The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-01-26
MIR TARs AS FIST FIGHTERS.
uury,RE TERRORs TO THE MEN
OF ALI OTHER NAvIEs.

of Their Famous Scraps
,,ore RecalIed by the Recent
~.vs Of their Clash With the Rus
aus in Northern China-Run-ins
with the British.
From the New York Sun.
THAT scrap between American sailors
and Russian soldiers at Newchwang,
r,,ina was exceptional only in one OF
a. consequences, namely, that it was
ssoroed worthy of representation to
~ state department by the Russian
,overnment. 1t may be assumed with
orfoct safety from this fact that the
1,,ssian soldiers took a mighty sound
,,o,,ine at the hands OF the United
c+otee tars. If, on the contrary, the
,,,,ssians had won out, there would
sssuredly have been no complaint from
,ba American bluejackets. In that case
~. offair wouldn't have taken shape
asa matter for official action at all.
The American sailors would have
-naae their way to their ship as best
they knew how, reported to the sur
peon or the apothecary to have their
wounds bound up, accounting for the
wounds by solemnly stating that
tbev'd "butted into stanchion" or
,.,nmbled down a ladder" and that
would have been the end of 1t. There's
mot a case on record of an American
man-o'-wars man reporting on board
his ship with a countenance mashed to
a pulp and tale of woe of having
been whaled by foreign man-o'-war's
man or a gang of them. Plenty of them
have crawled over the gangway with
the bunged-up faces inseparable from
such scraps, but none of them has
gone numbering aft about it. Ameri-
can tars are Incompatible at keeping
their tongues in irons in such cases.
Moreover there's not a case on rec
ord of an American warship's COM
pany getting the worst of a freefor
all shore fracas with a foreign man.
o'-war's crew. This may not sound
reasonable but it is a simple fact. Nor
is there any recorded case in which
a gang of United States bluejackets
on shore liberty failed to land on top
in mix-ups with foreign soldiers, al
though such battles have been fire.
ouent in our naval history. Sixty tars
from one of the wooden tubs of the
old American navy once licked several
hundred red-coats on the Rock of Gil
braltar to such a complete standstill
that when the next big liberty party
from the American ship went ashore
on the Rock the admiring English SOL
ders couldn't do enough for the blue
jackets in the matter of buying them
ale and in blowing them off generally.
1t is only fair to say that United
States bluejackets on shore liberty in
foreign ports rarely start these me-
lees. They are, for the most part, a
much quieter and more peaceable lot
of men, even when . drinking, than
the men-o'-war's men of other coun-
tries and they will sheer off with a
shrug to avoid a clash with uniformed
mem in foreign lands if the point at
issue strikes them as being too silly
to be worth CHANGING a broken head.
But when real trouble comes their way
at the hands of quarrelsome foreign
ers they give 1t the closest kind of a
hug, and then it's a case of stand
by!' with vengeance on the part of
the aggressors if they value their pelts.
While the American tars scrupu-
lousy refrain from carrying chips on
their shoulders in any foreign port, it
is nevertheless true that they are just
a leetle bit more on the lookout for
possible miX-ups when thrown into
shore contact with the lime juicers
and the square-heads than when they
meet up with other men-o'-wars men,
The lime juicers are British men-o'
wars men. Our men call them lime
juicers because in tropical waters lime
juice is served out to the crews of
British warships to guard against
sickness. The square-heads are Ger
man tars. They're called square
heads because of the traditional fic-
ton in thre American navy among the
enlisted men that the heads of Teu-
tons are necessarily box shaped.
About twelve years ago a big liberty
party, comprising the whole starboard
watch of about 120 men, went ashore at
Hilo, Hawaii, from an American gun
boat that was returning to the Mare
Island Navy Yard from three-year
cruise on the Asiatic station. One of
the members of this liberty party was
the crews mascot, A Jap dog that had
oeen picked up, starving, in the streets
OF Nagaski by one of the men, who
brought the animal aboard the ship,
led him up and taught him many di-
yertng tricks, such as Waiting on his
'front.' feet, pretending to die of grief
Mhen an onerous drill was announced
threatening and bnlldozing the amused
skipper on all possible occasions, and
so ON. The dog developed into an
9,ldole and sagaeious animal, and the
plueJackets, sailor like, became might
~ attached to .the brute, particularly
nave any truck or doings whatever
WIN the officers of the ship, which
lralt struck the enlisted men as being
part
II happened that big British cruiser
from Vancouver dropped her anchor
alongside the American gunboat in Hilo
Harpor on the day the American liberty
party went on the beach, and the Brit
lsh skipper gave one of his ships
watches liberty. The watch comprised
about 200 men.
me American and English liberty
pafues didn't fraternize in Hilo. AT
mat Time there was a bit of ugliness
vi between Canada and England on
.le one side and the United States on
e sne other owing to the Alaska seal
nsherles matter, and when one of these
Slows is in progress between two
Countries, the sailors of the respective
eountries, by mutual and tacit con-
ut refrain from cutting each others
ran TO save argument and worse
The American shore party rented
rom a Greek named Lycurgus, one of
.ne leading citizens of Hilo, a row OF
we've one-story shacks, partly fur
nsned for their headquarters during
oaelr three-day liberty. They distrib-
u.eu themselves In these comfortable
cracks, laid in their stocks of drink
aules and settled down to the enjoy
ient oil a quiet little jamboree, play
,s cards, stunning banjos and gui-
M ana that sort of thing.
p,te hen-o'-war's men from the