The Jersey City news., 1904-03-18

sailor as a lad N fifteen il the English
merchant service. OF this part of his
sea life he does not say much, but he
declares that he saw many hardships,
and that he would rather see son Of
his go to his grave than enter upon life
Of that kind. He survived it, and at the
end of his service entered the United
States navy His enlistment officer was
Lieutenant Barker. now rear admiral Of
the North Atlantic squadron. Rear-Ad-
miral Cooke was one of the watch officers
of his ship in those days
Cochrane was first assigned to the Lam
caster. but atsthe en- Of two months he
was transferred to the Saranac, on which
he remained until the end Of his term Of
enlistment The Saranac was stationed
on the Pacific coast during the Civil
War, and while she took part in no inn
portant naval engagements, was kept on
the go continually. She was sidewheel-
er of LAG tons, and carried eleven guns
Her armament consisted of eight eight
inch, smooth-bore cannons, two thirty
pound Parrot rifles and one eleven-inch
Dahlgren pivot gun on the forecastle.
I'm those days, "said the veteran, sail
ors were sailors in. the true sense Of the
word. They had to be able to handle all
the rigging from the royals to the side
tackles Of the guns. Nowadays all the
men on board the ships have to do is to
push button and electricity or com
pressed air does the rest In cold wealth
er like this We had to run up and down
the roomy decks to keep from freezing,
because there were no such things as
coils of steam pipes to heat the ship,
while now the men don't know whether
it is winter or summer aboard ship be-
cause they are kept at even temperature
all the time.
'"The food wasn't any too good or too
plentiful on long cruises, and the punish
ments were more drastic than are per-
mitted in the ships of today. The cat
had been abolished, but the sweatbox was
still in vogue. Of course it was only
given for serious offenses. The sweatbox
or solitary confinement, its polite name,
was a small compartment, just big
enough to hold a man, located over the
steam chest few holes were bored
in the door of the box, and that was the
only ventilation allowed the prisoner.
There he remained in darkness, heavily
ironed, for thirty days. He was given
an allowance of one cracker and jug
of water three times day, and every
fifth day he was given full rations. He
was not allowed to see or speak with any
of his mates, and was taken out in the
darkness of night and before daybreak
for breath of air, and shut up again
in his box. ] have seen a man at the
end Of his thirty days fall out Of the
box a corpse. Any man who had this
punishment had to go under a doctors
care when he was released.
The officers Of that dav were severe,
but high-minded men, with keen sense
of honor, and ! have heard the captain
say that he expected his men to be as
honorable as his officers.
Toward the end of the war while we
were on the Mexican coast, we were or
dered to San Francisco, where we took
on an extra supply of coal, even loading
up our decks. There were rumors that
the rebel warship Shenandoah was burn
ing up the whaling feet in the Arctic
waters, an there was great scare
about her. First she was reported at
one place and then at another. We re-
ceived sealed orders from Washington
to put to sea. We sailed south, and at
the end of twenty-four hours the orders
were opened, and we found that our in
strnctions were to go north. We has
tened there only to find that we had gone
on wild-goose chase. for it appeared
later that on the second day after we
left San Francisco, the Shenandoah had
sailed out to the Arctic waters for Liver
pool. Our next orders We're to the South
Pacific. and we touched a many of the
islands, which were little known in those
days"
Tell about your trip up in Puget
Sound, suggested one Of the old sailors.
and Mr.. Cochrane, WIN a laugh, con-
tinued:
1T was IN the summer Of 1867 that the
good old Saranac was ordered to make a
cruise to the headwaters of navigation on
Puget Sound and to call all ports on
the way. We stopped at place called
Port Angeles, and saw man with
scow milling toward the ship When we