The true northerner., 1882-04-14
PART III.
SIXTY CENTS WORTH.


Iwonder how many passengers on the
Oakland ferry ever speculate seriously
on what they would do-in fact, on what
would happen-should they fall over
board on the trip.
If such gloomy calculations filled their
minds, and, impelled by them, the pas
senger strolled forward or aft on the
main deck to inspect the life-boats, he
would not need to possess very in
innate knowledge of nautical affairs to
be ominously impressed by what he
would see.
Of course, we all know that general
law requires each steamboat, in addition
to other life-saving facilities, to provide
number of life-boats in proportion TO
the steamers capacity. These are, in
the language of the specifications re-
lating thereto, "to be slung on the main
deck, kept in constant working order,
ready for instant use, and the deck
hands familiarized with the working of
the same by weekly drills"
The inquiring passengers referred to
would notice, We repeat, that on the
ferry lines referred to the regulations
are practically ignored. The boats, he
would perceive, are slung on davits,
stout by rust; the lowering tackle solid
ified into iron like rigidity by the use OF
paint; the life. boats themselves covered
by an elaborately-f fastened canvas hood,
and the oars fastened in a sort of rack,
and the whole apparatus tied, strapped
and incumbered III a manner perplexing
b. 1<Nx. al.
less to the chuckle-headed, slow-moving
deckhand of the period.
A very impartial little calculation
would then show the astonished passen-
ger in question that should he fall.over-
board, or jump over and then repent
him of the act, as most suicides do, it
would be at least fifteen minutes, In all
probability, before he could be reached.
Adding this cheerful result to the fact,
statistically proved, that not more than
four persons out of a thousand, in
cluding swimmers, can keep afloat for
ten minutes In smooth water with their
clothes on, the passengers would doubt
less conclude by keeping as far away
from the side railing as possible, and
even read the next published account of
"a Determined Suicide on the ferry
line with as much skepticism as interest.
And yet our steamboat inspectors do
not look as if few hundred indirect
murders weighed very heavily on their
possible minds, somehow.
1t was December again, and, lacking
few days, year had slipped by since
the lion had reversed the fable by gnaw-
ing the net for the mouse to escape
That morning the merchant, who, for
some inscrutable reason, resided in that
corporate cemetery known as Oakland,
had fired the imagination of his little
daughter by reading at the breakfast
table the inspiring news that two baby
tigers had just been born at Woodward's
gardens. AS a necessary sequence he
had finally yielded to the mandate of
the domestic despot that she should be
conveyed forthwith to that realm of
juvenile delight. So papa, mamma and
the golden-haired midget in the family
lead took an early boat for the city-the
grown folks gravely pretending, for
some ridiculous reason peculiar to grown
folks everywhere, that they did not
themselves care to look at the animals,
but that it wouldn't do to trust the
nurse, altogether, in such place.
AS the ferry-boat neared the wharf on
the city side, the mother was in the