The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 4, 1898, Page 25

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1898. 25 EARLY 3000 dead kangaroos. That at the last roo drive in which I par- Was our scors 1c ed just before I left Aus- € weeks ago. As far this was the g 1 in a single the cou ed the resul And what a glorious day’s shooting ras. 1 the whole realm of sport there are ably few pa = 1at offer so a field for I ct gratifica- of one's sporting instincts as a aroo “‘driv conducted under well appointed auspices. Of course there is not the same element of dan- ger In confronting th 18 legged den- fzen of the Australi orest as there is in following the tr of a grizzly; but the un is re furious and th 1ts _more con- ase) ordinarily, in game. s looking kangaroo is of the natlonal pests of the Anti- podes. He is rated with the nativ. dog, the hare and rabt fox (transplanted including the kangaroo, honored by being named in an act of & ——— the Australfan Parliament, designed to secure their extermination. That act known as “The Noxious Animals Destruction Act,” and under its pro- visions an internecine war is ruthless- zed all the year round against depredators. The sole offense of the kangaroo is that he eats too much grass. The rab- bit is a like offender and In teeming millions eat off the young pasture in the springtime, like the recorded plague of locusts, leaving vast areas of pastoral lands nothing but a panorama of desolation. A kangaroo will eat as much as a sheep and will drink a good deal mo water, and water is exceed- ingly valuable in the dry season. Were they not killed off the country would be valueless in a few years. Hundreds of thousands must be put to death every year and the expense of this is quite an item to the settlers. For these reasons the destruction of the kangaroo is not a mere matter of sport to the lordly settler, but a matter of self-defense. The state comes to the settlers’ aid, partially and indirect- 1y, by paying so much per dozen for kangaroo scalps, and for hares and rabbits’ ears. This reward furnishes sufficient inducement to a very numer- ous band of persons to devote all thelr rgies to the capture of scalps and The most effective engine of destruc- tion and the one that is th'nning the ranks of the kangaroo almost to the roint of extermination is the faraous kangaroo “drive.” This means of de- stroying the pest is universally adopted in the colonies and besides fulfilling the object of its originators in decimating the immense mobs of the squatter’s arch enemy it supplies a splendid day’s sport to all lovers of the gun. The method is fashioned on very similar lines to the great “rabbit drives” held in the San Joaquin Valley. The kan- garoo drives though are far more ex- citing and sportsmanlike. These drives are of frequent occur- rence, and in some parts of the colonies of New South Wales and Queensland it is quite possible to be present at an organized drive at least once a week. Of course these drives seldom yield any large number of kangaroos. For those one must go to the outlying districts, where drives are not frequent. The last drive in which I participated was in a locality that cost me two days to reach. There had been no previous drive over the land for six months and kangaroos were so thick that dozens of them were always in sight as we rode along the highway. The country, con- sequently, was as bare of vegetation as if the blight had struck it. To get up a drive like the one pro- posed was a big undertaking for the settlers. There were nearly a hundred knights of the trigger present and about two hundred beaters or drivers. The place of meeting was at the hos- pitable homestead of a wealthy settler, famous for his success in entertaining his visitors on such occasions. The un- dertaking was costly for it involved the filling of 300 hungry stomachs at an al fresco lunch in the forest. Early in the morning all hands met at the settler’s homestead. At a given signal the whole cavalcade moved off in the direction of the haunts of the kangaroo. At a certain point the shooters, armed with shotguns, dismount and take up their positions at the directlon cf the captain. This is in as nearly a straight line as possible, the men standing about seventy yards apart. 1 was fortunately given a position that commanded a good view of the entire country. Hav- ing stationed me the captain told me to remain there and await results. The drivers meanwhile separated themselves from the shooting contin- gent, moved toward the feeding grounds of the marsupial and there arranged themselves in semi-circular form at from fifty to one hundred yards apart. By yells and shouts and a running fire of stockwhips they turn the place for the time being into a veri- table pandemonium, and anifnals of every kind located within th2 sphere covered by the drivers fly in a'i direc- tions. But the men on the extrema SOLDIERS DIE OF HOMESICKNESS, WO deaths from nostalgia, or homesickness, in the American army at Santiago have been re- ported by General Shafter to the War Department. Both of these cases, remarkable to say, occurred in the same regiment, the Second Mass: chusetts Volunteers. We presume t the diagnosis in these cases fully and accurately made by the m tary surge i et we should like more light on this interesting and important study. The dally reports show that the troops at Santiago are suffering much from the climate and various infections, especially typhotd, malarial and yellow fevers, and this fact should remind us that the profound psychoses are not infrec associated with or caused by infection. Typhoid and ns especlally have been noted in tk role, and so true is this that in order to arrive at a strictly sclentific diagnosis it would be well to be sure whether any obscure form of either of these diseases is present in such cases. form larial of pois some m The fact that two c s occurred in the same regiment poi possibly also to the influence of imitation or sug- gestion. In all the psychoses, especially hysteria and the mild forms of insanity, | th facter is now well known to be | sometimes active. We need only recall the cases of folle communigue that have been put on record. In these in- stances a mental disease has been known to be communicated from a pa- tient to another highly susceptible per- In one instance three sisters were the first having imposed her delusions upon the others. Epidemics of hysteria are too well known to need more than mention: The fact, however, that the two cases in the army at Santiago were 8o rap- idly fatal can probably only be explained on the theory that the patients were | possibly much reduced physically by | exposure and infection. The mere sep- | aration from home on what promised to be but a short military expedition hardly seems sufficient in itself to have caused such untoward results. The | hopelessly severed. Nostalgia, or homesickness, is merely a form of melancholia. As in all the in- sanitles, more than one factor usually acts as a cause—hence the necessity for knowing the heredity and antecedents of the patient. The enforced absence from home may simply act as an excit- | ing cause; there may be far deeper- seated causes, such as grave constity- | tional defects, that act as the real basis for the disease. This is especlally true | in cases In which the reason is perma- nently lost or life itself sacrificed. Some races, or peoples, are supposed to be es- pecially liable to this disease: the in- habitants of mountainous countrie: for instance, are sald to suffer unduly. Hence the Swiss are said to furnish many examp! So also rustics are | more prone to suffer than the inhabit- | ants of towns. | The observation of nostalgia among | soldiers is by no means new or recent. | Baron Larrey, the eminent military | surgeon of the Napoleonic wars, wrote on this subject in his surgical memolrs. In our own country observations were | made in the late Civil War. Calhoun | wrote on nostalgia as a disease of field | service, and Jeters noted this affection as among the evils of youthful enlist- ments. It is a remarkable fact that the some- what extensive literature of nostalgia is almost entirely French. Many mono- graphs have been written in that lan- | guage on this subject. The American, | Bnglish and even German literature s | comparatively meager. This will seem | to be a proof to some readers that the French have more of the “mal du pays"” than other nations have—just as they are said to have more of the other psy- | choses. But to our mind it is rather an | indication that they have greater liter- ary activity among the curiosities of medicine. JANE CAKEBREAD’S DYING DEL.USIONS ANE CAKEBREAD has been fre- quently written up in the penny dreadfuls as “the most wicked wo- man in England.” The other day case is different with the poor emigrant who feels that all the home ties are the report spread about low side London that she was dying, and Mr. Thomas Holmes (Church of England Temperance Socfety's Police Court misslonary) hastened to visit her. He found her only a shadow of her former self—eyes dim, mind wandering, but still with a little of the old vigor which S0 often brought her into the hands of the police. Events pass so quickly be necessary to tell some | Cakebread holds that it may that Jane the record of appear- ances before metropolitan magistrates | on charges of drunkenness and disor- derly conduct. Her total appearances , Were nearly 300, and she was never out of prison for more than a day or so at |2 time for about fifteen years. Lady | Henry Somerset very kindly took her |in hand and put her in one of her homes at Reigate; but one day Jane wandered beyond her boundary, found a public house, and fell. She never took a great quantity of drink; but a few glasses had their effect, and the sight of a policeman in uniform put her on her mettle. She always gave her age as 62, and was proud of her memory of titled and other people she had known. But now her memory is failing; her delusions as to being heir- ess to a great fortune has vanished, and she imagines that she Is in the Claybury Asylum for the purpose of protecting the other inmates, If she hears a cry from any of them she starts up and attempts to leave her bed, but falls back exhausted. Strange- ly enough, she did not recognize the face or voice of the missionary. She said: “No, you are not Mr. Holmes. He promised to take me out of here.” She rambles incoherently in praise of dy Henry Somerset and Mr. Lane, Q. C., the stipendiary magistrate. The doctors say her end is near. —_—————— The value of the electric light as a saver of time and money is strikingly illustrated in the average time occu- pied by ships in passing through the Suez canal. With the electric light the journey is accomplished in eight minutes under twenty hours. Without the light thirty-one hours and twenty- four minutes is the time usually re- quired. ———————— Every one must do just so much weeping; those who are spanked often- est when young have least cause for crylng when grown up. right and left wings usually contrive to keep the frightened game within bounds and thus they rush on to the ambuscade in front of them. After I had taken up my position T had not long to walt in order to gratify my sporting Instincts. First came a hare toward me, rush- ing like the wind. But I let him go by and also a number of others. The movement of these animals was a clear indication that the big game had begun to move and I stood ready with both barrels of my gun ‘‘cocked.” Almost before I could realize it I saw a big kangaroo jumping toward me. He came like a cyclone, easily covering from 15 to 20 feet at every leap. Bang! But my first shot missed. Then I took careful aim with the other barrel and pulled the trigger just as he was in front of me. The shot caught him in a vital spot and over he rolled and lay dead. Before I could load again I was fair- ly surrounded with frightened kanga- roos. Hundreds of them were in plain I sight. It was hard to tell which one to shoot at and they were hard to hit, because they jumped here and there and bumped into one another as they looked for a safe place to get through the deadly line of shooters. By this time the kangaroos had got within range of all the hunters and nearly a hundred guns were pouring out a leaden hail of death. The bang- ing of the guns was as incessant as a battle and the fleld in front was rap- idly piling up with dead kangaroos. In my position I could not load fast enough to stop the procession of bound- ing animals in front of me. Kanga- roos were on all sides of me and kept pouring out of the forest in front seemingly in an endless stream. I took no shots except at those that came near enough for me to be absolutely sure of killing. Once or twice I stopped to rest and each time a kangaroo went past me. For about an hour this sort of thing kept up and then there was a lull. The game that was easy to get at had all COULD NOT LOAD FAST been driven out of the forest and the drivers had to go In deeper and scare out the timid ones. 3 The sport now was not so exciting, but there was just as much fun in it. It was more of a competition to see who would kill the most kangaroos. Each hunter had dragged his game into something of a heap, so that all could see his prowess. Late in the day there was nothing to shoot at but stragglers. The driv- ers had scoured the country and even gone after those that managed to get through the lines. By evening I don’t believe there were a dozen kangaroos left in the district that we had shot over. ‘When the drivers came up each shooter gathered his trophies of the battue and a tally was kept of the number each had sglain. Usually there is a sweepstake on the result of the day’s shooting, which, of course, goes ENOUGH TO STOP THE PROCESSION OF KANGAROOS BOUNDING PAST ME. to the ‘“topnotcher.” After drivers and shooters exchange felicitations an- other drive is arranged, and so on all day long till the dusk of evening puts an end to the day’s sport. The number of kangaroos a man can kill in one of the drives depends large- ly on luck. The game may not come near one and another may have all he can do to load. So “position” counts for a good deal. On the day when nearly 3000 were killed one man scored 97 and another scored only 10. 1It's just as a man gets the chance to shoot. On such occasions that important branch of all expeditions, the commis- sariat, is well looked after. At this big one a large wagon from the home- stead had brought great hampers of tempting viands. At a shady grove in the ample forest all hands and the cook spread themselves out on mother earth and ate and enjoyed the good things and drank without stint British beer and American lager, and smoked our pipes, and felt as happy and contented as mortal man can. The carcasses of the dead kangaroos in these drives are usually skinned and sold to dealers. The bodies are used for different chemical purposes. The hides are quite valuable and make shoes of a fine quality. It was a glorious day. The sun shone out brightly and was not _too warm. The drivers did their work well and at the conclusion of the day’s sport those of us who belon~ed to the house party headed our horses for the homestead. The majority of drivers and shooters assembled at the spacious woolshed and there, to the music of a concertina, played tunefuily by a sheep shearer, they danced with the selec- tors’ daughters who had come from far and near to help wind up the celebra- tions of the day. T. M. NEW MOTOR BICYCLES THAT GO OVER FORTY M HE two most wonderful motor bicycles in the world are owned in Paris and San Francisco respectively. The latter machine, which belongs to Charles L. Fair, is the more wonderful of the two. At least It is credited with being able to make greater time. The Parls machine is owned by Henri Fournier, who is credited with being the greatest rider in the world. Charles L. Fair's motor bicycle arrived in the city from Paris only a few days ago. He says that he has not yet ridden it, but knows that it is capa- ble of running at the rate of fifty miles an hour over a good road. The ma- chine is one of the latest produced in Paris and the trials of it that Mr. Fair saw were entirely satisfactory. Being an expert on mechanics Mr. Fair is fully capable of judging of the qualifications of a machine by making a careful examination of it. Incredible as it may seem this wonderful motor bicycle of Mr. Fair's weighs only fifty-five pounds. But aluminum is used considerably In its construc- tion. The power for the propulsion of the machine is supplied by a small gasoline or naphtha motor which is adjusted o the forward part of the bicycle, The tubing is about the size that was popular in the United States during the ’97 season. All adjust- ments and valves are in the front of the machine near -the handle bars. The main supply of gasoline is carried in a tank under the seat. Small quantities of the fluld are exploded in the igniter, thus fur- nishing motive power for the engine which propels the fly-wheel, from which the motion is communi- cated by a rubber band to the driving wheel. An Ingenious de- vice permits the free use of the handle bars for steer- ing purposes with- out risk of disturb- ing the connection. If the machinery should fall the bicycle may be worked by pedals in the usual way. The construction and adjustment of the whole machine is of the most per- fect and accurate description. Every bearing runs as smoothly as the works of a watch and there is scarce- ly a jar even when the engine is run- ning at several hundred revolutions a minute. Should CHARLES L. FAIR'S NEW FIFTY-MILES-AN-HOUR this machine prove BICYCLE. for it there is mno doubt but that in a very short time many more of them will be brought to the Pdcific Coast. The machine that Henri Fournier has been thrilling Paris with for some weeks past Is a petroleum tricycle of the Dion-Bouton kind, with a one- and-a-half horse-power machine, and averages forty kilometers an hour. The m -chine he uses is comparatively light, easy of manipulation and powerful. It is fitted with a motor of from one to three horse-power, its hill climbing and speed capabilities being gauged thereby. The big and heavy automobile carriages have trouble in mounting hiils, but the lowly and Dutch barn style of tricycle goes puffing right up to the top and its rider is in no wise af- fected with fatigue in the task of making the ascent. Fournier s in deadly earnest in his determination to attain a speed of forty-five miles an hour. He has made a Series of tests with his automobile LES AN HOUR that show that, given a straight smooth track and the machine working at forced draught, the express train will find the petroleum tricycle a danger- ous rival in the matter of speed. To see Fournier on one of these test trips is a sight never to be forgotten. He flies along with bulging eyes fixed on the ground over which he is flying, hair streaming in the wind and the puffing motor working at such a speed as to make one tremble to think of the fate of the rider should any untoward accident cause a spill. Fournier seems to know no fear when going like the wind on these risky trips. By constant practice he has become an expert in the manipu- lation of thepetroleum tricycie, and will turn a curve while going at the dizzy speed of forty-five miles an hour with all the recklessness of a boy. His performance suggests the grave danger that would accompany trips such as his on a road where similar machines are dashing along. Fournier alone on a level, smooth road, with no one to kill but himself, and no machine to smash but his own, is a sight sufficiently thrilling. Multiply the sight by ten and imagine that number of Fourniers mounted on flylng automobile tri- cycles, and the spectator cannot help thinking that this would make a novel and sure method 4 of committing suicide. But there can be no doubt but that the motor cycle has & come to stay. It is now a practical machine although high in price and hard to handle. But improvements will be constantly made from now on and & man will not have to be a mechanical and bi- cycle expert in or- der to ride one of them. In less than five years they are very lkely to be as_common as the ordinary wheel. In the days when bicycles run at a speed of forty- five miles an hour a clear track will be absolutely necessary, so that with locomotive en- gine pace will have to come a special track for the wheel- men, a desirable o = - Improyement orat HENRI FOURNIER AND HIS FORTY-FIVE-MILES- by all lovers of - - AN-HOUR WHEEL. the wheel. The at- tainment of the speed named by the bicycle seems to be in the hands of Henri Fournier, who has become known as the king of automobil- ists. What Fournier does not know about the petroleum tricycle may as well be omitted from the wheelman’s education. From all parts of the world Fournier is receiving letters in regard to motor cycles. FEven governments have written to him in regard to supplying soldiers with them. On one day his mail amounted to mnearly two hundred letters. While many of the questions asked are frivolous the majority show that the writers are doing some deep thinking before buying a motor cycle. Americans have no conception of the interest taken in motor cycles in Hurope. They are really quite common on the roads of France and England, while all those in the United States can be counted on the fingers of your hand.