Evening Star Newspaper, May 21, 1898, Page 10

10 THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1873-24 PAGES. LIGHT AND SHADE The Two Sides of War at Camp Alger. ne OLD VETERANS ARE INTERESTED Young Soldiers Bidding Farewell to Sweethearts and Wives. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT She was old, but age had not impaired her vigor, and her patriotism was of the stalwert sort. Soft waving bands of snow- white hatr curled naturally about her pret- ty pink and white cheeks, that were scarcely wrinkled at all, yet she must have ed the three score and ten by at least five years. She was talking to a fair-hatred lad of less than twenty, and her hand was laid as if in benediction upon his uncov- ered head. “Your grandfather was wound- ed in the battle of Buena Vista, your fa- ther’s gallantry at Gettysburg won him a medal of honor, and now a third time I am called upon to bid a dear one God-speed into battle for the flag. My dear boy, you would not be the son of your father if you id not want to go, but I could wish—oh, I could wish that you might have been spared to me, for a prop to my old age”— i the dear old lady broke down sobbed her heartache out on the son, who soothed her loving words and manly promises, While his inother and two young sisters, in # perfect abandon of grief, clung together and only as loving, tender-hearted t was only one of the hundreds of little tragedies that are being enacted every day t ¢ bp Alger just now. -‘Ihis partieular boy beior, to a Pennsylvania ny, ard the aged grandmo-her, who Washington, accompanicd by her the mother znd sisters of the boy, cut to welcome him as e came tured, dirty and footsore from his tramp over the muddy roads from Dunn vith the other members of -egiment. One weuld think that one that would suffice for a life- + yet there are hundreds of women sons in Camp Alger who have goné through with Just such heart-breaking partings twice within thirty-five years. arts are pretty tough after all. “War is such adful thing,” sighed a poor little mother, as she and her daugh- ters stood by one of the headquarters tents hing preparations tor dress parade. 1 think it is great fun,” responded { the pretty daughie she idly da silk flag on its slender staff, bing a certain dark-haired youth as brushed his coat and pulled at the lac- ngs of his lege Half an ho the mother and daug . and the cider one, + th a lover's good-bye leaned seat, her face whiter than the f she pressed to her tear-wet The gcud-bye was the last one for— who can tell how long? The song gces: it may be for years, and it may ve for- ever be “wounded,” “killed” or only that will meet “sweetheart's” roll call? » war of the rebellion it is estimated ut of every men one was killed in action. Of ever, men, one died of wounds receivedun action. Of every 13 one died of > and unknown causes. Out of every = one died while in the ser- Vice. Out of every 15 cne was reported: missing or captured. One man in every 10 Was wounded in action. One of every sev- en men ¢ ed died in captivity. Such i the for.une of war, whether “civilized “barbarous.” Want to Go. To the young and ambitious Camp Alger seems a big play ground, and war with Spain a huge joke. These “junior Loys in * like the adulation, the music, the flutter of the flags, the excitement and the prospect of ing “some of the world. “In every state in the Union there are similar » and, as in the dreadful years n 61 and the flower of the naticn’s young manhood fills these caiaps. t d many tim both at home . that the United States will er the first call for volunieers physically consid- that ever rallied around a nation's ard. Yet it is amusing, and all but etic, to hear the comments passed upen boys by the battle-scarred veterans, senior boys in blu In the first place, these old fellows are actually jeal- ous. They never felt the weight of years until now. They are not content to rest upon the laureis so richly won on a hun- dred battletields, more than a quarter of a century ago, but want to go again, ert and canes, wooden legs and all, and “ite the stuffing out of the bull fighters. What can kids like those fellows do in a desper- ate fight?" they ask, almost contemptu- ously. gather un the most perfect army ered, A grand old veteran, whose empty sleeve speaks mutely but eloquently of personal courage, was giving utterance to something ike this Wednesday, out at Camp Alger, when his cadet son leaned lovipgly up &gainst the old fellow’s shoulder, express- ing far better than words could th, com- radeship between them, and said, a littie reprovingly, “Now, look here, governor, ain't you Just a little hard cn us boys? You were no Methuselah yourself when you enlisted for First Bull Run. Come, new, own up; how old were you when you enlisted ow the veteran did laugh! “You young " he roared, “by jove, I had to lie the mischief to get in at all on that first call. I lacked three days of being fifteen, but I was larger than I was old, and I got there in good shape.” Then the veteran grew loquacious. “Do you see Win ver there,” he asked, much to the of nis son, who had seen little but Winona since ske arrived in camp, with doughnuts of her own frying, pies of her own baking, taffy of her own pulling, all for him, and a pair df poor punished hands, 8o blistered and sore that she all but cried out when he grasped taem. “Well, now he continued, cs an interested group gath- ered around him, “Milly, that was your mother, boy, she died before you could know her, was just hke Winona, as sweet @ girl as ever drove a boy to desperation, in those days: we were sweethearts in school, but never until the day when we were to march to the front did the old people give in to our desire for an engage- ment. Milly saved me, my bey! When I felt a disposition to do dishonorable things, to drink, or gamble, or to mix in low com: pany, Milly's tear stained face came be- tween me and darger, and I came out a much better man than I would have been but for her—what's that?"—to the boy, who had asked him some question. “Cam you and Winona—w-h-a-t! Exchange rings? Not by a d—ch, here. hold on, you young limb! If you turn the tables on the Span- ish grandees as neatly as you turn them on your poor old father, who has to be two parents in one to you, you will come out all right. So the wind lies in that direc- tion,” he added musingly, as the boy moved quickly to Winona’s side. “Well, weil,” and he walked away, still musing. Not All Tragedy. There are many comedies at Camp Alger, life couidn’t be all tragedy, you know. The efforts that the “girls” make to understand atl about everything are commendable, though not always comprehensive. The er of shoulder straps bothers them. - Will, why don’t you have some of e little dufunnies on your shoulders?” asked one sweet thing, done up in organdy and pink ribbons. Now it is a notorious fact that Will's innate cussedness, his dis- position to mix in other peopie's business, to do little, petty, mean things, has been an everlasting bar to his promotion from the ranks, although his knowledge and training in a military school amply {it him for “straps” with two bars. Naturally, it is a difficult matter to explain that he “prefers to earn distinction in the ranks,” when half a dozen of the boys who stand around know that he is lying. A “regu- lar,” one @f those military martinets whose Bible ts the manual of arms, and to whom “tactics” are more entrancing than the Gaintiest romance, was being besieged by half a dozen society girls to “tell them aii about ft,” 20 that they could y their erudit for benefit of the folks at home. “Well, now, you remember I told you that the colors for the army are red for the artillery, white = the infantry, and yellow for the cavalry.” "On, girls! .Isn’t that perfectly horrid! Yellow! Just think of it! Yellow is the Spanish color, and, though I look perfect- ly fetching in it, I wouldn't wear it just now for anything on earth,” broke in one of his sisters. “I should think President McKinley would change it to—oh, girls: with an ecstatic little squeal, “wouldn't the uniforms of the cavalry be just too sweet for anything if they had green trimmings instead of yellow. Green and blue is such a swell combination!” The hiatus of ideas that the young offi- cer experienced after that brilliant episode nearly gave him nervous prostration. An old fellow with a Grand Army badge in one buttonhole, the bow of the medal of honor tucked in beside. it and a crutch under one arm, was explaining to a group of young ladies what “line” and “staff” officers meant. “This war business is so complicated,” one of the group finally ob- served. “Now, do you know, I thought. when I heard papa talking about the ‘line’ Officers, that they must carry lasso ropes on their saddle horns when they went into battle, like Buffalo Bill's rough riders!” Two young ladies were seated on a “poncho” outside one of the tents, sorting over the buttons and other trophies they had captured in a tour of the camp, where half the boys were known to them, and one of them remarked that she was going to have Charley get eagles when he “drew” his shoulder straps, because she thought they were prettier than just bars! The oth- er rather likes stars the best. She thought that those Gen. Miles wore at the army and navy reception at the White House made him very distinguished lookiug! They evidentiy thought shoulder straps were drawn like rations and tobacco. Some Improvements. The veterans about the camp were much interested in the drilling, the loading and firing. “Great Caesar's ghost,” exclaimed one old fellow from the west. “Just catch on to the way that tenderfoot handles his gun. Why, he couldn’t hit a herd of barn doors! Ought to give him a stick of cord wood till he gets limbered up. By Jove! don't they get there in great shape on the fire’ Lord, lord, but they have the ad- Vantage over us fellows. We had muzzle loaders, some of us did, all kinds of cali- bers, smooth bores, Springfield muskets, any old thing gve could find, at first. Let me see,” picking up a gun, “we loaded in eleven motions, I believe.” Then he drop- ped his gun to the ground, and went through the manual something after this fashion: “Cartridge box to the front!" go- ing through the motion of pulling the box around to the front from Under his right oulder. “Cartridge box open! ramrod out! cartridge cut! bite off end of cartridg insert cartridge in muzzle! ram home and so on, through the whole business, hich took about a minute and a half. While he was showing how that one load was put ready for use in the old-time gun, @ youngster of the Emmet Guards was going through the motiors of rapidly load- ing and firin, reech Icader, such as is used now. * he sail, as he flung the gun back in his tent, and turned to the veteran, “what was the Johnny Reb doing all the time you were loading at that gait?” “Oh, he had none the aivantage, ne was Going the same thing, or siower,” was the reply. Wi “Elo ence.” Yes,” was the veteran's huffy response, ‘@nd it is likely that my one cool load and fire would do mcre execution than all of yeur nervous fifteen. “We didn’t heve wall tents,” remarked ancther veteran, “we used dog tents, an siad to get them Only officers had ac pa- latial a thing as a wall tent. Now, wh don’t these kids dig trenches around their tents and fix them up properly. Well, added, commniseratingly, “they have been out a week, they will know more in the course of a year,” and a poor, hea: broken mother Standing by groaned, year! Why, it will be an eternt slender woman in rusty black, with a wor lcok on her tired face, said: “My husband went out thirty-four years ago, and all I have since Was the one after his name in a was ever in. He went out to buy steak for breakfast, and a com- just going to the train to be sent di- ectly to the ‘front’ lacked two or three men. He enlisted right there, and sent me back a note by our little boy, what he had done. Our boy's son is going now” Making a Bed. The rain made the ground so damp that it was uneomfortable to sleep there, do the best the boys could. “Now, just go and break off a lot of the boughs of those cedar trees, pull off the small twigs, and make a bed of them. Put your poncho over them, a pair of your blankets over that, make a pillow of your haversack, and you will sleep like a king,” said an experienced old remarked the Junior Boy Buue, ded and fired fifteen times t your veteran. The boys soon got the boughs, and got to work on them. They d knives to cut the branches off. “Here,” said the eran, “pull them off, this way,” and he anked up a bough and began tugging at the twigs, but all to no purpose. They weuldn’t break worth a cent. They were not the kind of cedar the veteran nad used in the south. It tock the youth half an hour to make the cedar bough bed. This disgusted the veteran. “We used to make them in five minutes,” he affirmed. it was a sight for gods and men, to see the Pennsylvania troops march in from Dunn Loring. These boys ure all Lig, fine- looking, well-kept fellows, and they have been camping at Gretna Green, where their sweethearts and wives had taken good care to keep them supplied with dainties, and fancy arrangements for the toilet. When the boys started for Washington, on day coaches, they brought all these little be- longings with them. Some had hammocks, otber had pillows in handscme slips. The “housewives.” the brush and comb cases, the silver-backed brushes and combs, jars bags of doughnuts, boxes of fruit cake, all these the boys brought into Camp Alger with them, “toting” them a mile and a half, along with their haversacks, filled with one day's rations, their guns, cart- ridge belts, ammunition, blankets, over- coats, canteen, tincup and changes of un- derwear!! It must have weighed all of fifty pounds to the man. They tramped through the sweet-smelling woods and the muddy roads, mopping their faces, their toothpick- toed shoes simply instruments of torture. “They will shed most of that after the first day's real marching,” remarked a vet- eran. “They will firs everything but blank- ets, frying pen, tin cup, gun and cartridge belt. They may carry one pair of socks, but nothing else. The fellow that follows in the wake of a raw army will soon en- rich himself from the clothing tossed inte the fence corn2rs and along the sides of the road. It is an utter impossibility to march loaded down with plunder. They Will Learn. The Sth Pennsylvania boys are fairly sea- soned veterans because of campaigns In their own state, and they can “forage” to beat the band. The tenderfeet among th2 District forces will know a whole lot more by the time they get to the “front” than they did a week or two ago. The offices will not go round “pleasing”. their under- lings to do things, and when ordered to get & move on them, “p. d. q.,” those same un- derlings will not stare stupidly and plead that “tired” feeling, but will get up and dust in real military manner. About the Mrst hard lesson a real soldizr boy has to learn is to take orders and obey them im- Plicitly. “The duty of a good soldier is to obey his superior officer,” is the first maxim of military rules. Young America doesn’t like to take “orders” from anybody. When h> has learned to do it gracefully he has conquered himself nobly. One of the boys, a soft babyish-looking youth, with selfish, ease-loving mouth and @ swagger, was complaining of the “grub.” “I suppose the quality is good enough,” he remarked, “‘but it is the variety I object to. Why, a man can’t fight on black coffee, beans and measly water crackers,” he growled. “I think this government is rich enough to give us pudding and pie some- times, and as cheap as fruit is, we ought to have that at least once or twic2 a day. I tell you there is going to be a good deal of growling if we are not better fed. They say an army travels on its belly. I don’t believe that w2 could go far under present condi- tions.” A captain of the old army was standing by, and he nearly had a fit. “See here, you cad,” he said as he shook his cane in the face of the young wearer of the blue, “you blanked little feol, my advice to you is to talk less with your mouth and more with your brains! Maybe you think the govy- ernment ought to give each of you embryo heroes a feather bed and-down pillow. I reckon you would like rose water to bathe in and silk sheets. Maybe you'd like a valet and a slave to do your sheoting for you. Great God! ‘black coffee, beans and measly water. neues My boy, when I ‘ith ol at was with old. qhomeg. Chickanauge I stole corn em parched it to eat, and thought it the sweetest meal of my life. There came a time wi! was no corn for either mules or_ ‘and we ate acorns, The diet wasn't so bad, either. Suppose you had heen cooped up inside the -entrenchments at Chattanooga with ditch water to drink, and your only sustenance the stray grains of corn you could steal from the mutes, when Gen. Grant telegraphed Thomas, Octeber 1: 1863, ‘Hold Chattanooga at all hazards. ‘What would you have ‘lone then, you dis- loyal Httle cub? Would you have sent back word, as old Pap Thomas did, ‘We will hold the town until we starve,’ cr would you have crawled out of the trench- es over into Bragg’s camp and begged for pudding and tea? Or would you have shut your teeth, taken a cinch im your belt. so you wouldh’t feel the painful gnawing of hunger, and then gone on that forlorn hope to storm Mission Ridge, which will be the theme for poet and song writer, historian. and romancer as long as wars are known? My boy, that was the awfullest rout that an insolent enemy ever suffered in the his- tory of the world, but you will never paral- lel it till you forget your own puny exist- ence and remember that you are just one of the little bolts in the vast machinery of the military of this great nation, and that your only part is to work with as little friction as possible, so that the gigantic engine that fs moving steadily onward for the freeing of a downtrodden and enslaved people may do its perfect work. One speech like yours of a moment ago might infect half a regiment in time. One refractory regin.ent would ruin a whole brigade, and so the breach would widen, till mutinous disaster might overtake a wing of an army a= at a critical moment and lose us a vic- ory.”” About this time the young wearer of the blue slunk away to his tent with the sound of applause for the old soldier and hisses for his own selfish talk ringing in his ears. “These boys, cr some of them, remind me of some of those who enlisted with me,” the veteran went on. “They growled at everything. They were on the sick list whenever they thought they could make it win and something particularly palatable had been sent by some good woman at home. They shirked all hard work, and in the end they usually deserted. Complain of the grub here!” he exclaimed, as he passed the meat commissary. “Why, that beef is fit for a king. Wait till there is Just one bacon rind to a company fer meat, and the boys take turns waiting for it to grease their old pie pans with to give some sert of taste to the flour-and-water ‘slap- jacks’ that is all they have left to eat. Not even black coffee without sugar to moisten their parched throats after a long March, Pudding pie! Why, blankity blank it all, I have paid a dollar in good green- backs, and once paid a bushel of thousand- dollar confederate shinplasters, for just one rub over my frying pan of a bacon rind that had been used for a month! When these boys have to tie their feet up in cof- fee sacks and have no coats, with only a pair of worn-out trousers and a string fer a suspender to hold them up over the tail of a shirt made by sewing two flour sacks together, without sleeves, then they can begin to kick. By that time, however, they will have learned enough to refrain’ from kicking. Measly hardtack, indeed! Why, the hardtack furnished now is doughnuts to asphalt as compared with that we got. it was so hard that we couldn't break it with an ax. We soaked it in coffee or wa- ter in self-defense. Broken up, after soak- ing in coffee, and fried in good bacon grease, it was a dish for Lucullus. I re- member times, however, when it was soft enough. Hardened as we were, hungrily as our stomachs cried for food, we waited till after dark to eat the crumbling, wriggling mass of Wormy ‘army biscuit.’ “These boys will never have to encounter such horrible hardships as we did, how- ever, for the conditions are entirely differ- ent. The government will care for its army in a more systematic manner than it did in the war of the rebellion. It has Jearned how by sad experience.” Sad Partings. As the sun was setting over the western hills, and sent long tongues of light through the dancing leaves of the woods, many sad partings were seen. One young father, with his dainty little first born’s arms ught twisted around his sun-burned neck, walk- d slowly beside his sad-faced wife, whose eyes were bright and dry with heroic deter- mination. The baby cooed and kissed him, and its soft white dress was dampened with the tears of the brave young fellow, who was a hero to the heart's core. ‘You'll get my pay, all right,” he finally said to his wife, as théy stopped in the shadow of a tree by the entrance. “I’m not thinking of mone. she said, her voice trembling a little. “Just you be brave, and come Lack to baby and me with an honorable record, and I'll do the rest. I can’t fight, but I can be brave for a man who will, and that is all that a woman is expected to do.” Then he kissed the woman and the baby, and they went out in the shadow of the trees along the roadside, the baby cry ing pitifully for “Dadda” and holding out its chubby little hands to him through the sunset glow. For an instant he stood and looked after them, and then with a dash of his hand across his eyes he started back to his tent with a swinging step and a set- tling of his shoulders that boded no good for the skulking enemy. Suddenly the sun slipped clear down be- hind the trees, and the cool gray of twi- light began to steal on. Here and there twinkling fires told of cosy groups, among the tents, then all shapes faded out but the gleaming white of the tents, which stood like specters against the dense dark blue of the sky. Through the night came the sound of the bugle, and one day in the his- tory of Camp Alger was ended. ——— TOOK CHARGE OF THE SHIP, Royal Bengal Tiger Kept Everyone on Board at Bay. From Youths’ Companion, An English nobleman was the owner of @ superb royel Bengal tiger, of size and appearance really majestic. Not caring to keep the creature longer, he sold him for a large price to the famous zoological gar- den at Antwerp. Some time afterward the director of the “zoo” received a frantic message from the captain of a ship which had just come Into the harbor, saying that he had on board a tiger consigned to the director, but that the animal had several days before escaped from his cage and was at large on the deck. The captain had suc- ceeded in getting a sort of barricade erect- ed across the deck, so that the sailors could go aloft and do other necessary werk. But the whole ship’s company was under the terror of the animal. The director went with all haste to the water side, and saw in the distance the ship, which was, indeed, bringing to him the splendid tiger of the British lord. But the tiger was in charge of the ship rather than the reverse. He could be seen pacing the deck in a superb and lordly way that ind‘cated the consciousness of possession. Not a man was to be seen on board. The director had the ship brought up to the wharf. The tide was low and the deck was so far below the level of the wharf that there seemed to be no danger of the tiger escaping to land. The director got into communication with the captain through a port hole, and was informed by him that men had been regularly sent aloft to let down meat to the tiger by a rope so that the beast was actually gorged with food. Nothing but overfeeding had kept the tiger from falling on some horses which were stabled on the deck, but the poor herses were in a place where no one dared to go to them, and had neither food nor water for several days. The director and hig assistants rigged a sort of cage or box with a drop door held up by a string, which they lowered to the deck of the ship, having first furnished it with tempting bits of fresh meat. But the tiger, after sniffing at these from the outside of the trap, walked contemptuously away. He did not want anything to eat. Meantime the director said to the cap- tain: “Why didn’t you shoot the tiger rather than endanger the lives of your men?” The captain laughed. “We should have been glad enough to shoot him,” he said, “but we have no firearms on board.” The director was determined now to get the tiger off alive if he could. He drew up the trap and baited it with other sorts of provisions, but the tiger refused to go near them. A long time was spent in ineffectual attempts to coax the tiger into the trap. Meantime the tide rose, bringing the deck of the vessel almost up to the level of ‘the wharf. The crowd took to flight. In a few minutes the beast could easily leap ashore. The prospect of having a royal Bengal tiger loose in the streets of Antwerp caused the police to warn the director that the animal must very soon be shot. The director was at his wits’ end, but a small street boy helped him out of the emergency by a very ‘simple suggestion, This who had not taken to flight with the rest, said; “Sthe liger isn't hungry, but perhaps he might be thirsty.” ‘The suggestion was acted on -instantly.- A tub of water was placed in corer and lowered the deck. No sooner the 5 had had no water for some trap and began drinking eagerly. Then the door was dropped and he was a prisoner. MAKING EXTRAMONEY How Sailors in the’Navy Manage to Eke Out Their Incomes. Some of the Ingentous Schemes by Which Others Profit. CARVING AND TATTOOING Written for The Evening Star. O:: OF THE fo’c’sle legends of our navy, which no investigator hath ever been able to get to the bottom of, re- cites the tale of how one Bill Larkin, a seaman serving on board the old Kich- mond, was caught red-handed in the act of manufactur- -ing counterfeit s.lver ° dollars down below In one of the engineer's store rooms. The narration always closes with the state- ment that Bill was caught. It never gives the sequel, nor tells whether Bill was court-martialed and keel-hauled or turned ever to the civil authorities, or suffered to continue the practice of his time-passing accompiishment aboard ship. Bill is sim- ply lost to authentic history from the mo- ment he was caught manufacturing his aluminum dollars. Then, there is many @ fantastic tale spun around the gangways of our men-of-war, telling of how this or that seaman—name always given, but pres- ent whereabouts unknown—carried on & prosperous “moonshine” business down be- low for years. Even the dimensions and manner of construction of the stills are in- variably given as clinching supporters for these amlable narrations. The old-timers, the living souvenirs of the days of the old ‘Tennessee, are always the unwinders of these reels, but ail hands within hearing accept the yarns as in a manner authentic appendices to accepied naval history. While there are no-dollar-manutacturing nor liquor-concocting plants aboard the ships of the American navy today, so far as the writer, who has served on one or two of the ships, knows, the men forward surely practice a good many money-mak- ing arts. .Sailors who are skillful with their hands not only .pick up a bit of pocket money on the side by doing work of their own choice after knock-off, but a number of thein, especially proficient in the making of things, practically double their Pay days by suchawerk. There is not so much of deck se nowadays as there was in the old navy When steam was only an auxiliary driving power, and the deck hands had to cast,4bout for something to do to keep their \ds' employed. Never- theless, there is stilij/enough of skillful needle plying aboard .opr ships to astonish women visitors, e: fally women visitors who subscribe to @hé Queer doctrine that nine-tenths of all malePersons cannot even sew a button on properly without using four yards of thread”, two or three needles and imperiling thei eventual salvation b sides. Deck sewin; is mostly practiced by the you have only to scratch an old gunner’s or bo’sun’s mate who remembers when Dewey was a watch and division lieutenant to discover a needle-plyer who can give cards and spades €o ‘most of the young women in your acquaintance and beat them out in the performiahté’of fancy work, to say nothing of substantial sewing. The ay prenticedads pick ipa good deal of sew- ing lore on bourd the ‘training ships, but when they are sent to cruising ships they generally abandon the practige of needle werk and leave that gentle art in the hands of the cld deep-water men. Muke Considerable Money. There are a dozen or more of these on all of the sizable ships of our navy, and they all double and often treble their pay by the practice of needle work. The re- cruiting officers always have a good des of trouble to induce these old needlemen, all of whom are fine, experienced sailors, and therefore valuable factors for the lea ening of crews of comparatively new men, to ship for vesscis that are liable to cruise altogether in northern waters. The needle- men like tropical cruises, for the simple reason that white uniforms are worn aito- gether by the crews, fore and aft, of war- ships cruising in hot latitudes, and they the biggest portion of their “on the incomes from the manufacture of white uniforms. Not that they are not handy in making blue uniforms of the very finest sort, but two or three blue dnt- forms will get a bluejacket through a three- year cruise, whereas the man forward re- quires about a dozen white uniforms to en- able him to always look tidy and pass his division officer's inspection at quarter: if his ship is patrolling southern water: The needlemen can take a bluejacket’s measure for a white uniform after quarters in the morning and hand him the finished uniform, and beautifully finished, too, by noon. Expert bluejacket needlemen are often known to make as miiny as ten of. these bluejackets’ white uniforms in the course of their spare time during a singie day. and, as they get from $1 to $1.5) a suit for making these uniforms, it will be perceived that there ig money in the busi- ness. ‘The government Coes not dish out ready-made white uniforms as it does ready-made bluejacket uniforms. Th2 making of these aboard the ships by the ‘old-timers is practically a business, recognized by the officers, and when the tailors are particularly pressed—as they al- Ways are when a warship, just going into ccmmission, proceeds to the warm lat- iludes with practically new cr2ws—they are temporarily relieved from the performance of deck duty in order that they may devote all their time to the devising of the white uniforms. Sailor Tailors. As to the ready-made bluejacket uni- forms, served out to mew men by pay- masters, few of thé greenehands who ship in the navy will wear them very long. They are of just as good material as the govern- Ment can buy, but they ars hastily made, and the trousers eé: y develop the baggi- ness characteristic of very cheap ready- made trousers. Gen ly, with his first monthly money, thes bluzjacket, after drawing the cloth f1 the paymaster of his ship, erters into negotiations with one of the old-time ship's tailors to manufac- ture him a muste! “Ghiform—one that he can stand quarters and muster in, and go ashore in. The 5! 3 f2et tailors charge all the way from . $10 for making a suit of blues. accofding to the amount of fancy business the Dbluéjacket patron wurts distributed over th¢. uniform. They do not turn out any slouchy, Half-done work, these old-time naval tail and when they turn over a finished wi ‘m,to @ patron the lat- ter may feel ut, that the seams of the uniform will qutlast even the strong cicth. The Chinese, TS on the Pacific coast and in the harbars of the South Pa- clfic Pen re Loe igen ness enterpri Of late years got zhe knack of making thes®ibluejacket uniforms —something that AmeYican tailors ashore neyer appzar able te do. “The Chinamen do the work cheaper than the old tars aboard can do it, and this is one of the reasons that most of the old-timers who look to their needles to eke out their pay prefer to ship on th3 Atlantic or Mediterranean sta- ticns. 2 Doing Fancy Work. es When the business of making uniforms is slack, these needlemen of the deep turn | their attention to fancy work—not, nowa- days, for employment, but for profit. If See SPS PAHs hea na gett ot some 0: cy .done € Ppawed Pee “sailors of me Tinted sates , the yeung womel 10 - contrive race things. for eae table fairs could HTT Ti AT ATT TVA AT EOSLNT OE dealings are immense. We save of furniture. Our line of Mattin: credit house. JACKSO - YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BUY REFRIGERATORS AND ICE BOXES AT OUR SPECIALLY REDUCED PRICES. Mattings, Garden Seats, Baby Carriages. All your needs can be satisfied here. will please every taste. Never make the mistake again of dealing at a 917-919-921 7th St. N.W. We venture to say that no store in Washington ever sold so many Refrigerators in a month as we have done during the past week. We will also venture to say that no such prices were ever known before. You mustn't put off buying any longer if you want to get in on these bargains. We were only able to buy so cheap by taking a very large lot, and we cannot get any more at the same prices. Every Refrigerator is made of solid, seasoned oak, is packed with mineral wool and a galvanized steel lining. We will guarantee them to use less ice by half than the ordinary Refrigerators ycu buy, and yet our prices are lower than you would pay for the poorest kind. Be sure you look into this at once; we do not expect they will last a week longer. We managed to se- cure another 100 of those Grand Ice Chests, and we will sell them at the same price, $1.85. You can’t find their equal under $3.00. The advantages of cash you more than 40 per cent on all kinds gs is superb. Our Baby Carriages 3 Great Cash °9 Furniture Houses, =a N BROS Pp a saa Sea wens girls’ Tam O'Shanter caps, most of them of white cloth, for warm weather wear. The caps are not essentially different in shape from the regulation sailor caps worn by the but are got up with extreme in the matter of vari-hued and vorked stars on the crowns, or other ‘devices eslected by the young women purchasers. The men who make these caps charge from $5 to $10 for them, and, considering that it often takes them weeks, in between times, to make one of them, the price does not seem unreason- able. A crafty old bo'sun's mate of the cruiser Olympia—a_ cruiser the name of which is pretty familiar to Americans since the first day of May—did a fine stroke of business, shortly after the Olympia went into commission at the Mare Island navy yard three years ago, by buying up all of the stock of girls’ Tam O'Shanters that he could get hold of from his mates at the rate of $2.50 apiece. Tis mates were under the impression that the Olympia was io start immediately for the China station, but this old bo’sun’s mate in some manner or another got hold of the information that the ship was to take in half a dozen or so of the flower fiestas that occur every spring in Califor- nia’s southern coast cities, and he knew that there would be money in girls’ caps on this cruise. He sold the one hundred and odd caps that he thus acquired to girl visitors aboard the Olympia at Santa Bar- bara, San Diego, Los Angeles and other California ports for $10 each, and the ex- traordinarily broad grin that he wore while he was working his monopoly was extreme- ly depressing to his mates who had soid him the eaps at such a nominal figure. Oriental Rug Makers. Oriental rug-making is another side line of industry that a good many of our blue- jackets who have long been in the nav. practice in their spare hours. The Greeks and Turks in the United States navy intro- duced this business-and the American sail- ors picked it up from them. Some very beautiful rugs are made by these man-o'- war handicraftsmen down below in empty coal bunkers or in engineers’ store rooms, where it would seem the workers have barely enough light to make out their hands before their faces, much less devise the intricate figures exhibited in the fin- ished rugs. They have to work down below at rug-making for the reason that com- manding officers will not permit them to have their frame on deck, on account of their bulk, and, in order to get these frames aboard at all, the rug-makers have to con- struct them in detachable sections. Steady workers at the rug frames have been known to manufacture two or three hand- some rugs within a month, and the men never have any difficulty in disposing of their products to visitors at good figures. Rag carpet making is a pastime engaged in by seme of the men on the ships, but not as a rule for profit. Engineer officers are disposed to frown upon the rag carpet makers, for these workers have also to go below to carry on their employment, and their job never seems to be done. The writer recalls the rag carpet that an oiler on one of the ships of the Pacific squadron started to make at the outset of a cruise a few years ago. The rag carpet, after six months or so, grew to such an extent that the en- gineer in charge was often in the habit of humorovsly protesting that he woulan’t be able to work the machinery if it kept on growing. At the end of a year the rag car- pet, which was a patriotic affair of red, write and blue, took up the whole star- board side of the afer engine room, and the oiler still working on it, to send to his sister in Philadelphia, he said. When the rag carpet began to infrimge upon the space required for the ‘proper working of the ercsshead slides of the after engine the chief engineer called a halt. “Where in Philadelphia does your sister live—in the public building?” he asked the oller. “‘You've got enough rag carpet there to cover one of these islands’—the ship was at Hawaii. The oiler reluctantly wound up the job and forwarded about half a ton of red, white and blue rag carpet to his Philadelphia sister from Honolulu. A Clever Machinist. The skilled machinists aboard our men- of-war are generally to be found tinkering other, but these men, who are very well paid and rate cs chief petty officers, do not work for profit, but for amusement. A chief machinist*now serving on the Raleigh —which is with Dewey—made a watch a few years ago that. was absolutely perfect as a timekeeper, and he made it out of a solid piece of four-inch bar steel, main- spring and all, The watch was exhibited at California’s big exposition in 1895, and was the marvel of visiting watch makers. From 4he Japs a gcod many of our deck sailors v.ho have cruised on the China sta- tion have picked up the art of making bas- relief portraits, flags and all sorts of de- vices out of vari-colored glass beads. It is a sort of work that demands extreme deft- ness and lightness of touch, and it is a fact worthy of note that naval sailors who are heavy smokers cannot do this work. It makes them too nervous. The. glass bead workers find a ready market for one- by-two-foot American flags, made up of tens of thousands of the tiny beads. Tne more ambitious men who do work of this kind make portraits of their shipmates of glass beads from photographs and tin- types, and there are some of them who achieve considerable success in catching likenesses in this kind of work. Wood Carvers, The whittlers are not quite so numerous now in the navy as they used to he, but they still make comfortable additions to their incomes with their jackknives. The favorite bit of whittling done by the men who are skilled with the knives is an oaken archor attached to a lorg chain, the whole thing made out of one piece, and the whi:- tlers have no difficulty in picking up an occasional $20 note in exchange for speci- mens of their handicraft like this. There was a sailor on one of the ships of the North Atlantic squadron a couple of years ago who got $500 from Mr. John Slater, the millionaire Rhode Islander, and owner of the beautiful yacht Eleanor, for a speci- men of his carving. It was a chess outfit, the board and pieces all carved out of fine spout and throvgh this the paint is blown, One man painting by hand ts ple to give only two cars a coating in a day of nine hours, but by the use of this pneumatic paint pot he can finish ten cars in the same time. One thing which would probably appeal the strongest to the average man and wom- an, save many sore thumbs with incident- al loss of temper and use of naughty lane Suage, is the automatic hammer, which the air drives at a speed of 2,200 blows a min- ute. A nat! could be sunk in a plece of soft pine very easily at this rate, but the hammer is used mainly for beating flues and calking scams. The pneumatic lifts’ easily handle ponderous car wheels and axles, raising them high in the air and Placing them on the lathes. All the lathes and much of the machinery are driven by compressed air and are easily controlled by. means of a belt shifter, the belts being thrown on and off instantly by means of a small cylinder which operates the appara- tus. In the tinsmith shop the fires for heating the soldering irons are blown by a. fan which if allowed to run at its full speed would make 8,800 revolutions a min- ute. It has been found advisable to use the fan and direct the current through a mahogany, and beautifully finished. Mr. | large pipe in order to obtain volume; Siater, visiting the man-of-war, saw the | Otherwise a small-sized pipe would have seaman working at this job, and promptly | sufficient force to biow the coals out on the wrote the carver a check for $500 for the | ficor. The force can be reguluied and dis- set. tributed to suit convenienc If a large There are enough ramifications to the art | fire is required a current can ve spread ont of the man-o'-war’s man tattooer to fill | 80 that the fire will cover the entire forge: two or three of these columns. The tat- | it can also be Giminished so that the fire tocers on American warships, who, owing | Will have only a small circumference of to the regulation on the subject of tat- | One Or two inches diameter. These are only tcoing, practice their art more or less on | @ few of the uses to which compressed alt the quiet, make a lot of money at the | Can be put, and, as « been previously business, and during the present war, when | Said, new means of applying the force are the navy is so filled with green hands, the | being found every day. best of them are in a fair way to accumu- lete moderate fortunes. > COMPRESSED AIR. Wonders of the Power of Air Are Manifold and Amazing. From the Springfield Republica: The individual who has delved into me- chanical mysteries and can appreciate the difference between a monkey wrench and a buzz saw knows that compressed air is a -valuable motive power, and when properly The Toddy Tree. From Lippincott’s. Nature has her rum shops, her saloons, She produces plants which ¢ e thems selves to the manufacture and s: of in- toxicants. The South American toddy tree is well known to naturalists. It is well known also to the Scuth American beetles, the Oryctes Hurcules. When the latter gces on a spree, he never goes it alone, after the unneighborly habit of the human WORK OF drunkard. He collects his friends and directed can be utilized to advantage in| quaintances to the number of thirty or many different ways. Mechanical authori- | fcrty; the whole crowd run their short horns through the bark of the te ddy tree, revel in the outflowing juices, and, while inebriated, are easily caught by the human natives. The toddy tree parts with its liquor free of charge. There are other plants which are less generous. They exact no less a penalty than the death of the unfortunate ties differ widely as to the value and econ- omy of this ageat as compared with elec- tric and steam motors, but there is no doubt that for some purposes it possesses many advantages. This fact is generally conceded in as far as its use in car shops end locomotive works is concerned. The with some sort of mechanical device d officials at the Boston and Albany shops in West Springfield have long since recog- nized this truth and acted upon it. For the last two yearsethey have utilized this pow- er in many ingenious ways, and are con- stantly finding new openings for its appli- cation. ‘The number of uses to which the power can be put woald seem hardly credible to the lay mind. The oil used in the shops comes in barrels and must be transferred to the tanks. This is done by attaching a pipe to the barrel, through which the fiuid Is to be conveyed to the tanks, then a hole is bored in the top of the barrel, the com- pressed air tube is attached, and after being turned on it forces the oil out and into the tanks in a very short time. By a similar system sand is elevated to the loco- motives through a pipe, doing away with the necessity of lifting it by hand. The tubes of the engines at the round house are also blown and washed out by the air, and it has been found very valuable in blowing up fires, as it has a steadier and more pow- erful current than either a man's lungs or @ pair of bellows. By means of a valve and a piston, a crane and chain for loading and un‘oading cars at the shops is operated, and as a proof of the force it exerts any weight which the chain is capable of sustaining can be ele- vated. The power is also used for bending heavy iron pipe in the process called “‘off- setting,” which it readily performs by the aid of the necessary auxiliary mechanical appliances. Formerly the work of cleaning Passenger cars was what is known as “no cinch” in the current vernacular; it re- quired an incalculable amount of pounding, sweeping and dusting, and the atmosphere was shivered into millions of fragments as the cleaner rapidly swung his reeds on the unclean cushicn and worked himself into a profuse perepiration by his efforts; all this is avoided now by the use of com- pressed air, which cleans out the interior of the coaches very quickly and at the same time noiselessly, dusting cushions and carpets and washing paint with the least apparent effort. An ingenious little piece of mechanism is the motor for drilling iron; when a hole has to be put through a piece of iron ail that is necessary is to adjust the bit, press the button and it does the rest. A contrivance for painting cars and locomotives is also a very interesting artticle. This apparatus bles somewhat an ordinary tin kettle with @ spout; an atomizer is placed in the drunkard. And what do they do with the body? Strange as it may seem, they eat it. In this manner they obtain the food which. nourishes them and sustains their healthful existence. At the end of each of their long green leaves these plants have a pitcher-shgped receptacle. We might style this the grow er: but it never needs to be rushed. It is always full of what with special appropri- ateness might be called bug juice—a wa- tery liquor, set to the taste and inebriat- ing to the serses. Only in fine weather te the growler open for busines Gays it is firmly shut up to rain that vould dilute and sp tents. Nature's saloonkeepers ter their stock. ———— +e Spa Power 300 Years Ago. From the Springfield Republican. Macaulay drew this picture of the power of Spain 300 years ago, that it is interest- ing to recall at just this juncture: The empire of Philip the Second was undoubt« edly one of the most powerful and splendid that ever existed in the world. It is no exaggeration to say that during several years his power over Europe was greater than even that of Napoleon. In America his dominions extended on both sides of the equator into the temperate zone. There is reason to believe that his annual revenue emcrnted in the season of his greatest power to a sum ten times as large as that which England yielded to Eliza- beth. He had a standing army of 50,000 troops, when England had not a single bat- talion in constant pay. He held what no other prince in modern times has held, the dominion both of the land and the sea. During the greater part of his reign he was supreme on both elements. His sole diers marched up to the capital of France; his ships menaced the shores of England. Spain had what Napoleon desired in vain— ships, colonies ard commerce. She long monopolized the trade of America and of the Indian ocean. All the gold of the west and all the spices of the east were received and distributed by her. Even after the defeat of the armada English statesmen continued to look with great maritime power of Philip. * wishes to be well acquainted with the bid anatomy of governments; whi wishes to know how great states may made feeble and wretch2d; should study history of Spain. e do not wa- INTERESTING TABLE OF DISTANCES, Figures Showing at a Glance How Far in Miles Are Separated the Ports Which Figure in the Naval Man- cuvers Now From the New York Herald. oO . Cadiz to Manila...... 9, 459 ° ¥, 512 a7 ° 56T 220 211 75 445 431 a 893, 749 739 a3. 0 854 B40 835 61 203 o Gientuegos mo Sos Be oe bet Boo Port Royal. TS 1,068 1,089 1,228 1,237 1,176 Port au Prince. 657 «41,109 1,162 1,392 1,439 1/384 ° Cape Haytien. 624 «1,083 ay 1,368 (1,449 1588 205, facrees ie Le 1 te i re ise = int a S Bt. 1,360 1,819 1,842 2112 2159 2°98 “7 * ia 088. 1,1 1,371 1,481 1,477 1,416 770 oe Tea Lot io ios des 128 Sos in Progress im the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.