The Portland daily press., 1894-11-28
AN INTERESTING STRANGER.
Story of French Boy Fir ON Martin
ique.

AVuCs
How He Got Rere-Why He Has Fits
How "Cap'n" Pickett Helped Him-He
"Sees Things Pink
There is a young Frenohman in this
city whose story is unusual and inter
esting. His home is in ST. Pierre, Mar
Unique. His name is Paul Joilau. He
is II years old, but large for his age,
and very intelligent and we'll educated.
He was well situated in his home hav-
ing brother in the custom house, and
being himself employed at some light
Office work for French steam boat line.
But he was curious aud foolish, as he
says, and allowed himself to be cheated
by another young man, who wanted ms
position, who had been to the United
States and who told young Joilan won
derful. stories about it's magnificence,
and that one street of its great cities
was bigger than all Martinique Joilan
resolved to see the world, and when the
schooner II. A. Thompson of Machias ar
rived July 9th, he got a chance to ship
in her as cabin boy at 81 month and
board. They sailed to Trinidad and got
a cargo of pitch for Washington, DC.
There. the water supply Of the schooner
gave out, Joilan says, and for while
the crew drank some Of the water OF the
Potomac. This, Joilan alleges. gave
him the malarial fever, and when he ar
rived here in the schooner October 9Th,
he was so i'll that he went immediately
to the marine hospital. He stayed there
two weeks, and was cured and dls-
charged. He would have found himself
in Portland without cent or friend,
if "Cap'n" E. P. Pickett, the sailors
good Samaritan, hadn't seen him dur
ing one of his regular visits to the nos
pital and there learned his story. He
Immediately went to work to get him a
chance to work his passage back to Mar
Unique. The schooner Sarah and Ellen
was loading shocks at Browns wharf,
aud "Cap'n" Pickett talked to Captain
Henley, who Immediately agreed to take
the boy hack home, the schooner sailing
next week for Guadaloupe and then
going to ST. Pierre, Martinique.
Apparently the boy was all right, but
yesterday he told Captain Henley that
he would not go to Martinique. but in,
tended to.ship on a little two-masted
Nova Scotia schooner, that is unloading
birch boards at the same wharf. The
crew are, French Canadians. and they
talked in his own beloved language to
the lonely boy and told him that If he
would go with them he could obtain q
fine job as an engineer on an ocean
steamer in short while. He believed
it all, and decided to go, partly because
he +" sees things pink, as he says, mean
ing that he knows nothing of.the world,
and partly because a recent incident has
given him dislike Ut the Americans.
He is SO unfortunate as to be afflicted
with epileptic fits. Heawas found on the
street last Thursday and taken to the
station. When he regained conscious
ness he found himself in the care of the
police, and thought that he had been
arrested for breaking some regulation,
and that therefore it wasaas disgrace to
MIN TO Uo III LILO puliCG oudeloHs LIZ a.
not accustomed to the work or life of a
sailor. and doesn't like the life on board
the Sarah and Ellen. He is afraid that
he might be. sent aloft Eand fall in fit
from the rigging. Hence he resolved
to 20 in the Nova Scotia schooner with
the men who speak French. But Cap
tain Pickett will dissuade him from that
idea, and he will probably go back home
in the Sarah and Ellen. Evidently he
is a you tn who is very easily influenced.
as the above facts show. An unscrupu-
lous fellow induced him to leave his posi-
tion by his glowing stories of the United
States, and now he could see only a
bright future in the prospect Of going to
Nova Scotia, in the little old coaster,
with the French Canadians, and arrived
there, becoming Immediately an engin-
er, with good pay. OF. an ocean steamer.
Possibly his epileptic fits may have
something to do with this weakness and
cause him to +" see things pink"
He plays the mandolin and sings, talks
very fuently and intelligently in his
broken English, always begs pardon ii
he passes in front of one of the sailors,
or rather "he- says squeeze me" when he
goes by yer," as one Of the sailors said,
a civility that tue sailors do not wholly
appreciate, can talk German as well AS
French, and some Spanish, and is really
fish out of water, among sailors in this
northern cline, where he has just seen
snow for the first time, and where the
thought of winter appals him.
He explains his epileptic fits by say
ing that when he was a small boy he
saw man fall in fit in the street and
it so frightend him and haunted him
that be has had fits himself ever since