Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1920-04-01
Frank A. Capener, Whose Parents
Reside Near Baraboo, Writes
of Interesting Trip
SEE SMOKE FROM SUBS
GLIDING UNDER WATER
Part Of Cargo ON the Ship Was
Great Bales of Cotton for the
Oriental Ports N

Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Capener, who
reside near Baraboo, have received
the following letter from their son,
Frank A. Capener. He has been at
Seattle for the past few years and is
making a trip to ports Of Asia. He
writes as follows:
Yokohama, Japan, Feb, is. 1920
Dear Father and Mother:-
We arrived this morning at o'clock
The bay is about one-fourth as large
as Puget Sound and projects north
ward into the island. The city is
strung out like Chicago, all the way
around the bay, and / should Judge
by the lights tonight that the city is
fully as large as Chicago. / don't
believe the Japs know themselves
what the population of this city of
Yokohama is.
When we pulled out of Seattle
January 90tk, we could see possibly
eight ships of $500 tons or larger and
they were all at a dock but here /
believe there are so ships of that
size and larger that ] can see from
this ship at one time. They are an
chored any old place inside the break
water and are unloading into lighters
or small scows. There are a good
many fine docks here and cranes OF all
ssarts for handling cargos but there
are not enough of them to go around.
Yokohama is few miles farther
south than San Francisco; tempera-
ture is very mild now, but today there
is a dr:zzling rain.
Longshoremen Happy
The Japenese 1ongshore-men are a
happy bunch, small OF statue and as
brown as some American Indians.
When ten or a dozen get hold of any
lifting job they will speak in unison
with singing accent; this singing
seems to unity the stresses eXerted
by the whole bunch. Their native
dress is very amusing; they will have
a large figure painted with real paint
on the back or sides of their mack1-
nav and there are no two alike. Their
shoes are OF duck or canvas with
sole of heavy oiled canvas One-fourth
inch thick, great deal like we call
canvas betting, such as is used for
threshing machines. The toe of the
shoe is made split like glave between
the big toe and the second toe; both
sole and top are split so they can
wear sandals if hey care 20 md they
usu4lly do if ne sole is Won thus.
This sole is a sort Of stocking too.
Some wear the sandals without stock
ings and some half dozen I saw to-
day had neither shoe stockings or
sandals and one of these was wom-
an working on a scoW. I would judge
she weighs about 80 pounds; the ay-
erage male Jap weighs ahou- 100
pounds to 10 pounds, and some will
weigh $50 pounds but they are scarce
| learned today that these i0ngshors-
men went on a strike same time in
the past year so that row trey re-
ceive five yen per day, yen is now
valued at 40 cents American money.
noticed today one Of them lost bis
lunch. lunchbasket and all. 1t consist
ed of one and one-half pints of boiled
rice and it was neatly wrapped in some
thing that closely resemO;ad a corn
husk folded in such a way that no
string was used in wrapping same. l.
was accidentally knocked out Of his
coat pocket as the coat hung near
him. He was hosting winch driy-
er. The Japs will have a man on
each winch, but in the u. S A. one
man will handle two winches, one
with each hand
Sees Smoke from Subs
1 tried to get some views OF the
ships in the harbor this morning. l
don't know as they will be good for it
was cloudy. Yesterday we passed
many fishing schooners and we also
passed a submarine or several Of
them as we could see the smoke from
the gas engine coming up out of the
water. Our ship was not more than
100 yards away and this smoke rose
from different points, so there must
have been two or three subs. | have
my 10 camera with me and | dare
say that I will have nice assortment
of views before I leave for the states.
From here we go to Kobe, Japan,
then to Shanghai, China, then to Hong