FOREST AND STREAM SEPTEMBER, 1919 
JAMES ALEXANDER HENSHALL 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE APOSTLE OF THE BLACK BASS. 
FATHER OF THE GRAYLING AND DEAN OF AMERICAN ANGLERS 
A bout the year 1850, Jenny Lind, 
the Swedish Nightingale, was tour- 
ing the United States under the 
management of Mr. Barnum. When in 
Baltimore she gave a free matinee to the 
advanced pupils of the city schools. On 
that occasion Front Street Theatre was 
filled from pit to dome with girls for 
the first hour, and with boys for the next, 
though the girls declared that she en- 
tertained the boys for an hour and a 
half. However that might have been 
Johnnie and I obtained good seats in the 
family circle, or first gallery or tier, of 
which there were several, the theatre 
being a very large one. - 
Her voice was a bright and sympath- 
etic soprano of remarkable compass, vol- 
ume and brilliancy, which I have never 
since heard equalled. She possessed, seem- 
ingly, ventriloquial powers, which were 
especially exhibited in her unique flute, 
bird and echo songs. In the flute song 
she stood between two flute players, and 
at times her voice and the flutes were 
so blended that it was almost impossible 
to distinguish her voice from the instru- 
ments. Johnnie was sure there were 
three flutes, which really seemed not im- 
probable, as her flute-like tones rippled 
and trilled in concert with the instru- 
mentation. 
Recently I heard the famous and fa- 
vorite soprano Amelia Galli-Curci in a - 
selection from the Barber of Seville, in 
which she introduced some vocal gym- 
nastics with coloratura effects that re- 
minded me very forcibly of Jenny Lind’s 
flute song, and in a minor degree of her 
bird and echo songs. 
In the bird song of Jenny Lind there 
were passages where one might close his 
eyes and imagine himself in an aviary of 
canaries and thrushes. She also sang 
operatic selections and concert pieces 
which were mostly beyond our compre- 
hension. Then at her request several 
thousand boys sang patriotic and school 
songs with such verve that delighted 
her so that she burst her white kid 
gloves in enthusiastic applause. She 
was a good, noble and charitable woman, 
and died in England, universally re- 
gretted. 
About this time, when on my way to 
school one day, I saw a great concourse 
of people in front of Bamum’s Hotel 
listening to a forceful and thrilling ap- 
peal for liberty and freedom for Hun- 
gary. The speaker was Louis Kossuth, 
the Hungarian patriot, who had tried 
and failed in a revolution against a 
despotic autocracy. He wore an Alpine 
felt hat with a small feather at one side. 
This style of hat soon became very pop- 
ular, and the “Kossuth hat” became the 
vogue and supplanted to a great extent 
the ugly tall, silk hat, which was then 
the universal headgear. Kossuth was 
FIFTH PAPER 
then preaching liberty and self-govern- 
ment for Hungary, and now, after the 
lapse of seventy years his dream of a 
free Hungary seems about to be realized. 
The American people, at all events, are 
under an everlasting debt of gratitude to 
Louis Kossuth, if for nothing else, for 
the introduction of the soft felt hat, 
which has proved so comfortable and 
popular with the civilian, the soldier, the 
cowboy and the sportsman. 
A BOY named Andrew, a widow’s 
son, who lived in my neighborhood, 
was the proud possessor of a shot- 
gun and its accoutrements which had 
Dr. Henshall at sixty years of age 
been bequeathed to him by a relative. It 
was a single-barreled muzzle-loader with 
a percussion lock, with a barrel about 
20-gauge and thirty-four inches in 
length, long enough, as Johnnie said, to 
knock squirrels from the tree tops with- 
out the waste of ammunition. It was 
an exceptionally fine English gun, and 
Johnnie and I deliberately and without 
contrition broke the tenth commandment 
whenever we were shown the gun, powder 
flask, shot pouch and game-bag. 
Andrew’s mother, "being a Quakeress, 
had an inherited dislike and a natural 
aversion to firearms in general and to 
this gun in particular, so that the un- 
fortunate lad was denied his oft-ex- 
pressed desire of going a-field clothed in 
the panoply and paraphernalia of a full- 
fledged sportsman. To him the province 
of sport was, therefore, a closed book, 
and the future bid fair to be a perpetual 
close season so far as he was concerned. 
So, in this state of affairs, and after 
due consideration of the matter from 
various angles, Johnnie and I thought 
it advisable to relieve the mind of An- 
drew’s mother by relieving Andrew of his 
inherited incubus, which she had often 
said was a constant menace to her, in- 
asmuch as it was dangerous without lock, 
stock or barrel. 
So with malice prepense we set our 
sails to the favoring breeze, and tak- 
ing Andrew aboard, we proceeded to in- 
struct him in the methods of playing the 
banjo and the accordion; the object of 
this will be seen later. After several 
weeks of patient and persistent instruc- 
tion and faithful practice, Andrew be- 
came so far advanced as to be able to 
play a number of popular airs on the 
accordion, and to pick Ole Zip Coon, 
Juba and several other negro melodies 
on the banjo. Then, by previous ar- 
rangement, we went one evening to An- 
drew’s residence and played our entire 
^®P®rtoire for the delectation of Andrew’s 
^ mother. She was especially delighted 
with Andrew’s proficiency with the bel- 
_ lows and the hanjo, for it was a com- 
‘ surprise to her. 
I then unfolded our plan, to wit: that 
^ ^ would trade my banjo, accordion and 
one of my cedar fishing rods for An- 
drew’s gun and would continue to give 
him lessons on both instruments until 
he was as far advanced as Johnnie or 
myself. I also agreed to take him along 
when we went fishing. She said that it 
was a very good arrangement, and ac- 
cording to scripture, for the apostles 
James, John and Andrew were all fish- 
ermen, and did not care for guns or 
pistols, even if they had been invented 
at that time. Then Johnnie came near 
spoiling it all when he said: 
“If the apostles did not use guns or 
pistols maybe the epistles did, for that 
sounds something like it.” 
Finding that Andrew was perfectly 
willing to make the trade, his mother 
expressed herself as much pleased and 
satisfied with the deal, and was more 
than glad to get the gun out of the 
house. I thanked her and added that 
when I got enough money together I 
would buy the accoutrements. To my 
surprise and delight she said: 
“Oh, take them along; let the tail go 
with the hide!” On many Saturdays 
after that the three conspirators re- 
paired to Rogers’ Woods (now Druid Hill 
Park), and took turn about in .knocking 
squirrels from the tops of the grand 
old trees; not as Johnnie once said with 
the gun barrel, for with two drams of 
black powder, and three-quarters of an 
ounce of No. 4 shot the long, small 
bore was as deadly as a rifle. 
There was a certain indefinable charm 
