The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-11-02
MISSISSIPPI BOAT RAGING
EVERY SATURDAY THERE IS 4
 DASH UP THE RIVER


 They Afford Lots of Fun and Excite
 ment for BehOIders and Participants.
 The steamboats are racing again up- on the Mississippi. The sport made fa- nous by Mark Twain has been revived. The twin stacks are straining again with that wheeze of a boat that is be- ing pushed; the black smoke is rolling; the roustabouts are running excitedly, betting and shouting; the passengers are getting a taste of the river life at it's best; the pilots are cutting off is lands and skirting the shores to escape the currents, and the farmer is waving his broad brimmed hat from the bot tom fields.
 There is boat race out of St. Louis every Saturday afternoon. It is neither by design nor by chance. It is the pro- duct of business competition. Four boats leave St. Louis wharf at i o'clock every Saturday afternoon for the up- per river. The Diamond Joe line steamer Dubuque clears from the foot of Washington avenue; the Eagle Pack ct steamer Bald Eagle gets away from the foot of Pine street; the Ryman Line boat J. B. Richardson and the Calhoun County packet steamer Belle of Calhoun start from the foot of Wal nut street. Ultimately but two of port-the Richardson and the Belle of Calhoun, both of which run to Ham, burg. The Dubuque goes to Keokuk, and the Bald Eagle goes to Peoria; but for the first three hours they are bound for the same objective point-the Alton wharf boat. They all start at the same time. It is twenty-five miles. to Alton. The first boat in gets the choice of po- sition at the wharf; the others must nose in as best they can.
 The result is rattling fine race every Saturday afternoon. The boats are all stern Wheelers. They are about equal in speed. The river is big and broad, the water is high, fuel is plenty, the passengers like it, no rivermen likes to be passed-so-well, how would you like to puff up to the Alton wharf be- hind the others, with half the town looking on, the choice places at the wharf taken and your passengers heartily ashamed of their boat?
 l It was Saturday afternoon. Four boats were clearing from the St. Louis levee. Their twin stacks belched great curling columns of black smoke. Pas sengers crowded the shady side of the middle forward The roustabouts hustled aboard the last few pieces oi 1 freight. The bells rang. The pilots stood at the wheels, The wheeze oi | their engines sounded above the roar oi the waterfront. One after another they backed from their moorings, cleared the shipping which lines the river and ther l breasted the current, headed upstearm i The first of them had no more thar passed under the Eads Bridge till the second started after it. A third closely followed the second, and a fourth se sail for the. third.
 They were all stern wheel passenger steamers of the Mississippi River typt long and narrow and three decks high, with the lower deck piled witt freight, with colored roustabouts haul 1 ing in the landing blanks and straight ening up the disheveled freight; witt a group of passengers upon the middle deck, some of them waving flutterins handkerehiefs to friends left ashore and with the name of the boat painted in small letters on the pilot house ant in larger letters just in front of thf wheel. These letters upon the first boa read 'J. B. Richardson" Those of tn, second, "Dubuque''; the third, "Balc Eagle";/ the fourth, India Givens."
 A rugged, weather beaten, kindly bu gruff hammered old riverman in blu clothes walked to the rail of the Rich ardson and looked back at the othe boats, This was the captain. A small thin, quiet looking. man came up ant joined the older man at the rail-th engineer. A third man, short am stout, joined them-the mate. The, spoke together and looked back at tn other boats.
 The Richardson was less than tw
 weeks old in the up-river trade. sh
 had come around from the Cumberlan
 River. Report said she was fast. Tn
 other boatmen sized her up critica1l
 when she came into the harbor. Sh
 was small. She looked like she migh run. Now they would see. They wer
 all together. The river was high an
 wide and swift. The Alton wharf boa
 was twenty-five miles away. The
 would run to the wharf boat. Nobod
 said no. It wasn't necessary. Every
 body could see it. They were all boun
 for the same place, and they had a
 started at the same time. It was
 race.
 The man at the Richardson's whet
 was young, smooth shaven and tanned
 He was sinewy fellow and nervous
 He knew the river as a bird knows tn
 sky. He headed the Richardson owe
 to the East St. Louis side, approachin it diagonally. He passed the old Eas St. Louis water works within one hunG
 red yards of the shore. He was try
 ing to escape the current. Once in
 while he looked over across the rive and now and then he looked bacl
 Across the river was another huggin
 the shore-the Bald Eagle. Back ( him were two boats-the Dubuque an , the India Givens. The Dubuque is big boat, It was distancing the Indi Givens. The Richardson's pilot locke at the Dubuque steadily for a momen s Yes, she was gaining.
 A big river increases a pilots licens
 IJn 5n +Ia +aY,