[to be continued.]
[THE MILKY WAY.]
BY ALBERT LEE.
I dreamed one night that I sailed away
From my little cot at home,
In a paper ship I had built that day,
Toward the heaven's starry dome.
And an angel met my little boat,
And clasped me by the hand
When I stepped ashore, in my short night-coat,
On the distant golden strand.
He led me forth down a great broad street
That seemed as bright as day,
And it felt all soft to the tread of my feet,—
For I walked on the Milky Way.
Along the sides of this heavenly road
That stretched away so white
Were a myriad stars that softly glowed,
Like fire-flies in the night.
The angel said that the Milky Way
Is the place where the girls and boys
Who are lame or crippled may go and play,
And trade their crutches for toys.
For when lame children go to sleep
In their sufferance beds below,
They are ferried by angels across the deep,
To the path where the star-lamps glow,
And the crutches they placed beside the bed,
Where they lay at close of day,
Are changed to tops and dolls instead
When they come to the Milky Way.
So I saw them there whom I knew down here,
Whom Heaven has not so blessed
With the strength to romp for the day's good-cheer,
But who hold the blessings of rest.
And now when I gaze toward the skies at night,
And look at the Milky Way,
I know why the near stars shine so bright:—
The little lame boys are at play.
[FROM CHUM TO CHUM.]
BY GASTON V. DRAKE.
XII.—FROM BOB TO JACK.
Stratford-on-Avon.
MY DEAR JACK,—This is the place where William Shakespeare was born. He was the man that some people say didn't write his own works, but I guess there must be some mistake about that, because if he didn't, why then they weren't his own works. Pop says that's a very suttle point that nobody else ever thought of and I think he's right, though I don't know what suttle means. We came down here from London yesterday, and on the whole I was kind of glad to get away. We used to think it would be nice to go to the circus every day, and I remember feeling very badly once because I couldn't, but you change your mind after being in London a couple of weeks with nothing but go, go, go, and see, see, see from morning until night. I've seen so much in London that I can't keep it straight in my head except the wax-works and they were royal. They had a collection of Kings and Queens there that beats anything I ever saw and Pop says they're just as valuable as the real article, except in the matter of jewelry, which is only imitation and made of paste. I said I'd rather see a real King than a wax King, but Pop says the wax King would pay just as much attention to me as a real King, and that you could slap a wax King on the back, which you wouldn't be allowed to do with a real King. I don't know about that though. I'd like to try it once. I sort of feel that if I could get hold of a real King he and I would get along pretty well together, because when I saw the Prince of Whales it struck me that he wasn't much more than a human being after all, and from the way he wore his hat, wouldn't mind much if somebody did slap him on the back and tell him a bear story. I'd like mightily to try that bear story of Sandboys' on that Whales fellow. I don't believe he'd be very horty after he'd heard half of it.
In some ways though the wax people are more interesting than the real rulers. They wear better clothes. The wax Prince was a great deal more gorgeous than the real one. He simply blossomed all over with jewels and medals and uniform. There wasn't any beaver hat and umbrella business about the wax one, and all the wax Kings had their crowns on. I always thought Kings got along without hats and wore gold bands with prongs on 'em all around their foreheads, but Pop says they gave up that because it gave 'em colds in the heads going out with prongs on, and besides the English crown was too valuable to hang on a hat-rack.
They had wax plain people too, sitting all around the place to make it look popular. A man came in here once and asked a wax policeman where the figure of Napoleon was, and of course the wax policeman didn't say a word, and the man got mad and took his number and complained about him for not being civil. There's a Chamber of Horrors too where they keep the wax heads of bad people and show you how burglars look. Generally they didn't look any worse than the fine people upstairs, only their clothes weren't so good and they didn't wear diamonds.
Napoleon wasn't half as great looking as I thought he would be. Pop says he wasn't the kind of a man to work up in wax anyhow. He had a face that needed cast-iron or granite to make it go as a figure in a wax-work show, and as for the Duke of Wellington that beat him at Waterloo, he didn't show up for much in wax except his nose and that was fearful. He had a funny nose, the Duke of Wellington had and I guess that's what beat Napoleon. If Napoleon ever saw it it must have made him laugh, and nobody can fight and laugh at the same time. He had a hard nose to follow if the wax-work was like him, because it went in two directions. If I had a nose like that and wanted to go somewhere and somebody told me to follow my nose the way some people do sometimes, I'd know what they meant though. They'd mean go across our block, turn a corner and go down two. It had a thank-you-marm in it like country road's that you slide down hill on in winter. But he got there just the same, which I'm sorry for because Napoleon wasn't half as tall as he was, and I like to see the little man win generally.
Next to the wax-works I remember the Zoo clearest of all I've seen. I saw more monkies than you could shake a stick at and the fun they were having made me wish I might be one of 'em for a little while. Some of 'em looked almost as human as our hired man, and Pop says he didn't know but what they were nearly as useful. The only objection to 'em was that they were never quite still enough to be good hired men. Besides monkies they had bears, and horned toads, and red, white, and blue parrots—Pop says he thinks the red white and blue parrots are called Jingo-birds, and we have lots of 'em in the United States, but I never saw any up our way, and I guess if we had 'em I'd know it because they spend most of their time screeching and shaking their feathers. I didn't care much for the snakes. They've got a whole house full of 'em, but they don't amount to much, spending most of their time asleep. They aren't half as lively, nor any more snakey to look at than the elephants' trunks. The Elephants in this Zoo are awfully friendly and they'll eat anything from chocolate creams to pie. There was a man in the Zoo once that saw a little girl giving the Elephant a piece of chocolate and he thought it was tobacco, so when the elephant put out his trunk for something from him he put his cigar in it, forgetting unfortunately that it was still lit, and the elephant got awful mad and grabbed the man around the waist and threw him up in the air so hard that the Zoo man says he hasn't come down yet, and that was three years ago. Try that on Sandboys and see what he has to say about it.
I've used up all my paper now and so must stop, or else I'd tell you all about that Shakespeare man who was born here. He was a great man and wrote Julius Cæsar and lots of plays that have people die in, right before your eyes. They still keep his memory green here and Pop says are making more money out of doing so in a week than Shakespeare made in a year. He never wrote his name twice alike and was buried in the church. His grave is very interesting and has an epitaph on it forbidding anybody to dust it off, which I think is mighty queer.
Next Monday, we are going over to Paris, and whenever I have the time I study a little French. I've learned already to say bon jour so that Pop knows what I mean and before long I expect to know the language well enough to talk to myself in it anyhow.
Always yours,
Bob.
It is only a question of time when the Cambridge High and Latin schools will be forced to compete in interscholastic sports as separate institutions. Already the football authorities have refused to recognize a C. H. and L. eleven, and at the recent annual meeting of the Baseball Committee a fight was made to force the united Cambridge schools to enter separate baseball teams. The battle was lost; but the feeling against the Cambridge schools seems to be very strong, and sooner or later the High-school and the Latin school will be compelled to stand on their individual merits.
The constitution of the Baseball League provides that no amendment can be made without a two-thirds vote, and when the question of separating the Cambridge High-school from the Cambridge Latin School in baseball came up, the vote stood three to three, and consequently C. H. and L. will be represented by one nine in the league games this spring. The schools that voted for C. H. and L. were the English High, the Somerville High, and, naturally, the Cambridge High and Latin. English High's representatives claimed that they voted to allow the schools to play as one, because separation would make the number of teams in the league too great, and they also thought the expense of such an arrangement would be inadvisable. Somerville High voted for the Cambridge institutions because it, too, is what they call there a "combined" school, and it was practically voting for itself by standing up for C. H. and L. The three schools on the opposition side were the Roxbury Latin, Boston Latin, and Hopkinson's. They voted for separation on the ground that it was for the best interests of interscholastic sport in Boston.
The Baseball and Football Interscholastic leagues are encouraged and looked after by Harvard University athletes, because they develop players who enter Harvard and make good material for the university tennis. For that reason the influence of Harvard men has always been exerted in behalf of the schools that send the best and the most material to college, and also, of course, for the best interests of sport. It was largely due to the influence of Harvard men that C. H. and L. was forced out of the football association. Eventually these graduates will doubtless take the same stand in baseball.
For the last ten years—that is, from 1886 to 1895—the number of scholars sent to Harvard by Somerville High, Cambridge High and Latin, and English High schools (the three institutions which voted for C. H. and L.) has been 236, or an average each year of 23.6 men. On the other hand, Roxbury Latin, Boston Latin, and Hopkinson's (the three schools that voted against C. H. and L.) have sent 639 men, or a yearly average of 63.9. These figures are taken from the annual report of the President of Harvard University. From other sources I find that the approximate number of scholars in the three schools first mentioned is 1300, while the approximate number of students at the three schools last mentioned is 1000. It is fair to assume too, that 175 of the latter are too young to enter either the Cambridge or English High or the Somerville High schools, for Hopkinson's and Roxbury Latin accept boys as young as nine and ten years. This makes the discrepancy between the two groups even greater from an athletic point of view. Therefore it is evident that while the Cambridge schools and their adherents have some 1300 pupils, they send only about 38 per cent. of the number of men to Harvard that the other three schools send there.
For this reason, if for no other, Harvard is likely to support the separatist party among the schools, and thus ultimately force the Cambridge High and Latin schools to support separate teams. In view of this, and in view of the fact that it is beyond question for the best interests of sport that the Cambridge schools should be separated, it seems that the sooner C. H. and L. men come to realize this, and act upon the conviction, the more gracefully will they effect the scission, and besides that they will come out with credit rather than otherwise.
THE BERKELEY OVAL.
It is probable, as matters now stand, that the first annual games of the National Association will be held on the Berkeley Oval the afternoon of Saturday, June 13th.
The baseball schedule of the New Jersey I.S.A.A. has been laid out as follows: April 18th, Montclair High-School against Plainfield, at Plainfield; April 18th, Pingry against Newark Academy, at Elizabeth; April 25th, Montclair against Stevens Institute, at Montclair; April 25th, Plainfield against Pingry, at Plainfield; May 6th, Stevens Institute against Newark Academy, at Newark; May 16th, Stevens Institute against Plainfield, at Hoboken; May 16th, Montclair against Pingry, at Elizabeth; May 23d, Plainfield against Newark Academy, at Newark; May 23d, Pingry against Stevens Institute, at Hoboken; May 27th, Montclair against Newark Academy, at Montclair. It would be well if a game could be arranged between the winner of this series and the winner of the New York League, or, better yet, of the Inter-city game.
The dates of the New York baseball series are juggled with so frequently that I have given up all hope of keeping track of the schedule. At the last meeting of the I.S.A.A. more alterations were made, but with the aid of the god of sport perhaps the schedule will come out straight. One date that can be announced with reasonable assurance at present, however, is that of the Interscholastic games. These will be held at the Berkeley Oval on Wednesday, May 13th.
A striking feature of the recent interscholastic skating races at the 107th Street rink was Morgan's winning of every event in the finals on Friday evening, April 10th. He seemed to be as much at home in the sprints as in the distances, his time in the various races being: 220 yards, 23 sec.; quarter-mile, 50-1/5 sec.; two miles, 6 min. 36-2/5 sec. He skated also with the winning team in the one-mile relay race.
Although these skating races were not officially sanctioned by the N.Y.I.S.A.A. almost all of the schools in the Association sent entries, of which there were about fifty. The trial heats were run on Friday night, the 9th, and the finals on Saturday, and there were between 3000 and 4000 spectators present on each occasion.
ALFRED MORGAN.
Champion Interscholastic Skater N.Y.I.S.A.A.
Alfred Morgan, of De La Salle, won the 220 trial and the two-mile with ease, and in the quarter he almost lapped his field, and, mistaking the finish, he stopped. Realizing his mistake as soon as the field had rushed past, he plunged ahead again, and making a hard spurt managed to secure second place, which gave him a chance in the finals.
In the finals the finishing of the second and third men was in almost every instance more exciting than that of first and second, because Morgan was so far superior to the other skaters. In the 220 he was the quickest to get in motion when the pistol was fired, set a clipping pace, and won easily by twenty yards. Pitizipio beat Goulding for the place by five yards. Goulding was fortunate in getting third prize, as he slipped and fell five yards from the finish, but managed to slide across the tape in time. In the two-mile Morgan came in fully three laps ahead of the second man.
Morgan has great speed, and is particularly quick in getting off the mark. His time in the 440 comes very near to the world's in-door record. In practice Donohue has only been able to beat Morgan by about two feet in a 220 race. Morgan is not yet nineteen years old, and besides being the best skater in the schools, he is pitcher of the De La Salle nine, and a speedy bicycle-rider.
The turns in the track at the 107th Street rink are very sharp, and a number of the skaters were bowled over like tenpins at the corners. On a longer track the time might have been a trifle better. But even so, next year the scholastic competitors will have pretty high records to beat. De La Salle won the cup which was offered to the school making the largest number of points, by scoring 14. The next highest score was 6 points.
The officers of the National Interscholastic Association have finally decided to ask the New Manhattan Athletic Club to take charge of their first field meeting—upon the success of which so much depends—and the club has undertaken the task. I think the school athletes of the country are to be congratulated upon this move, for the financial element of the enterprise has now been entirely eliminated so far as they are concerned, and this is one of the greatest advantages that could be wished for.
That the National Association has done a clever thing in getting the N.M.A.C., or rather, the Athletic Manager of the club, to superintend and arrange these games is proved by the fact that for some time past the Inter-collegiate Association has been negotiating with the club to achieve this same end. But the governors of the N.M.A.C., in their endeavors to assist in the promotion of pure sport, have decided not to attempt more than they can handle at the outset, and believing that the schools deserve more of them than the colleges, they will, I believe, give their time and assistance this year to the latter only.
And at this point let me give the readers of this Department a little glance into the inside history of the negotiations which have just ended between the National Association and the club. It will give them a better idea than anything else could, I think, of the spirit which is to pervade the management of scholastic affairs in the future. When the officers of N.I.S.A.A. went to the managers of the N.M.A.C. they explained what they wanted, and they talked about gate receipts and medals and percentage, and all that sort of thing, and the word "dollars" was used a good deal more than the word "sport." That was all very well and entirely excusable, because the officers felt a certain responsibility in the matter, and they knew they could not secure grounds and prizes for nothing, and perhaps they allowed the latter factors to assume a greater importance than they deserve.
The managers of the club, however, who are ranged in opposition to the financial element in athletics, replied that they would make no agreement whatever with N.I.S.A.A. on a dollars and cents basis. They said they would take charge of the games if the association so desired, and they agreed to carry out the athletic plans of the association to the best of their ability and to the satisfaction of the scholastic representatives, but they firmly refused to enter into any contract or to discuss any question involving money matters. They stated that their purpose was to get the element of dollars and cents as far separate from that of sport as it was possible to do, and expressed a willingness to go ahead at once on that basis.
In other words, the situation resolved itself to this: The managers of the N.M.A.C. are sportsmen. The members and officers of the N.I.S.A.A. are sportsmen. The younger men say to the older men, "We have perfect confidence in your ability and integrity; will you conduct our games?" The older men reply, "We know exactly how such games should be conducted, and we know what you want; we will conduct your games." They shake hands on that agreement, and that ends the matter.
As affairs stand now the N.I.S.A.A. officials feel perfectly confident that everything that it is possible to do will be done to make the games a success. It is for the interest of school sport and for the interest of the N.M.A.C. that everything should so be done. The N.I.S.A.A. men know that the N.M.A.C. managers are aware of the fact that rewards or mementoes of some kind are customarily given to winners on occasions of this kind, and they are consequently confident that such trophies will be forthcoming upon this occasion. The value of these trophies has no place in the discussion, no matter what the constitution of the N.I.S.A.A. may say. It is further known by all concerned that the governors of the N.M.A.C., being sportsmen and not sports, are not undertaking the management of these games for purposes of gain, and that, therefore, whatever pecuniary profit may result will, no doubt, go to the scholastic association and not to the club. Hence everything seems now to be arranged on the best possible basis, and the disagreeable consideration of dollars and cents is entirely eliminated. In a few years scholastic sport will probably have gotten so far away from the financial question that we shall all of us have forgotten what a disagreeable tangle it once was.
The Graduate.
This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.
Several collectors have lately sent me Newfoundland stamps for identification, in the belief that they had the rare early issues, but in each case the stamps were the 1863 "lake" issue. The 1d., 3d., and 5d. of the two issues are easily identified. The 2d., 4d., 6d., 6-1/2d., 8d., and 1s. (all of about the same type) were printed in at least three colors—orange vermilion, scarlet vermilion, and "lake." The first two were used between 1856 and 1863, and are very scarce, especially the 6-1/2d. and 1s. The "lake" issue, on the other hand, was printed in larger quantities, and went out of use in 1866, having had a circulation of little more than two years. A very large supply of all these varieties were left on hand, and for many years could be bought at the post-office singly or in sheets at face value. The used copies of the "lake" issue on the original envelope are worth ten times as much as the unused copies.
The following new counterfeits have made their appearance in New York: The Hawaiian 12c. mauve surcharged in black "Provisional Government." The rare U.S. 1861 10c. without the colored line. A clever rascal has taken the common 10c. of the same issue and painted out the white vertical lines. This is a dangerous counterfeit. The Tuscany 60c. has been imitated so successfully that even some dealers were at first deceived. It seems to have been made by the same person who imitated the 3 lire Tuscany.
A. L. A.—They are tokens, not coins, and have practically no value.
T. D. H.—Die A of the U.S. 1887 envelope is scarce on white and amber, and rare on blue and Oriental buff. It may be distinguished by the bust, which points to the space between the third and the fourth tooth. In the common die B (now current) the bust points to the space between the second and the third tooth.
Philatus.