The daily Alaskan., 1911-09-07
THE SHIP CAPTAIN
His Life Pays the Penalty if His
 Vessel Be Wrecked.
SAD TRAGEDIES OF THE SEA.
Brave and skiuful Mariners Who Went Co Death wth Heroic caimnsss When Disaster Overwhelmed Che craR Committed to Their Care.

70 gEAAn NHttI lhNie'~
 When Disaster Overwhelmed ths
 craR Committed to Their Care.
 For thls is the rsw without excuse
 For all of tho lords of the sea-
 That each must hold his ship from harm
 Whatever the odds may be.
 There are many tragedies of the sea that the world knows very little about, or, knowing, very soon forgets These are the tragedies of the men whose lives have been spent in the hard and exacting service which the sea de mauds, whose long years of toll and zeal and skill have brought the high responsibilities or command and whose careers have been cut short by the fault of m hour-yea, even by the CT TOT of a minute.
 The old rubrlc that those who never make mistakes have had few oppor, tuuities for making them does not ap- ply here. There is never a voyage that does not have It's possibility of error. and in many of them arise the sudden emergencies which bring the acid test of presence of mind. cool judgment expert seamanship and skill Let these qualities fall the master mariner in his time of need. and. no matter what might have been the stress of body or brain, or of both, his professional ca reer Is at an end, if the lapse involves disaster to his ship.
 There Is that veteran mariner Cap. tain Frederick Watkins. He it was who commanded the City of Paris when the old Inm0u liner came stag- cering to port with the Atlantic waves swashlng about her hold and surging against her bulkheads, the result of a fog shrouded Impact with an iceberg The liner was throsged with passen- gers. The unforeseen danger came near to sending her and her thousand souls to the bottom. but the energy, re- sourcefulness and skin of her com mander brought her safe to port-a deed to he long remembered.
 It was remembered up Co a few years ago. when a slight miscalcula- tion on the part of Captain Watkins sent his vessel upon the Mauacle rocks, on the Cornish coast Now you may search all of the obscure places of the earth and you may not locate him
 There was the Prinzessin Victoria LuIse of the Hamburg-American line, which drove hard upon the coral beach at Port Royal, In the island Of Ja- maica. The vessel was thronged with tourists, making a jaunt to the West Indies. Fortunately the sea was calm, and there was DO difficulty in getting Messengers ashore. When the last had been safely landed the captain went to his stateroOm and put a bullet through his brain
 The piiable part of it all was that he had no need to. It was not the brain he shattered that was at fault but the Kingston earthquake, which had destroyed the lighthouse
 Captain Griffith of the Mchegan stood on the bridge of bis fast sinking ship until the waters eugulfed him Deloncle of the French liner Bour- gogne. sunk in mid-Atlantic by a col Hsion with the British steamship Gro martyshire, was last seen on the bridge. with hand on whistle cord, as his vessel took the long dive. Von Coessel of the Elbe went down with his ship. standing with folded arms mon the bridge as the vessel slowly sank.
 One of the saddest tragedies of the sea was the wreck of the British steamship Waiearapa, which went ashore on Great Barrier island while on a voyage from Sydney to New zea- land. As the vessel neared the en- trance to the harbor of Auckland a thick fog shut in. Captain Mcintosh. who commanded her, had been many years in the service Of the line and was reputed to be very careful and capable, but while the steamer was groping her way through the mist it was noted that he was exceedingly nervous and depressed.
 When night came the fog was so chick that the lOokOuts could not see half a ships length ahead. A few min utes past midnight there was a sud den crash. which laid the steamship almost on her beam ends, disabling all of the boats on the careered side. Cap tain Mcintosh was on the bridge at the time. A great wound which had been torn in the vessels side showed the extent of the disaster, As soon as be realized that bis ship must be- come total loss the captain strode to the end of the bridge and, exclaim- Ing This is the last watchr plunged overheard 10 his death.-Walter Scott Merwether in Munsey's Magazine.