The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-01-28


cided to wait for daylight before investi-
eating. This did the next morning, and,
by means of long rod. learned that there
was nothing in the caSk except the finest
kind of old Madeira We had a few Por-
tuguese sailors aboard and l drew Some
of the stuff and tried 1t on them. They
wanted more. That settled their chances,
and drew it all off and put IL in lime bot
ties and some other traps that l had han
dy.
Wine AhOat Four Years.
There wasn't smack of salt water in
that wine. The lime bottles may have
spoilt it a bit, but II was pronounced to be
rare old stuff by those who do not have
to go to sea and can stop ashore and judge
wine. The eask I carried with me to
Shanghai and turned it over to the Brit
ish Museum there. How the wine was
lost originally. or by whom, l never have
found out, but the cask must have been
adrift at least four years, for barnacles
do not form on floating wood in less time
than that. The cask was so covered with
them that not bit of the wood was visit
bic. Even the heavy iron hoops were
crusted with them. That made it a great
curiosity aside from its history, the mu-
scum people said ! afterwards gave some
of the wine TO City Physician Wheeler of
Portland, Ore. How did the wine cask
board US? Why, amidships as l have said,
and recedng wave must have left it
there"
"Ah. here comes Capt. Bovine" said
the skipper of the, Sea Witch as the brains
of the Lurline entered the cabin. Capt.
Bowlne was in for steam, a whopper with
twin screws, and merely kept up his wind
jamming acquaintance because they were
not given to romancing. He mentally ate
the frog in the Academy of Sciences, and
he washed it down with the lime-soaked
Madeira of the British Museum, and he
said as he dropped into the nearest chair,
That reminds me-"
Crew Strangely Fattened.
Steward. Fresh glasses" cried Single
whip.
IT reminds me of several peculiar things
in my time" said Capt. Bovine. Il was
on the Phoenix at the time. l was coming
over from Fowey with chalk and arsenic.
With a few exceptions all hands jumped
me at FoWey and / had to pick up what
ever offered. They were the lankest, lean
est crowd that 1 ever met outside of a
poorhouse, and 1 frightened the string on
my grub when | got off shore. The ar
senic was in casks $50 in all, and l stow
ed them under the forecastle. That's
where 1 made a grievous mistake. We had
good weathe and frequently had the fore
hatch off. In this way the sun, without
my knowing ii, played on the arsenic
casks and caused a vapor to generate. The
mosphere soon discovered that their
clothes were getting too small for them
l noticed it, too, after a bit, and inspected
my grub, but found nothing irregular.
Il told the mate that l believed the
men were stealing food and he said that
he had noticed how fat they all were get
ting. Every other day the men had to let
reefs out of their belts, but what struck
me most was that they were getting lazy
and indolent. Then 1 sought the steward
and he told me seven times over the
amount of salt horse and bareback that
he was giving the men. just as much as
the articles called for and no more l dis
covered. l thought the mems clothes were
shrinking, but l couldn't reconcile myself
to the fact that the men looked too fat
and sleek for sailors. l had been too long
at sea to believe that any tar could grow
fat on salt junk and bareback. Well, to
stow it quickly, the wen were so stout
when we arrived off the Hook here that
they could scarcely work the ship in. 1T
was not until 1 got on shore that learn
ed that arsenic helped the additional It's
sue.
The Mystery Explained.
1.-THE men had been inhaling the fumes
of the drug for weeks. One of the men.
the leanest of the lot when he signed, grew
so fat that he afterward went into a mu-
scum Several of the others had to go
Z
wouldn't half cover their bodies. The
chap who went to the museum"
well, the wine cask and the frog got
into the museum. It's only natural that
the Phoenix should have contributed" said
/ Capt Singlewhip. dryly.
Il don't know anything in this line
from personal experience" said the ship
ping master during a lull in the wind
You see, I don't get out of soundings
enough for that. But I'll tell you the
straghtest kind of a story, and one that
know happened in this here harbor, be-
cause I saw part of it myself. Otherwise,
I'd have my doubts. The steam lighter
Sisson, owned by Fowler Brothers, was ly-
ing at the foot of Leroy street, North Riv-
er, when an ice foe came down on the
ebb tide and struck her near the stern.
where the engine was. A large piece of
the ice penetrated the hull breaking off
five of the frames. The Ice became so
firmly wedged in the hull that not a drop
of water leaked in. The engineer hurried
" got up steam and crossed over to Ho-
boken to the dry dock of Mccarthy Broth
ers When she arrived there steam had
TO be applied to melt the ice out Of the
fractured hull"
Rats" said Capt. Singlewhip, with be-
! coming dignity.
| Trading Cargo of Rats.
! Talking of rats" remarked the pre-
I viously inoffensive Fiveoff Il won't tell
/ YOU the story of the rodent that was
! thrown overheard alive from a trep, the
one that killed the large gull, scrambled
] on the birds body, hoisted one of it's
| wings for q sail and steered for shore
! with the other; but I'll relate what hap
/ pened to us when 1 was second mate in
/ the Equator We were lying a Liverpool
! with general cargo from the states. The
/ tween decks were filed with the finest
! kind of American cheese. An Italian bark
| from Palermo came into the dock the
| morning we started to discharge. This
/ Italian was alive with rats, the genuine
! four-legged kind. Hundreds had been
spent by her owners trying, unsuccess-
/ fully. to rid her of the extra passengers.
/ When these dagoes heard that we had
| a consignment of cheese in the tween
| decks they warped up to within twenty
feet of our port side, and under the pre-
tense of wanting to get ashore, we being
nearer the dock, ran a plank TO our rail.
They smeared the plank with behring's dur
| ing the night, and-well, we got the rats"
This brought the mate back to his sens
Il