The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 4, 1898, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1895, HAT most royal and fascinating of all field sports, hunting with hawks, is coming into wide and general favor. Not only abroad in the United Kingdom, France with other countries of . it has been more or less rt of the United States and right rnia, where the fields and ng it are second to cality. s new clubs are already in e t- s are being made for long s of the hunting privileges acts of suitable land, and occupation ry, an hood that was once st the dignity of a and almost as widely fol- lowed as a 2ful pursuit in- cident to country In the United States the sport prom- ises to become, if anything, more popu- son of the larger fields-and better facilities for followin it in all its best forms. In most of the Eastern cities one or more hawking clubs have been formed. The Plymouth Falconry Club of Boston and the Knickerbocker Hawking Club of New York, the Eagle Club of Cleve- jand, the Hawking Club of Balti- more and the Kankakee Falconry Club of Chicago being the pioneers of the movement in their respective localities. 5 ams of falcons and experienced falconers have been brought from Eng- land and Holland as a start, and steps have been taken to keep up the supply of birds from captures of young wild hawks either from the sts in the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Also the adult pas age birds, which are to be seen in sea son about the great flocks of migratory birds which in spring and fall cover the marshes and swamp lands in nearly every State of the Mijs opl Valley. While good flelds for within comparatively easy of the several cities mentioned, Balti- more and Chicago have large advan- tages in the matter of nearness to those most abounding in game birds and heron. A few hours’ run from the former ci s the hunters to the lower part of the peninsula, between the Potomac River and the ocean, where myriads of ducks of all kind: woodcock, snipe, grouse, quail, in fac almost every kind of game birds, as well as the stately heron, are to be found in season. A short run in almost any direction from Chicago will take a hawking party to the open country full of grouse and quail, and in the upper counties of Indiana and Illinois, about the lower end of Lake Michigan and along the Kankakee, St. Josephs and other rivers, are vast tracts of open country inter- spersed with marsh lands, which in spring and fall are literally covered with wild fowl and heron. But with all these advantages neither of these cities, nor indeed both to- gether, can compare with San Fran- clsco not only in being within touch of a greater abundance of all kinds of hawking game but aiso in being within close reach of a good supply of all kinds of hawks from which falconries may be established and maintained. Falconry is pre-eminently the sport for the people of the leisure class who have the means to indulge in it. It has been so from time immemorial. Kings, princes and nobles considered their ed- ucation unfinished until they had learned well the falconer’s art. The gentler sex, too, were taught thé mys- teries of the mews and how to fly a hawk, as well as how to rein a steed. The post of grand falconer to the court of England yet belongs to the ducal house of St. Albans, and is not the least esteemed of its muiny proud honors. . Falconry or hawking is also the most ancient and probably the most widely practiced of all the field sports that have survived to the present day. Sir A. Layard, in his work on ‘“Nineveh and Babylon,” gives an account of a “bas relief” found in the ruins of Khor- sabad, which shows a falconer with a hawk on his wrist in about the same fashion as they are to be seen carried in the present day. In India, China and other parts of Asia, as well as in the islands of Japan, the sport has come down from the ear- liest to the present times, and is much more generally in vogue than in the more stirring and changing Western counties, where for many reasons it for a time fell into general desuetude. It has not, however, been extinct for an hour in England, nor indeed in France or the “low countries.” From the time of Alfred down to James I and even to the commonwealth it was the chief sport of the English aristoc- racy. Works on the subject were among the first that were turned ou: from the newly invented printing press. In 1436 Dame Juliana Breners, abbess of Sap- well, wrote and published the ‘“Boke of St. Albans,” which contained valuable treatises on “Hawking, Hunting and Cote Armour.” Shortly after came the “Booke of Falconrie,” by George Tu- berville, Gentleman, followed by others. In 1615 Simon Latham published “The Falcon’s Lull and Call,” which was long the standard work, and lastly “Fal- conry,” by Hon. Gerald Lascelles, in the Badminton Library series of vol- umes on English sports, published in 1892, being the history of the sport down to the present day. These are all in the English language. There are works on falconry also in French, Ger- man, Italian, Swedish, Russian, Hin- dustani and Japanese: indeed, in al- most every tongue that has existed since the days of the Tower of Babel. In England popularity of hawking was probably greatest in Elizabeth’s time. Her chief falconer was Sir John Sadler (for a time the custodian of Mary Queen of Scots), and the place which he selected for training and fly- ing her Majesty’s falcons was Everly, in Wittshire, in the old manor house of which still hangs a portrait of Sir John in his court dress, with a falcon on his hand wearing a jeweled hood. In an ancient hostelry near by the “Old Hawking Club has for many years made its headquarters, showing how little the character of the country has changed in the three hundred years. In Valkinswaard, near Eindhoum, in North Brabant, Holland, reside families of men who from generation to genera- tion, as far back as history and tradi- tion tell, have been falconers and catch- ers of falcons. A hundred or so years ago a large number of huts were built out on the water every season, and numbers of hawks were taken. After the annual migration of birds was over a sort of fair was held which was at- tended by the chief falconers of vari- ous noblemen and princes of every court in Europe. Rare prices were paid for birds under such competition. Then came a decline until three huts alone INDIAN BELL were sufficient to supply the languish- ing demand, which came principally from England, France and Holland. Within the last ten or fifteen years, however, the business of this unique little town has seen a great improve- ment in the hawking business. A score or more of men found good remunera- tion as of yore in the taking and train- ing of hawks. In California along in the middle fif- ties hawking parties of ladies and gen- tlemen were frequently seen afleld en- joying the sport furnished by teams of well-trained and well-handled birds. The officers of the Presidio garrison, with their wives and daughters and friends from the city, found it a most enjoyable way of whiling away the time that the rather idle routine of gar- rison life left hanging on their hands. There are many people yet here in San Francisco who remember these parties and some who took part in the hunts. It is said that the first team of train- ed hawks was brought here by the offi- cers of a British man-of-war which lay in the bay for some time during the fall of '53 or '54. Some fine hunt- ing was done in company with officers from the Presidio who became very 21 enthusiastic over the sport. A cast of Hawks being given them the hunting was kept up after the Englishmen left and the next season native hawks were taken and trained by a man brought from England specially for the purpose. Change in the troops of the garrison, however, caused an abandonment of the hawking parties. The next year will probably see a change in affairs, however, and “jesses, cadges, brails, bills, hoods; lures and other impléments of the falconer’s art, will be seen in the windows of ‘the sporting goods shops. According to the British Medical Jour- nal, Raseri, who has analyzed 25,474 cases of death and 36.515 of birth, where the ex- act time of day was noted, finds that the maximum number of deaths occur in the early afternoon (2 to 7 p. m.), and the minimum in the last hours before mid- night, while the maximum numbet of births oceur in the early hours of the morning, and the minimum in the early hours of the afternoon. As regards the cause of this, he .points out that the hours of the maximum number of deaths are precisely those when the pulse rate and temperature are at their highest in health, and when there is a febrile exa- cerbation in illness. 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000C00000000000000000000000C00000C0C000CC000000000000000 RYING TO SOLVE THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE SOUTH BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, the Best Known Negro in the South, and EX-GOVERNOR McCORI(LE of West Virginia. Ai race troubles in the Carolinas. CCORDING to ex-Governor McCorkle of West Virginia and many other prominént Southerners, both white and black, negro suffrage is now the most serious problem before the American people. ticle which follows he speaks with fiery He says that it is folly to believe that the In earnestness of the Southern negroes vote as they desire, or that they ever will be allowed to control elections, no matter how great their numerical majority. In answering him, Booker T. Washington, the best known negro in the South, president of the Tuskegee Institute of Alabama, makes the surprising statement that he believes it was a mistake to give the bal- lot to the negro originally and suggests that the right of suffrage be sub- ject to educational and property tests. These two men represent the most advanced thought in the &. A. McCorkle is an ex-Governor of West V' the race problem. South on ginia, a Jawyer by profession, and he nrobably will be a United States Senafor the near future. ations of experfence. 11 gene apartment at the Wald carefully revised by him. It follow By Booker T. Washington T wes unfortunate that my people permitted themselves at the close of the civil war to be led in such a wholesale manner into politics. In many cases responsibilities were accepted by us which we were not equal to because of lack of education and ‘experience. ° ; I do not believe that it is wise for th Government nor just to the people sought to be helped to confer unlimited guffrage upon any Ignorant, poverty- stricken, inexperfenced people. I would let the right to vote be interwoven with His knowledge of the race problem is the result of His ancestors were the first people to settle s of the Virginias, and the family has been there during the His statement was taken verbatim by shorthand in Mr. rf-Astoria, Ne York, and has been the ability to acquire property or both. The feeling is very strong South that since the negro pays such a small proportion of the tax to sup- port Government that he should have little ‘or no control in the Government. The feeling also-exists in some sec- tions that the negro wants to control the white man. This is not true of the black race as a whole. Unless the ne- gro gets into the hands of bad white men he does not seek to control any one except himself, and he has a pretty hard task often to do that. To my mind the way to remedy the present evils is for the negro not to get intelligence or in the| discouraged, In the past I fear he sel too much store by politics. In too many cases he has sought the shadow rather than the substance. The negro all over this country must become a large taxpayer, own prop- erty, possess a high degree of industry, skill and substantial character. We must get ocur young people off the streets, keep them out of barrooms and dens of crime. The great bulk of our people in the South are still in dense ignorance; ignorance leads to idleness and idleness to crime. The time has come when the best white people and the best colored peo- ple in the Scuth should get together for counsel, advice and sympathy. The negro must not feel that the white man who is his next-door neighbor is his enemy simply because he is a Southern white man. . . By Ex-Governor McGorkle. ET us look at the inciting cause of the recent trouble. Wilming- ton is a very beautiful town, in- habited by the best and most cultured white people on this continent, but ignorant, brutal negroes control all the public offices. About fifty justices’ positions within the Wil- mington district are held practically by negroes and a few white people. At least forty of these negroes can neither read nor write. Ruin, political, finan- cial and moral, stares the land and property owning people of the city in the face, Under the circumstances the good people of the city, without regard to politics, determined that no longer would they be under the control of the most brutal rule that has ever cursed the country outside of Hayti and San Domingo, and they have joined to- gether in a common bond of public in- terest. I speak plainly. It is not a question of politics. Democrats were not the only ones in the trouble, but a Republican paying $1500 a week exclu- sively to negro laborers, and one of the most important men of the city, has been the head and front of the league for defense of the public safety. These men, without rggard to poli- tics, determined that this negro rule should then and there cease. They no- tified the negroes plainly that they should not continue this state of affairs. Bad blood was engendered, as it natur- ally would be; and when they attempt- ed, by a strong hand, it is true, to do away with this anarchy, a personal conflict was brought about, the first shot being fired by the negroes, and things were done which were never contemplated. It was regretted and de- plored by every honest Southern man that blood was shed. I speak as a friend of the negroes. As a lawyer, I have defended as many negroes as any man in the South, without thought of reward. When I was Governor of my State every legal voter, white or black, when he approached the ballot box, was allowed to vote. I speak with a full sympathy for the colored race, but, nevertheless, I speak with a most earn- est determination, expressing the opin- ion of the intelligent Southern man, Wwhen I say that the white race will not be controlled and ruled by the negroes in the South. _In the splendid State of South Caro- lina there are 200,000 more negroes than white people. In many portions of the South this proportion continues. I re- peat most solemnly that the question in the South is not a question of who shall be the political rulers, or whether ne- groes shall have the right to vote, but it is a question of life and death to the Southern people. This is above all statutory enactments. There are 6,000,- 000 of negroes in the South; an inferior race; a standing menace to peace, law and order. We have spent millions of dollars to raise them in enlightenment, and yet to-day we are confronted in many portions of the South by an alien race—ignorant, different in color, differ- ent in education and refinement, abso- lutely dominating and controlling the fairest sections on the face of the earth. I have seen the assessors placing val- uation on land when none of them ever owned a cent’s worth of property, negro policemen enforcing the law, clerks making up the sacred and solemn rec- ords when the clerk himself could not sign his name to the record and had to have it done by other men. This continued for.long years. Justice was bought and scld as a farmer buys a fleld, .Taxation in three years was in- creased tenfold. Murder and riot were everyday occurrences, and the Judge himself before an argument was con- cluded was taken off the bench and gave his.decision: to the. highest bid- der. Let me agk you one thing. How long would the people of New York City or Boston stand that situation of affairs? Broadway would be aflame in a week and riot would reign rampant up Fifth avenue. Let me give you some other plain facts. In two years the negro govern- ment increased the State debt from $6,000,000 to $25,000,000, and I was there when negro soldiers twice marched into the State House znd took the Speaker away from his desk and broke up the Assembly and turned the members out of doors. In four years they spent $100,000,000. The taxable properties of the State went down nearly two-thirds. In ten years the negro rule of Louisiana squandered $150,000,000, and not ome single public improvement was left to show for it. In three years in the State of Mississippi taxes were raised four- teenfold and the State debt in the same proportion. The whisky bill of one Leg- islature was $350,000. The bar was opened to members and their friends in a committee room within the sound of the Speaker's gavel. The public printing in less than eight years amounted to $1,500,000, when it had only amounted in all of seventy-five years to $600,000. The Governor’s per- sonal expenses in his election amounted to nearly $400,000, and it was paid out of the public funds. ‘Will my brethren of the North con- sider for one moment the effect of the dominance of the negro in Southern politics? Do you not see that the con- trol by the negroes of Southern affairs as demanded by some: fanatics will mean the absolute dominance of the vote? It will give to them at least fifty votes in the House of Representatives, and at least five or six Senators. The balance of power will be absolutely in the control of the negro vote. He would entirely dominate the House and the Senate of the present Congress. Are you willing to pay the price? Would he be a safe arbiter of the vast inter- ests of this nation? I think not. Another point of interest to my Northern friend. You are to-day regen- erating the South. You are building thousands of miles of' railroads.. You are pouring millions of dollars into our coal and iron mines. You are erecting vast manufactories. Public improve- ment, the result of millions of Northern money, is showered on every side. Within' ten years in my own State you have placed more than.$20,000,000. Your :sons are coming to live with us and are honored as our best citizens. Are you . willing to have all this vast interest at the beck and nod of a venal Legisla- ture, or under the control of ignorant negroes? This brings up the question, what are we going to do? The two races are side by side, mingled and intermingled in every imaginable way, but not in the old relation of master and servant, and having none of the old sympathy. It is a question which God in his mercy will work out for these people, but it is a momentous question to the country to- day. The only hope of a settlement of the problem is in the gradual en- lightenment of the colored race. Nine- teen-twentieths of the money expended for the education of the negro race if the South is raised from the whites, National Legislature by the negro|and one-twentieth from the negroes