Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1899, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 1© Cts. a Copy, i 
S,Six Months, |2. f 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1899. 
/ VOL. LIII.— No. 18. 
tNo. 346 BR0A13WAY, New York 
ZU forest ana Stream Platform PlanR. 
"TAe sale of game should be forbidden at all seasons. 
— Forest and Stream, Feb. 3, 1894. 
THE INTERNATIONAL YACHT-RACE. 
The unfortunate outcome of the America Cup races of 
189s gave occasion to a comment on the part of an English 
yachting journal to the effect that international contests 
were undesirable and detrimental to sport through the ill 
feeling engendered by them between nations as well as 
clubs and individuals. We were almost willing to ac- 
cept this opinion at the time, and it has been forced upon 
us more forcibly since then in the lamentable bickerings 
over smaller international contests. i 
If such is really the rule, as proved by a full genera- 
tion of international races, the present contest is a notable 
exception, as it has from first to last been marked by good 
feeling and fair sportsmanship on both sides. The 
challenge was accepted freely, the negotiations were con- 
ducted in a fair and business-like manner, the races were 
sailed without a protest or even an excuse for making one, 
and the result has been accepted without complaint or ex- 
cuse not only by the challenger and his yachting asso- 
ciates, but by the British press as well. 
We hope that this means far more than that those di- 
rectly connected with the races for the time being on both 
sides are gentlemen and sportsmen; and that it inau- 
gurates a new era in the chief event of the most scientific 
and intellectual of all sports, yacht racing. 
On the part of the holders of the Cup, it has been 
proved in the present and the two preceding races that 
they have abandoned all ancient .raditions and all claims 
' to special advantages against the challenger, and that they 
are prepared to lose the Cup when they are no longer able 
to retain it by superiority of design under equal condi- 
tions. As soon as this is fully recognized abroad, the 
feeling engendered by the one-sided conditions of all the 
earlier Cup matches and intensified by the illegal tamper- 
ing with the deed of gift in 1887 is likely to disappear. 
On the part of that public opinion which, in spite of its 
dense ignorance of yachting usage, is nevertheless an im- 
portant agent in fomenting international ill feeling 
on the occasion of a Cup race, there has been 
of late years a marked improvement. Those who 
not long ago considered it perfectly fair and sportsman- 
like to match a single challenger with the largest fleet that 
could be gathered to oppose her, have at last begun to ap- 
preciate the fact that the mere continued possession of the 
Cup was a; discredit as long as the conditions were not 
absolutely the same on both sides. 
There is just now little prospect of a race in 1900, but 
we hope that Sir Thomas Lipton may adhere to his ex- 
pressed intention of challenging again in 1901. If he does 
this with a yacht that is plainly faster than the new de- 
fender of the year, few on this side of the water will 
grudge him the possession of the Cup. 
FALL. 
Summer is gone like a tale that is told. The thistle- 
down drifts down the north wind, the bloom of the golden- 
rod is faded on its browning bulbed stalks, the constella- 
tions of blue and white asters are thinning and fading in 
the cool, damp shade of the woodside. Under skies of 
cold steel-blue or somber gray, and over naked woods and 
fading yellow stubble and fields where green is growing 
brown with successive frosts, the straggling legions of 
crows move steadily southward, outstripped by swifter 
squadrons of wild geese making their aerial march to the 
wild clangor of clarions. 
All sounds proclaim the season. The woodland echoes 
I speak with changed voices for they come with fuller, less 
' broken tone from the naked woods and rocky hillsides 
than when each leaf seemed to give back its quivering 
ripple of sound. The brooks babble in muffled tones 
under the drift of fallen leaves that covers them, and now 
clogs som.e tinv waterfall and now sets free the damtr.ed 
current. 
The mellow baying of the hound, the frequent retjort 
of the gun, the solemn boom of falling trees are befitting 
sounds; and the subdued hum of the vagrant bumble- 
bee, quite bereft of its roistering summer swagger, the 
faint, slow creak of the cricket, and the bluebird's sad 
ong of farewell are sounds that belong only to fall 
The sere and silent marshes are of unifoi-m dun hue 
save where a veil is woven over them by innumerable 
spiders, and shines all day in the sun like unmclted hoar 
frost. The muskrats are laying their last thatch of sedge 
in the roof of their huts, unseen by day and unheard but 
as they stir the dead stalks of tangled weeds along the 
borders of their watery paths. A grebe wrinkles the glassy 
channel with its wake and sinks noiselessly beneath it as 
the prow of a late angler's skiff comes nosing its course 
around the nearest bend. 
After a few days wherein the stripped earth dreams of 
its bloom and leafage and song which seem so possible to 
this genial air and summer sky, the way of the swimming 
waterfowl and the boat will be a crystal-paved way for the 
feet of the skater. 
The grebe sounds the depths of far-away southern 
streams where water plants grow all the year round, and 
the angler sits by his fireside with pipe and glass, telling 
tales of his summer's fishing. The wind moans among 
the naked trees and brings from afar the sad song of the 
sea to the pines; it whistles dismal tunes to the bleached 
grass that such a little while ago listened to the blithe 
songs of the lark, bobolink and sparrow whose nests its 
greenness sheltered, and drifts the dead leaves into the 
hollows of the frozen earth. 
Then from the gray roof of the sky that rests its arch 
upon the mountains, the snow descends and covers the 
earth's unseemly nakedness, and the freshness of the 
spring, the bloom and fruitage of summer and the glory of 
autumn are but dreams of the past and the future. 
THE SIDE-SADDLE. 
An Ohio health society lias recently taken strong ground 
against the use by women of the side-saddle. It ex- 
pfesses the view that the side-saddle is uncomfortable 
alike for rider and horse, and unsafe ; that the natural way 
for women as well as for men to ride is to bestride the 
horse; and urges that hereafter wom.en shall ride in that 
manner, wearing the ordinary riding trousers and the di- 
vided skirt. 
This is certainly good doctrine, and we wish the Ohio 
health society all success in its efforts to bring about this 
reform. The side-saddle is uncomfortable for the horse 
and for the rider. Hardly one woman in ten can sit 
straight on it, and the result is that the saddle drags off 
to one side and is very likely, tO' gall the horse's withers. 
Far more important than this, however, is the danger 
to which every woman is exposed when she mounts her 
horse. However skillful a horsewoman she may be, her 
seat and her safety depend absolutely on the integrity of the 
saddle girths. If these break, a fall is inevitable for her, 
and hampered as she is by skirts she can do nothing to 
save herself. If she is not a good horsewoman, if she 
depends on her reins or on her stirrup to hold her in the 
saddle, her case is just so much the worse. For if the 
stirrup breaks, and she becomes frightened or loses con- 
trol of the horse, it takes but a little while for her to be 
shaken out of the saddle. 
Most girls and women are not at home on a horse's 
back, and a bolting or shying horse is likely to unseat 
them. If unseated they have not the chance afforded to 
every man who is thrown from his horse, that of simply 
rolling out of the saddle and striking the ground. In- 
stead of that a woman may be hung from the pommel by 
her skirt and may be dragged about and shockingly muti- 
lated by the horse's hoofs, where a simple fall from the 
horse would have given her no more than a jar. Cases 
of this sort occur with such frequency that it appears 
singular that no one has as yet preached the abolition of 
the side-saddle as a reform whose importance Would justi- 
fy a crusade. 
The natural way to ride a horse is astride the animal. 
It is in this way that men ride everywhere; the women 
too among savage or semi-civilized people, and children 
of both sexes everywhere. The little girl when she gets 
her first pony, bestrides it bareback, as her brother does, 
and gains confidence in herself while riding in this posi^ 
tion. The 3^C>ung woman on the distant prairie, who is 
obliged to ride ten miles into tovm for her mail, rides it^ 
thiis way until she reaches the very outskirts of the town, 
when she changes her position and uses the horn of the 
man's saddle for a pommel. In proportion to its use we 
believe the side-saddle to be responsible for more deaths 
and accidents than any other implement which is em- 
ployed in connection with outdoor life. Its use should 
be abandoned, and no doubt will be before very long, for 
this is an age of progress in outdoor matters, and women 
are eliminating from their lives many of the antique con- 
ventionalities, which have nothing to recommend them 
except long-established custom. There are to-day many 
young women who during their travels and their hunt- 
ing trips in the West never think of using side-saddles, 
and there is thus, in some of the larger Eastern towns, a 
nucleus of women who understand that the man's saddle 
means freedom from fetters that they have always borne, 
and from limitations which are not only ia-ksome but 
positively dangerous. 
No woman who has ever ridden a bicycle need be 
ashamed to mount a horse astride, and it may be hoped 
that the day is not far distant when nine-tenths of the 
women seen on horseback will be riding in the natural, 
comfortable and safe way. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
In an interview with Commissioner Babcock of the 
Fisheries, Game and Forest Commission last week. Gov- 
ernor Roosevelt is said to have insisted that the Adiron- 
dack protectors who are remiss in their duties should be 
removed at once. The names of the culpable officials 
were not given, but the Commissioner might well enough 
make a beginning with Protector Fletcher Beede, of Essex 
county. He may not be worse than others, nor as bad as 
some ; but there is quite enough in his record to offset the 
"pull" he is presumed to have on account of his brother. 
Assemblyman Beede. We took occasion last year to di- 
rect attention to Mr. Beede's worthlessness as a protector 
of game. He appears to be quite as inefficient this sea- 
son. Whether by reason of stupidity, helplessness or 
cowardice, he gives the deer hunters in his district free 
range; stops his ears to the cry of the hounds, shuts his 
eyes to the sight of dogged venison, and ignores aHke the 
bounders and the statute which forbids their hounding. 
We understand that the theory commonly held by those 
who know the protector is that he gives the law breakers 
immunity because he is afraid of them and lacks courage 
to arrest them. Whatever the explanation of existing con- 
ditions in Essex county, a remedy should be found for 
them. If by reason of being the brother of his brother 
Mr. Beede must have a place, by all means give him one, 
but let it be one in which the enforcement of the game 
laws can not be made a farce by him. 
Is there anything in it? askes a correspondent who 
sends a newspaper report of an eagle having carried off 
a child. The story is one which is frequently told; it is 
almost as much a part of the annual lore of the press as 
is the hoop snake and the horn snake; and the horn 
snake's cycle brings it around about once in six months. 
Despite the frequent reports of children borne to the 
clouds by eagles, we have always received the tale willi 
incredulity. It is very ancient. Alexander Wilson, who 
wrote in the early years of the century, relates, in illus- 
tration of the "intrepidity of character" which distin- 
guishes the bald eagle, an incident which happened in 
his time. Near Great Egg Harbor, in New Jersey, a 
woman who was weeding a garden had set her child down 
near by, when a sudden and extraordinary rushing sound 
was heard; and startled by the child's screams "she be- 
held the infant thrown down and dragged some few feet 
and a large bald eagle bearing off a fragment of its frock, 
which being the only part seized, and giving way, provi- 
dentially save4 the life of the infant." 
The hard fighting which is now taking place in South 
Africa between the British forces and the Boers of the 
Transvaal Republic lends an especial interest to Mr- 
Frank J. Thompson's account of life years ago in the 
land of the African Dutchman. Probably no American 
knows these people so -thoroughly in their homes, on their 
farms and on the veldt, as Mr. Thompson. And it is very 
interesting at this time to have the glimpses which he caa-, 
give us into their patriarcliial and in some respects primi- 
tive mode of life. In another contribution shortly to be 
printed, Mr. Thompson deals more directly with these 
people and offers us much information that is of the high-s 
est interest. - ' i 
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