Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table February 9 1897 by Various

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The course has been made several times by the instructor in 27 strokes, and a few of the better players among the boys in 36 strokes, Griggs in 29. The majority of the boys, however, content themselves with some number between 40 and 50. In the course of a few months some twenty or thirty of the boys will be singled out and given more specific instructions, so that the tournaments to be held in the spring may be well played.

The announcement which came to us from New Haven some few days since, that the Hillhouse High-School would not put a track-athletic team into the field this year, brings up the question again of uniting the various athletic associations of the State. The football association of the Connecticut schools is a different organization from the track-athletic association, although both are made up of about the same schools. The football association is financially prosperous--in fact it came out some 0 to the good this year after paying all expenses, and this money is now doubtless drawing interest in the savings-bank.

The track-athletic association, however, is not so great a success from a financial point of view, and is now in debt, or, if not, it has been until very recently. This state of affairs is probably due to the fact that the expenses of a track-athletic meeting are heavy, and there is only one meeting a year, to which the small admission-fees charged are not sufficient to defray all the expenses.

On the other hand, there is a great popular interest in football in Connecticut, and the money contributed by spectators at the principal championship games is very much in excess of the requirements of the association. Perhaps, too, so far as track athletics are concerned, there has been a little mismanagement. The spring games of 1895 were very successfully managed, and proved a financial success, but the association was in heavy debt previous to that date, and the profits of 1895 went to make good some of the deficiencies of previous occasions.

In 1896, however, the managers of the games were incompetent, and the meeting proved a financial failure. The games were not properly advertised in New Haven, where they were held, and on the day of the meeting there were more spectators present from Hartford than there were from the home city. Furthermore, the managers were extravagant in the purchase of prize cups, and when they came to figure up their accounts there was a deficit.

It is the belief among a number of the young men interested in track athletics in Connecticut that if the track-athletic meetings cannot be conducted at a profit, they ought certainly, by good management, to be conducted without loss. It has been suggested that instead of having a football association, a track-athletic association, a baseball association, and perhaps other athletic organizations, it would be the better plan to have a single association that would govern all interscholastic sports in the State. The managers of this association would be the managers of each sport as it came up with the season, and the treasurer of the association would be responsible for all the moneys received and disbursed.

Thus if there was a profit from football, that profit could go to the assistance of any deficit there might be in track athletics. At the larger colleges this plan of uniting all branches of athletics under one financial management has been found to be the best plan, for in sport there must always be one branch that is self-supporting while another is not.

Furthermore this plan of uniting all school sports under one financial management in Connecticut would solve the problem of what to do with the surplus in the treasury at the end of the football season. It would seem that, knowing there was a deficit in the track-athletic treasury, the officials of the football association would have turned over from their surplus the amount necessary to make good the shortage. It is to be hoped that the desire of those who wish to unite all sports under one head will be carried out, for it would be to the benefit of athletics in Connecticut.

The Hartford High-School will have three representatives at the Knickerbocker A.C. games next month. F. R. Sturtevant will enter the high jump. He won the event last year with 5 ft. 7-1/2 in. He will also enter the pole-vault. His record in this event is 10 ft. 5 in. J. F. Morris will enter the 100, 220, and 440 yard dashes. He has run the 100 in 10-1/2 sec.; the 220 in 23-3/5 sec.; the 440 in 52-4/5 sec. C. A. Roberts will enter the walk. He is an unknown quantity.

The Board of Education of Chicago seems to be taking a hand in athletics, so far as the high-schools of that city are concerned. A rule has been passed which makes it necessary for the Cook County athletes to work hard at their lessons. No scholar at any of the high-schools who is not a regular student taking a regular course may represent his school in any athletic event. The principal of the school is required to sign a voucher certifying to these facts, and it is also required of him to see that no pupil lets his marks fall below a certain average, the penalty for this being that he must give up athletics until his school work is brought up to the required standard.

There is a lull in athletics among the Chicago schools just at present--the quiet before the storm, most likely. The in-door baseball games do not seem to be getting along very prosperously, and there is considerable opposition to them among some of the students, on the ground that an admission-fee is charged. Lake View High-School still leads for the championship, having won every game played, with Austin second.

There has been a protest game, of course. It was in the match between North Division and Evanston. In the last half of the ninth inning North Division was at the bat, with the score 7-9 in favor of Evanston. The crowd that was looking on got in pretty close to the Evanston fielders, who claimed that this prevented them from doing their proper and necessary work. The Evanston captain protested against the crowding, but as this had no effect with the on-lookers he left the floor with his team.

The matter was of course brought up at the next League meeting, but the executive committee decided that Evanston was in the wrong, gave the game to North Division, and legislated that in the future any nine that left the floor should forfeit the game to the opponents.

The Long Island Interscholastic Athletic League has decided to hold the first annual skating championships of the organization at the Clermont Avenue Ice-Skating Rink, on Clermont Avenue near Myrtle, Brooklyn. J. A. Forney, of Adelphi Academy, has been appointed to ascertain upon what conditions the Rink may be had for the races, which will probably be held the last week of this month.

The in-door games of the Long Island Interscholastic League will be held on February 20 at the Cycle Club, Brooklyn. There will be ten events contested, and among them one of those precious events for "juniors."

The basket ball championship series has already begun, and the schedule will be played out as follows:

Arrangements for the track meeting between Lawrenceville and the Hill School are about to be completed, and it is sincerely to be hoped that whatever arrangements are made will be carried out. Last year the meeting that was proposed, and the league of big schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, never came to anything; but as sport advances all these plans will doubtless be carried through, and a strong organization ought to grow out of them.

"TRACK ATHLETICS IN DETAIL."--ILLUSTRATED.--8VO, CLOTH, ORNAMENTAL, .25.

THE GRADUATE.

A CURIOSITY OF LITERATURE.

It happened that the marquis casually uttered the only proverb not in the book.

Camden mentions an interview of Heywood with Queen Mary, at which her Majesty inquired what wind blew him to court. He answered, "Two, specially--the one to see your Majesty."

"We thank you for that," said the Queen; "but I pray you, what is the other?"

"That your Grace," said he, "might see me."

The curious work on proverbs is in rhyme, and contains many sayings that are now forgotten, as well as allusions to superstitions still remaining.

ENGLISH AND ENGLISH.

How many of us know what a "corridor express" is? or who can guess the meaning of the term "bogie coach"? and to how many of us, indeed, is the word "coach" a natural expression for car? and, finally, when a train or anything else is "split" into two parts, does not the expression convey to our minds something divided from end to end longitudinally, and not cut in two? After all, the English spoken in one place differs largely from the English spoken elsewhere, and probably ours is as good as that of any one else.

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QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.

ON KEEPING YOUR OWN COUNSEL.

It is an old saying among schoolboys and college men that the fellow who keeps his mouth shut is always the big man; that he who deliberately says little quickly wins for himself the name for wisdom. Such statements are quite as true in the outer world to a certain degree as they are in college and school. The pith of the matter is that if in any way you arrive at a position of any importance, the less you talk to every one the more credit you receive for care, for thoughtfulness, for sound well-considered opinions. Here is nothing which urges a boy to have no opinions or to never express them; and in fact this "wise silence" at school and college as often, perhaps, covers up an empty mind as it does the wisdom of Solomon. There is, however, a good rule to follow, which may be given briefly, to the effect that it is well to say little until you have thoroughly made up your mind, and then not to hesitate in your statements. The temptation of the average man is to express some opinion at once, but if that is changed later, the full force of the final opinion is lost.

Let others do the wrangling. Your opinion will have all the more influence if you come out strong with it at the close of the discussion, when not only are the others considerably in doubt as to what they do want, but you have also had the advantage of hearing many sides of the case.

That is to say, that in your daily behavior towards the others in school it is well to keep your "talk" in reserve. It is a habit easily acquired, and one that in the end works both ways. It adds both to the value of your advice, because the advice is better considered, and it gives the advice an added value so far as others are concerned, because when you only say a little, that little has the more consideration.

In the course of athletic games there are two ways of treating friends and opponents. One way is as easy as another, for both are merely habits. Many a good chap at baseball or football is constantly grumbling whenever the umpire or referee gives a decision. He objects to the decision on principle; he goes back to his place in the field criticising the partisanship of the official, and makes himself uncomfortable as well as disagreeable to the umpires and the other teams. If this young man should be asked some day--off the field, of course--whether it were sportsmanlike to criticise in the midst of a game an umpire properly chosen, he would, no doubt, maintain in strong terms that such criticism was the most unsportsmanlike thing possible, and then he would promptly deny that he ever made such criticism. Yet there are many such, and it is unfortunately one of the most common sights on a school athletic field to-day to find the two teams wrangling with the umpire over a decision he has made, and this, too, after he has been asked ten minutes before to decide all such questions for them. It is only another form of the same lack of habit in courteous behavior, and it causes most of the hard feeling between schools and colleges to-day.

So one might go on by the hour speaking of the different questions in school and college life which are examples of lack of behavior of the most ordinary kind, but the root of the matter is that each boy should say to himself that he will be constantly reserved, that he will wait for the proper moment to speak and act, and that he will then act vigorously if he is convinced the time has come.

A BLOCKADE VENTURE.

During the blockade of Buenos Ayres a clipper bark laden with flour was fitted out at Boston with the express purpose of running in. The late Augustus Hemenway was her supercargo. After a tedious voyage she arrived off Buenos Ayres, and found the blockade too close to run in, and was compelled to cruise off and on, waiting for a change in her favor. While thus lazily reconnoitring, she spoke a vessel from Valparaiso, which reported a famine there. Mr. Hemenway at once decided to try Valparaiso. The Captain hesitated; he said his vessel was not adapted to double Cape Horn in the dead of winter; but young Hemenway assumed the entire responsibility, and the Captain yielded. She had a favorable slant round the Horn, and reached Valparaiso in safety, where her cargo was sold at high prices. The Chilians were so grateful for the timely relief that they loaded the bark as deep as she could safely swim with copper ore, and all concerned in the venture made a fortune. Later, Mr. Hemenway opened a trade with Valparaiso in copper, wool, nitrate, etc., by which he became one of the richest men in Boston.

DAYBREAK.

When the sunlight peeps in through the curtains at dawn, His Highness awakes with a smile and a yawn, And his little fat hands fly up in the air, Out of whole-souled delight that a new day is there.

He laughs to himself and he churns his pink heels, He gurgles and chirps at the pleasure he feels, And he looks with dismay at the big folk near by Who sleep while the daylight is kissing the sky.

The sight of a sunbeam is thrilling and new; The big folk are missing it--that will not do! Awake, oh, good people, awake to the sight! Come out of your pillows, 'tis no longer night!

See what a wonderful broad streak of gold Has come through the window! Arise and behold A slice of the dawn dancing over the floor! Was ever so glorious a vision before?

But the elders, to whom the awakening of day Is old as their memories, turn blindly away, And his Highness is left, with the birds of the trees, To carol his joy at the new life he sees.

ALBERT LEE.

CAPTAIN HEARD'S EXPLOIT WITH A PRIVATEER.

The speed of the Baltimore clippers in days gone by made history redound with their exploits. Every boy and girl has read at some time or place of the piratical long, low, rakish-looking schooners that cruised the ocean ostensibly as privateers, but chiefly as pirates, in those days, and have marvelled more or less at their astounding adventures. A good story is told of the late Captain Augustine Heard, that while in command of a fine ship richly laden, bound from China to New York, he was overhauled by one of this kind, which came up under his lee, fired a shot into his ship, and demanded in "good English" that she should be hove to. Captain Heard watched a favorable opportunity, squared his yards, ran the privateer down, passed over her between the masts, and when well to leeward brought his ship to the wind and resumed his course. She had lost some of her head-gear, but sustained no damage in her hull. Captain Heard left the "long, low, black privateer," or pirate, to her fate, and had no doubt that all her crew perished.

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