The record-union., 1893-03-25

early familiarity. The stewardess flaunts
her whlte-cappCd head, plainly saying:
here are characters hon this 'ere ves-
sci aside my h'owu To sustain, sirv' The
boatswains, whose triZzled, fatherly faces
on the first day gave promise of sea yarns
and ocean-lore revelations, are as stolid
as bronzes or brass.
Sergeants-ar-arms and deck-stewards
walk around you, look you up and down,
over and around. fore and aft, starboard
and port, as if to remind you that deck
rules are deck law, sir. The bellboys.
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
possible requests for favors. Wander
where you may on your steamers decks,
or within her splendid cabins, you find
but savagery, selfish preoccupation and
despair.
And how it levels the proud and great.
LOOK at them sprawling in their chairs
hundreds Of them, under the lee-awn-
lngs, nope, pride, ScOrn, hauteur, all
flown like the flush OF the shriveed flow
ers below. That pompous old fellow who
can draw his check for a cool million, and
who. on shore, reckons himself boy of
10, you know, is stretched there like a
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 reck.
Here IS Il 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 stew
ardess; her laces, tiounces and silks are
disheveled; she is snoring, diversified by
snorts and palateal staccatos.
See this erSt peerless New \ ork belle!
Paint, powder and bilgewater are blended
in dirty French gray upon her leathery
conntenance. The fog has deposited
clamnly rime upon this. Strands of her
now waveless hair are tluttering stickily
within her open mouth. Her eyes 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. 1t would have paralyzed her TO
have worn a twenty fve-cent bathing
hat at sea. So, from under the edge of her
So hat, her sea-blistered nose rises rare
and red like some hectic beacon-light
looming above drear, dank, dolorous
isles. In few days more the long-aDused
cuticle will peel from this little nose in
tenacious swirls and curls, and as she
steps2upon the staging, at Liverpool the
rude customs inspectors will pronounce
her an "H' American h'objeck."
a voluble lady sitting in her deck-chair
and undergoing the premonitOry qualms
of mal-de-mer, remarks 10 the unhappy
group about her:
'If 1 get seasick like the rest of these
people l snail just give up my reason al
together, so l shall.'
Whereupon a bluff old party awakens
from his stupor long enough to retort
spitefully:
Judging from my own experience
you Will give up far more than that, mad
ame!'
ON the other side of the ropes, where the
eta ~
you Will see them walking the deck as if
at wager, with occasional quick recourse
to the siderail for relief. They are i'm
meaSurably brighter, SUMMER and lighter
hearted in their misery than the more
comfortable cabin passengers. While
they are pounding cheerfully about deck
you may approach and sympathetically
accost an emigrant with
well, my boy, how do you find YOUR
self this morning."
"Me health's all right, yer honor'' "a
plunge 10 the sideraiD, is the sturdy re-
joinder. Then, with a twinkle in his
blood-shot eyes, but, faith, me tickets
steerage!"
The ocean liner is never without its
ferret, who is sometimes a divinity stu
dent, broadening his range of observa-
ton and study" frequently the young
reporter honestly desirous of acquiring
everything possible to be learned on ship
board in six days effort and often a te-
male who has broken loose in search of a
career" These human Interrogation
points usually have gold-rimmed eye
glasses, invulnerable assurance, and
notebooks which are drawn on vic
Tins with The celebrity of genuine deadly
weapons.
They are abroad for information. and
they get it. Concerning the ships COM
mander on the subject of sea-sickness,
they find:
Dear sir, or madame, I have followed
the sea for twenty-five years, and have
put more in it than [ ever took out of it!''
From grim old travellers they learn:
This is my hundred and fortieth pas
sage, sir, or madam. Though L have
taken every meal on shipboard l have
frequently missed theml''
lrrepresslble they still are when the sea
and the storm pound the waves and the
fog upon the distracted passengers while
crossing the Newfoundland Banks, and
there is not life enough left in the objects
in the deck-chairs to quicken even pro-
fame response. 1t is then they espy
solitary being, on its legs, i'll blue and
gold, away out forward. They sidle. slip
and slide up to it. The being proves to be
a ships officer-first, second, third, or
somewhere along the line. But it is alive.
has hearty jowls, big paunch, and hop
AAle- NiISSC OS5l'Soh ksShAallGJY LlGy LlLllulY
address it.
Beg pardon, officer, but are these fogs
always TO be found on the banks?'
The being is blue, gold and bronze
statue for long, long time. Finally as
they despair and are about to turn away.
its red head suddenly turns quarter
round, and they involuntarily listen for
its click. Then its cavernous. coral
mouth expands frightfully while the be-
ing roars:,
Hi doan't bide eere!"
Upin Scotland the grimness and quaint
ness of humor in speech and anecdote,
rather than in rejoinder or situation, is to
the traveller an endless ripple of sunshine
across the stern features of Scotia's folk
and land.
At Galashiels, of Sunday morning. [
came upon two lads savagely disputing
where their best interests Should lead
them to Sunday-school. The lesser of
the two, hard-headed little fellow. closed
the controversy and set the path with:
Coon ava, COON ava. It's maist for
naithing Well get at the Free Kirk
witnessed tisherman's bride leaving
her old home for the new, at Oban. \
sharp-tongued neighbor gave her this
grisly god-speed
- oan, buck-tooth tho We are. We are
weel busked and kisted (well-dressed
and provided; but the dell is ma waur-
faurd (uglier) than tn auld-beiz that owns
ye!'
The advent of the doctor when new
baby arrives in lowly homes-as the
physician usually brings currant-ban-
nocks, or buns, called 'curnie- bannies,"
with which to divert the attention of the
chlldren-ls supreme occasion in child
life experience.
"Hootn' l heard wee lassie of Edin-
burgh old-town relating to her big-eyed