Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

This time the expressions of contempt were not confined to looks, but broke forth audibly from all sides. Only the little dark man remained silent, and he nodded his head in a very knowing manner, thereby suggesting that he attributed to Julius a voluminous catalogue of atrocities, which he could specify if it became necessary; and furthermore that he caviled at the others for their deplorable lack of insight into character.

Apprehending that he had placed Mr. Walker Smith in a bad light before these gentlemen, Julius made haste to defend him.

“Yes, and there were some men in San Francisco that I’m sure were enemies of Mr. Smith, and _they_ tried to make me believe he was dishonest and was lying about the mine; but I didn’t mind them, because he had told me just where the mine was and everything about it; why, he even showed me a piece of gold that had been taken from it. At last I made up my mind that he had been murdered and robbed of my money, so I’ve come up this way to find some gold for myself. But you can’t tell me,” he added, after a second’s reflection, “that Smith was dishonest. He knew of ’most all our folks.”

Having thus disposed of the matter of Mr. Smith’s probity, Julius began unstrapping his outfit, and by his general demeanor gave the others to understand that he had at last found a home and friends.

This time the limited vocabulary of the group would not admit of any adequate expression of their contempt, so they were obliged to resort to looks again, the little dark man intimating, by a peculiar expression of mingled horror and distrust, that this was positively the most insinuating villain he had ever met.

“An so yu think this yur’s ’bout the place whur yu kin make yer pile, do yu?” queried Hank Purdy, as he emptied the ashes from his pipe by rapping it against the palm of his left hand.

“Well, they told me down below that there was gold up here and that I was to be careful and not be taken in. And perhaps you gentlemen will tell me where to dig—kind of advise me, you know.

“I’m very anxious to find some gold in a little while—I don’t care for so very much, only a few thousand dollars—and I don’t want to dig very deep for it, ’cause I’m not used to hard work. And besides I’ve got to get it quick, for I must start back home before fall, or ma and the girls will think I’m sick or something.

“Just tell me some place where I can get it quick; some place close around here, if you know any.”

Mr. Purdy was the first of the party to recover his mental equilibrium after the preferment of this extraordinary request, and lost no time in stating emphatically that he would be something which could only be expressed here by a long dash, in the event of Mr. Anderly not being about the freshest thing he had ever seen.

“An’ so yu hain’t got no more’n a couple a days to spare, an’ yu’d like to make a snug little pile and git out a here by ’bout day arfter tomorrow, would yu?” again queried Mr. Purdy.

“Why, isn’t that a little soon?” asked Julius.

“Not a bit uv it. People air comin’ in an’ goin’ out a here every day er so. All they hav’ to do is to jes scratch eroun’ a little mite, ’n they’re sure to turn up a whole pile a nuggets.”

“No? You don’t mean to tell me so!” exclaimed the now radiant and delighted Julius.

“Fact; you betchu!” asseverated Mr. Purdy. “Leave ’t the jedge there if ’taint.”

The “jedge,” he of the damaged head gear, claret nose and judicial bearing, confirmed Mr. Purdy’s statement with regard to the abundant natural resources of Nugget Bar, in a manner admitting no doubt of his sincerity, so that Julius did not require the concurrent statements of the other members of the party, which were nevertheless given.

Julius now felt his troubles to be at an end. A few days more and he would be a comparatively rich man. He expressed his astonishment that fortunes were picked up so easily.

“Ya-a-h, minin’ ain’t what ’t chused to be,” went on Mr. Purdy. “Why, when I was first out, ther was four uv us a prospectin’ up on the divide one time, ’n she set in to snow fer all git out, ’n we got lost ’n wandered eround ther fer ’leven days, all uv us on foot, ’n not a blamed horse in the crowd. The on’y thing we had to eat was snow and stewed saddle, yessir, fact. We cut up that (dashed) saddle ’n biled ’er ’n used to chew on’t fer hours ’t a time, ’n she saved all our (dashed) lives too. Nowadays these yur people kim in yur ’n git it jest fer pickin’ it up.”

This tradition of Mr. Purdy’s had come to be looked upon as apocryphal, inasmuch as he had never been able to explain satisfactorily how the party had obtained the saddle, since they were all on foot and had no horse. His reply to any question touching upon the source of that appetizing article was always conceived in a spirit of the profoundest irritation, and delivered with vehemence, disgust, scorn and contempt. But the present recital being solely for the delectation of Julius Anderly, this defect was not touched upon.

Julius was duly impressed by the incident and said as much, and again expressed a willingness to be directed to some spot close at hand where untold gold, easy to access, was waiting to be put to good use by deserving mortals.

“Wal,” said Mr. Purdy, “I s’pose the jedge there knows a more good places to find gold eround yur than a’most any ether man. I ekspects he’s prob’ly the best man fer yu.”

The judge, who was usually drunk, and commonly thought to be incompetent on that account, had got himself elected as Justice of the Peace by keeping the coming election and his candidacy a secret from all save his most intimate friends, and so long as he had nothing to do he was permitted to do it.

With the worried air of a man who controlled the affairs of the universe, and withal, a look of pretended sagacity, the judge opined that there was a “splen’d place to dig out there,” with a sweep of his right hand comprehending most of the western hemisphere.

Mr. Purdy, at this striking proof of the soundness of his judgment, assumed a triumphant expression and said, “Ther! wha’d I tell yu?”

Julius gazed blankly out over the bar and up the gulch, and down over the trail he had traveled, and then with the utmost delicacy, and with all due deference to the dignity of the bench, suggested that perhaps the direction given by the judge was not sufficiently definite to be of any practical utility; but he was none the less hopeful for all that.

Mr. Purdy was on the point of requesting the judge to confine himself to some given spot, when the face of Mr. Turner lighted up with the fire of inspiration. He said: “Now look a here, Anderly, they’s a spot right out back a this here shanty where I think you’d find whuchu want. I been a goin’ to dig there myself fer a long time now, but I’ll jest turn ’er over to you, an’ by gun, you can have whuchu find there.”

Mr. Turner did not state that the spot he referred to was where he had projected a cellar in which to store surplus provisions; that, if there had existed any means of getting said cellar there otherwise than by hard work, he would have had it there long ago; and that there was about as much likelihood of finding elephants’ teeth there as gold. But, nevertheless, this all passed through his mind.

“But, my dear sir,” said Julius, “you are not laboring under the delusion that I want to take any man’s mine and use it to my own advantage, I hope. I couldn’t think of taking what another man had found. I just thought some of you could kind of advise me.”

The absurdity of supposing that Mr. Turner would labor under any circumstances, not even excepting a delusion, was so apparent to the judge that he was moved to smile knowingly; but at an indignant look from Hank Purdy he straightened himself up and stared hard at the mountains, as if he were possessed of some recondite knowledge concerning their origin and manner of construction.

“Wal, I admit it’s mighty gen’rous in me,” said Mr. Turner, with a sublime look of self abnegation upon his honest face, “but I tell you we’r’ none uv us mean around these here diggin’s, not if we know it; and ’sides thet, I got a dozen or so places jest as good as thet ’t I kin go to any time, so I guess you jest better go to work there t’morrow an’ git whuchu kin out uv it.”

Julius was profuse in his earnest expressions of gratitude, but Mr. Turner waved him off and magnanimously said it was nothing—which was quite true.

Then Julius had his supper and was shown to the back room, where he was to pass the night.

Upon Mr. Turner’s explaining his object in inducing Julius to dig back of the hotel, whereby he was to be a new cellar the gainer, he was unsparingly praised for bringing about his object by this poetical idealization of a cold, hard reality, in the mind of Julius, and then the gentlemen drank something, the little dark man, as he ordered his without any water, wishing every one to remember, when Julius Anderly’s true character became known, that he had warned them against him from the first.

As they drank to the completion of the new cellar, Julius was heard in his room, musically entreating some person, evidently a female, to lay her brown head upon his breast, which vocal effort was not favorably received, especially by the little dark man, who muttered, as he ambled off toward his tent, that they “didn’t want no layin’ of heads on breasts around there.”

The next morning found Julius digging laboriously in the hard ground back of the hotel, within the space marked off by Mr. Turner, with a song upon his lips and the firm conviction in his breast that in a few days he would be on his way to Ohio with the money that was to make ma and the girls comfortable.

All day long he worked assiduously, never pausing to note the looks of contempt and ridicule that were cast upon him by the passing miners who were working up the gulch with pick, shovel and pan.

That night Mr. Turner’s cellar was half done, and Julius was as hopeful as ever, confidently remarking to Mr. Purdy that he would surely find the gold tomorrow, as he was getting the space narrowed down now. He jubilantly dilated upon the manner in which he would apply his fortune, not forgetting to mention that the whole party were to have a big supper at his expense—which caused the judge to regret, momentarily, that the whole thing was a practical joke upon the Easterner.

Julius rose betimes the following morning, and again proceeded to work, as confident that the sun would set upon him a rich man that night as he was that a temperance movement was the one thing needful in Nugget Bar.

That afternoon about four o’clock, as the usual group were gathered in front of the “Golden Nugget,” indolently discussing various abstract moral and social problems, of which this story does not take cognizance, and Mr. Turner was inwardly congratulating himself on the imminent completion of his cellar, Julius Anderly suddenly appeared around the corner of the house, his pick and shovel on his shoulder. He had the air of a man who had finished his day’s work.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to leave you in the morning,” he said. “There’s a party of miners from up the gulch going down, and I can go with them; I found the gold all right enough, thanks to you, Mr. Turner, and my other friends here.”

“You wha-a-t?” screamed Mr. Turner, evidencing more energy than had ever before characterized any remark of his made within the hearing of any of the assembled residents of Nugget Bar. “You found _wha-a-t_?”

“Why, I’ve found the gold, you know,” answered Julius, slightly bewildered by the general paralytic attitude of the group, and by this unexpected and unprecedented display of energy on Mr. Turner’s part. “I’ve got a whole pile of gold round here—found it just as you said—and a man that saw me says I may go down with his party tomorrow.”

Consternation was written upon the faces of all the group. Consternation? Yes, and wild alarm, terrified surprise, and incredulity and anger and sheepishness, and many other emotions too numerous and heterogeneous to admit of specification. With one accord they dashed off to the scene of Julius’s labors.

Yes, there was a pile of golden nuggets, just as they had been taken from their strange, unthought of hiding place, where some fanciful freak of nature had stowed them—a most convincing proof of nature’s whimsicality.

There was no doubt but what a rich pocket had been struck, and yet the good citizens of Nugget Bar, and especially those who had lately served Julius in an advisory capacity, seemed prone to discredit the evidence of their sight and touch, and handled the precious fragments as if they were something intangible.

And in the midst of all the flurry and excitement stood Julius, radiant and joyful, his cherubic face wreathed in a quiet smile of contentment, and not one bit excited or surprised, because had not these rough but honest men told him he would find a lot of gold there, and he had found it as a matter of course?

Resuscitative measures were now in order, and were inaugurated at Julius’s expense. Nugget Bar ate and drank late and deeply that night, but as Julius left next morning with the party “down below,” most of it was up with its aching head and bitter tasting mouth to see him off, and the little dark man was heard to remark that he had told them so from the first, and now he supposed they were satisfied—which they were not.

The landscape in the rear of the “Golden Nugget” was soon terribly disfigured by Nugget Bar picks and shovels, and Sam Turner’s cellar was enlarged to proportions that no self respecting cellar would be guilty of assuming; but I never heard that Nugget Bar found another pocket there.

A DILEMMA.

Hello! why here’s a note from May—
For well that dainty hand I know—
I wonder what she has to say,
When last she wrote ’twas long ago.
My heart I swore was hers alone—
And so it was for that brief time—
I humbly worshiped at her throne
And vowed my perfect faith in rhyme.

But ’twas not that which made us part—
Although my verse was not the best—
We soon were cured of Cupid’s dart
And then—you well can guess the rest.
What news now will this letter bring?
It’s friendly at the start: _Dear Jack,_
_I’m to be married in the spring,_
_And so please send my picture back._

Well, that’s a nice request to make—
Her picture—what else does she say?
Ah, so she wants it _for my sake_
And signs it, _Yours, as ever, May._
Not mine now, that time long has passed—
Her picture—two hearts o’er it crossed—
Where was it now I saw it last?
Confound the thing, it must be lost!

_Flavel Scott Mines._

THE COLLEGES OF NEW YORK.

_By Judson Newman Smith._

I.—COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

While the highest prestige of age and renown attaches to those of our American universities that are located in lesser towns, the tendency of recent times seems to be rather toward the development of fully equipped educational institutions in the great urban centers of population. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, it will generally be admitted, still stand foremost, but New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have built up universities whose subordination needs to be qualified in some particulars—for the scientific department of Johns Hopkins and the medical branch of the University of Pennsylvania rank at least as high as those of the older colleges, while Columbia’s rapidly increasing wealth has enabled it to advance with greater rapidity than any of its sisters. Established in prerevolutionary times, generously fostered by the State, by the Trinity Church corporation, and by private munificence, the development of New York has so augmented its revenue that it has now become a university in the fullest sense of the term, and possesses among its schools three that are unequaled in the United States.

From the time it was chartered, in 1754, until 1857, its extensive college grounds were situated on what is now one of the most crowded commercial districts of the city—that between College Place and the North River. It was chartered under the name of King’s College, and was supported and controlled by Church of England influences. For this reason it was disfavored by other religious denominations, and a hard struggle existence ensued until the corporation of Trinity Church came to the rescue, by granting it the tract of land already mentioned and enabling the college to erect its first buildings.

Misfortune was again encountered at the breaking out of the Revolution. The college was regarded as a nest of Toryism, and the committee of public safety essayed to suppress it by ordering the buildings to be prepared for occupation by the troops. Under this misuse the college had been reduced to a state almost requiring recreation, when in 1784 the Legislature reincorporated it under its later name. In 1857 the site was removed to the present location at Madison Avenue and Forty Ninth Street.

The five departments of Columbia College are those of Arts, of Mines, of Law, of Political Science, and of Medicine, and in addition there is an annex for women, known as Barnard College, in honor of the lately retired president, Frederick A. P. Barnard. The schools of Law, Mines and Medicine are the leading ones of the country.

The School of Arts provides the usual classical education, at a cost to students of $150 for the annual fee. There are a number of free and prize scholarships, and seven three year fellowships of $500 per annum. There is also a post graduate course of wide scope.

Seven parallel courses of engineering are pursued in the School of Mines, the fee for which is $200 for each of the four years of study; and there is besides a post graduate course of two years for the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. The work done in this department is of the most exact and thorough character. A feature of it is the regular excursions of parties of students under the supervision of their instructors into the foundries and work shops of the city, or to the scene of some large field construction for the purpose of “carrying the chain” and of surveying.

The School of Law, since its organization in 1858, has sent forth the major portion of the great legal lights of the country. The course occupies three years, at an annual fee of $200, which, in common with the fees of the other departments, may be remitted at the discretion of the Faculty.

Political science furnishes another department extending over three years. At the end of the first year the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy is conferred; that of Master of Arts at the end of the second year, and at completion the student receives the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Barnard College, organized a few years ago, is kindred in scope to the School of Arts, and requires an equally severe entrance examination for qualification to matriculate. Already in its short history it begins to evince a high standard of scholarship, and bids fair to take a leading position in the ranks of college annexes for women.

All the foregoing, except the last named, are located on the ground between Forty Ninth and Fiftieth Streets and Madison and Fourth Avenues. The remaining branch, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, has lately, through the royal munificence of private individuals, been enabled to secure a splendid extension of its facilities. The late William H. Vanderbilt in 1885 presented to the college the sum of $500,000, with which an ample site was purchased at Fifty Ninth Street and Ninth Avenue and suitable buildings erected. This princely gift was followed by another from the donor’s daughter, Mrs. W. D. Sloane, who, with her husband, built, and equipped, at a cost of $250,000, the Sloane Maternity Hospital, controlled by the college. Yet again, the four sons of Mr. Vanderbilt established a free clinic, known as the Vanderbilt clinic, which also called for an expenditure of a quarter of a million dollars. Though since its foundation in 1807 the P. & S., as it is popularly called, has been the leading school of medicine of the western world, these superb examples of philanthropic liberality have placed it in a position to compare with the foremost schools of Europe.

The income of Columbia is mainly derived from the rentals of extensive grants of real estate received from Trinity Church and the State. These holdings are situated both in the crowded districts of trade and the neighborhood of wealthy residence, and their values have largely increased with time.

As guardian in chief of this vast estate and director of the progress of a modern university, the president of Columbia needs to be a man of rare qualifications. High scholarship he should have as the head of a learned institution, and rare business ability he must have as the manager of the various interests intrusted to his care. The college is fortunate indeed to have at its helm one who so eminently combines the qualifications of the scholar, the gentleman, and the practical man of affairs as does Dr. Seth Low.

Unlike the majority of colleges, Columbia provides no living quarters for its undergraduates, who, separating each day to their widely distributed homes or lodgings, enjoy nothing of that unique existence known as “college life,” so dear to the recollection of the alumnus. This does not, however, banish an intense college spirit, fostered by Greek letter fraternities, literary societies, many subdivisions of athletic organization and scores of little cliques or clubs, like so many branching roots of a noble loyalty.

The college, on its removal to its present site, consisted of a now venerable and imposing building, in style approaching the Colonial, and occupying the center of a full city square, admitting of extensive grounds and an ample campus. On this space there have from time to time been erected various additional buildings for the accommodation of the fast growing schools, until now the original structure is almost completely surrounded with these modern edifices, a compact mass of impressive appearance and great capacity. The buildings of the medical school combine the results of modern ingenuity in the attainment of the most perfect convenience with pleasing architectural effects.

II.—THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

A noteworthy Gothic structure of white freestone, situated on the once aristocratic Washington Square, is the principal seat of the University of the City of New York. To the many pleasing associations of the past that cluster around this locality, the University building contributes the lion’s share. Besides lending its academic dignity to the spot, its studios and apartments were long the abiding place of the leaders of the artistic and literary coteries of the city. It is memorable, too, as the scene of the world famed achievements of two of the University’s professors—Professors Samuel F. B. Morse and John W. Draper, the former of whom here invented the recording telegraph, and the latter first applied photography to the representation of the human countenance.

The origin of the university was philanthropic. In 1829 seven prominent New Yorkers—bankers, merchants, and professional men—met to consider the establishing of a liberal university, designed to comprise a graduate division for the pursuit of advanced studies, and an undergraduate division devoted to classical and scientific courses. Calls for subscriptions met a liberal response, and the college was speedily launched. The building, which was erected in 1835, is now occupied by the Department of Arts and Sciences, the Schools of Law and Pedagogy, besides the chairs of several post graduate courses in line with the intentions of the founders.

A medical department of high rank dates from 1841; it is situated in an ample building in East Twenty Sixth Street, opposite Bellevue Hospital, where practical instruction is obtained by the students. Among its noteworthy features is the Loomis laboratory, occupying a five story wing, which was erected at a cost of $100,000. This money was received from an unknown donor, through Dr. Alfred L. Loomis, one of its best known professors; and among the conditions of the gift was the strange proviso that the name of the giver should be kept secret.

Some of the branches of the university are liberally endowed; others are supported by the fees of the students. Among the latter is one whose recent establishment is indicative of the breadth of plan contemplated by the governors. This is the School of Pedagogy, ably presided over by Dr. Jerome Allen.

The Chancellor of the University is Dr. John Hall, who succeeded Dr. Howard Crosby in the office. The institution does efficient work in all its branches, and has been eminently successful in the achievement of the founders’ design—“to diffuse knowledge.”

III.—THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

The third of the great general educational institutions of the metropolis is entirely distinct from the one last described, in spite of the confusion between them that exists in the minds of many New Yorkers who should be better informed. The similarity of name is certainly misleading, and for that reason a little unfortunate.

The College of the City of New York is a public institution in the fullest sense of the term. It is a supplement to the municipal system of common schools, and with those schools is under the control of the Board of Education. It was established in 1848 by the authority of the Legislature; its first class matriculated in the following January and graduated in 1853. It was not, however, until 1854 that the Legislature bestowed upon the Free Academy, as it was then called, full collegiate powers and privileges as regards conferring upon graduates the usual degrees in the arts and sciences. In 1866 it was admitted to the circle of the State’s colleges that are scrutinized by State Regents. At the same time was adopted the modern and more dignified name that it has since borne.

The curriculum at this institute is divided into three courses, the classical, the scientific and the mechanical, each occupying four years, and preceded by a preparatory course of one year. The classical course gives especial attention to Latin and Greek, but includes one modern language. The scientific course comprises mathematics and the modern languages as the leading subjects of study. The mechanical course differs from the scientific in that it gives more prominence to the applications of mechanical science, and calls for practice in the workshop and the chemical laboratory during the whole course. There is also a post graduate course in civil engineering, extending over two years.

The College of the City of New York has always been a target for the assaults of politicians, and many attempts have been made to secure its abolition on various pretexts. Through all of them, however, the institution has triumphantly marched, and under the presidency of General Alexander S. Webb it has gained increased scope and efficiency with every year. It has long been remarked that the names of its graduates are more than ordinarily prominent among the leaders of post graduate departments elsewhere.

The College is situated at Lexington Avenue and Twenty Third Street. The buildings are constructed of brick, and are valued at $225,000. They contain a library of 26,180 volumes, a natural history cabinet of 7,500 specimens, and scientific apparatus to the value of $28,000.

On the accession of General Webb in 1869 the College had on its rolls 27 instructors and 447 students, at a cost to the city of $125,000 a year. At the present time there are 44 instructors and 1,450 students, while the increase of the annual expense has been but $23,000. The faculty has comprised some famous names: Horace Webster was the institution’s first president and professor of philosophy, and Gerardus B. Docharty its professor of mathematics. Charles Edward Anthon was professor of history and belles lettres from 1852 until his decease in 1883. Other notable names on the roll are those of Oliver W. Gibbs, General William B. Franklin, John C. Draper, Russell Sturgis, and R. Ogden Doremus.

New York’s system of public education has received severe, and unfortunately not unjust criticism, which has been called forth by defects in the common schools, and especially by their inadequate seating capacity. The advanced department of the system, however, is recognized as a model of efficiency. Its very completeness and success have often been used to emphasize by contrast the imperfections of the common schools, to whose pupils it offers gratuitously the benefits of a collegiate course and collegiate degrees.

LOVE IS BLIND.

I.

From ancient Roma o’er the sea
This ring, sweet maid, I bring to thee.
Pray treasure it for friendship’s sake,
And prize the symbol it doth make.
A sweet suggestion would it lend,
For like my love it has no end;
These letters tell thee whence it came,
And proud it is to bear the name—
“ROMA.”

II.

She clasped it ’tween her fingers fair;
In conscious pride it nestled there.
Upon its jeweled plates her eyes
Cast star-like beams in sweet surprise;
Then turned she with a modest smile,
And pointing at the ring meanwhile,
“Love, thou art blind,” the dear one said,
“Else wouldst thou read as I have read—
AMOR!”

_Jean La Rue Burnett._

THE JAPANESE NOVELTY STORE.

I.

Each morning, at nine,
I pass under the sign—
A fan with a stork flying o’er—
And see, as I go,
A remarkable show,
At the Japanese Novelty Store.

II.

There’s an odd little man,
From the booths of Japan,
Who walks to and fro on the floor;
His eyes are oblique,
And he talks with a squeak,
At the Japanese Novelty Store.

III.

There are teacups and trays,
And boxes ablaze
With lacquer and gilding galore;
Individual “butters,”
And bronze paper cutters,
At the Japanese Novelty Store.

IV.

You ask the expense,
It is twenty five cents
For a lantern as big as a door;
But a dollar won’t buy
A vase an inch high
At the Japanese Novelty Store.

V.

Cranes, fishes, and dragons,
And Cloisonné flagons,
No man can say what they are for;
But—down to the stork—
They’re all made in New York
For the Japanese Novelty Store.

_Allanson Goodwin._

HORSEMANSHIP—A POPULAR FAD.

_By Frank A. Munsey._

Healthful outdoor sports and exercises have in the last few years grown to a remarkable vogue and popularity in this country. Their cultivation has indeed been one of the most notable social developments of the past quarter of a century. England has led the world in the various branches of athletics, and the general participation in them by her people has done much to make the English race distinguished among nations for the best standard of physical development.

But already we are fairly dividing the honors with her. In yachting we have built the boats and reared the sailors that have outsailed, time and again, the best yachts England has ever produced. American riflemen and American oarsmen have held their own against the best talent of England. Even in cricket, their great national game, picked teams of Englishmen have been met and vanquished by transatlantic invaders. Of running, walking and bicycling records America holds her share, and of those for short distances she has the great majority. In high jumping, throwing the hammer and putting the weight, American athletes are in the lead. Tennis and polo are newer games here than in England, but our standards in them are of the highest. Baseball is peculiarly our own, and it has been developed to a wonderful degree of scientific skill reached by no other outdoor sport.

“The pleasure of exercise,” says Dr. Holmes, “is due first to a purely physical impression, and secondly to a sense of power in action. The first source of pleasure varies, of course, with our condition, and the state of the surrounding circumstances; the second with the amount and kind of power, and the extent and kind of action. In all forms of active exercise there are three powers simultaneously in action—the will, the muscles and the intellect. Each of these predominates in different kinds of exercise.” The Autocrat discusses the relative merits of walking, riding and rowing, concluding with the statement that rowing “is the nearest approach to flying that man has ever made or perhaps ever will make. As the hawk sails without flapping his pinions, so you drift with the tide, when you will, in the most luxurious form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit. You can row easily and gently all day, and you can row yourself blind and black in the face in ten minutes, just as you like. It is in the boat, then, that man finds the largest extension of his volitional and muscular existence.”

In a later edition of the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” from which the foregoing quotation is made, Dr. Holmes adds in a foot note: “Since the days when this was written, the bicycle has appeared as the rival of the wherry. The boat flies like a sea bird with its long, narrow, outstretched pinions; the bicycle rider, like feathered Mercury with his wings on his feet.”

These are eloquent tributes to boating and to cycling, and well deserved they are; but after all, for refined sport in its highest development one must turn to that most exhilarating of all pleasures—horseback riding. That this view is held by those whose income is sufficient to warrant the indulgence of their tastes is evidenced by the enormous growth in horsemanship in America within the last few years. It is hardly too much to say that it is now regarded as quite as important in a social sense for young men and young women to be proficient in riding as in dancing. Rowing, yachting, swimming, and tennis, it is true, share its popularity in the midsummer months, but riding is an all the year round sport—a sport that in the cool months of spring and fall, and the colder months of winter, has no rival among all the forms of outdoor exercise. And, indeed, I know of no other pleasure on a brisk, cool day that gives the physical invigoration, the keen enjoyment, and the ruddy glow to be obtained from a gallop in the park. But to get the fullest pleasure the rider must be well mounted and well trained in his art. He should have his own horse—an animal with light, springy action and graceful movement, one that pleases the eye, too, for pleasure comes not alone from a sense of exercise. Furthermore, the rider and his horse should be on good terms. The latter, if an animal of good temper and intelligence, is sure to do his part well when the proper overtures are made to him—when he is treated kindly and wisely, and is made to understand clearly what he is expected to do. With such an understanding between rider and horse each enters into the sport with spirit and zest, with a mutual confidence and mutual desire for an exhilarating dash that rewards each alike with—as Dr. Holmes says of boating—“the most luxurious form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit.”

This degree of pleasure is not within the compass of the novice—not within the grasp of the man of bad temper and coarse mental composition, who hasn’t the confidence and love of his horse—not within the bounds of possibility to him who rides a school horse, which is, as a rule, little more than a hack—a horse in appearance, to be sure, but not a horse in the finer instincts and finer feelings of the carefully bred and well cared for animal.

The school horse, which is ridden by riders of all grades, by men of varying moods and widely different tempers, is sometimes treated kindly, but more frequently abused, and is too often pushed to the point of exhaustion—such a horse soon loses its spirit, and forgetting its better nature settles down into a plodding, unintelligent machine.

To become an expert oarsman one must give months, even years, to practice. This holds true of all sports in which one wishes to excel, and yet the average man evidently thinks, from the assurance he displays in sallying forth to ride, that he can without any training mount a horse and forthwith become a perfect horseman, when the only equipment he has for the undertaking consists of his two legs which enable him to sit astride the saddle. But this does not constitute riding in its true sense. That is an accomplishment to be acquired only by the most painstaking training and long practice. When one sees the men—and women too, for that matter—who, having had no training and possessing no knowledge of the horse, yet insist upon attempting to ride, he is reminded forcibly of the old adage that every man thinks he can run a newspaper or keep a hotel. So it is with horsemanship. If the novices who venture into Central Park on horseback and out upon the road could see themselves as the true horseman sees them, they would perhaps conclude that riding is an accomplishment in which they are wofully deficient.

But the ridiculous features in the riding of the novice are of little importance as compared with the danger to the rider and a greater danger to others, for it is the horse of the novice, for the most part, that makes riding on the Central Park bridle path, or any crowded thoroughfare, so hazardous. Anything that gains the stamp of social approbation is sure to be taken up by a veritable army of would-be fashionables. This latter set, which in a city like New York is a numerous one, moved by an intense eagerness to “do the correct thing,” immediately takes it up and makes a “fad” of it, regardless of such considerations as fitness or lack of fitness for the thing attempted. But fortunately for horsemanship this superficial class does not constitute the great body of riders in the metropolis. Horsemanship has taken too firm a hold of the intelligent and wealthy portion of the community, who as a rule do things well, to be in danger of such declension. It has awakened an interest that has prompted the establishment of not less than half a dozen large training schools and several riding clubs, of which many of the best citizens of the city are members. The work of the training schools—and all of them are kept busy—includes individual instruction during the day and class riding in the evening. A few years ago but one or two riding schools had been established in New York, and their recent increase shows how rapidly horsemanship has gained in popularity. The riding teachers, and each school has a number, are almost without exception drawn from the best European institutions of the kind. With such instructors the schools of New York are turning out as fine riders as the English or French academies. The number of enthusiastic equestrians and equestriennes who own their own horses and ride with painstaking care to perfect themselves in the accomplishment, is growing larger every year. Class riding has become one of the most enjoyable evening recreations of New York during the winter months. Every night in the week different classes fill the big riding academies and ride to the accompaniment of music. The classes are led by professors of the school, and are put through many fancy figures, which are varied with plain riding, sometimes the gallop, sometimes the sitting trot and more frequently the rising trot. On special nights jumping and exhibition riding of the most difficult sort are given. There are galleries for spectators in all the schools, and these are usually filled by friends of those in the ring. Class riding in the Park is very popular, and during the spring and fall excursions into the country in the cool of the day, returning by moonlight, after dining at some suburban hostelry, are frequent and highly pleasurable to the participants.

Central Park, on a September afternoon, when the expensive equipages of the wealth and fashion of the city are to be seen on the East Drive, presents much the appearance of Rotten Row. This similarity has been greatly enhanced by the increased number of fine riders—men and women—who fly gayly along the bridle path that skirts the favorite drive.

Riding is almost universally commended by physicians, and their indorsement of its health giving qualities has certainly contributed to the firm hold it has upon a great and growing constituency. The passion for outdoor exercise that has so thoroughly taken possession of American men is shared fully by their young wives and sisters. It is doubtful if any other form of sport in the open air appeals to them with anything approaching the same force. They have not the physical strength necessary for rowing and the active games whose votaries are animated by the reckless enthusiasm exhibited, for instance, in the gentle game of football. But they can ride, and ride well, and with quite as keen enjoyment as their brothers. Another cause, perhaps, of the pastime’s rapid growth in popularity among women lies in the fact of the wonderful improvement in riding habits. The old time habit, with its tremendous skirt, was an enormity—a thing to transform a handsome woman into a being so ill proportioned and so ungainly that it is a wonder she ever had the courage to disfigure herself with such an outrageous garb. But the habit of today is a thing of beauty and a joy forever—when the right girl wears it. There is, perhaps, no costume in which a good figure appears to better advantage than in the latest style of snug fitting, short skirt habit.

If the art of more skillful tailors figures to any extent in luring fair woman into horsemanship, then much honor to the tailor, though he be, as tradition has it, but one ninth of a man. The fact that more women ride now than formerly is good enough reason why more men are at present enthusiastic riders; for where the girls are there shall the men be also.

HALLOWE’EN.

(October 31st.)

I.

At Hallowe’en, so calm and still,
All frisky spirits are astir:
The fairies haunt the vale and hill,
And witch-like elves meet to confer.

II.

But we can well keep free from those,
For by the fireside round about
Sweet rosy maids meet with their beaux
To spell their future fortune out.

III.

Chestnuts or walnuts, pair by pair,
Are put upon the living coals,
And if they lie contented there
They represent two happy souls.

IV.

Some eat an apple, while they stare
Within the telltale looking glass:
And as they eat and comb their hair
The fated face is sure to pass

V.

Before their eyes. Some pull the kale;
Some try the oats, or size the sack;
Some seek the rivulet in the vale,
Some hemp seed sow for answer back.

VI.

Ah, me! How many spells of old
To tell our fortunes I have seen;
No sweeter charm does memory hold,
Than those past hours of Hallowe’en.

A LIFE’S SPECULATIONS.

When a wee child I used to wonder why
The bright stars fell not from the bending sky,
For I no sky line saw to hold them by,
When told of angels up beyond the blue,
I used to wonder if the winged crew
Flew races, when they’d nothing else to do.

A little later, as around I played,
And saw that young girls were so frail and ’fraid,
I wondered why on earth a maid was made.
No mortal use the timid things could be
That a philosopher of six could see—
So great a mystery was the sex to me.

A few years more, when youth’s expansive flame
Put my philosophy of six to shame,
A greater mystery the sex became.
Next into college I for knowledge went
And wondered at the time so vainly spent—
Four years for learning things not worth a cent!

A year of lounging in that sacred place,
Then round the world to see the human race
I wandered, and my wonder grew apace.
More than seven marvels had the world for me,
And this the greatest: why the poor should be
Slaves of the rich men, when they might be free.

But having had sufficient time to cool
My fancy in this tough world’s roughest school
I give up life’s conundrums—as a rule.
Yet such is habit—howsoe’er we try—
The other day I fell to wondering why
In Yankee taverns they serve cheese with pie.

_Henry W. Austin._

AN ACCIDENTAL ROMANCE.

_By Matthew White, Jr._

His friends called Radnor Hunt a cynic. He laughed lightly when accused of being cold and unresponsive, and declared that he must have imbibed the trait unconsciously from the nature of his work, for winter landscapes were his specialty. But now and then when he was alone, in the little studio over the stable in Fifty Fifth Street, where he worked by day and slept by night, he would look at himself in the mirror over his dressing case and—laugh again, such a hard, bitter laugh, that sometimes he shuddered on hearing it, and glanced fearfully around him as if dreading to see the author of the sound.

“I, a cynic, a woman hater!” he would mutter, putting his hand above his eyebrows and leaning forward to peer more closely at himself in the glass. “Bah! how blind the world is! Who would believe from _this_ what rages _here_?”

And with a quick motion he would sweep his hand across his face and place it for an instant over his heart. Then, as if in utter disgust with himself, he would hastily turn out the light, fling himself on his bed, just as he was, and sleep thus till morning.

And yet Radnor Hunt was reckoned a moderately fortunate young man. He had come to New York knowing no one, and now, after a two years’ residence, he had had a picture in the Water Color which brought him orders for three others, while half a dozen periodicals were always ready to pay well for his “pot boilers,” the pen and ink work which Radnor despised.

He was an only child. His father had been a country doctor in a Connecticut town, who, contrary to the usual rule, had been proud of his son’s artistic tastes and had encouraged him in them. This, instead of being grateful for it, Radnor frequently recalled with bitter regret.

“If he had only laughed at my first attempt, taken my paints away from me and put me to some business,” he would sigh. “Then perhaps——”

But here he usually broke off his reflections, while a strange light would come into his eyes. It was in this mood that he frequently sprang up from his work to jam his hat fiercely over his brows and go out to take a long walk that was utterly aimless.

Mr. and Mrs. Hunt had both died within a few months of one another the winter before Radnor left home. He was twenty three then, and that summer he had passed with his cousin, Mrs. Stilton Barnes, in the Adirondacks. Mrs. Stilton Barnes was a Philadelphian who lived south of Market Street and who had at once conceived a great fondness for the handsome young relative whom she met for the first time in thirteen years at his mother’s funeral.

Radnor well remembered having worshiped her at a respectful distance when he was a small boy. She was then a happy hearted girl just leaving her teens behind her, and with her head too full of lovers, one of whom might turn out to be a husband, to pay much attention to the little fellow in knickerbockers whom she often caught looking at her with unveiled admiration in his great blue eyes.

Now positions were reversed. Camilla Hunt had become Mrs. Stilton Barnes, the wife of the well to do jeweler. The plumpness that had been the beauty of her youth had transformed itself into a buxomness that positively shocked Radnor when he first beheld it. He wondered how he could ever have found this woman charming and—here she was becoming really enthusiastic over him.

“My dear cousin,” she exclaimed, “why did you not let me know what I was missing? Why, you would have been a treasure indeed at my Friday evenings last winter,” and she would put up her lorgnettes for another survey which sent the blood surging to poor Radnor’s cheeks and made him look handsomer than ever.

Camilla Barnes was thoroughly candid and outspoken. Before she left Cheltenham she told Radnor that if she had had the slightest idea that he had developed into such a presentable specimen of humanity she would have had him out of that sleepy old town long before.

“It’s too late in the season to do anything now,” she added, “but I must insist on your spending the month of August with us at Lorimac. We shall then have plenty of opportunity to talk over the future.”

Nor would she go away until Radnor had given his consent. After all, she was his cousin, and if she chose to extend to him the hospitality of a hotel, why should he not accept it, as he would have done at her own home?

Radnor’s pride was the most notable element in his make up. It was indomitable, unyielding. Even as a boy it permeated his life, and made him miserable whenever in his studies he fell short of the high standard he had set for himself.

But for the reasons given he finally decided to accept his cousin Camilla’s invitation. If he could have read the future and foreseen the consequences of that Adirondack visit, he would have shunned the place as a plague spot.

At least this was what he told himself almost always when he recalled it. At other times he felt that he would not have had the experience left out of his life for all the joys that the entire span of three score and ten might have in store for him.

Even before this period he had gained some fame and a little money as an illustrator of children’s books, and now that the last tie that bound him to Cheltenham was severed by his mother’s death, he decided that he would take the step which the nature of his work rendered almost a necessity—settlement in some city close to his markets.

However, this could now easily be deferred till fall, and meantime he had the estate to close up, and then the month with Mrs. Barnes would doubtless do much toward the shaping of his plans.

Radnor had traveled but little, still he possessed that quality of adaptiveness that made him seem easy and at home wherever he was. His mother had been a Bournie, of Huguenot descent, and of the most delicate refinement. Radnor inherited this quality from her in very large degree, tempered with the rugged persistency and vigor of his father.

Her cousin’s arrival at the Lorimac House created all the sensation Mrs. Stilton Barnes could have wished. With the tact of a true diplomatist she had said but little about him beforehand. Expectations too fully roused, she well knew, were almost invariably doomed to disappointment. So she had merely told a few of her most particular friends that she expected a cousin of hers from New England.

“A young artist,” she added, “who has recently lost his mother, so I shall not be expected to give him a gay time.”

Men, of course, were scarce at this distance from the cities. There were any number of boys in their teens, and several dudes, who spent almost as much time as the ladies in devising new combinations of sash and hat bands, outing jackets and shirts. This fact had been uppermost in Camilla Barnes’s mind when she asked Radnor to come to Lorimac. She felt that he would tower head and shoulders above all the other males at the hotel.

“And who knows but he may make a rich catch?” she even whispered to herself.

It was a reversal of things, she knew, this exploiting of a man, but then the very uniqueness of the process added zest to it for this woman whose nature craved excitement of this sort above all other things.