Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-08-01

reward for Job we'll done These were the mo-
ments to balance against the long dark watches of
the night against storm and battle, against hot
lead and cold steel. and against the neVer-ending
threat OF rough hemp moose at yardarm's tip.
So they made the best of their escape from yester-
day and their respite from tomorrow.
They made of themselves a shifting surging
tide of humanity which ebbed and flowed around
the beach of Port Royal; a rough and rocky beach
upon which the waters of life beat themselves into
fury of excess, and whose lights were the bea-
cons OF wreckers set up as lure for the destruc-
ton OF the human soul. No wonder then that Port
Royal swiftly grew from huddle of squalid huts
and shacks first known as Spanish Town"
The pirate men, though they bore a common
stamp OF their calling, were as various could be
expected in almost any other seaport town in the
world. For they ranged through every type from
the illiterate human mechanism whose muscles
dominated the processes of their lives to the high
ly cultured sons of civilization, who might, under
happier star, have become refined scholars or dig
nified professional men of their era.
But here the ox-eyed and the detoured gentle
men were brothers and comrades in the pursuit of
wild pleasures they were travellers along the same
highways, votaries to the same irreligion. Care
and regret, for them casual acquaintance,
hardly worthy of brief nod in passing.
Their women were various as themselves;
creatures splendid in sparkling jewels and dazzling
raiment which was their surest justification for
their way of life Beauty was often to be found
among them, but beauty blurred by an inner un-
loneliness, and by the swift ravages of time that
was so prodigally wasted Many were bloated and
aged long before their time and they were cast off
for others whose youth and beauty had not yet
been too long subjected to the destructive nflu-
ences of Port Royal.
Port Royals main street, known as the "Pa-
rade," at night, was brilliant and pulsing with light
and life. Night laid spell upon the town, a spell
that sofened the crude outlines that carried along
in mad revel until gray dawn smudged the east
ern sky.
Out of the shadows of night, pub gambling den
and brothel emerged like large glowing stars, dim
ming the lesser consultations with which they
were surrounded. Great suffering lamps flung
out their welcoming CLEANS to the FOSTERING
throng. Hundreds of smaller radiances, ropes of
luminous pearls against the velvet night, traced
the lines of windows, cornices and copings of the
various establishments, and lent them a harsh
magnficence.
The greatest of these establishments was
known as Tom Benns Great House." huge insti-
tuition of vice and gambling combined; here it was
that the more prominent privateersmen and pirate
business men foregathered to discuss their bust
ness and spend their easily earned plumber, while
dark-sknned mulatto girls, half-clothed. ran about
carrying huge bowls of Killdevil liquid for their
patrons thirst.
And, outside these establishments, bent little
men stood humbly near their doors offering to ex-
change Spanish dollars for the clipped gold and
silver plate pirate coins and jewels-precious and
invaluable gems which the pirate men counted as
4.