Los Angeles herald., 1906-07-27
WEDDINGS ON
THE HIGH SEA
shippers Authorized to Perform
the Ceremony and Take
Pleasure Doing Il
From the New York Sun.

FROM tne new York Sun
Have shippers the right to marry
couples on the high seas? Well.
reckon" said a man who makes fire.
quent 10000 mile jumps in selling
bridges and structural steel
The topic was started by the case OF
young woman who sailed from New
York the other day for Trinidad, Brit
ish West indies, to meet and marry her
young man, a Michigander, working
down there. To avoid the British mar
rage law, which requires n two weeks
residence before the ceremony can be
performed, the young woman expected
her betrothed to meet her In tug out
side the three-mile limit of Trinidad d
and the skipper Of the ship upon which
she sailed was to tie the knot
"A skipper can do plenty of things
that lot of people don't know he's
entitled to do" went on the man who
goes up and down the seven seas SELL
ing steel. He can arrest you, for one
thing. He can bury the dead, of
course, and believe there have been
some shippers who've baptized young
'uns born on board their ships.
But they certainly have got the
marrying power. One reason why I
know that is because I've been present
dl lIlTee ueBp sea marriages,
First time was on board the Colfna
of the Pacific Mail line in 1893. Among
the passengers who came on board at
San Francisco were a hustling young
man and sprightly clever girl, neither
of whom had ever clapped an eye upon
the other.
THE young man had been living at
Mazatlan, Mexico, for a couple of
years, acting as Mazatan manager for
an American shipping firm. The girl
had been acting as governness in a
wealthy Peruvian family, living at Cal
lao, for couple of years She, too, had
been visiting San Francisco with the
whole Peruvian family and was on her
way back to Callao.
They happened to be made mess
mates, being placed alongside each
other at table, and it didn't take one
eighth of an eye to see that they were
hitting it off from the time the Colima
left the Farallones on the horizons
rim.
'The third day out the mother of the
Peruvian brood for whom the girl was
goVernness began to look blue over the
prospect plain enough, of losing that
governness. Fourth day out bets be-
gan to be laid in the smoking room,
with no takers, that thered be a mar
IldSe vi UOdTQ the GONNA DeIOre Sne
made her first stop, Mazatlan. The
reason why there were no takers was
that the young man had been seen
several times in earnest conference
with the skipper.
THE young man. 1t appeared, wanted
the ceremony performed two or three
days before the ship was due to fetch
Mazatlan. but the girl wouldn't listen
to that proposition. Her idea was a
marriage just before the ship reached
MaZatlan. They were both Protestants
and as such they preferred not to be
married by Catholic priest in Maza-
tlan or by the Mexican alcalde. The
Peruvian family wanted to see the girl
safely married before letting her go.
1--WE pulled first sight of Mazatlan at
8 o'clock in the afternoon, and then all
the passengers were mustered in the
main cabin to witness the ceremony.
There wasn't any flubdub or superflu-
Gus trimmings about it.
"The skipper brought out his little
book and read the lines in his tre-
mendous basso profundo. The girl had
been wearing for many years her dead
mothers wedding ring suspended
around her neck by a tiny chain, and
she used that ring for her own wedding.
All that was needed to make the thing
realistic was some feminine weeps, and
thcSc SNeIludJSd dL just lne proper
moment
First the handsome mother of the
Peruvian children for whom the bride
had been governessing broke out The
couple had no sooner been pronounced
man and wife than she fell upon the
girls neck, and after kissing her most
affectionately performed the necessary
feminine wedding wailing to the
queens taste, in which she was fer
Oit l..
were broken hearted when they learned
that they were going to lose their
governess.
THE big skipper, of course, claimed
the imrnemorial privilege of splicers1 on
land and sea. He stood up straight,
squared out his chest, pulled up his
sleeves and glanced around with an
expression that meant just as plain as
words, oh, it's a scorching sin and
shocking shame, the kind of salute I'm
going to bestow upon this bride" and
then he wrapped her up in his boa con-
strictor grasp and her head was lost in
his huge brown beard.
1T was a nice incident, that mar
riage, and I'll bet a hat those two
young folks are as happy pair of brier
birds and just as much in love with
each other today as they we're on the
day of their wedding; like to hope so,
Second deep sea marriage that it
came my way to witness was on board
the Belgic, Yokohama for San Fran
cisco, in 1895. The young man who fig
ured in this sea wedding was a steam
ship engineer and been taken sick while
serving as assistant engineer on a Jap
steamer running between Yokohama
and Hongkong, and had been sent to
the big marine hospital in Yokohama.
1.-The fever that held him stayed
along with him for nearly three months.
But maybe he hadn't been in much of
hurry to convalesce, for, upon hear
ing of his illness the girl to whom he
was engaged in Vallejo, Cal, had
drawn her savings out of the bank
she'd been teaching school in Vallejo
and hustled to her young mans side
as fast as ship could carry her to help
nurse him at the Yokohama hospital.
"The girls mother back in Vallejo, it
appeared, was dead sore upon the idea
of her daughter marrying a man who
followed the sea for a livelihood, and
before the girl had left Vallejo for
Japan the last thing the old lady had
said to her-this came out in the course
30 49,