SPORTS AND RECREATION
Sports and recreation in Los Angeles continued with an Hispanic flavor for
several years after American acquisition. Bull fights, or bear and bull
fights, remained popular with the large Mexican population of Southern
California, but also attracted the interest of recent arrivals. Despite
passage of a state Sunday law in 1855, which legally eliminated the Sabbath as
a day for such activities, bull fights occasionally occurred on Sunday for
several more years. In 1860 they were banned altogether.
Horse racing, a pastime of the rancheros in the earlier period, became a
fixture at Agricultural Park and at the county fair. Although racing was
seemingly in conflict with the moral values of the Protestant population that
came to dominate the economics and politics of the area in the 1880s, the
letters column carried only minor criticism of the sport, primarily in the form
of a complaint that horse racing received too much emphasis at the fair.
The influx of Americans brought to Southern California other recreational
forms that the immigrants had known in the eastern states. Walking races, a
temporary fad "back east," drew crowds in Los Angeles whether "Savariej," the
eccentric crowd-pleaser, participated or not. {For more on Savariej see the
chapter on "Crazy Shaw."} Hiking, and camping at the beach, mountains or
desert were extremely popular in the 'eighties, along with excursions to
Catalina for the more affluent. These activities generally elicited little
response from the paper's readers, but on occasion other amusements drew
pointed, and sometimes prolonged, comment.
A) BASEBALL
Historians have written little about the early days of baseball in Southern
California, but reportedly the first game in Los Angeles was played in 1860,
the same year that the city witnessed its last bull and bear fight. Historian
H. W. Splitter wrote that the first genuine team was "the Shoo-fly Club,"
formed in 1870. In the 1880s local teams played for a regional championship
that carried with it a trophy in the form of a silver bat and ball. That prize
was not original, dating from 1866 in California and perhaps earlier elsewhere
when the Pacific Base Ball Convention in San Francisco suggested it as a way to
promote the sport.
Although organized league play began in the 1870s, Los Angeles was too
remote to participate. Even with the opening of a rail connection to San
Francisco in 1876 leagues were limited to Bay area teams, later expanding into
Stockton and Sacramento. Not until the late 1880s did Los Angeles participate
in intrastate competition.
Consequently the Southern California game was local, with a handful of
teams in Los Angeles and a small number scattered over the region. While the
talent in the California League, the most successful league in the state formed
before the 1890s, consisted of what might best be described as "semi-pro," in
Los Angeles the box scores printed in the Times indicate that players were
amateurs who came from some of the most prominent families in the city.
Playing infield for the University team in 1882 were W. and A. Lindley
{physician Walter and his attorney brother Albert?}, pitching was "Throop"
{Amos G.,the Cal Tech founder?} while "Buffum" manned right field. At third
base for the Athletics was O'Melveny, with Taney at shortstop and Weyse in
centerfield, all socially-prominent names connected to the legal profession.
The Ivy club's roster was less recognizable.
Sporadically throughout 1882 the Ivy team used the letters column to
respond to charges that Ivy played non-members of their club in games and to
ridicule other teams' claims to the Southern California championship. The
first such letter appeared following a game on April 21 in which Ivy defeated
University 18-9 in a championship match played for the traditional silver bat
and ball. After the Times printed the box score the University team sent a
complaint to the paper, to which Ivy responded. A "picked nine" was
essentially an all-star team.
{Times, April 25, 1882, p. 3}
Communication.
Los Angeles, April 24.
Mr. Editor: In the columns of your last issue you say
that the University and Ivy Base Ball Clubs played the first
game for a silver mounted bat and silver ball. In
correction, we wish to state that the game was not between
the Ivys and University's, but between the University's and
picked nine of Los Angeles. Signed,
MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY B. B. C.
{Times, April 26, 1882, p. 3}
A Reply.
Los Angeles, April 25th.
In answer to the communication of the University Base
Ball Club, in your issue of the 24th, we would say that all
the players who played with us in our last game were members
of our club, and it is a very poor excuse for the
Universities to make after being beaten, and we would
respectively inform them that our nine for the next game,
which is to take place May 6, will be much stronger, and if
they think that was a picked nine of Los Angeles, they will
probably wilt entirely at the sight of our nine in the next
game, as we will show them what it is to play against our
best nine--a thing they have never done.
IVY BASE BALL CLUB.
Despite the suggestion by Ivy that the forthcoming May 6 game would again
pit their team, bolstered by a stronger lineup, against University, the Times
story on the game, a 4-4 ten inning tie, reported that it was between a "picked
nine" composed of members of the Ivy and University teams playing against the
Athletic Club. The box score supports that statement.
In August and September Ivy sneered at championship claims by teams in
Riverside and Orange. The term "crank," used by Ivy to describe the
correspondent from Orange, had a special connotation when applied to baseball,
simply referring to a devoted fan. After 1882 no more letters from Ivy
appeared in the Times.
{Times, Aug. 19, 1882, p. 2}
Challenge to a Game of Base Ball.
To the Editor of The Times:
In a recent issue of your paper you publish a
communication from Riverside, in which the Riverside Base
Ball Club claim the championship of Southern California by
virtue of having beaten the Orange Club, the former
champions. Since the aforesaid game was played we have
challenged the Riverside Club to a game for the said
championship, which challenge was refused without any valid
reason. We have no objection to the Riverside Club claiming
the championship as long as they are entitled to it; but
until our challenge is accepted, and we are beaten, we shall
claim the championship as against the Riverside Club, and
should be glad to hear from any club in Southern California.
Respectfully,
Ivy B. B. C.
Los Angeles, August 18.
{Times, Sept. 16, 1882, p. 4}
Base Ball.
To the Editor of The Times:
In your issue of last week we noticed a communication
from Orange signed by a crank, who calls himself
"Occasional," representing the Orange boys, asking us why
they received no answer to their generous offer of kindly
allowing us the pleasure of paying part or all of their
expenses, which would occur from a trip up here, and also
wanting to know why they had not received an answer to their
former communication. We answered that, stating we had
answered all their letters, and told them to come up any time
after the 15th inst., and we would pay half their expenses.
We would like to know why we have received no answer to
our last communication. The only reason we can think of, is
that they feel very weak and weary after their little journey
to Riverside, but of course that was all on account of the
fatigue of the trip. We also wrote to them some two months
ago, offering to buy the silver ball and put it up for them
to play for. We think it strange that they never received
any of our letters, as all of them were stamped to "return,
&c.," and as none of them came back, they must have been
delivered to someone. In conclusion, we would say, if they
mean business and are anxious to play us, let them say so, as
we are ready for them at any time at a week's notice. If
not, let this end it.
SECRETARY IVY B. B. C.
By order of the Club.
September 15, 1882.
California professional baseball, as distinguished from the amateur variety
played in Los Angeles, was hardly a gentile, middle-class spectator sport in
the 1880s. Historian Joel Franks described the early years of the old
California League:
By the 1880s, because the game had largely fallen into the
hands of men from working or lower-middle-class origins, the
upper classes snubbed baseball as a breeder of
professionalism, gambling, intemperance and Sabbath-breaking.
California League president John Mone undertook to sanitize baseball after
he took charge in 1882 by appealing to middle-class values. Paul Zingg, in
Runs, Hits and an Era, noted that Mone prohibited betting at ball parks. Nor
were players permitted to smoke on the playing field or buy alcohol at games.
In addition, Mone ordered them to control their language.
Two other evils accounted for much of the middle-class opposition to
baseball: Sabbath-breaking and the game's impact on women. Historians agree
that numerous players used aliases when playing in order to avoid criticism
from their families and friends for playing on Sunday. As long as the game was
a Sunday affair it conflicted with middle-class Protestant morality, which
frowned on recreational or business activity on the Sabbath. For the worker,
Protestant or not, Sunday was a day for recreation, which included watching
baseball and all the vulgarities that went with it.
With the increase in baseball's popularity as a spectator sport, large
numbers of women began to attend. That change was encouraged, in the words of
historians Natalie Vermilyea and Jim Moore, "as a refining influence on the
male patrons," and accounts in part for the introduction of the popular Ladies'
Days in the 1880s. To further encourage female attendance, some parks set
aside a grandstand section for women and their escorts so that they were seated
away from the rude and coarse conduct that characterized the "cranks."
Traveling to the game on public transit created yet another problem, as
quoted by Vermilyea and Moore from the San Francisco Examiner of Aug. 5, 1888:
Men hung on to the poles supporting the roofs of the dummies
and were as thick as monkeys in a South American forest.
Women stood up on the car platforms tightly sandwiched
between men whom they had never seen before, but it was no
time to be squeamish or even particular....
It was this sort of thing that bothered Harvey Yeaman, writing from Pacific
Grove, a community that was the symbol of virtue. In mid-October, 1888, Los
Angeles clergymen conducted a men-only meeting to consider practical ways to
combat the many evils that were rampant in the city: gambling, saloons and the
"social evil" {prostitution}. In a separate meeting only a short distance away
the women of Los Angeles held their own meeting for the same purpose. Both
meetings were attended by "the better class of citizens," and one after another
each speaker drove home to the audience the degradation caused by these
conditions. Mayor William Workman, on the Board of Managers for Mrs. Helen A.
Watson's Home for Girls, related that at the home were three 14-year-old girls,
from some of the best families in the city, who were about to become mothers.
The Times devoted over two columns to the meetings, prominently reported on
page one. Immediately next to that article was the report of a baseball game,
between Los Angeles and Bakersfield, held at Prospect Park. The game, in the
afternoon, and the two evening meetings all occurred on the same Sunday.
Yeaman {whose letter was curiously datelined Pacific Grove Oct. 22 yet was
published in Los Angeles the next morning without benefit of fax or e-mail}
noted the incongruity, and offered this analysis.
{Times, Oct. 23, 1888, p. 5}
The Social Evil from Another Standpoint.
Pacific Grove, Oct. 22.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Your paper of the 15th inst. contains very interesting
reports of separate meetings of ladies and gentlemen of your
city on the above subject. Some of the speakers in each
assembly portrayed in eloquent language the shameful state of
morals existing among the "common people" of your city, every
word of which is hereby heartily subscribed to. But they did
not go quite far enough. Not one of them referred to a
growing and alarming evil now existing in our country, and
more particularly in our own State. I notice in the same
paper a glowing description of a base-ball game which was
played in your vicinity on the same Sabbath day on which the
meetings in question were held in the evening. Were there
any ladies or women or girls in that crowd? You do not
report any, but doubtless there were large numbers of the
female sex there, for we scarcely ever read of such
gatherings where there are none. We take it for granted that
there were "girls" in that motley crowd--yes, crowd--where
they must have been rudely jostled.
Will you please inquire if those three prospective 14-
year-old mothers were ever at a base-ball exhibition on
Sunday? There is not the least doubt but they all have been
repeatedly, where they formed the acquaintances who led them
to shame and ruin.
Why is it that there is such a marked silence in regard
to this most outrageous desecration of the Sabbath? Why is
it that not one of the speakers in either of those assemblies
of citizens of the "better class" did not refer to the base-
ball game played that very day right under their noses, and
doubtless under some of their eyes so far as the outside
could be seen; for we would not for a moment insinuate that
any of them were inside?
I have no harsh words for this most remarkable omission,
but it seems a little strange to say the least.
The base-ball game is bad enough when played on a week
day; alluring, as it does, our boys and girls into loose and
dissolute company. These games foster and encourage
idleness, intemperance, gambling and dissolute tendencies.
They are one of the main supports of the accursed
saloon; all this on a week day. Think of it, ye Solons and
Minervas! All these evil agencies are concentrated with
crushing force on our holy Sabbath at Prospect Park, in the
city of Los Angeles, to which 2500 complimentary invitations
are issued. As a consequence, the trains were besieged with
a crowd utterly beyond their power to carry; every car was
jammed, seats, aisles, platforms and steps being filled. The
tender of the engine was covered with men, and some roosted
outside on the locomotive itself. The engineer could not
start his engine. The train was cut in two at last and taken
out in sections. The grand stand was packed with about 600
spectators, and 400 more stretched along the lines of the
bases.
Such is your graphic description of that crowd, to
witness that base-ball game, played on that sacred day at or
near Los Angeles. Were there no females there? It would be
a wonder if there were none. And was no mention of the
affair made by any of the speakers in either of those two
"social evil" assemblies that met on that same evening?
Hereafter begin your reforms at the bottom of the evil.
Include the base-ball club as a chief adjunct to the saloons,
and the two together as the chief agencies in trampling in
the dust our sacred day and bringing shame and ruin on our
boys and girls and anarchy on our country.
HARVEY YEAMAN.
B) OF SPORTSMEN AND POT-HUNTERS
The transformation of Los Angeles from the gun-toting town that it had been
to an urbane, would-be metropolis had progressed far enough by the 1880s that
some citizens organized gun clubs, such as the Recreation Gun Team. Calling
themselves "sportsmen," the members tended to come from the business and
professional segments of society and brought with them the same middle-class
morality that decried the vulgarity of the crowds and players at professional
baseball games. They objected to "pot-hunters" and "ground sluicers," terms
associated with those who disregarded the rules of the hunt and killed game
indiscriminately.
When lobbying by the State Sportsman's Association resulted in a tightening
of the game laws for 1883 and a ban on hunting during mating season in order to
maintain the species, some hunters were outraged. The Herald, with scornful
sarcasm, attacked the new restrictions on hunting quail. In response,
"Sportsman," in a series of letters to the Times from which the following are
extracted, defended not only the new regulations but the hunting ethic that
they represented.
{Times, Sept. 5, 1883, p. 2}
What is the use of the Game Law, Anyway?
To the Editor of the Times.--Sir: We find the following
brilliant essay in the Herald of yesterday:
"Quail cannot be killed until the first of October.
Thirty days more during which people will violate this
needless law and thousands of quail be killed for food. What
is the use of this law, anyway?"
Why should the Herald man take it for granted that
"people" will violate a law that stands as honored and
respected on our statute books as any other enactment? If
every man who handles a gun was too much of a gentleman to
violate a plain law of nature--one that appeals to his own
human instincts--then it would be needless. Or has he
arrived at the conclusion that he alone is the allwise judge
in such matters, and that the legislators of California, as
well as every other State in the Union, are a pack of
ignoramuses for thinking it necessary to pass laws to protect
the game of the country from indiscriminate slaughter by men
who neither respect the rights of their fellow men nor are
willing to allow the game a season for procreation, free from
continuous pursuit, fright and destruction. And then he
closes his wonderful effort by asking, with childish
simplicity, "What is the use of the law, anyway?"
Great Scott! What is the use of a law for the
protection of the parks of our city? What is the use of a
law for the preservation of the beauties and grandeur of
Yosemite and the Yellowstone. What is the use of a law to
prevent the vandal from entering and destroying the beautiful
homes we build? What is the use of a law preventing the
destruction of the food fish of our rivers and lakes? The
use of the game law is to prevent poachers who do not
recognize the rights of law-abiding citizens from stealing
(for that is the proper term) the game food of the country.
The use of the game law is to protect the game of the land
from entire anihilation so that those who come after us can
enjoy the pleasures of a hunt or the luxury of dining off
game at home. The use of that law is to put a stop to
ground-sluicing young quail in July and August as they
approach in flocks to the little springs of Catalina
Island--a process that in all probability the Herald man is
conversant with.
The game of the country is a part of its food. It
belongs to you and I and every other citizen. And being
community property, our legislators should of right, and it
is their duty to pass laws for its protection and
preservation. Every civilized country in the world has its
game laws and recognizes the necessity of preserving its
game. It is a commodity that belongs to the people and which
a few inconsiderate and selfish poachers should not be
allowed to destroy at seasons of the year when the killing of
one bird means the destruction of a score.
Gentlemen with the true instincts of sportsmen have
banded themselves together in every country for the purpose
of seeing that these laws are enforced and that the game of
the land is protected from pot-hunters during its season of
procreation, and by so doing have accomplished great good.
Such organizations are in existence all over this State, as
well as in our own city, determined to see these laws
respected. Five convictions have been had here already, for
which our local office should be commended; and more will
surely follow if there are violations. If the Herald man
thinks that "thousands will be killed" let him try to bag a
few himself and see how he will relish a $50 quail-on-toast
breakfast.
SPORTSMAN.
In contrast to debates over other topics - sewers, the cottony cushion
scale and the mistreatment of animals - that were carried on within the letters
column of the Times, the issue of hunting regulations pitted "Sportsman" in the
Times against "Victim," a Pasadenan, in the Herald. "Victim" charged that the
new legislation was the result of lobbying by no more than ten men. What the
state needed was not a law to protect the birds but one to protect farmers from
both the hunters who damaged property and the birds who destroyed the vineyards
and wheat. In response, "Sportsman" claimed his fellow sportsmen in Los
Angeles numbered fully one hundred of the most respected residents of the city
with more than that residing outside, including a good number of Pasadena
vineyardists.
"Sportsman" ended his participation in the exchange with this letter to the
Times.
{Times, Sept. 19, 1883, p. 4}
A Fusilade Against Pot-Hunters.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: "Victim" (in the
Herald of the 15th) feels very much hurt because we proved by
facts on record that he was discussing a subject he knew
nothing about and that every accusation he made against the
Los Angeles sportsmen in particular and those of the State in
general was false, and in his last letter from
Pasadena--written in the back room of the Herald office--he
tries to mend the matter by slurring the State Sportsman's
Association for not doing just what they did do. For instead
of the Legislature treating the State Association as an
organization of no influence and useless it allowed the State
Association to dictate every amendment of the last bill with
the exception of that taking off the protection on ducks, and
furthermore every provision of the game law both old and new
is the work of the State Association.
It is true, as we stated before, that the Los Angeles
club considered the first of October too late for the opening
of the quail season and when we presented the matter to the
State Association through our delegates to its last
convention, the up country sportsmen gladly met us half way
and a committee has been appointed to so revise the present
law as to make it agreeable to all sections of the State, and
a bill for that purpose will be introduced before the next
Legislature.
Any newsboy could have informed "Victim" that "the
pastoral days of Los Angeles" had passed away and the "age of
horticulture and agriculture" been long established before
these "effect laws," as he calls them, were enacted, and that
the game laws of this and all other countries were not the
work of pastoral ages, but the outgrowth of the highest
civilization.
It is the passing away of the pastoral age and the
development of a higher civilization that makes the necessity
for game laws, and the ravenous game market of crowded cities
that leads the greedy market hunter to the destruction of
game at all seasons, thereby necessitating laws for its
protection. It is the increasing love for legitimate field
sports, the outgrowth of the last decade, that has produced
the wonderful development of the gun. Were it not for this,
"Victim" would not be ground-sluicing with a breech-loading
Colts.
There is not one intelligent farmer in fifty that is
opposed to the game law per se, but they are opposed, and
rightfully too, to the depredations of the pot hunting
scalawags who, devoid of humanity and regardless of law,
justice or common decency, destroy more property in one day
than a thousand quail would in a whole season.
But why carry the argument any further? We will ask
"Victim" a few questions, to which we want straight, logical
answers, if he is capable of such a thing, and then we will
lay him away on the shelf among other relics of the dark
ages.
First. If game laws are so unjust and useless why is it
that the whole legislative genius of the civilized world have
never discovered the fact?
Second. If they have, why is it that the law-makers of
every State in the union and every nation of the earth
persist in maintaining laws against the interests of the
majority of their constituents?
Third. If quail are so destructive to vineyards in the
section where, in his imagination, "Victim" resides, why do
we not hear complaints from such vineyardists, as E. J.
Baldwin, of Santa Anita, Governor Stoneman (who signed the
last bill,) Colonel Maybury, L. J. Rose and J. de Barth
Shorb, of San Gabriel, Mr. Cogswell, of Sierra Madre Villa,
or Colonel Markam, of Pasadena? These are representative men
and representative grape-growers.
And lastly, why is it that every poacher, pot-hunter,
ground-sluicer and law-breaker, that don't raise a grape nor
a kernel of grain, is opposed to these laws? Under the
principle of law that a witness cannot be pressed to answer a
question that may incriminate himself, we don't expect that
you will answer this last question.
Now, "Victim," as to your assertion about bluff, we mean
just what we say, and dare you to the test. You know that we
have and will prosecute violators. You know that we have a
detective at work, through whose instrumentality five
convictions have been had. You know that you dare not openly
violate the game law yourself, but you will play the part of
the coward and try to make law-breakers of others.
We know you, "Victim," and we know just what ails you.
Bury such petty, groundless feelings and be a man, be a law-
abiding citizen. Stop your inhuman habit of ground-sluicing
half-fledged birds as they approach their watering places.
Teach your Gordon-setter to work in the field. Flush your
birds one at a time and shoot them like a man. Cultivate a
love for the legitimate field sports, and possibly, some time
in the great future, you may be recognized yourself as a
SPORTSMAN.
Not all those who wrote on this subject represented the views of hunters.
While the Herald's "Victim" may have found the birds destructive, "C" argued
otherwise. Although his remarks were directed at pot-hunters, he may well have
felt the same way about "Sportsman" and his gun club associates.
{Times, June 20, 1888, p. 6}
Bird Shooting.
Cahuenga, June 13.--[To the Editor of The Times.] A
great annoyance to which people living just outside of the
city of Los Angeles are subjected is the shooting of birds by
pot-hunters from the city. It is a common thing for these
gentry to load up with a double-barreled shotgun and game-bag
and to sally forth in pursuit of the little innocent singing
birds, which they seek with a zeal worthy of a better cause,
and slaughter indiscriminately. Doves, larks, robins,
mocking-birds, and some species even smaller suffer at their
hands. If during the course of a long tramp or drive they
bag a number it is counted a grand achievement, and besides
enjoying the sport, they generally sell their game for enough
to pay for a few glasses of beer. Our suburban citizens say
the impudence of these fellows is something quite astounding.
Country homes are often alarmed by their close shooting;
orchards and even dooryards are not infrequently invaded in
their zealous pursuit of the feathered songsters. If you
protest against the practice you will be coolly informed that
shooting in the highway is permissible; that is to say, these
valiant hunters claim the right to stand in the road and
shoot birds from neighboring trees. This most un-American
pretension would argue, if the dialect did not, an education
in some foreign country, but the privilege of shooting
anybody's birds is claimed as one of the prerogatives of a
residence in this land of freedom.
It is a matter of no consequence to the gunner that the
farmer or fruit-grower prizes these same birds very highly as
destroyers of insect pests; not but that their music is duly
esteemed, but as protectors of fruit they are simply
invaluable. When let alone they are a sure exterminator of
all the more destructive worms and insects that infest the
orchard and garden, and the farmer or fruiterer could well
afford to pay a dollar or two apiece to have them spared.
The quail and the dove during a part of the season, and
the mocking-bird all the year round, are afforded such
protection as our American laws can give, but all other
birds, such as larks, robbins, blackbirds and orioles, are
left to the mercy of those heartless hunters. The immunity
of these fellows from prosecution for trespass is in the
expense and trouble attending such proceedings, and also, it
may be in the fact that they usually possess too much
political influence to justify a judgment against them for so
small an offense as shooting little birds.
The next Legislature should provide some speedy and
adequate remedy against this evil.
C.
While the state had a great variety of birds, the 1880s witnessed efforts
to import exotic species into Southern California. Leonard J. Rose of Sunny
Slope {located north of the San Gabriel mission} announced in a letter to the
Times in early 1889 that he had brought a dozen skylarks from England and
intended to set them free. He admired them as songbirds and noted that they
would "add great charm to our country by their melodious song." While he was
convinced that they would thrive and propagate in Southern California, his
greatest fear was "the gun in the hands of the boy or pot-hunter" and he
appealed to the public in his letter to protect the birds.
Rose's skylark experiment did not result in the success that he anticipated
and, in fact, later attempts to introduce the skylark into California were no
more successful than his effort. On the other hand, one of "Sportsman's" gun
clubs announced a few days later that it intended to import the English sparrow
into the local area. Ornithologists believe that the bird reached Southern
California about 1903, spreading here on its own after being introduced into
other parts of the United States. Whether the gun club actually went through
with its plan and therefore contributed to the coming of the sparrow is
unknown, but an anonymous letter to the Times warned of the consequences of
such an importation.
{Times, Feb. 27, 1889, p. 3}
"When the Sparrows Homeward Fly."
Los Angeles, Feb. 25.--[To the Editor of The Times.] I
see in your paper of yesterday that a certain "gun club"
intends importing English sparrows for their amusement. If
they do so and those pests get an abiding place here many
will have cause to be sorry. The sparrow lives almost wholly
on grain and the buds of fruit trees. I have seen a pear
tree stripped of its fruit buds in five minutes by a flock of
sparrows. They are also destructive to other and more useful
buds {birds? - Ed.}, driving the native birds from their usual
haunts and even killing birds as large as our mockingbird by
combined attacks. They are also noisy, have a shrill,
disagreeable chirp, and are altogether about the least
desirable addition possible to this bright land. There are
sparrow clubs in England, where constant effort is being made
to keep the pest within limits; but I trust there may never
be a necessity for such organizations here, and the only way
to prevent it is to prohibit the bringing in of such trash,
as they are a nuisance wherever found.
C) GUN CONTROL
Considering the violent history of the city in the period before 1880, with
its numerous homicides, justifiable or otherwise, the relatively few letters in
opposition to the use of guns is understandable. In 1865, after a deadly
shoot-out at the bar-room of the Bella Union hotel, Mayor Jose Mascarel signed
an ordinance banning the carrying of concealed weapons in the city. But in a
town as wild as Los Angeles in the 1850s, '60s and '70s firearms were
considered a necessity and the ordinance was ignored.
In the 'eighties, with the city on its way to becoming a western outpost of
the civilized Midwest and East, attitudes began to change, as reflected in
these letters to the Times. An 1890 city directory listed Philamon P.
Livermore as deputy county clerk.
{Times, July 14, 1882, p. 3}
The Toy Pistol.
Editor Times: Since reading in the Express, a just
denunciation of a twenty-two-calibre cartridge, fitting a
"toy pistol," ingeniously devised, I have been experimenting
to ascertain if his statements were correct. Instead of
eight thicknesses of paper, I shot through a board an inch
thick. A man's skull would hardly stand the concussion
without resulting in death. If it be true that a moral
adorns a tale, lend me your pen to write it. Further
experiments will consist in finding out the parties who sell
deadly weapons to boys. Many men have little discretion in
their use, and boys should not be allowed.
W. H.
{Times, Feb. 13, 1887, p. 6}
Boys and Guns.
Cucamonga, Feb. 8.--[To the Editor of The Times.] Isaac
Lord, son of I. W. Lord of Cucamonga, an 11-year-old lad, had
a Christmas present from his mother of a breech-loading
shotgun, with ammunition. His father only allowed him to
accept it on condition that he should not use it till his
14th year.
His right hand is severely damaged, while most of his
left one is missing.
Moral: let mothers send their little boys good books and
keep the shotguns for their own use.
{Times, Sept. 29, 1889, p. 5}
A Note of Warning.
Los Angeles, Sept. 27.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
On Sunday, September 22d, I took a stroll over the hills
northward from town, and just as I came to the top of the
ridge on the north side of the Buena Vista street reservoir,
I was somewhat startled at hearing the report of a gun, and
at the same time the sharp whistling of a bullet apparently
in close proximity to my head. Not knowing but what someone
might be taking me for a target, I was at first inclined to
make a hasty retreat, but as I heard other reports
unaccompanied by the singing of the bullets, concluded to
investigate the matter; and on going a little further over
the hill, I saw a building by the side of the reservoir, from
which some parties were firing at a target, which was just
opposite where I came up the hill. I went down to the
building and watched the results. The target is so placed
that, instead of the bullets going through it into a bank of
earth, they strike upon a piece of hard ground, nearly level,
from which they glance off and fly at different angles up the
hill, some going clear over the top and some striking the
hill at different points. It looks to me to be a dangerous
practice. There should be a bank of earth behind the target
to receive the balls from which they could not glance off.
Unless it is changed, the probabilities are that some missing
citizen may yet be found on the said hill with a bullet-hole
in his head. Verdict: "By some person or persons unknown."
P. P. LIVERMORE.
[This scheme of target practice is understood to have
been specially designed for the benefit of those able
marksmen who are only able to make a bullseye by the aid of a
richocheting ball.--Ed. Times]
D) CHESS
Other sports and forms of recreation found their way into the letters
column in the 1880s. Bicyclists proposed formation of a wheel club and called
for a race at the county fair. Tennis buffs urged the city to hold a
tournament as Santa Monica had already done. Chess, too, had its advocates
although finding a good game seems to have been a problem for these two
writers.
{Times, July 10, 1885, p. 2}
A Chess Monopoly.
To the Editor of the Times--Sir: The chess-boards in
the Public Library are habitually monopolized by a few
chronic players, who play from morning till night, seven days
in the week, to the exclusion of patrons of the Library who
have equal rights, but less time to spend there. I, for one,
protest, and unite in the demand for
FAIR PLAY.
{Times, Dec. 8, 1887, p. 6}
Chess and the Humorous Gall of a Chess-Player.
Los Angeles, Dec. 6.--[To the Editor of The Times.]
Almost a stranger in the city and rooming by myself with no
pleasant circle of friends to help pass my evenings, and no
public amusements save and excepting theaters, and of these a
little goes a long way, I find that, resolving myself into a
club, consisting of one member, does not vary the monotony
quite enough, even though I keep my Times for an evening, bon
bouche (please correct the quotation if required, as my
French is getting rather mixed in this cosmopolitan city
where one hears as much Dutch or Spanish as English nearly);
well, sir, even that gets slightly ennuish when one comes to
the "real-estate" part of the advertisement, and so I fall
back, pipe in mouth, on the table in what I understand to be
the correct attitude in this country for a reverie (please
note I was English until I went to the proper place and made
my application to be admitted a citizen of the Republic), and
the result of my reverie is that I will go and have a game of
chess with some one, and off I start up town for that
purpose, fondly imagining that I had only to veni vedi and I
should vici without any trouble, you can fancy my dismay on
making inquiry for a chess club to find that no one knew
anything of such a thing; indeed few people that I spoke to
seemed to understand what I was talking about; indeed, one
suggested I could get it, he thought, at a restaurant he
named on Main street. I explained that it was not something
to eat, but a game. This seemed to enrage him some, but I
calmed him by suggesting something to drink, but made matters
worse by taking him to a place where they gave us what they
called a "milk shake," a name that rhymes so well with
stomach ache that I feel sure they must be synonymous terms.
The next man I applied to said "O, yes, they played it at a
german beer hall on South Main street," but he explained that
they did not call it chess, but chequers, which I found to be
what these benighted English call draughts. To make a long
story short, I could not find a place anywhere where I could
indulge my whim, and so I came back to my lonely room to
devise some other pastime when, Eureka, it occurred to me to
write to the papers and inflict a share of my troubles on an
editor. His shoulders are strong enough to bear one more
burden; and so, sir, hinc illae lachrymae, I should say,
"hence these weepings;" otherwise I mean to say, can you help
me out of the dilemma, either by playing a game or two with
me yourself, or by telling me some one else who will, or give
me a hint or two as to how one should go about getting a
chess club started? Perhaps if you do think my long ditty
worthy of insertion it may bring about a remedy for my
trouble; and if you do, sir, I will take care that virtue
shall not be its only reward, for I will inflict another
letter twice as long as this when I have something else to
ask your powerful pen to aid me in.
Sir, I hope you may live long and die happy. Yours,
etc.,
CHESS.
P. S.--If, as I tautologized above, you do insert this,
and any one chooses to communicate with me, ask them to be
good enough to address me as "Chess" at your office.
[Come around just as we are going to press and the game
shall come off.--Ed.]