The Topeka state journal., 1913-08-16

you will find the disgraced and strick-
Ell victim declaring in vociferous Ian
guage that it was something bad" he
ate at the table.
Poor, designing. dastardly-inclined
cooks,
on the steamer that week I heard
many men pound their fists on their
chairs and swear that they would new
er smoke another cigar, drink a drop
of pale brew, eat pink ice cream or
touch fancy cooked fish. In few
days their vows would be lost in the
departing effects of sea sickness-and
welcomed home again.
Therefore 1 offer this as one of the
roots of evidence against the men who
laugh at, ridicuIe and ScOrn sea sick
ness. When man is so disabled that
he will declare war on nicotine-a
life friend-and pink ice cream-a
companion efreshment-then there is
no little mental well as physical de-
rangement in the : ;. affliction-
Another thing about that innocent
looking weeks cruise that wasn't adj
Vertised in the steamship company's
folders-a wreck on the shoals. 1t
wasn't dark night, nor were the
waves booming on the rocks near a
Pickering lighthouse. nor was the
lightning flashing through the raging
tenn pest-but that big lake steamer
carrying 500 passengers ran on the
shoals just a few hours from Mackinac
Island and the two cork filled life pre-
servers stored away under the berths
looked mighty good to the Topeka
man who rarely sees a larger body of
water than a Kansas avenue puddle.
The press dispatches from Mackinac
printed all over the country stated
that il was necessary TO remove the
passengers from the boat. In Chicago
the evening Outbursts printed head
lines over the calamity" But when
a boat hits the shoals and waits there
fNrYV l.
lor churns necessarily trying to bulge
the ship. and when angry white caps
pound away on the steamers steel
sides, swaying the craft back and
steamer dives in the water in an at
tempt 10 pull the boat from her posi-
tlor on the rockS-well. there isn't a
bit of humor lying around waiting to
Kansas.
1t was quite an exciting morning.
1t seems that during a storm in the
night the lookout had missed a light
house which marked the channel of
Lake Huron into the Mackinac point.
To the average human being anything
covered with water looks deep. To
the writer, that stretch of water ex-
tending from where the North Amer
icar" grounded to the nearest pine
covered island, looked like bottom
less sea. Surely Jules Verne could
have operated anything of his i'm
churning body of water between the
boat and the island.
That's why the life preservers and
the Efeboats on the sun deck looked
50 interesting to the passenger from
Topeka
But the Topekan was not alone in
his fears Women with hair down
thought of the women and Children
first" policy on the Titanic crowded
out on deck that early foggy morning
and waited for the next move on the
part of the ships officers.
After it was all over q man from
Chicago who had been six years in
the naval service. who had been
through every class of passage on big
Atlantic liners and who claimed he
could manipulate anything from a
rowboat to the trickiest yacht in the
hardest gale, told the writer con-
fldentiallX, that there wasn't the least
bit of danger. that the boat was in
very shallow water that 4 person could
almost wade to land if necessary and
that it would have been impossible
for the boat to sink.
That all sounded pleasing after We
were on our way to Mackinac in the
deep channeI-but to this minute L
can't understand why that marine
hammered gent didn't como around
and distribute that information when
the steamer was rocking on the shoals /
and when the passengers we're
their attention between the /
depth or the water ana the distance
between the lifeboats and the top of
the waves
But ii was an experience that aided |
in making that lake trip a vaca ton to |
remem ber-
Did you ever hear a thunder storm |
on the water? Make a date with a |
batch of lightning some time and try /
it. The thunder has far different |
sound than the roll and rumble we hear |
on land. The lightning dives into the |
spouting water, and white caps and /
rain drops are lighted in sparkling /
colors. the shadow of the ships out
line can be seen in the sea and the