The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1901-12-06

w HEN Captain Andrews,
AN/ the intrepid old naviga-
tor of cookie shell craft,
departed for Europe
from Atlantic City some sixteen weeks
ago he calculated that he would have
reached his destination early in No
vember. II was his intention to run
in to the beautiful habor of FayaI, in
the Azores, which are situated as neai>
ly as may be in mid-ocean. This
group of islands he should have sight
ed, making allowance for the ordr-
AIRY vicisstudeS of such a voyage, in
four or five weeks from the date of
starting.
Nothing has been heard or seen since
bride or his boat, and the probability
is that nothing ever will be. He has
not been spoken or sighted by amy
passing vessel. If he had been re-
ported or rescued the world would have
known of i, long ago But as there
has been neither tale nor tidingS of
the Dark Secret" or her Crew" il Is
only reasonable tn Surmise that they
have gone to the bottom. When such
II canoe ON such a voyage does not
justify the anticipations of her navl-
gator there is no margin for hope on
the bosom of the broad Atlantic in
winter.
CAPTAIN Andrews was q remarkable,
if not an extraordinary man. u man
of unIuestionable courage and of sin
gular modesty. lie was no mountc-
bank juggling with his life to set n
crowd gaping or the managers of fake
museums to bidding for his engage
ment. He was no Niagara candidate
for the ministrations of the fool killer
The success of his voyages altogether
they were undertaken. Andrews WAS
not Il professional sailor. In fact, hc
knew practically nothing of the sea or
technical Seamanship until his first
voyage, when he was II middle aged
man. or navigation he was entirely
ignorant, and he Was equally unskilled
in the handling of Il sail. Time, cour-
age, and that dOgged persistence which
fires II man Ito do what another did
or does" if it did not make him n
great mariner, made him daring adj
venturer.
The voyaser who dared the passage
of the Atlantic from shore to shore five
or six times in IL little coracle which
he could carry on his back might not
be regarded as reckless in thrusting
himself upon its capriciousness for the
seventh time, had he gone alone. I'M
fortunately Andrews took his young
bride upon his last voyage, and if he
has pershed so of course has she.
There is no fool like an old one" Is
an old proverb and "A sound one. An
drews was old enough to have known
better, lie was nearly siXty-tlve, his
wife little over twenty. He Was cap
sized often enough in his previous voy-
ages to expect to a certainty a similar
experience again, and to- expose Il wo-
man to such a contingency was little
short of premeditatcd murder. In eX-
tenuation of his unconscious brutality
it must be said that he had IA practical
end in view, The old tarpaulin's lee
lures whould have been, of course. all
the more attractive ana piIuant when
the companion of his voyage VAS n
young bride who crossed i'm a coracle
hardly larger than bath tub the
most tempestuous ocean on the globe
in its stormest season.
Some two thousands fathoms down
the dark secret of Captain Andrews
last voyage is engulfed in the eternal
mysteries of the deep. 1t is better so.
Poor Andrews was born three hundred
years after his time. lie should have
been contemporary of Prince Henry
the Navigator Columbus, Magellan, or,
better still, of Drake or Raleigh.
The inauguration of the Schley-for-
president boom in Nebraska may bc