Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-31

lamp trimmer, 81 per day. These wages in
clude board. The lamp trimmer was the
captains son, q lad of about 13, and he
drew his 81 for very necessary work ON a
boat.
Tt is busy scene when boat is getting
ready for a trip and taking in the stores to
last until her return. The boat IS the home
of the crew sometime for months, and the
larder and its stores constitute the greatest
preparatory feature. The boatmen always
live we'll and, if one wishes good meal, he
should take short trip on towboat. Here
are the supplies the Enterprise laid In for a
20-day trip:
Forty pounds of coffee, 100 pounds of sugar,
/ barrel of -four, 2 dozen cabbages, one-half
bushel of beans, l case of canned tomatoes, l
case of canned string beans, case canned
peas $50 pounds fresh meat, hams, pieces of
bacon, barrels of potatoes and the necessary
Spices etc.; the whole cost being about Sl40.
The boat also takes on vegetables and other
supplies at different points along tne I0ute.
hands and more fremen, and the supplies
are, of course, increased accordingly.
EVEN FOR A SHORT TRIP.
The Enterprise made the trip to Louis
vile in three days, and waited for empties
seven days. On the way back she had to
lay to at Steubenville four days for water to
get ahead through the channel left by the
railroad company rebuilding the bridge.
The trip to Pittsburg was not further de-
layed. and she reached the city with her tow
of ten barges and two coal boats yesterday.
Everything is ''she" or "her" on. a steam
boat The pilot "holds her hard to-" the
engineer "gives her all steam," the fremen
"feed her with coal" and at sundry times
the captain and crew, if they be not of q
| religious sort, " "cuss her" when she does
not behave, or runs her nose into the mud.
There is a kind of romance in the femininity
of boat, evinced in the care and pains that
boatmen take to keep everything tidy and
dressed up" When she reaches the shore
the decks are scrubbed clean, the ropes all
coiled up and put in place, the painter
touches up the rough and worn spots, and
she laws rocking on the waves-though only
coal towboat-a thing of stately beauty.
BELLS, DOODLE AND BELLIES.
Another thing: The bells of steamboat
have a merry, sweet silvery tinkle and
ripple of melody like unto that laugh of the
belle of a ball which the society editor
describes.
Well may the captain and owners of the
boats look after them. The Enterprise, a
majority of those built now cost much
larger sums. The expense of a trip like the
one described is about 500. A stranger
would say: "Why not leave the barges
there and build more?" Well, coal barges
cost about 81, 800 each to build, and coal
boats much more, SO that the tow
of the Enterprise is valued at fully
$751; Add to this the $50. 900 the boat
cost and the thousands of dollars worth Of
coal in the barges when they return down
the river, and one unacquainted with Ohio
river navigation and the capital invested in
it can Just gain a vague idea of what a
steamboat, lazily putting down the river
with ton of coal, represents to its owners,
to the miners and to all engaged or con-
nected with the carrying of coal by river.