Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1894-01-04
JACK TAR,s TRICKS.
low sailors smuggle Liquor on board
Their Ships

HOW sailors oh N''AN
Their Ships.
One of the most arduous tasks devolv
ing upon the officers of war ship IS
that OF preventing the men from SNUG
Cling intoxicants aboard the ship IL
is task that perhaps no captain has
yet performed with complete and long
continued success. 1t involves con-
slant contest OF ingenuity between OIL
GERS and the crew. the latter devising
all manner of schemes to get the con-
traband luxury aboard and the former
endeavoring to ferret out and Illustrate
the plans. II is contest in which the
crews are often successful While the
ship is at sea tho mems brains are busy
with schemes for smuggling liquor on
board that keep the officers brains busy
when she gets in port Tricks that
were old when the American navy was
young are perennially practised by the
sailors, and the officers, however smart
and alert, cannot wholly defeat them.
"Why," said an old captain, give al
most come to be superstitious on this
subject I'm prepared to believe that
If my ship were at sea without drop
aboard and we sailed anywhere within
sight, even, of land, half the men in
the forecaste would soon find the
means of getting gloriously drunk.
I'm sure of it. Liquor is simply spir-
tied aboard"
When a ship is in home port the
trouble is greatest. Some day clever
capture will be made, the men be de-
ploring the failure of a new scheme and
the officers chuckling over its discovery,
and yet the next morning will reveal
that half dozen of the crew were
drunk the night before When a boat
| load of men return from shore leave,
the boat is stopped several yards from
the ships side and an officer drops into
it from the boat boom and makes
thorough search for liquor. He proba-
ably does not discover trace of any,
and the men appear as innocent as
doves; but the next night half that
boats company will perhaps be tipsy.
A company of half dozen men on
one of the warships here during the
naval review last spring had young
parrot for pet, housed in gorgeous
big cage The bird was the successor
of several that had occupied the same
cage during a stay at tropical port.
The owners seemed to be unfortunate
with their pets which lived only a
short time. The one they brought
here, which had stood the voyage well,
died soon after the ship arrived in port.
The men took the cage ashore and go:
some other kind of bird. That also
soon died; aud so did four or five others
in succession in a few weeks. Finally
the officers noticed the great mortality
of pet birds, as they had also noticed
the great frequency with which the
joint owners of these pets got mysteri-
ously drunk aboard ship A suspicion
dawned upon them, and they seized the
bird cage. They found it had false
bottom with a capacity for several
quarts of whisky, and also that the
food tins, and even the thick bars, were
hollow. The men had killed their
cheap pet when other schemes for OBJ
tanning liquor were not available, and,
taking the cage ashore for another
came back with q new bird and half a
gallon or so of whisky.
An old scheme, often tried with more
or less success, is to tow bottles of
liquor behind the boat when returning
to the ship, and to leave them a short
distance from the vessel, buoyed and
al, in, 10 no
coverab Bile. This is usually attempted
at night Each bottle is buoyed with
a cork ring, but has long line with a
weight on the end attached to it so as
to keep it from floating on the surface,
and also to keep it beside the ship. The
length of the anchor cord is easily
gagged by the amount of chain out
with the ships anchors, Another light
cord attached to the bottle has di-
minutive float attached.
When close under the ships side the
bottles are let go, and the men go de-
murely aboard after the boat has been
searched within and without During
the night a man will angle for the bot
ties with a shark hook, or will drop
from port near where the bottles are
anchored, taking his chance of detec-
ton by the officers, and recover them
by means of the float, or perhaps means
have been taken for fastening to some
part of the ships side thread attached
to the float by means of which the bot.
ties can be hauled in at favorable OPP
portunity.
The sailormen might tell columns Of
stories of clever schemes for smuggling
grog aboard ship, but naturally they
do not care to reveal them and thereby
facilitate their detection. N. Y. Sun