"In addition to protecting the seals on the Pribilof Islands, the United States has entered into an agreement with Japan, Russia, and England, that there shall be no sealing in the open seas for fifteen years. This open sea, or pelagic sealing did great harm. Only the females leave the land, where they can be protected, and go down to the open sea. Consequently the poachers got many females, destroying the young seals as well as the mothers, cutting off the source of supply, and leaving a preponderance of 'bachelors,' or useless males."
What a chance for the writer of sex stories! Why dally with the human race when seals are living such a lurid life? Here is a brand-new field: The heroine a soft-eyed female with a hide like velvet; the hero a dashing, splashing male. Sweet communions on the rocks at sunset, and long swims side by side. But one night on the cliffs, beneath the moon comes the blond beast of a bachelor, a seal absolutely unscrupulous and of the lowest animal impulses. Then the climax--the Jack London stuff: the fight on the edge of the cliff; the cry, the body hurtling to the rocks below. And, of course, a happy ending--love on a cake of ice.
Old John Jacob Astor, founder of the Astor fortune, was a partner in the American Fur Company of St. Louis of which Pierre Chouteau was president. A letter written to Chouteau by Astor just before his retirement from the fur business gives as the reason for his withdrawal the following:
I very much fear beaver will not sell very well very soon unless very fine. It appears that they make hats of silk in place of beaver.
Beaver was at that time the most valuable skin, and had been used until then for the making of tall hats; but the French were beginning to make silk hats, and Astor believed that in that fact was presaged the downfall of the beaver trade.
Club life in St. Louis is very highly developed. There are of course the usual clubs which one expects to find in every large city: The St. Louis Club, a solid old organization; the University Club, and a fine new Country Club, large and well designed. Also there is a Racquet Club, an agreeable and very live institution now holding the national championship in double racquets, which is vested in the team of Davis and Wear. The Davis of this pair is Dwight F. Davis, an exceedingly active and able young man who, aside from many other interests, is a member of the City Plan Commission, commissioner in charge of the very excellent parks of St. Louis, and giver of the famous Davis Cup, emblematic of the world's team tennis championship.