Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1890 — The Bottle Fad. [ARTICLE]

The Bottle Fad.

The bottle fad consists in writing a message of some sort and corking it up* in a bottle and sending the same afloat to be picked up somewhere else. I’ve found ’em by the dozen on the beach, and had ’em bob in to me on the breakers. The messages are generally dated in midocean and are about a leaking ship or a ship on fire, and the writerhas only a few minutes to bottle up in. Once in awhile the message is from, a cat-boat driven out to sea, or from some sailor floating on a wreck, and they are always interesting. There is no law against this bottle fid, and it acts as an escape valve. Those who practice it would be pointing unloaded guns or indulging in someother tomfool notion if they were debarred, and so no objections are raisedThe other day a bottle which was intended to go to sea, but which landed only half a mile away, contained a message written on the letter head of a hotel. It said: “Help wanted for 300 people stopping here and suffering from poor food, high charges and plenty of fleas.” The finder carried it to the hotel, the landlord began a quiet investigation, and at the end of twentyfour hours a smart Aleck of a young man, who had been the pet of the house, took a walk, and is perhapswalking yet.— Detroit Free Press. *