Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1910-06-03


iced Its contents four onehundred-dollar bills
his note:
Irvington Oct. II.
ar os Sir: Hers Here dust We would
bOardi1g g,d masters You would drunk and needsa
t to Fsa turn SS ad s
' ''N Yours ,l1%i,. tE%ly s,,,n,,,s
The friendly faces of Uncle Sans greenbacks
gave him courage. He made plans and acted on
them then and there. Meeting that English mate
in the street. he gave him most artistic beat
ing paid fine and took the next boat for Lon
don town incidentally, he forgot all about his de-
sire to travel six or seven thousand miles and kill
the sailortown kings. What spasm of virtue caused
them to give him back his money he knew
They were not mated for doing such things.
That the kings continually escaped punish
ment was small wonder. The men injured never
had chance to tell their stories until they were
ashore in foreign land. Consuls in foreign
ports could not libel ships detain captains
their unsupported word The ships papers
always straight, at any rate the face of them
The most that could be done to report the
case and there it ended. The Sherman boys
the other side of the earth never heard even an
echo of it, The witnesses againat them scat
tered over the seven seas and prosecution could
not touch them.
The United States district attorney ana his staff
did their best to keep the Shermans within the let
ter at least of the shipping laws, but they had
hard shedding. In one case the kings indicted
Charlie Marsden. the star witness for the prosecu-
Marsden disappeared. The jaler told story of
masked men, guns and general confusion but could
identify no one as having taken part in the Jail
delivery. With the witness gone prosecution halt
ed. Long afterward Charlie Marsden came back
and told moving tale. He had been bound,
gagged and carried aboard ship just she
sailed. When released at sea, he was told that
he had been regularly shipped and was led a sorry
life aboard. In foreign ports he appealed in vain
to consus, who showed him his name-forged, of
course-on the ships articles and laughed at him.
When he finally worked his way back to Irvington
his story. awakened interest and new prosecutions
begun. The Sherman boys had wellpaid
lawyers who dragged out the with adjourn.
ments and legal tangles. Irvington too busy
to be long excited over the wrongs of few sail
Prosecution faltered and paltered along its
usual dismal way, and what at last brought the
sailortown kings up with round turn the
united public opinion of Irvngton directed against
them
Irvington suddenly walked up to find itself blot
ON the map. Unexplained dead are no good
advertisement for any town; neither mysteri-
dsappearances of strangers within its gates to
be desired IL their friends make fuss about them.
Captains who refused to be held up for extrava-
giant blood money and to play villain at small
profit, avoided the port. Business was falling off.
Upper Irvngton hit where it lived and the
Sherman boys were notified to quit.
The kings of sailortown have abdicated Steam
vessels make voyages SO short that advance
notes" are no longer prizes. Seamen's unions
have given measure of protection to deep
water sailors, who seem to have fewer rights and
more hardships than most men, The bullying cap.
tain the bucko mate and the boarding master have
all been snged by the feeble and tardy fire of
United States maritime law. The railroads had
their share in the revolution But what really
caused the Sherman boys to become private citi-
zens the wrath of upper Irvington. When 1t
was hit in its pocket and its selfesteem-that up
set the kingdom of the sailortown tyrants.