The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1896-09-19
PIGEONS IN POLITICS.
To Be Used ~ MESSENGERS in the
Presidential Campaign.
The Birds Are Being Tfained On Trans
Atlantic 6teamships for the Pux.
pose Of Conveying Bulletins
Of the Election.

- $50 o~0o1OVoAsO
Of the Election.
Here u brand-new use for the car
Ter pigeon: Instead of raising the birds
on shore, they are bred and trained on
ehipboard, and if kept on land when the
vessel sails, will make bee-line for her
the moment they are set free. #s.
The presidential election this year Of
fers opportunity for the supreme test
of the carriers ability TO follow it's own
particular ship for hundreds of miles
across the broad waters, through storm
and sunshine, to pick her out from
among the thousand crafts that throng
the ocean pathways and land it's mes
sage at the captains feet.
For months the men on board the
transatlantic steamships have been pre-
pairing for the trial OF this novel plan
of election bulletins. There are coops
with whole colonies of carriers, which
the ships crew have ted, pctted and
coddled, and people who start for Eu-
rope in that momentous first week of
November may be tolerably certain of
having a good bulletin system Of the re-
turns.
While there are people to whom the
result of an election IL a matter Of bllsi-
ness life or death, there are those, just
to know" On shore they get early
dinners, chase to the nearest iliu-
minated bulletin boards, and stay there
until the last returns are in, and cheer
themselves into voicelessness as the dis
patches tell good news Of their candi-
dates.
This is precisely what is going to be
done on shipboard this year, and under
the gray-blue feathers Of the carrier
pigeon the story of the gold and sil-
yer debate will travel over the Allan
tic.
To receive the returns of a national
election in such fashion is alone worth
the price of the passage, and it will be
all event of history, and there will be
gay old demonstrations on the decks of
up-to-date ocean liners when every few
minutes a carrier cones from the far
horizon, where home lies, and the chalk
artist letters the message he has
brought high on a big blackboard.
There will be cheers and jeers and pop
ping of bottles.
In sending out returns the birds will
have to be liberated every five or ten
minutes, to insure frequent bulletins on
shipboard, as we'll as to allow the few
flyers which fail, as pigeons will at un-
expected times, for some of them at
times refuse to fly, as sulky race horse
does to run. 81
In sending the carrier pigeons out
to the vessel, a start of IL hours only
will be allowed the ships. The birds
will be detained at the docks and will
see their. home disappear. 1t is said
carrier pigeons can see so miles at sea.
There are, the experts say, only a
few strains of pigeons which can find
their way over water readily. Most
birds require landmarks - steeples,
rivers, towns-but these ocean-going
pigeons, which are German, Belgian
and English, have an infallible instinct
which guides them across the sea.
This experimental bulletin will set
tie great many questions about which
pigeon enthusiasts have long been in
doubt. They do not know, for exam
pie, just the distance that a carrier pi-
geon will fly over water. A first-class
bird can go a mile minute for many
miles, but whether he can keep it up
for 1000 miles nobody has yet learned.
A record bird ought to cover 1000
miles in "a hours, with some time to
spare for rest. 1t is the resting, or
perching, that makes pigeon-wise peo-
pie doubt the perfect utility Of the car
riers as ocean messengers. They will
not fly at night. When darkness comes
they perch on the highest point they
can find, and rest until light comes
again. But the first faint tinge of dawn
finds them ON the wing again. And on
moonlight or starlight nights they
often fly continuously, stopping only to
rest at the dark hour just before the
dawn.
II bird happens to perch on the
mast of returning ship, he loses dur
ing his resting hours just the distance
the vessel travels, in addition to the loss
his own delay causes.
But even with these drawbacks and
uncertainties, it is long odds that the
carrier pigeons, with their bundles OF
microscopically written election re-
turns, will bring relief to many anxious
people, and sport to a greet many more
who are not SO anxious.-N. Y. Journal.