OUTDOORS

A BOOK OF

Healthful Pleasure

 

| POPE MFG. CO. PUBLISHERS
— "OLUMBUS AVE
Table of Contents.

 

 

IN THE OPEN

Lawn TENNIS, F. A. Kellogg .

YACHTING, G. A. Stewart

TERRESTRIAL FLIGHT (ABOUT CYCLING), Julian Hawthorne
Foor Bari, Walter Camp .

Base Baii, 1. C. Morse

HORSEMANSHIP, H. C. Merwin

HEeaLTH AND RowiING, Benjamin Garno

RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES, C. Bowyer Vaux
ABOUT COLUMBIAS

THE CoLuMBIA ESTABLISHMENT

THE HARTFORDS

PAS

46
5€
6€

78

80
V0!

In the Open ~¢

It’s our business to do good and make money—do
all the good we can— make all the money we can—
to spread the gospel of the open air-— make people
happier— fill them with the exhilarating oxygen of
natural healthfulness— We have published this book
— the articles are by the best procurable talent— writ-
ten for us— without a word of any kind of advertising
in the text— authoritative articles by the world’s best
recreative writers — illustrated by the best artists— all
calculated to make folks appreciate the necessity of the
open air— We preach the gospel of outdoors — teach
the doctrine of healthful exercise — incidentally remind
folks that we make the Columbia bicycle for them to
‘buy if they are convinced there is none better— If they
‘would not bicycle, and enjoy the most valuable of
healthful exercises, this little book still tells them all

| about ‘outdoors — of the recreations of manliness and
healthfulness —full of sensible pleasure.
Yours for the best kind of a good time,

Pore Mra, Co.

ME? 72S
LAWN TENNIS.

BY F. A. KELLOGG, EDITORIAL STAFF, OUTING MAGAZINE.

OUNTAINS of ancient and medieval history have been delved
and sifted in vain search for the ancestry of lawn tennis. The
results only show a feeble alliance with ancient handball, while
court tennis is pointed to as a source from which lawn tennis
— its namesake, not its descendant— has derived many ex-

. cellent features. It may, therefore, be concluded that this
pastime is a creation of modern ingenuity. Yet I would hesitate to aver that
lawn tennis sprang, Minerva-like, from the brain of Major Wingfield, the
inventor of spairistike, lest such an assertion meet in future ages the onslaught
of that critical school of historians who even now ruthlessly rob history of
many a sentiment, and in their synthetic crucible convert kings, heroes, and
authors into myths. Philosophers of 2892 would scoff at a story that a sport
indulged in throughout the English-speaking world had emanated from an
individual mind; they would argue that Wingfield never existed, or at mos
was only an obscure local champion, the village Hampden of some embryotic

‘game; or that lawn tennis had been practised in all ages, handed down, per

haps, from Grecian maidens to their Roman sisters and at last introducec

into England by William of Normandy.

While still clinging to the innocent belief that Major Wingfield was the
prime factor in the unique origin of lawn tennis, it may be more philosophical
to look upon the game as one created by the increased demand of modern
society for outdoor exercise and diversion. All ages have had their sports tc
satisfy the natural desire of humanity for amusement and excitement, or ever
to pamper brutal tastes. Competition is ever ready to foster trials of skill
In the present age, however, not only have sports arisen in public favor buf
there is also a remarkable craving for individual participation in outdoo:
pastimes. It is in response to this universal requirement that cycling alsc
has gained such popularity. One of the most wholesome and manly instincts
of our nature is the desire for outdoor recreation, and to gain in heaven’s
wide amphitheatre laurels of health and vigor. Impelled by this instinct the
4

 

 

 

 

 
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8 LAWN TENNIS.

Well rooted in the soil of amateur athletic sport, lawn tennis has sprung up
in refreshing beauty under the cultivation of wise nurserymen, in an atmo-
sphere of refinement. It presents to youth and age many advantages in
common with other wholesome sports and many other attractions at once
unique and congenial to the most cultured tastes. It is not uncommon to find
boys of ten or twelve years displaying considerable skill in wielding the
racket, and age, too, is invited to this recreation, though the hope of attaining
skill.is not so great as with those whose muscles are elastic with youthful
vigor. Disinclination rather than decrepitude confines this pastime mainly to
youth. The covered court champion of England, Mr. E. G. Meers, did not
begin his brilliant tennis career until he was thirty-five years old, and as he
yearly improves his game, it seems but natural to couple the future interests
of lawn tennis with his longevity. In England not only do ladies play more
generally than here, but it is quite common there to find middle-aged and even
old men disporting at the net. An American player on a visit abroad some
years ago was invited for a day of friendly tennis to the country place of two
Oxford men. He was not surprised at being beaten by each of his Oxford
friends, but he confessed afterwards that he was a bit put out when the portly,
gray-haired pater familias won two straight sets from him.

The adaptability of tennis to the gentler sex was one of the chief objects of
the early promoters of the game. In fact no other athletic game so gracefully
admits of the participation of lady players. The benefits are mutual. Diver-
sion and exercise (moderate or violent at will) are afforded to ladies, and at
the same time the game is clothed with the refining influence of their society.
Athletic qualities are so coupled with any high development of skill that
comparatively few ladies enter the lists of competition, yet their ability to
acquire great skill at the game will never be questioned by those who have
witnessed matches played by Miss Dod or Miss Watson in England, or by
Miss Cahill, the American champion.

The prominent recognition that lawn tennis has gained as an athletic sport,
may seem a little inconsistent with the wide adaptability that is claimed.
There is, however, an elasticity in lawn tennis that admits of a fast, violent
game or of an easier form of diversion in accordance with the inclination or
physique of its players. On the one hand successive hard matches may call
in play the muscular ability and endurance of the trained athlete, while on
the other hand a convalescent may gain diversion of a mild nature upon tennis
courts, and fortify himself physically against further attacks of grip.

What is there so fascinating about tennis? Wherein lies the charm that
LAWN TENNIS. 9

gains for it so many devotees? It is by no means strange that such questions
should come from a person wholly unacquainted with the game. He has,
perhaps, casually observed the not too graceful movements of indifferent
players that even enthusiastic admirers fail to recognize. It is not likely that
the game will ever turn the public head or fill grandstands with excited humanity
at its tournaments. This youngest of athletic sports will steadily grow with
the ever-increasing refinements of civilization, in the nurture of society and
under the guidance of intelligent craving for wholesome diversion. In its very
nature it is a gentleman’s game, untainted by professionalism and recommend-
ing itself alike to athletic instincts and cultured tastes. Let the college
student relieve the monotony of recitations by an afternoon’s set or two. Let
the professor seek out new curves and fresh philosophies at the tennis net.
Let the lawyer put upon his office door the sign “at court,” and prescribe to
his medical friend by a challenge to a “best two in three.” May the clergy-
man’s sermon be made more lucid and less long after a Saturday afternoon at
his tennis club, and may the journalist find time full often to lay down his
pen and take up his racket.

 
YACHTING.

By GEORGE A. STEWART,

Successor to Edward Burgess.

 
 
 
 
 
 
  

T is a well known fact that lovers of the sea consider yacht-
ing to be the highest of all sports. The fundamental prin-
ciple which underlies all the best sports we have — that of
a life out-of-doors, where fine air and sunshine do their
glorious part in building up the physique — applies to
yachting, in common with foot ball, base ball, rowing,
bicycling, tennis, cricket, and other sports a-field.

One grand feature of sports in the open air is
that they stimulate unconscious exercise, and
= herein lies half of their beneficial effect. It is
~ idle for the physician to prescribe a gymnasium
course for the average young man of sedentary
occupation, for he looks upon such exercise as so
much work, and soon tires of it. But put the same young fellow into a game
of ball, or on a bicycle, or aboard a yacht for a cruise — whichever may be
his particular hobby — and he will go to bed with a delicious sense of phy-
sical weariness without having appreciated that he was doing any work at all.

Sports are the salvation of our youth, and it is remarkable that they should
have been frowned upon, or at best tolerated, for so long a time. The most
natural tendency of a growing boy, or girl for that matter, is to play at some
game all day long. Nature is wiser than man in this, as in all other things,
and the present age has learned to follow nature, and to encourage the young
to healthful exercise.

Which is the best form of sport is not for anyone to decide. They all have
their virtues, and the taste and circumstances of individuals may be best left
to select the most useful. My fellow-writers in this volume have set forth the
merits of the other sports, and it remains for me to speak of the virtues of
yachting.

Yachting has not so many devotees as some other sports, but its admirers

10
YACHTING. I1

make up in enthusiasm what they lack in numbers. Yachting can be pursued to
advantage only on the open sea or on some tolerably large lake. Hence the
facilities are not easily in the reach of all, as is the case with most land sports.

Yet the number who sail the seas for pleasure is astonishingly large, and
rapidly increasing, for the sea rarely
loses its fascination for those who have
once tested its allurements.

There is more or less of an opinion
prevalent that yachting is an expensive
sport, one to be indulged in only by
the rich. Such an idea is as far as
possible from the truth. It
is true that the millionaire
finds plenty of opportunity
of gratifying expensive
tastes in connection with
the sea, and palatial Alvas
and Atalantas attest the
royal scale upon which
yachting may be enjoyed. --
Yet it is doubtful if a =f
Vanderbilt or a Gould
gets any more real pleas-
ure out of a half-a-mil-
lion dollar steam yacht,
than the owner of a THE YACHT THELMA.
snug little single-hander,
who lives more cheaply on his yacht than he could possibly live ashore.

I remember a striking instance of this. A well-known millionaire yachtsman
was standing idly on the bridge of his 2oo-foot steam yacht one day, when a
friend of his sailed by in his 3o-footer. The millionaire’s eyes kindled as he
saw the fun his friend was having, and with a touch of sadness in his tone, he
called out: “I wish I could get as much fun out of my big boat as you do
out of your little one.” The two men were intimate friends, so there was
nothing of snobbishness about this remark, nor of impertinence in the reply
of the owner of the 3zo-footer, which was: “The trouble with you is that you
own so many things you don’t know how to enjoy any of them. I’ve only got
one plaything, and so I make the most of it.” : :

  
 
   
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
12 YACHTING.

Take a party of four young fellows off for a cruise on Long Island Sound,
or along the Maine coast, and they realize nearly the acme of human pleasure.
Their yacht may be small and inexpensive, they may have to put up with
cramped accommodations, and a doubtful diet prepared by their own hands,
each officiating as ¢%ef in turn, yet the two weeks or
more which they will spend on the cruise, will be
weeks of solid fun.

Contrast with this the solid hulls and stately spars
and sails of the New York Yacht
Club fleet, as it starts on its annual
cruise. A bright, sunshiny day out
of New London, and one may look
back upon a wall of snowy canvas
which seems to extend from shore
: > poh, 10 So oor Sond

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< 77, att Ee all have spin-

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The tower-

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canvas

SCHOONER YACHT MARGUERITE.
YACHTING. 13

topping the graceful hulls, which look far too small to carry such a load,
the sparkling waves, the deep blue sky, with the dark green woods along
the shore divided from the sea by a sharp line of glistening sand beach
— all forms a picture upon which the yachtsman’s eye could gaze and never
tire.

The supposed perils of the deep have kept many from this most fascinating
of sports. The sea in a storm is a grand sight from the shore, but a tough cus-
tomer to grapple with from the deck of a small yacht, so insignificant does the
little craft seem in comparison with the elements she has to meet. Yet it is
wonderful how well the yacht holds her own against such odds.

A yacht of the modern cutter type, with a good lead keel to stand on, can make
play of the worst gales ever met in the
summer time. Any yachtsman can tell b
you of the “worst gale he ever saw on the ns
coast,” in which he lay to or scudded
under a scanty bit of canvas all night,
and came through it all «without

 
 
  
    
  
        

 
  

parting a rope-yarn.” Nor is it AN
necessary to have a 4 AR 3
large yacht for such 4 ga 3
work, for a zofoot —. an WV =
single-hander will live ._ = \ > ©
out the most frying i >

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3

time, if properly
handled. Hundreds of
hardy young yachtsmen
cruise up and down the
coast in yachts by no
means of the safest type,
yet it is very rare that
any of them come to
grief. Even the worst
and most unsafe “con- THE YACHT CATITAW,
trapshuns ” display a
marvellous capacity for hanging on, and a stubborn resistance to being
“knocked out,” when put to a critical test in hard weather.

The truth of the matter is that yachting is one of the safest of sports.
There is just enough danger to add that spice of adventure which attracts the

pig Ae vy NERA NS
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14 YACHTING.

Anglo-Saxon race. Quick judgment, skill, pluck, and endurance are continually
called into play by an association with the sea.

Quite distinct from cruising, and becoming more so every year, is the sport
) of yacht racing. The idea of combining the cruiser and
I racer in one hull is a very attractive one. Not many
/ years ago, indeed at the present time, in nearly all
| i classes, the clever yachtsman could cross the finish line
Ji hn of a hard-fought race in the smoke of the winning gun,
I 0 \ hastily dump a few stores and extra gear aboard his
| i in A craft, and set sail for the eastward for a cruise in as
ih i A stanch and comfortable a craft as

| | / . one could wish to own.

Ti

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nn
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Keen racing competition, how-
ever, is driving the sportinto craft
built especially for racing, with
no thought of cruising comfort.
As the family horse is no longer
harnessed to the sulky, nor the
trotter tied up to the
carryall for the family
driving, so the tendency
is to divide the racing
and cruising yachts
more sharply.

Take the little fleet of
21-footers of this year,
how fine and thorough-
bred they all look to the
racing man, and how
ugly to the cruiser. The

= latter protests they are

= not yachts at all, but
THE YACHT GLORIANA. “ machines.” Presently

he ranges along side

with his sturdy cutter, and is first amazed and then lost in admiration of
the wonderful speed of the tiny craft. As he tacks ship, and runs in for the
anchorage, he murmurs grudgingly to himself: “1 guess the darned little
things have come to stay,” and the chances are that he will order a * fin” or

.

  
YACHTING. : 15

a “sand-bagger,” or something even worse, with which to “do up” the fleet
the coming year.

It is the great advantage of yacht racing that it is, and must remain, a
“clean ” sport, unhurt by the evils of professionalism. It costs so much to
build and run a racing yacht, and the prizes are so small that there is no
money in racing for the prizes as a business. The racing man must race for
the love of the sport and the ambition of
winning. The gambling spirit finds little to
feed upon in yachting contests.

For the skilful amateur there is nothing
more full of interest than a yacht race.
From the time that the preparatory signal is
given, he is all alert, counting the seconds
so as to have his ship just on the line when
the starting gun is fired. Once
away, and every sense is at its
keenest pitch, to catch the
slightest advantage of varying Nae
wind or tide, or to keep one’s N\A
competitor from getting the best
of it.. The elements of Z
the sea are stable

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
    
    
      
  

   
 

  

  

  

  

enough in nearly every = 5rd i
race to let the fastest 7 I /
hoat wim, yet there is i i

just enough uncertainty = ( / nn
and possibility of
“fluke” to make every eee

    
 

sailor in the fleet work
his hardest and not
give up till the winning
gun is fired.
For those who object SLOOP YACHT BEATRIX.

to the extreme competi-

tion of the racing classes, with its consequent “out-building” and a new
boat every year or two, handicap racing offers a good deal of sport. In the
handicap class the cruisers and out-built racers meet and each receives an
allowance of time which is supposed to put all on an equal basis. The slower

  

 
 
 
16 YACHTING.

the boat the more time allowance she receives. Such races as these invari-
ably attract large entries, and the tail-ender who lags in half an hour behind
the first boat and wins by the aid of his 35 minute handicap, feels as proud
as the owner of the Volunteer. Hot arguments on the justice of the handi-
cap ensue, and it behooves the regatta committee to “lie low ” and not appear
at the club house till the storm has abated.

It is the varied nature of yachting, and the different conditions under which
it can be enjoyed which make the sport so universally popular. Who does
not remember the intense interest over the America cup races of 1883-87
which spread from Maine to California, and which caused thousands who did
not know a spinnaker from a marlin-spike to scan the bulletins eagerly during
the progress of the races? Then the wonderful 46-footers of 1891 and the
still more remarkable 21-footers of 1892 have won the admiration of the yacht-
ing public and stimulated interest in the sport. Steam yachting attracts the
busy man, who must know to an hour when he can get back to Wall or State
Street, and the steam fleet multiplies even more rapidly than the sailing craft.

As in any sport, the beginner should be started aright in yachting. Give
him a handy little non-capsizable cutter with a snug rig, and you have amply
provided for his safety. Make what blunders he may, he cannot tip her over, and
he will have hard work to come to any grief at all. To make assurance doubly
sure, send him out for a time in the care of a good boatman, or make him
serve an apprenticeship under some of his skilful yachting friends. If he has
the right stuff in him, it will not be long before he is sailing his own boat
nearly as well as the crack sailors of the fleet, and he will soon acquire a
readiness to meet emergencies, a coolness under possible danger, which will
make him safer on the sea than he is on shore, and which will stand him in
good stead in facing the difficulties which he will meet in his other walks of
life.

 

A YACHT RACE,
 

g WENT down to Washington last autumn, after an

3 absence of several years, and admired once

WE more the Capitol and the monument, and the
handsome dwelling houses in the Sixteenth
Street region. I ate pies and drank coffee at
| the numerous lunch-rooms provided for that pur-
». pose, and at night I slept soundly in a charming
lodging-house where, two hundred yards from
Pennsylvania Avenue, it was as quiet as in an -
ordinary country house. I enjoyed the change
in conversation and habits in a population con-
sisting chiefly of politicians and officeholders, in-
stead of brokers and business men. But what
chiefly amazed and captivated me was the omnipresence of the bicycle.

The lazy Washington atmosphere, which seems to have been imported from
the Land of the Lotus Eaters, and which affects everybody on foot, from the
sable piccaniny to the Cabinet officer, is powerless to influence the rider on
the steel horse. I forget how many bicycles are owned in Washington, though
I did take the trouble to ask; but it appears at times as if everybody must
own one. The broad, straight streets, smooth with polished asphalt, are
swimming with shining wheels, following, passing, crossing, approaching,
vanishing, gliding, all lightness, noiselessness, and speed. They stream to and
fro in glaring currents, and no single rider can hold your eye but for an
instant, but they are always coming, always going, and spin in continuous
succession along their soundless paths, swift as birds, and with no more
apparent effort, though their elastic tires never leave the solid surface of the
planet.

Then terrestrial flyers a e not restricted to sex, age, or occupation. If there
are not, at present, as many women as men, the number of the former is
constantly increasing; and a woman looks so graceful on a bicycle that the
aesthetic instincts of the sex, no less than its good sense and love of move-
17

 
18 IERRESTRIAL FLIGHT.

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WITH THE BIRDS AND SQUIRRELS.
TERRESTRIAL FLIGHT. 19

ment, will aid in urging them to the saddle. The Washington Department
clerks are almost ail members of the steel cavalry division ; their unwearying
steeds enable them to stay so much later at their breakfast, and so much
earlier at their dinner; and at the journey’s end there is no stable to hire, no
hostler to fee, no fodder to provide. How much salary, how much lassitude,
how much dyspepsia and low spirits do these tense, economic racers save in
a twelvemonth ?  « Post equitum sedet atra cura,” says Horace; but I doubt
if dull care often overtakes the airy sweep of the bicycler. His foot is on
the pedal : he is the author of his own flights, and he can regulate it to suit
his mood.

The small boy and the elderly gentleman, the tradesman and the man-
about-town, the seamstress and she for whom the seamstress works, all mingle
with equal propriety and enjoyment in the wheeling lists. Bicycling is a free-
masonry, broader in its membership than any other, save human nature itself.
The man of brawn and the man of brains are at one in the saddle. Youth
and age alike can do their mile in three minutes or under. The * winning
wave, deserving note, in the tempestuous petticoat,” is never more winning
than when it whispers past you on the wheel. A woman on horseback, in a
trim riding-habit, is an alluring sight; but we miss one important feature —
the rhythmic grace of motion, which nothing but the bicycle affords. The
entire pose shows the figure to the best advantage ; and the slight, unconscious
swayings of the body to maintain the balance imparts an element of life to
the spectacle which is more fascinating than the most studied art of mere
attitude.

But it would be omitting an important factor in the combination which has
made the bicycle so universally popular, to ascribe its success to its practical
business utility and to its faculty of making its riders look well. It is, above
all, the solution of a problem which has puzzled hygienists and physical cul-
turists for many years. The modern gospel of physical culture has been
preached since before 1860; and certainly, the multiplication since that
revived of gymnasiums, of athletic clubs, of out-door sports, and of athletes,
is evidence that it has not been preached in vain. Probably a majority of
college-bred young men have made more or less practical acquaintance with
bodily exercise. During their college career they attended the gymnasium,
rowed, played base ball or foot ball, or took part in athletic games. In after life,
a fair percentage of them kept up their practise for a time; but, as a general rule,
the business occupation of life, or other business, led them to discontinue
their active habits soon after reaching their thirtieth year ; thenceforward they
20 ZERRESTRIAL FLIGHT.

 

 

 

7 H

 

SIN

“NEAR TO NATURE'S HEART.”
TERRESTRIAL FLIGHT. 21

“ took things easy,” and rapidly developed portly abdomens, short breath, and
sluggish circulation. This is especially noticeable in men who have been
prominent in feats of strength and endurance while their athletic life lasted.
The more acute their enthusiasm, the sooner it seems to exhaust itself. Some
few persistent individuals, however, who have always done enough and never
too much, keep up a moderate activity till past forty, fifty, and even sixty, and
these retain their health, their vigor, and their figures till near the end.

Now, it is a physiological fact that rational exercise, constant, but not
excessive, is never so beneficial and necessary as between the thirty-fifth
and the fiftieth years. During the ebullient season of youth, our bodies
instinctively crave to work off their superfluous animation; but later on,
physical indolence supervives, and money-making pursuits seem to afford an
excuse for the indulgence thereof. But, whereas vitality is abundant in youth,
even when not artificially reinforced, the opposite is the case in age. As years
accumulate, we must needs do something to keep the pot of life boiling. It
need not be much, but it must be something; otherwise the pznalties —
dyspepsia, palpitation, asthma, nervous prostration — are tolerably sure to be
inflicted. The conditions of our intellectual and business occupations are
too arduous and exhausting to be endured with impunity (save in the case of
exceptionally fine organizations) unless they are counteracted by deep breath-
ing and systematized muscular movements. :

These facts have been often repeated, and are widely accepted. But the
truth is, it is not good advice that we lack, but the stimulus that shall prompt
us to follow it. A man or woman may be assured that a certain nostrum,
taken regularly, will give him or her health and long life ; and he or she may
know the statement to be true. Nevertheless, if thé nostrum in question be
nauseating to the taste, or involves much trouble to procure, the patient will
take advantage of any specious pretext to avoid taking it; and the result will
be that, for the person concerned, the nostrum might as well be non-existent.
The situation is the same with regard to bodily exercise. Unless it be ad-
ministered in an attractive form, it will be neglected. In youth the competi-
tion and solid pleasure of out-door games, and even of gymnastic contests
of a more precise and scientific kind, are sufficient to enlist participants. But,
as we grow older, we perforce retire from such contests and must then do our
work alone, or not at all. But who wants to play ball, or run races, or lift
dumbbells, or practise leaping, alone by himself, after the hair has begun to
thin on his temples? Who will practise calisthenic movements in the solitude
of his chamber? Who, even should his geographical situation permit it, will
22 ZERRESTRIAL FLIGHZ,

set out to row a couple of miles out and back, for the mere hygienic advan-
tage of the exertion? Even walking is too monotonous for the majority of
temperaments, except a definite material goal be in view. It is true thata

 

EET Bim

Sr -——
— A ay

THE BUSINESS PART OF CYCLING.

few of the faithful here and there will do all these things, in spite of spite :
but their number is so small that, for purposes of argument, they cannot be

considered.
 

TERRESTRIAL FLIGHT. 23

As for such games as polo and cricket, they are entertaining enough,
but they are suited for those who have leisure and wealth, and even then, the
young rather than the middle-aged command success in them. The famous
institution of lawn tennis, however, has attained an extraordinary popularity,
due largely if not mainly to the fact that women could play it as conveniently
as men. Yet two circumstances bid fair, as time goes on, to diminish the
general cultivation of this charming sport. One is, that the scientific develop-
ment of play in the direction of speed and severity makes women less and
less able to take part in it on anything like equal terms; and the other and
more important reason is based upon physiological considerations. Exercise,
so far as it has any significance for the mass of our generation, is practised
in order to confirm the health and to refresh the nervous power. But lawn
tennis, if played with any care, is found to be almost as severe a tax upon the -
nervous attention as chess, with muscular effort superadded. Mental relaxa-
tion and lawn tennis are incompatible, and persons who practise the latter as
a means of relief from intellectual or nervous strain, discover, sometimes to
their cost, that they are only adding to their previous burdens. If you have
nothing to occupy your mind, if your nervous energy is superabundant, and
you are at a loss for ways to employ it, then lawn tennis is just the thing for
you. But if otherwise, then you had better practise it in moderation, and
never to the verge even of fatigue. :

Blessed, therefore, be the name of him who invented bicycles. It is the
Deux ex machina of our perplexity. It combines nearly all the advantages of
other modes of exercise, and involves few or none of their drawbacks.

Let me recount a typical case. A friend of mine, a physician, a man of
active and eminent intellect, and vigorous and well-knit frame, was, while in
college, a famous foot-ball kicker, and a member of the university nine. He
was seldom seen in the gymnasium, however, being disinclined to systematic
exercise,— exercise for exercise’s sake — by virtue of a certain temperamental
indolence, often seen in men of keen brain power and sound physical health.
After leaving college he studied medicine, and discontinued all manner of
exercise; he could never be induced even to take a walk. He smoked con-
tinually ; during at least twelve hours out of the twenty-four he had either a
pipe or a cigar in his mouth. After three years in the medical school he
went to Europe, and pursued his studies there for two years more, doing a
great deal of trying mental work, smoking incessantly, and maintaining
almost complete physical inactivity. He never drank either wine or spirits,
but it was nevertheless surprising that during these six years after gradua-
24 ZZRRESTRIAL FLIGHT.

tion, he neither gained nor lost in flesh, and his health seemed entirely unim-
paired.

In spite of his physical indolence, my friend, the doctor, was of an enter-
prising and adventurous turn of mind ; and at this juncture he availed himself
of an opportunity to visit the Kimberly
diamond mines in South Africa. He was
soon the chief medical practitioner in that
great camp, and labored day and night at
his profession in that arid and tropical tem-
perature, still unrelieved by any exercise
save that of horse-back riding, in the course
of his professional rounds; and he smoked
harder than ever. Two years of this left
him a few pounds thinner than before, but
otherwise apparently as sound as ever. He
returned to America, settled in one of our
large cities, and began regular practice. His
clients multiplied, and he was kept uninter-
mittently at work; such spare hours as he
had were devoted to study. This lasted
for ten years. Towards the close of this
period, though he had never been ill, he
began to look fagged; his appetite failed
a little, and he slept somewhat less than
before. His only solace was tobacco.

It was about that time he was induced
to play a game of lawn-tennis; he played
a good deal that summer, and he became
captivated with the sport; it was the first

THY MODERN EICYOLA exercise he had had since leaving college,
eighteen or nineteen years previous. It

did him some good. The exertion in the fresh air and hot sun oxygenated
his blood, and stimulated his secretions. Nevertheless, the play tired him;
at the end of the season he resumed his mental labor with comparatively
little feeling of refreshment. There had been an improvement in his mus-
cular system, and his liver had acted more vigorously in eliminating the nico-
tine poison ; but his nervous system had had no vacation, and as soon as he
returned to his office in the city, and stopped playing, his general condition

 
TERRESTRIAL FLIGHT, 1

subsided to its former level or rather below it. This went on for three years.
At the end of that time he looked badly. His face was pale and thin, his
eyesight was troubled, his digestion was impaired, he was languid and dull.
Moreover, there were occasional ominous flutterings in the region of the pulse.

At length, he was induced to submit him-
self to an examination by a fellow-physician.
This gentleman found him to be suffering
from “tobacco heart,” and to be within a
measurable distance of nervous prostration.
His prescription was to diminish his smok-
ing by at least eighty per cent, and to
take daily open-air exercise of a kind
that would not bring any stress upon the
nerves.

My friend was a man of resolute will and
strong character. He did what few men
would have had the moral self-control to
do. He broke at once through the habit
of over twenty years, and restricted his
smoking to one cigar a day after din-
ner. At the same time he went to a bi-
cycle school near by and, in a week or so, THE ALL-ROUND ROAD
learned to ride a safety bicycle. Then he
bought a wheel, and began to make ex-
cursions up and down the avenue on which he lived. At first, he would
return fatigued, and inclined to give up the attempt; he thought he was
‘too old to derive benefit from it. But he persevered, and gradually ex-
tended his journeys, as his muscles became inured to the exercise. At the
end of six weeks, he was making daily trips of twenty to thirty miles. He
would come home perspiring freely, jump into a bath, rub down, and dress
in fresh clothes. Every week his physical exhilaration and mental serenity
increased. He was not less astonished than delighted at the change. It was
precisely the kind of exercise he needed. He could graduate its severity to
suit his needs ; it made no drain on his nervous system, and yet it demanded
just enough attention to relieve his mind from the burden of professional
work. It brought into play every part of his muscular organism, aerated his
lungs, cleared his skin, strengthened his digestion, and entirely removed the
imperfect action of the heart. He felt and looked a new man; when I saw

 

BICYCLE.
26 TERRESIRIAIL FLIGHT

 

THE HIGH BICYCLE.

Still used by old-time riders.

him after an interval of a few months, he seemed, and practically he was,
years younger. His improvement has been steady ever since, and now, at
forty-six years of age, he is mentally and physically more efficient than at any
time since leaving his twenties.
 

TERRESTRIAL FLIGHT. 27

He had two advantages on his side: he preserved a naturally sound and
tough constitution, and he was not a drinker. Had he been saturated with
alcohol as he was with nicotine, his struggle would doubtless have been a much
harder and longer one. But even so, there would have been no occasion to
despair. There would have been a con-
stant, if slower, amelioration. The system
would gradually have recovered tone,
though it might never have regained as
high a pitch of efficiency as in the case
of my friend. A man must be in a very
deep hole indeed, if a bicycle cannot pull
him out of it. :

I have dwelt upon this instance at some A MODERN SADDLE.
length, because it is so representative and
encouraging, and its moral is so clear. Nothing seems to approach the bicy-
cle in its capacity to benefit overworked business and professional men.
It makes exercise interesting, and yet it does not fatigue the brain. As soon
as you have learned to keep your balance in the saddle — and this is a much
easier matter than those who have not tried it may suppose — it becomes a
pure enjoyment, and one which never grows stale. Walking at a brisk pace
is as beneficial, but then you cannot induce most people to walk; besides,
double the time, at least, is required to produce the same results. Rowing is
excellent; but it is not easy to learn to row well after middle age, and then
you must have water, and good weather, and a suitable boat; and at best
you can only row during the summer season. Whereas the bicycle always
stands ready in the hall, and is available in summer or winter, in rain or
shine, in city or country. Taking it by
long and large the bicycle is the greatest
hygienic invention of the nineteenth
century. =

If it is exhilarating fo see a man or
woman on a bicycle, it is a hundred-fold
as exhilarating to be on one. 1 re
member, twenty years ago, looking wih
amused curiosity at the primitive modern
machines that were then appearing spo-
radically in Europe. Heavy and clumsy
A BALL BEARING PEDAL. though they were, it appeared an extraor-

 

 
28 TERRESIRIAI FZIGHT.

dinary feat to ride them, and nobody imagined that they could ever come
into general use. I climbed on to one, in those early days, and after pro-
ceeding a few rods, my steed wavered in its course, and the next moment
sent me to grass with an emphasis which persuaded me I was not constructed
for that particular form of exercise. The contrast between the heavy, for-
midable engine of that epoch, and the graceful, space-annihilating creations
of to-day, is almost as great as between our quadruminous ancestor of arboreal
habits, and a professor in
a nineteenth century uni-
versity. One after an-
other, improvements and
conveniences have been
added, incumbrances and
maladjustments have been
eliminated, until now it is
hard to see how any further
approximation to perfec-
tion can be attained.
The rider on his wheel is
as independent and capa-
ble as mortal man can be.
His wheel and he are one.
It seems to obey his
thought and to share his
emotions. It lives with
his life, it reflects his idio-
Showing canvas strengthening layers vulcanized into compound Syacrasies. It lingers
tube, each part supporting and re-enforcing the other. along lovely lanes, asif it
enjoyed with him the ex-

quisite scenery of tree, and meadow, and flower. It skims like a bird along
level highways, laughing at distances, and taking miles at a flight; it climbs
hills as if gravitation were suspended, and it coasts down declivities, through
landscapes green with summer, as swiftly and smoothly as toboggans shoot
down the snowy slopes of Montreal. At sunrise the morning light glances
from its wheels as it leaves the paved thoroughfares of the city; at evening
it bowls smoothly along to the door of a country farm-house, a hundred miles
away. The extent of country it can cover in a short time is amazing. I
read to-day of a rider who had journeyed from Penzance to John O’Groats,

 

SECTION OF PNEUMATIC TIRE,
TERRESTRIAL FILIGHT, 29

— the longest diagonal in England — in four days and forty minutes. The
bicycle is the ideal means of travel; it is free from the dust, and rattle, and
wearisome monotony of the railway, with its cinders, its foul atmosphere, its
cars to be changed and its tickets to be punched, and it leaves the mind of
its rider free (as the horseman’s can never be), from all anxiety as to sprained
legs, balled hoofs, timely fodder, judi- :
cious watering, conscientious hostlers,
and clean stables. In a word, it affords
all the fun and none of the worry of
other modes of conveyance, and to
travel on it costs no more than to sit at
home.

And the wheel accommodates itself
equally to solitude and to society. It is,
in the first place, a companion in itself.
Its owner comes to feel an affection for
it, similar to that of the horseman for
his horse. With this silent, obedient
comrade he can be alone, yet never
alone. He is proud of its achievements,
and jealous of its renown. He will de-
fend its cause against all rivals, and
match it against all competition. It is
associated in his memory with delightful
experiences, with arduous undertakings,
with stirring episodes. He is grateful
to it for health and strength, for ac-
quaintance with beautiful scenes and
unfamiliar regions. And on the other
hand, he is grateful to it for making him
acquainted with fellow wheelmen and
wheelwomen. Human companionship Showing valve for inflation with air.
can be seldom more agreeable and less
irksome than when sweeping across country on a bicycle. It spiritualizes
intercourse, it mingles with it the elements of speed, of variety, of ardent
exertion, of friendly rivalry. And when a woman is at your side, you are
made sensible of all the magic of the sex. It is sweet to moderate your
pace to hers, or to note how she keeps her pace abreast with you. As the

 

SECTION OF PNEUMATIC TIRE.
30 ZZRRESIRIAL FLIGHT

miles go by you mark the warm color rising in her cheeks, and the brighten-
ing and sparkling of her eyes. Nothing stimulates wholesome intimacy with
a girl more surely than physical exercise and joys in common, and hearts grow
larger and more tender under the witchery of the wheel. The woman who
can ride a bicycle well is pretty sure to have in her the making of a good
wife, and I cannot wish a bridegroom a happier honeymoon than one passed
by the side of his newly created wife on a bicycle journey through the fragrant
hills and forest of an American June or October.

 
FOOT BALL.

BY WALTER CAMP.

Secretary Advisory Committee Inter-Collegiate Foot Ball Association.

athletic strength and prowess, when the wheelman finds not
his endurance but the day too short, when even the horse
under the rider seems to gather power from the air he breathes,

when the wonderful and bewitching autumn of the year has
given all her wealth in lavish display of colors, then is the season of the sport
of foot ball.

The game is a too sharp and sturdy one for the hot days of summer, and
winter renders the ground unfit for the hard tumbles of the players; but dur-
ing the two months of October and November, the season is at its height and
the gridiron field is covered with the hardy young players.

It is now nearly twenty years since the Rugby Union game of our English
cousins was introduced in this country. Previous to that time American foot
ball amounted to but little. Some indiscriminate kicking and bunting, a very
poor, mongrel attempt at the old Association style of play, was all that could
be brought out here. No more than a few score people would come to a
match, and even they would hardly find a reward for coming. To-day,
thirty-five thousand people will sit, unprotected, through the heaviest rain-
storm to see the final match of the American Inter-collegiate season, while
other matches draw ten or twenty thousand. Schools and colleges from
Maine to California all have foot-ball teams, and wherever there are two rival
schools, colleges, or universities within travelling distance of each other,
there is now an annual foot-ball contest, fraught with the greatest intensity of
interest. And for all this, foot ball is still an undeveloped sport. Each year
brings forward new lines of skill and tactics, each season witnesses some
marked advance in the play, and from the last match in November until the
opening of the next season in September, the busy brains of captains, coaches,
and players are studying up new strategies, unusual and brilliant manceuvres,
31

 
32 FOOL BALL.

many of which, it is true, come to naught when put to the test, but there are
always a few of the best that succeed beyond all expectations and mark out
still further lines of progress.

The fundamental theory of the game is of the simplest character. Two
teams of eleven men each meet upon a field 330 feet long and 160 feet wide,
and each team endeavors to put the ball over the goal, or past the goal line of
the opponents. The ball may be kicked, carried, or passed by the players, but
by only the two former methods can it be advanced, for all passing or throw-
ing the ball must be directly across the field or else toward the players’ own
goal and not toward the goal of the opponents. There are but two scoring
places and those are at the ends of the field, and called the goal lines. They
are the end boundaries and in the centre of each stands the goal itself, com-
posed of two upright posts, set eighteen and a half feet apart and crossed by
a bar at a height of ten feet from the ground. To score a goal the ball must
be kicked by the player over this bar and between the two posts which pro-
ject above it. There is but one kind of a kick that cannot score a goal, and
that is what is technically termed a “punt.” In a punt the kicker drops the
ball from his hands and kicks it before it touches the ground. This style of
kick is the most common one for advancing the ball in the field of play, but
when a team is near enough to try for a goal their kickers either attempt a
drop kick, that is, kicking the ball just as it rises from the ground on the
bound, or a place kick, where a second player holds it on the ground for
another to kick. In addition to kicking goals, points may be scored by gain-
ing touch-downs. These are of two kinds, ordinary touch-downs and safeties.
The former are made by carrying the ball over, or securing it behind the line
of the enemy’s goal, the latter are made by members of a hard pressed side
carrying the ball behind their own goal line as a measure of protection. An
ordinary touch-down entitles the side making it to a try at the opponent’s
goal by a place kick, but, even though the kick be unsuccessful, the touch-
down itself counts four points. If the goal be kicked the two together count
six points. A goal kicked in any other way than from a touch-down, counts
but five points. Finally, a safety counts two points for the opponents; and
the entire match is decided by the number of points scored in two halves of
forty-five minutes each. The laws under which the game is played may be
summed up briefly as follows : —

Any player may run with or kick the ball, and any opponent may seize him
when he has the ball in his possession and stop him or try to secure the ball.
The only limitation to a player’s running with the ball or kicking it, is, that he
2007 BALL. 33

must have received it when “on side,” that is, without being between the ball
and the opponent’s goal. The only limitations to the tacklers are that they
must not seize the runner below the knees or trip him. There are two judges
under whose rulings the game is played, one known as the umpire, who sees
that the players are guilty of no unfair acts, and the other called the referee,
who judges the position and progress of the ball. The game is begun by
placing the ball in the centre of the field, in the possession of one of the

ee

 

teams, [decided by toss,] and then follows the attempt to advance the ball either
by kicks or runs. In order to prevent a side continually holding the ball and
never relinquishing it to the opponents, the rules provide that whenever a
man is caught and held with the ball, his side must at once place the ball on
the ground and make another attempt to advance it. If in three of these
attempts they have not gained five yards, or lost twenty, they must, either
by kicking the ball or surrendering it, give the other side a chance to try their
skill at advancing it.

The remarkable development of the game in America has rendered the
34 FOOT BALL.

division of players even more specific than in England. The line in front,
consisting usually of seven men, is called the rush line, or forwards, while the
man who stands just behind this line and passes the ball for a kick or run, is
termed the quarter back. Next behind him are two half backs and a back or
goal tend. The forwards are still further classified as ends, tackles, guards,
and centre, as will be seen by reference to the accompanying diagram.

The exercise of foot ball is a thoroughly general one, calling upon almost
every muscle in the body to bear its share, and for this reason all forms of
out-door sport, cycling, riding, swimming, rowing, and tennis are excellent
preparation for foot ball, as foot ball in its turn is for the others. In univer-
sities where both rowing and foot ball are cultivated, it is no unusual thing to
find several of the crew men football players as well. Base ball and track
athletics also furnish their quota to make up the foot-ball team. The prime
requisite for a foot-ball man is soundness, and the wonderful “all round”
development attained by the members of teams, as shown by the measure-
ments taken by those interested in physical culture, has been something
remarkable. That element known as pluck must enter largely into the
make-up of anyone desiring to make a great success of competitive work in
any branch of athletics, and perhaps no place gives a better opportunity for
the cultivation as well as the display of this attribute than the foot-ball field,
where almost every moment brings forward some new and unexpected emer-
gency to be faced, until quick thought and ready action come to be the rule
rather than the exception.

The best advice to give to a man who desires to become a successful player
is, to begin by putting himself in good physical condition, by engaging in any
or all of the out-door sports of the summer season, being careful, however,
not to overdo the matter by running any risks of overtraining, which is rather
more liable to result from immoderate fatigue in the heat of summer than
later in the year. In the early fall the teams begin work upon the field and
the candidate for honors, who has spent some little of his summer in keeping
in condition, at once finds himself better able to endure the violent exercise
than those of his fellows who have devoted the summer to high living and
little exercise. The man who tries foot ball for the first time is now, thanks
to the popularity of the sport even among the younger schools and classes, so
unusual, that one need only say to him, “Look on for a week, ask questions,
and then put on a canvass jacket.” To those who have had some experience,
but who are ready to go up higher, to young school boys who want to get on
the first team from the second, to preparatory school graduates just entering
FOOT BALL. 35

college who want to get on the freshman team, or to those who have aspira-
tions for the "Varsity, let me say that nothing will bring you so close to the
object of your desires as making a study of the particular position you wish

to fill. A man must not be content with going through the daily routine

 

 

  
 
 

  

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of practice, doing merely what he has seen others do before him, thinking of
none but the ordinary regulation work. He must begin by thinking, after his
day of practice, just what plays were made during which he stood unoccupied,
and lending no assistance. Then he must ask himself the question whether,
without jeopardizing the play in any way, he could not perform some act that
36 FOOT BALL.

would add to its efficiency. For instance, a man is playing the position of
left tackle, and the play has been that of sending the half back through
between right end and tackle. As left tackle the man has merely blocked his
opponent, and then perhaps taken a step or two up the field, and looked on
open-mouthed to see his runner making a fine gain on the right, but eventu-
ally brought down by the opposing full back. It occurs to the player who is
really ambitious and thoughtful, that there was a possibility of the left tackle
checking his man, and then, by fast running, getting over to the spot where
the full back stopped the runner, and interfering so that the run might have
yielded a touch-down.

Again, a man playing the position of quarter back may be only the medium
by which the runner receives the ball and nothing more, or he may become
the most valuable of interferers.

In fact there is no position upon the field that may not be developed into
one of prominence, outside of the special duties commonly attributed to it,
and it is the man who studies the situations of the play, thinks over the pos-
sibilities off the field and then puts them in practice on the field, who is finally
rewarded by finding that the captain wants him on the team. Such men not
only make places for themselves, in spite of, it may be, inferior physique, but
they also lead the way for their teams to victory.

It was only a year or so ago that a most striking instance of this kind
occurred at one of the universities. When the fall term opened, both the men
who had filled the two positions of right and left end on the team the year
before, were in college, and considered naturally sure of their places. Beside
these there were two or three others who had been tried occasionally as sub-
stitute ends, the previous season, and who were therefore looked upon as
standing a chance if either of the regulars should be laid up. All these men
were strong, well built, and fast. One can readily imagine, then, the chances
that would apparently offer for an unknown, undersized, and rather slender
freshman of getting a place as end on such a team. But there was just such
a freshman as this who had come down from a preparatory school, and who
went out and was for the first few days lost in the ruck of a big scrub side.
But every day found him on hand and, sometimes at one end of the scrub
line, sometimes at the other, he crouched, and played, and kept his eyes open
and his wits at work. Theh at nights and during his spare time he thought
out what his play ought to be, and in the hour's practice tried to carry out his
plans, until at the end of two weeks, the Varsity captains and coachers began
to think that the end of the line which came on this freshman’s side was not
FOOT BALL. :

so strong as it should be. The ’Varsity halves couldn’t get around, and the
"Varsity rushers couldn’t bring the runner around by interference. By the end
of two weeks they learned that the ’Varsity end against whom this freshman
played had his hands full all the time and couldn't be counted upon to do
anything but try to keep the freshman cov-
ered. At the end of three weeks, in spite
of every evident unwillingness to admit it,
for it seemed preposterous, they had to face
the fact that the freshman could more
than take care of their best man, and he
was not only taken on to the ’Varsity,
but played through a winning
season on the champion team.
And this is but one of many in
ull
cases where men have made
places for themselves in the face
of what has seemed overwhelm- wl
ing odds, and it is this element,
this possibility of new develop- uf
ment, which perhaps makes the
sport of foot ball appeal even
more strongly to the man of am- \ a
bitious and inventive turn than == H

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there is finally the peculiarly fas-
cinating study of team play, of I
the methods of concentrating $
the force of a half dozen players 75 Ri
by some skilful move against an als
unprotected point of the oppon-

ent’s, that renders the position of captain such an eagerly sought and highly
prized honor of a college course. To the foot-ball captain, or coach, a suc-
cessfully developzd play becomes a triumph such as in after life the most
cleverly executed and masterly achievements can but equal, not surpass.

 

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PLAYING BASE BALL.

BY J. C. MORSE,
Base Ball Department Boston Herald.

T is the delightful uncertainty of the game of base ball, its
diversity, its healthful excitement that makes it so popular.
Despite all predictions that have been made about its life,
despite the attacks that have been made upon it, its hold
upon the affections of the people was never greater than it is
to-day. The professional season begins early in April and

lasts until the middle of October, and it is simply wonderful how the ball
player can stand the raw, cold, windy, and often damp and rainy weather in
the spring, and a temperature of one hundred degrees in the shade in summer.
Often he will play for an entire game with wet shoes on. The ball player
seldom dies of consumption and he rarely is affected with sunstroke. The
professional nine has the advantage in experience; the amateur nine, in
youth. The exemplars of amateur base-ball playing are found in the college
nines, and the composition of these changes season after season, so that the
new players have to be drilled into their positions and to work with their
fellows, so that it really makes a new nine year after year, while the profes-
sional nines generally make few changes and are, therefore, well used to the
work of each other. The college boys play some very sharp games with the
professionals. Their play is generally the more interesting because they are
young and vigorous and not afraid to take the most desperate chances, while
with the professional, to take a chance of injury may mean a permanent dis-
ability and a consequent loss of means of livelihood.

An objection that has been raised to base ball is that the pitcher and
catcher have the bulk of the work assigned to them, and that the other players
have very little to do during the course of the game. This is partly true.
The pitcher and catcher surely do have most of the work to do, and the
greatest responsibility is on their shoulders, but the other players must be in
perfect condition, they must train as hard as the pitcher and catcher to get
themselves in form. Their preliminary practice on playing days is of the
greatest service, for this kind of work brings into play almost every muscle of
38

 

 
PLAYING BASE BALL,

 

39
40 PLAYING BASE BALL.

the body. It is very true that the battery, as the pitcher and catcher are
called, will develop their right sides more than their left, and this is especially
true of the pitcher, but the difference is very slight indeed and not so great as
one would expect. With effective batteries, the infielders generally have
plenty to do. The outfielders may have comparatively little to occupy their
attention but this is likely to occur in but few games. All of the players have
more chance to occupy themselves in cricket than in base ball, but there
does not begin to be that interest in a well-played cricket match that there is
in base ball, and if cricket is preferred by an athlete, it is generally a matter
of taste and temperament.

There is far more exertion required in base ball than in cricket, and one can
remain a cricket player much longer than a base-ball player, although there
are some striking examples of length of service in the base-ball field.

The college player will begin training soon after his Christmas vacation. If
he is a pitcher, he will be coached by some strong professional, and learn how
to combine strength and effectiveness most effectually, and how best to deceive
the eye of the batsman by change of pace. If he is an infielder or outfielder,
he will handle batted balls in the gymnasium cage, a structure erected espe-
cially for the base-ball players, and he will take a regular course of exercise
on the chest weights. Too much gymnasium work is a bad thing, as a differ-
ent set of muscles is employed than is used for base-ball playing. One of the
best forms of exercise is hand ball playing. In the Harvard base-ball building
there is such a court. This kind of work brings into play every muscle of the
body, and gives the young player a quick eye as well as quickness of move-
ment. As soon as the weather is settled enough to allow outdoor work, the
candidates will take light practice in the open air. They will field grounders
and fly balls, taking good care of their arms while throwing, for a cold in the
arm or a strain from over-exertion will work mischief. The opening game of
the season generally occurs about the New England Fast Day. Itis not until
the very warm weather of July and August that ball players are seen at their
best, for then they can strip themselves of every bit of superfluous clothing, and
are really girded as they would be for the fray. The pitcher then can let him-
self out for all he is worth, and the fielders are able to throw the ball without
the least restraint. Peculiar accidents have been known to happen in this
connection. There have been many instances of pitchers breaking their arms
in delivering the ball, and some of players in throwing the ball. This comes
without the least warning, and the snap of the bone is heard very distinctly
all over the field. Injuries to players are frequent from sliding to bases by
PLAYING BASE BALL. 41

their feet being caught in the straps that hold the bases to their piaces.
Ankles are often turned in rounding these bases. Accidents to the bases are
of more frequent occurrence than any other. Collisions are not frequent, and
result seriously. They generally occur between the outfielders, both of whom
will run to catch a fly ball, each believing that the ball is for him to catch.
It is the duty of the captain to call for the player he desires to capture the
ball, but often in the noise of the spectators the players cannot hear the cap-
tain or each other. Generally, any trouble of this kind can be obviated by an
understanding between the fielders. The first man to speak should be allowed
to take the ball. He should say, “I’ve got it,” and his companion should
answer immediately, “Take it.” There is a case on record of a collision of a
base runner with a catcher at the home plate, in which the latter player had
his skull fractured and died. Where hundreds of thousands are playing the
game during a Saturday, accidents must be expected as a matter of course,
yet the percentage of injuries is very small. The catcher is apt to have a
hard time of it. His is one of the most responsible positions on the diamond.
He is obliged to do a great deal of work, and has very little time in which to
do it. He is called upon to stand some heavy and painful blows in the way
of sharp foul tips on his arms, legs, and feet. Very often he gets a bad bruise
in trying to cut out a player at the home plate. It also happens occasionally
that a foul ball will force his mask into his forehead or head and draw
blood. It must be remembered that the catcher formerly stood up behind
the bat without the protection of the big gloves that are now worn. Then
the liability to injury to the hands from sharp foul tips was very great indeed,
and so was there danger to the face from foul tips before the mask was worn.
Many a player bears the traces to-day of a broken nose caused by a foul
ball.

Interesting in base ball is the matter of uniforms. ¢ Thirty years ago, when
I began to play base ball,” said Mr. Wright, the famous expert at base ball,
“there were no professional clubs in existence, and the regularly organized
clubs of the time wore uniforms which would seem exceedingly strange and
grotesque at the present day. In those days players wore long pants of
various colors, either of gray, white, dark blue, or of a mixed check material.
Extending down the side of the leg on the seam was sewed a broad white or
red stripe, which gave, as you may imagine, a decidedly military air to the
garment, in marked contrast to that worn to-day. At the ankle the pant leg,
on the outer side, was split up a distance of, perhaps, six inches, and two
buttons sewed on, so that by this means the pants could be securely fastened.
  
 

At a little later period
some players made use
of a wide skate strap,
binding it tightly about
the pantleg, instead of
the two-button arrange-
ment before alluded to.
Both of these contri-
vances were to aid the
player, if possible, in
stooping to pick up a
hot grounder, to pre-
vent catching the
fingers in the loose
cloth and spoiling the
play, and also to
guard against dirt and
small stones flying at
the leg while running
the bases. . There
PLAYING: BASE BALL. 43

were no sliding pads used in the pants in those days, and I do not remember
ever seeing a player try to slide a base.

“ The shirts worn by the old-time players were generally made of white,
blue, or red flannel. Some clubs also had blue and white or black and white
checked shirts, made very much in the style of those of the present day, but
it was seldom that the club name appeared on the shirt front. The caps worn
by players were invariably of bright colors made of merino or flannel, with
eight pieces to the crown, plenty large enough, with old-fashioned ‘peaks’ or
visors of leather. Well can I remember the caps worn by the Harvard College
nine in, I think, the year 1866, while the team was on a tour to New York.
They were of a jockey pattern, and fitted close to the head, with very long
peaks or visors. I umpired one of the games they played with the Active
Club. The nine seemed pretty well used up, especially the catcher, who had
a very black eye, which he had received in a game the day before, and he was
forced to play in another position. Of course, the mask was not in use in
those days. The base ball belts of the olden time were made of webbing of
various colors, and on the back of one of them would be inscribed in many
cases the word ‘ captain.’

“In regard to the matter of base ball shoes,” said Mr. Wright, the lapse
of time has also caused a very marked change. The very first shoes worn by
base-ball players were made of white canvas, laced high up on the ankle.
Now and then, perhaps, some player would have a calf or black leather shoe,
made to suit his own peculiar fancy, but the high-laced, canvas shoe was
really the first shoe worn. A little later the French calf shoe was found to be
more serviceable, in that it would wear much better and longer than canvas,
and formed a more satisfactory protection against wet weather, more surely
guarding the feet from the damp ground. The shoe of the present day in use
by the majority of players is what is known as the ¢ Kangaroo,” a shoe much
lighter and stronger than those formerly in use, laced well down to the toe
similar to a running shoe.”

It costs a pretty penny to completely equip a base-ball club. A first-class
uniform of league pattern will include pants and shirt of extra heavy flannel,
extra heavy quality stockings, belt, cap, and necktie to match trimmings, with
best shoe, and will cost about $16.50. Then the catcher has to have a pair of
gloves, that for the left hand being made of the finest Indian tanned buck-
skin, extra padded, the right hand glove being with open back and fingerless,
though padded. A pair will cost about $10. The best bats will cost $7.50
per dozen. They will retail at $1 each. The catcher’s mask will cost $5
44 PLAYING BASE BALL,

more. A sole leather bat bag will cost $13, and the bases and the home plate
will cost $15 more. The league base ball costs $1.50. Every catcher must
have a rubber body protector when playing close behind the bat, and this
will cost $10. A first-class professional base-ball nine ought to have no less
than fifteen players on its salary list. These should include four pitchers,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

three catchers, seven in and out fielders, and one extra player who can
replace any in or outfielder who may be injured. As the amateur players
generally play only on Saturdays, or at the most twice a week, eleven players
will be ample. This will allow for an extra catcher and pitcher. Some clubs
carry but ten men, the extra man being a catcher. It is estimated that the
PLAYING BASE BALL. 45

cost to the Boston club for all expenses of the season of 1892 will be
nearly $80,000. This club undoubtedly has the largest salary list ever paid,
yet there can be little doubt that it will close the season with a handsome profit.

A base-ball field should be at least soo feet in length by 350 in breadth.
The infield should be level, and covered with well-rolled turf of fine small
grass and clover. The grass should be frequently cut by machine ; this will
cause it to become velvety and close. Of course the ground from the pitcher’s
position to that of the catcher should be bare of turf, some eight feet in
width, and laid with hard, dry soil, and in such a manner as to throw off
water. The edge should be level with the turf border. The paths on the
lines from base to base — three feet in width — should also be laid with hard
soil, and also a circle around each base.

In measuring out the distances for the various positions and points of the
field, the simplest plan is as follows : —

Having determined on the point of the home-base, measure from that point
down the field one Zundred and twenty-seven feet four inches, and the end will
indicate the position of the second base; then take a cord one hundred and
eighty feet long, fasten one end at the home base, and the other at the second,
and then grasp it in the centre and extend it first to the right side, which will
give the point of the first base, and then to the left, which will indicate the
position of the third ; this will give the exact measurement, as the string will
thus form the sides of a square, the sides of which are respectively ninety feet.
On a line from the home to the second base and distant from the former f/7y
feet, is the pitcher’s first point, the second point being five feet six inches further,
on the same line. The foul-ball posts are placed on a line with the home and
first base, and home and third, and should be at least one hundred feet from
the bases. As these posts are intended solely to assist the umpire in his
decisions in reference to foul balls, they should be high enough from the
ground, and painted so as to be distinctly seen from the umpire’s position.
Flags are the best for that purpose.
HORSEMANSHIP.

BY Hl. C.. MERWIN,
Author of Road, Track and Stable.

FAMOUS American jurist used to say, “ A year’s work can
be done in eleven months, but it cannot be done in
twelve.” He meant, of course, that without a rest of
four weeks, the human machine will not run successfully
for a whole year. Such was his precept, but what was
his practice? I do not know whether he took a
month's vacation, but every morning he rode to
his office in a close carriage, and he went home-
ward in the same way just before a late dinner.
The result was that, although a man of fine phy-
sique, he broke down and died prematurely. Doubt-
less his life, and it was a valuable one, might have
been prolonged had he taken a ride on a horse or on
a “safety ” every morning before breakfast. Americans are beginning to learn
that even from the most practical point of view it ¢“ pays” to exercise in the
open air. No class of persons in the world accomplish more or better intel-
lectual work than do English professional men ; and they take a long vacation
every summer, spent chiefly out of doors, with a good deal of wholesome
recreation thrown in between times. Not long ago I met a New York lawyer
whom I knew to be a very hard-working man, and who assured me that,
besides laboring all day at his office or in the courts, he was busy with his
papers every night at home. Nevertheless, he presented a remarkably fresh
and healthy appearance. The explanation of the anomaly was this: every
morning, after a light breakfast, and before going to his office, he rode for
an hour in the park.

All forms of exercise have their special advantages and disadvantages.
Boxing takes very little time and calls into play all the muscles of the body,
besides making some demands upon the temper. It is also a good way of
obtaining an excellent sweat. But it is an indoor pursuit, and so severe upon
the heart, that a man must be in a fair state of training to spar without dan-
46

   
 
  
HORSEMANSHIP. 47

ger of injury. To spar moderately is almost impossible. I used to meet at
the gymnasium a rather fat man whose habit was to drink about six whisky
cocktails every night at the club, and then to spar three or four hard rounds
the next afternoon, by way of sweating off the evil effects. No constitution
could long endure such abuse. Tennis, again, is a fine exercise, but it requires
much time and is hardly practical for persons of middle age; and yet, as I
write this, it occurs to me that a close connection of my own, a man of sixty
summers, or thereabout, can wield a racket and skip across a court almost as
nimbly as a boy of sixteen. .

Bicycling has this special advantage, it is at once a form of conveyance and
a means of exercise. You can be getting to your place of business and doing
your liver a service at the same time. Scarcely any sound man is too old for
a bicycle, but there is a slight limit to its use on the score of dignity. How-
ever, it was seriously suggested in England not long ago that bishops might
conveniently, cheaply, and properly make their visitations mounted on
“wheels,” and a leading clergyman in Boston, a man past middle life, used to
be seen every fine day taking a spin over the mill-dam road on a * safety.”

The only disadvantage of the horse, as a means of exercise, is his costli-
ness. The bicycle, I am told, consumes nothing but a little oil, whereas, to
board a horse in the city costs about $7 per week. Shoeing and tips to the
groom may be reckoned at $4 or $5 per month. In the country or in the
suburbs where a man has a small stable of his own, the expense of horse-
keeping is very much reduced. The following is an approximate estimate of
a modest tournout : —

 

The horse : . : 3 ; ; : : ; $225
A light wagon : : : ; : ; . . 75
Harness . ; . : 7 : : ; : 25
Horse blankets (3) ; ; : ; . : 10
Carriage blankets (2) : : : . : : . 15
$350

»

A village cart costs about $123, ready made, a Meadow Brook cart, $80; a
carryall not less than $200.

The yearly expense, paterfamilias being his own groom, may be estimated
thus: —
48 HORSEMANSHIP.

 

Food and bedding . : : : : ; : : $123
Shoeing . : : 3 : . : A : ‘ 18
Repairs of carriage and harness ; . . : : 8
Grooming tools and sponges . . : ; : ; 2
“ Vet.,” medicines, bandages, incidentals . : : ; 10
$163

If peat moss bedding be used, the labor in taking care of a horse is very
much reduced, especially if he is kept in a loose box. Peat moss costs $2.50
per bale, one bale will serve for one loose box or for two straight stalls. It
should be forked over every day, but not renewed or taken out until it becomes
foul,— a period which will vary with the habits of the horse. If he eats his
hay up clean, the peat moss will last for six weeks, or even longer. If he
scatters his hay so that it becomes mixed with the bedding, he will require a
clean bed much sooner. Peat moss is excellent for horses’ feet, the only
danger to be guarded against being that of producing ¢ thrush” in the feet
when the bedding becomes wet.

The great advantage of horsemanship as an aid to health and as a means of
pleasure, is that it brings you into relation with a very interesting creature.
~The horse is superior in one respect to every other animal, including, perhaps,
even man himself, namely, in the extreme sensitiveness of his nervous organi-
zation. This is what makes the art of horsemanship the most subtle of all
arts. You have to do with an animal that requires, and will repay, the most
delicate handling, and the most attentive consideration to his wants and
peculiarities. No other creature can be irritated so easily or can be made so
unhappy by roughness or unkindness. A passing glance at a row of horses in
their stalls will discover how they are treated. If the horses are knocked
about or spoken to in angry tones, their eyes will have a permanent expression
of unrest and fear, and they will start nervously at the least sound or move-
ment. On the other hand, the most high-strung horse, if gently treated, will
look about him with an expression of repose and confidence. He will readily
put his nose in your hands, lower his head, and submit to have his ears
pulled,— an operation from which the sorriest livery stable hacks will usually
shrink in terror. Horses dislike extremely to be left alone, and if a single
horse is kept in a stable, he should have the companionship of a dog or of a
goat. =

What effect can be produced upon the mind of an intelligent horse by a
HORSEMANSHIP. 49

little kindness and petting is well shown in the following quotation from
Whyte-Melville’s « Riding Recollections ” : —

“T once owned a mare that would push her nose into my pockets in search
of bread and sugar, would lick my face and hands like a dog, or suffer me to

     

   
 
  

RN fils
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fo
ig al
ye =

   

SEE =
Ae eas i

|= =x, me

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cling to any part of her limbs and body while she stood perfectly still and
motionless. On one occasion, when I hung in the stirrup after a fall, she
never stirred on rising, till by a succession of laborious and ludicrous efforts
I could swing myself back into the saddle, with my foot still fast, though
50 HORSEMANSHIP.

hounds were running hard, and she loved hunting dearly in her heart. As a
friend remarked at the time, ¢ The little mare seems very fond of you or there
might have been a bother.” ”* This was the quiet, English manner of saying
that the rider would probably have been killed. Whyte-Melville adds : “ Now
this.affection was but the result of petting, sugar, kind and encouraging words,
particularly at her fences, and a rigid abstinence from abuse of the bridle and
the spur.”

Such being the nature of the horse, I shall endeavor now to give a few
hints to beginners in riding and driving, trusting that any person skilled in
horsemanship who may happen to read these lines will do so with forbearance.
One foundation remark applies to both riding and driving. The mouth of a
horse, until it is spoiled by bad usage (as commonly happens before he is
seven years old), is a very delicate thing, and if you desire to preserve this
delicacy, you must handle the reins gingerly. Not one man in fifty can ride
or drive with a light hand, and a heavy hand will soon ruin a good mouth.
An excellent writer on horses says in this regard : “The amount of force we
apply, whether small or great, should be measured no less accurately than the
drops of laudanum administered to a patient by the nurse.” With some men
horses never, or very rarely pull, because these men can manage the bit so

» delicately as not to disturb or annoy the animal. ;

“ Race horses . . . do not run away with riders who possess ‘ hands,’ and
it is at the same time particularly to be observed that such jockeys are never
to be seen leaning back in their saddles, pulling at their horses’ heads, and
sawing at their mouths. Such a sight is common enough when inferior riders
are up. . . . This undoubted fact that a man who is small and weak (such as
George Fordham, a famous jockey), succeeds without the least apparent
effort in holding a horse which could not be held by a rider who is heavy and
strong, is a sufficient proof of the existence of ‘hands,’ and no less of their
value.” This extract is taken from the Badminton volume on riding and polo,
where it is said in continuation of the same subject: “ Some time since a
horse with a reputation for running away arrived at a popular training stable
with a large assortment of bits, all ingeniously cruel, and the first morning, at
exercise on the downs, the horse proved how thoroughly his character was
merited. The plan suggested, making his bits easier, was put into practice,
and in thé course of a few days the animal, with a plain snaffle in his mouth,
took his place in the string and never showed a symptom of insubordina-
tion.” 183 tts

 

 

* A few seasons later Whyte-Melville was thrown in the hunting field and killed instantly.
HORSEMANSHIP. 51

Hiram Woodruff, in his interesting book, ¢ The Trotting Horse of America,”
tells a similar story of an American trotter called Alexander, that had been
exported to England. In England he was regarded as an inveterate ¢ puller,”
and a collection of bits, which Woodruff describes as “a wonderful array of
instruments,” had been got together to hold him. An American trainer named
Whelan, who happened to be in England, was asked to ride Alexander. With
some difficulty he found a plain snaffle, put that on the horse, and thus bitted
and handled, Alexander exhibited such a burst of speed as his English owners
had never seen before.

Horses, either ridden or driven, are apt to behave better with women than
with men, the reason being that women, if they are skilful, commonly have
better, that is lighter ‘“ hands ” than men have. Of course, a horse will some-
times take hold of the bit very hard, and in such a case your object should
be to vary the strength of your pull and to keep the bit moving in the animal’s
mouth. If you are riding, and the horse pokes his nose straight out, loosen
the reins for a moment. He will then drop his head, and you can thereupon
shorten the reins, keeping your hands well down. Thus his neck will be
arched, his nose brought in, and your control of him will be regained.

Good riding (to discontinue for a short space the subject of driving) con-
sists of two things, good hands and a good seat. What good hands are, I
have indicated already, but it is impossible to have them unless you have a
good seat. If your seat be bad, you are sure to hang on by the reins. No
man can be said to ride well unless his seat is so firm that a sudden start on
the part of the horse will not cause him to seek support from the reins, even
for a second. The rules for obtaining a good seat are short and simple. They
may be stated thus : —

Grip the saddle with your knees and thighs.

Sit well down in the saddle.

Keep your back straight.

Keep your elbows in and your hands down.

Have the stirrups at least as long as your arm.

The best saddles for ordinary use (not for cow-boy duties), are those of the
English pattern, without high pommels or cantels, without stirrup-covers,—
as near an approach as may be to a plain piece of leather. To ride bare-
back is an excellent education for the saddle, and to use a saddle without
stirrups is, perhaps, even better; but this should hardly be attempted by a
beginner. Not even hunting or polo playing gives one a better seat than does
riding without stirrups.
52 HORSEMANSHIP.

* So much, in a rough and rudimentary way, for the art of riding, and now for a
few words concerning the mount. Shetland ponies make beautiful little
chargers for boys and girls, and they cost as much as large horses. Iceland
ponies — often sold as Shetlands — are cheaper, but not so pretty. They are
very coarse, especially as to the head. Next, in point of size, come broncos
and mustangs. The best of these are crossed with thoroughbreds, and are
raised chiefly in Texas. Ponies thus bred have, as a rule, the most charming
and docile dispositions, much beauty, and delightful gaits. Broken to har-
ness they make excellent roadsters. The pure bronco is a serviceable beast,
but he lacks the beauty and finish and the high but gentle spirit of the
bronco-thoroughbred. A green bronco costs from $75 to $r5o (the latter
being the price of the bronco-thoroughbred.) Educated for polo his value is
about $100 greater.

Trained saddle horses, of full size, originate, for the most part, in Kentucky.
They are ordinarily very docile and intelligent. If they have “all the gaits,”
including the “passage,” they are costly, varying in price from $400 to
$1,200 or $1,500. The price increases in exact ratio with the weight of the
horse. A 1,200 pound horse will bring just about twice as much as a goo
pound horse. Kentucky horses with a natural gift for the saddle, and without
an elaborate education, are as good as the schooled horses for most pur-
poses, and can be bought very much cheaper. Indeed, any sound active
horse that doesn’t stumble is good enough for a man or boy to ride. If his
gait be hard, so much the more exercise and so much the better practice you
will get out of him. Canadian ponies, so-called, though in reality they are
small horses, make good, tough, nimble saddlers, and occasionally a Morgan
horse, with light, elastic step, perfectly adapted for the saddle, can be found.

All that I have said in regard to “ hands ” applies to driving as well as to
riding. Boys and girls should be taught to drive, not allowed to teach them-
selves by driving livery stable horses and other jades whose mouths have
been ruined. If they are permitted to hold the reins over a really good horse,
unspoiled as to his mouth, they will perceive immediately the ill effects of
bad driving. They will learn to manage the bit delicately just as they would
learn to play upon a musical instrument.

The difference between good and bad driving may be illustrated by the
different ways in which the good and the bad driver handle a horse suspected
of kicking propensities. He dashes out of the stable, we will suppose, fresh
and lively, and inclined to resent any interference on the part of the reinsman.
The bad driver says to himself : “ I'll be beforehand with you, my fine fellow,”

i ii
HORSEMANSHIP. 53

and thereupon he yanks at the bit, and brings the animal almost to a stand-
still. This would irritate any horse, it would tend to spoil a young horse, and
it would be almost certain to make a “kicker” lash out freely with his
hind legs. Under the same circumstances a good driver would restrain the

7 Sy Al

—

 

horse as little as possible, letting him take his own pace for a short distance,
and checking him with a careful hand.

However, we will assume that the bad driver escapes, somehow, this first
danger, and is about to turn a corner toward home. The corner, the home-
ward direction, a passing vehicle, these things stir up the latent spirits of the
kicker, and he makes a wicked resolve. But there are indications : the horse’s
ears fly back, he humps his spine, he twists his rump sideways, he tucks in
his tail close to his legs. The good driver, observing these signs, though he
54 HORSEMANSHIP.

has but a second’s warning, speaks loud and sharply, pulls up the horse’s
head, and thus forestalls his intended mischief. The poor driver fails to see
or fails to appreciate the signals which the horse cannot help giving, and
before he knows what is going on, his beast has begun to kick, or possibly
has started to run away.

A noted horse-trainer was once asked if he used a kicking-strap in breaking
colts. “No,” was the confident reply, “I carry the kicking-strap in my
hands.” :

It is, again, an art to drive a horse in such a manner as to husband his
strength. Of two coachmen, or of two hackmen, for example, both accom-
plishing the same distance in the same time, one will exhaust his horses,
whereas the other will bring them home in good condition. This was espe-
cially noticeable in the old coaching days. To take advantage of the road, to
go fast where the ground is favorable for speed, to go slowly uphill and in
heavy spots, to humor the horse when he needs to be humored — to urge him
without fretting or harrassing him, this is a task which sounds simple enough,
but in reality it is difficult. The truth is, that to be a good driver in this sense,
a man must sympathize, fee/ with the horse, and be quick to perceive whatever
can affect him. People are apt to think, for example, that a horse can trot along
with perfect ease on a long level stretch ; but such a road is the most fatiguing
of all roads. There is a continual, though slight, straining against the collar,
whereas, when the road undulates, the horse has a chance to rest and get his
breath. Moreover, while going up and down hill, he exercises muscles some-
what different from those chiefly employed in trotting. On long drives I have
often noticed that a horse who has become tired of traversing level stretches
freshens not a little when a few miles of up and down hill intervene. Country
drivers know how to get over the ground easily ; they let their horses trot fast
toward the bottom of a declivity, break into a canter as they ascend on the
other side, and walk over the brow of the hill and for a few steps on the level,
till they recover their wind.

Driving horses, good and bad, come from all parts of this country, and vary
indefinitely in breeding, in size, and in characteristics. The first essential in
buying a horse for any purpose is to get one that is intelligent and good-
tempered ; and these points can be determined with substantial accuracy from
the shape of the head, from the carriage of the ears, and from the expression
of the eye. A head broad between and, still more, above the eyes, quick-
moving ears, calm, clear eyes — these are the features to be looked for. It
takes some experience to apprehend them accurately ; but it is much easier to
HORSEMANSHIP. 33

determine whether a horse is “kind,” than it is to determine whether he is
sound.

As to the other points of a good horse, they may be summarized roughly
and shortly as follows : —

A neck of medium length ; better too thick than too thin.

Big shoulders, sloping for the saddle and for beauty; but many trotters
have straight shoulders. ;

Short cannon bones.

Feet of medium size around, but with plenty of substance; that is, having
the effect of being well set up from the ground, not low at the heel.

Big knees and hocks; and sinewy legs, free from ¢ meat.”

A short back, sometimes found with a long body, which is an indication of
speed.

I cannot let this brief chapter go out of my hands without adding a word
or two about the care of horses. No man is fit to own a horse who does not
take both pride and pleasure in his personal appearance. Fine animals,
speedy, beautiful, high-spirited chargers or coachers may be too costly for
his purse; but whoever can afford to keep a horse can afford to keep him
well. It is a matter of care, of attention, and of a little work, not a matter of
expense.

See to it that your old Dobbin has a clean, glossy coat, and that he stands
on feet that are soft and healthy. If you do not know how to accomplish all
this, consult some good horseman, or spend a half hour or so now and then
in a stable of the first class. You will pick up a hint here and a hint there
which will conduce to the comfort of your horse and to your own satisfac-
tion.

The essence of horsemanship is found in the principle with which I started,
namely, that the horse is a peculiarly nervous, sensitive, impressionable animal.
Therefore, treat him accordingly. After a hard drive, do not leave him all
night in his dirty condition, but clean him well, visiting every spot, such as
his dock, the hollow under "his jaw, the inside of his ears and of his hind legs,
with sponge or brush. Always keep under him, both day and night, a soft
bed ; water him frequently ; do not feed or water him when he is hot or tired ;
rub his legs with some alcoholic liniment (such as rum, water and arnica, or
witch-hazel) after a long drive ; give him an extra blanket on a cold night;
speak to him gently.

A horse is not simply, nor even chiefly, a machine for transportation ; he is
a beautiful living creature whom it is a happiness to make happy.
Health and Rowing.

BY BENJAMIN GARNO,
Late Editor New York Clipper.

AE IFE would not be worth living were it not for health and con-
science. Physical development is therefore something more than
human grandeur. Rather as a predisposition than as a dire
presence, disease is latent in all of us from birth. Failure to
fortify the body gives force to disorders that else might exhaust
themselves, and millions succumb to an inherited blight long
before they should. Phthisis and cancer are the most dreaded
predispositions. Pulmonary troubles have been fatal to several
oarsmen, the foremost having been James Renforth and Walter Brown. The
daring of rowing from Philadelphia to New Orleans killed Joseph C. Cloud.
Exposure of various kinds, rather than oarsmanship, was fatal in all three
cases. Enviable physique distinguished the men, especially Renforth. Brown’s
was very deceptive, and in his Portland billiard-room clothes he was unsus-
pected of the muscularity that made him a marvel for his height as soon as
he had dressed himself in air. Occurring within three or four years, the
‘deaths halted rowing everywhere, and the idea still obtains that it is hazardous
to health. Collegians and their friends contributed to the scare. Almost
everybody told everybody else confidentially of the dire peril Harvard had
been in because of its stupendous efforts against Oxford on the Thames in
1869. Harvard was mighty, but the Oxford four were masterful. Had not
England won, rowing would have been hailed in this country as a glorious
means to a grand end and grander men. Even had abstract oarsmanship
caused the early deaths of Champions Brown and Renforth, it is of too far-
reaching utility to be abandoned because here and there it kills. Hazard is
universal. A slight hurt to the hand while exercising on the parallel bars
once culminated in consumption of the muscles, which is slow but inevitable
death. No one else has so happily hit off the risks in being alive at all as
William Pitt, who was in the navy when Barney Buntline turned his quid and
said to Billy Bowline : —

 

56
HEALTH AND ROWING. 57

« Foolhardy chaps as lives in towns, what danger they are all in!
E’en now they’re quaking in their beds for fear the roof will fall in.
How often have we seamen heard how men are killed and undone
By overturn in carriages, and thieves and fires in London.
We've heard what risks all landsmen run, from noblemen to tailors;
So, Bill, let us thank Providence that you and I are sailors! »

It is of less moment to believe that sculling actually was fatal to Brown,
Renforth, and Cloud than to know that rarely has an oarsman died of down-
right phthisis, or pulmonary consumption, and that rowers have enjoyed the
like blessed immunity from cancer. Yet a blow or some other trivial injury
may develop the latter disease, as impoverished blood or defective circulation
will unfold the other latent taint. Nature works in puzzling ways. Actors,
singers, and minstrels are not prone to injury, and athletes are. Vocation
and association have vouchsafed me unaccustomed opportunities for becoming
conversant with the lives of all classes of caterers to the amusement-loving
masses. As early as thirty years ago, the unusual number of actors dying of
cancer impressed me. Since then two have cured it with pistol. Even at
this later day I can scarcely recall a half dozen athletes, whether circus per-
formers or sportsmen, who have developed it. Why has the disease spared
those whom casualty subjects to it? Blood, and not bone or muscle, resists
maladies. Defective circulation is a badge of intellectuality, and actors are
not athletic. General or generous gymnastics demand more oxygen for the
lungs, and oxygen purifies and enriches the blood by renewing it. The more
muscles called into play, the more oxygen. Here is a lesson of deep import.
All who court exercise for health, rather than for vigor in exceptional parts,
should select the kind that favors muscular co-ordination, or the use of one
group of muscles with almost any other. Strength is not necessarily health.
All around are men whose vital energy is by no means equal to their muscular
power in certain directions.

Nature designed bodily exercise as a means of making all the functions,
mental as well as physical, uninterrupted sources of joy. It is immaterial
whether anatomical development be inspired in males by hardy deeds at the
oar or in daring feats on the trapeze, or coaxed out of females by the graces
of equestrianism or by inviting systems of calisthenics. It should be at least
started intelligently as to individual needs. Summers passed at watering-
places have shown me girls who row and fish, run and swim, sit horse, mount
bicycle, play tennis. One could read purity in their eyes and color, and their
entire hotel life and bearing indicated utter absence of frivolity. Among
58 HEALTH AND ROWING.

them were a few almost as deft with oars as any man. Had they been rightly
started? She who would fulfil the grandest mission of her sex should either
avoid the rowlocks or content herself with a moderate use of one oar at a time.
Sculling was once healthful for females, but the word has changed in meaning
since Grace Darling’s time. Sitting down and handling two oars is not for
the young woman who is either married or expects to be. Its effect is to
harden the pelvic bones. Even men about to choose an exercise should
consult their doctor. Faults of organism or exceptional conformation may be
met or modified by an intelligent choice, whereas an unintelligent one would
intensify the evil. Of the four Ward Brothers, Gil was by odds the finest
sculler ; but a peculiarity of one wrist made him feeble beyond a mile or so.
Some billiardists are

fatally weak in the cue < =

wrist without knowing
it. He who tries to

 

   
 
 

  
   

    
 

remed stoopin NTRS eco tll .
Y Pp 2 g rr — ee 1 7. HN) = =~ >
shoulders by walking 4 Bre SRL ; A

up hill may harm lungs. Ii
Climbing stairs is a V4 SH
delight to him whose |
heart is sound and be a
whose wind is ample, Cant

but coming down racks Ee
the nervous centre of "b.2 0

 
 

l
all whose step is inelas-

tic. Skating in the COLUMBIA COLLEGE BOATHOUSE ON THE HARLEM RIVER.
cities is a joy and a

jam, but, the mental exhilaration apart, in the long run it benefits none who
is not ruddy and robust enough without it. Done in straps, it is positively
hurtful to all whose circulation is already feeble.

No one need be ‘deterred from athletics because his frame seems unfit.
Among the brightest exemplars of some one sport or another are men dissimi-
lar in almost all physical points. Many powerful wrestlers have been narrow
in the waist, and others have lacked depth of chest. In Japan a wrestler
minus a bellyful of fat, to give him weight, would be scouted. Most jumpers
excel because of strength of leg from hip to foot, but some owe their superior-
ity to general muscularity combined with lightness. Like Jim Crow, they
“jump all over.” William Gray, winner of the international racket contests

 
HEALTH AND ROWING. 59

in 1867, was smaller than Fred Foulkes or La Montaigne ; but for rackets he
was larger in being longer in the branches than Foulkes —longer even than
the sole survivor, Mr. La Montaigne, who, grizzled but genial, is still erect and
elegant, but quite too slow now for the bat. Seldom has a distinguished
athlete looked it less than W. B. Page. Jacob Schaefer is shorter than the
stiffer G. F. Slosson, or the early bald and lately bulky Maurice Daly. All
three are pigmies alongside of Maurice Vignaux, who first came to us in 1874,
a stevedore in height and breadth. Yet Schaefer's rare muscular pliability
makes him the taller for caroming. It gives him not alone stretch and reach,
but also facility, fertility, and felicity of stroke. Match-playing is much more
a test of endurance than can be guessed, yet only now has an avowed athlete
come to the front for the first time in billiards, Frank C. Ives having been
skater, ball-player and cyclist before he pointed cue.

I have known more than one man to relinquish boating because, having
closely watched his chest in the glass, he had not found it fuller. Although
depth of lung certainly confers muscular power, still men should not be dis-
heartened at lack of bulk about the chest. It is possible for nervous energy
to accomplish as much in three minutes as muscular power in five. Many
men with only veneers for bodies have large lung surface, and it is they who
are the mediums through which nervous energy transmits its force. A large
chest does not insure endurance. Charles Rowell’s measurement, when he
was at his best, was probably not above thirty-five inches; but his legs were
as tough and trusty as if he had urged a boat or a ’cycle from boyhood, and
such was his endurance that unscrupulous gamblers had to read anew their
Bible, where it tells of Samson, in order finally to win the odds by vanquish-
ing him in the old Madison Square Garden. Without being physically striking,
Daniel O'Leary was commended by the charm of *his bodily deportment,
which made him perhaps the fairest, squarest, most graceful of professional
walkers. His endurance was due to ease of gait. Out of proportion to his
medium height is the length of L. E. Myers’ thigh and nether leg, possibly
started in childhood by dancing, for which he had a passion. Early jigging
usually begets short legs, but another exception is R. M. Carroll, whose sup-
pleness now is a tribute to slim legs evolved from busy heels set to music
forty-five years ago as “ Master Marks.” Enough has been said to teach that
anybody not positively crippled can always hope for eminence in one or
another form of athletics. But let him not expect too much in the way of
muscular development, for bone is an obstacle. Exercise imparts girth to
chest sooner than depth. It oftener enlarges forearm and lower leg than
6o HEALTH AND ROWING.

thigh or upper arm. Only special practice alters the neck, and nothing but
the sudden splendor of easy victory makes business for the hatter. Large
muscles are not indispensable in many competitions whose chief test is en-
durance. Small ores will suffice when backed by faultless heart and good lung
capacity, both of which are essential to whoever resorts to rowing for eminence.
Ever since 1868, when the first amateur athletic club in this country was
organized, professionalism at the oar has been less a fact than a verbal defini-
tion. There was never much doubt as to the status of the old-time scullers,
and so let them be reverenced as the pioneers of aquatic pastimes in America.
Here and there one died soon, every friend's enemy in being his own, but
most of them aged
gracefully, sculls aship.
Dorlon and Decker
became of worth or
wealth in the oyster
trade, and Stephen
Roberts sat in Com-
mon Council, while
Barney Biglin, still
living as the very
youngest of those old-
timers, went to the
Legislature. Some
took to boat-building, ;
like Harry Clasper, THE HENLEY COURSE ON THE THAMES.
England's champion, ; :
who was half a century old when he rowed his last great match race. Ama-
teur boat clubs were numerous forty or fifty years ago, but their impulse was |
companionship rather than competition. Josh Ward, now a farmer back of
Cornwall, was the first formal champion, James Hamill the second, and
Walter Brown the third. It was by a sweepstakes race off Staten Island in
1859 that the rank was instituted. Although Andy Fay and Tom Daw, his
two metropolitan competitors, were bulky men, yet they were as minnows
trailing after a Triton, so much taller and broader and hardier was the Joshua
who, in 33m. 10s. for five miles with a turn, commanded their suns to stand
forever still. The shell-boat was then young and crude, but theoretically
swifter craft have never been able to equal that announced time. It has
passed into inerasible record.

 

 

 
HEALTH AND ROWING. : 61

It seems an eternity to us, who were not in it, and yet it is not quite seventy
years since New York City and its suburbs made the Battery and its outlying
shores dense with hosts viewing the first international boat race. Almost
a half century has gone, and yet, because we really were in it, it seems but
a year or two since Chandler L. Ingersoll’s model lifeboat, still universal in
its humanity, was borne gayly through the metropolis on a truck drawn by
four horses. In fancy it was but a month ago, although in reality it was an
average lifetime, that the first shell-boat in America rode “the blue, the fresh,
the ever free.” Its builder was James McKay, of a family of Vandewater
Street riggers, and in its maiden race at Boston, in 1856, it was beaten by
a common Bluenose clinker, or lapstreak. It seems but a week, although it
was in 1858, since spoon oars came into sight, but not quickly into use. It
is twenty-five years, but it seems only a few days, since the rocking seat was
broached. It was patented, but not used. It is twenty-two years since
Walter Brown introduced to us the sliding seat. Others on this side claimed
it, but Brown certainly improved it, and he patented it. He had caught the
idea in England in 1869, when he defeated William Sadler.

It was England vs. America, Dart vs. Star, in the international contest of
1824. Opystermen were victors. Picked men from the frigate Hussar had
triumphed almost everywhere else, but over that four-mile course abreast of
the Battery their Dart fell short by four hundred yards. Often had the Star
been in the van, but with that exploit the fame of Whitehall boatmen widened.
All seasons were theirs, and that race was in December. Saratoga Lake had
not then preached the Boniface wisdom of four or five days’ delay for wind or
water. Postponing was hardly thought of until the sixth decade, by which
time there was a furor for longer, narrower, and lighter craft than the nine-
teen-foot “working boat.” Steamboat racing inspired the rage, and the
skeleton wagon of the trotting track suggested a skeleton boat. Some of the
shells modeled after the hulls of swift, shallow, smooth-water steamers proved
too dainty for use. Pleasure boats with amidship paddles turned by hand
were also built for swiftness; but they failed for much the same reason that
some of the new steamboats had — the quicker the stroke, the surer the
suction ; the more power, the less speed. When he rowed Harry Kelly on
the Tyne, James Hamill marshalled so much of that tremendously muscular
back, and put so much vim and velocity into those lusty, knotty arms, that
his style was declared a novelty. Englishmen who had taken the odds cried
“ Drugged!” in 1862, when John C. Heenan was vanquished by Tom King,
and in 1866 the same takers of odds vowed that a drag had been fastened to
62 HEALTH AND ROWING.

Hamill’s boat. Big above the loins, but rickety below, and soft all over,
Heenan had been poisoned only by overtraining; and it was Hamill who
was to blame for needing to row the short, vertical, paddle-wheel stroke. He
was going through the motions, while Kelly, with two strokes to his three,
was going through the water. Inside of extremes, stroke is physique.
Hamill was as unsuited to Ward's or Kelly’s as Edward Hanlan, with his long
back and airy seat, his short upper arm and long forearm, would be for
effective chopping. Probably the chunky and plucky Hamill put more energy
into the “paddle” than anybody ever will again, and that fact made it seem
a novelty in England. Yet R. A. W. Green, the Australian champion, had
years before brought it there, and he took it home with him, and he took
nothing else, and all that he left went to Robert Chambers. The lesson of
it all is that stroke is set by physical conformation. The sliding seat has
altered it somewhat; but, whether long or short, that stroke is the better
which feels the better. With upper arm and thigh short, with back long,
only the long stroke is natural and effective. Standing not more than about
sft. 6in., Hamill among a crew seemed more dromedary than man; and so,
also, seemed Denny Leary, stroke ” of the once famous Biglin crew. Much
of the hump has been taken out of scullers by the sliding seat. Men row
with more ease than they did twenty-five years ago.

In many cases training is empirical, and too often it swaps man for muscle.
Intelligence is the true trainer, and almost everybody's will do more for him
than almost any other body’s. Whoever seeks boating mainly for health or
pleasure does not need to train. It will answer for him to be hygienic rather
than harsh, to sit in a shell without spilling, to dip without spasm and to lift
without “crabbing,” to shun pulling against the rudder, and to avoid halts
and draughts when his shirt is wet. Equable stroke is slow in coming, for
athletics have such a bias throughout that it is hard to find a devotee who is
not stronger in one hand than in the other. Men who first venture in skeleton
boats should hasten slowly. Fred Archer, the jockey, was long in getting
snugly in his seat; but, once there, he stayed, and the horse with him. As
to amateurs for crews, they must expect to train. Every captain or trainer
has ways or whims of his own. Itis useless to proffer advice to the crews
beyond emphasizing the unselfish wisdom of obedience and the sacred
obligation of fidelity.

Solitary exercise tends to dullness. Walking, running, tossing weights, etc.
await supersedure by rackets, handball, fencing. Heavy dumbbells, as well
as pounding the insensate bag, result in surprising development in spots, but

 
HEALTH AND ROWING. 63

tie men up mentally and physically in making them muscularly ponderous,
irresponsive, and unrecuperative. Elasticity of muscles, bodily resonance, is
the surest sign of healthy, vigorous, brainy manhood. Either lacrosse or foot
ball can give it; but the latter vitiates accident-insurance policies, and
lacrosse, too, is undergoing misuse. Excellent as the rowing machine is, it is
not the boat, for exercise in the open air and the sunlight is vivifying. In its
possibilities of companionship, the ‘cycle tends to relieve training of much of
its work-a-day aspect. It proffers a panoramic diversion, and it attunes the
eye to alertness and the brain to quickness and decision. It calls into action
the muscles of breast,
Ay diaphragm, shoulders,
WN back, and legs, and also
taxes the arms. [It is,
besides, not so irksome
a discipline as walking

while carrying weights.
) = The selfish doctrine
=~ Wg that a great mind and
— a grand body are incon-

££ — sistent overlooks that

ss Hn —- progress is perpetual stir

    
    

      

  
    
      

“)) j= in all directions. It is
( an unwise snubbing of
the spectacular in life.
If only because one
seems manlier or more
lovable than the other,
the prestige of muscle is
JAMES STANSBURRY, CHAMPION SCULLER OF THE WORLD. superior to that of mind.

Manhood in its highest
structural form is worshipped the world over as something that is no less
patent and .undeniable than rare. Grant that a brain is superlatively great,
so much more need of a grand body to nourish it. As pernicious as the
idea of incompatibility is the theory that development of body dwarfs, dulls
or sensualizes brain. Physical training is the most impressive kind of moral
teaching. Danger comes in leaving off. I first saw Tom Hyer in 1843,
when, young, eager, self-assertive, full of physical impulse and prowess, he
was training to fight the shorter, lighter and lither man of myriad scars; and

 

  
 
64 HEALTH AND ROWING.

I also saw him, then sallow in face and dim of eye, lingering for years on
a cane, waiting for the undertaker to move him from the north side of
Thirty-fifth Street. Nothing could induce him to undergo training after his
battle with “Yankee ” Sullivan. I have seen actual giants transformed into
consumptives by the excesses with which, their task done, they resented the
cruel disciplinary drudgery of solitary training. But have I not known a few
graduates of convents, freed from the restraints of a pure life, to become
among the most reckless of their sex? Need it be added that the giants and
the maidens were emotional and exceptional natures? It would not be
impossible to prove the startling assertion that in a profession which shall
be nameless, but which has five distinct divisions, morality is much the
highest among those whose calling exacts most of muscles and least of brain.
They are moral because healthily busy. Weary in body they may become,
but they sleep the more soundly for it, and are seldom enervated, and much
seldomer sybaritic. For the luxuries that imperil rectitude they have neither
the wages nor the hours. Nobody is pure in adult life merely because of
salutary aphorisms conned in childhood. Morality is largely a question of
physical equipoise. Were intellectuality surely goodness, bright minds would
be restrained from stumbling by their acquired capacity for reasoning.
They go wrong because for the nonce they do not stop to think, acting as
they feel. Intellectuality reasserts itself in the guise of repentance. Toning
the nerves and thus enlivening the spirits, invigorating the brain and thereby
making work seem like play, physical exercise is the basis of a deeper morality
than even the spiritual catechism. Vice is generated not by excess of bodily
tone, but by deficiency. It is perpetuated by that inequality of spirits called
nervousness, which is intensified by excessive brainwork, alike in business
and at college. Boys would be victors rather in sports than in studies, and
therefore, so long as they have any choice, books cannot hold their own with
boats. But their inability to enforce their own preference is no sound reason
why students should be fed upon a diet of all book and no boat. There is
loss, not gain, in the superior scholarship that saps health by checking
physical growth. It is better to be a little backward as a student than much
behind as a man.

Unless the haphazard sports of boys become the scientific, systematic exer-
cises of men, we cannot glory in the brawn and bulk of hardy manhood.
Inheritance fails or wears out. We ourselves must replenish to offset the
leaning towards effeminacy that is the penalty imposed by a luxurious civil-
ization on those who forsake the country, with its steady and sturdy habits,
HEALTH AND ROWING. 65

for the mental rush and rash, the whirr and whirl, peculiar to the seats of the
arts and commerce. The hopeful youth seeks the city for the means some
day to resume rural life in ease and elegance. Rallying his muscles not at
all, racking his brain too much, missing health in massing wealth, he is as
likely to go home in a baggage-car as in a chariot.

“What shall we do to be saved?” Bestir ourselves as much ‘as possible
in the free air and bounteous sunlight. Prayer can make man good and hold
him; but a balanced mind in a strong and mind-strengthening body will
make the suppliant’s task all the easier. Can he more surely aim at salvation
than by fearing God, and cutting water or turning a wheel for four or five
miles every leisure day or evening ?
Recreation and Sport in Canoes.

BY C. BOWYER VAUX,

Expert on Canoeing.

canoe. It figures in history, romance, poetry, war and peace,
explorations, Dusiness and pleasure, tragedy and comedy. Itis
older than civilization, and yet is to be seen in every part of the
world to-day ; and there are no signs as yet that its value in the
future will be any the less than in the past.

The canoe is the primitive boat — the root from which all boats have been
evolved ; and yet almost in its primitive form it has reached a high state of
scientific development. It is used alike by the most highly civilized people
and the savage.

The Eskimo in Greenland paddles his kyak, made of skins and bones; the
American Indians were found in the birch canoe when America was dis-
covered ; the savages that frightened Robinson Crusoe came to his island in
canoes made of logs, and Stanley and other African explorers met the negro
navigating the rivers and lakes in the same craft.

The seas, bays, sounds, lakes, and rivers are natural highways, and they are
the routes travelled by explorers in a new country. The canoe is the vessel
used by them.

The early history of the United States is in great part a record of canoe
voyages, and Francis Parkman’s accounts of these expeditions are real
romances. The Hudson’s Bay Company has been in the fur trade for over
two hundred years, and during that time almost its entire out-put has reached
a market by means of the canoe. The Indians and traders of Puget Sound in
former times sold their goods, principally skins, in Montreal, and transported
them across the continent in canoes by way of the rivers and great lakes.
Their route is practical to-day to the hardy canoeman who wants to make a
name for himself as a cruiser. The trip occupied about six months’ time, and
it meant to the voyagers hard work from start to finish. The canoes and their
cargoes, of course, had to be carried over land around falls and heavy rapids,
and across the “ great divide,” which, however, is really a very short distance.
66

 
RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES. 67%

What is a canoe? It is, first of all, a boat. It is sharp at both ends, and is
propelled by a paddle. It may be made of bark, a log hollowed out by tools
or fire, the skins of animals, thin boards secured to a frame like ships and
boats, metal, paper, or any other suitable material.

How large is a canoe? That depends on the needs of the builder or owner.
The smallest canoes are those built to hold one man. A canoe ten feet long
and weighing less than ten pounds has been built and used for cruising.
There is a war canoe on exhibition in the Natural History Museum in New
York, which came from Queen Charlotte’s Island. It is sixty-three feet long,
eight feet three inches wide, and five feet deep. This large boat is cut out of
a single log. Canoes for different purposes are built in all sizes between the
two extremes given. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington has a fine
exhibit of canoes, and some idea can be formed from an examination of them
what a wide range of boats come under the name canoe.

Many people think only of the birch bark boat when they hear the word
canoe spoken, probably because this particular canoe has appeared oftener in
literature than any other, and pictures of it are very common.

Birch canoes are in use to-day in the Maine woods and in parts of Canada,
but the light, open, Canadian canoe, built of cedar or basswood, has almost
entirely taken its place. The cedar boat is as light or even lighter than the
bark canoe, paddles easier, is stronger and of better lines, though quite similar
to the birch in its form and general appearance.

It is my purpose here to touch lightly upon only one side of canoeing, that
which pertains to recreation, and therefore nothing more need be said of the
canoe’s history, or its other uses. There are many forms of out-of-door
pleasure and recreation in which the canoe figures. It may be a means to an
end, an incident; or it may be a prime factor of the sport. The form, material,
and size of the canoe depend on the use to which it is put.

Canoes in Canada transport the hunter, his food, and camping outfit to the
hunting ground, and the fishermen to the pools and rapids where salmon and
trout are taken with the fly. The single blade paddle is used on still water
and in running rapids. A pole is often depended on when the canoe has to be
forced up stream. The hunting canoes usually hold two men and all their
baggage. Sometimes these boats are built large enough to hold four men or
even more.

A country of lakes, rivers, and forests, where there are few if any roads, is
inaccessible except by means of the canoe — a boat light enough to be carried
on the shoulders of a man over a portage from one watershed to another, or
68 RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES.

around a fall or a bad rapid. A canoe journey through such a region has a
charm in itself aside from the hunting and fishing.

There are more people every year who go to the woods to camp out, and
some of them go simply for the out-of-door life without attempting to hunt or
fish. The canoe is more than an incident for them ; it is one of their chief
sources of enjoyment. They explore the shores of the lake near the camp,
and take short journeys in it to points of attraction in the neighborhood. It

 

 

 

 

—
Free Cozpens
BS

 

TWO RACING CANOES,

may be the means of their getting from civilization to the camp ground, and
home again when the vacation is over. Whole families make such canoeing-
camping excursions in Canada yearly, and the ladies and girls of the party
seem to enjoy the paddle and the camp quite as well as the men and boys.
These light Canadian canoes are usually built from sixteen to twenty feet in
length, and from twenty-six to thirty-six inches wide, and about a foot deep.

  

Bia ih i
RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES, 69

They cost from thirty to one hundred dollars according to size, material, and
finish.

Since MacGregor first published his accounts of the journeys made by him
in canoe Rob Roy, nearly twenty-five years ago, hundreds of articles on canoe
cruising have appeared in the magazines and papers, and some very charm-
ing books have been printed on the same subject, the most delightful of which
is probably Mr. Stevenson’s “Inland Voyage.” Alden, Bishop, and Neidé
have written books on canoe cruising in the United States, and Farnham has
published, in Harper's Monthly, much about the canoe in Canada. Some
years ago Norton and Habberton wrote a jolly little story — a summer vaca-
tion in New York and Canada,— of a party of four cruising and camping, each
in his own canoe, entitled, “ Canoeing in Kanuckia,” published by Putnam.

Cruising is the field of recreation in which the canoe stands first. Ocean
cruising is done in steamers and large yachts; but the rivers, lakes, and sounds
are conquered by the canoe, and even bits of old ocean himself have been
attacked and subdued by properly built and equipped canoes.

Cruising on small streams, inland, where rapids are met with and the canoe
must at times be carried overland, the paddle is alone depended on as a
means of locomotion, and the canoe is built light in weight, so that it can be
easily carried by one man. Sails are used where the cruise includes open
water and portaging is never necessary, and the boat is made strong and heavy,
fitted with a centre-board and rudder — in fact, a yacht to all intents and pur-
poses of so small a size that it accommodates one man and his belongings.

The cruising canoe, no matter how small it is, must be capable of carrying,
besides the crew of one, provisions for at least a week, extra clothing, and a
complete camping outfit, which includes cooking utensils, a shelter tent, and
blankets for covering at night,— for the cruiser must be prepared to cook his
own meals at any time, and provide a night's lodging for himself in case of
necessity, even if he is willing and anxious to put up at hotels. When the
cruiser is dependent on the country daily for his meals and lodging, he is not
a free man and cannot cruise in any but thickly settled regions, thus losing
one of the chief charms of canoe voyaging, which is to “pioneer a pathway
through unknown realms.” It is the endless variety, the constantly recurring
problem of navigating unknown waters in safety, and the changing scene and
many surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant, that give such a zest to the trip.

There are many people having a love for the water who are so situated that
they cannot leave their business or home duties for a canoe cruise — those
who have only the usual holidays and Saturday afternoons in summer to spend
7° RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES,

on the water. The canoe club is ready to welcome them and admit them to
membership in it. There are nearly two hundred canoe clubs in the country,
a large proportion of whose members have a very limited amount of time to
devote to the sport. Afternoon and evening paddling and sailing, short holi-
day excursions, and an annual club regatta make up the sport of the season
for these members, and there is no discount on the health and pleasure they
derive from it.

There is another form of the sport which has greatly developed the canoe,
and originated when the canoemen began to form clubs,— racing. There are
paddling races and sailing races, tandem paddling, in which two men make
up the crew in each boat, upset races, in which the canoe is paddled, upset,
then righted and again paddled to a finish line, and all sorts of gymnastic
feats for prizes at the club regattas.

Still another form of canoe was introduced by the Toronto Canoe Club
in 1889, and has since become quite a club feature of the sport — the big war
canoe, as it is called. This is a canoe thirty to thirty-five feet long, five feet
wide, holding sixteen paddlers and several passengers besides. The big club
canoe is very popular with the ladies, as there is plenty of room in it for them
to move about, and they are in no danger of getting their dresses damaged by
spray and the drip from the paddles. Then there is a certain sociability
about a big party in one boat that is absent when the same number, perhaps,
are in many small boats. A war canoe race is a splendid contest to witness,
and the sight recalls tales of the Indians and cannibals in their big canoes
chasing an enemy.

Canoeing and boating have one advantage over shore sports in that they
are clean. There is no dust on the water nor any mud, and a bath is always
to be had — sometimes it comes without the asking.

Paddling is good exercise for the arms, wrists, back, and even the legs come
in for a share. The Canadians, when paddling with the single blade, kneel
on a cushion and half sit on a cross piece under which the feet are put so
that the heels also get a good brace. When two persons paddle an open
canoe one sits forward and the other aft, and they paddle on opposite sides,
changing from right to left, or left to right when they get tired. It requires
considerable skill for one person to paddle a canoe with a single blade paddle,
for then the paddler sits in the middle and paddles on one side only. The
canoe is kept from changing its course by a turn of the paddle at the end of .
the stroke. This turn of the paddle is done by the wrist, and when once
acquired it is very easy to keep the canoe on a true course all the time.
\
RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES 7X

The double blade paddle is frequently used in open canoes, and when the
paddler takes the kneeling position. A complete stroke then means a dip of
the paddle on the right side of the canoe and one on the left. It is entirely
unnecessary to describe the motion of paddling. I have never yet seen anyone
who did not take
to it naturally
when seated in a
canoe and: a
paddle placed in
his or her hands.
The paddler faces
forward and pad-
dling is a perfectly
natural motion,
quite unlike row-
ing. The usual
position for the
double blade pad-
dler to take is a
very comfortable
one. The seat is
a cushion four or
five inches above
the bottom of the
boat. © The: feet
rest on a stretcher
which gives them
a good brace. There is a cushioned back-rest against which the back and
shoulders are comfortably braced, and in this delightfully easy position the
work of paddling is done, while the paddler at all times sees where he is going
and has ample opportunity to admire the scenery. The muscles across the
abdomen are brought into play at every stroke, and the novice will find them
very sore if he paddles violently the first few times he tries this new exercise.
Writer’s cramp in the wrists can be cured by a little paddling exercise daily.

You often hear people say, el don’t like boating, it is not safe, for many
people are drowned every year.” Quite true! But did you ever stop to think
how many people are killed on railroads? Did you know that for every
passenger killed while travelling on railroads, sixty are killed driving or riding

 

ON A SLIDING SEAT IN THE MOONLIGHT.
72 RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES.

horses? That is not quite true, but the proportion is. In other words, it is
sixty times safer to ride a mile on a train than in your own carriage.

No one should go canoeing or boating till the art of swimming is mastered.
You may lose your life by being drowned, but you cannot get hurt canoe-
ing. There is only one accident to guard against, and with a very little
caution the chances of drowning are infinitesimal. In the first place the
canoeman or canoewoman can swim. It is not pleasant to go canoeing in
cold weather, and therefore if an upset does occur the water is sure to be
warm enough for a swimmer to keep afloat for a considerable length of time.
Every canoe is, or should be, a life-boat — that is, it should be so constructed
that it cannot sink when upset and full of water, and should in addition be
buoyant enough to float its cargo and the crew. Fatal accidents have hap-
pened to canoemen; but almost without exception they have occurred to
those who could not swim or took great risks in rapids or on water too
rough for safe navigation in so small a boat.

The best cushion for a canoe is filled with cork shavings, and it serves the
purpose of a life preserver as well.

It is well to try experiments near shore with a new canoe. Roll it over and
see if the air chambers in it are water tight. If not, have them made so.
Then try to right the canoe after it has turned over and get in again from the
water over the side. It is quite easy when you have caught the knack. If
this sort of experimenting has been tried, the canoeman who gets into trouble
later on will have confidence in himself and in his boat, and will know just
what to do in any emergency.

It is quite curious that canoeing and cycling have much in common in the
way of recreation. Both appeal to those who have a love of nature and urge
them to get out of doors. The League of American Wheelmen and the
American Canoe Association were organized the same year, and many men
were members of both. The man who suggested the idea of forming a league
of wheelmen was a canoeman, and organized the first bicycle club in New
York City. It was quite funny how this came about. The New York Canoe
Club were having their annual dinner, and Kirk Munroe began talking bicycle.
The men were at once interested and asked where the machines could be seen.
Munroe suggested that the entire gathering repair to a hall near by that had
just been opened, where wheels could be hired and riding done. The company
agreed, and in evening dress visited the hall, hired machines, and all of them
began rolling around in the dust regardless of consequences in the height of
their enthusiasm. The New York Bicycle Club was organized a few days
RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES. 73

later by these canoemen. Since then the machine and the canoe have been
intimately associated. M. F. Johnson, of Toronto, for years the American
Canoe Association champion paddler, has won over a hundred prizes on his
wheel. It is no uncommon thing to see a wheel in a canoe club house, the
owner of it having come from home on it to the club. The bicycle can be
kept at home. The canoe must be on the shore.

What kind of a canoe do I want? That depends on the water near your home,
what you expect to use the canoe for, and the price you are willing to pay for it.

There are now many canoe.builders in the country and a great variety of
canoes can be bought in stock ready made. The small, open boats, suitable
for smooth water paddling near home, cost from $35 up to $60. The full
size Canadian canoes in the States, sixteen feet by thirty inches, cost from
$60 to $100. The regular “all round ” cruising and working canoes cost from
$100 to $150, and the racing, sailing canoes, built to order, cost, fully rigged,
from $175 to $250, and then a large part of the rigging must be done by the
sailer himself.

There are good second-hand canoes for sale in almost every canoe club, and
they can be got from twenty-five to fifty per cent. below first cost, and if well
selected are just as good as new canoes, and often better, as defects are fre-
quently corrected in them. It is no loss to the dealers to urge new men in
the sport to buy second-hand canoes, as these new hands will surely want a
new boat the following year built up to their “ideas” ; that is always the way.
A second-hand canoe will teach a man what he really wants in a very short
time, and he does not pay full price then for his experience.

The Rob Roy canoe is rarely seen now. It is a decked canoe, fourteen feet
long and about twenty-six inches wide, suitable for paddling only. The
standard canoe is sixteen feet long and thirty inches wide. The American
Canoe Association rules will not allow larger boats in the races. Experience
has shown, that for general canoeing purposes, this is the best size for one
man. It is an easy boat to paddle and, properly arranged, a very fast sailer.

Canoes are almost always bright boats, that is, varnished and not painted.
They are always kept under shelter, for this reason, when not in use. A boat
that is left out at anchor at all times should be painted and not varnished. It
is not possible to keep a canoe under shelter when not in use while cruising,
but care should be taken to cover the deck with the sail or some kind of
covering if the canoe is left on shore in the sun for any great length of time.
A good coat of varnish should be put on before the cruise is begun, and after
the cruise is over the boat should be rubbed down smooth with fine sand-paper
74 RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES.

and varnished. A good canoe, properly cared for, will last many years.
There are canoes now in use that were built before the Centennial in 1876.
Sails and rigging, as a rule, rarely last more than three years if constantly
used.

When canoe cruising is done on open water the sail plays the principal part
in the game. Now a sailing canoe is much more complicated than a paddler.
A paddling canoe needs only a seat and a paddle to make it complete. A

   

A CANOE SAILING RACE.

sailing canoe must have a rudder and a centre-board or keel, besides one or
more suits of two sails. The canoeman sits on the bottom when paddling,
and in old times took a like position for sailing; but the deck position has so
many advantages that it is now universally taken. The sailing canoe is really
a complete yacht for one man. It is sailed exactly in the same way as a larger
boat and the racing rules are almost exactly the same as those for yacht
racing. The paddle is always carried when sailing, to use in case the wind
fails ; but when an inland cruise is undertaken I would advise that the cruiser

\

 

 
RECREATION AND SPORT IN CANOES. 75

depend entirely upon the paddle, as masts, sails, rudder, and centre-board are
in the way and constitute a heavy burden when much paddling is to be done.

There is not a prettier thing in the world than a canoe under sail. Itis
a little butterfly on the water. If you want to see a pretty sight, go to one
of the American Canoe Association’s annual meets and watch a canoe sailing
race, where forty or fifty of these little fellows cross a line and sail over
a triangular course in plain sight from the canoe camp all the time. And, by
the way, if you intend doing any canoeing, it would be well for you to join the
American Canoe Association,— initiation fee, $1.00; annual dues, $1.00, —
and go to camp during the annual August meet. The camp is held in different
places each year,— Lake George, Lake Champlain, The Thousand Islands are
some of them,— and is attended by about three hundred canoemen from clubs
all over the country. Every style of canoe, sail, and rig may be seen along
the shore and on the water during the two weeks of the meet.

The racing men some years ago adopted what is known as the sliding deck
seat, which extends over the side of the canoe and on which the captain sits
when sailing. It can be shifted from one side to the other when the canoe
tacks and is much more comfortable to sit on than the deck and dryer when
sailing in rough water. Considerable skill is required to keep a canoe right
side up when sailing, as the harder the wind blows the further out of the
canoe must the skipper get to hold it up.

The regular sailing racing canoes are now decked over entirely, with the
exception of a small hole, called a cockpit, for the feet. This cockpit is
boarded in on all sides so that whatever water gets into it cannot get into the
hold of the canoe. An upset in such a canoe does not matter in the least.
The skipper climbs out on the windward side and by his weight lifts the sails
out of the water and thus rights the canoe. As no water has been able to
get into the canoe except the gallon or two in the cockpit, the skipper sails on
again as though nothing had happened — no canoeman minds getting his feet
wet when sailing.

If you like the water you can certainly find something in canoeing. to
interest you. There is paddling and sailing, as we have seen, cruising inland
and along the coast, afternoon sailing and paddling for exercise, recreation,
health, or simply pleasure, and then there are the canoe meets once a year. If
you like boats and don’t care to go on the water, get a canoe and “monkey.”
Many club members do no end of it and derive much pleasure in the doing
even if they never get afloat.

Canoeing has one prime virtue, it comes cheap.
About Columbias.

It is eminently suitable and of interest
to our patrons and cyclers in general, to
notice the great advance that has been
made toward the perfection of the bicycle.

It was our privilege to be the first to suc-
cessfully enter into the manufacture of bi-
cycles in the United States. By
the application of advanced meth-
ods and the most persistent labors,
we have been able during the past fifteen
years to lead in all that pertains to the real
advancement and improvement of bicycle
manufacture, and in maintaining the general
interests of cycling.

We were the first to introduce the bicycle
into the regular army, and the Light Road-
ster Safeties supplied some months ago to
Major General Miles for service at Fort
es Sheridan have so successfully stood the tests,
that in his last annual report he strongly endorses the bicycle as a valuable
auxiliary to military operations.

The riders of Columbias have again been able to bring credit upon them-
selves and the machine, by further remarkable reductions of the world’s racing
records, a result which clearly points to the Columbia as the most scientifically
constructed wheel of the age. Our original application of Hickory bicycle
wheels, equipped with Columbia pneumatic tires and ball bearings, has opened
a new era in horse racing, and has brought about a material lowering of the
world’s trotting and pacing records.

The great development of our plant, now by far the most complete as well
76

 
 
 
 
 
  
  
ABOUT COLUMBIAS. 77

as the largest in the world, puts us in even a better position than heretofore
to perfect our machines in every point from design to finish.

We venture to remind our readers of the trite but true maxim, that the best
is the cheapest. A poorly constructed bicycle, like any other carelessly made
vehicle, is dear at any price. Columbia bicycles are made by the most
skilled workmen, of the best materials, and on the system of interchangeability
of parts, which we were the first to introduce. Every part is thoroughly tested.
For the past fifteen years Columbias have been accepted as standard by both
buyers and competitors, and their value is enhanced by our standing behind
each individual machine with our broad ;

GUARANTEE.

“ We warrant all our COLUMBIA BICYCLES to be free from imperfections
in material or manufacture ; and agree to make good, at store or factory, at
any time within a year, any defects in them not caused by use, misuse, or
neglect, provided their factory or serial numbers are intact. If such defects
are found, all defective parts must be sent to us for examination before any
claim is allowed.”

This guarantee is, however, withheld from any machine having its serial
number removed or changed, this standing as sufficient evidence of irregu-
larity in its sale. New Columbia bicycles should be purchased only of our
regular agents or direct from us.

Free Book of Columbias.

A Book About Columbias — too good to call a catalogue — comprehensive, illustrative,

exhaustive — free at Columbia agencies — there are 1200 of them — by mail for two two-cent
stamps.

POPE MFG. CO.,

ALBERT A. POPE. .  ., ., ~~, =, . President.

Boston.

GEORGE H. DAY . . . . .  Vice=President.
EDWARD W. POPE . . . . . . Treasurer.
ARTHUR E. PATTISON . . . . . Secretary.

HENRY D. HYDE
New York.

. . Counsel.

Chicago.

Hartford.
The Columbia Establishment.

The Pope Manufacturing Company is the largest bicycle concern in the world, and its
plant the most extensive and complete. The policy of the Company has always been to keep
abreast of the times, and from the first they have so taken the lead as to benefit the general
interests of cycling. They have both educated the riders to the highest standard and then
employed the necessary inventive genius to satisfy their most critical demands. This work
has been accomplished by constantly improving methods and increasing facilities. The skill
of the artisans being equal, it will stand as —
a rule that the best equipped plant will
produce the finest machine.

The model office building at 221 Co-
lumbus Ave., Boston, is an ornament to
the vicinity, and a valuable addition to the
city’s business edifices. The exterior, with
its artistic combination of gray Indiana
sandstone, cream-colored brick, and rich
terra-cotta ornamentations, is excelled by
no mercantile structure in the country.
The interior is elegant in finish, of spa-
cious dimensions, and exceedingly conven-
ient in its arrangements.

The second story, devoted to the gen-
eral offices of the Company, and furnished
in quartered oak, is unsurpassed in its ap-
pointments. Branch houses in New York
and Chicago, and twelve hundred agencies,
complete the distributing equipment.

The Columbia factories are located at
Hartford, Conn.

During the past fifteen years, numerous
additions have been made to the bicycle
factory, until this portion of the plant alone
has over five acres of flooring.

The latest and best methods are em-
ployed for protecting the whole property,
and for the comfort and convenience of
both officers and workmen.

Improved machinery not known outside
the Columbia works is constantly being
introduced, and this aids not a little in keeping our wheels at the head of the line of progress.

Fine steel forgings are among the first considerations in high grade bicycle construction.
All Columbia forgings are made with petroleum fires, which give a uniform and higher stand-
ard of results than can be obtained with coal fuel. The welding and brazing are done in the
best and most approved methods, either by the use of electricity or gas, both of which are
supplied by our own special plants. The labors in the experimental department of the busi-
ness are both arduous and expensive. We keep at all times a large force of experienced and
able men, whose duty is to determine the best methods of construction, and to devise and
perfect improvements for the bicycle itself, and the tools used in its manufacture. :

78

 

 

 
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A Book About Columbias — too
good to call a catalogue — compre-
hensive, illustrative — exhaustive
— 45 pictures — the most valuable

cycling catalogue published.

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agencies, by mail for
two 2-cent stamps.

 

 

POPE MFG. CO

BOSTON NEW YORK
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Two Pages from the

Hartford Catalogue.

About the improvements in the Hartford Safeties for 1893: in our
newer designs we include the elliptical gear, and the manifest advantages of

 

which will be apparent to all riders when they have an opportunity to try it.

The fine qualities of the Columbia Pneumatic Tire, with which the
Hartfords are equipped, are already well known, and for the coming season fur-
ther improvements have been made. The broad guarantee given is evidence
of our faith in the success of this tire. Increase in wheel base and a larger
reduction in weight are among the important changes, which cannot but add
to the already well known good qualities of the Hartford Safeties.

We solicit the continued favors of the cycling public, assuring them of
our earnest efforts to make our bicycles what we have claimed and continue
to claim for them, the best Safety for the price that is made.

Tue Hartrorp CycLE Co.

RR mi ns Fn rag re on Pon
WARRANT.

We guarantee the Hartford Safeties ro be free from imperfections in
material or manufacture, and we will make good at any time within one year any
such defects not caused by use, misuse or neglect. Defective parts must be sent us
Jor inspection before claims can be allowed.

We will repair or replace any Columbia Pneumatic Zire used on the
Hartford Safeties which bursts or becomes defective from imperfections in ma-
terial or construction while under reasonable use and care, during one year from
dcte of purchase.

We will repair or replace any of these tires which are punctured in ordinary
use during the calendar year.

Zhe Hartford Cycle Co.,

Hartford, Conn.
OUR CATALOGUE FREE TO EVERYBODY.
 
 
SRT

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onrioRd BROS. Inc
Syracuse, N. Y.
Sitter, Calif.

 

   
 
  
 
 

 

  
 

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