Curtis and others were the leading fancy skaters.

The next season the same rink was managed by John Brown, the late
secretary of the Chicago Base-Ball Club, but unfortunately he was not
blessed with "the Anson luck," and the winter being a mild one and the
freezes few and far between, he did not make a success of the venture.
The toboggan craze was merely one of the fashionable fads of the moment,
and now one rarely hears anything at all of the sport.

As a bottler of ginger beer I achieved at another time great distinction
and there are some men in the country right now who have a very vivid
remembrance of the beverage that I was unfortunate enough to put upon
the market. My experience as a ginger beer manufacturer was laughable,
to say the least of it, though I confess that I did not appreciate the
fact at the time as much as did some of my friends and acquaintances.

During several of my visits to Canada in search both of players and
pleasure I had made the acquaintance of a Mr. William Burrill, who at
that time conducted a clothing store at London, Canada, and who had
treated both myself and Mrs. Anson with great kindness. This gentleman
finally went "down the toboggan slide" in a business way and at last
turned up in Chicago with a very little money and a formula for making
and bottling ginger beer. He needed, according to his own estimate,
about $500 more capital than he was possessed of and wished me to join
him in manufacturing it. He was a nice fellow, I was anxious to help him
along, and, besides that, viewed from a business standpoint, it looked
like a good thing, and as I was never averse to taking a chance when
there was a good thing in sight I concluded to join him in the venture.
The $500 that I was originally required to invest grew into $1,500,
however, before we got the thing on the market, and then the sales
started off in lively fashion, and so, not long afterwards, did the
ginger beer.

There was a flaw in the formula somewhere, just what it was I never have
been able to ascertain, but--well, there was something the matter with
it. It wouldn't stay corked, that was its worst feature, but would go
off at all times of the day and night and in the most unexpected
fashion. If the cork would hold, the bottle wouldn't, and as a result
there would be an explosion that would sound like the discharge of a
small cannon. Sometimes only one bottle out of a dozen would explode,
and then again the whole dozen