Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1896-05-19
PERPETUAL LEAP YEAR.
A Sailor Washed Ashore and Mar
ried Before He Was Dry.


News from the group of Tristan
d'Acunha, the three little islands
midway between the Cape of Good
Hope and the coast of South Amer
lea, arrives here by the steamer
Miowera of the Canadian Australian
line, says the San Francisco Exam
iner. To the Miowera it was given
by the captain of the ship hartford,
spoken by the Miowera in Australian
waters while on the northward
course.
The captain of the hartford, in re-
porting the events of the voyage
from London, announced that in
about latitude 81 degrees 5 minutes
south, and longitude II degrees is
minutes west his vessel was hailed
by small boat. The yards of the
hartford were backed and the boat
came alongside. In it were several
men and a quantity of potatoes,
eggs, milk and penguin skins. The
men offered the fresh produce and
the skins in trade, saying they
wanted clothing, tea, rice, sugar
and -four from the ships stores in
exchange for the articles they
brought from their island home.
They told the captain that they de-
pended on passing vessels for the
provisions they named and for cloth
ing, and that the inhabitants of the
islands were in dire distress, be-
cause for six months not boat had
succeeded in hailing ship.
The captain of the hartford lowered
into the boat some flour and rice
and tea and other groceries, and
also some canned goods. Then the
men begged for clothing for women,
and particularly for corsets, hair
pins and ribbons. AS the hartford
carried no such articles among her
stores the ladies of Tristan d'Acunha
must go corsetless and permit their
hair to float in the breeze, not con-
fined even by ribbons.
The population of the island of
Tristan dAcunha, as reported to the
captain of the hartford by the men
in the boat is 60, the women out
nunbering the men in the proper
ton of three to one. Therefore there
are 45 women and Is men-that
means 30 minated women. The
group consists of three tiny volcanic
isles, Tristan, the largest, being
seven miles in diameter, in the cen
ter being mountain 1900 feet high,
inaccessible, about two miles across,
and Nightingale island, a baby islet,
just big enough to hold two hills.
The islands have been under the
British flag since 1916, though, as
the men in the boat told the master
of the hartford, no European gov
eminent has paid any attention to
them in the memory of any of the in
,habitants. When Napoleon was at
St. Helena, 1900 miles distant, a
British garrison was stationed on
Tristan, but was withdrawn after
the death of the exile. Corporal
William Glass, his wife and family,
and two private soldiers, were per-
mitted to remain on the island when
the garrison was withdrawn. The
population had increased to 60 peo-
pie, some of the accessions being due
to shipwreck and some to assertions
from whaling vessels,
The captain of the hartford re-
ported to the Miowera no explana-
ton of the extraordinary majority of
women, but as his parting bit of in
formation he related that the men
who sought the corsets, the ribbons
and the hairpins told him that the
latest addition to the population of
the island was the second mate of the
wrecked vessel Allen Shaw, who was
washed upon the rocky shore. He
was seized by the women and mar
ried before he was dry.