The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-03-24
MIGRANTS OF THE OCEAN.
sTOWAwAYS ARE COMPELLED TO
ENDURE MANY TRYING ORDEALs.

ENDURE MANY TRYING ORDEALs.
As Rule sailors Believe They Bring
Good Luck to Ship-Ofiicers DO
Not share the Superstition of Their
Men-SOme Pathetic Incidents RE-
lated of These FriendIess Vagn-
bonds.
From the New York Mail and Express.
They call them "stowaways" in the
ships logbook, which is mild way of
expressing the muflled curses that go with
them down to the sea. There was a time
when stowaways We're hanged. a proceed
ing that. according to all Official accounts
has not materially reduced their numbers.
10 protect the shareholders of her triple
expansions and compounds, England deals
quite severity with the chaps who steal
free passage. Russian master mariners
nave been known to fog them unmerci-
fully, and Italy makes them wish they
never were born. America gives them
Sood scolding, threatens all sorts of pun
lshment and ends up by plying them.
Human nature was always weak and the
miseries of the stoWaways are many. If
the average sailor had his way every ship
coming and going would be filled with I'M
invited and penniless passengers. and
even spring beds would be provided for
thelr comfort There is, of course. a rca-
SON well founded or otherwise, for this.
Ihe average tar firmly believes that dis
aster cannot oNertake a vessel which has
a stowaway on board Not long since
the Leyland Furness line lost one of its
ships in midAtantc. and among the
frst to land here with the crew was an
emaciated stowaway
Strange that you lost your ship with
this chap on board" remarked a South
street sea lawyer to the third officer a
a
t!ous
Nothing strange about it," he said.
You see this is a cross-eyed stowaway."
Cursed the Ship.
There are any number of reasons for the
TACT that sailors consider ship with
stoWaWay on il TO be perfectly safe one
authority on marine supersutions says that
stowaway who was discovered on a ship
before she sailed was promptly put ashore
by fhe officers When he got on the pier
ne shook his fist savagely and said
Il m glad you've turned me off your
rotten old tub. Neither she nor you will
live 10 see Christmas day, while l shall"
This ship never turned up, according to
the lore of the beachcombers, and from
that day 10 this a stowaway is always
lucky aboard ship That the officers OF
the majority of ships do not share with
the tars in this common belief may be
judged from the tough experiences of some
of these imDeGunious tourists The Ameri-
can immigra ton authorities view a stow
away in much the same light that a pau
per immigrant IL considered 1t is man
datory on the master of ship bringing
a stoWaWay to the United States that he,
| as the flfst agent of the owners, be per-
| sonally responsible under the penalty of a
| heavy fine for the stowaway's deportation.
This law is not calculated to put the mas
| ter mariner in a happy frame of mind ana
he treats the unbidden passenger as he
| thinks he should be treated.
Trusted TO the Seas Mercy.
Not long ago a Cuban named Charles
| Clement was picked from che water off
| Hell Gate. He told the authorities he
| was a stowaway on the British tramp
steamer High Fields. and had smuggled
| himself aboard at Barbados. The vessel
| discharged in Brooklyn. and. as he was
| not accounted for on the ships official pa
pers, the authorities gave her captain the
! option of taking the man along or paying
his way back to the West Indies Glenn
ent said he was afterward set upon by
| two officers of the ship, who beat him into
insensibility, THAI he was then put in irons
| and confined below decks. While incar-
| cerated there one of the officers told him
| that as soon as the vessel was out at sea
| ne was to be done away with and his body
| thrown overheard. While the vessel was
| going through He'll Gate en- route 90 Halt
fax he seized the opportunity to make
| his escape. With an iron bar he pried
| open the door of the room in which he
was confined, and. with handouts and
ALL rushed 10 the deck and sprang over
the side He was rapidly sinking when
picked up by a rowboat.
Another instance of a stowaways Jump
ing into The sea occurred off Cape Henry
| two years ago. The schooner Cactus was
| bound to this city from Baltimore, when
she found a man clinging to a life pre-
server. He said that he had slowed away
! at Liverpool on the steamer Templemore
which was bound to Baltimore The off,
GERS did not treat him with much consid-
Grafton, he added. He was told that the
| immigration officers at Baltimore we're
| half savages, and that II was the custom
of the country 90 hang stowaways to the
nearest lamp post. When the Templemore
| picked up Cape Henry light the man grab
! bed a life preserver. and before anybody
| could stop him jumped into the sea- He
| was in the wafer fourteen hours, when
the Cactus saved him. The saddest feat
ure of the whole thing is that the mmi-
grafton authorities sent him back to Liv-
erpool when he landed here.
Died in Their Holes.
Countless numbers of stowaways have
| died in their attempt to cross the ocean
| The average steamer has many dark holes
in her big interior, and, Notwithstanding
the fact that a ship seldom leaves port
| without a search being made to see that
! no unauthorized person is on board, many
| succeed in eluding detection. 1t is only a
| few years since one of the regular liners
arrived here with the dead body of a
stowaway in her hold He had raped
and hammered on the ships hatch with
out avail when the ship was outside sight
| of land nnd had starved to death.
In another instance man hid himself
| in a chain-locker. and when the anchor
was hove up he was crushed to death,
the noise of the steam winch and the
rafting of the chain drowning his cries.