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Neovember 11, 1900. T To Lay the New Philippine Cable Within a short time the work of laying the inter-island in the Philippines will be begun. For some time the difficulty of communication between the islands has geriously hampered American in the Philippines and has been the sub- ject of con.plaints to the government from General Otis, General MacArthur and other officers. It was obvious that some method of quick communication must be put iuto operation, as the dispatches carried by the warships were in many cases too slow of delivery to be practicable. As soon as this important undertaking of laying a cable had been decided upon the War department set about finding a suitable vessel in the transport service. The Burnside was cable operations chosen on account of its large capacity aad proportion to fits its shallow draught in would be a comparatively easy operation But in the Philippine iglands region the sea bottom is extremely rough, full of high mountains and deep chasms. Moreover, the charts are few and what there are are mainly unreliable. Consequently the cable layers will not know until they find out for themselves when the slender strand is stretching up the side of a submariae mountain and when it is descending futo the depths. After the Burnside has done its work there will be some new informa tion regarding the ocean bottom between the more important islands that will Le valuable to navigators. On reaching the point from whence the cable is to be laid the crew proceed to land the heavy shore ends, this being done by hauling from the beach with ropes and supporting the cable with rubber air bal- PASSING THE CABLE INTO THE SHIP. size. It is the first cable ship ever owned by the United States. The Burnside was formerly owned by Spain and named the Rita. It was cap- tured during the war by the Yale while try- ing to run the blockade off Porto Rico with u cargo of arms and ammunition, towed to Charleston, 8, C., and there taken charge of by Captain Laflin, its present commander, renamed and put into com- mission first as a transport carrying mules and general government stores to Cuba and afterward as a troopship. Taken to the Morse Iron Works in Brooklyn, the Burn- side was there reconstructed and trans- formed into a cable steamer. The cabins and saloon were refurnished with a view to accommodating army officers and thelr wives enroute to the Philippines. Three huge tanks made of copper were placed in its hold, each capable of holding 250 miles of cable. These tanks are twenty-five feet in diameter and fifteen feet in depth, with an iron core in the center to keep the cable in position when being paid out from the ship. Special Cable Crew. Captain Squires of the signal corps, as- sisted by Mr. Hamilton, will have entire charge of the cable laying, with a special cable crew of twenty men. A submarine cable i8 of two sizes, the core or deep sea portion, and the armor part or shore ends, the latter being several times larger than the former to withstand successfully the wear and tear of sea wash and tide, an- chors and other shallow water injury. The core consists of seven fine copper wires which carry the current, covered with pure Para rubber, which is again sur- rounded by Para rubber compound and then wound around with cloth tape saturated with tar, making the entire cable about five-eighths of an inch in thickness and weighing fifty tons to thirty-five miles of cable length. This is the deep sea cable. The shore end cable is somewhat differ- ently constructed. The core {8 covered with what is called a beading made of jute yarn saturated with tar. Then comes an armor of sixteen mild steel wires and an outer coating of jute yarn saturated with tar and coated with lime, making the total thickness two and five-elghths inches. Gutta-percha in the manufacture of cables has been displaced entirely by pure Para rubber, the latter having been found the best to withstand the depredations of the toredo, an insect that eats its way to the core of the cable for the sake of the gutta- percha, finally reaching the copper wire and thus severing the telegraphic communica- tion. The Safety Insulator Wire and Cable company of New York manufactured 547 miles of the 626 miles of cable taken by the Burnside, being the greatest length of submarine cable ever made in this country. The cost was between $800 and $1,000 per mile. Difficult and Delicate Job Laying the cable is going to be a difficult and delicate job. A crew of more than twenty men will have the handling of the cable and their duty will be to see that it I8 pald out properly and that it runs smoothly from the great tanks to the deck and thence out Into the wa‘er. If the ocean bed were fairly level cable-laying loons until sufficient length is launded. Connection having been made with the sig- nal station cn shore, the Burnside will set out for the shore, with which communica- tion will be established, going at a rate of from four to eight knots an hour. It must proceed cautiously, as the rate at which the cable is paid out depends om the depth of the water. In 2,000 fathoms of water, for instance, the length of cable from the ship to the point of contact with the ocean bed is twenty miles. A sudden shallow from very deep water, as in the case of a submarine mountain, is likely to break the cable by too sharply shortening the slack. Then the tedious work of grap- pling for the broken end must be under- taken. Captain Squires, who has the work in charge, is an expert of long experience in cable work. Matter of -Diplomacy She met him at the door and whispered: “Den't dare to come in. He would declare the engagement off and he has a baseball bat in the corner of the dining room., Keep quiet till I get my hat and wrap.’ “What's wrong?”’ he inquired as they walked away on tiptoe. ‘““Goodness! 1 never saw papa S0 angry in my life. What was that game of soli- taire you showed him the other night?" “‘Chinese,” laughed the careless youth., ““Over there the proprietors of the gaming . establishments charge 10 cents to play the- game and give $100 if you ‘get’ it. Youy SPLICING THE CABLE LENGTH, FOR THE PHILI HE ILLUSTRATED know how the old gentleman hung around. You told me he was dafly on solitaire, so | bhad a hunch and showed him that oue He'd be lucky to get it twice in a lifetime, but it left us to ourselves, don't you see? ‘1 see, but he's boiling. Why, bhe worked over that thing till breakfast, went right at It again when he was through eating, tele phoned the oftice that he would be down later and played away till the next mnd night, when he went to slecp in s chair We got him to bed and he waked up vio lent., He wanted to bet §10,000 that nobody ever got the game, said that you were a card shark and a swindler and that if you cume into the house again he'd Kick you out He's staying right at home playing the game and listening for you. Thaut's the reason I was at the door before you couid ring. What in the world are we to do It's awful.” “Cold deck him. That is, I'll fix up a dock 80 that he will win You manage to substitute it after he has shuflled the cards."” It was done without creating suspicion, relates the Detroit Free Press. The old gentleman cheered and met the young man as though he were a welcome prodigal “You are the second man between the Alleghany and Rocky mountains that ever got it,"”" lied the youth glibly It's simply wonderful.” The prospective father-in-law strutted around for a couple of hours bragging about himself and I8 wvow preparing an article for the newspapers. Bog AvalancheinIreland An extraordinary occurrence is reported from a place calied Lough, in Ireland A bog extending over a nutiber ot oacres, yielding to the effects of recent heavy raius, began to move toward an adjacent valley ‘the sewl-nuid mass gathered velocity as it moved along, spread over an interveulng low-lying pordon ot land, and cowpletely overwhelmed a dwelling house, killing two wolmen, A considerable loss of outlying crops was caused, and the land over which the bog waterial passed will, it is said, be quite useless for a considerable time, At present & mass of liquid mud 100 feet wide and tour feet deep covers the public highway tor more than a mile. A second movement of the bog wmass has since occurred, and the residents in the district tear that, should there be a heavy rainfall, the consequences witl be disastrous, as five dwelling houses in the valley are directly in the line of an enormous mass of bog mud, which has been stopped by not too stroug banks on the upper levels, At the inquest over the bodies ot the two women the son of one of them testified that he saw the wWoving mass sweeping down on the house, and had barely tiune to escape from the field in which he was working. A brother of the other woman said it came silently on like a huge wave. He shouted to his sister, who was standing in the door, but she did not seem to reahze the danger. He was caught in the edge of the flow, but succeeded in extricating himself, An Officer Rebuked Bennet Burleigh, in the London Daily Telegraph, tells this story of General Kitchener A certain yeomanry com mander while on parade rated his men in unmeagured terms. Nothing was right that the troopers did They sat their horses wrong, they moved unlike machinery, ete., and were ‘no better than a rabble,’ ‘a lot of gutter snipes,’ ete. ‘That,’ said Lord Kitchener, who came up, ‘is not the way to address men, They are not rabble, but soldi , and to be spoken to as such. No troops can be trained in that fashion and the commander who does not " respect his men is anable to lead them.’ “The whole force, we are told, heard the wbscrvation and the men were as decor- ‘ously elated as the yeomanry officer was ‘obviously crestfallen.” BEE. General Fitzhugh Lee Coming to Omaha Omaha is shortly to recelve in its midst General Fitzhugh Lee, who has been ap pointed to the command of the Depart ment of the Missouri, a pl that has been left unfilled since the retirement of General J. J. Coppinger Omaha and its people are to be congratulated on this reeession, o distinguished honor having been done the city by the War depart ment in transferving the soldier and state man from the Antilles to the west I'he picture of the new head of the Department of the Missouri which appears as a frontis was but a ago in Cuba irded as a splendid likeness In appearance and stature Fitzhugh Lee resembles the late General Phil Sheridan He is rotund and and when 1 last saw in to picce taken and is re year rosy him Washington, enroute take com appointed a major general of volunteer ind had Joined his command near Savan nah, Ga. General Howard said Fitzhugh Lee he equal of any com mander with whom a pate ystem rather (han militarism prevail Mis care fulness and provision for the wants of hi oldiers made him very much beloved and doubtle this very care and f Iy bear g is an inheritance from h riou uncle, Robert B Lee, whose \ commander was proverbial Much of thi ame sentiment relative e Fitzhugh Lee General Howard reflects in an article printed some time apo in th New York Independent, whercin he is even more laudatory of L terling worth a a soldier When Fitzhugh Lee entered West Point UNITED STATES mand of the Department of Cuba, his cir cumference at the cquator was nearly equal to his height. Since then friends have told mo that the general has lost somewhat of his avoirdupois. He has a clear, blue eye a fresh, youthtul which the color comes and goes as talks, and gray hair and mustache. complexion, upon he Lee's Washington cot who has writ the William E. Curtis, the respondent of the Chicago Record, kuown Fitzhugh Lee for many years, ing a characteristic Curtis article for Chap Book about Fitzhugh Lee, says “He used to wear a long, black beard in war times, which, he says, was due to the fact that he lost his razor. More recently he has worn an imperial on his chin, but cut it off while at Havana He plays the violin and piano and has a fine baritone voice. He is fond of society, particularly that of young people, feels at home every where under all circumstances, has a ten der sympathy and deep poetic sentiment and used to write verses to his wife in the carly days of their courtship “1 asked him what three things he liked the best in the world, “‘“Women, horses and songs “‘What is your favorite song?” ‘“**“You WIill Have a Heap o' Fun if You Join Lee's Cavalry.” ' *‘What of all you have seen most in your experience do you admire most? My wife and daughters.” " And this conversation more than any thing I know of tells the story of Fitzhugh Lee from the introspectionist's standpoint One evening during the early days of the Spanish-American war I met Gene 0 Howard at the Arlington in Washington, the gen 1 having just returned from a tour of inspecting the camps of volunteers in the south. The talk drifted to Fitzhugh Lee, who had but a short time before been PPINES CABLE HAS TO BE SPLICED AT THE END OF EVERY 260 MILES OF CABLE SHIP BURNSI D in ISY at the age ol It I O TR President. Millard Filhmore, he owa hkn of stature, but O actiy tha he wa nicknamed The Flea which uck o him all through his academie Hife, not did it leave him ountil long after he had fighting the Comanches and Apaches on the plains of Texa He wa full of mischiet when at the Point and was first iu every adventure But he wa so splendid o Lorseman and so clever a tactician that his escapades were over looked, probably because he was an im mense favorite with faculty and cadets When his class left West Point Lee wa mighty low in scholarship, but high in tactics and military science and he wa given a lHeuatenancy in the famous Second cavalry, whose colonel was Albert Sidney Johnston, This body of rough riders brought terror to the Indians of the south west and in one of the fight had with them Lee got an arrow through his lungs was carried on a litter for 200 miles and won an honorable mention for gallantry in general orders This was his baptism of fire to later know the real meaning of war when, going with his loved tinte of Virginia into the contederacy, he became a co.onel of cavalry after leaving Beaure gard's stafl and from that time until he laid a major general's sword at the et ol General Grant was constantly in the sad dle, striking the encmy at all hours and at all times A Dintinguinsl Family. Fitzhugh Lee comes from a distin guished family, being a great-grandson of Geveral Harry Lee, “Light Horse Harry' of revolutionary fame, and a nephew of General Robert K. Lee, the most con spicuous figure of the confederate states Fitzhugh--nobody ever attaches Lee to his name who knows him well was born in Clermont, Fairfax county, Va., November 19, 1835, and will therefore be 6 years of age but a few days hence. He was under 30 when the civil war closed, accepting the results of the internccine strife with cheerfulness and good faith ter he en tered political e, having be congr and in of his state, rare ability Fitzhugh Lee south, noted chivalry, and to be marked would show n oelected to 1585 was chosen governor which filled with position he splendid the its I8 a for its his coming by a public to this citizen type of culture and to Omaha ought reception that oldier the deep appreciation the west feels with his detail to the Department of the Missouri E. C, SNYDER Limitations Detroit Journal “Poltroon! hissed Reginald Sir Guy gnawed his lip vexedly Why doesn't my sword leap from it scabbard?” he muttered Sir Guy, understand, had been trans planted from romantic fiction and it wa Lot easy for hin to accustom himself to the realistic sword, which, when not en tirely lacking, is notoriously devoid of that which in France is termed initiatif What Result Would Be Chlcago Post What we need,” said the earnest citizen, “is a stricter enforce ment of the lunacy law Too many dan gerous cranks are allowed to run at larg Pardon me the thought ful man Have topped to think how few of us would be out of the usylums in presidentlal years if the lunacy laws were really strictly emforced?"’ interrupted you