Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-09-29
NOTES AND QUERIES.

are much mourned as of the loved and lost
the glowing memories of the irretrievable
Past. The old coach days are mourned by
the relics of past generation in Old and New
England, the canal-boat days hover, lovingly,
in the memories of a sleepy time which seems
relocated to the land of dreams. The keen
enioyments of steamship and steamboat travel
are of the experiences Of another generation
and later day. Just as nobody will ever
witness return of the flush times of early
California-such return being impossible
so indeed shall we who had experience, twenty
years ago of the wild but hearty joys of steam
ship travel by the Isthmus of Darien, never
know return of those splendid sea picnics,
with their lashins of wine, their lavish dem
onstrations of God speed to the departing and
welcome to the returning voyagers. And
there is another sort of travel, known only to
its participants, which has gone by never to
be revived That was the river voyage be-
tween San Francisco and Sacramento in the
California Steam Navigation Company's boats.
We refer to the days of Van Pelt and Ned
Poole and 'Cap'n Chad" Nobody ever saw
such cheer, such poker games, such night
suppers or such good company. In Scribner
for October we find an account of certain
sea-captain whose choice company of friends
and associates and general course of life re-
mind one of ''Cap'n Chad when he naviga-
ted the Sacramento as Master of the Antelope,
the Senator, the Helen Hensley, the New
al &c 1,o g
steamers. Chads friends were the pick of
the travelling public and great was the cor
diality existing between him and Joe Baldwin
and Hugh Murray and Humphrey Griffith
and Jim McDougall and that set of vanished
worthless. He was the highest toned Cap'n
on the river and the full social equal of the
highest and choicest. The person referred to
in Scribners is Captain E. E. Morgan, long
packet-ship captain between New York and
Liverpool. Such were his gifts of good fell |
lowship and entertainment that he was elected |
a regular member of the Artists Stretching |
Club of London-a club including Landseer
Standfeld, Turner, Leslie and all that set of
first rates. Also among his intmates were |
Thackeray, Dickens and Sam Rogers. He |
maintained a correspondence with many of |
these after he had abandoned the sea and |
often when his ship left London he would take
a company of these choice spirits with him as
far as Gravesend and give them big dinner.
Dickens, who seems to have embraced him
among his long list of constant correspondents
says to him in one of his letters, 81 hope you
IL. L |
the Year Round. Here and there, in the des-
cription of the sea-going hero, have given
touch or two of remembrance of Somebody
you know; very heartily desiring that thous
ands of people may have some faint reflection
of the pleasure have for many years derived
from the contemplation of most amiable ma
ture and most remarkable man" The writer
of the paper in Scribners' says of Captain
Morgan, Honorable, generous, clear-sighted
and sound of judgment, he was also more s
than ordinarily successful, while the wonder
full heartiness which characterized him
throughout was in itself full source of hap
piness to him and to all who came within his !
influence" This might well pass for pic
ture of Cap'n Chadwick. Perhaps there are
more who will see in it what would answer
for a description of the late Commodore Wat a
kins. And these reflections bring up the c
value of this very quality of ''heartiness''
referred to by the writer above quoted. 1t is S
as much type of genius as the poetical gift a
or the gift of painting and sculpture. Itcan- t
not be initiated, and is never over estimated. c
1t is the magnificent reverse of asceticism, a
rebuke to all misanthropes and the very charm t
of unrestrained but refined masculine exist n
ence. This Querist begs to file another a
protest This ime his objections are not so s.
much against the manner of certain profess
sional newspaper wits of the laborious and e
untring sort, as against some of the vicious Il
accessories and garnishments with which D
they are served up. Here for instance we G.
have thrust under our nose new edition, G.
in book form, of the somewhat wearisome
funniness of the Danbury News Man. This O
is papercovered octave bearing the staring, Il
mpudent title of " They All Do 1t the t.
,ame being stolen from very witty, and NJ
mutty piece of Scotch versifying, or versify- Il
ng in the Scotch dialect, rather, for the au- W
hor is Owen Meredith young Lord Lytton), CT
rho 10 an Fnolishman Now the Danbury nv