brand all eight of the lines as fa-Ui- loork. For "blackened 
timber" is chosen as the ideal camping site — the ne plus 
ultra of angling delights in a camp ! 
Here is a picture (A) of typical lilackened timber. 
Now, instead of the deliberate misciioice of the quack 
sportsman, see in the next picture ( R ) what a real be- 
holder of Nature regards as beautiful fot a camping site. 
I shall not oifend readers by asldng which site they prefer. 
But in this line is further false work. The "racing 
stream" is not the ideal stream of the angler, being too 
noisy and full of tumult. There, no water-music reigns 
and thrills, but only a perpetual roar. It is too full of 
rocks, too difficult to ascend. The real paradise 
of Nature for the angler is a big brook hke Tennyson's 
(I defy any critic to show faults in those imes) with 
rifts and eddies and still pauses, and liquid water-breaks 
as described by Camoens: 
''Sonorous now it rolls adowii llie glade. 
Now, plaintive, tinkles in the .secret shade. 
Now from the darkling grove, beneath the beams 
Of ruddy morn, like melted silver streams, 
Edging the painted margins of the bowers, 
And breathing liqtiid freshness on the flowers." 
Let the apologists here who say that no poetry can 
stand the test of "hyper criticism," try their hand on those 
lines. It is the sort of stream which is ideal for the 
camper and angler, the stream that litigers around roots 
and 
"Purls and murmurs as it moves. 
In circles round the tree it loves." 
I give herewith a picture of a perfect angling stream. 
The next line contains three vital errors : 
With the raw, right-angled lag-jam at the end, 
I thank Mr. Jaques for demanding that the apologists 
answer in nnison the questions : What are "traces" in 
their formation, so long as Kipling tells them they are. 
I cannot discuss such a manifest error seriously. 
It is i-are, indeed, that even two logs lie together in a 
jam; and form a fairly accurate right angle as to those two 
logs alone. Only the sportsman of the subliminal^ he 
who appeals to things below the threshold of his con- 
sciousness, can make a whole log-jam right-angled to 
itself; for Kipling states it is so in essd, not specifying 
anything else to which it might be right-angled, as it 
would not be anyjiow. He merely evokes from the 
potentiality of matter^ another phantom and hocus 
pocus. 
The apologists realize now that Kipling's line does 
not state that his log-jam is right-angled to the shores 
of the stream; but in the more recent unfoldings of this 
discussion they have discovered it will be most plausi- 
ble to say he meant that. This merely changes their 
dilemma. As shown above, such a condition of a jam 
cannot be described by the one compound word 
■'right-angled," but only a jam that is right-angled to 
itself, hke the log house of Dixmont's counterfeit 
reductio ad absurdum that Mr. Hoyle exposed so hap- 
pily. Yet it is predicted with confidence that^ having 
found this best "construction" to put on Kipling's 
word of misdescription, the apologists will now claim 
that the jams shown in Mr. Hardy's pictures were never 
asserted to be right-angled. Then to show them in a 
discussion over the word was absurd. Even if 
Kipling's jam formed a straight line of logs squarely 
across the stream from bank to bank, the one word 
"right-angled" could not properly be used to show the 
jam was right-angled to the lines of the laanks. Be- 
sides, it is insisted with utmost emphasis that even if 
the word could be so used, it would be almost a mir- 
acle to find such a jam, and that an undoctored picture 
and jam cannot be shown that would justify that "con- 
struction" of the word. Mr. Hardy. Hermit, Doctor 
Morris and others declare that all or nearly all jams 
AN IDEALLY BEAUTIFUL TROUT STItEAM THAT DOES NOT RACE. 
l^emot-sness, Nature's dearest nymph, and Beauty wild. 
Clasp hands in love where, in my sleepless bed, 
I sing ynd play in laughter, like a happy child. 
Fond Earth beneath, sweet light and air o'erhead. 
connection with rods and reels? What is a "raw log- 
jam?" What is a "right-angled log-jam?" What does 
"at the end" mean? Let them avoid answering in con- 
cert, and make their replies plain and so they will agree. 
No log-jam was ever raw in its physical character, not 
even when its logs have all lost their bark. But it is 
claimed that it is "raw" as a blemish on the landscape. 
To assert this is to disprove it. More, no log-jam was 
ever right "at the end" of a racing stream. Here again it 
is sought to shield Kipling by stating that where a log- 
jam (sometimes) chokes and fills the entire width of a 
stream, it seems to be at the end of the stream — ^that is, 
the river ends where it does not end. This is ingenious, 
but not ingenuous, like t3'ing knots in a rope and say- 
ing the rope ends at each knot. It is "getting away 
from the bull and falling into the ditch." 
Before me are pictures of British Columbia 
log-jams, but I do not need them, preferring to 
work with Mr. Hardy's own tools. I ask that his two 
pictures of such jams be reproduced here. He claims 
that the pictures show the jams to be right-angled. He 
sends them to Forest and Stream for that purpose. One 
is a picture of logs parallel to the bank or shore; the 
other is a fantastic pile of logs not spanning a fourth 
of the stream (not at the end of it), and sticking in all 
directions ! Both, so different in form, are given to show 
that both are right-angled ! 
Doctor Morris instructs us that his jams are all right- 
angled. Let him take the two pictures to a college pro-", 
fessor of geometry and ask him : "What is a right 
angle?" 
"When one side or line of an angle is perpendicular to 
the other line or side, it forms a right angle," the pro- 
fessor will reply. 
It would indeed be a daring Doctor Morris who would, 
then say : 
"Well, sir, the log-jams shown in these two pictures are 
right-angled, although so different from each other. You 
are an ignoramus, sir, and must be blind !" 
It would be worth much_ to see the face of that pro- 
fessor as he grasped the delicious humor of such a claim- 
ant taking himself seriously. Yet this is "sweet" descrip- 
tion by the "genius" of^ the New Englanders. With 
^liera all log-jams are right-angled, no matter how varied 
form that way. Then let them send a photograph of 
even one such jam to Forest and Stream. Mind, it 
must show a jam whose upper line lies straight and 
squarely across the stream, and forms a right angle 
sharply with each shore-hne. No differently formed 
jam is right-angled with the banks. 
And here, as well as anywhere, note how Kipling's mis- 
description and lack of description involve these apolo- 
gists in hopeless cantradictions — strand them on a bar 
with their statements sticking in all directions, like logs 
in a jam. Mr. Jaques must smile as he realizes how 
easily he could make a little table showing these con- 
tradictions, and how crushing its facts would be. 
Mr. Hardy's pictures (I have asked you to 
reprint them), totally different, are supposed to 
show how right-angled log-jams form, and they show 
nothing of the kind. Their "rearing up" is sup- 
posed to have some connection with their being right- 
angled when they span a stream. Now Hermit de- 
clares that a right-angled jam is only one that crosses the 
whole stream. In other words, the stream itself, and both 
banks, must not only be actual parts of a right-angled log- 
jam, but the upper line of the jam must be free of 
logs that "rear up," and be exactly in line across 
the stream; and the banks themselves, and the 
edges of the water, must all stand in straight lines 
— something no man ever saw. Take a far more fav- 
orable illustration for the apologists. Suppose a pole 
were laid exactly across a newly cut ditch with water in 
it. A man would be daft to call that pole a right- 
angled pole. It could not be until it had made both 
Ijanks and the water between them a part of itself. 
But the Old Angler is more absurd. He seems to think 
it will tend to prove log-jams can be right-angled if he 
quotes from some former essay by himself which states 
that some special logs in a jam can form scalene and iso- 
celes triangles! 
Mr. Fowler asserts that the red gods are one's own 
blood, and then naivelj'- inquires if they may not be the 
trout and salmon, thus ignoring all the other fishes, 
and the wild animals and birds. Several others assert 
that these scarlet phantoms live in blackened timber. 
This groping is caused by the "exact," "matchless" de- 
scription so admired by Mr. Biddle. Mr. Cristadoro 
states that the logs in jams lie at all angles, so a whole 
jam must be right-angled! Mr. Venning defies any 
one to call "hung up" logs a jatii; arid theii ^jroceeds 
to thank Mr. tiardy "very hearty" for producirig the 
pictures of just such logs and labeling each, "A Maine 
Log-Jam"; while Mr. Biddle also thanks him for hav- 
ing "cleared up all these questions." Mr. Ames now 
asserts that the lines were written about Maine only; 
while Newfoundlander declares that Kipling did not 
make the mistake of localizing them and they are a 
universal picture. Mr. Ames says a jam may be found 
in a cove; others say with Hermit that it must span 
a racing stream. Several say in substance that the 
sportsman is pleased with the clicks of the shod poles, 
while Mr. Keim is equally sure that the chances of 
getting game are increased a hundred per cent, if the 
hunter gets away from those clicks. These incon- 
sistencies could be much extended. It is a Babel of 
cross-tongues. So many men, so many minds; their 
statements are honeycombed with contradictions? 
Gentlemen, ajustez vos Mites! 
And the bar of sun-warmed shingle, where a man may bask and 
dream, 
Here I agree that if, as Mr. Venning noisily contends, 
the racing stream "moves boulders of ten or fifteen tons 
hundreds of yards," then it is possible for that stream to 
throw up "shingle" into a bar. But to sit on this un- 
comfortable, angular shingle or stone, look at blackened 
timber, and bask and dream, would be extremely bad 
taste in the sitter, and his dream would be a pipe-dream. 
To the click of shod canoe-poles round the bend? 
I have often had canoes pushed up quick water 
by guides that had no real canoe-poles, but 
only used iron-shod semi-handspikes, often with 
a hook on one side, whose primary purpose 
(that for which they were really made) was 
solely for use as a log driver's tool, not a pole whose sole 
use was intended to be for pushing canoes up quick water, 
and never to be used for driving logs. Only such poles 
are genuine canoe-poles. 1 have been on the St. Johns 
River in Maine, and both Cascapedias, the Restigouclic 
and Tabnsintac in New Brunswick, the whole length of 
the Peribonca River in Quebec, and up the Albany and 
English rivers on the north side of Ontario, and 1 never 
saw a shod canoe-pole on one of them that was a sports- 
man's canoe-pole, and not primarily intended for use 
around lumber camps in the hands of log-drivers, in.stead 
of real guides. It is all very well to write of "syn- 
chronous strokes," "rhythm of shod poles," "pretty 
music," etc.; but the men who joyed in that noi';c hearcli 
log-drivers' tools instead of the actual poles of the sports- 
man. Besides, I cannot for a moment admit that the 
"click" of even the shod pole can be heard around tlie 
bend of a noisy stream. I hold many letters denjang if. 
Mr. Hallock, collaboring with his former opponent in 
the sea-trout matter, says, as quoted by the Old Angler: 
"T have never seen either an ash or maple canoe-pole." 
Very v/ell. I quote from two letters before me, written 
by the best posted actual woodsman in Maine, Rlr. D. L. 
Cummings, the owner of the famous camps on Square 
Lake : "Canoe-poles used by guides are from twelve to 
fourteen feet long, made usually of ash or maple — zvhite 
ash preferred — and diameter about one inch at each end, 
and one and a half inches in the middle." 
He says further : "Canoe-poles used by river drivers 
for driving logs are made much on the same principle as 
canoe-poles, only they are a third larger poles for dritnng 
logs." 
Now let the Nestor of the Old Guard and the Old! 
Angler quarrel it out with the best posted man on this: 
subject in all Maine. Flis two letters are sent to you: 
herewith, and be it remembered that this shod or unshod! 
pole question has no more relative importance in excusing. 
Kipling's false work than the end of a pole has to "black- 
ened timber." 
I met Mr. Hallock on the north shore of Lake Superior 
in the late sixties; and last month he honored me witk 
a long, greatly prized call, during which I was much im- 
pressed with his ripe culture and noblesse oblige. YelL 
this founder of Forest and Stream and prince of Ameri- 
can anglers has been induced by Mr. Venning to be quoted 
in the discussion as charging me with general ignorance 
(for that is what his quoted words mean) because I have 
never seen but one shod pair of real canoe-poles. It is 
therefore submitted to him that, as he says, he has never 
seen an ash or maple canoe-pole, while Mr. Cummings (a 
much better special authority) says such poles are usually 
made of maple or ash, it might with equal force be 
asserted that Mr. Hallock's knowledge is limited. Will he 
claim that because this discussion has demonstrated what 
I have never denied and freely admit, namely, that some 
canoe-poles that are real canoe-poles are actually "shod," 
it follows that all the other detailed and proved charges 
of vital misdescription in Kipling's eight lines have been 
refuted ? Is he willing to go on record as saying that 
the sections of spinning-tackle known in some regions 
as "traces," are used by anglers on racing streams in con- 
nection with rods and reels, as per Kipling's assertion in 
one of his lines ? Let him remember that Kipling saj'S : 
"It is there" (to the racing stream) "that we are going." 
Any mere tyro of angling knows that traces are not used 
on racing streams. Will he demonstrate that log-jams 
are right-angled, and "at the end" of racing streams? 
Mind, the red gods "call" or summon out, not drive, send, 
or impel out, so they are alleged to be something apart 
from one's self, and must dwell where they call from. 
Will Mr, Hallock make an affidavit that crimson beings 
whom he has actually seen, heard, and can describe in de- 
tail, live in fire-destroyed timber, and that such timber 
is the ideal camping-spot rather than a happy, magnificent 
forest; and that all "young men are turning" to such tim- 
ber, "where the moon shall be confounded, and the sun 
is ashamed?" Will he deny the accuracy of the words- 
of Jeremiah : "For the habitations of the zuilderness a: 
lamentation, because they are burned upf" And does he; 
not see that he cannot afford in his advanced years to mar 
his great reputation by sanctioning advice to "young- 
men" which is really as follows when paraphrased : 
Come, all ye longing campers, to the grime and ashy soot. 
To horrid, nightmare vistas without end. 
Where trees that once were happy have been stripped of leaf and 
fruit, _ _ 
