The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-01-06
PASSING OF THE roBoeaAN.
Society becomes Tired of the Great
Winter Recreation.

Reliable reports come from Minnesota
and other far North States, where they
have hills and things that they can slide
on when there is enough snow that the
toboggan is dead onei" The long fat
board with the turned-up nose which used
to fly down the steep frozen declivities
with the speed of a cannon ball will fly no
more, at least for the present II has
been relegated to the walls of dens and
clubrooms, where 1t sticks silently an
alleged article of decoration OF the relic
pattern.
Society went back on the toboggan. and
when society goes back on a bit of sport
ing goods the goods might as we'll hunt
for its sarcophagus and crawl in and let
society seal on the capstone. Time was
when the erstwhile toboggan was the
warmest winter favorite that ever cavort-
ed among the frozen hills of the Northern
States, but it has gone the way of all
| other favorites that have reigned with too
much popularity. But few short years
ago winter without the toboggan in the
billy country would have been like a
Fourth of July without fireworks The
season would have been naught but bit
ter patch of melancholy. In those days
the young folks wos sid have gone into
! spasms of indignation and vexation II
they had been deprived OF the privilege OF
tobogganing. But now the 'boggan has
gone down the slide and there is no evil
dence that it is going to come back up.
A few winters ago the toboggan Juror
that reigned in the parts where the sport
had any show whatever attracted the at
tention of the entire country. The daily
newspapers. the weeklies and the maya
zines displayed long profusely illustrated
articles on the sport and the popular in
diligence in It time and again and people
who had no more prospect of ever seeing
a toboggan than they have of seeing the
North Pole talked of the runnerlesa sleds
and their awful flights with breathless in
terest. Stamped in the mind of every
reader is the picture of the long snow ard
ice embankment with torches down the
sides and in the middle OF the slide the
big toboggan filed with boys and girls
flying down the declivity at the rate of a
mile a minute. When the reader saw
this time-honored old picture for the first
time he always held his breath and ejacu-
lated in low, smothered tones, My, isn't
that just awful?' and at the same time
he had a secret longing to be on the spot
and try one whirl down the chute.
IL used to be said that 1t required long
persuasion to induce the extremely timid
to ever board a toboEgan, but after they
had once taken a trip they hungered for
more of THE same" with greater avidity
than anyone else on the hill. When the
in st. Paul and Minneapolis it was well
worth a trip to the gopher cities to see
the amusement in full blast on a cold
winter night. Everybody owned a tobog-
gan or belonged to a toboggan club. At
night the frozen hills and snow and ice
covered embankments, built sometimes
especially for the sport, were lighted up
with great torches until they were as
bright as day and swarming about on
every hand were men and women young
and middle aged, dressed in their fan
tastic red, white, and blue blanket cos
tunes and streaming from their heads
were the long points of the knitted caps
that were pulled down over their ears
like nightcaps.
And the great slides prepared for the
use Of the tobogganers meant a mile a
minute ride down a steep incline, every
foot Of which was fraught with peril. Many
wild tumbles ensued, many ears and noses
were frozen in the pursuit OF this capti-
waiting sport, and yet the toboggan dropped
in popularity with sudden and hard a
thud as the roller skate. Just as in the
case OF the roller skates. when the tobog-
gan was at its height, the sales made by
sporting goods houses were enormous con-
sidering the size of the cities One firm
alone in the city OF st. Paul sold in a few
months in the neighborhood of 50, 900 worth
of toboggans.
The advent of the toboggan brought skis
into high favor. The first ones. made Of /,
Norway pine, had a monopoly for awhile,
but American ingenuity and enquiry speed 4
lily disposed Of the absurdity of sending all +
the way to Norway for skis. Some genius /
discovered that Georgia pine was just as /
good for the purpose. and that wood is (
now used almost exclusively for the manu- j
facture Of skis in the United States From f
the peculiar character OF the Georgia pine |
snow will not adhere To n