Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-01
The TOPICAL IALKER.

Captain Watkins the Right Man for Tint
Maritime Emergeucy-Hc is Known to
Many Piffsburgers-News That Ought
Never 10 be Bottled Up-CooI Times for
Song Birds.
| IT did not surprise anyone who knew Captain
Watkins, of the City of Paris to hear that
| his GOODNESS, in the presence of danger, had
| great effect in calming the passengers, and
| averting a panic. He is typical English
sailor of the best sort. Without a clustering
characteristic he is full of pluck and quiet de-
termination. Just the sort of a man for the
terrible emergency which he had to face the
other day.
In figure he is squarely built, his shoulders
heavy and his chest broad and deep. Not
much, If at all, above the middle height, he
gives one the impression of being big man.
His hair and beard are red, and his cheeks
ruddy. In his behavior toward the passengers,
courteous but not to the extent that some less
able captains of transatlantic liners are apt to
be. You won't find him everlastngly with the
pretty girls on the quarterback; though have
seen him chat with a seasick woman for half
an hour.
WHEN 1 saw him last he was captain of the
City Of New York. the twin sister ship of
the one he now commands. During the second
voyage westward of the City of New York an
accident occurred to the machinery and COM
PEELED her to lie to for day and night on the
southeastern edge of the Newfoundland Banks
That might not have been such safe and pleas
ant experiment if there had been heavy weather
or fog AS it was the sea was calm as a mill
pond and the weather clear and sunny, and all
we had to grumble at was the delay. The dis
cpline in the crew of Inman steamers is very
good as far as it came under my notice, and
this seems to have been borne out by the be-
havior of the officers and men of the City of
Paris.
A PRoPos of the alleged unwilingness of the
Inman officials at Queenstown to give the
newspaper correspondents all the news of the
disabled vessel at their command it would be a
sensible thing if it were made a misdemeanor
punishable with fine or imprisonment to with
hold news where the public has such clear and
incontestable right to know the facts. 1t isn't
as if this bottling up of bad news did anyone
any good in the end. If there are compromis
ing circumstances in an accident by sea or land
they will be sure to come out, and the prolonga-
tion of cruel suspense is useless and criminal.
There was gross instance of this worse than
stupidity on the part of the Lake Shore Rail-
road officials after the Bay View accident. The
Railroad Commissioners of New York, it Is
comforting to note, told the railroad officials
that they did wrong to try to head off the re-
porters. The public will sustain this view al
ways in the case of accidents on land or sea.
A GENTLEMAN, presumably classmate of
Judge Ewing's, writes TO say than an error
was made in this column in the statement that
Judge Ewing was at Washington and Jefferson
College. He says Judge Ewing was gradu-
ate of the old college, the famous college, viz:
jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa. long before
the union of Washington and Jefferson Col
lege"
The correction is cheerfully made. though
the point of the story was not the name of the
college, but the fact that Judge Ewing, after
lapse of so many years could remember the
names of all his classmates.
THE unfortunate robins, blue Birds virioles
and other harbingers of spring, who ar
rived in great numbers last week and the week
before that, are not having halcyon time, but
they are farely vociferous all the same.
When the snow was falling quite rapidly on
Sunday afternoon 1 heard robbins calling to
one another from fence to fence along astretch
of low land by the Ohio; and just after freight
train had crashed and rumbled by viriole
crossed the tracks singing with all his little
heart-a gust of springtime music as sweet as
if sunshine and balmy breeze had induced it.
songbird might be pardoned for tacitunity in
the presence of a snowstorm and freight
train.
The days now are getting long. 1t is light.
away from the citys shadows, till past o'clock.
About that hour last night saw two robins on
my lawn trying to spear worms through the
snow-sodden turf. They talked cheerfully, too.
as they hunted up a supper. 1 am afraid they
had more talk than worms, poor redbreasts.