“‘Why was I born so early? Why did not the messenger angel sent with me defer his visit to earth until the ‘Complete American Trapper’ had been published? I even mourn to think of what I was deprived of in my youth. I can’t imagine a country boy, a real American boy, who would not go without his dinner for months if in this way only he could obtain this wonderful boy’s book! And that parent is hard-hearted, and may even be in dread of I Timothy 5;8, who will not buy this book for his boys; and for that matter, a man is a boy until he is fifty years old. I am all the more interested in the book because Mr. Gibson is one of my boys, brought up under my eyes in old Plymouth, and by good hard work has deserved success. “‘HENRY WARD BEECHER.’ “On the morning after receiving the above I found a letter from Bradley & Co., in which they remarked that they hoped I would succeed in getting a word from Mr. Beecher. I sent the notice to them and would like you to see the letter I got from them in acknowledgment.” Dr. J. G. Holland was another friend to whom he looked for a word of approval. He was not quite so sure of his own mind, and wrote in a much more guarded way. His humane heart was a little troubled about the effect of the book. In truth, Gibson himself became, in later years, quite uneasy about it. His own sympathy with animals increased, and his love for them, as little brothers and sisters of the wood; and he grew more and more averse to whatever gave them pain. But he rested in the intent of his book as he describes it explicitly in the preface: “If the poor victims are to serve no use after their capture, either as food, or in the furnishing of their plumage or skins for useful purposes, the sport becomes heartless cruelty, and we do not wish to be understood as encouraging it under any circumstances.” He would probably have strengthened that utterance at a later day, and possibly have written another preface. Dr. Holland’s letter runs thus: “NEW YORK, _Nov. 7, 1878_. “DEAR MR. GIBSON: “I have been looking over your book with an interest mingled of dread and delight. It is so easy to pervert all these traps of yours into instruments of cruelty that the book seems almost a dangerous one. But, after all, what good thing is there that is not liable to be perverted? The capture of animals for food is entirely legitimate. The capture of the fur-bearing animals is quite as proper, while the destruction of those that are dangerous to the life of men and domestic animals cannot be objected to on any ground. “These purposes cover your field, or nearly cover it, and you certainly have met them with a book which, so far as I know, has no equal. It is a good book to put in the hands of every boy who is not so cruel as to deserve to be caught in a trap himself. “Yours truly, “J. G. HOLLAND.”