[to be continued.]
[RIDDLES IN FLOWERS.]
BY WILLIAM HAMILTON GIBSON,
Author of "Highways and Byways," "Sharp Eyes," etc.
PUZZLING FORMS AND FACES.
Indeed, are they not all riddles? Where is the flower which even to the most devoted of us has yet confided all its mysteries? In comparison with the insight of the earlier botanists, we have surely come much closer to the flowers, and they have imparted many of their secrets to us. Through the inspired vision of Sprengel, Darwin, and their followers, we have learned something of their meaning, in addition to the knowledge of their structure, which comprised the end and aim of the study of those early scholars, Linnæus, Lindley, Jassieu, and De Candolle. To these and other eminent worthies in botany we owe much of our knowledge of how the flowers are made, and of the classification based upon this structure, but if these great savants had been asked, "You have shown us that it is so, but why is it thus?" they could only have replied, "We know not; we only know that an all-wise Providence has so ordained and created it."
Take this little collection, which I have here presented, of stamens and petals selected at random from common blossoms. What inexplicable riddles to the botanist of a hundred years ago, even of sixty years ago! For not until that time was their significance fully understood; and yet each of these presents but one of several equally puzzling features in the same flowers from which they were taken.
FERTILIZATION OF A FLOWER AS BELIEVED BY GREW AND LINNÆUS.
In that first anther, for example, why those pores at the tip of the cells, instead of the usual slits at the sides, and why that pair of horns at the back? And the next one, with longer tubes, and the same two horns besides! Then there is that queer specimen with flapping ears—one of six from the barberry blossom; and the pointed, arrow-headed individual with a long plume from its apex; and the curved C-shaped specimen—one of a pair of twins which hide beneath the hood of the sage blossom. The lily anther, which comes last, is poised in the centre. Why? What puzzles to the mere botanist! for it is because these eminent scholars were mere botanists—students and chroniclers of the structural facts of flowers—that this revelation of the truth about these blossom features was withheld from them. It was not until they had become philosophers and true seers, not until they sought the divine significance, the reason, which lay behind or beneath these facts, that the flowers disclosed their mysteries to them.
Look at that random row of petals too!—one with a peacock's eye, two others with dark spots, and next the queer-fingered petal of the mignonette, followed by one of that queer couple of the monk's-hood blossom which no one ever sees unless he tears the flower hood to pieces. We all know the nasturtium, but have we thought to ask it why these petals have such a deep crimson or orange colored spot, and why each one is so beautifully fringed at the edge of its stalk?
LINNÆSUS'S IDEA WAS WRONG.
These are but a dozen of the millions of similar challenges, riddles, puzzles, which the commonest flowers of field and garden present to us; and yet we claim to "know" our nasturtium, our pink, our monk's-hood larkspur, our daisy, and violet!
No; we must be more than "botanists" before we can hope to understand the flowers, with their endless, infinite variety of form, color, and fragrance.
It was not until the flowers were studied in connection with the insects which visit them that the true secret of these puzzling features became suspected.
We all know, or should know, that the anther in flowers secretes and releases the pollen. For years even the utility of this pollen was a mystery. Not until the year 1682 was its purpose guessed, when Nehemias Grew, an English botanist, discovered that unless its grains reached the stigma in the flower no seed would be produced. But the people refused to believe this, and it was not until fifty years later that Crew's statement was fully accepted, and then only because the great Linnæus assured the world that it was true. But about fifty years later another botanist in Germany, Sprengel, made the discovery that the flower could not be fertilized as these botanists had claimed, that in many blossoms the pollen could not fall on the stigma.
WHAT SPRENGEL DID NOT EXPLAIN.
Sprengel knew that this pollen must reach the stigma, but showed that in most flowers it could not do so by itself. He saw that insects were always working in the flowers, and that their hairy bodies were generally covered with pollen, and in this way pollen grains were continually carried to the stigma, as they could easily be in these two blossoms shown at B. Sprengel then announced to the world his theory—the dawn of discovery, the beginning of the solution of all these floral riddles. The insect explained it all. The bright colors and fragrance were intended to attract him, and the nectar to reward him, and while thus sipping he conveyed the pollen to the stigma, and fertilized the flower.
But now Sprengel himself was met with most discouraging opposition to his theory, showing that he had guessed but half the secret after all. Flowers by the hundreds were brought to his notice, like those two shown in Diagram C, in which the insect could not transfer the pollen from anther to stigma, as the stigma is closed when the pollen is ripe, and does not open until the pollen is shed. For seventy years this astonishing fact puzzled the world, and was at last solved by the great Darwin, who showed that nearly all flowers shun their own pollen, and are so constructed, by thousands of singular devices, that the insect shall bring to each the pollen of another flower of the same species, and thus effect what is known as cross-fertilisation.
We must then look at all flowers as expressions of welcome to some insect—day-flowering blossoms mostly to bees and butterflies, and night-bloomers to moths. And not only expressions of welcome, but each with some perfect little plan of its own to make this insect guest the bearer of its pollen to the stigma of another flower of the same species. And how endless are the plans and devices to insure this beautiful scheme! Some flowers make it certain by keeping the stigma closed tight until all its pollen is shed; others place the anther so far away from the stigma as to make pollen contact impossible; others actually imprison these pollen-bringing insects until they can send them away with fresh pollen all over their bodies.
Take almost any flower we chance to meet, and it will show us a mystery of form which the insect alone can explain.
THE TWO-FORMED FLOWERS.
Here is one, growing just outside my door—a blossom "known" even to every child, and certainly to every reader of the Round Table—the pretty bluets, or Houstonia, whose galaxy of white or blue stars tints whole spring meadows like a light snowfall. We have "known" it all our lives. Perhaps we may have chanced to observe that the flowers are not all constructed alike, but the chances are that we have seen them all our lives without discovering this fact. If we pluck a few from this dense cluster beside the path, we observe that the throat of each is swollen larger than the tube beneath, and is almost closed by four tiny yellow anthers (Fig. 1). The next and the next clump may show us similar flowers; but after a little search we are sure of finding a cluster in which a new form appears, as shown in Fig. 3, in which the anthers at the opening are missing, and their place supplied with a little forked stigma! The tube below is larger than the first flower for about two-thirds its length, when it suddenly contracts, and if we cut it open we find the four anthers secreted near the wide base of the tube. What does it mean, this riddle of the bluets? For hundreds of years it puzzled the early botanists, only finally to be solved by Darwin. This is simply the little plan which the Houstonia has perfected to insure its cross-fertilization by an insect, to compel an insect to carry its pollen from one flower and deposit it upon the stigma of another. Once realizing this as the secret, we can readily see how perfectly the intention is fulfilled.
1st Clump.—Flower enlarged. Insect's Tongue inserted.
Pollen high on Insect's Tongue after withdrawal from Blossom.
2d Clump.—Flower enlarged. Pollen thrust against high Stigma at top and touching Pollen below.
Pollen at Base of Insect's Tongue after withdrawal from Blossom.
3d Clump.—Flower enlarged. Pollen thrust against low Stigma.
In order to make it clear I have drawn a progressive series of pictures which hardly require description. The flowers are visited by small bees, butterflies, and other insects. At the left is an insect just alighting on a clump of the blossoms of the high-anther form indicated below it. The black probe represents the insect's tongue, which, as it seeks the nectar at the bottom of the tube, gets dusted at its thickened top with the pollen from the anthers. We next see the insect flying away, the probe beneath indicating the condition of its tongue. It next alights on clump No. 2, in which the flowers happen to be of the high-stigma form, as shown below. The tongue now being inserted, brings the pollen against the high stigma, and fertilizes the flower, while at the same time its tip comes in contact with the low anthers, and gets pollen from them. We next see the insect flying to clump No. 3, the condition of its tongue being shown below. Clump No. 3 happens to be of the first low-stigma form of flowers, and as the tongue is inserted the pollen at its tip is carried directly to the low stigma, and this flower is fertilized from the pollen from the anthers on the same level in the previous flower. And thus the riddle is solved by the insect. From clump to clump he flies, and through his help each one of the pale blue blooms is sure to get its food, each flower fertilized by the pollen of another.
Another beautiful provision is seen in the difference in size of the pollen grain of the two flowers, those of the high anthers being much larger than those from the lower anthers. These larger grains are intended for the high stigma, which they are sure of reaching, while those of smaller size, on the top of the tongue, which should happen to be wiped off on the high stigma, are too small to be effective for fertilization.
[HOW RUFUS TRAPPED THE BURGLARS.]
BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.
The squealing of dry snow under horses' hoofs awakened Rufus Walker. His room was the nearest to the turnpike crossing. Perhaps that was why he was the only sleeper in the railroad station at Winona to be aroused by the approaching sleigh. It was a sleigh, that was certain; for now Rufus could hear the smooth, easy, half-shuffling sound of the runners on the well-packed snow. Who could it be travelling at that time of night? The horses were going at a walk. Neither of them wore a bell. "Maybe some one has come to wake up father and send a telegram," thought Rufus, sleepily. But no, the sleigh bumped over the railroad tracks and passed on. The boy heard the shrill crunching of the snow a few times more, and then he fell asleep again. If he had only felt enough curiosity to get up and look out of the window he would have seen something to make his heart beat very fast indeed; but the cold air nipped the tip of his nose and made it numb, and he buried his face in the blankets and slept.
Rufus Walker's father was the station agent and telegraph operator at Winona, in the heart of a vast wheat-raising section of Dakota. For miles the country stretched away in gentle undulations. In the spring you looked out on a sea of waving, tossing green, crinkled and fretted by every passing breeze. In the fall the green sea had turned to gold, and those noisy ships, the mowing-machines, went clattering through it. Now the vast expanse lay white and still under its frosty blanket. The wheat harvest had been gathered into the barns, and for weeks little Rufus had heard the farmers talking about "number one hard," and "number one," and all the other varieties of the grain. Right opposite the station and across the railroad track stood a grain elevator. Its gigantic shape rose over the little station like a castle towering above a tiny cottage. The farmers for miles around would begin to haul wheat to the elevator to-morrow, for Mr. Price, Pillsbury's elevator superintendent, had arrived that day. He had brought a satchel full of packages of new crisp bank-notes, and fat little rolls of gold eagles and double-eagles. He always paid cash for the wheat as he bought it. That is the custom all through the wheat country.
The thick black bag of alligator-skin that held more than five thousand dollars was locked in the safe that stood in the office of the grain elevator. The money was the attraction that had brought the three men, who silently got out of the sleigh in the shadow of the tall building. They tied their horses to a ring near the office door, then stealthily crept through the snow to the railroad station.
Little Rufus Walker woke up with a start. A big man with a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face was shaking him by the shoulder.
"How old are you, sonny?" asked the stranger.
"Ten years last August," Rufus answered, huskily.
"Well, you're old enough to have sense," said the man. "All you've got to do is to keep still. We're just goin' to relieve Mr. Price of that bag o' money. You keep still, d'ye hear?"
The big man strode out of Rufus's room and joined his two companions at the further end of the hallway. They had gathered Mr. Price, Rufus's father, Mrs. Walker, and big Tom Walker in one of the rooms. Evidently the strangers had awakened Rufus last of all. He sat up, shivering, with the blankets wrapped around him. His hair was standing up so straight that it seemed to bend backward. His teeth chattered.
"Where's the boy?" he heard a strange voice ask.
"Oh, I left him in his bed!" replied the voice of the big man. "He's no bigger than your thumb, and he—"
"Better bring him in here with the rest," said the strange voice.
"No; let him stay in his bed," said the big man's voice. "He ain't sizable enough to make trouble. He couldn't live to go two miles to the nearest house for help."
"All right," said the strange voice. "Now, Mr. Price, we don't aim to bust your safe. If you was a polite gentleman you'd just skip over and open her for us. However, we've got the little implements here, and we'll have her open in less than an hour fair an' easy. Bill, you keep these folks quiet till we whistle for you."
Rufus heard two men go down stairs. Then he heard them stamping through the snow toward the grain-elevator. There was silence for five minutes or so, and then he heard the "bink! bink! bink!" of hammers falling on steel wedges. Rufus suddenly wondered if he couldn't call help in a way the robbers hadn't thought of. He stealthily got out of bed and put on his coat, trousers, and thick woollen stockings. His heart fluttered and jumped so hard that he was afraid he'd lose it as he crept inch by inch to the stairs that led down to the ticket and telegraph office. How glad he was when at last he stole in there as silently as a ghost! How glad he was that his father had encouraged him to learn how to telegraph! He wasn't a fine operator yet, but he thought he could manage to telegraph something useful. Very slowly he pulled out the plug in the switchboard that cut in the instrument on the telegraph line. He threw over a little brass lever so that the noisy "sounder" was cut off from the "relay" instrument. He screwed the points of the relay down so fine that the instrument ticked no louder than a watch. He tightened up the key, too. From upstairs he could hear the gruff voice of the big robber as he made jokes at the expense of his victims. Rufus knew that the night train-despatcher at Springfield was always at the wire, so he telegraphed,
"Sg—Sg—Wn!"
That meant, "Springfield, Winona is calling you!"
In a moment the relay ticked out, "Ay—ay—Sg." That meant that the despatcher heard the call. Then Rufus, his fingers stiff from the cold and clumsy with fright, bravely ticked this message:
"3 robrs hv held us up. 2 are brkg opn safe in elevator, and 1 is guardg our ppl. Pls send help qk. Do you 13?"
This meant: "Three robbers have held us up. Two are breaking open the safe in the elevator, and one is guarding our people. Please send help quickly. Do you understand!"
The despatcher gave a quick "Ay, ay!" closed his key, and rushed out into the railroad yard. Within two minutes a locomotive was running westward toward Winona, eighteen miles away. Besides the engineer and fireman, there were four freight brakemen in the cab. Each one had a rifle. The engineer kept the throttle wide open until he was within a mile of Winona. Then he shut off steam.
"Her headway'll carry her a long way," he remarked to his companions, "and it's all down grade from here."
Within a quarter of a mile of Winona the fireman put all his strength on the brake-wheel and brought the engine to a stop. The four brakemen cautiously plodded up the track.
Little Rufus sat in the dark office, numb with cold and fear. Every sense was on the alert. He thought the glare of the moonlight in the snow would blind him as he gazed down the track, minute after minute, through a knothole in the shutter. At last he saw a black dot away down the track. The dot turned into four dots as it swung around the curve. They came nearer, and he could make out the burly figure of Tim Ryan and the other three brakemen, each with a gun resting across the hollow of his left arm. The four figures silently passed by the office window, and crossed over to the grain elevator. Rufus could still hear the "bink! bink! bink!" of the hammers on the steel wedges. If he had dared to follow, he would have enjoyed what happened. The door of the safe was almost off when the robbers heard Tim Ryan's soft voice bidding them "Be aisy, now, an' lift yere hands above yere heads!" The two thieves almost fell over in their surprise.
The fourth brakeman easily captured the lone robber upstairs. Little Rufus went up stairs as soon as the excited men stopped talking. When the three thieves had been tied hand and foot, and Rufus had explained to his father and mother how he had summoned help, everybody looked at him in surprise.
"Weren't you scared?" asked his father.
"So scared I could hardly hold on to the key," said Rufus. "But I was too scared to let go of it, too."
[THE JOYS OF WINTER.]
Hurrah for the joys of winter!
For the jolly sparkling weather,
For the lake like glass where the skaters pass,
For the flying flake and feather!
Hurrah for the fun of rushing
Down the long toboggan slide,
For the dash ahead of the winning sled
Round the curve of the steep hill-side!
Hurrah for the joys of winter!
Jack Frost and the boys are friends;
To the girl's bright face what a witching grace
The touch of his pencil lends!
Hurrah for the wild northwester,
And the crisp cold wintry night
When the rough wind blows and we toast our toes
In the glow of the hearth-fire's light!
[THAT BIT OF LOOSE FLAGGING.]
BY GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN.
That piece of loose flagging should have been fixed long before. It was one of those wicked, insidious suggesters of temptation which are quite as bad in their moral effect as the temptation itself. Probably not a man or woman stepped on that wobbling piece of stone but thought of the possibilities that lay below it. Directly beneath were the vaults in which were kept the millions on millions of silver and gold dollars belonging to the government Treasury. The first thought that the loose flagging suggested to the mind was always: Suppose it should turn over and drop me into the vault where the gold is kept; and suppose it was as easy to get out as to get in; and suppose—for I do not believe there was any one wicked enough to want to steal the coin—suppose there was no objection on the part of any one to carrying away as much gold as the pockets would hold. What a jolly time one could have with it!
That is what Harry Holt thought every night when he left the Western Union Telegraph Building and started home. He always crossed over to the Treasury Department sidewalk and walked on the loose piece of stone. There was no harm, he thought, in imagining all of the delightful things that he could do with a pocketful of the gold. For he was quite sure that even if the flagging was as loose as it seemed to the pressure of his foot, and even if he could move it—and he was tempted often to stoop and see—the top of the vault below was of heavy steel, and the only thing he would get if the flagging gave way was a good bumping, if not a broken leg. So the loose flagging was only a touchstone to a little world in which Harry lived on his way home each night from his telegraph desk—a world where all the hot summer days were made of trips to Nova Scotia, and the winter of sunny sojourns in the everglades of Florida.
"My wire's clear at both ends; I think I'll go home," said Harry to the chief operator one hot night. It was five minutes before his time for leaving the operating-room, and Western Union orders are strict. The chief operator shook his head and went on. Harry turned sulkily back to his desk and picked up a fan. On a night like this, when every one in the room was steaming with the heat of the overcrowded room, the click of the instrument before him and the hum of the other instruments all about jarred on his nerves. He wanted to get to his little room uptown, where at least he could take a plunge in the bath-tub if his blood was overheated. He hated the slavery of the operating-room, and the set rules that made him only a part of the machine to earn dividends for a lot of New York people in whom he had no interest. Harry was not a philosopher, or he would have said to himself that the surest way of heating his blood still more, and increasing his discomfort on this trying night, was to worry about something, to fret, to be discontented.
Well, five minutes is not a very long time. Harry took his coat on his arm and his hat in his hand; for it was long past the hour when every one but a few night-workers and an occasional policeman had gone to bed. The electric lights sputtered and spit as he came out of the building, and the hot white light dazzled him a little. Then the steam from the overheated asphalt came up into his face as he cut across diagonally toward the Treasury building. It looked cool and comfortable in its dress of white marble, and Harry thought how pleasant the air must be down in the sub-basement, far below the heat of the street. Then he stepped on the loose flagging, his steps turning to it as naturally as though there had been no other path, and the flagging gave way. It was so sudden that he had no chance to struggle or to try to regain the solid ground. Before he could even spread his arms to catch the edges of the stones about the opening, he had fallen below the surface of the sidewalk.
He had an awful consciousness that he was doing something wrong—as though his dreams about that loose flagging had exercised some weird influence on it, and so far loosened it as to make it give way under the weight of his body. And he suddenly remembered that he had read somewhere of a little army of watchmen who guarded the treasure vaults with weapons in hand, and who had been known to shoot first and make inquiries afterward. That would be very awkward, thought Harry; and all of this passed through his mind in the little space of time which it took for a fall of—well, he thought it was one hundred yards, but every one knows that the Treasury vaults have ceilings no higher than the ceiling of your room.
"Hello!" said a voice at his elbow. Harry had alighted somewhere. Just how he had managed to do it after that tremendous fall without breaking a leg he could not understand; but here he was on his feet, with no evidence of any damage done, and opposite him was a pleasant-faced old gentleman with a white beard, wearing a pair of steel-bowed spectacles which gave his face a benevolent aspect. Just behind the old gentleman was a stack of wooden boxes as high as the ceiling—-and Harry saw now that the ceiling was not so very high after all—and lying around the room were white canvas bags with figures stencilled on them. There was a table not far away, with a delightful-looking cold luncheon spread on it, and there was a bowl of lemonade or something that looked like lemonade with a big square piece of ice floating on its surface. Harry's tongue had been parched all evening in the hot operating-room. He longed for a little of that lemonade, but he hesitated to ask the stranger for it.
"You came by the balloon route," said the old gentleman, not inquiringly, but as though he stated a recognized fact.
"I really don't know how I came, sir," said Harry, finding his tongue. "I didn't know I was coming."
"I fancied you came in a hurry. I see you haven't had time to put on your coat," said the old gentleman.
Harry felt very much ashamed of his shirt sleeves, and he tried very hard to put his coat on. But, curiously enough, whether it was from embarrassment or some other reason which he could not understand, he could not get his arms into the sleeves. Moreover, the more he tried, the more the sleeves of his shirt showed a disposition to come off his arms and leave him in a more embarrassing condition. In fact, all of his clothing felt loose and unstable, and Harry was much worried for fear that he would find himself in the presence of this critical old gentleman without a stitch of clothing on. The old gentleman came to his rescue.
"Never mind," he said; "we must make some allowance for the Czar's messenger. I suppose it is hot in America for one so recently in Russia."
Harry thought that the best way to do with his strange new acquaintance was to agree with him. He seemed kindly disposed, if he was a little eccentric. So Harry ventured to stammer out: "It is a little colder in St. Petersburg."
"Of course it is," said the old gentleman, sitting down on a pile of the canvas bags and rubbing his hands together. "The last messenger was actually sunstruck. But he came in his fur-lined robes of office. You were sensible to leave yours behind."
Harry accepted the tribute with a vague smile. He was a little puzzled, but even in his uncertain mental condition he felt reasonably sure that he had never owned any fur-lined robes. Still he was certain that any one who left fur-lined robes behind on a day like this, whether they were his own robes or those of some one else, was a very sensible person and deserving of commendation.
"I suppose you have come after the fifteen millions for the Grand Duke!" said the old gentleman.
"Not at all," said Harry, for he was seized with a fear that the old gentleman might deliver to him some other man's property, and then have him arrested for theft when the mistake was discovered.
"That's all right," said the old gentleman, reclining on the canvas bags, and nodding his head encouragingly. "You can trust me."
"But I have not come from the Grand Duke," said Harry.
"What's that?" said the old gentleman, jumping up and speaking very fiercely. Then he sat down again. "Of course you have," he said, calmly. "Otherwise how would you be here, and how would you be able to carry it away?" And Harry thought it best not to contradict him again.
"There is the lot over there," said the old gentleman, indicating another pile of canvas bags just beyond, and to Harry's left. "It isn't much of a load when you know how to carry it."
"Am I to carry all that?" asked Harry; for the bags looked as though they might weigh a ton.
"And a very light load," said the old gentleman, nodding and smiling. "Sit down." He pointed at the bags.
Harry was glad of the invitation, though an invitation to supper or to a drop of that cooling lemonade would have pleased him more. The old gentleman seemed to divine his thoughts, for he pointed at the lemonade bowl, and said, with a smack of his lips, "A little later." Then he motioned again to the pile of coin-bags. Harry threw himself down on them. Then a dreadful feeling went through him. He felt as though he were afire. The bags were hot—as hot as boiling water—so hot that he sprang from them with a scream.
"YOU ARE AN IMPOSTOR. YOU ARE A THIEF."
"What's that?" said the old gentleman, springing up. "Then you're not the Czar's messenger. You haven't the key. You are an impostor. You are a thief."
He caught up one of the canvas bags on which he had been sitting. It burst, and the yellow gold pieces flew out in a shower on Harry's head. Each of them seemed to burn a hole where it struck. Harry fell to the floor. The old gentleman caught up another bag and poured its contents over Harry. His face had the expression of a fiend now. More and more gold he poured on Harry's prostrate form, until all but his head was quite hidden from view. Each gold piece burned, and burned, and burned. The heat was intolerable. Harry screamed with the pain of it.
"What's the matter with you, Holt?" said a voice in his ear. The chinking of the gold pieces as they fell seemed like some old familiar sound. Some one took hold of his shoulder, and the voice said again, "Here, what's the matter with you!" The chinking now was like the clicking of the telegraph instruments in the operating-room. Harry opened his eyes and looked about him. The old gentleman was gone; the bags of gold were gone. The old desk was under his arm, and the chief operator was bending over him.
"Your time's up, Harry," he said. "I thought you were in a hurry to get home. This isn't a very good place to sleep on a hot night, anyhow."
The clock on the wall opposite said half past two; it was twenty-five minutes past when Harry had told the chief operator that he wanted to go. He had been asleep perhaps three minutes, and every garment on him was wet with perspiration. His hat and coat were not in his hands. He looked for them, and then he remembered. They were still in the closet. He got them, and walked slowly down the four flights of stairs. When he came out on Fifteenth Street his footsteps turned instinctively in the direction of the Treasury building. But Harry resolutely turned them the other way.
"I don't want any more dreamland riches," he said, as he thought of the old gentleman and his red-hot coin.
In the lull following upon the activity of football, and preceding track athletics and baseball, I shall devote as much space as possible in this Department to comment on seasonable sports, and on the methods for training and preparation for spring work. So many letters come each week asking for suggestions about training, especially for the running events, and requesting information on the various outdoor sports for ice and snow, that it seems advisable to award to these subjects the preference, for the next few weeks at least. Concerning training for field sports, I shall endeavor to treat of putting the shot in an early number of the Round Table, and soon afterward we shall have hints and advice on training for the sprints and the middle distances. This week I want to devote almost all available space to the prime winter sport of curling, about which I have been asked for a description by a number of correspondents in the Northern and Western States and Canada.
A CURLING-MATCH.
Curling is essentially a Scottish game, and one over which the stolid Scotsmen manage to work up considerable enthusiasm and excitement. It has been imported into this country, and especially in Canada have American curlers become almost as proficient as any in the world. Few games afford better sport and exercise, and a certain amount of muscular strength is demanded of the players. The game is played on ice, of course, and the space marked out for playing is called a "rink." This is usually a strip of ice on a pond or a stream, forty-two yards long and eight or nine yards wide, swept clear of snow. A "tee," or goal, is set down at each end of the rink. The tees are 39½ yards apart. Seven feet behind each tee is a small circle called a "foot-circle," from which the curlers launch their stones. From each tee as a centre a circle must be drawn, with a radius of seven feet, and every stone which is not outside of this circle when it has stopped moving counts as one point in the reckoning. Outside and beyond the tee circle a line is drawn across to the rink, and the stones which pass this boundary are called dead—that is, they do not count. Seven or eight yards inside of each tee another line is drawn across the rink, and every stone that does not pass this "hog-score," as this line is called, is removed from the ice, out of the way of coming stones. The "middle line" is drawn half-way between the tees across the rink. Perhaps a better idea of this complicated delineation of a curling-rink may be gathered from the diagram at the top of the next page.
DIAGRAM OF A CURLING-RINK.
There are usually four players on a side, and each player is armed with two stones. These stones are of circular shape, with flattened sides, and must not weigh more than fifty pounds nor less than thirty pounds. Neither must they be more than thirty-six inches around, nor less in height than one-eighth of the greatest circumference. Curling enthusiasts attach great importance to their stones. They have them of various weights to suit their own fancy, and of every possible variation of form. Some players prefer flat stones, while others have a liking for high ones. As a rule, however, the favorite is that which is neither very flat nor very high, the reason for this being that such a stone is well "centred," having the centre of gravity about in the middle, and being therefore more easily handled. These stones are usually cut out of granite; they are then highly polished, and frequently fitted with very ornamental and highly expensive handles.
The players are also provided with brooms, with which they sweep off the snow and other obstacles from the rink. One point of judgment in curling is to know when to sweep the way clear for a coming stone and when not to, the sweeper knowing about how fast the stone will go for its weight, and about where it will land if allowed to travel over a rough or a smooth surface. The number of points ordinarily appointed as decisive of a curling-match is thirty-one, and the side which first scores that total is the winner. The chief aim in the game is to hurl the stone with the proper amount of strength, so that it will take its place close to the tee. Then a certain amount of generalship must be used by one side to so distribute its stones that the opponents may not be able to dislodge those nearest to the centre of the tee circle. It will be seen that curling is a sort of giant game of shuffle-board, but much more susceptible to scientific work than the latter. A close finish in curling frequently arouses both parties to the highest excitement, and many funny stories have been written about staid Scottish squires and dignified dominies who have found themselves hotly disputing with one another on a curling-rink. For those who may be interested in the sport, and who care to become more familiar with it or to learn the many rules which experience and practice have shown to be necessary, I recommend an article on curling in the volume on skating in the Badminton Library.
The many protests in the recent contests held by the New York I. S. A. A. have led the officers of that organization to formulate and adopt some new rules which will now make the conditions of contests perfectly clear. The changes in the constitution recently adopted are good ones, and have all been framed with a view to purifying sport, and with the intention of holding all New York school-boy athletes to the closest interpretation of the spirit of amateurism.
A very vague idea of the rules and regulations which govern amateur sport has been held by the majority of school athletes in this city until recently. I think this must have been because they were not as familiar as they might have been with the laws enacted by their own association. These laws were perhaps not as strict as they should have been, and I am now glad to see that the managers are tightening the reins. Every boy who goes into athletics here or anywhere else should know exactly what his rights and his duties are in matters of sport, and especially in the matter of eligibility in these days, when professionalism is so steadily trying to steal into the camp. I cannot but believe that if every scholar in this town had known by heart the N. Y. I. S. A. A. rules of eligibility last year, the errors of some misguided athletes would never have been made.
The new rules governing eligibility are clear and unequivocal, and it is hard to see how even the most professionally inclined can now beat about the stump. The first section of the new Article XI. states that "no one shall represent any school as a competitor in any athletic contest who has not been a member of that school from the first of January of the school year in which the contest is held, or who has actually been paid wages for services during the school year, or who has been enrolled as a member of any college, or who has attained the age of twenty years, or who is not in good standing with the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States."
The article proceeds to explain that having been a member of the sub-Freshman class of the College of the City of New York does not debar a scholar from competing, and this is eminently just. A most important provision follows, and I cannot urge too strongly upon the I.S.A.A. committee to enforce this rule to the letter if it results in having only one contest a year. It is to the effect that any school wishing to enter a team for the baseball, football, tennis, or track-athletic championship must file a list of all players or competitors with the chairman of the committee governing that special branch before such team can enter any contest. The next two sections specify that in such list the ages of all players or competitors shall be given, and the list must be signed by the principal of the school, to certify that all the intended players or competitors are eligible.
In view of recent events, the revision of Article XIV. also cannot be too gladly welcomed: "Section 1. No school shall, through any of its officers or by any other means, directly or indirectly, by offering any inducements, influence or try to influence a pupil of any other school to sever his connection with said school. Section 2. The offering of a regularly established or other scholarship by any school or officer thereof, as an inducement to change from one school to another, shall be considered an inducement." Much annoyance would have been saved if these paragraphs had been in the constitution when it was first formulated, and I think that this revision might be even further fortified by inserting the words "directly or indirectly" in the second section as well as in the first.
It is a wise provision also that any school entering a team for the baseball or football championship must play all games for which they are scheduled under penalty of $5 fine for each game forfeited. My only criticism is that the penalty might be doubled or trebled. The championship series of football games last fall, in Brooklyn, was greatly interfered with by the continual forfeiting of games by the weaker teams. This Department spoke of the evil at the time, and I would now urge the Long Island League legislators to insert some such by-law in their code as the New Yorkers have just established.
Athletics are progressing so vigorously in Philadelphia that a new interscholastic league, in addition to the Inter-Academic A. A. of some years standing, has been organized. Tho new association held a meeting a few weeks ago, at which delegates from the Central High-school, Wilmington High-school, and the Central and Northeast Manual Training schools were present. A committee was appointed to see the Friends' Central, Catholic High and Swarthmore College Grammar Schools, and invite them to join the association. The meeting then adjourned to meet at the call of the chair to receive the report of this committee. This committee should at once communicate with the officers of the National I. S. A. A., and apply for membership. The new league has some strong schools in it, as readers of this Department may see by glancing over the list. The Central High-school of Philadelphia is probably the largest school in that city, and both the Wilmington and Swarthmore Grammar schools have already acquired enviable records in sport.
An Interscholastic Polo League has been formed in Boston, under the auspices of the B.A.A., with the following schools as members: Melrose High, Cambridge High and Latin, Roxbury Latin, and English High. A provisional schedule has been arranged, but as the weather is an important factor in polo, it may be necessary to postpone several of the contests. The dates chosen are: