Williams news., 1919-03-07
LETTERFROM U.S.S., NM.
U. s. s. New MexiC

Dear Folks:
 Am some busy most of the time is why 1 do not write more often. There is so much to see, and so little time besides my work that it keeps me on the jump from 5 80 reville un- til taps, g at night. Now it is about fifteen minutes until taps. It took us eleven full days to make the trip over and we sure hit some rough weather. First the old tub would stand on her stern and dance a jig, then she would swap ends and drive the old bow way under, then come up and throw water in all di- rections. It just played like a big fish out to raise little H..
 did not get sea sick tho. IL got so rough that we had to sit on the deck to play our comets. So you may know it was a little rough.
 The second day out we got an s. O. s. from an Italian cruizer which had lost it's rud- der. We had to go clear out of our course just to stand by her until some other ship going to N. Y. would pick her. up. We offered to tow her into Halifax but they wanted to go to N. Y. Our skipper could not see it that way. He yves going to France after the President and no Guinea" could beat him out of the trip. so after trans port, picked her up we came on.
 We followed the Gulf stream and it was nice and warm. Af- ter we hit it, we took off our coats and jerseys. That is how warm it was. In N. Y. we could not put enough clothes on to keep warm. We have not worn our overcoats since.
 We lost one whale boat and copper life preserver in the storm. I saw them both go as l was up in the lookout.
 We &fe going to make it l back in about six days and iron: what l hear we leave here next Saturday, Feb. 8th.
 Brest is some dump. They have streets that are not as wide as our alleys. One thing that dumfounded me was their street cars. They are little ci- gar boxes run by electricity. Every one tries to ride on the front platform. If I were the motorman, I'll be switched if they wouldn't have to revise their habits. I was riding one of them and had gone about 10 1 blocks when we came to a sud- den stop. I decided to investi- gate, and what do you think? The motorman was taking air for his brakes.
 France, as I see it, is about | 200 years behind the times Talk about China being behind 1 don't think they had looked 1 at France when they said it. I |
 l saw Napoleon's castle and all points of interest around here. Swede and I went thru the castle and saw how they tried their cases, and made them confess, how they hung them or dropped them down on bayonets; how the sea came in and washed their bodies out; where they imprisoned spies. It was very interesting.
 A funny thing was their den- lists. Here they work on Sun. day morning only. The only thing they do is pull teeth in the "Maarket Place." I will try and go over Sunday and watch them, if we don't leave.
 1 went to Pans last Saturday. Would have liked to stay there about week but could not get the leave. Had a gay time all right. Bot some post cards and pictures of what Isaw there, and different points of interest around the country.
 Pans is sure some place. I tried Mexican, Spanish, Sweed- ish, Bohemian lingo on the na- tives. but they were shell proof. Could not make them sabe, sa we gave it up as a bad job. The R. R's. are rotten. Have travel ed on good many, but this caps the climax. Gan you R. R. 300 miles long