One recalls in this connection the famous delivery of a well-known critic concerning a popular book: " If you like this sort of a book, this is the sort of a book you like." If one cares for ice-boating, fishing, and kindred occupations, this is the sort of a subject that he cares for; but, realising that the converse is also true, we frankly re-echo the advice given by Mrs. vStowe, in the preface to a chapter on New England theology, " If the reader is not interested in the subject of this chapter, he is invited to skij^^ it." We have already spoken of the intercollegiate races that for nearly a decade have enlivened the waters about Poughkeepsie and have drawn each year a multitude of enthusiastic spectators. But it is not only at summer time that the waters offer a field for exciting contests of strength or skill. The upper reaches of the river become in winter the theatre of sports that recall

Sports and Industries 43 1

the tales that are told of the vigorous generation inhabiting that region in old eolonial days. We have read how, in the time of Volckert Douw -- recorder, mayor, vice-president of the first Provincial Congress, judge, Indian commissioner, and what not -- the ice on the vixev in front of his house at Wolvenhoek was the race-course upon which the speed of rival horses was matched in many an exciting contest. There the great and fashionable world of x\lbany and Kingston, we may suppose, entered into that exhilarating pastime with a zest that belonged to a simpler phase of life. It is a trite reflection that the fathers enjoyed their pleasures more heartily, having fewer to enjoy. There is a story told of a dinner given by Douw to Red Jacket, the Indian chief, at which were present not only a number of his fellow-redskins, but a few prominent white men, with General Schuyler at their head.