Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Copyright, 1900, by Forest and Stream Pujblishing Co. 
Terms, |4 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. I 
Six Months, $2. ( 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1900. 
( VOL. LV.— No. 4. 
( No. 846 Broadway, New York 
The Forest and Stkkam is the recognized medium of entertain- 
ment, instraction and information between American sportsmen. 
The editors invite communications on the subjects to which its 
pages are devoted. Anonymous communications will not be re- 
garded. While it is intended to give wide latitude in discussion 
of current topics, the editors are not responsible for the views of 
corrfespondents. 
Subscriptions may begin at any time. Terms: For single 
copies, $4 per year, $2 for six months. For club rates and full 
particulars respecting subscriptions, see prospectus on page iii. 
If I were to live my Hfc over again I would go 
fishing three days in the week, 
— Peter Cooper, 
BOYS' SUMMER CAMPS. 
The boys' summer camps have come to be an institu- 
tion. Here and there in the mountains, on the lake shore 
and by the river bank their white tents are pitched and the 
Mag flies to the breeze. It is a sensible and profitable 
mode of summering for young folks, and deserves to 
grow in popularity as it shall become better known. 
While the camp system may be varied in details to 
adapt particular camps to particular circumstances, the 
general plan provides for camping out by a party of boys 
under the control of an older person. Here is an outline 
of one camp as described by the Baltimore Sun in the 
Alleghanies near Alderson, W. Va. The site is on a 
bluff overlooking the Greenbrier River, where the tents 
are pitched in the shade of noble oaks. Two large sleep- 
ing tents are provided with cot beds simply but comforta- 
bly equipped, and a dining tent is well furnished and is 
under the charge of a colored waiter. In the kitchen 
tent is a cook stove presided over by a trained hotel 
cook. The grounds are laid out for baseball, lawn ten- 
nis and trapshooting at artificial targets, and an aban- 
doned race course conveniently near serves for eques- 
trian exercises; and the river affords a famous swim- 
ming pool. There is abundant provision for athletic 
games and exercises — quoits, putting the shot, throwing 
ihe heavy hammer and rowing. The Greenbrier affords 
bass fishing. 
The camp is in charge of a post-graduate student of 
Johns Hopkins University and the daily routine is a well 
rh ought out combination of work and play, with a strong- 
leaning to play, as is due in vacation time. Two hours 
of the morning are devoted to study. Thereafter the 
day is given up to recreation. The several sports to be 
indulged in are assigned daily by the director. One day 
it is baseball or tennis in the forenoon and bass fishing 
in the afternoon; another day it is trapshooting and boat- 
ing or athletics; and so the routine varies from day to 
day and with different members of the camp. Then there 
are long tramps to points of interest in the vicinity, 
to the mouth of the river twenty-five miles distant, to 
the tops oi the mountains or to some of the springs for 
which the West Virginia country is famous. All this, it 
may readily be understood, fills the days, and the weeks 
glide by all too quickly. Here are some of the camp 
rules, not more rigid, it will be observed, than such as 
obtain in all well regulated camps of old boys who have 
no mentor to control them: 
"Breakfast will be announced ten minutes before be- 
ing served and again when on the table. Three minutes 
will be allowed after the second announcement." 
"No articles of clothing must be left on the floors of 
the tents." 
"No boy may come to the breakfast table without 
trousers, shirt or sweater. Hands and face must be 
washed and hair brushed." 
Obviously that is an admirable system of outing which 
combines a proper restraint and the guiding control of 
an older head .with the largest sense of freedom on the 
part of the young campers. 
We have not the figures to show the cost of such sum- 
mer camping, but it need not be made expensive if the 
enterprise is conducted on co-operative principles. While 
everything requisite for comfort should be provided, the 
outfit need not be elaborate or expensive. As it is de- 
veloping with experience, the summer camp is in large 
measure answering the question of how our boys shall 
spend their summer vacations. It affords a welcome 
alternative to the unsystematic and Unprofitable time- 
killing which in so rriany instances consitmes the months 
between school terms. 
GOVERNOR ROOSEVELT'S BEAR RECORD. 
We have been, treated in years past to newspaper com- 
ments, in censure or commendation as colored by political 
bias, of President Cleveland as a fisherman, President 
Harrison as a duck shooter and Mr. Bryan as an angler. 
And now it is of Theodore Roosevelt as a bear hunter. 
Some years ago Mr. Roosevelt was moved to write to the 
Forest and Stream some sharp comments upon the prac- 
tice of shooting trapped grizzlies, a proceeding which he 
denounced as in the highest degree unsportsmanlike. It 
is with this very thing that the papers are now charging 
Governor Roosevelt himself. The story appears to have 
grown out of a yarn given currency in 1895 by a Chicago 
man of the name of A. L. Trude, shortly after the pub- 
lication of some magazine articles in which Mr. Roose- 
velt had related his hunting experience in the Rockies. 
Trude claimed to have been on a ranch in the neighbor- 
hood of the Rocky Mountain experiences related in the 
magazine articles, and his assertion was that Mr. Roose- 
velt had not killed the game in the way described; but 
as to the bears, that "he had given a mountaineer who 
had trapped a bear $5 to let him take a pot shot at the 
beast, and Ted killed Bruin deader than a door nail." 
When this story appeared in 1895, Governor (then 
Commissioner) Roosevelt wrote to the Forest and 
Stream a categorical reply to it which left in the mind of 
the reader no room for doubt as to his intention of ma- 
king his denial complete, unreserved and unanswerable. 
As to the bear hunting part of the Trude story, Mr. 
Roosevelt said: "Mr. A. L. Trude, of Chicago, has 
recently given to the public several statements about my- 
self which contain such reckless falsehoods that I at first 
thought Mr. Trude himself must be an invention of some 
of the newspapers. I am informed, however, that he is a 
real person. One of his statements contains a long 
account of my shooting a trapped bear. I never shot a 
trapped bear in my life ; I never but once saw a bear in 
a trap. * * * j challenge Mr. Trude to give the date 
and place where a single one of the incidents which he 
recites occurred. They are all false from beginning to 
end, in every particular. Whether he has invented this 
falsehood himself, or whether he has been imposed upon 
by a couple of scoundrels whom I never saw, and has 
recklessly repeated their lies, I do not care. In either. 
case, he is equally to blame. A liar is sufficiently con- 
temptible, but a liar who slanders others in wantonness is 
even worse." 
Now that the Trude trapped bear story has been 
brought out again and furbished up for campaign pur- 
poses, we may look for its renewed life and currency 
until November at least. We do not imagine that the 
ethical considerations involved in the bear hunting ex- 
ploits of a Presidential candidate can have a very im- 
portant bearing on a political campaign, but a sportsman 
of such high principles and consistent practicfr as Governor 
Roosevelt is known to be might well enough resent now 
in 1900 as he did in 1895 aspersions on his record in the 
field. 
SNAP SHOTS. 
Now comes Dr. Samuel N. McClean, of Cleveland 
with a new firearm that is to revolutionize gunnery. I 
is constructed on the principle of those arms whicl 
utilize the waste gases generated by the powder to reload 
and fire the successive shots. It differs from the Maxim 
and other guns of this character in taking the gases from 
the muzzle of the gun in a way which obviates recoil; 
indeed, it is asserted that when a McCIean gun is "started 
firing while lying on a table it will discharge its entire 
magazine without moving a fraction of an inch from the 
position in which it was placed, and that at times, as 
the bullets poured from, its muzzle, it has been noticed to 
creep slowly in the direction in which it was firing." 
The gun is a magazine arm, with five chambers, but may 
be arranged to be fed from an endless belt of cartridges, 
which it will discharge at the rate of 700 per minute. 
Having no recoil, it may be so aimed as to deliver its 
shots one after another into precisely the same spot, and 
it will do this at an effective range of two and one-half 
niiles. From this brief description, as given in the press, 
it might appear that here at last was the arm for the 
man who wants all the game that is left and wants it 
right away; and if a few thousand trusty McCleans were 
to find their way into the hands of American sportsmen 
we might well shudder in anticipation of the suc^den wind- 
ing up of the game supply. It is a relief, then, to be 
assured that this new arm of precision is, for the present 
at least, intended for military purposes only — although 
the sportsman's relief that a deadly weapon is to be em- 
ployed to destroy human beings instead of wild beasts is 
something we must leave the philosophers to account iot. 
The organization of Ohio sportsmen in a protective 
association is a step which has been made necessary by 
the unreasonable restrictions the law puts upon ■ shooting. 
The movement is described in a letter elsewhere from 
Mr. Paul North, of the Executive Committee. It should 
have the support of a representation so large and power- 
ful as to compel recognition at Columbus when the Legis- 
lature shall meet again. We note that Mr. North coiii 
strues the law as permitting duck shooting at certain 
times, but according to the actual text of the statute 
"No person shall kill any wild duck on Sunday or Mon- 
day of any week, or on any of the reservoirs belonging to 
the State of Ohio, or upon the waters of Lake Erie and 
the estuaries and bays thereof, or on the rivers, creeks; 
ponds or other waters or bodies of water ia this State.'' 
That appears to do away with all water shooting, at least; 
the only way the Ohio ducker may lawfully get his duck 
is by catching it on land. But there should be found in 
Ohio ability to frame a sane and sensible game law, and 
if the new association started by the Cleveland sportsmen 
shall be successful in infusing sanity and a sweet reason^ 
ableness into the Ohio game code, its promotion will not 
have been in vain. 
One of the old-time Adirondack guides was Elijah 
Cowles, of Lake Pleasant, in Hamilton county. Cowles 
stood six feet seven in his stockings, and was of powerful 
build. When he was not moose hunting or bear hunting 
or guiding, he was keeper of the county jail at Lake 
Pleasant; and the county allowed him fifty cents a week 
board for each man. This meant careful planning and 
not extremely luxurious living at the best; so Cowles, 
being a fellow of resource, used to take his prisoners off 
moose hunting, that they might eai-n their board. It is 
related of one victim that after having been out for ten 
days, on the trail with the strapping guide, he begged 
piteously to be allowed to go back to jail; but the in- 
exorible Cowles compelled him to "keep up with the pro- 
cession" until the venison had been captured. 
The Province of Quebec is waking up to the fact that 
it is high time to put a check upon the export of game 
fish to United States markets. The traffic in speckled 
trout, black bass, muscalonge and pickerel has been de- 
veloped until now it has assumed proportions which' 
seriously threaten the supply of well-known inland waters. 
Ontario has an effective non-export law, and the promise 
is that such a system will be adopted by Quebec at the 
next session of the Legislature. The Canadians have 
never shown any want of appreciation of the commercial 
value of game fish or lures to American anglers; and- 
once their attention is directed to the fact that the market- 
ing of game fish is likely to decrease Canada's attractions 
for visitors from the United States, they may be depended 
upon to act. 
Something novel in the way of official procbmations 
has been put out by Mayor Archambault, of St. Gabriel' 
de Brandon, a village on Lake Maskinonge, in the Prov- 
ince of Quebec. Bigger fish are believed to lurk iii the 
lake than have ever been caught out of it; and Mayor 
Archambault's announcement is that St. Gabriel welcomes 
all reputable strangers to its fishing; it desires especially 
to attract Montreal anglers, and to that end the towri 
council offers four prizes of $20, $15, $10 and $S to the 
citizens of Montreal who shall capture the largest 
maskinongje: in the season o£ 1900. ^ 
Izaak Walton's tomb is in Winchester Cathedral. 
Nearby in the deanery garden is a stream where he was 
accustomed to angle. The neighborhood is associated with 
his life and death. Now it is proposed by the anglers of 
Great Britain to provide a memorial window of Walton in 
the chapels of the Cathedral. Its cost will be about $2,000: 
A woodcock found its way into Henry street, Brookl}^, 
one day last week, not far from t\ie Brooklyn Bridge. 
As the boring for worms through the asphalt pavement 
was an unprofitable enterprise, the bird passed on, non^ 
the worse for its adventure in the heart of a great city. 
