The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-17

water cummings. Cummings owned up
to 1t himself that he wasn't a spectacular
success as a man-o-wars' man Swab-
plng decks-he shipped as a landsman-
was not in his line, but fighting was a
good deal TO his taste, and it is said In
the navy yet that when Cummings was
cruising in the China seas he licked al
most every man forward on the China
station.
He got bad conduct discharge when
MS ship returned to San Francisco, and
he didn't have a dollar when he went
ashore. But he had learned in China of
the good opening there for clever Ameri-
can clerks in the customs service and
so ne shipped aboard a wind jammer''
ana made his way to Canton, where he
Immediately went to work as a customs
clerk. He was chief inspector within
three years, with enough gilt on his uni
form to outfit two admirals, big pay, and
perks enough to permit of his hanging
on to his membership in all of the best
foreign clubs in Canton.
A New England Yankee from up Bath
way, named Babcock, who had done
lot OF merchant sailorizing up to the rate
OF second mate, shipped as an A. B. in
the United States navy at the Portsmouth
navy yard in 1885, Babcock was a rat
ting good sailor, man without educa-
ton, but with a whole lot of native
shrewdness. He was liked well enough
the stingiest man-o'-wars man that ever
knotted halyard. Babcock didn't spend
cent aside from his mess and tobacco
money during his entire three-year cruise
and as he was made a petty officer soon
after his enlistment, he had a snug pile
OF savings when he went over the gang
way of his ship at Yokohama, Japan.
''cleare of the navy"
Babcock looked around him for a while
IN fokohama, and then he corralled about
dozen skillful japanese feather-Worlxers.
employed them at very small pay, and set
them to work making three by-four-foot
representations in colored feathers of
George washington, the father of his coun-
try. 1t cost Babcock about 10 yen to have
these really artistic portraits in feathers
made, and he sold all of them that he could
make by employing more men and max
ink them work overtime to the United
States man-o'-war's men for from 80 to rs
yen apiece When the sale of the George
Washington feathers grew slack Bah
COCK set his Japs to work making Ameri-
can flags of delicately worked feathers He
got from rs to 80 yen each for these, all
that he could turn out of them, for almost
every American naval sailor on the China
station bought one of them to send or
bring back 20 his people in this country.
By this time the shrewd Babcock, who
didn't drink salSi or any other kind of
confusing liquid, had a plant. He set a
large force of slSillful Japs to work maxi
ing all sorts of Japanese curios, and he
started an emporium in Yokohama. He
widened this out into a wholesale estab-
lishment and began shipping japanese
curios to England, America and the other
big markets for Japanese products of
art Babcoek hasn't made any effort to
have the tatooed conpasses and stars re-
moved from his big, horny hands, even If
he is now one of the very wealthy Ameri-
Isrrs,, To-. L ant
tours of his branch wholesale japanese
curio emporiums. at Kobe, Nagasaki and
Hakaodate, and he enjoys life prodigiOus-
ly in a. quiet sort of way. He is one of
the very best friends the American sailors
have on the China station. Whenever one
of them goes broke ashore in Yokohama,
all he has to do is to make for Babcock's
emporium and, if Babcock is there, the
tar always comes away with enough yen
under his mastering shirt to see him
through the rest of his liberty.
Living opulently in the Burgundy dis
trict of France is an eX-American man
o'-war's man, who put in nearly twenty
years on the Mediterranean station as
chief bo' suns mate. without ever once
returning to the land of his birth. This
was a very unusual thing, but this chief
bsun's mate made it go through because
he mastered a knowledge of the channels
Of all of the Mediterranean ports, and,
therefore, became an Invaluable man to be
kept on that station as long as he wanted
to remain there. He wanted to remain
there very baby, for, during his first
cruise on the station, he met pretty mill
linery girl in Nice that he grew very fond
of, and he married her The chief bo'sun' S
mate saved his money, and after few
years he set his wife up in the millinery
business in Nice. She made il go from
the start and it was not long before she
was making five times the amount of her
husbands pay as a sailor. She wanted
him to quit the navy, but he liked the
navy and he was an independent man be-
sides. His wife, thoroughly devoted to
her good-looking American sailor hus-
band. continued on in business, and the
pair began TO grow wealthy. BY this time
there were half a dozen young ones in
the family. The chief bo'sun's mate con-
tinued to save his own money, and after
while he went into the wine-deallng bus
mess in Nice as a side issue to his naval
sailorizing. His business prospered from
the lump, and he began to make money
rapidly. Still he stuck TO the navy. A
few years ago the idea finally did soak
into his mind that 1t was absurd for him
to remain in the service when he already
had more money than he knew what to
do with and gave up his bosun's mate
billet, to the general regret of his officers.
He hung on to his Nice wine business, and
went to the Burgundy district and started
to growing grapes. This, also, was con-
spicuous success, and after a few years
of it he closed up his business in Nice, as
his wife did hers, and they settled down
with their children on one of the prettiest
estates in the wine district The son of
rich Lyons silk merchant mades eyes
at his eldest daughter and married her,
and a while later a young French noble
man, who was decidedly not impecunious,
married another of his daughters. His
wife, still pretty, pokes fun at him down
to the present day over the twang that he
mixes in with his French speaking, and
the establishment surely is a happy one.
An Irisnman named Mulvihill, who had
been a cook I'm Irish and English restau-
rants, wound up, after a jamboree in Liv-
erpool about ten years ago, on an Ameri-
can man-of-war that was shy a galley
cook, with a saucepan for a rating badge
on his watch arm, and he made one of the
best cooks in the American navy, too He
saved his money during the three years
that he put in chiefly on the Mediterran-
III lii H. IL