Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1887 — Page 6

WAR DE WATERMELON GROWR BY BUM AMOLD. I wtus bo'n wid mer han’ on er znilton. An’ mer eye roan' de eo'ner on er coop; An’ nights w’en de moon'e 'hind de deadnin’, Den I goee to’ ter gedder in er scoop: I kaow'd ajl de daugs in de country, An’ da all bab a sample of mer clothes ; I waits till da’s locked in de lean-to Den I creeps w'ar de watermillou grows. I wuks w'en I kin fur de white folks, So ter find out w’ar da sto’s up dar co'n— I moseys at night w'en da all dun sleep An’ I fills up mer sack, shnah’s yo’ bo’n. I know’d w’ar de ehick'ns dun roost in de night, An’ I know’d w’ar dar's bacon in rows; But I doan nebber bodaer erbout dem yere W’en I gits w’ar de watermilion grows. Er man will dun preach dot de Bible do lay It am wrong fur ter rob an’ ter steal, An' be jes de man whut’U shuah git cotched When de daugs da am loosed in de fiel’, I ain’ gwine try fur ter keep out de patch W'ar de Meffodis’ zorter goes— I only gits left w’en de fruit is ripe In de fiel’ w’ar de watermilion grows. —Arkansaw Traveler.

RUM AND GUNPOWDER IN THE HOLD.

BY FRANK H. CONVERSE.

The worst v’y’ge I ever made? You’re asking me a hard one, my lad. For there’s different degrees of hard voyaging, so to speak. » F’r instance, a sailor ships in one of these wild packets where the cap’n is a bully and his officers a couple of shades worse. From dock to dock it’s a word and a blow, with the blow two minutes before the word. If you get ashore with a skin full of whole bones you haven’t had as hard a v’y’ge as some others that goes to the hospital with smashed jaws or broken limbs. Or mebbe, fool-like, you get inveigled aboard a deep-water whaler, though I will say no feg’lar A B in his sober senses gets caught that way often. Two and perhaps three years you’re cruising after sperm, and finally get into port with part of a cargo of oil, yous share not being enough to pay your outfit bill. That’s a hard v’y’ge! And so it goes, which, if the dogwatch wasn’t nigh half spent, I might keep illustrating of. But I mind one particler v’y’ge that was hard enough for me. It was this way: Being American born and bred, I’ve mostly sailed under my flag as a matter of principle, d’ye see? American sailors being scarce at best, and our ships’ fo’c’sles full of dirty foreigners for nigh twenty years past, growing worse all the time. I did make a cruise in a Chinee junk in ’65, but that was entire accident, as some night I’ll tell you about. But in ’72 I got stranded in London with wages to the States two-pound-ten, and three-pound-five offered foreign. So it came about I shipped in the brig Clara Desmond bound for the west coat of Africa.

I knew tolerable well what part of the cargo was like to be, but 1 was a little took aback when come to get fairly aboard I see there was a youngish and an older gent which the steward said was missionaries, goin’ out to a mission on the Gaboon River. “The same old story; rum, gunpowder, and missionaries. I’d rather it were you than me was goin’, for you’re sure to come to grief somehow,” says an old shipmate who came down to see me off. But the missionaries wasn’t to blame for the cargo, was they ? In point of fact, as I found out after, they didn’t know what the cargo was, passage having been engaged for ’em by other parties. But there’s a certain class of folks always sneering at religion that likes to represent such things in the worst kind of light. It was in the middle of March, the toughest time in the year on the English coast, in my way of thinking. We had a fairish wind through the Straits of Dover, and then it chopped round dead with half a gale blowing, and that thick you couldn’t see the brig’s length half the time. There was eight of us before the mast, she being a lump of a brig, for English owners are more particular not to have their vessels sail shorthanded, as well they may, considering the starvation wages. ” Four were Roosians or Roosian Finns, two Irish, and one—the one which begun trouble —hailed from Australia under the name of Boxer, which wasn’t his right name any more than mine is Harry Hale. There’s some of us fellows in the forecas’le that ain’t willing to carry a respectable fam’ly name along with us. Boxer had been paid off from a deepwaterman and blowed in something like fifty pounds inside of three weeks. So when he come aboard he was that shaky Cap’n Gore wouldn’t send him aloft; besides, he was on the ragged edge of delirium tremens! Why, talk about selling one’s soul for drink, after he’d been aboard six hours Boxer would have sold his and all his relations’ to boot for a glass of liquor. Temperance lectures with illustrations! A vessel’s fo’c’sle is where you’ll hear and see ’em, and they ain’t stereopticon views, either 1 From the time Boxer found out there was rum in the hold, I think he grew crazier. He begged like a dog for Cap’n Gore to give him the least drop, but the old man was solid against it, and dosed Boxer with valerian and such. Boxer kept his bunk, and it was all hands on deck the biggest part of the time, so we never mistrusted what he was up to. First I took much notice of either of the passengers was when we was three days out beating down channel under reefs, somewheres midway betwixt Cape La Hague on the French coast and Prawle Point off Devon. The oldest of the two, a Mr. King, was sick, of course, but this younger one, a Mr. Venn, didn’t seem to have an idea of such a thing. He was a slim, palish sort of chap,

but come to look close at him, I noticed he had considerable muscle and sinew under his white skin. And when all to once he sprung and grabbed holt of the tops*l halyards above the rest of our hands, and surged down on it with a regular sailor “sing out," “my fine fellow,” I says to myself, “your fingers has been in a tarpot, or I lose my guess.” Being one hand short, Cap’n Gore, though he opened his eyes tolerable wide, made no manner of objection to the passenger taking holt for a pull whenever he liked. And seeing this, Mr. Venn came on deck an hour or two after, without his tail coat and white choker, wearing a regular sailor shirt and Scotch cap. *Tve been to sea some, Cap’n, ” he says, in a quiet sort of way, “and it’ll do me good to stir round with the men a little—l’d like to." Cap’n Gore stared, and smiled in his dry wav, but said nothing. And Mr. Venn did stir round. We had two reefing jobs before noon first a single then a double, and both times I’m blessed if the young feller wasn’t to the weather yard arm hanging on to the lift with his earrin’ ready rove to haul out, before we men was fairly on the yard. Yet he didn’t forget his profession neither. It was Kelly, the worst swearing man aboard, stood next him, and when Kelly begun his reg’lar cursing, Mr. Venn says: “Mr. Kelly, your own priest would tell you you were endangering your soul— and the sail doesn’t pick up a bit easier, either.” “Bight you are, parson,” says Itelly, and Mr. Venn was the “sailor parson” after that with all hands. He knew just what to say and when to say it—and we fellows took to him mightily, ’specially as all but sleeping for’ard he filled Boxes place in the watch day and night But it was awful weather, and we were two days and nights beating to windward before the Eddystone light showed up. This was early Sunday forenoon, and when the watch was sent below, Boxer wasn’t in his bank. Now there was only a board bulkhead ’twixt the fo’c’sle (which was below deck,) and the for’ard hold. Then, somebody noticed one of the boards was loose, whilst there was a tremendous smell of rum in the fo’c’sle itself. We mistrusted what it meant in a minute. We shoved the board away—and the whole thing comes to me now like a photograph. What with the rolling and pounding, some of the upper tier of the cargo had shifted. Three or four of the powder kegs was stove atop of the puncheons and casks of rum, and there sat Boxer in the middle of ’em. One of the half empty kegs was jammed down into a heap of loose powder to stiddy it, and in the end bunghole was a lighted tallow dip with paper round the butt to keep it in place!

Boxer had somehow got a big gimlet from the carpenter’s room and tapped a rum puncheon. And there he sat a-straddle of it like a seafaring Bacchus, drinking the raw liquor out of a tin pannikin as though it was water, while every time the brig rolled a little heavier than usual, you could see the pow-der-keg with the candle in it work back and forth in the powder heap. I’ve been scar’t in my day, but never nothing like that. I only wonder my hair didn’t turn white in a minute, as the story writers say. I don’t think as quick as some, and while I was standing staring, Peter, one of the Finns in my watch, had run aft to Cap’n Gore, and the next thing I saw was the old man standing right behind me with one of those Prooshan army “needleguns” cocked and ready for action.

“Hullo, Cap,” Boxer sung out, waving the pannikin round his head, crazy as a coot, “come on, and have just one drink before it’s too late. Because,” he said, going on quick and fast, “I’m a man of education, and this thing of sending rum and missionairies to Africa isn’t quite the thing; no I’m going to send the whole kit of us skyhigh direc’ly the candle gets burned a trifle lower!” Passengers included, there were fourteen of us all told at the mercy of one sailor, crazy drunk! and as he lurched for’ard, having the idea of snuffing the candles with his fingers so we could see, Captain Gore jerked the gun to his shoulder. “God forgive me 1” I heard him say sort of under his breath, as he steadied himself and glanced along the barret “Wait one moment!” It was the parson; and, as he spoke in a half whisper, he pulled the captain’s finger away from the rifle’s trigger guard. “Step back,” he whispered, and pushing himself in front of Captain Gore, who was struck aback for the minute, he sung out: “Dacy—Charlie Dacy!” Drunk and crazy—both, in fact— Boxer started back like he’d been shot, instead of being within a hair’s breadth of it.

Before Boxer could speak the parson squeezed himself through the narrow place in the bulkhead and gripped Boxer’s two wrists in his hands, which I never would have believed were so strong. “Charlie,” the parson says, solemnlike, “you aren’t yourself, come ” But “Charlie,” as he called him, wasn’t himself by no manner of means, and he grappled the parson with a yell that was awful. But the parson hung on with a death-grip, and we fellows broke through the bulkhead to help him. It wasn’t long before that candle was in safe hands, I can tell you, and then Boxer, lashed hand and foot, was carried into the fo’c’sle and tied in his bunk.

But all this while the mate was in charge of the deck, and the wind hauling further and further to the south’ard and east’ard, was driving the brig to loo’ard. And just as Cap’n Gore run on deck the reefed foresail bust and blowed into rags in a twinkling. The brig’s sails were old anyway, and the fore-staysail went flying after the foresail. And before we could get new ones bent the Clara Desmond was drifting to loo’ard to’ard Burr Island, where the breakers ran half masthead high as far as we could see. There’s a low water shoal of shifting sands within two cables’ lengths of the island, and there the brig took bottom—for she would neither wear nor stay without headsail, and in a wind and sea that was fearful, to put it mild. The mainmast went by the beam, and Captain Gore, with the mate, aCornishman named Penryth, was swept away by the same sea, along of two of the crew.

One of our boats was stove, and the other was no good any way, though the parson, who was the coolest man aboard, tried to get us to put it over, for the second mate, Mr. Fields, was laying to wind’ard with a broken leg, and there was nobody to take charge. But, speaking for myself and the rest as far as I could see, we were about used up, and, sailor-like, couldn’t see any chance of saving ourselves or being saved. Then, of a sudden, through the driving murk and spray, comes an English life-boat that had been towed from somewheres nigh Plymouth by one of those little sidewheel iron steamers that we Americans make fun of sometimes; The brig was breaking up aft fast, but the lifeboat managed to get under the bows and somehow get a line to the cathead, and I’ll say this—l never saw such work done before or since, for the ebbing tide made a sea that was perfectly awful. It was the parson who was first to see the signals from the lifeboat’s coxswain, and out he went on the stump of the bowsprit with a coil of the jib halyards. “Now then, boys,” he sung out, and while we made our way out and one by one slipped down into the boat, he got aft, dragged old King, who was half dead with fright, for’ard, and lowered him down. “Come on, parson,” we roared together, as we saw him dive down the fore peak. “Let that drunken Boxer drown!”

But Mr. Venn wasn’t that kind of a man. Next thing we saw he had Boxer, who was dazed and stupid like, hauling him out on the bowsprit. Then he put the jib halyards in Boxer’s hands, and down Boxer came in a heap in the bottom of the boat. But no one paid attention to him. One of those awful green-cresting seas, higher than the foremast head, came sweeping down to wind’ard of the brig. “Hold on all!” was the cry, and only for the lifeboat being one of those selfrighting and self-relieving ones, I wouldn’t be here telling this yarn. We hung to the life-lines along the gunwale as she capsized, but the painter parted, and she was swept toward shore. Before the breakers were reached they righted the boat, and we were dragged up on the beach more dead than alive. The parson! We never saw him again. Mr. King only said, in a feeble sort of way, after he knew the truth, something about “laying down one’s life for a friend.” But did Mr. King mean himself or did he mean Boxer, whom perhaps Mr. Venn had known as some one else? I only know this—Mr. Venn preached the biggest missionary sermon on record, the night of March 13, 1872. Aye, aye—strike eight bells there, for’ard!

Some Marital Musings.

“Why do husbands drop their loverlike ways ?” inquires a correspondent, who signs herself “Neglected Wife.” Permit us to answer the query, in a measure, by another marital conundrum: “Why do wives cease to be sweethearts to their husbands?” Usually human beings are so constituted that satiety is the complement of possession. The game is delightful while the pursuit continues, and a captured deer within the pale of the park is but a trifle more interesting than any other domesticated animal. ’Tis said “A woman likes to be possessed, ” and she frequently is—possessed of the d , but we’ll let that pass. On the other hand, a man likes to have and to hold. And sometimes he does have to hold pretty tightly to the dear of his choice lest she makes secret choice of some other dear. Marriage is a lottery, especially when the husband comes home with a lot-o-rye on board. Again, when frosty December is wed to blooming May, May, perhaps, will never love, though December May. Moreover, the kiss of coming and going, so frequent and delightful during the honeymoon and for a short period after, falls to desuetude, for the hum of business and the drum of enterprise, in a paradoxical way, turn love and home hum-drum. Then when infantile reduplications repeat in smaller pattern paternal features, each discovers that love, so fair in fiction allegoric, colic, cramps, and membranous croup turn paregoric, —Texas Siftings.

Cavendish, in 1766, discovered hydrogen, and between 1774 and 1779 Priestley discovered oxygen, azote, and nitrous gas. Postoffices were first established in Paris in 1462; in England, 1581; in Germany, 1641; in Turkey, 1740.

UNION VETERANS.

Work of the Grand Army National Encampment at St. Louis. Official Reports—Columbus, 0., the Next Place of Meeting. General John P. Bea, of Minnesota, Chosen as Commander-in-chief of the Organization. Sketch of the New Coinmander-in-Cliief. Gen. John Patterson Bea was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, Oct. 13, 1840, and enlisted in Piqua, Ohio, in Company B, Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, April, 1861, for three months. Aug. 18, 1861, he enlisted for three years in the First Regiment Ohio Cavalry, and was promoted Sept. 23, 1861, Second Lieutenant; March 12, 1862, First Lieutenant; April 1, 1863,Captain; was brevetted Major for gallantry in battle Nov. 23,1863. He joined the G. A. R. at Piqua, Ohio, in December, 1866, and was a member of the first department encampment of Ohio. He became a charter member of George H. Thomas Post, No. 84, Department of Pennsylvania, October, 1867, and was successfully Post Captain, Post Commander,

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF JOHN P. BEA.

member of the Department Council of Administration, and one of the Pennsylvania delegates to the National Encampment in 1872. He was also a member of the commission that erected the soldiers’ monument at Lancaster, Pa. In 1875 he removed to Minneapolis, and has been Commander of Morgan Post. No. 4, Department of Minnesota, and Senior Vice Department Commander two terms. He was elected Senior Vice Commander-in-Chief in 1884 and 1885. He served as Captain of Company A, First Regiment, Minnesota National Guard, from 1879 to 1882, and was Quartermaster General of Minnesota from 1883 to 1886, with the rank of Brigadier General. At the close of the war Captain Rea had a record of three years and four months’ service, and had been absent only ten days, seven of which he was a prisoner and three on the sick list. In 1865 he entered the Wesleyan College, at Delaware, Ohio, and completing the classical course, graduated in June, 1867, During the vacation of 1866 he entered the office of the Hon. J. J. Dickey, Lancaster, Pa., as a law student and was admitted to the bar in 1868, On April 12, 1869, President Grant appointed Captain Rea Assessor of Internal Revenue of the Ninth District of Pennsylvania, which office he held until it was abolished by law in 1873. He continued practicing law in Lancaster until December, 1875, when he moved to Minneapolis, and shortly became editor of the Minneapolis Tribune, remaining in that connection until May, 1877. He resumed law practice, but in November of the same year was chosen Probate Judge, and was re-elected in 1879. Declining a renomination in 1880, he again resumed practice, forming the late firm of Rea, Wooley & Kitehell, afterward Rea, Kitchell & Shaw. In the summer of 1886 Governor Hubbard appointed Captain Rea Judge of the District Court to till the unexpired term of Judge M. B. Koon, resigned. At the election in the following November Judge Rea was chosen for the same office for a term of seven years. Of late years he has figured prominently in Grand Army affairs, both State and National. From Commander of a local post he went to the office of State Commander in 1883, and was elected Senior Vice Com-mander-in-chief at the National Encampment held in Minneapolis in 1884. He is also a member of the Loyal Legion. National Encampment G. A. R. The convention of delegates to the national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic met at St. Louis, Mo.” on Sept. 28, Gen. Fairchild, Commander-in-Chief, presiding. Committees were appointed, and the work of organization proceeded quietly. The annual address of Gen. Fairchild was presented, and announced the evidence of permanent and healthy growth of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the strong love of the order entertained by the loyal people of this country. That this may continue he earnestly cautioned every member that he keep a watchful guard over himself when he acts or speaks as a member of the Grand Army and not consciously further schemes foreign to the legitimate purposes of the organization. Article 9, forbidding the use of the organization for partisan purposes, had, so far as he knew, been strictly obeyed in letter and spirit. From Adjutant General Gray’s report it was learned that the total number of members borne on the rolls of the order at the national encampment was 326,499. The number reported on June 30, 1887, was 372,674; actual gain in five quarters, 46,157. The increase of members in ninety days, ending June 30, 1887, in good standing, was 15,616. In 1886’there were 60,634 members. In the last five quarters there have been mustered into the Grand Army 72,355. There were reported June 30, 1887, in good standing, 336,562; suspended, 25,200; by delinquent reports, 10,892; total at last returns borne upon the rolls, 372,674. The amount reported expended in charity March, 1886, to March, 1887, inclusive, is $253,934.43. This money was disbursed to 17,670 comrades and their families, and 8,999 others were assisted,

giving 26,606 individuals who had received benefits during the year. The Grand Army veterans, attired in rubber coats and with trousers rolled up, paraded some of the principal streets in a steady downpour of rain. Thousands who were at the encampment had either gone home or refused to march in the mud, but there were men enough to organize ten divisions, representing in their make-up nearly all the departments. The Department of the Missouri was given the right of the line, and'the Department of Illinois followed in the second division. As the column passed under the beautiful stained-glass transparency of Gen. Grant on Fourth street, between Locust and St. Charles, all the men uncovered their beads and passed by in silence. The head of the procession reached the Grand Army arch that spans Olive street at Twelfth at noon and there Gens. Fairchild and Sherman, ex-Vice Piesident Hannibal Hamlin, the war Governors, and other distinguished guests left their carriages and took their positions in the grand stand just east of the arcb. Across the street facing the grand stand, Grand Marshal Grier and staff sat in their saddles while the rain increased in volume and for an hour and a half poured down on the heads of the passing soldiers. Missouri’s contingent was twenty-five minutes in passing, Illinois’ was fifteen minutes, and Kansas’ twelve. The other States were represented by posts and regiments. Gens. Fairchild and Sherman, partly protected from the storm, bowed to the boys as they passed, acknowledging continually the rousing cheers that went up from each post as they filed by in company front. Here and there throughout the different divisions marched a colored post, and their salute was invariably a signal for applause from those in the grand stand, which several times was taken up by the crowd and prolonged into a hearty cheer. The dripping flags received much boisterous notice, and as a squad carrying the tattered remnants of battle-flags passed by the enthusiasm became unbounded. Throughout the column an occasional warrior carried a cane or a pole on which was dangling a chicken, leg of mutton, side of bacon, cabbage, or some other representative of a foraging expedition for commissary stores. Every delegate was in his seat on the second day of the session, Thursday, Sept 29. Department Commander Smedbury, of California, submitted an offer, in behalf of John G. Capron and Colonel Holabird, of San Diego, with a view to the establishment of a G. A. R. soldiers’ home in that city. The donation is in the form of land, and is equivalent to SIOO,OOO in cash. The proposition is accepted by the encampment. The home will be placed under the control of three trustees, one appointed by the donors, the second by the encampment, and the third by the other two. The usual red tape regulations of soldiers’ homes will be tabooed, and actual service, Grand Army membership, poverty, and residence in California will be the sole qualifications for admission.

A lengthy report was submitted by the committee appointed to consider the address of the Commander-in-Chief, and it was adopted with a three times three. It eulogized his administration of the office, and suggested that a proper testimonial be presented him in the name of the organization. The proposal to appoint an historian was approved, and Comrade R. B. Beath, of Pennsylvania, was suggested for the position. Approval was also given to the proposition to locate permanent headquarters at some central point, with the suggestion that the matter be referred to the incoming administration. Special approval was also given in the report to the action of the Commander-in-Chief in instructing posts to withhold replies to a circular issued by a New York paper, the committee expressing the opinion that “it is entirely improper and contrary to the rules of the order for posts to express themselves by official action at the request of persons outside of the Grand Army of the Republic upon any subject or question unless officially authorized or requested so to do through the regular official channels of the organization.” There was a sharp contest over the selection of a location for the next encamp-

EX-COMMANDEE-IN-CHIEF LUCIUS FAIRCHILD.

ment. Columbus, Ohio, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and Saratoga were placed in nomination, but before the ballot was announced the two latter withdrew, and the vote resulted in the selection of Columbus. The Vandervoort resolution condemning the President’s action on the pension question was almost unanimously voted down in the encampment on the morning of Sept., 30. Then came the election of officers, and the following were nominated for Com-mander-in-chief for the ensuing year: Gen. Slocum, Judge Rea, Gen. Anthony, and Gen. Grier. Gen. Slocum received 153 votes; Gen. Anthony, 66; Gen. Grier, 13; and Judge Rea, 294. Gen. Sherman received 1 and Gen. Warner of Missouri 1. Rea was declared elected. He was escorted to the platform by the defeated candidates, Anthony and Grier, and returned thanks to the encampment. The rules were suspended and Nelson Cole, of Missouri, was elected Senior Vice Commander; John C. Linahan, of New Hampshire, Junior Vice Commander; Gen. Lawrence Donahue, Sergeant General; and the Rev. Edward Anderson, Chaplain-in-Chief. Among the members of the National Council of Administration elected are: R. F. Wilson, of Chicago; Irwin Robbins, of Indianapolis; Russell A. Alger, of Detroit; George C. Gintz, of Chippewa Falls, Wis.; James H. Drake, of St. Paul, Minn.; and George A. Newman, of Cedar Falls, lowa.