Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-21
OLD STORIES Rrro1n.
How Men Try to Make Heroes of Them
selves.


From the Forest and Stream
There is well recognized tendency
among tellers of old stories, to rehabili-
tate their tales and give them an air of
truthfulness, by assigning them to some
familiar locality or fastening them upon
some individual known to possess the
traits of character they illustrate. Thus,
many OF the old stories about dogs and
dog owners are periodically revamped and
retold with circumstantiality of name and
place and date, like the story told in En-
gland of guardsman who evaded the
dog muzzling law by fastening the muzzle
on to the dog (but on his taiD, the same
thing being related in this country of Ben
Butler. There is that venerable legend
related in all the ancient English works
on sporting, of the faithful pointer or
setter, as the case happens to be, which
pointed its game, and the sportsman not
coming, remained steadfastly on point, to
be discovered long afterward a skeleton,
still faithfully pointing the bones of the
covey of birds. This very yarn, as familiar
| as Esop's fables, has within the last year
been told in the Providence, r. l., Journal.
of pointer dog "Leo," owned by we'll
known sportsman of Providence, and by
the Atlanta, Ga, Consultation, of a white
pointer owned by the father of Captain
w. w. Lawson, famous hunter of Burke
| county, Ca
We received the other day copy of the
Des Moines Neus, in which Judge Kava-
nagh of that city, who is we'll known to be a
dog fancier, is credited with having returned
home with covered basket on his arm.
to be met at the door by his mother, who
| was told: Mother, have Just made S25
| good lady wanted to know how and he
said: 81 have just bought $50 dog for
$40, and here he is" pulling from the
basket a bull puppy, to the disgust of his
mother, who detests all kinds of dogs.
| This will be recognized as an old story,
which has been current for years and
years, and has probably been told of every
| prominent dog lover in the country.
Judge Kavanagh belongs to vast army
| of men who have made equally advanta-
geous dog trades.
Very many of the 'good storiesn of
hunting and fishing are told over and over
| again, each locality having its particular
| sporting character" of whom or by whom
the tale is related. An amusing illustra-
ton of this recently came to notice. 1t
was the story of the man who, while hoe
ing corn or grading wheat, saw the big
buck in the field, chased it and captured
it founderlng in snow-drift There
came to the Forest and Stream not long ago
version of this story, sent us by Kins-
man, Ohio, contributor, the hero being
''Uncle Charlie Kellogg" who was said to
have captured the buck in a bayfield, in
July, in the eastern part of Ohio. A day
or two after the receipt of this commune
cation came another from an Ithaca, n.
Y, correspondent, written on the same
| day, and relating the same story Of a GER
tain "Uncle Dick E." forty-niner of
that town. Subsequent correspondence de-
veloped the fact that each of these men
had told and retold this tale, each one
making himself its hero. If the census
takers should note all the old sportsmen in
this country who have captured big bucks
in July snow-drifts, the regiment of them
would perhaps outnumber the surviving
| veterans of the Mexican war