Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/437

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386
ETHICS OF BOXING AND MANLY SPORT.

demonstration of the iniquity and stupidity of the canal system. Captain Wallace ran a deep drain around this Dover Farm, bringing the end of it to the canal; there he stopped, and waited until the canal was emptied some years ago, for the purpose of being cleansed from stumps and sand. The indefatigable farmer took advantage of the dry water-course and dug his culvert under the bed of the canal, bridging it securely. His drain was then several miles long, and he continued it until it emptied into the Northwest river, which runs out of the swamp. Last year the lake being swelled by heavy rains, the canal company did not, of course, open their locks and let the water escape; instead, they adopted a lazier, easier, and more ruinous plan; they raised the banks of the canal, one consequence of which was that the confined water percolated through the surrounding land, forced itself under Mr. Wallace's drain, and inundated and destroyed several hundred acres of his cleared land. Of course, from such an injury he had no protection.

The energy and intelligence of these two gentlemen, father and son, working with such surroundings, are remarkable. The elder Mr. Wallace, a man considerably over 70, spoke with almost enthusiastic earnestness of the work he had him-