The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-09-05
GREAT MISsER
Of CALAM|TIES
Pittsburg Man Who Places the
Scene of One Escape in
Honolulu.


its name before the world, from adopts
at "the long bow" and heroes of the
self-made type. Frank c. kittson OF
Pittsburg, Pa, is among the latest re
cruits to this branch of Hawaiian pro
motion work. introduced as one be
ginning '.to believe that he is Trou'
ble's advance AGENT Mr.. Kittson tells
long story, now going the rounds OF
the mainland press, illustrating how he
always seems to be 'Ejust four Jumps
ahead of Disaster He sells and sets
up bridges and trestles for Pittsburg
steel manufacturing concern, and, trav-
cling nine-tenths of his time, has a
pocket notebook filed with memoranda
on calamities that he has been just a
little bit in front of.
His latest entry, when he told his
tale, was of travelling in the steamer
Columbia two trips before she went to
the bottom of the sea. Ten years ago
he was passenger in the China the
| trip before she sank in a hurricane off
Z
Cape St. Lucas, when nearly all on
board lost their lives.
Having been on board the gunboat
Bennington number of times at Ho-
noluln--frst mention of this place in
his tale of escapes-he boarded her
again at San Diego, and the following
day she was wrecked by boiler ex-
plosion. On the second of two voy
ages he made from Yokohama to San
Francisco he was ahead just one trip
of that on which the Rio de Janeiro
went down near the entrance to the
Golden Gate.
Mr.. Kittson escaped landslide on
the Tehuantepec railroad, which kill
ed four men, by only few seconds.
poker game summoned him out of
Galveston to Houston the night the
disastrous food struck the former city,
and while waiting for steamer to
japan he ran up to Vallejo, on a bridge
scheme, from San Francisco twenty
four hours before the earthquake
smashed that metropolis.
Crawling out of circus tent at
Dallas when a couple of bad-looking
chaps, whom he sized up for gun men,
began fighting behind where he sat,
he was barely in time to secure him
self to the ground by holding on to
the under part of the ticket wagon as
the great pavilion collapsed in the grip
of tornado, involving a host of peo-
pie in death and injuries. The tramp
ling of rough fellow upon his wife's
toes in Madison Square compelled him
to take her away from an exhibition |
of fireworks there, and they had not |
got more than half the way to Broad
way until an explosion took the legs |
off lot of people on the spot where
they had been standing.
While attending night lawn fete in
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Mr.. Kittson
missed being poisoned by drugged ice
cream, of which several among many
sufferers died, and being stabbed by a
fellow under the influence of delirium
tremens, who stuck a long knife into
live others, of whom one died.
The long chapter of messes is con-
cluded by Mr.. Kittson with the fol
lowing account of one placed in Ho-
nolulu, the hero remarking that there
were others but it was no use going
on:
GIVE dueked two fatal automobile
accidents by the narrowest squeaks
First time l was in a big touring car
with crowd of Honolulu good fellows
that gave a -picnic-back in the
Nuuanu valley.
1t was a somewhat winey and sake
sh affair, and so when we climbed
back into the car to ride up on to
The road overlooking the Nuuanu gorge
here was bit of risk in it, especially
rs it was cloudy night and the host
If the luau, who was driving the car,
vas mite unsteady and careless. When
We got to the top of the road 1 stepped
tut of the car to stretch my legs-I
vas the only one to get out.
81 hadn't much more than hit the
ground before the brake snapped, and
he car being on an inclined plane, it
,egan to roll down hill. Two of the
fellows jumped, but the. driver and
hree others stuck. The car rolled at
errific speed into a huge boulder. Two
# the men in the ear were killed, in
luding the driver
Mr.. Kittson has evidently visited Ho-
olulu and either here or elsewhere read
ONE of Its news. There was an auto
ccident of the kind described, SO far
s the machine is concerned, on the
'antalus mountain road one night '
which the Advertiser reported next
The most remarkable fact
bout it, though, was that none of
ne occupants were killed or even Sc
prplv bnrf T.