The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-09-10
A DISHONEST SCHOONER.
How n Fishing Schooner Got a bad
Reputation and Kept It.
From the Century Magazine.

From the Century Magazine.
The heroine of Morgan Robertson's sto-
ry. Salvage" is the Yankee fishing
schooner Rosebud. She was about as pi-
ratlcal a craft as one could well meet
with in Western waters. Before telling
Of the browning adventure of her career
Mr.. Robertson explains how she earned
the sobriquet of Ishmaelite.
She had large crew, abnormally large
hawse-pipes, and a bad reputation-the
last attribute born OF the first. Register
ed as the Rosebud, this innocent name was
painted on her stern and on her sixteen
dories; but she was known among the fish
ing fleets as the Ishmaeite, and the name
fitted her. Secretive and unfriendly she
ished alone, avoiding company, answered
few halls, and, seldom filing her hold dis
posed of her catch as her needs required
in out-of-the- way ports often as far south
as Charleston. And she usually left be-
hind her such bitter memories of her visit
as placed the last port at the bottom Of
her list Of markets.
No ship chandler or provision dealer ever
showed her receipted bills, and not few
of them openly averred that certain bur-
glaries of their goods had plausible. con-
nection with her presence in port. Be
this as IL may, the fact stood that farmers
on the coast who saw her high bow and
unmistakable hawse- pipes when she ran In
for bait invariably double-locked their
barns and chicken coops. and turned loose
all tied dogs when night descended often
to fnd dogs and chickens gone in the
morning.
Once, too, three small schooners had
come home with emptyholds, and com
/ planned of the appearance, while anchored
In the fog, Of a fiotila of dorles, manned
by masked men, who overpowered and
locked all hands In cabin and forecastfe
and then removed the cargoes of fish to
their own craft, hidden I'm the fog. Shortly
after this the Ishmaelite disposed of a
large catch in Baltimore, and then piracy
was believed of her but never proved.
Her luck at finding things was remarka-
bic. Drifting dories, spars, oars and trawl-
tubs sought her unsayory company. as
though impelled by the inanimate pervers-
ity which had sent them drifting. They
were sold In port, or returned to their
owners, when paid for. In the early part
OF her career she had towed a whistline
buoy into Boston, and claimed salvage
OF the government, showing her logbook
TO prove that she had picked 1t up far at
sea. The salvage was paid. but as her
reputation spread, there were those who
declared that she had sent it adrlft her
self.
AS poets and sailors believe that ships
have souls, II may be that she glorfed In
her shame, like other fallen creatures; for
her large, slanting, oval hawse-plpes and
boor-top stripe gave a fine Oriental sheer
to her facelike bow, and there was slur
and insult to respectable craft in the law
dignity with which she would swash
through the fleet on the port tack COM
pelling vessels on the starboard tack 10
give up their right Of way or be rammed:
for she was a large craft, and there was
menace in her solid bowsprit- boom. as
thick as an ordinary mainmast An out
ward-bound coasting schooner, resentlug