The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-19
The End of Fraudulent Pensionsr.

The End of a Fraudulent Pensioner.
"Chilo advised, not to speak evil of
the dead " And more especially should
we refrain from speaking i'll of one de-
parted to whom the feminine gender was
applied. Nevertheless, we are con-
1 strained to observe that there went to
her last resting place on Feb. an ex-
pensive old government pensioner who
had been more or less a fraud all of her
life. And, from late advices, it appears
that she was the victim of gross careless
ness.
The Kearsarge is referred to. She won
her famous victory by fighting in shirt
Of-mail against an unprotected rival. She
appeared to be what she was not, and
that was fraudulent. But that was in
war, ami her deception in that instance
needs no excuse. After the war
she masqueraded, in very
thin disguise, by the way, as a
man-of-war, when as matter of fact, she
was a very weak -woman-ofwar. This
was put up with-even enjoyed in certain
quarJers-because the old ship was his
toric relic; and almost everybody likes
relic, when 1t reminds one of the right
kind of thing. Her name was put on the
service pension list, so to speak, and for
ever thereafter, until her demise she was
on the books of the repair department of
the navy. The bureau of construction and
repairs has not made a report since the
war in which the Kearsarge did not figure
for a big bill of expenses. Had she be-
longed TO any other nation, she would
have been locked and kept as a relic,
made a naval museum of, or broken up
and sold for junk and firewoOd. Indeed, a
law was passed several years ago that
would have ended the career of the Kear-
sarge had she not been especially ex
cepted from its operations.
However, the Americans, who love to be
humbugged, according TO Artemus Ward,
kept the old ship in commiss ion, made
themselves believe she was a fighter, and
spent enough money in patching her to
build two or three better ships. And the
old lady went tumbling labOriously along,
lodging empty barrels at sea and paying
strict attention to the weather bureau
forecasts, and was enabled thereby to
avoid shipwreck.
The most depressing part of the story
of h er lifetime of deception, however, has
come to light only since Roncador reef
put period to her career and her crew
went to Colon in a dashed frame
of mind. The details sent out told how,
when the ship struck, the famous IL
inch gun--the identical piece that had
sunk the Alabama-had been thrown
ID, lsnI,t 81,
vessel. Savannahians remember
that gun. They remember that when the
Kearsarge was here some time ago her Of
ticers pointed out the piece, with a brass
plate on it marked, "Winslow," together
with the date of the Cherbourg fight.
And'they, like thousands of others in al
most every seaport in the United States,
gazed on the gun and gave free rein to
their thoughts on the fortunes of war.
Now, that gun was a fraud II
never saw the Alabama and never burned
powder in q real fight The New York
Herald says of it: las a cold blooded
fact, as opposed to romantic gossip, the
ll-inch smooth bore guns which
we're on board the Kearsarge during the
Alabama fight were landed at Mare
Island navy yard, California, in Oct
| 1870, and have since remained there
Their places were taken by two S-inch
muzzle loading rifles, converted from
l1-inch smooth bores." This is from the
records of the bureau of ordnance.
In short, the Kearsarge, in which
hardly dozen sticks of the original tim
| Der remained, had been for twenty three
years buncoing people with a gun that
deserved respect only for what it might
| do