Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-08-06
ALLAN TIC CITY LIFE
Sights and Scenes Along the
Ocean Beach.
UNIQUE CHARACTERS
SOME OF THE FUNNY SPECIMENS
OF THE BATH.
Exciting Experiences With the Sensa-
tional Habitues Of the Jersey
Resort-Comical Scenes.
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
ATLANTIC CITY, August s, 1904.
The Atlantic City life guard, with the
record Of more than 200 "pick-outs''-as
these modestly heroic chaps rather slangily
call the rescues they make-sat on the red
life buoy, close to the verge, mis- brown
black arms gripping his brown-black legs
lie was putting on very damp looking
cigarette. His steady gaze was fastened
upon point In the water some distance be-
yond the breaker line.
These excursion drunks," remarked the
life guard, in one of his rare discursive
moods, cause me much mind flag. Take
look at those two, out yonder beyond the
roller line, ducking each other and doing
the glad porpoise performance-and with an
undertow running that would carry bar
steel from here to Madagascar" and the
life guard nodded disgustedly in the direc-
ton of the part of the water upon which
his gaze so intently fixed Those two
are Pittsburgians, or Daytontes, or some
thing, who started their joyous prepara-
tons for what they call a swell time the
train on their excursion ride here and the
best I'll get out of it will be a stiff neck
watching them until they come out of the
water.
"Oh, yes, they're good swimmers, all
right. Anybody can see that-buly SWIM
mers. But that's not going to help them
any. They're three parts in liquid ballast,
and that's what is keeping me busy. 1t
doesn't make any difference If man can
swim like Paul Boynton a Wisconsin
beaver, he has no business padding around
in water that's eight inches deep. If as
much as that If he has one of those
schnapps cargoes aboard: It's dangerous,
and dangerous for lot of reasons
I'm the first place, any youngster In the
first reader ought to know that when a
mans internal machinery is all heated up
with alcohol, he has at least nine chances
out of ten of getting cramps In the water.
And when the hquor-heated man gets into
mess of that sort In even so comparatively
roly-poly a sea as is running today, his
chances are hardly worth looking over I'M
less there's a guard delegated to keep an
eye upon him, and him alone, to the ex-
clusion of all the rest Of the bathers around
him.
And, leaving out the cramps business al
together, the fellow who carries his alco-
holic Joy into the water~wtth him is bound
to take q whole lot too many chances In
the water. He wants to do these merry.
dashing things. Water only about forty
foot deep won't do for him at all. He
gets 1t into his mind that he's a tramp
steamer drawing about 800 fathoms, and
he imagines that It's up to him to set an
Immediate course for the coast of Nor
way.
One Glass Of Bathers.
And he's powerfully strong, too-at first.
All Of these chaps who carry their rummy-
happy frames into the sea are Sandows--at
first. But when they get out of a good
focus Of the sand-knolls they all begin to
wonder where they can buy, and buy right
away, q tonic for that tired feeling. When
they begin to wonder in this strain, we
notice it, and it's then that we start to pull
the boat out in their drection-for we al
ways have this class of bathers mapped
and charted from the very moment they
strike the water, and at a resort like this,
we actually spend more time keeping an
eye that sort than upon all the rest of
the paddlers put together.
Even If the picked Understands the
most appropriate name l know for them
don't take 1t into their heads to start out
for a long distance overland cruise. and
stay within hitting distance of the life-boat,
like those two fellows see that they're
coming in, which shows that they've got
more head than the usual run of them
they're so sprightly and inexhaustible In
their fooling around in the water that they
are liable to collapse all of sudden. I've
seen fellows in that shape go to pieces be-
fore you could say Jack Robinson, when
they were within five feet of raft or
life-boat, and when they found themselves
that way they were simply unable to swim
another lick, and then they'd have to make
themselves feel cheap by yelling for help.
It's a curious thing, too, that lot of fell
lows, finding themselves In this desperate
whatever you choose to call it to call for
aid. They'd rather go down to watery
grave first, for they have in their mind 8
eye an acute picture of how foolish they're
liable to appear in the eyes of the folks on
the beach, and 1t is for this reason that
they have to be watched SO carefully by
the guards.
There's no expressing In dollars just
now much damage every single drowning
case does to summer resort even one the
bathing of which ranks Al and triple x
for Its safety, and yet l believe that
wouldn't be getting a particle outside the
la hat of 1oa OF
eighths Of all of the drowning cases that
have occurred here at Atlantic City during
the past four years-covering the time that
I've been here that Is to say-were those
of men whose deaths in the water were d. |
recty owing to their going into the water
while intoxicated, and whose lives could
not have been saved by anything short of
miraculous power the part of the !
guards.
Smart Alexanders.
Next to the hard-to-watch fellows who
go into the sea when in liquor, we have
the most trouble with the smart Alexan-
ders Last year, by actual count we pulled |
out OF the water just seventy-three of the
smart Alecs. Oh yes, they're good swim
mers, too; that's their main fault. They
are SO good that they want all of the thou
SANDS OF folks on the beach to know it, |
and that is why things are SO constantly
happening to them They are as bad as !
the jagged ones in the chances thew take
They try for Europe. too.
rms thing OF going to Europe by the |
swimming method is all right-going It's |
coming back that causes all the bother !
But the smart Alec, like the iquored swim |
mer, never seems to think of that We get |
so that we can spot the smart Alec lust |
as easily as we can nail the befuddled chan
before he has so much as put a foot in the
water, and We keep the good eye upon him !
all the time; and when he starts out with !
that beautiful, graceful stroke of his |
toward the old country we just about know |
when to tip each other the wink throw |
away the comfortable smoke we're enioy- |
ing, get the oars in position and 20 after |
him.
The cheapest-looKing smart Alec that I |
ever hauled out of the water got into his |
little dose of trouble here last summer. |
He was. beyond all doubt whatever a love |
ly boy In bathing suit, and he had about |
forty-eight young women In beach loIling
chairs in such a dizzy state of mind that |
they read their novels upside-down and |
forgot to MUNICH on their pepsin He was |
a big-muscled fellow. all right. and there |
wasn't any trouble in seeing that he made |
1t his business to keep himself in trim.
Well one morning last July he brought !