New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-07-25
JOHN PAUL AT NIAGARA.
MORALIZING BY THE FALLS.
WHAT THIRTEEN YEARS HAVE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CANADIAN AND AMERICAN sIDEs-vrIT TO THE

NIAGARA FALLS, July, lSSO.-Llttle use IN giving
the day of the month when one dates from the
Falls. One day is like another here, and if you
want news Coney Island Is the place to hear from
IT'S July and that Is enough. And thirteen years
ago this very month wrote a letter from this
same piazza to TnE TRIBUNE This bald state
mcnt of fact may not be of much interest to your
readers at large, but it carries considerable sgnf
canoe to me. Then carried parasols round. wrote
complimentary couplets on fans, and bought bead
work for young ladies; and now-well, now l
don't. The Falls 20 on now about as they did
then a decade so makes very little difference to
them but after that number of iyears have passed
over a mans mead, he generally finds some other
and easier way Of making n fool of himself!
Where does all this water come FRONT Where
does all 60 to- The torrent, does it never rest
The rush and the roar, do they never cease All
day the din is in your ears. nor does the brawl
cease when night lets fall her shadows. One might
fancy ones self at Democratic Convention were
il not for the quantity Of water around
To me there is a fascination in the rush of the
rapids. charm in the deep thunder of the Falls
| can well understand how theatres fail here and
bands of music get very little encouragement to
play. can understand, too, how those born WITHIN
sound of these waters baptized in their spray come
wandering back to die to the grand diapason which
olity fancy, have no haunt here. The visitors
impress me as being of an order very different from
those who throng to Saratoga. Generally our
guests have a geological look, and the pazzas are
more given over TO philosophy than to phlllnder-
ing Yet this is the favorite retreat of the newly
married. 1t may be thai they gather here because
the of the cataract makes it impossible for the
unsympathizing to hear what they say TO each
other and to accustom themselves to the unvarylng
racket of 0 well-regulated household from the
start The idea that an uncongenial partner might
be persuaded near to the edge of the cliffs, and
that an accident of that nature would have
very natural look does not probably dawn until
later period of married llfe And then they gener-
ally choose Switzerland for it.
OVER THE FALLS.
Within twenty-five years more than sixty per-
sons have gone over the Falls. Last Summer seven
went over four on the American side three on the
Canadian OF those who go over the American
Falls the bodies are very seldom recovered, they
tell me. while the bodies of those who go over on
the Canadian side usually found. This is be-
cause of the Jagged rocks which lie hidden IN the
whirl and foam at the foot of the American Fails
these grim teeth that they are seize upon the VIC
tim delivered to them, and hold him in grip
from which neither bell nor diver can deliver him.
"A
Of that trumpet at whose blast the most mac
cessible graves shall give up their dead. 1t is gen.
eraIlv boatmen l am told. familiar with the river
who fall n prey to the Falls. Crossing and recross-
ing The river in safety thousands of times, know
ing as thew suppose, every phase OF the current
they finally come to look upon 1t with indifference
if not with contempt and going once too often to the
well come to have their pitchers terribly broken al
last The usual fate of all who toy with the names
of lions or attempt the roll of tlger-tamers is theirs
Some dav there is craunch, and all is over. Last
Summer. for instance, two bOatmen started to
cross the river in a sailboat taking no oars along
It had been their home since childhood and boating
was their business. Who should presume to warn
themf But in mid-river the wind died away and
they found themselves in the grip of the current-a
Or,p relentless and unrelaxing as that OF fate
Faster and faster, as though drawn by demons
beneath the keel their boat neared the rapids. And
once in the rapds-ah the story is soon told. from
the head of the rapids to their foot-the Falls-a
distance of perhaps eighty rods, the decline is nigh
upon ninety feet. And down this inclined pane,
az you can very well see. the water slides with
something Of the speed-of An express train IL Is
terrible meteor that shoots by the few for the ex
hibition has not been advertised in advanced who
stand on banks and bridges. Two pale-faced men
in a frail boat a hell of waters around them, AM
the deeper damnatlon of the Falls LAUNDERING In
antcipative triumph below, arms wildly out
stretched for an aid which none can give no cry for
succor audible, though you know that the shrieks
of the doomed are sent up to the skies-one glimpse
of tbis and no more The balerul vision has
ished and again the glad waters are dancing and
rlancinx onward in the sun. You know that two
lives have been quenched like tapers in the fateful
foam of the Falls, but the only testimony to the
tragedy Is the great clouds of spray which roll up
to heaven like smoke from the altar Of tmmoation.
Here as well as elsewhere, whiskey comes TO the
aud of water and supplements It IN the work OF
destruction Liquor is cheap on the Canadian side,
and 80 an abnormal boldness may be begotten at
what seems land is in the outset very inconsid-
cradle cost But after crossing to the Canadian side
the American side not infrequently knows the boat
man no more forever. Charon takes up the oar, and
the Styx not the Niagara. Is ferried. Thus Mr..
whitney of the Cataract House, tells me that last
Summer, his son, sitting in the summer house OF
his grounds, above the rapids, saw man get
ting dangerously near the sliding water Run
ming down to the bank he shouted to him TO
mill in shore. or he'd be In the current.
but n drunken stare was the only answer.
A few minutes more. and the BOAT was
among the dimpling eddies-the smiles, as it were
which precede the internal laughter Of the rapids
Then the poor wretch, suddenly sobered, realized
his position. But it too late. Before he could
hiccup a single pater his sodden soul stood before
it's God.
No human being ever went over the Falls and
lived Sam Patch but jumped from ladder
hundred feet high erected near the foot OF Biddle
Stairs. OF the cats and dogs with which humani-
tarans have at various times experimental it Is said
that some have been picked uu alive. but mainly
doubt it. Why. let the Fall but brush you with
its outermost skirt, and 'twere death but one
corner of that ponderous sheet, striking with only
half the impetus gathered by its descent, would
smite the life out of Behemoth
woFUL WASTE or WATER.
Not all, however, go over the Falls unwillingly;
NOW and then the monotOnous procession of drunk en-
OH Nat sin