Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1891-08-06
DOWN IN A STEAMSHIP.

My father was rich man when left
New York. His partners daughter was
to be my wife when l should return.
I was a student in a vienna hospital
when received cable from home that
the old house had failed. 1t proved to
be an honest failure and both families
were beggars.
! counted my pocketbook from cover
to cover. had just enough to leave
free Of debt and get to Liverpool. How
to cross ? Well, SWIM if necessary.
In the Liverpool steamer office was
an old Harvard College male. This
embarrassed me. He owed me a
grudge from the football days at Ber-
kelly Oval.
Determined to work my passage over,
entered what | supposed was not the
Office where my old competitor was
manager. did not see him, but he
must have caught sight of me. l was
surprised with the promptness with
which was told to 90 on board the
C, and something would be found
for me to do.
Two days out I was called to the cap
tain's own room, insulteu with the
charge, at first politely put, Of being a
stowaway, and finally stung to madness
bitter enough to obey silently when the
officer said : "If you really don't want
to steal your passage, go report to the
engineer and shovel coal"
This l did. My experience l want to
describe. 1t is common enough to hun
dreds Of poor scamps this moment all
oyer the seas. But, God pity them,
they haye not the tongue to tell, nor,
perhaps, always the sensibility to feel,
what their life really is.
Dizzy already with the tossings of the
sea | staggered down those series of iron
stairways till | stood at last on the
ships lowest deck. Behind me We're
the vast bunkers Of coal tnat glistened
from million eyes when the furnace
doors were opened, and then faded out
Of sight Before ME the huge pillows
rose, not silent, but roaring monsters,
so hungry that the toiling pygm,es, who
fed them jumped to their tasks till the
sweat rolled from their bare backs.
The heat was, to one descending from
the pure breath of the Atlantic, some
thing fearful. I was dressed in my or.
binary attire, and even an overcoat at
that, so precipitatc had been my action.
The smell of baking lubricants and red
hot iron, the dead air, poisoned with
coal gas and bilge water odors, the dust,
despite all showering, but most Of all
the sudden transition from white light
to blacklist darkness, momentarily pro.
ceeding, as this and that furnace door
was opered and shut. almost felled me
to the floor.
AS l stumbled and caught my hold
on the stair rail, again the hardy fel
lows shouted: "Giye us your shilling
and 60 back. supposing that | was
curious passenger seeing the sights Of
the ship.
The voices of derision aroused me. |
was no passenger. was an honest
beggar like the rest and here / was to
be imprisoned for a week, watch on and
off
In frenzy l tore off my clothing till
l stood in my trouzers and shoes like
my fellows. | stated my hiring to the
fellows in charge Of the watch, and he
gave me my shovel with a plying
laugh.
was put at the boiler nearest the
stair, The midships would have been
a less drunken spot, but l leaped at the
hardest task.
My head grew dizzy. Ipanted for a
full vital breath. The corrugated
flooring. polished till it was glossy
smooth IN spots, tangled my poor feet
so that repeatedly fell. All, that
sense of whirlng, whirllng, whirllng
How little the fair folk in the cabins,
know of this plutonlan hole beneath
their carpets
Really, l thought could describe
somewhat that lurid fantasia amid
these scarlet skinned, good natured de
mons, but l cannot. Vertigo struck me
down in less than a half hour. The
next l knew 1 was being revived in the
companionway, and the sea air was SO
grateful. The ships surgeon asked me
if l felt able to 90 to work again, and
courteously recognized that | was not
laborer. l was graceless enough to
growl out my spleen and reassert that |
was no stowaway, which the good doc
tor did not understand
| turned TO the assistant engineer,
rhn etnnI hu and acLed him To Give