Eagle River review. [volume], May 10, 1912, Image 4

About Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927

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SPORT ikffl (biduiv Dramii\4s
recent discoveries of prehistoric designs in a
cave in the south of France confirm the assertion
JH. made by mediaeval writers that as sport formed
the subjects of the earliest designs, the disciples
1 j of Nimrod can rightly claim to have given the
I J first impulse to art. Unfortunately for us, the old
skin-clad sportsman artist who covered the walls
of his Perigord cave with outline drawings of his
fellow-denizens —the mammoth, the giant cave bear and the
reindeer—thereby securing for himself undying fame as the
most archaic of all artists, and endowing that underground
gallery with the distinction of being the most ancient of all
art repositories, failed to depict his own form divine in con
nection with the trotting mammoth or the shambling bear.
True, the spirit of self-effacement which this omission be
trays evinces a refreshing absence of the “personal element”
It proves more convincingly than could a library of volumes
what an infinite vista of ages Intervenes between that flint
wielding cave man and the modern, self-assertive, press-the
button sportsman. But stay! Are we judging this instance
of palaeontological self-obliteration quite justly? Was that
troglodyte’s failure to leave a single Indication as to the
relative position of man and beast really the result of gen
uine diffidence? What evidence have we that this artist of
the Pleistocene Age had already emerged from that primeval
condition when man was still the hunted Instead of the
hunter? How do we know that the huge Elephas primigen
nus or the formidable Ursus speloeus portrayed in that Peri
gord Louvre was not hunting him, the pigmy homunculus?
What proof have we that
these crude tracings were not
drawn with trembling hand
after a horror-struck retreat
to his cave, when his senses,
which then were still as keen
as those of the hawk, the far
scenting deer, or the acutely
hearing wolverine, warned
him of the approach of his
relentless foe? Indeed, have
we not evidence supporting
such doubts in the shape of a
stone hammer found embed
ded in the skull of a Megace
ros hibernicus? Had that
blow been dealt by a hunter
to an animal already down In
order to dispatch it, the prec
ious flint tool, which to pro
duce had cost such infinite
labor, would not have been
left where Professor Wau
choppe found It untold ages
later. What more likely
than that the blow was in
flicted as a desperate act of
self-defense on the part of the hard-pushed quarry
when the antlered monster charged down upon
him, crushing him to death before he had time
to withdraw his invaluable flint? That bit of
bone-encased rock—what tragedies of the Stone
Age does it not suggest?
But we have strayed far afield from the real
purpose of these lines, which is none else than
to make the reader acquainted with the limnings
of an infinitely less remote age, but which, as
samples of finished drawings of sporting scenes,
yet rank among the oldest we have.
Florentine of the Florentines, .though Flemish
by birth, for he was born in Bruges in the year
1523, Giovanni della Strada, or to use his Latin
ized name with which he frequently signed his
work, Joannes Stradanus, had acquired by his
apprenticeship to Michael Angelo many of the
famous artist’s peculiarities and mannerisms, as
a glance at Stradanus’ prancing, heavily-maned
steeds and giant-limbed men discloses. Strada
nus was born at a most opportune moment, for
the craving for pictorial matter making itself
felt Ln the second half of his century was creat
ing a demand which far exceeded the supply, and
though your Bodes and Tschudis, and even ear
lier art critics, insist that this craving helped
more than any other circumstance to prostitute
art, debasing the divine inspiration of the painter
to a common craft, It must not be forgotten that
but for men like Stradanus, Theodore de Bry,
Hans 801, the multitudinous Galle family at Ant
werp, Collaera, Wlerx, Mallery, Sadeler and Golt
zius, as well as the De Passe family, who all
worked with extraordinary energy in turning out
“pictures of the day,” our knowledge of the dally
life and of occurrences In that tempestuous cen
tury would be nothing like as correct and Inti
mate as it is. What progress, for instance, art
made in the half-century between 1517 and the
year 1567, when Stradanus drew his one hundred
and four Venation es sporting pictures a glance
at “Theuerdank,” Emperor Maximilian’s famous
book of adventures, and at the prints appertain
ing to the first-named series, will show. Both the
designer of the pictures and the wielder of the
graver bad made giant strides in the interval, and
as we can see from reproductions of original
drawings by Stradanus’ hand, many a master of
the eightenth century would have done well to
study the Italianised Fleming’s method and
touches.
The drawings afford amusing evidence of the
widespread ignorance which then prevailed In
connection with certain forms of sport. Perhaps
the most characteristic in this respect is the pic
ture of mountain sport—viz., the chase of the
chamois. When one first saw the print of this
picture and one’s astonished gaze rested upon the
delineation of the agile mountain beast carrying
horns chat are crooked forward instead of back
ward, one naturally assumed that this extraordi
nary mistake was made by the engraver and not
by the artist who drew the animal, whose body
and pose are in other respects correct But in
this one would have done the busy Antwerp en
gravers an injustice, as was disclosed when the
original came into one’s possession, for there,
immortalized by master hand, prance about not
one but several chamois with this curious mal
formation. |-
In other respects, too, Stradanus drew upon his
imagination in concocting this drawing, for he
repreaents the man of Michael Angelo-like limbs
strapping steigeisen, or crampons, to his naked
feet which, of course, was never done. To turft
to another form of sport—elephant and ostrich
hunting—Stradanus in the former picture drew
his quarry of very under-sized dimensions, a mis
take not usually made either by him or by other
artists of his age, who, as a rule, magnified the
size of foreign animals. Take as an instance
our reproduction of an engraving after another
drawing by the same Florentine artist. Here we
have elephants which if we accept the ordinary
human form as our scale, must have* stood some
thing like eighteen feet high, though probably,
as the inscription below tells us that the man in
the act of hamstringing his quarry is a troglo
dyte or cave-dweller, a race who were believed
to be of dwarf stature, the disproportion is In
tended to be as great as it is. As an early pic-
'I .... -
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Elephant-Hunting by Cave Men.—J. Callaert after
Stradanus.
|o&/ %gP| rjv '
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ture of elephant-hunting its
amusing details, such as
the long file of natives
carrying off loads of
dismembered elephant on
their heads and shoulders,
are curious enough. The
picture of the bear-hunt is
more true to life, though we
may express some doubt
whether horses could be
got to charge bears in the
way Stradanus pictures.
Our last drawing repre
sents the Florentine artist’s
ideas of heron-hawking It
tells its tale fairly plainly,
though, of course, the inci
dents it represents are far
too crowded together. It
was considered the noblest
of all hawking, and though
it is not so long ago that
more than two hundred
heronries existed in the
British Isles—some of them
comprising as many as a
hundred nests with four or
five eggs in each—the sport
is now extinct. Mr. Harting
tells us that in the last cen
tury Mr. Edward C. New
come-of Norfolk, who was
the last English falconer
who kept heron hawks (he
died in 1871), killed in two
seasons with his- two fa
mous hawks, Sultan and De
Ruyter, which he had im
ported from Holland, no
fewer than one hundred and
eleven herons. This shows
that the royal sport became
extinct in England not in
consequence of any dearth
of herons. In the Nether
lands it is still kept up,
though the celebrated Hawk-
Ing club at the Loo, near Apeldoorn which Mr.
Newcome, insisted by the Duke of Ueds and Mr.
Stuart Wortley, had formed in the year 1832,
was dissolved the very year it had reached its
majority.
One detail in Stradanus’ drawing deserves spe
cial notice, i. e., the turned-up heads of the two
herons at which hawks are about to stop. It
shows that the artist fully believed the legend,
sanctioned even by such late writers as Walter
Scott, that the heron when hard pressed and
stooped at by the hawk will point his beak up
wards and thus receive the descending enemy
upon its point, thereby inflicting serious injury,
if not killing him outright. According to modern
experts this pretty story has no foundation in
fact. It seems extraordinary that for centuries
artists went on painting incidents which they
never could have seen, scores, if not hundreds, of
pictures of what was once a favorite and aristo
cratic sport depicting this very occurrence.
Stradanus’ predilection for portly men and
women, as well as for steeds of the cart-horse
type, and for unwieldy fat spaniels and hounds,
betray his Dutch origin, and perhaps also a bus-1
nesslike desire to please his principal public in
STANLEY’S EXPLOITS
No explorer before or since has approached the
harvest that Henry M. Stanley reaped (says a
writer in the New York Sun), and no man of let
ters, soldiers, or scholar has had such a single
lecture tour as Stanley’s greatest. In something
like ten big cities he received $2,000 fcr his first
appearance. For the first night in another group
of cities he received SI,OOO and in still another
group SSOO. Traveling in a special car upon
which he lived in most places, and accompanied
by four or five guests, he ended the tour with $64,-
000 clear of all-expenses. For that first night in
New York a charity paid Stanley’s agent $5,000
Iff
Chamois-Hunting.—By Stradanus.
Ostrich-Hunting.—By Stradanus.
. the lowlands and In northern Germany. For prac
tically all of his drawings were engraved and pub
lished in the former country, as were most oth
ers of a similar nature, with the exception per
haps of those of his pupil, Tempesta, who, living
in Rome, and evincing a like fertility and indus
try, had some of his drawings engraved by Ital
ians. As edition after edition of Stradanus’ series
were issued by the Galle brothers of Antwerp, and
eagerly bought up, the circle of his admirers in
northern Europe grew ever wider; but there is no
evidence that his work in the picture-book line
ever became very popular in Italy, the country of
his adoption. There his celebrated Naples fres
coes, for Don Juan of Austria, and his equally
good designs for tapestry for the Medici Grand
Duke, enjoyed far more popularity.
Considering the immense difficulties of trans
portation which then still handicapped all inter
national and especially all transalpine intercom
munication, it is rather curious that the formid
able distance intervening btetween the city on the
Bear-Hunting.—By Stradanus.
Arno and the harbor town on the North Sea did
not interfere in a more discouraging manner be
tween artist and engraver.
For more than half a century that studio in
Florence, of which Stradanus gives us in one of
his “arts and crafts” series, caled the Nova Re
perta, a characteristic picture, sems to have gone
on supplying busy hands in distant Antwerp with
material of the most heterogeneous kind. Saints
and devils, popes and emperors, holy legends and
scenes from purgatory, wars and sieges, land bat
tles and naval engagements, royal progresses and
peasant fetes, hunting, fishing and fowling scenes
galore, the horses of all nations, the crafts and
trades of the civilized world, the discoveries of
Columbus and Vespucci, scientific inventions of
the day, the working of the silkworm and scores
of other subjects of the most diverse nature, were
one and all depicted with a realism and with a
power of imagination that really amaze one. It
hows what an extraordinary demand for illus
trations had suddenly sprung up in the second
half of the sixteenth century among the nations
of northern Europe, as they awoke from the intel
lectual stupor that had enchained them during
mediaeval times.
and the receipts from the lecture were -$14,763.
On the other hand Alexander Graham Bell used to
lecture for $25 a night in schoolhouses and the
struggling Inventor was glad enough of the fee.
Since Teacher Did Not Know.
It was in the primary class of a graded school
in a western city, and the day was the 22d of
February.
"Now, who can tell me whoso birthday this is?”
asked the teacher.
A little girl arose timidly.
“Well, Margaret, you may tell us,” said the
teacher.
“Mine,” was the unexpected reply.—Everybody*?
Magazine.
z 4
CAPTAIN ROSTRON’S REPORT
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sighted our first iceberg, i had prei
ously had lookouts doubled, knowing that Titanic had struck ice and a
took every care and precaution. We soon found ourselves in a field of berg
large and small, and had to alter our course several times to clear berg
“We stopped at 4:00 a. nt., thus doing distance in three hours and
half, picking up the first boat at 4:10 a. m., boat in charge of officer, and h<
reported that Titanic had foundered. At 8:30 a. m., last boat picked up. A]
survivors aboard and all boats accounted for.
“At 8:00 a. m. the Leyland steamship California came up. I gave bln
the principal news and asked him to search and I would proceed to
York; at 8:50 proceeded full speed while researching over vicinity of dh
aster.”
WOMAN HEADS CHILD BUREAU
Miss Julia C. Lathrop of Chicago,
now and for many years a colleague
of Jane Addams in the work of Hull
house, has been appointed chief of
the recently created children’s bureau
of the national government. The nom
ination was sent to the senate the
other day by President Taft.
Miss Lathrop is the first woman
ever selected to direct a bureau of the
federal government. Moreover, to her
will be committed the foundation and
development of the activities which
the national government is about to
undertake to further the welfare of
children.
It is expected she will build up an
institution which will be an Important
branfth of the governments service in
the investigation of conditions of child
life and in corelating and accelerating
the activities of individual states in
bettering such conditions.
The-appointment of Miss Lathrop
was urged upon President Taft by so-
cial reform organizations not only in Chicago but in other parts of the coun- I
try. He was informed that she has made a specialty of the study of child I
life and its amelioration in connection with settlement work and that she I
has been prominent in the movement which resulted in the enactment of I
child labor legislation in Illinois.
The same organizations which Indorsed Miss Lathrop brought about the I
creation of the children’s bureau by congress.
BARON HENGELMULLER ANGRY
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ing the passage money from his own pocket, crossed over to Manhattan.
Then with-all speed he drove to the St. Regis.
The baroness, the daughter and the maid alighted. Then came t e
baron. He stepped to the chauffeur and asked brusuely:
“How much?” .
“Six dollars and fifty cents. The fifty cents is for ferriage,” answere
Volkman. f
The baron’s face grew red, his eyes were fixed hard on the chauneu
and he gasped: —•
“Six dollars and a half? I’ll not pay it.”
Ambassadors being bigger than New York police, Volkman turned
account over to the company for collection.
PRINCESS PAT IS AN ARTIST
New Yorkers are enjoying the
opportunity of viewing some of the
artistic handiwork of Princess Pa
tricia of Connaught, who recently won
so much popularity there.
Six of her paintings were selected
from those shown at the Montreal art
exhibition, and are now on exhibition
in New York. As a water color painter
she has few rivals in Europe, certain
ly none in its royal houses.
A picture, reputed to be one of the
cleverest works of the princess shows
King Edward, smiling in perfect con
tent, leaving the dinner table.
“I Was Hungry” is the title of this
whimsical conceit
King Edward dearly loved his niece,
Patricia, and did his best, to spoil her.
He used to urge her to give imitations
of their kin and roared with laughter
at her skill at mimicry. As she grew
older it is said she exacted a promise
from him that he would never use his
royal prerogative to force her into .
marriage she did not desire. Certain it is, if she has not been able to a- ••
the man of her choilce, she has at least remained free.
Capt. A. H. Rostron ■
mand of the Cunard line
Carpathia, which rescued the ■
vors of the Titanic disaster iri 3 B
was east bound on its regular fl
when the distress signal was r<,fl
up by the vessel’s wireless ontS
In his official report to th,XJ
manager of the company, the car J
said, in part: "
“I beg leave to report that at nl
a. m. Monday, 15th Inst., I Was |
formed of urgent message from I
tanic with its position. I immediatl
ordered ship turned around and J
it in course for that position, w e 3
ting then fifty-eight miles away. h|
heads of all departments called afl
issued what I considered the new
sary orders to be in preparation f
any emergency.
“At 2:40 a. m. saw flare half
point on port bow. Taking this f
granted to be a ship, shortly after i
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Baron Ladislas Hengelmuller von
Hengervar, Austrian-Hungarian Am
bassador to this country, journeyed to
the Hamburg-American line docks in
Hoboken the ether afternoon to meet
the baroness and their daughter, who
were passengers on the steamship
Amerika.
Outside the docks were scores of
taxicabs on which were taimeters
which registered distances and the
amount of change due from passen
gers. But the Baron passed these by
and his eye lighted on a limousine car
owned by Hexamer’s garage and driv
en by Fred Volkman, one of its chauf
feurs. There was no taximeter on
this car, but in his pocket Volkman
carries a schedule of prices.
“We’ll take this,” said the baron to
the baroness, and he assisted his wife
and daughter and the maid into the
vehicle, and to Volkman remarked:,,
“The Hotel St. Regis, New York."
Volkman drove to the ferry and pay-
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