Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-03-11
L sail S'ecp wiz Him Tonight.

From the Detroit ChaH.---4--~
Sometimes believe the little ones say the best
things after all. know little family in De-
troit who are heart-broken and sad this Satur-
day night. There were three last Saturday but
to-day only two are LEFT. The tie that bound
them more closely than that which the clergy
man drew has lately been loosened. and the
light of their lives went out with the red winter
sun only the other night. The father is rail-
home nearly three-fourths of the time 1t was
his habit, whenever he was about to start for
home, to telegraph his wife apprsing her of the
fact. In these kilograms he never failed to men
ton the name of the little four year-old and the
dispatches usually ran as follows:
Tell Arthur l shall sleep with him tonight :"
The baby-boy was very proud of these tele-
grams, which his mother would read over and
over to him. and he considered the ''teledraf" a
great institution. The other night when the
fever had done It's work and the mother was
sobbing out her anguish, the little one turned
calmly in his bed and said:
Don't ky. mamma; sail s'eep wiz bod. 100
know. Send bod teledraf and tell Him sail
s'eep wiz Him tonight
But the message went straight Up There with
out the clicking OF wires or the rustic of wings.
Efficacy of Oil on Stormy Seas.
The value of oil thrown on the billowy sea as
safeguard to tempest-tossed ships has long
been asserted by emnently competent observers,
but some recent experiments on the other side
of the Atlantic SO strikingly attest the efficacy
OF this simple and inexpensive expedient for
quoting the sea or breaking the force Of it's
high-crested waves that they cannot be ignored
by seamen. During the late Board of Trade
inquiry into the loss of the steamship Loeb Awe
IN the North Sea lowing to the shifting of her
cargo and consequent unmanageableness when
struck by large wave), her captain testified
that resort to this expedient after the crew took
to their only sound boat saved them. ION
poured out quantity of oil. and the
boat drifting from it the wave passed us
quietly. We poured out about half a pint of oil
each time, and it smOothed the head of the
broken sea and prevented it from breaking over
the boat" The London Shipping and Mercan-
te Gdzette of the 18th ult. mentions that within
the last year it received from five of it's CORE
spondents similar testimony to the efficacy of oil
in smoothing the sea around vessels or boats in
stormy weather. Experiments recently made at
MOntrOse by the life-boat at that port IN very
dangerous and rough weather show that on the
approach of alarmingly heavy seas the crew were
''astonshed to find that by the time the sea
came to them it had fallen to nothing" The
film of oil with which the sea is covered of
course cannot diminish the volume of the
waves. But it is generally the crest of the
wave hurled against a craft that does the
fatal mischief. and the Oil. by smoothing the
tops of the seas, renders them comparatively
harmless.
Although it may seem impracticable to apply
this means on scale large enough to help a
vessel of much size in an ugly ocean, there can
be no doubt that the measure would often prove
available for the boats of a wrecked ship and
in the perilous work of the life-saving service
Mechanically the theory of oil quoting the
troubled waters is certainly correct The only
question as respects the practicabity of its use
IS whether the endangered life-b0at or any
other craft can carry oil enough to accomplish
the desired end. In the Montrose experiments
only six gallons of the complement of dark cod
Oil sufficed for quite protracted tests and in the
case Of the Loeb Awe's boat the wrecked crew
rode out five hours of storm, occasionally using
very small quantity of the tranquillzing
agent. AS the lowest description Of unrefined
oil, easily slowed in few cans, will serve the
purpose, this safeguard of life at sea can I'M
questionably be used to great advantage in hun
dreds of shipwrecks. and should be adopted by
every me-saving service.