The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-01


 cumulative bullheads and other fish, mostly sinners and very elusive and slippery. Inaimate objects of much in- terest were then also to be found, such as tin bake-ovens and dippers without handles.
 The best place to catch lamprey eeis was just below the blue market house, down by Rowland's mill, near the cor ner of Union and Cherry streets rms was a. favorite place for boys to gather together and see and do things hKe playing q spy" and other games. Xne big tank into which the canal water was pumped for the use of the city sprinklers was a structure or no beauty at alL architecturally, but 1t had US admirers and was, in some mysterious way, rather an incentive to boys nat ural ambition to climb.
 And if a boy (the veteran of this tline' had an ear for true melody, the oe- lightsome harmony of the boatmen horns floated out of distance on planu midsummer nights with soothing not to say entrancing, effect. The music had peculiar witchery for susceptlple boys and, for aught know, gave them their first impulse toward becoming member of a band, or, at least, player upon a fife, and maybe bugle Tn tline' And as for imagination such as Fer sian and no doubt poets of other iaHus enioyed. there were enough strange op- iects always floating down from lock to lock. unless stranded on the tow path. to entertain good deal or the mind of a likely boy. Especlally so 0N moonlight lights, when things halI seeh' emerging from the shadow Of prlose' might easily be fancied to De the corPses of dead Indians or constables, when m fact they were only logs of wood whlch had tumbled overheard, or catsi for the canal was q, popular place for disposlns l of sunerfluous cats, and when two or three went floating along in single ne thev might readily be supposed to oe somebody drowned.
 Next to singing cradle hymns to thelr children and teaching them the cate- cbism the mothers of New Haven eA- nended a good deal of energy in warn | ing hovs not to fall into the canal Some went so far as to Iorplu tne,l ii young sons the diversion Of salilng .noil tov boats on it's water, thus chechanS it, and handicapping a good deal or sklii and ingenuity in making boats WltA or1v one-bladed knife, and that, more o,,or oftantimes broken half way or US blade. .,,,,,.. Cor 1 The canal was the gymnasium. TOT New Haven boys sixty years ago. on it's oueer-smelling surface they shlppeu stonas and oyster shells, making them ricbochet an incredible number Of tlnes hefore final disappearance. From lts most elevated enlbankment were taken those daring plunges into the cooi anu dirty water, the eXhilerating rush Deine very bracing and remembered III altei years Boys knew how to ulVe III tnose davs and the canal was always In lIseil on invitation. On it's verge, of Sunoay . afternoons. no town crier with DIE ba1l was needed to summon the poys fo,, +he spectacular enjoyment of pap tisn, of new converts. They crowded +be tow-path and lined up on the bridges. and some went so far lhIo lh' thing as to join the singing, but gen erellv not in tune. At intervals few faat removed from the tow-path were inc long high piles of wood brough
 ao1,r, from towns aN the way to Gran by, the hillsides at the north furnlsilins apparently hardly anything put plhe Through the labyrinthine passages De +waen these pine tree walls shouting bannv fellows played hide and koop O.
 sat1rday afternoon until 1t became too dark to see.
 Although the canal miserably faile' in ifs mission of putting money int
 The pockets of its projectors 1t was monumental success as source
 nleasure for all boys. It was not con sfdered by any means an ignobie thinl
 for A boy to fall into it and to be res
 cued and rolled on a barrel and be sen ' home in a carriage, which was tn
 case, occasionally No more was It
 disgrace to get in and under the lc
 through breathing hole, but l neve
 was personally familiar with any bo
 who did it, being abundantly satisne
 to listen to accounts of him from boy
 who had heard of him. It was risk
 finn to climb over the hand rail of
 bridge and let yourself drop to the dec
 of a canal boat for a ride to the loci
 there being always the fluttering heal
 of doubt what might be the mood of tn captain whose power to punish for tr' pass was sovereign and limited. Tn : bows who did these daring things, CT
 vied as they were by all who kne'
 them, have long ago grown up. fe
 who have not died are probably captain themselves, If not of canal boats, whatever great establishment they b'
 long to in any part of the world.
 The days and times of the old cant , were happier, much, for certain kin of boys then these of many policemen . for then it was no offense against tf peace of the commonwealth or any vit !. lation of property to play two old cat the middle of the street. Constable
 (except one or two old admirers of D
 Skinner and his high-handed way of d. Q ing things) did not meddle with lots 5 | boys affairs that now are considere k "against the law" they the affair being only ordinary boy privileges no " and forever forbidden. I seems to m l 11ot Ja Eye