Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-19

permit no early familiarity. The boat
swains, whose frizzled, fatherly faces on the
first day gave promise OF sea-yarns and
ocean-lore revelations, are as stolid as
bronzes or brass. The sergeant-at-arms and
deck-stewards walk around you, look you
up and down, over and around, fore and
ait, starboard and port, as if to remind you
that deck rules are deck law, sir. The bell
boys, those little dried up old commodores
of the passages, library and lavatories, re-
gard you from beneath beetling brows as
with savage advance protests against pos
sible requests for favors.
THE SEA A LEvELER.
Wander where you may on your steamers
decks or within her splendid cabins, you
find but savagery, selfish preoccupation
and mute despair. The officers and crew
are one and all moodiIy recovering from
port excesses. The few passengers upon
their legs are each nursing parting melan-
cholv, figuring upon trip expenses, or con-
templsting the difference between the songs
and the scourges of the sea- The predom-
mating hosts are in the throes of unmiti-
gated, unvanquishable sea-sickness And
how it levels the proud and greatl Look at
at them sprawling in their chairs, hundreds
of them, under the lee awnings. hope,
pride, scorn, hauteur, all, flown like the
flush of the shriveIed flowers below.
That pompous old fellow who can draw
his check for a cool million, and who, ON
shore, reckous himself a boy of 40, YOU
know, is stretched there like q drunkard,
holding his two sets of false teeth in his
nerveless hand with the most familiar
abandon. He recks not those who see; he
sees not those who reek. Here is grand
dame, as easy a subject of study. Her wig
is displaced; the powder and color have
been sponged from one side of her face by
some attentive stewardess; her laces, founces
and silks are disheveled; she is snoring,
diversified by snorts and pAateal staccatos.
ALL BROKEN UP.
Berugged and bejeweled, she seems a sad
travesty on even some gIddy miss Havi-
sham, escaped from a moldy bridal chamber
and fallen into "Seven Dial's debauch.
Look at this bellies beauty now. George,
back there in New York, would be lucky
dog to catch a glimpse OF her divine
face this moment. He would wait
for no congo from Liverpool. Paint,
powder and bilgewater are blended
into dirty French gray upon her leathery
countenance. The fog has deposited
clammv rime upon this. Strands of her
now waveless hair are huttering stickily
within her open mouth. Her ewes seem to
have gone back into her head an inch and
are closed beneath dirty yellow lids. Amid
this wreck of beauty there is one bit of
color. 1t is in her pinky, pointed nose. It
would have paralyzed Helen to have worn
25-cent bathing hat at sea. So from under
the edge of her $25 hat her sea- a-blisterei
nose rises rare and red like some hectic
Enh hou
dolorous isles. In a few days more the
long-abused cuticle will peel from this little
nose in tenacious swirls and curls, and as
Helen steps upon the staging at Liverpool
the rude customs inspectors will pronounce
her an "H'Americau h'objeck."
One might fill a book with these sea
travel studies. A good deal besides sea-
sickness and Its rank-leveling power might
be dwelt upon. But the old traveller, and
the frst-tripper who is cautious and con-
servative, Will never be tempted into re-
marks about his proves in bouts with the
fell destroyer. At the first and second
meals, while the taste of your New York
friends champagne is still sweet on your
palate, you are likely to roar little along
this line. But you will regret it. Listen
to those retching wretches in their state
rooms below. Each one had flung a chal-
lenge to old Neptune's powers. The little
dude has lisped under his napkin,
Lying wight dwown on ones back'li
do nausea, I'll allow" The Chicago
packer, loading his plate with another
swath of his own boneless ham has snorted,
'Pshaw, Lake Michigan en- knock the
spots off this pond any time, for roughness.
Nobody ever sick out our way" The la
dies chorus. Dear me, it isn't possible any
one could be ill on this boat, is it now?" 1
think it's just too lovely for anythingP
The lawyer is oratoric about il, summing up
be ore an invincible jury with invincible
"Now, sirs, and hoary citations and prece-
dents that settle the whole matter. The
clergyman, bless him for his faith, fancies
''its all merely matter of the imagination"
While the man with the granite head, brass
jaw and iron stomach, closes the discussion
and his meals at table, with the rest of us,
ior Jew days-by an explosive, Gall non-
sense, sir!" Have a stomach of iron like
me, siri'
NEPTUNE HAS NO PETS.
But they are all done for now. The dude
is developing his '1ying wight dwown"
their adjectives; the packer is comparing
the peculiarities of lake and pond; the cler-
yyman has a new study of the pleasures of
The Imagination and the man with the iron
stomach is slipping its cogs as helplessly as
with the ordinary mortal diaphragm. And
10 60 the first days until "the banks" are
crossed. Ii You have luckily had your lit
lie battle at first, you now suffer loneliness,
md hunger for society. There is not sim
yle responsive CLEAN of companionship in |
my face aboard ship. You become desper-
lte. You see a being in blue and gold |
lway out forward there. You sldle, slip |
md slide along up to it. The being proves
% be ships oficer-frst, second, third or
somewhere along the line. But it is alive,
las hearty jowls, q big paunch, and hoping
hese bespeak genIality, you timidly address
t.
'Beg parden, officer, but are these fogs
always to be found here on the bsnks?"
The being is blue, gold and bronze
Itatue fo- long, long time. Finally as you
despair and are about to turn away, its red
head suddenly turns quarter round, and you
nyoluutarily listen for its click. Then its
coral mouth expands frightIully
while the being rosrs,
"'Ow the bloody ell do HI know2 HI
loant bide 'eereP'
You somehow feel like adjourning your
studies until the return of sunny
weather. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.
ATLANTIC CITY.