Bassett's Scrap Book, Vol 2, No 9
Articles in this issue
- Opening feature recounting the history of Thanksgiving in America, from the 1607 observance at Monhegan off the Maine coast and the 1621 Plymouth harvest feast with Massasoit's Indians through the official proclamations of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Dutch governors.
- The editor offers his lists of the ten best works of fiction (Les Miserables, Lorna Doone, David Copperfield, etc.) and the ten best short stories (A Christmas Carol, Rip Van Winkle, Luck of Roaring Camp, etc.), inviting readers to submit their own.
- An essay on the wild turkey as a native American bird, noting its 1584 sighting off Axacan (North Carolina), its mention by Capt. John Smith and William Byrd, and Brillat-Savarin's praise of it as the New World's finest gift to the Old.
- A critical piece on rowdyism in football, citing newspaper accounts of slugging and kicking in the Pennsylvania-Harvard game and recounting disputes over possession of the ball in earlier Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Pennsylvania contests.
- Quotes Mrs. Margaret W. Ravenhill, vice-president of Sorosis, in praise of men's clubs, followed by the editor's commentary on the husband-and-home question.
- A collection of comically misworded advertisements from a London prize competition, plus notes on Japanese stature, a London Times funeral notice for Sir Charles Hastings, and assorted fillers.
- The reader question-and-answer column, covering inauguration dates, the Japanese capture of Port Arthur in 1894, the Battle of the Standards, smock marriages, the Cumberland (National) Road, the Dardanelles, the world's largest libraries and other topics.
- Report of the L.A.W. Executive Committee meeting at Vice President Meserole's office in Brooklyn on Oct. 29, 1904, with Presidents Cooke and Meserole present, grouping the states into four districts for National Assembly representation and extending nomination and ballot deadlines; includes the New York and Massachusetts nominations certified by Secretary-Treasurer Abbot Bassett.