The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 14, 1901, Page 2

HE SUNDAY —vou may learn to swim 3 It is almost as easy as hanging your clothes on a hiekory going near the water. HINK of ewhat wetter but ver ing your clothes on a goes, tha exactly th ¥ ai ar the water. ide yourself with are mpler the better— pe and a devoted and Now go ahead. > put yourself in the nce by remembe ¥ pastimes, swimming is rned, especially s im- In learning the first derstand that it is the since the specific gravity s than that of A Ruman Qalgndar For Last Half Qentlry. his mind a per- r for at least the ry, although t izens he is considered men- and as the Bloomington he is known ked his real name he en which he ha r the purpose of sat- the he boy ques fonar. as never ows nothing adout past and fulure When -asked on a date twenty years back the questio weasel v within the space of n in much less time. nickels and penni. 1 travelers the day of the week they were of the month on which the and he imme- day of the week. To in many ca once known that correct er 1 made use of to mud- but in cach unde wers ‘at boy atio: of the ge was asked on what day would come the irst Monday answer second of a 1s to know d of 1 a date he mumbles mourh th hand. water, and the movements of arms and legs are for propulsion only. The most common fault with beginners is their anxiety to keep their heads too much out of water, which necessitates great efforts—efforts which should be di- rected to propelling the body along. The lower yvour head is in the water the bet- ter; just keep it sufficiently above the wa- ter to breathe. Be! entering the water practice drawing the hands up to the breast, palms downward and thumbs together, with the low ms and elbow to the sides. Next shoot out the arms well in front of close the breast, as if trying to touch something out of reach, taking care to stiffen the joints. Then turn the palms outward and take a c ar sweep with both arms un- til they are iare with the shoulder. Thes: movements constitute a stroke and should be performed in one continu- ous motion As for your legs, you won’t -have to hav about them. In all my experience found that the legs fall in line v when the arms have learned | their duty. You need not teach them to kick will it automatically. For you knew swimming is almost natural to you, anyway. Your cousins, the other | anima swim by instinct. If Darwin is true, probably you used to do the same. Now that you have practiced the stroke on dry 1 so that you have the idea of are ready to try the water. smalil rope about twenty-five feet long, make a running knot in it and let your friend place this around | your waist with the knot in the center of the budy in front, so as to balance you | I na they it a li Obtain a or thirty then haul the rope in while you make the stroke at the same time. Enter the water with a resolve to make three long steady strokes and increase the num- ber as progress is made. I lay great stress on the steadiness of the stroke, as all beginners seem to be pos the idea that they can only keep up by a sion of q , Which only have the effect of jerking the head o e water at one moment and im- g it the t, besides quickly hausting. the learner's strength. Great care should be taken to keep both hands t, when taking a stroke, under urface of the water. The inhaling of reath should be done at the moment the arms are being shot forward is succe ne and fe the the when { from the bre After 3 quainted »u make vourself thoroughly ac- with the breast stroke, you should learn to float. Some people learn | this before s Place yourself on your back, head back, your chest well out, straighten your limbs and you will float with the lightness of a cork. Be careful not to throw the head up after getting into position lives would be saved mming. throw your if people ep a cool head and place them- selves in floating position when a ship is wrecked. People who could not swim have often floated for hours, waiting for could succor. When commencing to learn the side lsiru\»f‘, turn the body over on the side, laying the side of the face flat on the sur- face of the water, so that it just reaches the side of the mouth, keeping the head in exactly the same position in relation to the body as when walking, taking care not to move it up or down. The body and head should be kept rigid and the arms and legs used as propellers. Supposing the pupil to be lying on his right side, his first movement is to place the left hand far advanced as pos ble, the thumb being tightened over the forefinger .to form a kind of scoop to en- able the swimmer in the next movement to get a good “grip” of the water, the right hand being held at the breast and the legs opened as wide as possible. This is movement No. 1. The next movement, No. 2, is to bring the left hand sharply past the breast, getting a good hold of the water in so doing, throwing the hand back to its full extent, the rig 'm being shot straight forward, palm downward. Take great care not to allow any part to come ~ut of tbe water., but to be just beneath ALICE CAVILL. IN FANCY SWIMMING POSE l Colone! James e men who seem especially a certain place in the This has been n his- their time. The man storm needed the If ever this was demon- has always su- cumstances it w in the Texas republic—that oked from the local ncerning the early his- President McKinley tour he referred most though briefly, to the four r Providence, had been in the early days, when ate in the Union in the was a young and ling republic—Houston, Travis, kett and Bow He spoke on classic ground, too. for it was at the Alamo, where stood, that three of the th their lives their devo- young State, ose found: had laid deep and wide, and cornerstone with the seal of tion to the of heroes d story who so gallantly died under shield before Troy the les known of them all and yet in many respects the greatest was James Bowie, famous only by reason of the world-renowned knife called by his name. A few words touching his ancestry may not be out of place. He was not from Maryland, as has been stated, but was born in Burke County, Ga., in 17%. In 1802 his father emigrated to Louislana. That countfy was then still under French domination. There had been large tracts of land granted by the French crown in the territory named for Louis XIV, and one of these, in the parish of Catahoula, was acquired by the elder Bowie. He was a man of substance, own- ing nearly 100 slaves. He soon had his estate well opened out and was growing superb crops of cotton and corn. Hisson James he sent first to a famous private school at Natchez, Miss., and afterward to the Jesuit college, then located in New Orleans. James Bowie in h?f was challenged to a duel with Norris Wright. The pocket pistols of that day were uncertain. It was long before the percussion cap had been brought into common use, and the flintlock arm was the .only firearm known. It was lable to miss fire just SECOND PosSITION POSITION when it ought not to. Bowle determined to rely upon a knife he-had caused to be made for just such a contingency. He had taken a l4-inch long file, such as was then used to sharpen crosscut saws and the upright saws used for turning out planks from logs. He had the file marks carefully ground off. the flie and the smooth piece of steel skillfully reduced by the grindstone until it was about the thickness and weight he desired. Then he took it to a Spaniard in New Orleans known as ‘‘Pedro, the skilled cutler,” a man who had learned his art in Toledo, where the finest sword blades in all Spain were forged. He tempered and finished the knife, fitted it with a crosspiece and haft. When it was done James Bowie had a weapon “fit to fight for a man’s life with,” as he said to Governor Wells. It was beautifully balanced, and the artist had hollow-ground it like a razor, with a double edge for three or four inches from the point. The knife was fitted with a wooden scab- bard, covered with leather, and was sharp enough to shave the hair off the back of one's hand. This was the original bowie knife, though it was somewhat modified subsequently in shape. * Bowie, while a student in New Orleans, had studied other things besides the humanities, as the dead languages of Greece and Rome were then called. By accident he found in his fenc- ing master a man who could not only use the sword but was a master in the use of the cuchillo, the Spanish fighting knife, a weapon not unlike the bowie. Our young student entered enthusiastically into the training and science of old Spain in that nation’s once national weapon. And so he was much better equipped for the deadly fight that was so near at hand. Natchez Island, where the fight was to be, was midway between the Louisiana and Mississippl shores of the great Father of Waters. Therefore it was a favorite meeting place for gentlemen who had to adjust affairs that might have a fatal end- ing, as the authorities of neither State could interfere. “I stayed all night with James Bowle,” sald a rriend of his who died over twenty years ago, in his nine- tieth year. *“On the night before the fight was to take place I never saw a man sleep more soundly than he did, nor eat a bet- ter breakfast the next morning.” 1t was understood that each of the prin- cipals should have but one friend, and certainly not moré than two, on the ground. But Mr. Wright had five or six present. The fight began with pistols. Ons of Bowie's missed fire, while both cf Wright's bullets took effect upon his an- tagonist. Thinking he had Bowie at his merecy, Norris Wright sprang upon him. In a moment Bowie had drawn his deadly knife, and though two or three of Wright's friends were shooting at-him and hitting him, too, Bowle made one awful slash at ‘Wright's neck. The keen steel hit into the very neck bone. The blood shot out over Bowie, and Norris Wright was dead before he touched the ground. Seriously wounded himself, it was for some time a very doubtful question whether or not he would ever get well. But youth, a temperate life, and an excel- lent constitution finally brought him around, and in a year from that time he killed General Crain with the same knife he had used in his first encounter. ‘“Ihe knife doesn’t miss fire,” he said to an inti- mate friend, Mr. Bynum of the parish of Rapides; “the pistol does.”” This, of course, was long before the pgrfection of the percussion cap or the invention of the Colt's revolver, the first revolver ever made. James Bowie was engaged in the pur- the surface. As the left arm is pulled back the legs are brought sharply to- gether, the swimmer taking care to use the flat part of his feet as much as pos- sible for propellers. The side stroke is, of course, very dif- ficult to learn, but once you have mas- tered it you will employ the stroke con- siderably and pronounce it easy, graceful and pleasant. Now, in the overhand stroke the head sinks lower than in other styles of swim- ming and the feeling is not so agreeable. Presuming you are on your right side, the only difference between this and the ordinary side stroke is that the left arm is thrown forward above the surface of the water to its utmost extent. Then placing it in the water, a strong, powerful pull is taken, letting the arm go back to its full length. The exertion is much more severe than for the common side stroke. By this time vou are a good swimmer. Not by the time that you have read to the bottom of this page, but by the time that you have implicitly followed these direc- tions. ¥ou have been brave and you have been accurate; the rest was easy. Now that you have learned, you are in- vestigating the matter of bathing suits. Tl tell you what I think about them. I much prefer a knit garment modeled after a man’'s suit. I use, however, for public exhibitions (and so will you) the loose blouse, short skirt and long hose common to patrons of the surf. Some may consider. the former very bold, but I consider it the best, when I think of my health. The more play the arms and legs have, the | more the benefit derived. We should wear | suits to swim in, not to make a display. | Try to consider swimming as a sport for | your own benefit. Never mind other peo- } | | \ | dress ple and whether they admire your cos- tume. I know you won't pay any atten- tion to this advice, but I throw it away just the same. Swimming is one of the most beautiful sports that there is in the world as well as one of the most useful. You girle— those of you who don’t swim—ought to be- gin the learning the very first chance you get. You need it. With your present mode of dressing, your sedentary habits, exercise Is what you need. This is the b kind It expands the chest. This strengthens the lungs and heart and gives each muscle a certain amount of exercise which keeps the frame in a healthy condition, pre- venting headaches and bilious attacks. In any accident on the water a person who is unable to swim constitutes a real danger to those who have to do the sav- ing. The lives of Innumerable good swim- mers have been sacrificed to save their drowning companions. Perhaps if they had some time employed a friend and a few yards of rope there might have been other storfe The Bushmen, or low-grade Hottentots, of the plains of South Africa have a lan- guage which has been proved by Garnier to be a close approximation to that of he higher apes. It consists of hissing, clicking and grunting sounds. Birds That Bind Their Own Weunds. OU, are not accustomed to think of birds as surgeons, but it is true that the woodcock, the partridge some other birds are able to their wounds with consider- able skill. A French naturalist says that on several occasions he has killed wood- cccks that were when shot convalescing from wounds previously recefved. In every instance he found the old injury Y and | neatly dressed with down, plucked from the stem of feathers, and skilifully ar- ranged over the wound, evidently by the lcng beak of the bird. In some instances a solid plaster was thus formed and In others ligatures had been applled to wocunded or broken limbs. One day he killed a bird that evidently had been severely wounded at some re- cent period. The wound was covered and protected by a sort of network of feath- ers, which had been plucked by the bird from its own body and so arranged as to ferm a plaster completely covering and “otecting the wounded surface. It had evidently acted as hemostatic in the first place and subsequently as a shield cover- ing the wound. THhe feathers were fairly netted together, passing alternately under and above each other, and forming a textile fabric of great protective power. Birds are often found whose limbs have been broken by shot, with the fractured ends neatly joined and ligated. M. | Dumonteil tells of a woodcoek that had been shot by a sportsman on the after- noon of a certain day. After a long carch the bird was given up, but it was discovered the next morning by an acei- dent. In the meantime the wounded legs were found lihe neatly ligated, an ex- quisitely neat bhndage having been placed around each wounded limb. The poor bird. however, had, in dressing Its wound. ertangled its beak with some long soft feathers and had it not been discovered it would have died of starvation. chase and contest of claims for great tracts of land that had been grants le by the French crown. When Louisiana was ceded to the United States and fin- ally became a State there was a good deal of trouble on this account over some of the tities to land along Red River and its tributaries. A man often had to fight for his plantation, as frequently he would nct give it up to somebody with an old Frerch or Spanish grant. It was in these con- tests that James Bowie did the most of his killing. He had sixteen lives on his hands from the use of that one bloody knife. After much consideration he had made a knife that has been the model and pattern for all the real bowie knives that ever had the sanction of their originaror. In 1835 Colonel Bowie seld his Louisiana property and went to Texas. The Lone Star State was in the throes of a bloody revolution. The gallant resistance of the Texans so exasperated General Santa Ana, . who was chief in command of the Mexican forces, that he swore he would take no more prisoners. When Bowie ar- rived in Texas and offered his serviges to the young republic, he was at once made a ‘colonel of riflemen in the army of Texas, Bowie and His Knife That Never “Missed Fire™ In January, 1836, Colone! Bowie was or- dered to San Antonio de Bexar to assist in holding that place against Santa Ana's coming forces. The slege ran along until March, when San Antonio, trusting In the pledged word of honor of Santa Ana, with a starved-out garrison, surrendered. A general massacre took place. Travis, Crockett and Bowie were murdered :n cold blood, a stain on General Santa Ana's emory that time can never blot out. Colonel Bowie was badly wounded three tim in a room of the main work of the place called the Alamo. He and wa opposed the surrender as long as was pos- sible. He was lying on his bed when he heara the triumphant Mexicans coming in. It was the first hint he had had of the sur- render. He knew his life was ended. e . however, move about a little. The instant the Mexicans came into the room they began shooting at him. He grasped his knife and leaped among them like an enraged tiger. And when the firing ended six of his enemies had crossed the,Styx with James Bowie and gone with him to the shade: ————— Charity’s argument is short, but it has a long reach.