Newfoundland

Sport.

All details regarding sport can be obtained simply by writing to the Secretary of the Game and Island Fisheries Board at St. John's. The rules are not burdensome, and the expense not great. Good guides, who must be licensed, can be obtained with out difficulty, and often tents and canoes can be hired in the dis trict selected. It is well, however, to make certain of this. All apparatus and outfit introduced into the country is liable to cus toms' duty, and sportsmen may have to deposit at the port of entry money to the value of the duty charged, but this will be returned upon leaving the country. Any necessary supplies can always be obtained in the excellent large stores in the capital. Caribou hunting is undergoing a closed season. The willow grouse shooting is excellent, and attainable in any part of the island. The close season is Jan. 1. to Sept. 20. Capercailzie and black game, both of which have been introduced, have no open season. The moose also are protected. Carrying of firearms, except to a genu ine traveller, is forbidden on Sundays, and in close seasons. No license is required.

Salmon or trout fishing can be obtained everywhere, the kind depending only on the size of the river. The close season is Sept. 15 to Jan. 15. Every river is preserved by the Government, and none are closed to the public. Many kinds of fur-bearing animals are indigenous. Foxes of various colours, lynx, martin, muskrat, otter, beaver, hares and rabbits, are numerous.

Postal Service.

The Colony issues its own stamps of many denominations. They are beautifully and variously engraved, and are frequently changed, with some advantage to the revenue. It costs three cents to the United States, Canada, or in the Colony, whereas postage from the United States to Newfoundland is only two cents. Parcels up to 22 lb. weight are accepted from England by post, and up to 11 lb. from Canada and the United States. The Government owns 5,000 m. of telegraph lines all round the country, and 2,000 m. of telephone wires, besides a string of wire less telegraph stations as far North as Makkovik islands in North Labrador. The British news despatch from Rugby, England is picked up daily, and published. During the summer months, mails are carried largely by steamers to the North, and in winter from Bay of Islands North around the bottom of White Bay, including Labrador, the mails are carried by couriers and dog sledges. The Furness-Withy steamers from Halifax to Liverpool call at St. John's, completing the voyage from St. John's in six days. The Red Cross steamers from New York take five days Newfoundland, commonly termed the "senior colony" of Great Britain, antedates in discovery (though not in continuous settle ment) any other British over-sea dominion. John Cabot, sailing from Bristol in 1497, appears to have made landfall at Bonavista and claimed the whole country for Henry VII. Three years later

Gaspar Corte-Real, ranging the North American coasts, discovered and named Conception bay and Portugal cove, and was appointed Portuguese governor of Terra Nova. The long series of annual trans-Atlantic expeditions followed upon the voyages of Cabot and Corte-Real, and their reports in England, Portugal and France concerning the multitude of fish in Newfoundland. The belief that English fishermen did not avail themselves to any extent of these advantages until the middle of the i6th century is now shown to be erroneous. In 1527 the little Devon fishing ships were unable to carry home their large catch, so "sack ships" (large merchant ves sels) were employed to carry the salt cod to Spain and Portugal. An act of 1541 classes the Newfoundland trade with the Irish, Shetland and Iceland fisheries. Hakluyt, writing in 1578, mentions that the number of vessels employed in the fishery was 400, of which only one-quarter were English, the rest being French and Spanish Basque. But in the same year, according to Anthony Park hurst, "the English are commonly lords of the harbours where they fish and use all help in fishing if need require." Shortly thereafter England awoke to the importance of Cabot's great discovery, and an attempt was made to plant a colony on the shores of the island.

Sir Humphry Gilbert, provided with letters patent from Queen Elizabeth, landed in St. John's in Aug. 1583, and formally took possession of the country in the queen's name. The first attempt at colonizing was frustrated by the loss of Gilbert soon afterwards at sea. In 1610 James I. granted a patent to John Guy, an enter prising Bristol merchant, for a "plantation" in Newfoundland; but no marked success attended his efforts to found settlements. In 1615 Captain Richard Whitbourne of Exmouth in Devon was despatched to Newfoundland by the British admiralty to establish order and correct abuses which had grown up among the fishermen. On his return in 1622 he wrote a "Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland Trade" which King James, by an order in council, caused to be distributed among the parishes of the kingdom "for the encouragement of adventures unto plan tation there." A year after the departure of Whitbourne, Sir George Calvert, afterwards the first Lord Baltimore, obtained a patent conveying to him the lordship of the whole southern penin sula of Newfoundland, and the right of fishing in the surrounding waters. He planted a colony at Ferryland, 4om. north of Cape Race, where he built a handsome mansion and resided with his family for many years. The French so harassed his settlement by incessant attacks that he at length abandoned it.