Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-07-25
IRISH TAR CHAMPION
CHEWER OF THE NAVY
HAS CHEWED HIS WAY AROUND
THE WORLD
Is Now Testing Tobacco Which Navy
Department Will Buy If He
Pronounces II
Good

NEW YORK, July 24.-Ih the course
of twenty-five years service as pref
ty able seamon in the United States
navy, old Paddy Coyle has consumed
exactly eleven and ine-elevenths
times his own weight in chewing to-
bacco.
Save for one man. Curley Bruce,
who is now on the battleship Louis
lana with the big fleet on the other
side of the continent, Paddy Coyle is
regarded as the greatest living author
ity on chewin' terbacker. 1t is all a
matter of opinion, of course, some ex-
perts holding with Curley, some stand
ing by Paddy.
Coyle has masticated his way pa
tiently and Systematically, always
seeking to improve the brand, from
the Boring strait to Cape Horn, from
the Golden Gate to the Straits Settle
ments, from Zanzibar to Finland. He
is an amiable and generous soul. who
has dug down into his "baccy kick"
and provided chews for brown Kama
kas, Lascar roustabouts, yellow Chi
nese junkmen and Malay pearl fishers
in proas off the coast of Borneo. He
has tumbled into furious seas and
come up calmly chewing his quid.
When the Spaniards were trying to
pot Dewey in Manila bay, old Paddy,
who fired the Petrol, had a toothful
of tobacco while he worked his gun.
He is the original of the old song
about the old sailor who was cunning
as fox and always had tobacco in
his old tobacco box. A stout plug of
the blacklist, with not too much mo-
lasses to spoil it for the pipe, is the
real staff of life to Patrick Coyle.
In twenty-five years he has SAM
pied Niger Head, Honey Dew, Long
Cut, Short Cut, Ladies' Twist, Shoe
All, DILL NxrA
gators Nose, Niger Heel, Irish Black
guard and Thick Joint, together with
some thirty-eight varieties of untick-
eted and untagged chewing tobacco.
When the navy gets ready to buy a
few thousand pounds of tobacco for
chewing purposes, the navy puts the
tremendously important question of Sc
Letting the right brand up to Paddy.
Chief Pay Inspector JeWett sends a
couple of pounds of the sample to-
bacco over to Paddy, who makes no
comment, but begins to chew. No
body says much about ii, and you
would not have any idea, merely look
ing at Paddy, that the fate of an or
der of 100000 pounds rested with him.
Mr.. Coyle chews and chews
After week or ten days he is ready
with an opinion that is simply the last
word on the subject.
Coyle has started in to test pound
sample from a lot of 100000 pounds
that the navy intends to buy. He is
to be found all day on the port side of
the receiving ship Hancock, in com
pany with Tom Watson and Jack
Hughes, the old master no
body uttering a sound, three sets OF
Jaws working up and down, with now
and then a grinding sidewise motion
as regularly and smoothly as the ac-
ton of a well-oiled turbine engine.
"Ah, shut your ovid face" put in
Paddy, modestly. II amt SO good as
| oncet was, not be lot l amt.
call to mind now, 1 t'ink you was
there, Tawn, when the ovid Van
dalia was in Apia bay, before tn big
storm that twisted us all endways, and
bunch of the boys was oilin' their
bearins in a llonkytonk much pathron-
lied by the natives.
II disremimber what the row was
about, but six-foot son of the divvle
started to cast a knife at Billy Mas
ters-he's dead and gone, now, is Billy
from clean across the dirty bar.
ms and let him have a squirt of to-
hacco iuice twenty-five feet, first In
one eve an thin in the other. He lets
a most awful screech and his knife
goes clatterin' to the flure. We was
on him before he got the fire out of his
lamps.
"For the matter o. that, there amt
nuthin, I'M same. in tn navy no more
IT'S all machinery and byes what cry
for their soda wather. Chawing good
honest terbacker has gone out o. fash
ion. an you don't see none but. the
old boys eatin' their guilds these days
Machinery and sody watherl
"An' cigarettes, agreed Tawn
Hughes, disgustedly
"An' cigarettes" agreed old Paddy
"From IN officers to the kids fresh
from Kalamazoo, it's cigarettes; ne
more good. honest cfawin' terbacker.'