Dec. 5, 1903.] 
459 
For&st and Stream 
THE STEAM YACHT NOMA OUTBOARD PROFILE. 
and set in the mantel over the fireplace is a large and 
very fine water color by H. Reuterdahl, which repre- 
sents the battle of Portland, Feb. 28, 1653, one of the 
most important naval battles of the Anglo-Dutch war. 
The wall panels of the owner's stateroom are cov- 
ered with a inaterial the color of bride roses, with sil- 
ver gray and green in the upholstery and carpet. Over 
the bureau, either side of the beds, are large mirrors. 
There is a shell molding around the panels, and the 
furniture is mahogany. 
The dining room on the deck above is Dutch in feel- 
ing. The facing of the fireplace is dark blue and white 
tiles, the tiles representing different scenes of the sea. 
The corbels of carved wood represent sea pirates. The 
electric light fixtures, which are on the stiles between 
the windows and on the ceiling, represent pirates' 
heads. The room and furniture are oak. The color- 
ing of curtains and carpet, dark blue; of the metal 
work, silver. 
The smoking room, although one of the simplest 
rooms, is very effective. Its walls are sheathed in teak 
with dove-tailed wedges at intervals on the vertical 
joints. The upholstery is of leather, the curtains cloth. 
The owner's deck state room and the owner's sitting 
room are mahogany with blue coloring in the materials. 
On the upper deck the chart room is paneled teak, 
and the upper deck sitting room, which might also be 
called the inusic room, as framed in one end of the 
room, there is an orchestrion, is finished in enamel 
paint of an ivory tone. The ornamentation over the 
windows and orchestrion is composed of representa- 
tions of nautical objects, such as shells, sea weed, etc. 
The materials are light blue and the electric fixtures 
represent turtles, which clasp the necking of the capitals 
and hold the electric lights, which illumine the room 
through the amber-colored glass backs and give a 
charming diffused light. 
The vestibules on the main deck are treated in nat- 
ural teak, and are very effective with their paneled 
walls and interesting stair railing, made of a series of 
wood panels with boats carved in relief. Between the 
panels are coupled posts, between the posts shells and 
sea horses, and forming part of the base course is a 
molding composed of a succession of sea shells, the 
newel posts represent dolphins. 
National Gun Clubs, 
Within the last two or more decades several eminent trap- 
.shooters, earnest in their purpose to promote the general good of 
trapshooting as a gentleman's sport exclusively, have made at- 
tempts to organize and establish a national trapshooting body, 
clothed with full representative powers of guardianship against 
abuses, and vifith full governmental powers over all local clubs 
throughout the United States. This consummation is still the 
ideal trapshooting dream of many good and wise sportsmen. 
However, all the attempts of the past have been futile. 
As a theoretical proposition, a national trapshooting body, with 
beneficent governmental powers, seems to be both reasonable and 
feasible. All the superficial conditions seem to favor the idea. 
As a constituent support, there are hundreds upon hundreds of 
gun clubs, and thousc.nds on thousands of shooters, to be found 
everywhere throughout the United States. The town which has 
not, or which has not had, a gun club is a dormant town indeed. 
W ith all this active material, a national controlling body would 
seem to be past the stage of the speculative; it would seem to be 
it; the realm of the essentially necessary. And yet there must 
have been some unfavorable, inherent causes antagonistic to the 
foimation of a national body, else the failures of the past, in the 
atteinpts to organize, would not have been so uniformly lulile. 
In comparison with other forms of sport which have central 
governing bodies, trapshooting interests, from their apparent 
magnitude, importance and class of patronage, would, theoreti- 
cally, seem to require a similar organization. 
In this connection we observe on analysis that the forms of 
sport v.'hich have powerful national organization, on the one 
hand, to safeguard their interests from injury by the predatory or 
the dishonest, and, on the other hand, to formulate and enforce 
rules of action which steadfastly promote the best good of all 
concerned, have component parts entirely different from the cor- 
responding component parts in the world of trapshooting. These 
component units are uncompromisingly unlike. On exammation 
the fact becomes quickly and clearly established that, aside from 
by actuating impulse, the fondness for sport, there is no analogy. 
By way of illustration, let us consider the units, the clubs, which 
make the confederation known as the National Trotting Associa- 
tion, in so far as they relate to this subject. The unit, the club, is 
a thoroughly organized body in itself. It has permanency. It is 
a constant. It has important business interests and relations. 
It possesses property in value from thousands to hundreds of 
thousands of dollars. It has a secretary and other officers, who 
respectively are paid salaries, and who, therefore, are required to 
be officially competent and industrious as a matter of bounden 
duty. These officers, consequently, do not act from whimsical im- 
pulse, or from the courtesy of good fellowship, as do men who 
act from a fondness for sport, or who act without remuneration. 
Moreover, the trotting club receives large revenues from the gate, 
the bar and the book privileges, and in every particular, has all 
essential to an active, valuable, permanent business institution. 
Also, the Association governs with the consent of the governed. 
Here, at every point, in the consideration of the clubs as units, 
we observe that there are vast property and business interests, 
skillful organization from base to pinnacle, active salaried offi- 
cials, permanency and responsibility. 
Athletic associations also have valuable properties and interests 
as a rule. Their activities are so closely associated and inter- 
dependent, and they have such a common interest in maintaining 
a strict integrity in the sport owing to the immense sums in- 
volved, the prestige of the associations which are interested, the 
requirements of sportsmanship and the requirements of public 
opinion, that concerning them a confederation for the general 
good is imperative. 
Let us now relatively consider the club units existing in the 
trapshooting world, as they are or are not available as component 
parts for the formation of a national association. 
We observe that there are permanent gun clubs with some 
property interests, but their number is not large. The average 
gim club as a rule is entirely local in its zone of influence; and, 
if it have any property at all, the value of it rarely exceeds a few 
hundred dollars. The officers as a rule perform the duties of their 
offices without any monetary remuneration whatever. These 
duties, however, are so light that they are not unduly burden- 
some. Most of the official work is in connection with the weekly 
afternoon shoots, beginning and ending with them. Indeed, some- 
times it is a member, not an officer, who is the enthusiastic leader 
and hard worker. In most instances, when the one or two workers 
quit, the club quits also. 
Commonly, the gun club is a group of friends, without any 
serious form of organization. The motive is social and com- 
petitive, and chiefly concerns themselves. The rest of the world 
iKay have, to them, merely an incidental consideration. If once 
the members lose interest, the property values are too insignificant 
to hold the organization together. 
As a unit of a national organization, the average gun club is 
too ephemeral. The club unit, to be of value, must, to a reason- 
able degree, be a constant. 
But, assuming for the sake of the discussion that the average 
gun club is permanent, then, as a possible unit of a national as- 
sociation, it would need some materially advantageous induce- 
ment to cause it to seek membership. If it did not give any 
tournaments, a membership then would confer no benefits. If it 
did give tournaments, its revenues were limited to the receipts 
for the sale of targets; it has no gate receipts or other source of 
public revenue. As a rule, the contestants shoot for their own 
moneys. The little domestic affairs of the club are too insignificant 
and too local in character to require any attention from a national 
body. Moreover, the average club could not afford to pay the 
expenses of a delegate to a national session, and it could not 
aft'ord to pay its quota toward paying the salaries of a national 
board of officers. Without such salaried officers, the national or- 
ganization would not exist at all in reality. Without a material 
remuneration on the part of the officers there would not be any 
responsibility. It then would exist simply in idea. 
But let us suppose that there is a national organization of 
clubs, and that there is a board of national officers elected. What 
interests have they to safeguard which warrants their official 
existence? What duties have they to perform? 
There is not enough clashing of dates to require the existence of 
a national body. 
The purses are not sufficient to require any national care. 
The betting is not any feature of the competition as in horse 
racing, and therefore needs no legislative action. 
There is not such a dearth of sportsmanship that a national 
body is necessary to promote it, and even if there were, how could 
a national body promote it one way or the other? 
A national body would be limited in authority to the units which 
composed it. 
Is a national body necessary to decide the question of amateur 
and professional? Every man who has shot to any extent in 
tournaments is now a professional. The status of manufacturers' 
agents and other shooters has been more or less definitely passed 
upcn already, and accepted as a matter of usage. 
Any self-elected body cannot have any representative powers. 
The mere claim of name having a national significance confers no 
national powers upon it. In a national sense, such club exists only 
in idea. It cannot declare any rule for others because it has no 
authority to do so. It can declare only for itself, and that any 
other club can do likewise. 
A fair analysis shows Uiat the need of a national trapshooting 
body, under existing conditions, is founded on matters senti- 
mental instead of matters material. Each average shooter will 
admit the desirability of having a national body; but, feeling no 
personal need of it himself, he thinks that the other fellow should 
do all the material promotion in the matter. The other fellow, 
conversely, has the same feeling. Neither has more than a senti- 
mental interest in the matter, and neither has club property 
enough to need any extraneous safeguards, or important busi- 
ness relations with other clubs or shooters, or revenues, to make 
possible a confederation of national scope. 
As the trapshooting world ii at present constituted, a national 
trapshooting organization now seems possible oiily- in the realm 
of the imagination. 
B, Waters. 
The Witchery of Blowland. 
In a far-away tropical island of the boundless seas, called 
Blowland, there dwelt a highly civilized people, who, two short 
centuries ago, were barbarians. This nation has ceased to exist. 
They as barbarians were rescued from their deplorable, savage 
slate by virtue of the beneficent, arduous labors of two or three 
missionaries, supplemented by the good offices of several thou- 
sand sailors of the merchant marine and whalers. This number 
of sailors was not present on the island all at the same time. The 
crews of one, two or three vessels were there for a few days or 
weeks only, and as they went other crews came. 
The sailors, in their philanthropic efforts to uplift and benefit 
the barbarians, wrought close to twenty-four hours each day. The 
missionaries talked at the savages; the sailors talked to them. 
In this effective manner, civilization quickly gained a permanent 
foothold. Indeed, progress was so rapid that it was fairly aston- 
ishing; insomuch so that in a few years it was the proud boast 
of them as a people that it was a contest, nose and nose, between 
their vault and safe makers on the one hand and their safe 
crackers on Ihe other, as to which of them were the more expert, 
and therefore which could claim meritorious ascendency. How- 
ever, with the aid of a high-salaried police force, supplemented 
with automatic burglar alarms, the safe makers held the advan- 
tage; thus, by not permitting the burglar to toy with them, the 
efficiency of the safes was maintained. 
However, the rivalry between the safe makers and the safe 
crackers was only one form of the many competitions incident to 
the high state of civilization so quickly acquired by these sav- 
ages. 
The civilized savages had a belief that all work and no play 
make Jack a dull boy; therefore, they devoted a reasonable por- 
tion of time to play. Among themselves, they achieved great 
renown for their comprehensive and refined sportsmanship, and 
truly it was justly merited. 
They had an inherent passion for sport— a passion so common 
and constant that it was not a whit less than national in its 
scope and importance. Different kinds of wholesome competition 
were adopted, and also were so fostered with a liberality of 
purse, of participation, and of enthusiasm, that their dignified, 
happy success, present and future, were assured beyond even a 
doubt. 
Among all classes a perfect comity prevailed. The rich and 
the poor, the wise and the simple, the taught and the untaught, 
associated together on equal terms in all the different forms of 
contests. If there were any caste distinctions, they were treated 
as a mere idea; at least, during the competition, however much 
of a reality they became immediately afterward. 
Among this highly civilized people, once savage, marksmanship 
was easily the most popular, the most general, and the most 
useful form of sport. In all matters of marksmanship, they 
placed firearms under a ban. Of the numerous kinds of weapons 
which they used, the blowgun was incomparably the favorite of 
the people, and might in all fairness be termed their national 
weapon. In its use they were admirably skillful. To such a 
degree of perfection had they attained with it that objects, when 
shot at, whether in motion or at rest, were alike hit with ease, 
certainty and precision. 
As tlie reader may anticipate, it required good lungs to suc- 
cessfully compete and become a leader in the use of the blow- 
gun. Nevertheless, even the weakest could blow hard on occasion, 
su that, as to ability, the marksmen might be classified as blow- 
hards, blowharders and blowhardests. The blowhardests could 
betimes be heard in every nook and corner of Blowland, and to 
blow hard was, by some, considered an essential feature of the 
sport, if indeed, it was not the most meritorious of their perform- 
ances. 
In all that pertained to the theory of their sport, they were 
correspondingly learned. The knights of the blowgun had a pro- 
found code of rules and regulations which governed the compe- 
tition equitably. Clubs throughout the country existed for a 
special purpose to maintain the sport. Mammoth factories were 
