The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-10-14

those who had been on the sentient,
living ship ten minutes before was
rescued. OF the Rio there was not a
trace except jumbled deck debris
which cluttered the water She had
torn off her bottom plates on a reef
and plunged into deep water. Nor did
the sea ever reveal that ship whose
wild cry for help sounded at the very
elbows of the life-savers. Though
divers surveyed the bottom of the
Golden Cate until the pressure of deep
water sent them bleeding to the sur
face, and salvage companies grappled
for days and weeks, the tides that
stream through the cleft at Tamal-
pais's foot hid the wreck of the Rio
beyond mans finding. AS a taunt they
cast upon the beach, nearly a year
after the disaster, a gold watch-case
engraved with the name of Captain
Ward.
A thoroughly modern liner FORCES
across the ocean at express speed,
carrying near a villageful of passen-
gers, half of them coddled in luxury,
all of them secure. The giant hull be-
meath their feet is honeycombed into
water-tight compartments, operating
automatically. The first spark of fire
in the wrong place is the signal for
the banging of steel doors against the
flame and the almost instant smother
ing of it by steam. Should a propel.
Ter shaft break or a screw drop off,
reduction of speed-that's all. Off
fog-bound coast two little sensitive
receivers next the outer skin of the
ship on port and starboard pick up
through the water the throb-throb of
submerged lighthouse bell and carry
to a dial in front of the captains eyes
indication of it's position. The swift
antennae of the wireless are ever
shooting ahead, behind, feeling other
giants in the ocean path, touching the
shore at all times. With such ship
safety from the oceans wiles is
brought to as high perfection as the
experience and ingenuity of marine
engineers can achieve. Though a Re-
public collides and sinks after all
aboard her are saved, and a Dakota is
hurled on the rocks by a treacherous
Japanese current, of such aristocrats
among ships the records of the Stats
ticians of marine disasters are not
often compiled.
1t is the workers Of the sea who
pay. Lame tramps, rotten in hull and
palsied in engine, hiccough their way
from port to port, luck and death
casting dice for the men in them at
every turn of the screw. Ancient
banks and schooners staggering under
top-heavy dock-loads risk the Hatteras
gale and the Formosa typhoon. The
trawlers of the North Sea and the
Banks fishers off Newfoundland snatch
a precarious living when the sea is
sleeping, then turn and attempt to run
when the swift anger of the sea
strikes at them. Little coastwise
steamers, whose owners risk their all
on one voyage, yet balk at a shoe.
string requisition from their captains
Iplay with the inshore current set, not
daring to nose out where the big
winds blow. Whalers and sealers
walk into ice traps, trusting in the
fetish of the Great Longhaired Sui.
phurbottom to take them out.
Just a pack O. rotten plates puttied
up with tar,
In we came, an time enough, cross
Bilbao Bar.
Overloaded, undermined, meant to
founder, we
Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed
the Eternal Seal"
Brief are the obituaries of the com
mon workers of the sea who have es-
sayed too many times the sunny, smil-
ing waterpaths, only to feel at las
the sullen stroke of the element they
have tempted. For these plebeians of
the worlds merchant marine there is
| little money and less ingenuity eX-
pended on a wide margin of safety.
They are not expected to carry lux
urious passengers five decks above a
sea which they in their Grass limo
cence call a pond; these plebeian
workers are expected to carry only
cargoes. Furthermore, ships and
cargoes can be insured against loss;
captains and crews have value only
as they labor day by day, and they