The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-08-15

the storage, the sailors refused to touch
the burned and charred bodies slowed in
the focastle-thirteen of them-and the
ambulance force had to get special men
to remove them. The crew was composed
OF Italians, and their superstition explains
their inhumanity. You can't induce a
mariner of that race to touch corpse
They have a notion that the ghost Of any
dead body they handle will haunt them TO
eternity. All the Latin races that follow
the sea-Italians Spaniards and Portu-
guese-are STEPPED with superstition. They
all have the same horror of any dead on
board l know, too, Of many cases where
the sailors Of this race, after long and I'M
awaiting prayers to the Virgin Mary in
times of heavy storms, have risen In mu-
tiny against the heavenly powers and
smashed all the images of the blessed
mother they could find on the ship And
they do it to this day, Just the same as
the black heather in the wilds of Africa
will take the fetch they worship and
break it into smithereen II they don't get
the right kind of answer to their prayers.
You see. the same logic governs Chris
tian and idOlater The savage argues that
If he carefully attends to all the duties
imposed on him by the priest or fetch
man OF his tribe, and presents his fetch
with gifts and sacrifices. and all that sort
of thing, then the fetch is bound by
heavenly obligation TO stand by him when
he gets into trouble Of any kind and pull
him out Of n. He claims that there Is the
same responsibility resting on the fetch,
or god he worships. to look out for him
as there is on the worshipper 10 attend
to his end Of the business. When the
fetch doesn't come TO time the savage
considers the contract broken ana his
next step Is TO smash the image OF his
careless divinity.
NOW the Virgin Mary has always been
the special patron saint OF seafdring men.
Her shrines are IN all the seaport towns
OF Catholic ChrlstcndOm. aud every Cath
Ollie sailor puts himself under her care.
when she doesn't deliver them promptly
enough in times Of peril thcy take The
same superstitious revenge as the savage.
"They don't make any better sailors"
he continued. "tho world over than the
Scandinavians, but they are loaded TO the
guards with superstition. / remember one
OF Mexico with a good three-maEtcr, when
a sQuall sprung up. ana "a clever lad in
the crew fcll from "a yard and died. Tie
came Of good family IN Maine, and the
three Americans IN the crew decided we'd
take the body home instead OF feeding Il
10 the sharks. We slowed che poor boy
on the forward deck. but we couldn't keep
a man jack OF those ghost-fearing Sean
dinavians on the lookout II took an the
arsenal we had aboard. too keep them
down until we reached New York.
NOW ln this matter Of corpse on ship
board" the veteran skipper proceeded,
John Chinaman D. Just a. ficrcely super
atitloua the other why. It's "a biz plank iu
hlH religious platform 10 see that every
Chinaman'H body after be 81 dead 81 taken
home and buried ln itH native SOIL and
Chinese crew viii mutiny quicker than
wink N ans white captain drops one 90
their dead overheard. An GA mate of
mine WAS telling nae ihr other dly ~ a hot
scrap they had onea with q Celestial crew
on F0yHae back from Hong Kong n
Naa beiofe the pafaage % ihat Chinese