The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-09-02
4 THING CT the PAST.
Old-Tim River Men and Their Lurid
Vocabulary.

vVC0UuA0Ays
1t has long been favorite expression
along the Ohio river, in describing a
mans moral recklessness in language to
say: "He is as profane as steamboat
mate" Steamboat life on the Ohio river
is as different from batting onithe "inland
seas'' as driving oxen is from running
electric cars. An exaggerated description
of the Ohio river declared it twas dry six
months in the year, and frozen up the
other six" This may give some idea of
the picnic of the boatmen. The life has
always been hard, brutally hard, from
the days of the traditional exploits OF
Mike Fink and Press Devol or down to
the present luxurious boats. For man
to have been a deck hand or roustabout
on the Ohio river was to stamp him as
being tough far beyond any power OF de-
scription or any sensibility to fear.
The great sources of difficulty and an
noyance to the steamboatmen on the Ohio
is ''getting stuck" The sand bars and
mud always loom up at the wrong time,
and when the boat is stopped the mates
mouth is always opened. When the
Ohio river boat strikes bar, an lnvesti-
cation by sounding is made to determine
the easiest way to pull off. the spars are
then gotten out and planted. snatch blocks
are rugged and small engine in the fore
part of the boat, called the 'nigger," is
set to work. If the vessel be pulled of
readily, there is little disturbance; but il
it sticks, one of the mates (there are al
ways two and sometimes three) turns
himself loose. He curses the spars, the
man that made them and the trees from
which they were taken; he bowls anthe-
mas and threats of murder and general
destruction of the roustabouts, who move
on singing and laughing as though his
hoarse voice was the sweetest lullaby; he
orders them to "start the Niger" then
to ''stop the nigger," then bowls to know
why in the blank blank blankety blank
nation the niger had been stopped. He
roars and curses and bellows, bowls and
chokes and shrieks, until at last the boat
glides off the bar and is free. He is firmly
convinced, Of course, that the profanity is
what did it all, and was just as necessary
as the spars or the engine.
The other mates and the captain remain
in the background and reserve their fund
of profanity for the next bar and succeed
ing bars, with slight attention to the
bar IN the cabin.
The Ohio river steamboat captain of
thirty five years ago has never been
equalled in point of assumed dignity by
anything except the modern Postoffice
clerk and the officers of the mosquito
fleet" during the war. When he came on
board and the mate took his place at the
bell with the roustabouts ready to haul
in the gang plank, one could imagine
that about all that was admirable in the
universe was about to move out; and it
was a quaint picture with merry and
homelike features.
The old timer along the banks of the
Ohio loves to talk of the good old days,
only to bewall the degeneracy of the
times. He never tires of telling of the
exploits of the Boston, Bostona, Wild
Wagner, Lady Franklin, Alice Pike and
score of other familiar names. What if
the old timers were profane? The natives
along the shore expected it. When the
steamer Of thirty years ago rounded to
for the purpose of taking on wood, the
poor devil who sawed the wood just as
firmly expected cursing as he did SAL
utation. The wood was too blank long,
too blank short and too blank green.
Everything was wrong. In fact, the
stamp of brutality pervaded every trans
action and all intercourse. But it was not
spirit of brutality. 1t was their way
the way of the times. 1t was as natural
for an Ohio river steamboat officer to
swear as it was for him to hit deck hand
with board, or it is for dude to look
silly.
During the war an Ohio minister was
on his way South as an emissary of the
Christian Commission, and he boarded
an Ohio river boat at Portsmouth. AT
the FIRST landing below, the mate "turned
loose" at the deck hands. He cursed their
eyes, their hearts, their lubberly feet, their
laziness, their whole line of ancestry from
Adam to that hour. Finally, exhausted
with profanity, he turned to the shocked
minister with the query:
"Don't this beat hell2"
''Yes, sir; I'm afraid it does" And
the good man retired to his cabin.
On another occasion an Ohio stock
dealer had been buying stock in Ken
lucky and was trying to cross at Cattles-
burg. Of course the cattle insisted on
running in every direction but toward
the ferry. Tho stockdealer, who was
from country distant from the river be-
gan to swear at the cattle. The oaths
were fred signify and in volleys, straight
and bias-cut, rough and wire edged,
dOuhla and frahlo While Of tho hirhaat