Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 275, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1912 — HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HAPPENINGS IN THE CITIES

Pepper Laden Ship Sneezes Its Way Into Port

jMEW YOBLK—Looking off to the ill Azores from his little room at the | top of the observation tower out on jthe bend of Sandy Hook, Jack MurIray, the observer and wireless telegraph operator, thought he heard a queer sound from out of the mists belyond the dawn. He threw open a window and silenced a clicking key to listen. “S'skitkatter choo!” It was the most stupendous sneeze •that his veteran ears had ever heard in all his adventurous life. For a mo|ment he thought it might have been >a boiler explosion on an incoming lateamer. But, no. It was unmistakable when it was repeated. “S’s’skikittkatter choo!" Wondering, Jack Murray leaned out tetlll farther and snuffed the breeze as the made out the lines of a ship headed in from the Ambrose lightship and ithen he found himself nearly out of the window, his own head racked with 'the biggest sneeze Mrs. Murray’s son •ever got out of his system. He sat

back panting and slammed down the window. When he was rested he took up his glasses, made out the ship’s name and reported the Athol «f Southampton, Captain Saxby. A little tug, out-bound with a tow of empty coal barges, pushing her nose across the Athol’s bow, fell foul of the breeze blowing across her decks. With a jolt and a jar the tug fairly danced on the sneeze. “ Akker-ka —a-a-choo!" On to quarantine went the Britisher, and as she dropped anchor the doctor and the revenue men and the clerks, and even the dwellers on the green slopes of Rosebank wheezed and buried their faces in their handkerchiefs and sneezed again.? “What the —achoo, fs-s-st wow —is this?” remarked the revenue man as he followed over the side. "Pepper!” shouted Captain Saxby. "Pepper by —aker-choow-wumpf!” "Yes—blast the ker-sniff-choo! — Stuff!” roared Mate Pringle. The manifest showed them truthful mariners. The Athol took on half a cargo of pepper at the Straits Settlement and then dropped over to Singapore and took aboard enough firecrackers to fill up with. In stowing away the noise-sticks the stevedores had smashed several cases of pepper. After that the Athol sneezed her way to Colombo, sneezed through the Suez canal, and on to New York.