Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-12

stitched up the forearm Of a fisherman
| VINO had been In agony from a great cash
| made many weeks before that never healed.
Scurvy, another affiiction that curses the
dweiiers on the inhospitable coast, was
found In many places. One case had gone
| SO Tar that it had produced internal hemor-
| rhage and required extensive operation. A
crippled girl was found and sent by dog
| team to the hospital, where she was cured
sufnciently to enable her to move around
freely. A woman was treated who was
| dying from cancer. She had never been
seen by doctor. or indeed by any one ex-
| cepI poor, ignorant persons like herSeiI,
| VINO had not tried to do anything to relieve
| her agony.
In one day alone the surgeons opened five
badly poisoned wounds-for not only do the
implements used in fishing naturally poison
| the cuts they make, but the cold weather
makes 1t almost impossible for the fisher
| men to wash their injuries properly with
! warm water as even tirewood is scarce on
| many hundred miles of shore and almost
! entirely wanting IN the northern part OF
| the land.
| Strathcona's LOO Miles.
A year ago this July the Strathcona had
| just completed a voyage of more than
! eleven hundred miles, during which she WIS.,
tied ffty-six harbors. Among major opera
| tons, they had one amputation of the foot,
! one amputation through the knee joint, one
| laparotomy and one gastrotomy.
What the condition of those patients
| would have been In previous years may
| be imagined from one case that DR.. Gren-
| fell found in a hut TAR from other human
| beings. As he entered the dark, foul little
| place he saw man who, moaning piteous-
| il, held up two terrible things. They were
the StumpS of his arms. He had shot Off
| every part Of them below the elbows while
hunting seal two weeks before, and from
| that time he had been lying on his back
with nothing over the awful wounds eX-
| cept an oily rag that a fellow hunter had
| laid over them. The bones protruded, and
| the necessary operation was something to
| make men shrink, performed, as 1t had to
| De, with few instruments and hardly enough
| chloroform to do more than the poor
| fellow worst pangs. Yet he bore 1t man
fully. Despite it all, it was too late, and
he died that night
They found an old woman who mad
| tumor on the leg. They told her they could
| put her to sleep while hey operated, but
| she would not have it. The next day DIR.
Grenfell found five strong men awaiting
| MIN. The woman had asked them to come
| and hold her, and all she asked was if she
| might bawl." She did, indeed, bawl, but
within few minutes after the operation
was over she was laughing over it, and in
ten days she was well.
Her Busy Summers.
rioh tHiS Tune on uulll the winter again
| sets in, beginning with the September gales,
| the hospital ship will be kept on the go"
| steadily. She will have to face daily not
| only danger from unknown waters and
| treacherous seas, but the ever present men
ace Of the ice. For. aR the fishing fleets
| begin to stream northward at hazard year
| by year." the icebergs begin to drift SOUTH
ward in ghostly columns. Many times has
the Strathcona been in imminent peril Once
| she was so locked in with ice and foes that
! she was invisible among the encompassing
| blocks and piles of it. Masses began to
topple over on her decks. Untold tons of it
| squeezed her keel. She escaped this and
many other similar dangers and went out
| to brave new ones unfalteringly. For these
| are brave men indeed that go out on the
| deep for the Labrador Medical Mission
And brave men are they whom she goes
| out to help. Ground by poverty. the New
| foundland fishermen have no other means
| of finding even the most miserable OF liv-
| ings than this Of hunting the cod on the
worst coast in the world. AS soon as the
| ice is blown from the coast by westerly
| winds they sail eagerly north in every va
| riety of vessel. DIR. Grenfell in his vi
| kings of Today describes this annual voy-
| age thus:
| Crowded Fleets of the Poor.
| 'They come in every variety of vessel
| small and large, good, bad and Indifferent
| mostly of the schooner type. Besides the
crew, which varies from five to ten men
| with one or two women. most Newfound-
| land vessels bring number Of people call
| ed freighters.' These are landed at various
| harbors where they have left mud huts
| and boats the previous year and where
| they will fish all summer. These persons
! cure their fish on the spot. Meanwhile
| the vessel goes on farther north to seek
fish for herself. When they come south
again they call for the 'freighters,' who
pay % cents for each hundredweight of
! fish for their passage.
Besides the cargo of fish, casks of OIL
| nets. boats and general goods thirty, forty
! or fifty men and women will be crowded
| into these small vessels, at times with
only room to lie down in the hold between
| the deck and the cargo. On one small
| schooner of nineteen tons we counted
| thirty-four men and sixteen women. The
| women, many of whom have children with
| them, often are not very bad sailors As
| rule. they are not allowed on deck except
| in port, and this voyage is a nightmare to
most of them They are pillars of pluck
| many of these women. They can handle
| an oar and sail small boat with the best
| and among them are Grace Darlings' only
| wanting an opportunity. They work chiefly
| at cleaning fish and keeping the huts for
| the men, though some form parts of the
| fishing smack crews
DR.. Grenfell examined many of these
| schooners and found such Instances of
| crow ding this: A forty-four-ton schooner
| nineteen men and sixteen women in one
| hold on a twenty-three-day voyage; a nine
| teen-ton schooner carrying twenty-eight
| men and fifteen women; a fifty-ton schooner
| with seventy-fve men and fifteen women
| making the measured cubic space allotted
| to a man, his wife, two other men and a
| boy and girl eight feet by six feet.
Pitiful Tales of Suffering.
There never has been year when a
| number of these vessels were not lost, and
| shocking stories are told the coast of
| the sufferings of women and children
while drifting in the icy waters sometimes
| being af1oat on bits of wreckage for DAYS
| among the ice foes before being rescued
| or finally drowned.
| Pitiful stories too, are told Of the suffer-
ings of the 'freighters when illness or
! other misfortunes incapacitate them from
| catching their fish or getting food by hunt
| ing Rarely do they have money enough
| when leaving Newfoundland to buy pro-
| visions sufficient to last them TIL the
schooners call for them again late in the
| season. Professor E. B. Delabarre of
| Brown University, who visited the region in
| 1900. was so impressed by the dreariness of