Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-11-08

ne has pIOVlQ6Q tucm.
1t is indeed story of contrasts, a record |
of struggle with and triumph over that |
brooding selfshness which forgets all woes |
but its own, and it is wisely left to point |
it's own clearly defined moral. HILARY.
MIR. WAKEMAN'S JOURNEYINGs.
At Glen Anaric, Scotland-Three
British Holidays The Glorious
Twelfth of August-The Moorland
Cabin and the Highland Sheeling.
GLEN AFFARIc, Scotland, Sept. "a.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
If, as shown in the preceding article,
twenty million dollars is annually expend-
ed by British sportsmen in hunting and
fishing in Scotland, it may be easily under
stood that, of the three great British pop
ular days, 'Derby day." which is move
able sporting day, Bankers holiday, on
which day every British subject feels snti-
tied to his ease and sport, and tho statute
,ry feast-day of the Twelfth of August, the
latter, which is the annual day dedicated
to slaugter of grouse, is always rife with
the most intense thrills of anticipatory
pleasure.
The pent-up yearnings of an army of
British Nimrods explode on this day.
The very mention of the glorious Twelfth
at any other season of the year fills their
whole beings with flashes and quivers of
hunger for the moors and fields. 1t
would be national crisis indeed that
would compel parliament to hold over this
sc;4 of &la
sport. If last week the social, political
and financial "season" was at its height;
if all the milords, the honorables this or
that, and the whole list of artists, actors,
literators, bankers, manufacturers, clerics,
scientists, and what-nots, whose doings
make London the real center of the world,
and this whole eight little island" the
brain and Drawn workshops for European
civilization and progress, were at their
tensest strainings of activities; this week,
if it contains the exalting "Twelfth," the
foremost people of Great Britain are a
wholly different set of human beings.
There is now an enthusiasm, heartiness,
geniality and hilariousness about the Brit
ish man that makes you feel you have mis-
judged him. He is no longer stone. He
is radiant, generous human. In justice
this will even apply to the grave and aus
tere Scotch. High-lows and CATERS, bal
morals and Tam O'Shanters, corduroys
and collarless necks, endless fap-pockets
and suggestions of TASKS, show this Brit
ish man of the hunting season off to good
advantage besides. His language is hon
est and hearty, his laughter has, 1 am sor-
ry to say, more integrity than the Ameri-
can laugh, which always seems to be beg
ging pardon or casting challenge, and
his face is continually wreathed in smiles.
The world seems good to him and anybody
where he is. And therefore, if he spends
forty instead of twenty millions for the
thing which makes him for even brief
period of the year brighe-faced instead
of bear-faced Briton, he has not done
amiss. After all, the beggarly brace of
grouse, ptarmigan or pheasants. OF the
trembling -kneed and skinny deer he has
knocked over with his expensive fowling-
piece, is not 80 much the yearly motive
which impels him to immense expense and
labor. Whether or not himself conscious,
the impalpable, undefinable witcheries of
that sweet nature ever calling to man to be
bettered, is what draws him on. The
wide, free moorlands odorous with count
less flowers and vagrant weeds; the glori-
GUS sides of mountains, endless panora-
mas of scene and color as the shine and
cloud chase each other across them; the
white wings of mountain mist softly flap
ping the grim old peaks; the purple heath
er; the rocky glens; the stupendous
straths; the feathery waterfalls; the wimp-
ling burns. and above all the deep and
dreamful lochs of Scotland; these are the
British sportsman's real quarry after all.
For month before the Twelfth all
kinds of preparation are making. The
first eleven days in August almost gives
the impression of the gathering of an
army of militia, and on the day itself, and
| indeed for q week before, the Princess
street station, Edinburgh, Exchange and
Lyme street stations, Liverpool, and par
| ticularly the Euston Square station of the
London and Northwestern railway, in Lon
don, present most animated scenes. All
other passenger traffic gives way to the
hunter hosts. Horses and heavy luggage
have been sent on by the goods trains''
in advance, but the platforms are massed
with hampers, pouches, cases of fowling-
| pieces, dogs, boxes of dogs food, and
countless paraphernalia of hunting, while
excited groups of kennel-keepers, masters,
clad in the toughest and greasiest of gar
ments, and excited amateurs dressed to
proclaim their destination, jostle each 9TH
er in good-natured desperation in extraor-
binary efforts to monopolize the attentions
of porters, guards and trainmen. From
| six to eighteen hours bring them all to
their journeys end; for there is no "shoot-
ing'' in the remotest part of Scotland
which cannot be reached in the latter time
from London.
The moorland cabin and the Highland
sheeling. which were formerly the abode
of the British sportsmen, have given way
to the modern "shooting-box," which i,
never less than O handsome cottage, an6
the sslodge," which is often as grand as the
magnificent palace. Aside from these ex
elusive conveniences for sportsmen, it il
becoming more and more the custom OF
the part of titled owners of large north
ern estates, who retain possession of theil
own ssshootings," or who lease them Il
others with privilege of themselves and ,
certain number of guests shooting ovel
their own preserves, to discharge many o
their London social obligations by enter
tanning their city friends with "a few day
shooting" We Americans have no com
prehension of the universally of tn,
sportsman instinct and education in Grea
Britain. Reading English fiction, and par
ticularly Kingsley's novels, gives an in
sight into the Importance of hunting an,
shooting to every English bred man. s.
that the greater the man be socially, pc
litically or financially, in England, tn
more likely it is that he is bred from
youth, though always living in London, t
following the hounds and shooting grous
on the moors, or pheasants within tn
'sbounds" walls of great demesnes III
may neither own nor rent shooting.
But he has q great London house This
open to his northern noble friends durin
the London season" The return cour
tesy involves entertainment during tn
shooting" season; and it is often the cas-
that large number of the genuine aris
!. tocracy of the island will be found at an
one of the numberless great northern pa
aces during the autumn than are ever @
, one time crowded within sitting walls q
the most exclusive of London winter N
, ceptions.
!. If you were pilgriming afoot and alon
in Scotland, and should suddenly com
upon one of these hunting parties, whett
er beating in the moorlands for grouse, @
, in a mad gallop after the hounds for fo
or deer, you could never make an error
Judgment as to whether you were baskin
| in the sunshine of nobility, or merely hay
ing the dust flung in your eyes by pare,
! of common mortals. The latter, ever
Q year comprising greater number of OF
8 own eountrymen who have graduate
= from the thrilling diversion of chssin
9 anise-seed bags across the moors of Ne
: Jersey, the sage-brush sand chasms ,
. Long Island or the rocky fastnesses
c Westchester county, are accoutred like
!, band of "show" gipsies or the lords an
s ladies' of medieval pageant. The o
Q pale blue blood of Britain scorns the