Connecticut western news., 1874-01-09
Something about "Stowaways. ,,

In the melancholy catalogue of the poor people engulfed in the Vile du Havre we read (says the London Z'cle- grapM that there were twenty seven third-cl passengers and six stow aways." The last named term is suffi- ciently curious to call for explanation, and in rendering it we touch one of the most wretched features of em1grant life. A " "stowaway is an individual who, at the last moment, just before the vessel leaves the dock for her destina- tion, sinks on board, creeps below and conceals himself as securely as he is able in remote hooks and corners of the lower deck or the forepeak. Sometimes he gets into the hold but there, if the matches are battened down, he runs the imminent risk of beiug smothered. At all events, he crawls into his coigne of vantage and crouches there like a rat behind the wainscot, quaking for fear of discovery. And detection must sooner or later be the doom of the stowaway.
 So well is the practice of smuggling human baggage known to seagoing folks, that prior to large emigrant ship sailing there is generally organized a picket of sailors headed by one of the mates, and furnished with lanterns and rattans, who make tour of exploration among the packing cases and provision casks. Hunting for stowaways Is 8 most exciting sport the wretched de- faulters are " started from their holes, roundly abused, hustled on deck, "slanged by the captain-happy they, in an American clipper, who escape be- or "booted by the first mate-and are then contumaciously kicked over the side. Some stowaways, however, gen erally contrive to pass unnoticed in the search and six-the number found on board the Vile du Havre-may be con- sidered as fair average among hun dred and fifty passengers.
 The ship, in any case, cannot be many days at sea before they are dis covered. Every fresh hogshead of beef or biscuit that is unheaded diminishes their chances of immunity; still there have been known instances of the un- fortunate creatures being inadvertently damned up between and behind heavy piles of merchandise, and so suffering living entombment rivalling that of Constance de Beverley in horror. Stowaways dragged from their hiding places when the ship is in blue water have to take their chance; and very calamitous chance 1t is. If the culprlt be a womon she has not much to fear. Jack is proverb1ally gallant, and an ac- tive woman may make herself very use- ful in the cabin and the cookhClse. But when the offender happens to be 8 raw lad-which he generally is-he has emphatically bad time" of it. He may consider himself fortunate if he is allowed to earn the worth of his bed and board by performing the most menial drudgery, and at the end of the voyage the captain can, if he chooses, take the stowaway before 8 magistrate and have him punished for fraud. It usually happens, however, that the skipper, when the run is over, is as glad to get rid of his unproftable pas senger as that passenger is to be we'll out of the ship. The former says noth- ing about the pecuniary loss his owners have suffered, and the latter is quite content to be silent with regard to the numerous attentions conveyed through the instrumentality of marlinspikes and ropes ends with which he has been favored by the boatswain and his assis- tants. What the French authorities would have said to these waifs and strays on their arrival at Harve is un- certain but the poor fellows need fear no frowns of human justice now. They are drowned,