[to be continued.]
[CLEVER FEATS OF CHIMPANZEES.]
BY R. L. GARNER.
hings are often done by monkeys which are very humanlike, but to them the acts may have no meaning whatever, being purely the result of imitation.
In all my researches among monkeys my chief aim has been to determine the innate powers of the mind, and therefore I have not regarded the tricks which they are often taught to do as being an index to their mental qualities. I shall relate a few of the most rational acts that I have known chimpanzees to perform. In these cases the animal was not actuated by fear, but was prompted by his own desire to accomplish a certain end to gratify his own wish.
Moses was the name of the young chimpanzee that lived with me in the jungle. One day as we were taking a stroll through the forest we came to a small branch of running water. Moses never liked to get his feet wet, but I thought on this occasion I would let him wade across it. The stream was not more than four feet wide and two or three inches deep. I first allowed my boy to pass over, and then I followed him, leaving Moses to get over by himself. When he reached the edge of the branch he began to beg for help. I seated myself on a log a few yards away from him, and he sat down on the bank of the stream. After a short time he walked along the bank looking for some means of crossing it without wading; two or three times he walked back and forth, and continued to beg for help. At last he discovered a clump of tall, slender bushes growing on the edge of the stream a few yards above the path; he went to these, took hold of one of them, and stood for a moment holding it; then he began to climb up it. He climbed up the side next to the water, and as he did so, the slender stalk began to bend under his weight. He continued to climb, and the plant continued to bend until the top of it almost touched the ground on the opposite side of the stream, and bore Moses safely across to the opposite bank. He released his hold upon the bush, and ran to me with a grin on his face, which was an evidence that he was conscious of having done a very clever thing. Whether other chimpanzees ever applied this means of crossing water or not I cannot say; but as it is not a constant habit with them, it cannot be called instinct. It was a piece of genuine engineering. No philosopher could have found a better solution to the problem.
Aaron was one of the brightest of his kind that I ever saw; he died in England. On the voyage from Africa to that country I had a cage for him and his companion constructed from parts of my own cage. On board the ship was a stowaway, who helped me to look after my pets; the boy was disposed to play tricks on the chimpanzee, and, whenever he had an opportunity, would do something to annoy him. Aaron was very fond of drinking water out of a long-necked bottle; this was very convenient, as the neck could be thrust through the meshes of the cage, and withdrawn after he had finished. When the boy gave them water, he would turn the bottle up and pour the water over them. They did not like this, and for a time refused to drink at all. At last Aaron found means of escaping; he climbed up on the side of the cage at a safe distance from the front, and about on a level with the neck of the bottle; then holding fast with his feet to the side of the cage, reached across the angle of the corner, took hold of the wires with his hand above the mouth of the bottle, and put his lips to it; when the water was spilled it did not touch him, but fell to the floor. After Elishiba witnessed this a few times she did the same thing, showing that she perfectly understood why he did so and what the result was.
I saw a young chimpanzee in Africa that belonged to a French officer. She was kept on board a small steamer that runs on the Ogowe River. This ape was full of mischief, and had to be tied or watched constantly to keep her out of harm. She had learned to untie all kinds of knots, so that it was very difficult to keep her confined.
On one occasion when I was aboard this steamer her master tied her with a long line to one of the rails alongside the boat. As a rule she always untied the knot next to her first, but on this occasion a new kind of knot had been tied. About six feet from her neck a single loop was tied around one of the iron rails along the side of the deck; then the long noose end of the string was taken to a stanchion about four feet away, and securely tied in the angle formed by the stanchion and the rail. The chimpanzee tried in vain to untie the single knot in the line which was near to her; but as one end was fastened to her neck and the other to the post, there was no loose end to draw through. She slacked the knot, however, as far as possible, but could find no loose end; she drew it tight again, and then examined it. Again she slacked it, and examined each strand separately; she traced one strand of it to the post, then she traced the other to her neck. For a moment she sat as if in deep study; then she slipped the knot along the railing, until it was near the stanchion. She slackened it, and surveyed it with care; she climbed down upon the deck, and pulled first at one strand, then another. Then she climbed around the stanchion and back again; she climbed up over the railing, down on the outside, and back again. She climbed through between the rails and back again two or three times, and again examined the knot; she tightened the loop, and moved it along the rail to the place it was first tied; she climbed up and again examined the knot; she drew first one end and then the other, but found them both fast; she drew the loop out as far as it would come, and, holding it in her hands, she examined each strand of it again; then she cautiously lifted it and put it over her head, crawled through it and the loop was undone. When the loose line dropped on the deck, with one end still fastened to her neck and the other to the post, she realized that she had untied the aggravating loop in the middle. To release the end fast to the post was only the work of a moment; the look of triumph on her face was enough to satisfy any one that she was conscious of her victory. As soon as she was released she gathered the line in a roll in her hands, and set out to explore the boat again.
CONSUL IN STREET ATTIRE.
Away in the interior of the Esyra country I arrived at a town in which there lived a fine strong chimpanzee about five years old; he was playing with the children in the open space between the houses, and appeared to take as much interest in the game as any one of them. When they discovered a white man in the town they all came to take a look, and he showed as much concern as any one else. After a time he came to me and climbed upon my lap; he became a little too familiar, and I had him taken away. Then he and the children resumed their play for a while, and in the mean time I inquired into his history. He was captured in the forest near the town when he was a little babe, and had lived there ever since as one of the family. He ate and played with these children, slept in the same houses with them, and did not seem to realize that he was not a human being.
He belonged to one of the King's sons, who told me that the ape could talk, and that he could understand him. He entertained me with a number of feats that the animal had been taught to do. They were not mere tricks performed for amusement, but they were acts of usefulness. In fact, he was made to occupy somewhat the place of a servant.
One of the things that he required him to do, by way of entertaining me, was to go to the spring and bring a gourd of water. He was reluctant to do this, but he did it. As soon as he delivered the water to his master he ran away and joined the children in their play. I expressed a desire to see him fill the gourd with water, and his master called him again, gave him the vessel, and we went with him. He dipped the gourd in the water with the mouth downward, and having submerged it, turned it on its side, and lifted it up. There was only a little water in the gourd; he repeated this act a number of times until the gourd was almost filled; his master said that as long as the water continued to bubble at the mouth of the gourd the ape would continue to dip it in, showing that he was aware of the cause of the bubbling.
This ape knew all the people of the town by name, and knew his own name; he was required to aid the children in bringing firewood from the forest, and many other chores about the town.
CONSUL RIDING HIS WHEEL.
One of the most intelligent and quite the best educated chimpanzee that I have ever seen is Consul II. He is an inmate of the Bellevue Gardens at Manchester, England. He is the most humanlike in his manners of any of his kind that have ever been known in captivity. The many clever feats done by this ape would fill a small volume; he has not been trained to perform them as tricks, simply to amuse or entertain visitors, but many of them he has taken up of his own accord, having seen others do so. The feat that impressed me most was his skill in riding a tricycle, and his taste for that sport. He often takes his machine without being told, and rides all about the place; if he finds it lying on its side, he sets it upright, adjusts the handle-bar, mounts it, and takes a ride. He propels it with ease and guides it with dexterity. No boy of his own age can handle it with more skill. He rides all about the place, around the walks and drives, all over several acres of ground; he steers it around the posts and corners, around the curves of the paths, makes his way through crowds of people without colliding with them. He amuses himself by the hour at this pastime. When he tires of it he sometimes shoves the vehicle up in some corner and leaves it.
Consul also smokes cigar, cigarette, or pipe. He often finds a cigar stub about the place, picks it up, puts it in his mouth, and goes to his keeper for a light. One amusing habit he has is that of spitting; he is not very skilful in this, but is persistent. However, he has the politeness not to spit on the floor; he spreads a piece of paper on the floor, and uses it as a cuspidor.
Consul uses a handkerchief the same as a person does; he eats with a knife and fork, cuts up his food with ease, and never uses his fingers in eating; he can blow a horn, but does not attempt to carry any tune. He knows the first three letters of the alphabet, which he has painted on a set of blocks; when asked for any one of the three, he will select it and hold it up.
I regard the feats described above, except the last one, as being rational, and the result of the innate faculties of the actors. We are only beginning to understand the mental characteristics of animals, but our researches in that field are bearing abundant fruit, and we are now beginning to realize that all of these humbler creatures are component parts of the great scheme of life. When man becomes more fully impressed with the fact that all creatures think and feel in the same manner as himself, although not to the same degree, it will make the bonds of fellowship closer between him and nature.
[THE CIRCUS IN THE COUNTRY.]
BY JNO. GILMER SPEED.
Nearbye is a very small village, and a country village at that, for it is approached by wagon roads only, and the silence of the streets is never broken by the whistle of a locomotive, as the nearest railway is seven miles off. The shows that come to Nearbye are few and far between, and the people consider them such events that they mark epochs in the history of the town. As in other places an old inhabitant would speak of the year the war began, in Nearbye the people say, "The summer that Uncle Tom's Cabin was played in the Shoemakers' Lot," or "The autumn that the negro minstrels came to town." Now these two shows were ten years apart, but every one remembers the earlier one perfectly, except the children, who have been born since the honest folk of Nearbye wept over the tribulations of Uncle Tom. And even these think they remember the theatrical performance under the tent in the Shoemakers' Lot. This self-deception is due to the fact that they have heard so much about the show that they have persuaded themselves that they saw it. But these two shows have been entirely eclipsed in glory within the past little while, for there was a circus in Nearbye a few weeks ago—a real circus, with a caged lion and tiger, with an elephant, a camel, and a giraffe, as the menagerie part, while there performed in the ring bare-back riders—both men and women—who cavorted around the ring right merrily, and jumped through paper-covered hoops as though they actually enjoyed that kind of thing. Barnum, in my opinion, did much to spoil the circus as we see it in the great cities. Three or four rings in which performances are going on at the same time are extremely bewildering, and few spectators can give such undivided attention to one ring as to keep entire track of all that goes on in it. After an evening at the one-ring circus in the country I am persuaded that I am right in my opinion, and that the old-fashioned circus has much greater power to please than "the greatest show on earth."
I was Miss Kitty's guest when the circus came to Nearbye, and this attention on her part was in recognition of the fact that I had taken her to the Barnum show at Madison Square Garden last spring. I consider that I have been amply repaid. But, really, the best part of the show was not under the circus tent. I doubt very much whether there was a small boy within four miles of Nearbye who slept a wink the night before the circus was to arrive. If any of them slept at all at night, it is very certain that none of them continued that sleep into the daylight, for long before the sun was up the roads leading to the village were dotted here and there with groups of hurrying and impatient youngsters hastening to the Shoemakers' Lot to welcome the arrival of the circus caravan, and to superintend the erection of the tent. Pretty nearly all the small boys in the township were on hand three hours before the first of the circus wagons came. The long wait had tried their patience sadly, and the gay tricks on each other with which they had beguiled the earlier time of waiting had either been exhausted because the country boy's repertoire of pranks is limited, or because their spirits had been stilled by anxiety. It was rather the spirits that had given out than the pranks, I fancy, for I saw evidence now and then of a gulped-down sigh and a half-concealed tear when John or Tom or Billy would reach the sad conclusion that the circus was not coming after all. But the first wagon drove up at half past eight, and by eleven all had arrived. The tent was pitched in short order, the ring was made, the side show was in full working order, and the circus people were as much at home as they ever get to be in their wandering lives.
The small boys were not the only persons attracted to Nearbye in the early hours—not by a jugful, as the average farmer in the Nearbye neighborhood would be apt to say if he were writing this article. People of both sexes and all ages, from the gray-haired great-grandmother to the infant in the arms, came or were brought, as each case required, until there was not a vacant fence post eligible for a hitching-place within half a mile of the circus tent. If half a dozen holidays could have been combined into one, not one-third so many people would have been attracted to Nearbye as were brought by this little circus. Some city people who had gone to Nearbye for their summer vacations put on airs about the show, and laughed at the enthusiastic excitement of the country folk. Miss Kitty observed this in two young men who had been made welcome on the tennis-court at her father's place, and flushed with shame that she should know, even ever so slightly, persons of such affected pretension. She shook her curly little head and whispered to me: "We ought not to know them; they can't be gentlemen." Dear little soul, I dare say she was right. We ought not to have known them, and probably they were not gentlemen; but she will learn, when she gets to be a grown woman, that if she confines her acquaintance only to real ladies and real gentlemen—that is, to men and women who never put on airs and never inconsiderately assume to be better than they are, and who never scoff at simplicity—she will have a very narrow circle, and will know fewer people than almost anybody in the world. But few of the country people cared for the rudeness that Miss Kitty resented. They did not even notice it. They had come to Nearbye to have a good time and to see the sights, all unconscious that they furnished amusement to any one.
As a rule they brought their dinners with them, and at twelve o'clock they attacked baskets and pails for the good things in them. Eating, with hard-working people, whether of the city or country, is not a time of conviviality. They eat because they are hungry, and they get through with the business as quickly and unceremoniously as possible. The dinner hour, therefore, on this day of the circus did not as a rule last more than ten minutes. There was another long wait of nearly two hours. But this wait was relieved somewhat, for every now and then the old lion roared portentously, and filled the souls of the youngsters with delightful apprehension. At one o'clock the slit in the tent, by courtesy called a door, was opened, and the people filed in. By half past one nearly every seat was filled, and the show might have begun then without disappointment to any, for there was no one else to come. All were there save the bedridden; even the two blind people in the township had come to hear, though they could not see.
Of course the show began with what I believe they called in the programme the Grand Entrée. And of course every one who has ever been to a circus will recall how the ladies and gentlemen of the company come into the ring on horseback, and ride round and round with distinguished courtesy towards each other and towards the audience, and then ride out again. This recalls to those who have heard of such a time the days of chivalry, and some others see in the men and women in the sawdust-covered ring the heroes of their story-books. Miss Kitty had just been reading Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, and one of the ladies suggested to her the fair Rosalind, while the gentleman who cantered by her side seemed very like the bold Orlando.
When this act was over, we were treated to performances by acrobats and gymnasts, and each one seemed more wonderful than any of the rest. Each tumbler, each jumper, each contortionist, each trapeze-swinger, each tight-rope walker was enthusiastically applauded, and the feats of all were regarded by the appreciative audience as entirely wonderful. This must have been very gratifying to the actors. But what pleased best were the acts where horses took part. Country people know about horses, and have opinions of those who ride and drive them. The young lady who rode two bare-back horses at once, now with a foot on each horse and now riding one and driving the other, easily bore off the palm. When she ran by the side of one of her steeds, as he cantered round the ring, and vaulted to his back without touching either mane or rein, and landed squarely upon her little feet, and then stood upright, the audience was so filled with wonder and admiration that there was a pause before the applause began. This evidently excited more wonder and admiration than anything else—more indeed than the bespangled woman who confidingly put her head in the lion's mouth, more than the other one who permitted the elephant to walk over her and then to pick her up with his trunk. But that which diverted the audience most of all was the trick mule—the mule so resourceful of pranks that he threw all the boldest riders among the ambitious youth of Nearbye. When Mike, the young man who is both hostler and barkeeper at the White Horse Tavern, wrapped his legs round the mule's neck and caught hold with both hands of the little fellow's slippery tail the people in the circus tent nearly went wild with delight. It was a hard tussle between Mike and the mule, but the latter rolled over on Mike, who let go, and scampered out of the ring defeated, and terrified lest the mule should kick him.
The two city young men before mentioned sat near us at the performance. They were mightily tickled at Mike's discomfiture. Miss Kitty had not noticed them since expressing a doubt whether they were proper acquaintances. What was my surprise now to hear her speak to one of them, "You try it, Mr. Simpkins," she said; "I am sure you could ride that poor little mule." Mr. Simpkins declined in a way which implied that Miss Kitty was right, that he could ride the mule if he chose. Miss Kitty was evidently disappointed, and I am very much afraid that instead of being sure that Mr. Simpkins could ride the mule, she was very sure he could not. I have never spoken to her about her effort to entice Mr. Simpkins to make himself ridiculous, because I was not at all sure that she was not wrong thus to try to get revenge on one who had made merry at the expense of the simple and honest people who were her friends and neighbors. But even though the feeling was a very wrong one it was very human, and I shared in it myself.
For a week after the circus, Nearbye was more deserted than I have ever known it before. The next Sunday comparatively few people came to church. The circus had been too much for them. They had to stay at home to recover from the excitement of so unusual an entertainment. If the merry clown should ever care to retire from the sawdust ring, and should choose Nearbye as a home, I am sure the people would make him right welcome; and if he wanted an office, I am certain that he could have the pick, and be either constable or justice of the peace, whichever suited him the better. The storekeepers of Nearbye for a fortnight after the circus had gone could not make change for a bill, as the circus treasurer had taken away with him pretty nearly all the silver coins in the township. This circus will doubtless be talked of in Nearbye when many of the barelegged boys who came at daylight to see it have grandsons eager in their turn for the passing shows, and when Miss Kitty has taken to spectacles and caps, and prefers a cozy corner within-doors to the breezy piazza or the hammock beneath the apple-trees.
Many stories are told of actors and musicians who give tickets to their washwomen, their boot-makers, or to others who cannot afford to pay to hear the great ones with whom their trades may have brought them into contact. Seldom, however, do we hear an anecdote with a twist to it like this one concerning Paganini, and so it is possibly worth telling. One of his biographers is responsible for it, but he prefaces the story with the explanation that the great violinist was a most eccentric man, and although as a rule very generous, he was also at times guilty of petty meannesses. This was one of those times. He was to perform in a concert, for which the price of seats was very high. His washwoman had been bemoaning the fate which made her unable to afford to be present. Finally Paganini wrote out an order for a seat in the top gallery, and handed it to her. She thanked him effusively, and boasted to her friends of the present she had got. Great was her surprise, therefore, when she presented her bill for his laundry at the end of the week to have Paganini request her to deduct from the amount of his indebtedness the price of the ticket he had given her to the concert.
[ALL SEASONS.]
I love to play in winter-time,
When all the earth is white with snow,
When down the gleaming shining hill
My long red sled can go.
I love to play in summer-time,
When in the pond beneath the trees
My pretty ship, with sails puffed out,
Goes skimming in the breeze.
Marie L. Van Vorst.
[A RUN FROM AN "INDIAN DEVIL."]
BY TAPPAN ADNEY.
wo generations have passed away from Tobique since the first settlers came, yet so little has man encroached upon the wild domain that the gaunt moose often stops and lingers with the friendly cattle, the shaggy bear as the spring comes round levies tribute on the defenceless flocks, while the balsam smells as sweet, and the crinkle of the crisp snow beneath the moccasined foot is still as pleasant music as of old. The woods seem changed but little; boys have turned men, the men have turned gray, and just a little more moss lies on the fallen tree-trunks. Yet the same change has passed over Tobique as has passed over all the backwoods of Maine and Canada. The dreaded panther, or "Indian devil," as it is known, seldom troubles one now, or startles the forest with its awful cry—so human, so bloodcurdling, that its very mention sends a thrill through one's body.
The dangers of the woods are exaggerated. No living thing is match for a man, and every creature among predatory beasts shuns the society of man. There are exceptions, as there are seasons when our black bear should not be provoked. So in the experience of every woodsman there have been times when the rule has been broken, and it is the man that has been hunted.
Raish Turner, now a man of some fifty years of age, still lives at the Red Rapids, on Tobique. I have stopped at his hospitable dwelling—back a ways from the river, on the slope of the hill, near the timber. There was still the old, low cow-shed alongside the barn, and I have been with him along the old wood road directly back of his place that was the scene of an exciting adventure of his.
Raish, still called "Raish," as when he was a boy of sixteen and hauled wood with oxen, has not forgotten the story, nor yet the long white scar above his temple that he will carry to his grave.
The story is known to every one on Tobique, but it needs to be heard from Raish himself, the sturdy, kindly old back-woodsman, with homespuns in boot-tops, knife sheathed at his belt, and generally an axe over his shoulder.
In the fall of one year, thirty-four years ago, about first fall, two hunters came out of the woods from Pokiok stream, which lay some five miles back of Red Rapids. They came with rather more speed than is customary with those who travel solely for pleasure. Their story, of which they sought to conceal nothing, and which was listened to the more gravely because of their reputation as brave men, was that in the night something had come around the camp, which was an open shelter with a fire in front. The growling of their dog awakened them.
They listened, peering into the darkness, and as they listened they heard a cry. It was not an owl, nor any wild-cat. It seemed at first afar off, not loud, like a child in awful distress, and it affected them strangely. Their dog began to tremble, and show fear that he had never shown before, even before a bear. The hunters jumped to their feet, kindled the fire, which threw a ruddy glare all around.
The thing, which they knew perfectly well, came nearer, uttering now and then that awful cry. They sat with their guns on their knees, speaking in whispers; but it did not attack them, and when daylight came it withdrew. When the sun rose they broke camp and made for the settlement.
Small wonder, then, that there was a stir in the settlement, for the men were known to be bold, fearless hunters, and, moreover, this was the first panther that had come near enough to bother them, for whatever the men in the timber-camps might have to tell, such things did not greatly trouble the settlers along the river.
Not long after that a woman living only two farms below went to the door at noonday, and saw, or thought she saw, across the field, a creature which she said was bigger and longer than any dog, trot away across the lot and enter the woods, looking back once or twice as it ran.
December came, and nothing more was heard of the panther. There was snow enough to make good hauling. Raish and his brother Howard, who was two years younger, had twenty cords of wood to get in from back. One dark cloudy day the young fellows were hurrying to get in another load before darkness shut down. The oxen were swung around, head homeward, alongside a pile of wood. A quarter of the load was on when the oxen began to act queerly. They commenced to sniff, putting their noses into the air, and looking all around. Raish had never seen them so behave, but he went on loading. Presently one of the steers put his head down and gave a long, low moan, at the same time pawing the snow.
Raish spoke to them, yet a curious feeling began to take possession of him, when, without a warning more than that, a cry rose upon the still air of the woods, and that same instant the oxen threw themselves against the yoke. There followed a crash of falling cord-wood as the sled started, and hardly slower, the boys sprang aboard, seizing hold of a sled-stake; and as Raish rolled over again he heard that cry, and something leaped into the middle of the road behind them.
IT WAS A WILD RUN.
But that was all. The oxen plunged madly forward, and at every lurch their bellows mingled with the clangor of chains and the pounding of the sled. What power guided them along that road? Bounding over the cradle knolls, crashing now into this side, now into that, strewing the road behind them with the cord-wood sticks. It was a wild run.
A quarter of a mile was passed. There was no looking back, and no looking forward for the pelting of ice from flying hoofs. The clearing is reached. Wild with fright, on the steers go. The house, the wood-pile, as in a swim, flash by, and then there is a crash.
When Raish's memory gathered up the thread of swiftly passing events, he was lying on the floor of the cow-stable on the straw, and his brother, pale from fright, was bending over him, and there were some other frightened people crowded around, and a pair of steers were at the far end of the cow-stable. Raish was aware of some blood from an ugly cut. He lay stunned, they say, for some moments. Howard escaped without a hurt. The oxen, guided by instinct, made straight for the stable, and seeing the open door, made straight for refuge. The sled had struck the corner of the log barn, the tongue had snapped off, and the boys had been thrown forward; Raish's forehead struck, it was believed, either a sled-stake or one of the oxen's hoofs. The wonder was that both were not killed from the force with which they must have struck.
But all this time where was the panther? It came, so some persons at the house said, to the edge of the timber and a little beyond, where it stood some while, hesitating, and then turned back to the woods, where, instead of taking the road, it gave a mighty spring to the limb of a tree, and disappeared from view, no one venturing to follow.
Before the winter was over, however, some men with a small dog drove it to tree and shot it, after it had killed a fine heifer, no great ways from there. Out of curiosity the height of the panther's leap was measured, and it was said to be nearly eighteen feet.
The annual boat-races of the Halcyon and Shattuck crews of St. Paul's School, Concord, were held this year on June 18th, on Lake Penacook, as usual. The honors of the day went to the Halcyons, whose first and second crews won their events, the first crew breaking the school record for the distance by four seconds.
RACE BETWEEN THE FIRST CREWS, ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, THE HALCYON EIGHT LEADING.
The most important of the three contests was the last race, between the two Senior eights. The start was made shortly before eleven o'clock in the morning, both crews getting away about together, rowing in good form and with very little splashing. The Shattucks started with a stroke of 42, the Halcyons pulling a 40 stroke. This pace was kept up for about a quarter of a mile, when both crews dropped their stroke a couple of points, and for the rest of the race neither eight went above 38.
THE HALCYON FIRST CREW, ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL.
Holders of the record: Distance, 1½ miles; Time, 8 min. 21 sec.
At the mile the boats were about even, but there the Halcyons began to draw slowly away, and although the Shattucks tried to keep up, they were unable to push their boat through the water as rapidly as their rivals. At the mile-and-a-half flag the Halcyon eight was two boat-lengths ahead of the Shattucks, and still gaining rapidly. The Shattuck stroke tried to hit it up, but his crew was unable to respond. The men in the Halcyon boat were rowing in beautiful form, with a long and regular body swing, and kept increasing their lead. They rushed their shell across the line nineteen seconds ahead of their rivals, their time over the course being 8 min. 21 sec., the best former record for the distance being 8 min. 25 sec., made by the Shattucks in 1891.
THE ST. PAUL'S CREWS GOING OUT TO PRACTICE.
The Halcyon men showed no signs of fatigue, but the Shattuck oarsmen seemed slightly done up, although they finished in excellent form. There is little doubt that this Halcyon crew of 1896 is the best that ever rowed on Lake Penacook, most of the men being veterans, the four stern oars especially being the best four that the school has ever turned out, so far as working together in the boat is concerned. The Shattuck crew, on the other hand, has had a good deal of hard luck this year, and the men were all younger and less experienced than their rivals. The crews rowed as follows: