Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, January 11, 1903, Page 27

Sturdy Men Who Fight the Great Scea Kings MAN has to spend some time in New Bedford nowadays before he can perceive for himself that it was and is still a whaling town Trolley cars, a great deal more handsome and convenient and much faster than those vain New York, whisk the visitor through a pretty city of shops and big buildings. The people one where are trim, lively business folk of S0e8 every When an occasional whaler comes in a good pro portion of the population wanders down to sthe ancient wharves and gazes at the ship with much curiosity and the visitor from far away But underneath the surface “‘whale" still permeates the real New Bedford. The vi tor who becomes acquainted with the pros- perous citizens soon learns to express no surprise when a dignified, elegant man of affairs breaks in the middle of a discussion of the latest novel or the newest phase of finances in Wall street to remark, apropos of something, that it reminds him of the time when he got the iron into a bull sperm off the Cape. Drop into a ment, and the business man about whales back and knowledge. Walk into the biggest clothing establish- ment of the town, and in the rear office you will see a row of green wooden boxes, each box bearing on it the name of a whaling ship—several of them vessels that were fa- mous quarter of century ago, and all cruising somewhere in far seas today hunt- ing the old sea king. The writer, visiting New Bedford re- cently, called on one of the town's most prominent bhusiness men on a Sunday night. He found him reading a history of whaling. For three hours the man of affairs lay in his chair and talked of great whales and great ships—ships that long ago sank in unknown seas or were flung on strange shores smashed and splintered in the Arctic Antarctic ice. While he was talking a rosy-checked, middle-aged man, dressed in the height of style, dropped in. He was a bank pres'dent After a few moments of conversation, he laughed: “Reminds me of my last voyage. 1 was boat steerer and we got fast to a small sperm. Well, sir, T laugh whenever T think of it. When he went into his flurry he spewed much blood and water over us that we .’»uhln" see, and we recovered only just in time to save the boat from sinking under us, she was so full.” The preservation of New whalers is evidence that whaling is to be recommended as a road to health and longevity. One meets persons who look as if they were in the prime of life, who will talk feelingly and from direct personal ex- perience of Alabama and Shenandoah, whose daring commanders pounced like hawks on New Bedford whalers in the Pacific and Atlantic during the civil war. One fine and chipper young person, who owns a ship-breaking establishment near the whart, shakes his head sadly at the mountains of fron junk and ship hardware in front of his place and harks back re- gretfully to the glorfous time of 1850. ““Ah,” says he, “you should have seen my place then. Used to have Jjunk piled up from Union street clear away down to the water's edge Sometimes we would he breaking up three or four ships at a time. But those days have gone by."” “Wouldn't you like to go a-whaling once more?"’ as ignorance as modern bustling establish- chances are that the keen who owns it can tell you all right, sperm, bowhead, fin- sulphur bottom—from personal a a or or Bedford's old CANADIAN paper tells this stor It was during a sham fight be- tween two volunteer One of the opposing forces was re- treating before the other. Ser- geant major (to captain) “We are going too far away from the railway station, sir f we retreat any more we'll never get back in time to catch the train.” Captain: “How absurd of the colonel to drive us so far' Orderly, run over to the officer in charge of the enemy and ask him, with my compli- ments, if he will please retreat toward the railway station." corps. St. Clair McKelway, editor of the lyn Eagle, tells a story of Dr WP ch, he be many thereby The Boston cently was Brook- Leighton Parks taken to heart they claims, may that by ministers profit may is to the rgyman effect went tale that when the el Annapolis re- to preach a d-dicatory sermon the re present as “another part of the en- tertainment” the Marine band. Dr. Parks is said to have been very well satisfied with his effert, and the Xt morning asked an old negro mammy what thought of the exercises. Not recognizing her questioner minus his clerical rebes, she replied “Well a pr dat whole show way de truth went ter h'ar de to ne she dar wus de honey t'ought he he talked to dat fun wus acher thar from d« we-alls band." vhen, by n fur An Irish soldier was crossing a barrack quare with a pail in which he was g« ing to get some water A sergeant, passing at the time, noticed that Pat had a very dis- reputable-looking pair of trousers on and wishing to make a report stopped the man and asked, “Where are you going?" *“To “Dunno—dunno. Think, though, some- times, that I just will take one more cruise and get the smell of sparm old nose." He confesses to seventy birthdays Like the old, are the new One doesn't see the crews of whalers “‘rolling’ ‘hrough the streets, with the exception of an occa- sional Portugee darky, lithe, tall body along sailor with sheath knife hip, Most of them are young men in v« irs, and most of them are impressively old in ex perience. There is Captain Nicholas Vierra master of Canton, the oldest whaling in the business. He seems to be little 35. But with his last cruise he had come- pleted a course of 30 years of whaling Captain Vierra views the secker for tales of whaling adventure with mild wonder “Adventures? In whaling?” askcd he after his arrival with his last big catch of oil and bone. “Why, folk New Bedford get hurt and killed every day ashore with cars and things. Now I've been whaling thirty years and I never saw a man killed excepting only once and then he didn't need to be. The boat made fast to a whale and he capsized it. All the men just made a few strokes and climbed up on the whale's back, and waited there till the other hoat came and took them off. This one slid off too soon and was drowned he reached the boat, because he swim. ““Though I've been whaling thirty years, continued the captain, “I never saw a fight ing whale till this last voyage, when a spermn whale struck one of the hoats with his fluke and broke the boat steerer’'s arm. Whales aren't fierce as a general thing, and they aren't very shy. To into my who swings his like an old-time dangling at his bark past in fellow before couldn’t be sure, mustn’t run at them so that the boat in range with their eyes. But generally there is no trouble in bringing the boat close along- side of them. Most of them, big and little, take the iron as quietly as if they were cows. When they are struck all they want to do is to get away. “'Of course the whaler flukes and, in the case of sperm whales, for their jaws. You take an ordinary whale and you want to remember that his fluke is as big as that barn door. And our boats are made of light scantling—half-inch stuff. We have 'em light so that we can easily patch them together again when they get broken by a fish.” The majority of the whalers, once off the ship, hasten to put on the best of clothes and the day after arrival one may rub shoulders with natty young men in creased trousers and patent leather shoes and stylish hats, and never dream that a month or two before they went smoking through the South Atlantic in a narrow, flimsy boat behind a whale who was in a might hurry to go somewhere far away. The Portuguese, white and black, mostly white, are the whaling men of New Bed- ford today. The owners like them. They consider them more reliable than the Amer fcan in point of sticking to the ship, and equally good as whalers ““Well, when a fluke like that comes down cn such a boat there fsn't much left. But the men don’t get hurt often. When they see it coming they know that the only thing to do is to spill themselves out of the opposite side and swim for it. ““When a boat is smashed the men grab for the oars and put them crossways over what {s left of the hoat. Then they are safe until they are picked up.” “Do you find that men ever nerve after their boats are one is must look out for lose their smashed or they have some other wild experience with a big whale?" ‘“Why, as to that,"” id Captain Vierra, pondering, “I never heard of such a thing Whalers don’t think any more of going for a sixty or seventy-foot whale than the would of driving a home. 1In fact,” and he laughed as something struck him, “I asked a boat steerer a few days ago to milk that of mine there and he afraid to go near her.” CoOw Cow was Comparing mon simile whales with cows is a com with New Bedford men. And when the comparison is used even the un fmaginative listener cannot help thinking of that wonderful cow-herding of the ocean. A mighty cow indeed is seventy-foot right whale—a cow whose mouth alone would furnish a comfortable stable for ten Jerseys, whose tongue alone ten oxen and whose and jawbones weigh as much five 1,000-pound steers. ““A hundred-barrel tain, *is about times you see bigger fish, No, a whale as big as that out of the water very much. so that only just a small part of their backs and heads shows. In harpooning them of course the main idea is to get the iron in deep, so that it will hold and stop the fighting as much as possible. A man has to take mighty good care not to strike the white horse. That's the part of the whale that's all bone and gristle and the harpoon will simply slide off if it hits there. It means a good deal of ridicule for a harpooner if he makes a mistake like that. “When whale struck the first thing that he does generally is to roll over into the sore. Now and then a whale will roll over and over till he has the line wrapped around his whole body. We don't let a whale run any further than we have to, of course, “Many away struck a weighs as lips, throat as twenty- much as fish," seventy feet the long. says cap- Some but not often doesn’t stick Whales float a is times a whale will hardly move from the spot where he has been Sometimes one will lie still and take two and even three irons without try- ing to run boat is fast try to work up on him and get alongside so that the mate can use the killing lance and reach his life, “The life of a whale is as big as a house, and there isn't trouble to find it. The lance is driven in with all the man's might right behind his fluke and from the shoulder downward. When the lance reaches his life the blood comes up thick as tar. Then we lay off and wait A good, quick man will often brace himself right the haft of the harpoon that is sticking in the whale and lance him half a dozen times before the boat backs away. Then it's merely a of keeping out of the way till the fish dies Sometimes a whale will die as easily if he was asleep. There won't be a flurry or anything. He ta the harpoon and the lance and just dies As soon as the we that the It are Each picture number of tained from When a finally day s particular than many stamped with g Kind of whale whale pletures pleture that it caught f wi ther whale it the woere oh more ane was as there written of oil are has across any that barrels the fish vessel loses the of the with up, denotes lowers and chase whale for reason for that Is the stamp of the whale's t just as it he that the result “fluke” Sometimes will ind th ornn any margin mented sticking That was a “flukes" '|'.hl« system of the ship owner through all the entries glance through the ber of whales, how what Kind were taken by The logs are locked carcfully Ship owners great of log date 1 were diving of the chasg a half-dozen oentry the on oranment one log saves trouble of reading They need merely find the num barrels of ofl and the ship up - and guarded and captaing make where the whales were found. The writer was permitted to read through the log of one famous whaling bark only after he had promised the own ers solemnly that he would not divulge the latitude and longitude of any places where big whales were taken The crews have keeping the secret, proceeds Most of sail in voyage keeping as the '8 bhook to many “If a whale runs too fast and far there is nothing for it except to cut away Whalers don't generally hold fast long enough permit a fish to tow them out of sight of the ship. That makes the usual limit of hang- ing on in clear weather about eight miles If they can come up with a whale in that distance they heave in on the line until they have as much as they can get and then they cut. Of course they don't cut till they have to. “We gammed Ellen Swift one day just lost six lines of 450 fathoms one whale. He took it all without stopping a minute and at last when they were towing behind him with more than fine out they lost the whole business, That's pretty expensive work, for whale line is mighty costly and fine line." Whalers still recount in their logs that they “gammed’” a ship, meaning that they stopped and had a talk, just as the logs of fifty years ago put it. Compar'son between those old loge and a log of last vear shows a difference only in dates They still use all the log terms, just as they still use the old weapons. Jach ship is supplied with a set of rub- ber stamps, depicting a sperm, another a right whale and so on. When a whale taken and the entry for a secret much interest in they share in the did in the old days New Bedford whalers vessel voyage after When the retire at last from the many of them buy farms in Massachusetts. These Portugese, who prove themselves such good whalers, also are proving themselves to be excellent farmers. Some of the handsomest and most flourishing farms around New Bed ford are owned by vetired Portuguese whaling men There is a form of whaling that is fol lowed a great deal more from New Bedford now than deep water whaling. It is whal ing in off shore, especially off Cape Hatteras, It is referred to, somewhat sarcastically by the deep water men, as “plum pudd’'n’ whaling,” because the crews are rarely out more than or three months and they are always within running distance of harbor. as It had for to as the the same crews new cach three miles of 00 schooners one is saved two REV. M. A. HEAD, PASTOR FIRST OMAHA, AND THE BELL Peterson, South Omaha METHODIST DONATED “Plum pudd'n’ whaling” may strike the deep water whale cateher as tame. But to the landsman who the ridiculously small schooners with wreely more free board than the brick schooners that one sees in peaceful inland waters, it seem the height of luxury. And ecertainly ro less peaceful and idyllic scene could b selected in all the ocean than that particu lar locality off Hatteras The “plum pudd'n’ whaler' isn't a bit he hind his brother of the big ships in daring He lowers in what steamship passengers would call a living gale. The writer saw the boats from two of New Bedford schooners fast to small whales one winter s day off Hatteras when the steamship which he was, rolled so in the storm sea that the water swept its bridge Whales of the small known as tackfish were plowing the that day wherever lookcd. Far away toward the horizon two “plum pudd'n’'” whaling schooners were rolling and pitching eon vulsively, as if each roll and pitch would be the last. And driving like madmen through the great shouldering green were the crews of two small boats fast to one whale, while a mile away a third boat, discernible only as a wallowing black streak, was dashing along behind another It seemed to be most kind of “plum pudd'n'." I doesn't these on and species one 800 EPISCOPAL F. CHURCH, SWIFT OF CHICAGO SOUTH BY G. Photo by a peculiar Gleanings From the Story Tellers’ Pack “What! ‘“No, sergeant, in the pail.” get some water,"” ers? In those trous- In a recess of the Molineux trial in New York, District Attorney Osborne discussed one afternoon the value of circumstantial evidence with a group of reporters. “Sup pose,” he said, ‘“‘that I am talking to a milkman. This milkman claims there is no water in his can of milk. He tells me that he milked the cow himself; that he washed out the can; that he strained the milk then, while he is speaking from the can. That frog's evidence cumstantial, but, nevertheless, it much stronger than the man's, which is direct.” and out leaps a frog Is cir The late Rev, Joseph Parker was a trul gocd man and never wearied of doing all in his pow>r for the benefit of his fellow tals He willing that as a missionary he a failure, and to sustain told the following story “The eriminal,’" he tried my youthful hand of the murder of a woman him mor was to admit, however would have proved opinicn enc said whom 1 first was The ¢ and the upon accused ace against seemed future of a good on« the poor fellow looked black “This when I visited his cell, wel comed me and my instructions in a flatter- ing manner. He could not talk enough upon spiritual matters. He asked to see me daily and it did my heart good to note how sedulously he studied the little black bible that I gave to him “All through his trial his tinued to be fervent and deep his trial the man showed religious une tion truly remarkable and unique. In the end he was acquitted and I shall never for get my last visit to him in his cell, a man with me piety All through con a few moments before his release and departure “On my entry he looked up from his packing, and, recognizing me, he extended the bible which had my gift and which he had so carefully perused during his peril * *Here, sir,’ he said, ‘allow this book to you for it B been me to return I hope never to have use again.' PR — “I wish,” sald a New York street car conductor the day after Thomas B. Reed's death, “that we had more men to travel ou th cars of Mr. Reed's build.” A strauge expression, considering the room such would take The follow- ing explanation by the collector of fares “When the begin to clamber on to turn around fcr the people Premature those who company reached men was made near of car This makes in the car crowding also is an with the the line before end the people have diff- gel out injustice to rules of the and until the terminal is The car hog is brut« development and we conductors are helpless to stem their rush for “Mr d the car one evening Just before we reached the end of the line he got up, buttoned his overcoat and walked out to the lowest the rear plat form. There he Again and again the street car hogs attempted to board the car, but bumped up against the sman and fell off Some lost hats, others were tumbled into the but not succeeded in boarding the car At the end of the line the deserving pas got the seats when the hogs came up they dangled from the straps “Reed? Oh, he never noticed them. He vas on the platform, but his thoughts must we time it cult to comply wait street a onward seats te was on step on remained great their street, stat one sengers and have been in Maine, for he heard.” neither saw nor man was out for a day's shooting, he up again to the farmer’ % “Just thought I'd Judge Martin J. Keogh of the suprem. here he sald, “to if court, Westchester county, New York, while '“h" out little "_"‘”'.;"":"' presiding at the trial of an action based on I got notings to '?'Hff”' sald the farmer, the negligence of a landlord in failing to 1OUDES but my vife. keep a certain stairway in proper repair, “'_‘“' ”"'» R, sald [,),"‘ took occasion to question one of the de- ""‘:",'“'I'I;",' insure her. fendant's witnesses for the purpose of ob- ‘\"lff‘ sald the farmer, with determina taining an accurate description of the loca- tion. It she dle, you come out here and tion of the stairs. Judze Keogh asked the ®&Y, ‘T not gif you one tousand dollar. I get witness, who in this instance was the jani you u "’F“‘r und a better vife for six hun- ixans of the hauss 'Illll.. No, sir, I dakes no “Madame, kindly explain to the jury how oud! these stairs run.” ' ' Barring those who get killed, says the Biston Transcript, the profession of arms appears to be conducive to longevity cral Francis J the Mexican bellion recently pitt rod« 8 place while 1 you stop was up see wanted to a insurance man, more insurance The janitress answered, in a loud voice “Well, yer honor, whin yer up stairs they run down, and whin stairs they run up."” Gen Lippitt, who served in both war and the war of the re as an officer, died at Washington at the age of 90. General Lip- graduated at Brown far back as 1830, and was always a busy man, being in his time not only a soldier, but a lawyer of distinetion and a writer of approved stand- ing on military matters But the striking example of a member of th feseion of arms attaining great age is forded by Rear Admiral Thomas 0. Se'f ridge, the elder, whe according to one biog raphy was born in Beston April 24,1804, and who has been an officer in th navy since 1818, the date of his ap- midshipman Admiral Self ridge has a son, Thomas O. Selfridge, jr who like himself is a rear admiral on the retired list and is in his €6th year. It is believed that there is no other instance in the present world of father and son, both officers of the same rank in the same service and both retired by reason of age. yer down The panies business methods of insurance are ar all the liking shrewd old German farmer with certain agent had some house of the farmer, insured for $1,000, had burned down. The privilege of replacing a burned house is reserved by insurance com panies, and the agent said to the farmer “We'll put you up a better houss one you had for $600." “Nein!" said the “I vill hat my one tousand dollar or ings! Dot house could be built for even a tousand.” “Oh, yes, 1t could,” said the man. ‘It was an old house. It doesn't cost 80 much to build houses nowadays A $600 new house would be a lot bigger and better than the old one.” Some months later, not to of a as whom a dealings Th most pro having this in mind, af than the farmer, emphatically not January 1, not pointment again as insuran ¢ when the insurance