St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1877-09-21
Our New York Letter.

AMEhlCAN hEChEAIlONS- DE CHANTES
OF TEN YEARs-THE RISE AND FALL
OF NATIONAL AMUSEMENTS-RIFL
sHOOTING--soME OF ITS DIFFICULTIES
THE PRESENT MATCHEs-THE CEN
TENNIAL TROPHY REMAINS AT HOME.
New YORK, Sept. IA, 1877.
To the Editor Of the CdledOnian
We Americans take our amusements
something as our French cousins take
their meals-one item at time. You
know the latter people serve their fish,
their meat, their vegetables and their
salad separately and successfully, and
consider Uncle Sans plan of crowding
the table with everything at once, a
sort of uncivilized hodge-podge. On
the other hand, they in common with
most other nations have, and maintain
their various standard games and rec
reatiOns comparatively unchanged from
one generation to another. But our
own people are restlessly progressive
(the patriotic word for tickle,) in such
thing by turns and nothing long" Ten
years or so ago we had severe attack
of skating,-rinks, bands, gas, dancing
and high old time generally-ice in
winter and smooth floors in summer
Two or three years, however, sufficed
for the rise and fall of this fever and all
Inf no handsome ol, al
that could hardly be turned out fast
enough at from So to $l2 per pair, went
begging at SO and SIS. Then base ball
doomed up, and although that perilOus
and exciting institution is considerably
more tenacious of life than its prede-
cessor, it is plain that its attractiveness
has eliminated and is now on the wane.
Then came rowing; and in twink
| ling the clear ash logs began to take the
form of oars instead of bats. The cor
rect costume suddenly became a sleeve
less undershirt, and the young man
whose neck and arms were not the color
of sole leather, and whose cast-iron
biceps measured less than l8 inches in
circumference as suddenly found him
self nowhere. The new accomplish
ment captured the colleges and dis
placed as much of the regular Curriculum
as it found convenient, till state of
things arose which caused the simple
minded western farmer, ambitious for
his only son, to write down to the faculty
of Yale inquiring their "terms," and
wishing particularly to be informed
whether it would cost anything extra if
his boy should want to learn to read
and write as well as to row boat. We
even got so bold as to send over a crew
to storm the very stronghold of boat
racing, on the Thames. 1 stood on
Hammersmith bridge myself, and saw
the finish of that contest, and l guess
the less said about it the better.
But after the one glorious season at
Saratoga, when Cornell bore off the
honors, college boating subsidized to
about its former level and the feverish
spirit of novelty craving began to clamor
anew for qualification. Several tubs
thrown to this whale, such as yachting,
coaching and Polo, have been impa-
tiently thrown aside as only partially
available, and now rifle shooting is tenn
pOrarily without a rival in popular
favor. say temporarily, because judg-
ing from all precedent it is reasonable
to prophesy that not many seasons will
elapse before four-ffths of the clubs
whose high-sounding names now fill the
sporting columns of the newspapers,
will be disbanded, the ranges and butts
grown high with weeds, the sheds fall
ing to decay, and the now enthusiastic
shOotists absorbed in some newer amuse-
ment.
But whatever may become of my
reputation as a prophet, the fact re-
mains that at the present time, and par
ticularly during the present week, all o.
the population who can spare an houl
or a thought from their regular avoca.
tiOns are more interested in the pro
ceedings at Creedmore than in any 9th