as an athlete, with the difference, however, that on the 
nights of such days he always suffered great agonies and exhaus- 
tion, which he, with much parade, endeavored to conceal from 
his wife, but which she, good woman, always detected and pro- 
vided for beforehand. From long experience Hopie Jane had 
learned that nothing in the whole pharmacopoeia allayed his 
agony so quickly and soothed him so nicely as hot cider well 
peppered, administered in generous quantities till the crisis was 
past and her liege out of danger. About two quarts was the 
standard dose to secure the most beneficent effects. 
If thus he was blessed in having the just esteem and confidence 
of his neighbors, he was a thousand times more so in having so 
good a wife. She was indeed a helpmate to him, in spite of not 
being enthrallingly sweet to gaze upon, being fiat-chested, round- 
shouldered, lanky, with no curves in her figure save that of a 
fiercely hooked nose. She was the mother of eleven children, 
all of whom had lovely white hair, embellished with a few tan 
streaks at their crowns; and a year or less marked the difference 
of time between their ages. 
The good mother toiled and moiled from morn till late » at 
night, cooking, washing, gardening, houseworking, hog feeding, 
poultry raising, dragging dead timber from the woods for fuel, 
chopping wood, and caring for the Cadi and his children. He was 
6ft. high, weighed 2081bs., was the picture of good health, and 
yet it was dangerous for him to work. To his drudging wife 
the Cadi appeared to be better and wiser than all other men, and 
if he were lost to her she would be inconsolable forever. Morn- 
ing after morning for years the Cadi had threatened to go to 
work the next morning in spite of his infirmities, and she was in 
fear every morning that he would do so, and that the earthly 
career of the man she adored would soon end, and the light 
of her life , would go out with him. It may be said as a tribute to 
her devotion that when at last the Cadi did pass away at a ripe 
old age, his memory was hallowed by her during three months, 
at the end of which time she married Si Simpkins; hut finding 
widow's weeds very becoming to her and also withstanding 
wear admirably she wore them a year longer. 
The committee, after many postponements on one pretext and 
another, at length appeared one morning with a firm resolution 
to have it out on the club matter. They immediately sought 
for the Cadi on the shady side of the house, where they found 
him comfortably seated in a home-made arm chair, his feet 
»<"-*inp gracefully on the back of another. 
"Hello," said the Cadi, "where've you fellers been for a long 
time back?" 
"Oh, just knockin' arouit'," said Ephraim. 
The Cadi yawned, stretched himself, went to the well and slowly 
turned the windlass till the bucket was within reach, from which 
he took a pitcher of hard cider, which he kept, always cooling on 
hot days. Me took a good long pull himself, then passed it 
to Moke, who duly honored it, then passed it to Ephraim, whose 
mouth had been watering meanwhile. 
Then the committee looked at each other, and made secret 
signs each to the other to begin. At last Moke said, with some- 
thing of a quaver in his voice: "Have you heard what the fellers 
have been saying about you in the club?" 
"No; what have they been saying?" queried the Cadi. 
"They all say that they don't want you to shoot in the sweeps 
any more. You can stay in the club of course and shoot for 
targets, and spend your money, and have all the other club 
privileges which will help the club out, but they don't want you to 
shoot in no more sweeps, because you are an expert and a manu- 
facturer's agent." 
"Hoes this mean that you too think so?" queried the Cadi. 
"Yes, it does," replied Moke, who, now that the ice was fairly 
broken, was ready to take the plunge. 
"Why do you think so?" continued the Cadi. 
"Because," replied Moke, "it is my interest to think so. You 
win all my money at every shoot when there is anything worth 
winning, and I want you barred from the sweeps. I only shoot 
for fun, being an amateur, with the other fellows, but there's a 
heap more fun when I put up my money against some other fel- 
low than you. I don't care for the money anyhow; it's the sport 
I'm after. I shoot only once or twice a year, and things should 
be so arranged that we amateurs who only shoot now and then 
can have a chance." 
"Moke," said the Cadi gravely, "do you throw any money in 
the river when you go a- fishing? No; and you enjoy it just 
the same? That is sport. When you shoot, that is sport too. 
When you put your money up in a sweepstake, you add a new 
factor to the sport. You assure me that you do not care for the 
money, yet you wish to bar me for the reason that I win your 
money; and you talk much of sport as if it was an attribute of 
men who shot poorly, and that men who shoot well do not possess 
the quality of sport. You admit that I shoot well, but you 
seem to assume that I have no liking for sport because I can 
shoot well, You seem to think that because you shoot only once 
or twice a year you are deserving of some special and gen- 
erous consideration. On the contrary, men who shoot only 
once or twice a year deserve no consideration at all. If no one 
shot but men of your class — that is, men who shoot once or 
twice a year — there would be no clubs and no tournaments. If 
you are the great and only class, why do you not get up tour- 
naments of your own? What did you ever do for sport in general? 
Shot once or twice a year. Very good. Now concerning my being 
a manufacturer's agent— what about it?" 
"Well, you get your ammunition free, and that isn't fair to 
us," replied Moke. 
"Do you pay for your ammunition?" queried the Cadi. 
Moke remembered his unpaid accounts at the store, and pertly 
replied: "That's my business." 
"I should better have asked if you promised to pay for it," 
said the Cadi kindly. Continuing, he added, "I might say that 
whether or not .1 pay for my ammunition is my business. The 
fact that I shoot my ammunition free of cost does not necessarily 
make me a manufacturer's agent. To be an agent I must represent 
the company in some way. Would you take your ammunition 
for nothing if you could get it so, Si r" 
"I tried to a few times, but I couldn't make it go," said Moke 
frankly. 
"I shoot better than you do," resumed the Cadi, "because I 
shoot oftener, and I take an interest in shooting well. I experi- 
mented with loads till I found one that would suit my gun and 
suit me. Did you ever do so? No. I had the stock of my gun 
changed several times, so that it would fit me to a nicety. I 
tried other guns to determine the proper length and drop of 
stock. I practiced with one eye open and two eyes open. I 
experimented with my hand, extended to different places on the 
barrel, till I found where I could best hold so as to have free 
movement in swinging to right or left, and I studied velocities, 
the different speeds and flights of targets, the differences of 
holding on a calm or windy day, and a thousand other little 
things which help to make success. Do you do these things, 
Si?" 
"Never thought of them," Si replied. 
"I have put up my money week after week, and month after 
month, and year after year, when I did not shoot much better than 
you do, if any, and when my lovely and bright children were with- 
out shoes, and my wife without snuff, and it's pretty bad times 
for me then; but I never uttered a complaint. Do you do so?" 
said the Cadi. 
"No, I don't," said Moke. 
"Nor I neither," said Ephraim. 
"I recognize the difficulties with which at the present day the 
novice is confronted in his endeavors to acquire a reasonable pro- 
ficiency in skill or to become an expert; difficulties which multiply 
with each passing year, owing to the greater number of experts or 
semi-experts who are graduated, and with whom to a certain ex- 
tent he comes in competition. Each year the general standard of 
skill necessary to even partial success becomes higher. Now all 
of us, from the experts down to the common shots, could shoot 
together harmoniously and advantageously if we would adopt 
a system of handicapping. As for the novice, I do not consider 
him; for trap-shooting at tournaments is not a primary school for 
the education of beginners' All sports involving competition pre- 
suppose a reasonable degree of training in the contestants. They 
do not offer premiums on incompetency, but, on the contrary, are 
devised to perfect to the highest degree the abilities of their de- 
votees. The expert and semi-expert do not much favor a handi- 
cap, since their trips to the cashier's office are fewer and less in- 
teresting. There are some amateurs who, though shooting badly, 
think it 'plucky' or 'game' to enter every sweep against all 
experts who may be against them; but the best gameness is that 
which is reasonably tempered with good sense. In the end the 
handicap system must be adopted, but it is top broad a subject, 
however, to take up to-day. What do you think of a handicap, 
Moke?" 
"First-rate thing, when the men who can beat me are handi- 
capped," replied Moke. 
"Before shooting in a tournament, I have practiced with dumb 
bells every morning for weeks," said the Cadi, "so that I would 
have the strength and address of arm and body to shoot through 
the day without fatigue. I have taken my gun in hand and 
aimed it at different objects, twenty minutes at a time, in my room 
in the morning, day after day for weeks, and yet you, who never 
have taken the pains to perfect yourself as a good shot, instead 
of striving to equal me or excel me, are devising ways to drag 
me down to your level. You seem to think that I am the source 
of your troubles. Did it ever occur to you that there was more 
professionalism in our club than there is in me? You don't know. 
Well, there is. You see me and some others go to the cashier's 
window and pull out some money, and you jump to the conclusion 
that we have taken your money, which you put up for sport, but 
which, after you have had your sport, you want back again. Now 
you know that the great bulk of the trap-shooting of America is 
not done by millionaires. Most of the trap-shooters are office 
men, or men on salaries, who can afford $3 or $4 a day very com- 
fortably for their sport. Well, our club charges 2 cents for 
targets. That doesn't seem to be much, but when we throw 
5,000 targets in an afternoon, that means that the club has raked 
off $50 profit on the $100 paid in for targets. You can see that if 
the boys shoot long enough the club will have all their money. 
Now, if I was a campaigner, who went week after week from 
shoot to shoot, I could quite understand your objections, but as 
I have been one of the hardest workers in the club, I ought to 
be treated more kindly. What do you think ot the matter now, 
Si?" 
"I think that we want you to get out. We know you shoot 
better than we do, and that's sufficient trouble for us without 
prying into the innards of things." 
"I never expected this from you, Moke. Sharper than two 
serpents' teeth is base ingratitude," and the Cadi put his head 
on his arm and wept loudly. Bernard Waters. 
Respectfully Submitted to the Cadi. 
Buffalo, N. Y., Aug. 20.— Editor Forest and Stream; Having 
read in your issue of the 13th inst. "the Cadi's valued opinion 
given in the communication headed "It's a Matter of Teeth," I 
would ask you to submit to that learned gentleman the following: 
In recent issues of the sporting papers appears a letter from a 
Mr. Samuel Bowker, of Natick, Mass., relative to a tournament 
to be held by the Natick Gun Club, of Natick, Mass., on Saturday, 
Sept. 3. One of the paragraphs in that letter particularly took my 
attention. It ran thus: 
"It is a well-known fact that the present condition of trap- 
shooting in the East is due to the manner by which the wolves 
have infested our locality, just as the pot-hunter has annihilated 
certain game districts, to the dire regret of every true sportsman." 
Then again on top of this letter comes the programme, which 
contains the following: 
"In view of the fact that the attendance of the paid expert and 
professional shark has completely demoralized trap-shooting in the 
East, we have the pleasure of announcing an amateur tournament — 
solely for the amateur — under the principles expounded by Mr. 
Paul North, of Cleveland tournament fame," etc. 
The programme further reads: 
"We shall endeavor to cope with Mr. North, and firmly believe 
that every amateur attending will be pleased with the manner by 
which we shall preserve his interests. Must we bow to the ex- 
perts and professionals for the further existence of trap-shooting?" 
Now, Mr. Cadi, how about all this? Do you know Mr. Samuel 
Bowker? I do not, but the programme states that he is "the well- 
known sportsman, Mr. Samuel Bowker." Of course the fact that 
the programme says so does not amount to much, for no doubt 
"the well-known sportsman" himself wrote and drew up the 
programme, for both letter and programme are exactly on the 
same line^ and both bear unmistakable earmarks of identical 
authorship. 
Of course the professional and paid shark get it in the neck, 
for that is a popular gag just now. 1 went to Cleveland, and 
got it in the neck, as I always do, and as I did again at the New 
York State shoot at Rochester. I can't shoot well enough to 
make a straight more than once in a month, so I lose my money, 
whether the professionals are at a tournament or not. There are 
just as good amateur shots as there are among the professionals; 
some of them Jfrere at Cleveland, so you can guess where my 
money went. 
My idea is that trap-shooters have about realized that unless 
they can shoot from 88 to 92 per cent, they are going in for ex- 
pensive amusement. It took them some time to find this out, 
but as soon as they did find it out they gave up going to tourna- 
ments and took to doing more shooting at home, laying low 
until their turn came, when they too could break about 90 per 
cent, and do some skinning on their own account. It is my 
belief that "the well-known sportsman, Mr. Samuel Bowker," and 
the man he will "endeavor to cope with," namely, Mr. North, will 
both find out that the weak amateur shooters will stay away from 
their tournaments just as soon as they have become educated to 
the fact that the amateur-expert is just as fatal to their chances as 
the paid expert, and in some instances does not do the skinning 
quite as neatly or as pleasantly. 
There's one other point, Mr. Cadi, that I would like you to 
pass upon. Do you not think that the grasping nature of clubs 
in general has had a good deal to do with this lack of patronage 
at tournaments, the whole of which has been laid at tb'p wolves' 
door? Ought a club to try and make money out of the shooters 
who come to its tournaments? 
It is this way: If you charge 3 cents for a target, the rake- 
off is 30 per cent, of the purse; so you have only to enter events 
often enough before, unless you are a winner, the club has got 
all your monev. At least, that is the way it looks to me, and I 
would like to hear from you, Mr. Cadi, as to whether there is any- 
thing in what I have suggested. 
I might add that the programme for the Natick shoot says noth- 
ing about the price of targets; and I notice that very few pro- 
grammes do say anything about that important feature at the 
present day. Is there anything in this? 48grs. 
The Wrong Teeth. 
New York, Aug. 17.— Editor Forest and Stream: Tn reading the 
learned Cadi's ruling in a recent issue of Forest and Stream, I 
am almost convinced that his knowledge bump is well developed, 
and at some future sitting or squatting of said Cadi's court I 
hope he will ponder over some questions that 1 put to him, and 
let him hand down a decision from his wood-pile court circuit 
that will cause wailing and gnashing of the right teeth. 
I will confine my questions to target shooting. All of us so- 
called lambs have no cause to complain when we contest at 
live-bird shooting, for many of the so-called lambs have chased 
the young wolf back to the Old Daddy Wolf with an empty 
stomach. ,. 
I for one do not blame the wolf that comes prowling around our 
fold. He does not come sneaking up quietly, but makes all the 
noise possible, as he has two missions to fill, namely, one for the 
Old Daddy Wolf and one for himself. 
The Old Daddy Wolf will tell you if you should happen to 
meet him that the young lambs are not so fat as in early days: 
that their skins are punctured by worms; the wool gets m the 
wolf's teeth; or, in other words, there is no business. Shooting 
is not so popular as in vears gone by, and that the people haven't 
the money. Very truly said, for the expert and amateur cannot 
both have it in sweepstake shooting. 
Now, Mr. Editor, I will, in a trap-shooting sense, kill tins 
fellow 'that has the teeth stone dead out of bounds. Most any 
one will admit that you can't teach the teacher, or beat the 
builder, in any game; therefore handicap the experr so that the 
amateur will get a chance, and then you will find him up at the 
traps calling "pull" alongside of the expert. Then, and not till 
then, will the manufacturer acknowledge' that business is im- 
proving; and that it seems as if the old days were returning when 
the manufacturer had no expert out to grab the amateur's money 
in the way of entrance fees in sweepstake shooting. 
I for one have paid dearly for my knowledge bump, and now 
I hardly can see an expert, but I always uphold and maintain that 
the teeth are in the wrong mouth of the Cadi's ruling. 
Down Yonder in the Corn Field. 
The shoot of the Hell Gate Gun Club, at Dexter Park, on 
Aug. 23, was at 10 birds each. The scores were as follows: L. 
T Muench, 28vds., 5; C, Weber, 30yds., 7; H. Balm. ■"2Svds., 4; 
T. Himmelsbach. 28yds.. 8; J. A. Belden, 28vds., 5; H. Hafften, 
28yds., 4; E. Steffens, 28vds., 8; C, Lang, 28yds., 9: F. Trostel, 
30yds., 8; E. Dacimck, 30vds. v 7; F. Wheeler, 28yds., 3: J. 11. Voss. 
30yds. 7; W. A. Sands. 28yds., 10; J. Newman, 28yds., 7; C. Wig- 
ger. 28vds., 6; H. W. Voss, 28yds., 7; P. Waelfel, 28yds., 10; G. 
K Brett, 28yds., S; L. Stelzle, 28yds., 4; A. Knodel. 28yds., 5; 
P. Geipel, 28vds., 5; I. W r ellbrock, 28yds., 9; T. P. Chambers, 28yds;, 
3; T Schlicht, 28yds., 10; C. Schaeffer, 28vds., 3; E. Petersen, 
28yds., 8; E. Metz. 28yds., 8; H. W. Richter, 28yds., 8; E. Karl, 
28vds., 4. 
