The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-10-09

ally Come to Grief.
 Down by the city's sea wall queer man pursues a queer vocation. He is water front character" and his busi- nes is the sleuthing of stowaways.
 He doesn't run his prey to earth, however, after the manner of other hunters of human game. He runs it to water.
 This weather hardened, wrinkled man is at once the terror and the friend of would be stowaways. He is known as Captain Jack but his name has half dozen variations, all of which smack of the salt, salt sea. These are some of his aliases: Wharf Rat. Water Fowl, Sea Dog, Whaler, Old Man Jack and The Boatman.
 His stock in trade consists of his shrewdness in "spotting a stow and a battered but seaworthy old boat which rides the water by night and day through successive seasons. The towns attractions do not lure him from his long accustomed haunts among the masts, figureheads, piers and piles sails, nets, stringers and multitudinous varieties of merchandise that crowd the bays edge.
 l Captain Jack came out of his sea- shell of reserve long enough the other day to tell a bit of what he knows about that venturesome creature of chance, the stowaway, who would fain voyage out of port without the previous formality of paying for pas senger privileges.
 I've been in this business a long time,'' he said, 'an I can gen'raIly spot a stow.
 | Different ones has different meth ods. Some hangs round the docks afore ship sails, offerin to lend a hand or proposin to work a passage somewheres. When they find this don't go the way they want it to, they commence to talk big-inquire bout sea weather, the cost of ac ruise, the time it takes to git to the islands or Alaska or Panama. They're always just agoin to make the trip. But there's something so hungry an home sick an tired lookin about 'em that it gives 'em dead away-leastways it does to 8 person who's pent a good many years studyin their kind.
 Others, though, wait till the last minute. then come hustlin along as if they was too rushed to buy a ticket or as if they had one in their pocket Why I've even been asked by 'em to row 'em out to ship after she's got clear out into stream. If a skipper happens to be good natured. he'll slack up an take passengers aboard. An after al! that bother I've had to bring 'em back again for nary red did they have.
 This class of deadheads is gen'rally supplied with clothes gripsacks, hat boxes, steamer trunks canes, umbre- las, cameras, foldin chairs an some- times a servant"
 Not valet?'
 Sure. That's what we sailors call putin on terrible lot of dog. Them's the fellers that always has friends mong guvnors, rajahs, lords, dukes an consuls, an likewise money to burr: but always across the water some where's. I don't mind the men, but I hate to tackle woman''
 "Wonnen stowaways?"
 Sure. When the Klondike boom was on. ] used to bring in as many women as men. Some was only girls-'ittle slim things, goin to the icy gold mines with no more outfit than the thin clothes they stood in.
 ''The easiest part of the slows plan in makin an escape is the gittin aboard Nobody knows who's who the day a ships leavin port. If she's crowded so much the better. The stow can hide in the hold without being spied But it's mighty hard to git past the Heads, for by that time the ships been searched an the slows yanked ou! on deck"
 Captain Jack spoke truly. Tn. stowaway who passes the Heads has run the gauntlet safely-unless an in. coming vessel be at hand to convey the intruder back again.
 When the final gong has been sound ed, the warning "An visitors ashore" given, the gangplank withdrawn the last rope loosened and the screw turned, the vessels interior is care. fully explored. Meanwhile Captain Jacks weather beaten boat is speed. ing in it's wake. If stowaway bt discovered signal is sent from the pilots bridge and Captain Jack. i, quickly alongside. A rope ladder i! lowered, and toward it the purser ol other officer and his aids escort th' discomfited stow"
 Every day" continued Jack, "' r fetch in men an women that want t git away. They're broke, an though
 they'd try their luck in some othe'
 place. I lump most of 'em off a Meigg's wharf It's heap easier fo
 me an for the slows. There's more ; lumber there an fewer folks to stare
 Some of 'em turns out all right, a1 some is afterward fished out of tn, bay. Then they go to the coroner A dead man. it seems, is worth nor, to thes city than a live one" And thus it is that the stowaway sooner or later all journey with. Cap tain Jack-some- to begin life all ove ! again, others to lie for brief tim
 on a marble slab at the morgu marked unidentified. San Francisc, Eyan1iner