[to be continued.]
WATER LIFE AROUND NEW YORK.
BY JULIAN RALPH.
What an odd thing a boatman's dream of the water life around New York would be if all the vessels and craft of every kind should take to themselves grotesque shapes and characters, as familiar objects are apt to do in human dreams! We have had some great and notable water parades in our harbor—the last and greatest being that queer hooting and tooting procession of many kinds of craft that swept around the war-ships of ten or a dozen great nations at our Columbus celebration in the early summer of 1893. But the boatman's dream of which I was thinking would be far stranger than that, because the Columbian naval review included only the handy, easily manageable steam-craft of New York, like the steamships and steamboats and tugs and tow-boats. It left out all the really queer floating things that have such shapes as to almost turn a dream into a nightmare.
The dreaming boatman of whom I am thinking would see great water-giraffes, which would really be our floating grain-elevators; and a myriad sea-spiders transformed from our darting tug-boats, and great groaning mother-gulls dragging large coveys of helpless babies in their wake Those would be the tow-boats with their long trains of canal-boats. Turtles he would see by the score—huge flat, almost round turtles—some red, some white, some brown. Those would be the ferry-boats,-which really do look just like great sea-turtles when you are looking down upon their flat backs from a high place like the Brooklyn Bridge. Like fearful black ocean sharks would be the Atlantic steamers—long and thin—out of whose way every other moving thing flies when they approach. Our huge and towering palace boats of the Sound would turn into great white elephants, trumpeting as if they had all caught cold in their long snouts. And we shall see that many another animal and creature would easily appear to the troubled dreamer without greatly altering the shapes of the queer craft that have grown out of nearly three hundred years of needs and developments in the water-life around New York.
THE CANALLERS ON THE EAST RIVER.
I suppose that the reader has heard that almost every Chinaman in this country comes from the water population near Canton. That must be a wonderful phase of life, where so many hundreds of thousands of persons are actually born upon the water, to live out their lives upon the water, and to die upon the water. They form a river population housed in boats that make up a city far more peculiar than Venice—a floating city of stores and work-shops, boarding-houses, amusement places, saloons, and all the rest. We have nothing of the sort around New York. The nearest approach to that condition is to be seen in the large docks on the East River near the Battery, and one at Communipaw on the New Jersey shore, where the canal-boats collect with the boatmen and their wives and children aboard them. There one sees by the kitchen smoke-stacks above the cabin roofs, by the lines of drying linen on the decks, by the sight of women sewing and knitting under cooling awnings, and by the views of children and cats and dogs playing upon the boats—by all these things one sees how truly the canal-boats are floating homes as well as merchant vessels. At night the sounds of singing and fiddling—sometimes the nasal notes of house organs—tell more of this strange water life. Some of the cabins of these canal-boats are quite attractive. They show dainty white lace curtains in the tiny square windows, carpets on the floors, boxes of flowers upon the cabin roofs, and cleanly, neatly clad mothers and little children. This is not the rule, however, and we see enough, whenever we visit the canallers, to show that there is at least some reason for their being generally regarded as a rude and rough class.
Yet, apart from these canallers, we have enough persons who live on the water to form what would be called a city out West. They are mainly men who sleep in bunks and eat in the cabins of tug-boats, steam passenger boats, freighters, and the like. A few women are among them—stewardesses of passenger boats and the wives of the captains of the other sorts of vessels. Of course I do not include here the men on the ships that sail the ocean. Their homes are really at sea. I only refer to the scores of thousands of persons who live upon boats that may be called the horses of the harbor, because they tie up regularly every night at certain piers, and every morning are sent to work, here and there, at this place or that, to carry goods or passengers, or to haul other boats. It is doubtful whether many children are born in these shifting homes, but there is no doubt that very many girls and boys sleep upon them, and are sent from them to the city's schools, and, later, to the factories and shops to earn their living.
Of all the uncommon forms that boats take, the newest, instead of being strange and complicated like most nineteenth-century inventions, are almost as simple as anything that floats. Only rafts of logs are more simple than what we call our "car-floats." They are the newest type of boats we know, and have come into being because New York city is on an island, with only a few railroads crossing to it from the mainland. The other great and little railways, which bring and take goods and people to and from New York, all stop on the opposite shores of our harbor, in New Jersey, Staten Island, and Long Island. Since the cars of one railroad often have to go past the city upon the other roads, these "floats" are used to transport them around our island, so that goods from Boston or Sag Harbor, for instance, can be sent around New York to the tracks of the roads that will carry them to San Francisco without unloading or reloading. The floats that carry these cars are merely boxes, the shape of great dominoes, with railroad tracks laid upon them. Some carry six freight-cars, some carry eight, and some carry ten cars. Tiny little propellers that we call "tug-boats" are warped or hitched alongside of these clumsy floating boxes, where they look as a little kitten would appear beside a big St. Bernard dog, or as a locomotive would look beside a house. But our queer, snorting, fussy little tug-boats march away with every floating thing to which they are hitched—even dragging huge Atlantic steamships at their sides—because they reach deep down into the water, where their big screws, driven by very powerful engines, obtain a mighty hold. Because our tug-boats are so small, and yet so strong, they are able to move swiftly when they have no burdens to carry. In the boatman's dream that I spoke of they would seem like those water-spiders that many of us have seen darting hither and thither on the top of placid pools. But there is one reason why they are not at all alike—that is, that the water-spiders are as silent as death, while the tug-boats are the most noisy, saucy, boisterous of make-believe animals—always gasping, and snorting, and whistling, and thrashing about as very little people are often apt to do.
FLOATING GRAIN ELEVATOR.
The "floats" that carry passengers around New York so that they can go to Boston from Philadelphia or Chicago without changing cars (and even without getting out of bed on the sleeping cars), are not floats at all. They are very powerful and large steamboats, with decks covered with iron plates, with car tracks on those decks, and with arrangements for locking the car wheels fast to the tracks, so that no matter how boisterous the water may be on stormy days, the cars cannot break loose and roll overboard. We have several queer sorts of boats and other floating objects that look like floating houses. Among them are what we call our floating baths, and our floating docks, and our cattle and ice barges. But there is one kind of floating building that looks like a tower or a steeple riding the waters and steering itself around. That strange thing—and we employ many such—is a floating grain-elevator. It is a tall four-sided tower built upon a squat snub-nosed boat. It has a great proboscis, that it sticks down into canal-boats full of grain, which it sucks or dips out so that it can load the grain into the holds of ships that are to carry it to Europe. Our floating baths are square one-story houses, hollow in the middle, where the bathers swim, with lattice-work or perforated boards under them to let in the water without letting out the bathers. They are decorated with little towers and flag-staffs, and look very strange indeed when they are being towed to the city in the early summer to be moored beside a wharf, or when, after the bathing season is over, they are dragged away to be laid up for the winter. Our floating docks, upon which all but the very large ships and steamboats are lifted out of the water to have their hulls painted, cleaned, or repaired, are made of many boxes joined together. These boxes sink when full of water, and thus it is possible to steer a vessel right over them. Then the water is pumped out of the boxes, and the dock (in reality a cradle rather than a dock) rises, and lifts the vessel up high and dry so that workmen can walk all around and under her to scrape off the barnacles that have grown fast to her, or to paint her bottom, or to sheathe it with copper.
ICE-BARGES IN TOW.
The barges for carrying cattle and those for carrying ice are just like the toys that are made for children and called "Noah's Arks." They are houses built upon strong boat hulls. The ice-barges are always white, and canvas windmill wheels are forever whirling above them, just as if they were some new kind of boats made to go by air propellers instead of wheels or screws in the water. The truth is, of course, that these canvas wheels work the pumps that pump out the water made by the constant melting of the ice. But of all the kinds of barges that work in the New York waters the hay-barges are surely the most interesting. They are very large, and the houses built upon their hulls are open at the sides, with only a railing where the walls should be. These are two-storied houses, and the floors that support hay in the winter are dancing platforms in the summer. These hay-barges are our picnic boats also. All winter long, or as long as the waters are unfrozen, they bring down hay from the Hudson River landings, but in the summer they go out of that business, and are hired out to Sunday-schools, political clubs, secret societies, church societies, and the like, to carry picnickers to what are called the excursion parks that are found along the Hudson River and the Sound at several hours' distance from the metropolis. Tug-boats drag these barges to the excursion parks, and the holiday crowds upon the two open decks of the barges dance all the time to the music of the band that they hire for the occasion. The stop at the excursion park is a short one—just long enough for luncheon and a little strolling under the trees, or bathing on the beach. Then the homeward journey is begun, and the dancing on the barge is recommenced and kept up until the city is reached, just before bedtime. Our great excursion steamboats, that run to Coney Island and Rockaway, are built on the same plan—wide open—and carry such great crowds of pleasure-seekers that they are black with passengers. These are sometimes hired by richer and more numerous bodies than those that hire the hay-barges, but I can assure my readers that the real jubilant fun is on the common barges, where the people are apt to be simple and democratic, and ready to surrender themselves to those pleasures of which they enjoy too little.
Our pilot-boats which go out to sea with many brave men, and leave them one by one on the steamships that they meet—in order that those great vessels may be safely steered into port—are very romantic boats, but they look like mere sail-boats or yachts. Some splendid yachts become pilot-boats when they grow too old-fashioned to keep pace with the faster and faster boats that we are forever building. Other such yachts become oyster-boats, and lie beside Fulton Fish Market in company with the tank-steamers that bring fish into New York. These tank-steamers go to Nantucket, or wherever the fishing-smacks are at work, and lie there while sail-boat after sail-boat fill up with fish and bring their loads to be kept in the refrigerated-tanks of the steamer, until she, also, is filled and ready to come to the city.
Of the "whalebacks," or cigar-shaped iron ships that were first made to traverse the great lakes, I will say very little, because they belong to no place in particular, and excite as much curiosity here as anywhere. Our floating pile-drivers, which look like ladders set upon boxes, are very curious-looking vessels, but are familiar at all ports. Perhaps our immigrant barges, which carry the immigrants from Ellis Island (where they are landed) to the wharves of the railways by which they are to seek homes in the West, are peculiar to New York, but they are mere hay-barges like the excursion boats I have already described. The busy craft that carry fresh drinking-water to the sailing-ships are usually very ordinary tug-boats, and are only peculiar because each one carries a great sign bearing the word "WATER" painted upon it. To see such a vessel all by itself upon a great expanse of salt water suggests Coleridge's line in The Ancient Mariner,
"Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink."
If it were not for those water-bearers—serving the same purpose as the camels laden with water-bags upon the desert of Sahara—there truly would not be a drop to drink.
I fancy that what we call our "lighters" are the only descendants that recall the old days of the Dutch on Manhattan Island. They are sail-boats that are used to carry goods from or to vessels that do not come to the wharves, but lie out in the open water. They are very old-fashioned and foreign-looking, built almost solidly of heavy wood, and of a shape very like a turtle and quite as clumsy. Each one carries a short thick mast that looks as if it had been broken off, and a little narrow sail, absurdly disproportioned to the vessel. Everything these lighters carry is put upon their decks, and they are so slow and so hard to steer and so strong that all other craft give them a wide berth. It is only a fancy of mine, yet I never see one without thinking that this style of boat surely descended to us from the Dutch.
A FREE ENTERTAINMENT IN THE SAHARA.
The learned Professor Ducardanoy, and his assistant, Bouchardy, had been toiling along the desert's edge all day. They had hoped to reach the Algerian settlement of Nouvelle Saar-Louis before night, but the sun was getting near the blank western horizon of yellow sand, and the low mountain upon which Nouvelle Saar-Louis was built, the last southern foot-hill of the Atlas, was still some twenty miles away to the east.
"We shall have to camp here in the sand, and push on in the morning," said the learned Ducardanoy, who was, as all his contemporaries knew, the most renowned living chiropodist.
"I fear we shall," said the assistant, Bouchardy, who was not, it must be understood, an assistant in Ducardanoy's surgery, but merely an unscientific fellow who managed the magic-lantern, ate wool, and breathed fire, and did the other things which constituted the grand free entertainment preceding Ducardanoy's evening lectures on the science of chiropody, in the course of which he was accustomed to perform a few gratuitous operations with Ducardanoy's Corn Cure to prove its efficacy. "I fear we shall," said Bouchardy; "but what is that building a mile or so to the south? Perhaps we had better go there."
"Ah! ha!" said Ducardanoy, looking through a field-glass; "it is an old Roman tower. Undoubtedly it is, for there is nothing Moorish about it, and the Romans and French are the only people who have erected anything more substantial than tents in this part of Algeria."
"I think we had better go there," said Bouchardy, "and go rapidly, too. Look behind you."
Away off to the west, galloping along in the track of the setting sun, was a cavalcade of horsemen.
"Spahis," said Ducardanoy, calmly.
"Perhaps so," said Bouchardy. "Perhaps French cavalry, and perhaps Arab robbers. Who knows? It is best to be prepared. If you choose you may stay here to sleep in the sand to-night, and perhaps for all the nights thereafter forever; but as for me, I am going to the Roman castle," and he spurred on his horse and arrived at the tower some minutes after the learned Ducardanoy, who was better mounted than he, and, moreover, was not burdened with a magic-lantern and other appliances used in the free entertainment. They found the tower to be nothing more than a plain round edifice with a single upper chamber in it, reached by a flight of narrow winding stairs ascending in a gentle incline. Up these stairs they led their horses, as the Roman frontier guards had done centuries before, and then looked out of the loop-holes for the approaching enemy.
"We can easily keep any of them from coming up the stairs," said Bouchardy.
"And they can easily keep us from coming down," said Ducardanoy. "But perhaps they have not seen us."
They were soon satisfied on that score, for the cavalcade of horsemen—thirty-five wild desert Arabs—halted before the tower, and in broken French commanded the chiropodist and his assistant to surrender. This command was not obeyed. The Arabs laughed and picketed their horses, and after a little a caravan of camels bearing tents and women and children arrived, and the Arabs went into camp for the night.
"If they kill us, the French government will wipe them from the face of the earth," said Ducardanoy, along toward the middle of the night.
"If the French government finds it out. But the death of those scoundrels will not bring me to life," said Bouchardy. "I think it will be well to make a sortie."
"They would hear us taking the horses down; and if we start on foot we can't get so far away before daylight that they could not soon discover us by making scouts into the desert. Besides, I imagine that the entrance to the tower is guarded."
"When morning comes, I will eat wool and breathe fire and scare them away," said Bouchardy.
"To do that you must show yourself," said Ducardanoy. "And they will fill you full of lead while you are filling yourself with wool. But if we can scare them, it will be the only way we can get rid of them."
"I have it," said Bouchardy.
A moment later the sentinel at the foot of the town gave an exclamation of surprise, for there, opposite him, against the white walls of the Sheik's tent, in the midst of a blaze of light, stood a French soldier bowing to him. Promptly he sighted his ancient flint-lock, and sent a bullet between the soldier's eyes.
"Mashallah," said the sentinel, for the soldier kept on bowing, and the hole in his head moved from his nose to the roots of his hair and back again as he did so.
"The devil himself," said the sentinel: and even before he finished saying it, the soldier had vanished, and there stood the devil—a huge black fellow grinning and bowing.
Bang! went the sentinel's gun again, and by this time the whole camp was aroused and staring at the Sheik's tent, muttering and moaning the while. The tent flap opened and the Sheik himself stepped out, and immediately there appeared on the white robes across his broad chest a great bloody splash, in the midst of which shone a hideous death's head. A cry of terror arose, and the Arabs began scurrying about in the darkness, saddling their horses and camels, the women and children screaming, and in the midst of the confusion there appeared in a loop-hole of the tower the face of a man illuminated by the glow of the fire he was breathing. Picket-ropes and saddle-girths were dropped, and those who were not already mounted rushed away on foot.
"We took in more money from that entertainment than we ever did in a year from the sales of corn medicine after our ordinary entertainments," said Bouchardy. "They have left behind them forty camels, ten horses, twelve Damascus swords, six silver pipes, eighteen bales of silk, thirty-five gold bracelets, six dozen rings, eight gold inlaid bridles, and we haven't looked in the Sheik's treasure-chest yet. Let us abandon the profession of chiropody, and buy estates at Nouvelle Saar-Louis. It is a pleasant place to live in, and will be convenient for us in case we start out on other expeditions to be robbed by Arab tribes."
W. A. Curtis.
KENNIBOY'S CIRCUS.
I'd like to own a circus show. A splendid one 'twould be;
Unlike the circus shows that in these days boys go to see.
I wouldn't have a leopard or a lion in the place,
Nor would I let a monkey show his ugly little face.
But I would fill it up with things like fairies, elves, and gnomes,
Such as we read about in books of fairy tales and "pomes."
I'd have a big volcano throwing flames up to the sky,
And real cold icy icebergs, with great whales a-swimming by.
And in a little side-show I would have a burning lake,
And in another there would be a fearful big earthquake.
And 'stead o' camels, 'rang-o-tangs, and other stupid things,
I'd have a lot o' cages chock up full o' Queens and Kings.
And then I'd have a pair o' huge big ogres with one eye,
And four-and-twenty puppy-dogs all baked into a pie,
For them to eat at show-time, so that little boys could see
How really awful terrible those ogre-men can be.
I'd have a hen to lay gold eggs, and harps that play themselves,
And bags and bags o' bean-stalk beans a-climbing over shelves;
And Jacks and Hopmythumbs to fight the giants every day,
Just as those splendid fairy-story books of mine all say.
I wouldn't charge a penny for admittance to my show.
Of course, 'twould be a most expensive thing to run, I know.
But I could well afford it. I could make that circus pay
By selling off the golden eggs the gold egg hen would lay.
John Kendrick Bangs.
JOAN OF ARC.
Every one knows the story of Joan of Arc, and it never fails to be interesting from whatever point you look at it or study it. But a good many boys and girls think of the story, as they do of many another read in school histories, as being nothing more than one of many lessons learned and to be learned. There is a great deal in the history of Joan's short life that is interesting as a practical story, to say nothing of any other interest.
The little Joan of Arc was born in the southern central part of France, in a little village called Domremy, partly in Lorraine and partly in Champagne, 484 years ago, and though she led armies in some of the most famous battles ever fought in France, and crowned a king, she never reached the age of twenty, and never learned to read or write. Her father and mother were peasants in Domremy and were poor, as peasants in France always have been—so poor that little Joan had to begin early to do her part of the work, which meant three meals a day to the family.
When she was old enough her father used to send her to watch over the sheep all day long in the fields and woods near their home, and all through these long hours, in the heat of summer or the cold of fall or spring, she had nothing to do but think and watch sheep grazing. It was a strange age in France four centuries and a half ago. People generally believed in visions, in miracles, in supernatural powers, and were easily influenced by fanaticism and enthusiasm in religious and every-day matters. A huge crowd of men, women, and children would become possessed with some idea, and would leave their daily work, their shops, their house-keeping, and their games, and rush to market-place or field to carry out this idea. In many towns the whole inhabitants would give their labor to build an enormous cathedral. Hundreds of people would catch hold of a long rope, and drag one of the big blocks of stone through a city's streets to be placed on the cathedral walls, and hundreds of unfortunate people and children were killed by different kinds of accidents while working in this fanatical way.
Then it was common, too, for some one to say that he or she was inspired by visions and voices to do or say one thing or another, and the people would rush after the inspired one to hear or to do whatever was ordered, or to try and be healed by touching the inspired person. Some were rank fakirs, who every now and then grew rich before they were discovered. Others really believed in all they said and did, and their confidence in themselves made hundreds of people follow them.
It is a mistake to think this is all gone by nowadays, for as a matter of fact it is not. Only a few years ago hundreds of people in all the stages of consumption travelled to Berlin to be treated by Dr. Koch, because he gave out, and no doubt, believed, that he had found a cure for it. At Lourdes, a city in France, there is to-day a grotto where people go for miles and miles around to be cured of all sorts of incurable diseases. And if these things attract people to-day, when nobody really believes much in such matters, you can begin to realize what fearful enthusiasm there must have been in a day when every one was only too glad to believe such things, and when most persons felt more or less strongly that they were some day going to have visions or missions of some kind.
It is not so surprising, then, that Joan, after spending several years day after day alone in the fields, occasionally hearing about all the troubles and wars in France, and having hours and hours when she could do nothing but think, should have thought she was inspired with a mission to save her country from the English invaders, and that, once perfectly persuaded of this, she should have quickly had a lot of people running after her and spreading her fame abroad.
Another thing was not so unusual as it seems to-day. Joan, when she finally saw Charles VII. of France, and persuaded him that he was the real King of France, and that all they had to do was to march to Rheims and crown him—Joan wore a suit of man's armor. She was only eighteen years old, and a delicate girl of middle height. It was unusual, of course, for so young a girl to go to war, but in those days women led bodies of men, and some of them wore armor. Women, who by birth and the absence of male relatives had been left in charge of large feudal estates, had to keep little armies to protect their lands and fields from attack, and when such attacks did come they had to go out in many cases and lead their men themselves.
So that while her visions, her calm confidence, and her male dress were enough to attract attention, they did not seem so impossible to the people of her time by a great deal as they would to the people of to-day. And then, also, everybody was ready to follow any "inspired" person who foretold anything which really happened, or who carried out what he or she started to do. Joan, after going to the King and telling him that if he followed her he would become the crowned King of France, began to find everyone following her, believing in her just as calmly as she believed in herself. The Englishmen had invaded the north of France and held the city of Paris, and the great Duke of Burgundy was in league with them. They wanted to crown Henry VI. of England, King of France also, and they marched southward and captured Orleans, which practically opened southern France to them.
Joan told King Charles VII. that she could recapture Orleans, and crown him King at Rheims, and in a little while he gave her five or six thousand men. Mounted on her white horse, in full armor, she led these men on, and by her confidence and vigor and good common-sense, persuaded the generals to attack Orleans in a certain way. Half a dozen times the besiegers were practically defeated, and would have gone back, but Joan staid before the city gates, and no one could make her turn back. Such perfectly fearless conduct acted just as it has always acted, just as it acted a thousand times in the civil war, in the Revolution, and everywhere else. The men grew crazy with enthusiasm, and rushed again and again after Joan at the defences of the city, with the result that they finally captured it.
Then any one was ready to follow the young girl, except her enemies at court; and when she ordered King, court, army, and all to go quickly northward into the part of France within the English control, they followed. The result was that Charles VII. was crowned King, and the first man crowned meant a great deal then. It was all done by a combination of shrewd common-sense, and the extraordinary willingness to believe absolutely in inspired people and follow them with religious enthusiasm, which always has been in history an irresistible force.
Afterward Paris was attacked, but as soon as Joan was wounded the attack was dropped. Experienced generals could not make men fight the way this girl could, though she knew nothing of military tactics, and had never led anything but sheep before.
All this time the English were trying to capture Joan, and then prove her to be a sorceress, in order to show that any person crowned through her agency must of course be the wrong man. Hence Henry VI. could be crowned and recognized as the real King of France. They did finally buy her of one of the Duke of Burgundy's vassals; and then began a bogus trial to prove she was a sorceress, since merely putting her to death without proving some evil agency in her work would only make her a martyr. Charles VII., once being King, did not know exactly what to do with Joan, so he took no steps to rescue her from the English, and they spent many weary days in trying to make her say something which could be used to prove she was a sorceress. Failing in this, for she believed too strongly in herself and in her visions to alter her statements, they killed her by burning her alive in the streets of Rouen, in 1431, with the result that she became a martyr at once, and her work for France became the sacred belief of all French people. And in all the sad and fascinating story, the most interesting and wonderful point is the courage, the bravery, and the wonderful brain which a young girl of nineteen or twenty had to sway men and capture cities and crown Kings.
THE LITTLE JOAN.
See "Joan of Arc," Page 1039.
Two important matters were attended to at the meeting of the New York Interscholastic Athletic Association last Tuesday. One was the question which football rules shall govern the contests held under the supervision of the association this fall, and the other was in regard to the formation of a National Interscholastic Amateur Athletic Association.
There was so much business of immediate local importance for the association to transact that it was not until late in the afternoon that the question of organizing the National I.S.A.A.A. could be brought up. But when it was brought up the representatives of the schools were unanimous in their opinion that the scheme should be put through, and it was immediately voted that the matter be taken up by the association, sitting as a committee of the whole, at their next meeting. The first step in the matter has now been taken, and we may consequently look forward confidently to a new and brilliant era in the history of school sports.
As to the football rules, but little discussion was necessary. The constitution of the N.Y.I.S.A.A. specifies that all games of the N.Y.I.S.F.B.A. shall be played under the rules of the Inter-collegiate F.B.A., and as that association this year consists merely of Yale and Princeton, the New York school games will be conducted according to the newly made Yale-Princeton or Inter-collegiate regulations. As this code is, beyond any doubt, the best one of the three at present in use, it is fortunate that the constitution of the N.Y.I.S.A.A. was so worded as to provide for their adoption.
There is no doubt that if a National Interscholastic A.A.A. be formed, a team of athletes from the Oakland High-School in California will come on to compete at the first meeting. They are thoroughly in earnest out there. A couple of weeks ago I quoted from the San Francisco papers, which contained more or less accurate reports of these young sportsmen's intentions, but since then I have received a copy of the High-School Ægis, Oakland High-School's paper in which there is an article entitled "The Prospective Eastern Trip." It is too long to quote entire in these columns, but a few paragraphs from it cannot fail to be of interest. The article begins by saying that,
"Through the efforts of Harper's Round Table, a United States Interscholastic Athletic Association bids fair to be formed, and if the consolidation takes place, the first field day will be held at New York city in June, 1896. The association will consist of all academies, preparatory and high schools in the United States which are of enough prominence in athletics to be eligible. It will be a far greater organization in point of numbers than the Inter-collegiate Association. New England will have thirty schools represented, New York eighteen, Long Island five, and Pennsylvania twelve, besides many other schools in different parts of the country."
The Ægis is certainly correct in saying that, in point of numbers, the National I.S.A.A.A. would be greater than the I.C.A.A.A. New England would certainly have more than thirty schools represented, for there are thirty schools in the N.E.I.S.A.A. alone, and many important institutions outside the organization that would certainly join. There are also the Maine, the Connecticut, the Western Massachusetts, the New York State, the Pittsburg, the Cook County (Illinois), the Dartmouth, and many other associations, which, by joining, would bring the membership, reckoned in schools, up to the hundreds.
In view of such a representative gathering of the schools of this country, the Ægis is perfectly justified in remarking that "the school which wins the meet at Mott Haven next June will be the champion academic school of the world; truly a great distinction." And continuing, it asks: "Why should not the Oakland High-School be this school? We have good athletes, who are capable of upholding the honor of the school in any kind of company and on any field." With such a spirit as this the Oakland athletes cannot fail to be prominent in any contest they may enter.
The general plan of the trip East, to be made by the O.H.-S. team, is to come directly to New York viâ Denver and Chicago. The present idea is to reach here early in June, and to arrange a series of dual games with some of the larger schools. Says the Ægis:
"The crack schools of the East, with which the O.H.-S. team would compete, are Andover and Worcester academies in New England, and Barnard School of New York. A comparison of their records with the records of those athletes now in school, in addition to the probable records of the next field day, shows that we do not suffer by the contrast. The fact must be also taken into consideration, that we have nearly a year to improve in, which the Eastern schools do not have, their track athletics ending with the spring term, while ours continue into winter. The time in the 220-yard dash and 220-yard hurdle race is made straightaway, while our records are made on a curved track, and a very poor one at that. The difference in time is nearly a second and a half, which brings our record in the 220-yard dash down to about 23-4/5 seconds, which is very good."
The return trip might be made over the Northern route, if the O.H.-S. team can arrange for games with the Multnomah A.C. of Portland, Oregon.
The amount of money necessary to defray all the expenses that would be incurred in coming East is estimated by the California athletes at $2500. They propose to collect this sum from the members and alumni of the school, from an entertainment to be given, and from contributions by the business men of Oakland. They also count on making some profit from their share of the gate receipts at the various games in which the team will compete. Again, I cannot urge too strongly upon the leaders of athletics in our Eastern schools the desirability and advisability of encouraging these California sportsmen to come East. It will give interscholastic sport a great boom in every way, and raise the standard and importance of school contests. I have no doubt whatever that, as soon as the Eastern trip of the O.H.-S. team is definitely decided upon, Andover, Worcester, Hartford H.-S., Barnard, Cutler, and many other schools will be eager to arrange dates for dual games.
There is such a great number of school football teams in and about Boston, that it is impossible, of course, to include them all in one association. Even the original I.S.F.B.A. has found it necessary to divide itself into a Senior and a Junior League, so great was its membership. And so, as rapidly as new teams crop up and find there is no room for them in existing associations, they will form new organizations themselves, and eventually, no doubt, the great scholastic games of the year will be between the winning elevens of different associations, just as the principal scholastic football game hereabouts is that between the teams representing the New York I.S.F.B.A. and the Long Island I.S.F.B.A.
The Suburban High-School League is second in importance, in the neighborhood of Boston, only to the old association made up of the Boston and Cambridge schools. It is only a year old, but it is in a thriving condition, the principal schools of its membership being the Medford, Malden, Melrose, and Winchester High-Schools. The championship last year, the first of the League's existence, was won by Malden H.-S., whose team defeated Medford H.-S., 10-0, in the final game of the season. This fall the Suburban League teams will start playing their championship games on November 2d, when Medford and Winchester meet at Medford, and Malden and Melrose come together at Melrose. The two winning teams will decide the championship on the 9th.
The Malden H.-S. team is in better condition at this early date than any of its rivals in the League. Captain Flanders, who has been a member of the team for three years, is putting his men through a course of training that is developing all there is in them. He is a capable player himself, having held almost every position on the team. In his first year he was used in the rush line, and finally occupied one end. The next year he went in at right half-back, and this season he will play full-back. He is a strong runner, and is better at half than anywhere else; although at full he will probably do a good deal of running with the ball, and play close up as a sort of third half-back most of the time. Swain at left guard has also played three years on the team. He is the heaviest man in the aggregation, and there is no better man in the League at breaking through or making holes. Priest will leave end and go to right half-back, and Atwood will be taken from the line, too, to go in as Priest's partner. Both men will require considerable coaching, but Atwood is a fast sprinter, and ought to turn out well in his new position.
The Medford H.-S. team is made up mostly of new men, but it is full of good material. Captain McPherson has had experience on the team for two years, and will have good control over his men, his position being at quarter. But he has a hard row to hoe, and will deserve no end of credit if he moulds all this awkward and green energy into a team of players by November 2d. At Melrose the prospects are but little better. The new men are light, and most of them are inexperienced, only two ever having played on school teams before. These two, Harris and Libby, will no doubt take care of the ends, as they seem best fitted for those positions. If necessary, Libby can go in at quarter. The material back of the line is unusually light, even for a school team. Bemis, however, is a hard runner, and tackles well, and will no doubt be the regular full-back. The other candidates are a little slow in their work, and are much in need of vigorous coaching. They could well spend an hour of every morning in passing and falling on the ball.
There is good material at Winchester, although only three of last year's eleven are again in school. The lack of old players, however, is amply compensated for by the enthusiasm of the new, and I shall expect to see Winchester well up toward the top of the ladder at the end of the season. Ordway, the Captain and full-back, has played on the team two years, and is a good man to give the ball to. He gets around the ends in good style, and is not afraid of bucking the centre. Thus far the candidates are playing well together, although they are a little slow at breaking up interference, and sometimes fail to follow the ball as closely as they should. In a word, their aggressive play is better than their defensive work. The latter should receive attention.
Andover's play in the recent game against Boston College was quick and snappy, and of a kind that may well give Lawrenceville some anxiety. P. A. rolled up 22 points in two fifteen-minute halves, and came pretty near scoring four more as time was called. The Boston men were heavier, but lacked the training which clearly characterized Andover's work. Douglass was put in at half in place of Goodwin, who is temporarily laid up, and made the star play of the game. It occurred at the opening of the second half. Andover kicked off, and Boston returned it. Douglass caught the ball about in the centre of the field, and ran. He dodged half the Boston team, and crossed the line for a touch-down. Butterfield did good work likewise, making several gains through the line. The Andover men seemed to have no trouble in making holes in the Boston College line, and after each play the forwards were noticeably quick in lining up. Andover is going to have a good team.
The Exeter eleven is pretty well knocked out. Half the men who were in good shape two weeks ago are more or less seriously injured now, and it is probable that the P.E.A. team this year will be as poor a one as has represented the school for some time. This condition of affairs is due not so much to poor material as to bad judgment on the part of the captain and the manager. Before the team was in any condition to perform such hard work, games were arranged with Tufts College, Boston A.A., M.I.T., and Dartmouth. Each one of these teams was heavier than the Exeter eleven, and as a result several P.E.A. men are limping about the Academy grounds, and one or two men will not play football again this fall. The game against Dartmouth, especially, was hard for Exeter. In bucking the Hanover rush-line five of P.E.A.'s best men were hurt.
The most serious loss was Hawkins, the quarter-back. The other men behind the line had come to depend considerably upon him, and when Martin was put in his place they went to pieces. Perhaps they should be not too severely blamed for this, for Martin is a wretched player and ought never to be allowed at quarter-back again until he learns a good deal more about the game. In the Tufts game Martin passed the ball on more than one occasion to his opponents. When Thomas took his place in the second half there was a slight recovery from the previous demoralization, but P.E.A. did no scoring. If Exeter had arranged her games against lighter and weaker teams in the early part of the season, and had fixed the dates with these older men for now and the following weeks, her players would have been better able to stand the hard work required of them.
It is just this sort of thing that brings football into disrepute with people who don't know anything about the game. They see in the papers that Brown, Jones, and Robinson are hurt as a result of playing football. They do not stop to reflect that possibly Brown, Jones, and Robinson had no business playing the game, but at once decry football. Possibly if Brown, Jones, and Robinson had been put on horseback and trotted around a field they would have been much lamer, and certainly they would have been much more liable to get their necks broken. Take two elevens in training and let them play a game; there will be no one hurt in all probability. Take twenty-two men who are not in any kind of training and set them loose on a gridiron for two fifteen-minute halves and see how many doctors you will need at the end of the game. That's the secret of most of the outcry against football. Half the men who get hurt would not have gotten hurt if they had gone at it properly, and it is almost always of these fellows that the general public gets reports. There is a good deal for the general public to learn about football.
There is one good thing I notice in the methods of the Chicago High-School teams. They play only fifteen-minute halves in their football matches, and that is a very proper arrangement for the early part of the season. Young players cannot stand the strain of full-time play at first, and it is the height of folly to try to play two thirty-five-minute halves at present. Even the big college teams do not attempt such severe work, playing usually twenty or twenty-five minute halves until the 1st of November, by which time the men have become seasoned, and are able to stand the exertion of full-time play. School teams should begin by playing short halves, gradually lengthening them until the full time is reached two or three weeks before the important game. At first it is even better to play three periods of ten minutes, with a short rest between each, than two fifteen-minute halves with only one rest. It all depends on the size and strength of the men who are playing, and the Captain must be the judge in these matters. His idea should be to get the greatest development with the smallest possible strain on his men.
The Junior League schedule of the New England F.B.A. has been arranged, and several matches have already been played. The dates are as follows:
Roxbury High—October 11th, Newton High at Newton; October 19th, Chelsea at Franklin Park; November 2d, Roxbury Latin at South End Grounds; November 9th, Dedham at Dedham; November 20th, Somerville at Somerville; November 23d, Hyde Park at Franklin Park.
Chelsea High—October 19th, Roxbury High at Franklin Park; October 23d, Somerville at Somerville; October 26th, Roxbury Latin at Brookline Common; November 1st, Newton at Chelsea; November 7th, Hyde Park at Chelsea; November 16th, Dedham at Dedham.
Roxbury Latin—October 18th, Hyde Park at Hyde Park; October 26th, Chelsea High at Brookline Common; October 30th, Somerville High at Somerville; November 2d, Roxbury High at South End; November 8th, Newton High at Newton; November 13th, Dedham High at Dedham.
Dedham High—October 14th, Somerville at Somerville; October 25th, Newton at Newton; November 1st, Hyde Park at Dedham; November 9th, Roxbury High at Dedham; November 13th, Roxbury Latin at Dedham; November 16th, Chelsea at Dedham.
Somerville High—October 14th, Dedham at Somerville; October 23d, Chelsea; October 30th, Roxbury Latin; November 12th, Hyde Park; November 20th, Roxbury High; November 22d, Newton High.
Hyde Park High—October 18th, Roxbury Latin at Hyde Park; November 1st, Dedham High at Dedham; November 7th, Chelsea High at Chelsea; November 12th, Somerville High at Somerville; November 15th, Newton High at Newton; November 23d, Roxbury High at Franklin Park.
Newton High—October 11th, Roxbury High at Newton; October 25th, Dedham High at Newton; November 1st, Chelsea High at Chelsea; November 8th, Roxbury Latin at Newton; November 15th, Hyde Park at Newton; November 22d, Somerville High at Somerville.
The winner of the series meets the tail-ender of the Senior League to determine whether or not they shall exchange places next season.
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.
The dull season just ended has been extremely interesting from the fact that a large number of stamps have been advancing in value by leaps and bounds. So many new collectors have come into the field that the supply of scarce and rare stamps has been much smaller than the demand. This has been the case especially in unused U.S. stamps to such a degree that dealers have refused to sell, calculating that they would make more money by holding off. The Department stamps have scored the greatest advance. The Executives, sold a few years ago for $4 or $5 per set, command $25 to $30 to-day. The Justice set, which could be bought for $8 or $10 a set, are difficult to find at $80 or $90. Even the despised Interior, worth formerly 75c. to $1 per set, now bring $5 to $6. A fine set of State formerly owned by the writer, and sold for $40 in 1891, changed hands the other day at $250.
In a word collectors with money—bankers, merchants, noblemen, and even royalties—have greatly increased in numbers during the past three years, whereas there are no more unused U.S. stamps to-day than formerly. Indeed, there are fewer stamps on the market, as there is a constant destruction of old albums and collections, through fire, water, and carelessness.
Used stamps are not appreciated to as great an extent as unused, as the great demand has led to the looking over of every lot of old letters within the reach and knowledge of collectors. Consequently the common varieties of U.S. stamps and envelopes are somewhat of a drug in the market, and are bought by dealers to-day chiefly on the chance of finding one or more of the scarcer kinds in the lot of "cheap trash."
I was mistaken in my opinion that the recent find of a big lot of St. Louis stamps would bring down their price. The exact contrary has been the effect. Two or three of our largest collectors are ready to buy these stamps at an increased valuation, as they are now "plating." That is, they are making up sheets of these stamps as originally issued. As there were two papers and three plates, and each plate contained six stamps, to make up a complete set would require thirty-six stamps in all. The cost of such a set of six plates of six stamps each would probably be at least $15,000, possibly $20,000.
The new catalogues are appearing. The first in the field was Seuf's, then Stanley Gibbon's; the next to appear will probably be Scott's. Meanwhile J. W. Scott has issued a circular of the new prices of the U. S. issues, and probably will soon issue a new edition of "Our Catalogue," which was the first ever made in the handy pocket form.
Miss C. A.—The New Jersey cents are worth from 25c. to $3 each, according to condition, etc.
Philatus.