Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-03-30

large proportion are new to the
peculiar and irrevocablr situation; form
ality can by no means be uninter-
ruptedly sustalned; individuals, char
acter and station are brought into close,
sharp and most striking contrasts; and
all social distinctions are liable at any
moment 10 total obliteration in the
common and often grotesque misery Of
sea.sickness.
Two or three meals at farthest sponge
the banquet airs from the cabin
tables, The ships commander, bland
as bartender in port, has hidden
himself from view. Tue pursers's win
dow is shut as if Theoretically sealed.
The ships doctor has retired behind the
strictost Interpretation Of hours and
rules. The chief and assistant stewards,
to whom your great fec has already
gone fora choice seat at the table, refuse
TO recognize you. Your room-steward
eyes you with look Of sharp suspicion
and close analysis. Will you give him
much trouble, and will you fee gener-
ously? Comprise his uttermost inter-
est. But lie will permit no early famil-
iarity. The stewardess tlaunts her white
capped head, plainly saying, "There are
characters hon this ere vessel aside my
hown 10 sustain, sir!" The boatswains,
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 scrgeants-at-arns and deck-stew-
ards 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
bell.boys, those little dried up old com
modores Of the passages, library and
lavatories, regard you from beneath
beetling brows as with savage advance
protests against possible requests for
fhvors. Wander where You may on
your steamers decksA or within her
splendid cabins, you Nd but savagery,
selfish preoccupation and despair.
And how it levels the proud and great
LooI, at them sprawlIng in their chairs,
! hundreds Of them, under the lec.awn.
ings, hope, PRIDE sCorn, hauteur, all
| flown like the Lush of the shrivelcd
flowers below. That pompous old fellow
who can draw his check for cool mil.
| lion, and who, on shore, reckons him
self a boy Of 10, you know, is stretched
| there like a drunkard, holding his two
| sets of false teeth in his ncrvcless hand
with the most familiar abandon. lie
| recks not those vino see; he sees not
those who reck. Here is grand dame,
rs easy a subject of study. Her wig is
| displaced; the powder and color have
been Sppnged from one side Of her face
by some attentive Stcwardess. her laces
iuunces and silks are dishevelel; She is
snoring, diversified by snortS and pala
teal stuccatos,
sec this erst peerless New York belle
Paint, powder and bilgewatcr are
blended in a dirty French gray upon
her leathery countenance The log has
deposited clammy rhine upon this
strands Of her now wavelcss hair afC
tlattering stckily within her open
mouth. Her eyes seem. to have gOnC
back into her head an inch and are
closed beneath dirty yellow lids. Amid
this wreck Of beauty there is one bit u
color. 1t is in her pinky, pointed nose
1t would have paralyzcd her TO hay,
Worn a 2j-cent bathing hat at sea. s.
from under the edge of her $25 hat he
sea-bllstercd nose rises rare and red Xix,
some hectic beacon-light looming aboy,
drear, dank, dolorous isles. In few
days more the long-abuaed cutiele viii
peel from this little nose in tenaCiou
swirls and curls, and as she steps upol
the staging at Liverpool the rude Gus
toms inspectors will pronounce her al
III American h'objeck."