The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-07-31

1ey' jimmy! beJcner you can
swim out to de spar buoy"
The spar buoy, red and flashing,
is straining in the glare of the sun on
the East river half a mile off shore
in the wickedest tide that ever raced
from a fifty named He'll Gate to the
sea.
With that ebb tide eager to profit
by its rush, the daily fleet comes driv-
ing down-broad railroad floats load
ed with whole trains with a BOW wave
cascading ahead of them whose roar
can be heard clear in shore; tugs, sim
gle and tandem, tearing down with
wallowing lighters and schooners,
sometimes fastened five and six
abreast, sometimes strung out in SIN
gle file for quarter of a mile, steam
ships, barges, sail and steam and
gasolene and oar-all pouring through
the water gate of New York to the
sea.
And out into this plunging, cluster
ed argosy, into heavy waves that
always toss in the strait and are made
ten times more violent by the rending
and beating of paddlewheels and
feet long, clean shanked, ribs show
ing under a brown skin-Jimmy,
| heading through a worlds hurrying
commerce to swim to the spar buoy
on a dare.
And Jimmy does it. A few Jim
HES get drowned every year, but
the drowners are only a tiny per-
| centage of the ten thousand swimmers
whose round heads bob all around
New York from dawn to night and
even at night from the first warm sun
of May to the last days of Septem-
ber
"Best Swimmers in the World"
II have seen the negro boys diving
for coins in the clear, blue waters off
Key West and in the lapus lazuli sea
off st. Thomas. I've seen the famous
Port Said swimming boys around the
ships and I've seen the Hawaiian surf
swimmers, and I think that the New
| York dock rat is the best swimmer
of them ALL" said a ships captain to
me one day in the West Indies, while
we watched the handsome black For
| tune Island men swimming around a
| raft that they were building. 1.-THE
Hawaiian is the only one who equals
him, and even he swims in seas that
are high, but regular and slow, where
as the New York boy swims in a
regular boil of water, cut criss-cross
| by tides and eddies and whirls."
Jimmy of the river front deserves
! the compliment.
His swimming hole is from thirty
to fifty feet deep and from three-quar-
ters to a mile wide, without a shoal
spot in 1t. That mad strait known as
East River is a pot that is a-boil all
the time.
Its waves do not roll They tumble.
! Its currents carry steam craft along
| like toys, unless they head straight
into the pull of the tidal flow.
Swimming Lessons in Five Faith
GINS.
There isn't a shelving beach or
foot of natural shore of any kind left
! along the sides of this East river.
1t runs between banks fifteen and
more feet high made of wooden
! spiles, iron and concrete. and stand
ing straight in water thirty feet deep.
| The tenement house boy can learn
| to swim in two ways. He can go into
the floating baths moored at various
piers, which is a refuge of paltry souls.
i or he can walk boldly out to the end
| of a pier where within a few mo-
ments, somebody will come to the
rescue of his possible hesitation by
heaving him far out into the racing
! river
|
| lean boys. But they will not heed his
despairing google eyes or his blub-
! berry gasps for help. They are firm
! ~ convinced that nobody can drown
| unless he comes up twice and goes
down for the third time. So they
wait for that third time religiously.
If he hasn't learned to keep himself
! afloat then they will snatch at him
and haul him 20 the surface and there,
In the deep, open river. in the grip of
a current that carries them all along
like chips. the novice gets his swim
ming lesson.
1t being mostly a case of Swim
or drown" the novice usually learns
10 swim before he gets ashore. And
the next day he will burn with noble
impotence 10 lure some other friend
who cannot swim 10 undergo the
same glorious experience.
Owing to the nights OF the piers
above the surface OF the rivers. the
tenement house boys become fine
divers. The boy who cannot take a
clean-cut header Ia viewed with open
ecorn, and kind hands are ever ready
10 seize INN. hold him out over the
brink by hts feet and drop him IN
head first, thus teaching him IN bOis-
ferrous. but explicit, fashion how TO
dive.
Magnificent Divers Are They.
They can't dive for coins like the
boys OF the sub-tropiee, for the water
Of the North and East rivers 10 black
green. and no coin could De seen q foot
| below the surface. Also. the bottom
being Of the inkiest OF BLACK mud, the