Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1881-06-16
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BOYS.

Be
1 have lately had a letter from my
nephew. Johnny Briggs. AS the SPELL
ing and grammar are little detective
will only give the postscripts, which,
however, contain the pith of the letter
itself. They run thus:
"P. g. ons Reeson have decydid to Go to
see, is Because Am so fonl OF Fun and adj
venchur
BY going in the Merchant servis!
JOHNNY BRIoGs."
1t is great many years since was
boy like JOHNNY great many; yet
not SO long ago but that. after reading
his letter and its postscripts. L fully un-
derstand JOhnny's frame of mind. He
is tired of the sameness of life--the eat
ing and sleeping and going to school
are all 50 uneventful. There are no
pirates, or wild Ind ans, or typhoons to
be encountered in this prosaic exist
ence, no fair young maidens to be res
cued from peril of field, fire or food.
His ardent soul pants for adventure,
and he is ailame to encounter the ex-
element which he fondly believes to
be inseparable from
"A life on the ocean wave"
According TO his letter. this newborn
desire is due to "a unquenchibel Spirit
of Rowing" Which he darkly hints
is an Inheritance from a very re-
mote ancestor, who is mentioned
by Johnny as a freebooter" My
own impression, however, is that it
arises from the fact that the news
dealer at the corner of the block where
Johnny lives deals in fve-cent nautical
novels of the most startling kind. 1
saw one of them once. 1t was called
1.-The Boy Blockader; or, The Strange
Secret of Hampton Hall" / was inter-
ested to notice that the publishers an
nounced it as of thrilling interest, and
intended especially for the instruction
and edification of youth! All for five
cents! But am wandering from my
subject.
Now Johnny has asked my advice on
this matter of going to sea. True,
know that, like advice asking people in
general, he will only take so much of it
as comedies with his own ideas-the
remainder will be contemptuously
ignored as the views of an old fogy.
But Duty with a big ID stands at my
elbow, so out of my past experience
have evolved the following:
MY DEAR NEPHEw:-"The Burling-
ton HawEeye man. who is one of the
most charming persons 1 know. says
this: Everybody likes candid man
till he gives candid opinion that in
terferes with their own. Then he's a
bigot.' So before finish this letter
you'll know what bigot is, and that
will be something.
'Your fondness for fame and adj
venture is-if 1 may so express it-a
family weakness. 1t sent your father
to California in '49. and brought
him home with rather less money than
he took away with him. Me it sent to
to sea; and if / learned nothing else
there, found out that present-day sea-
going hasn't quite as much fun or adj
venture about it as present-day sea-
stories would have us believe. If you,
my dear Johnny, should go to sea, you
would probably make the same dis
covery. l doubt even If You would find
among your shipmates daring Dick
Dashaway. a romantic Ralph Rackstraw,
or even a jolly Jack Easy. The men
who have taken the place of these
heroes of fiction are literally on earth.
earthly, rather than of the sea, salt. l
don't know just why the salt should
have SD lost its SAVIOR since the days
of Cooper and Marryatt. But one
would think nowadays that it was
henceforth fit for nothing but to be
cast out and trodden under foot of men,
such a downtrodden race are the sailors
of to-day.
"For you will no longer, my dear
Johnny, find the jovial tar who in the
words of your favorite song.
"'sings as he views the gathering cloud
to be the manly. independent mariner
of fiction. Rather il he literally. Oft
entimes) under the iron heel of a brutal
taskmaster.
81 have never heard heard him sing
as he viewed the gathering cloud.
though 1 haze heard him, under his
breath. use unpleasantly emphatic
words on the subject of the weather.
And my impression is, my dear nephew,
that after you have been to sea a short
time, you yourself will not look upon
the gathering cloud in the light of q
subject for tuneful melody; because
when a man is called out of his watch
below to help shorten sail four or five
times every twenty-four hours, he is apt
to lose his ear for music.
"Why, the summons to this unpleas-
ant duty is of itself calculated to make
a boy think of home. The officer of
the deck does not send word for'ard
that as the weather is likely to be I'M
pleasant he would be obliged to the
sailors 4 they would kindly arise and
appear on deck as soon as they can con-
veniently. Oh, no! But the second
mate, who is muscular of arm and pow
erful of voice, thunders away at the
door. shouting in tone that
doesn't admit of discussion:
"'Turn out here to short'n sail; and
be quick about it. toor'
81 may remark in passing, my dear
John, that it will at such time be USE
less for you to plead fatigue, drowsi-
ness or even q sudden headache, as an