Three months with the New York herald; or, Old news on board of a homeward-bounder

Front matter

Ex HtbrtB

SEYMOUR DURST

When you leave, please leave this book

Preface

I sailed with the Herald because it was given to me, read it because I had nothing else to read, wrote about it because I could not help it, and now publish what I wrote because my friends order me to do so.

My aversion to writing has often got me into trouble with my friends, caused me to be reprimanded by my ship-owners, and made me feel the bitter sarcasm of ship-brokers ; but when, on a former voyage, I saw that the American eagle wras getting into disrepute, I felt that the time had come when to be silent longer, was to be disloyal. In the correspondence column of a foreign newspaper, appeared the following letter :

Sir:— In regard to Germany and Samoa, I ask permission to say a few words to those of your readers who refuse to be carried away by mere fury and verbiage, but are open to argument and fair play. I simply mean tc utter a warning and to register a prediction. The warning is this — not to harbor any, if ever so slight, thoughts of deserting the Union Jack for the Stars and Stripes, even if advocated by the most plausible personalities. Let these colonies remain loyal to the mother country, relying on her strength whilst the scheme of a solid confederation of the Empire grows to maturity. The American eagle has a blunt beak, lame wings, and claws corroded by corruption ; and we all know that the biggest words, though screeched out by the biggest mouth, break no bones. My prediction is this — the Yankees will take precious good care not to go to war with Germany, but after plenty of screeching, and doing the biggest things with the tip of their tongues, will, without the slightest dignity, retire to "as you were," when they feel Bismarck's iron fist under the

4 PREFACE.

velvet glove. It may suit corrupt millionaires and wire-pullers for sordid speculation's sake to blow the war trumpet to a corrupt Congress. Those people at the White House, on \\!r im rests the real responsibility of conducting their country's affairs, will blow off as soon as they have suited the ends of their own party. They know well enough that, should they declare war against Germany, that they would receive by return of post a declaration of war by China, that their Pacific and Atlantic sea-coast towns would be heaps of ruins before they could arm a single cruiser worthy of consideration. Should Yankee democracy, however, be so rotten as to act contrary to the wisdom which framed the groundwork of the great Republic, then fatal consequences will speedily ensue. The inhabitants of the Union are not homogeneous. A war against Germany would at once provoke action on the part of four million Germans, who have not forgotten their old Fatherland yet. Civil war would break out. Thousands of Chinese would fight in their own Asiatic fashion, such as applying matches to large towns on breezy days, etc., and Pandemonium would descend on a country which thinks it can provoke the demon of war with a light heart, because it has plenty of money. I am, etc.,

Penrose, February 2, 18S9. R. Fricke.

— New Zealand Herald, February 5, 1SS9.

After vainly looking for some literary person who was as indignant as I, it suddenly struck me that I could try it myself ; and in the New Zealand Herald of February 8, 1889, appeared my first contribution to the press.

The reader can readily understand why I do not insert it here ; but if he ever does me the honor to hunt it up, and thinks the above letter not sufficient apology for it, let him confess that Washington and Jefferson lived in vain.

I wondered where this man got his information, I

PREFACE. 5

never having before seen, in any foreign newspaper, such vile abuse of our Government, or any other ; and this was in a column, responsibility for which is disclaimed by the editor. When, on the present voyage, I had given careful attention to the Herald, and remembered that I had received it in the same town in which this letter had appeared, it seemed to me that the problem was solved. I can readily see that any one who formed their judgment of us from the contents of that journal, would be so misled as to expect our country to fly to pieces — like a superannuated topsail in a typhoon — at the least shock of war ; because the editor does not explain — what he very well knows — that war is all that is required, in order for us to show the world that our disagreements are largely superficial ; and are usually magnified by the editors, in the hope of selling newspapers to those who were beaten at the polls.

"A. Minott Wright,"

Introduction

According to Captain Marryat " the fool of the family " takes to the sea, as naturally as a duck to a mill-pond. This is, probably, the reason why there is no record of more than one of us ever having given an " opinion." This, as all the world knows, was Commander Jack Bunsby of His Britannic Majesty's Channel Fleet of coal schooners : who, according to a well known and thoroughly honest contemporary, 'was christened John." For this reason, perhaps, although I feel in a humor for writing, I shall be very careful about being trapped into trying to follow in the path of that wise navigator; knowing, as I do, that genius is intermittent, and visits our planet, in its extreme form, in much greater cycles than intervenes between his day and mine.

At first I thought that this would make it impossible for me to write : but on remembering that I had read many opinions that I would not like to present to an unoffending public as gems, it suddenly struck me that what the public needs is questions, to start their thoughts into operation, and then they can form opinions which they will more surely retain.

"Convince a man against his will " — you know the rest : ask him questions and allow him to convince himself, and you have him safe.

Here was a strategic situation, that would have delighted the heart of a field-marshal. Questions were the things, and I, as the one who went to sea, was

8 INTRODUCTION.

just the man to ask them. Did not all of our mothers try, before we were out of pinafores, to instill into our baby minds the fact that only foolish people ask them incessantly ? And have we not all heard people, who hoped that they showed wit thereby, answer a civil question with the words " to make fools ask questions ? "

Now, although I have already commenced to ask them, I do not promise that what is to follow, will be questions alone ; but I mean that they shall prevail, and if I get warmed into the indiscretion of now and then making an assertion, let it be understood that ] am ready to retract, whenever the " Northern Wolf " of Byron shows his teeth — and a good reason for my doing so. If I should, despite my caution, be also betrayed into giving a genuine full fledged "opinion," let the reader charitably remember that I am one who has furled a royal by the weird gleam of the dreaded " Corpse light " at the yard-arms and truck, and am consequently liable to be led into the superstitious hope that — I having, also, been known to contemporaries as "Jack," there may — Juliet to the contrary notwithstanding — be something " in a name."

With the exception of a few short letters in defense of myself or " the old flag " when on " alien soil," I have never appeared before that vicious enemy or enthusiastic friend — as the case may be — the Public : and but for a circumstance which the title foreshadows, and which will be explained later, I should not have thought of taking that position now. I have been informed by people who never laid awake a night to

INTRODUCTION. 9

study how to contribute to my pleasure, that my private letters would do to read ; and a very short and crude public one, gained for me the proud distinction of being the champion of that noble fowl the American Eagle. Hence my temerity in allowing the circumstance mentioned above, to urge me to the present startling experiment.

That I shall step on some deeply grounded prejudices, goes without saying ; as I always do ; but a long experience has taught me that I can do so, verbally, with impunity; and in the above-mentioned case of using the pen for it, I got some of the heartiest cheers from the enemy. In a Southern port, in '68, while watching my ship's cotton on the wharf, I talked the rankest Northernism with the maimed Confederate veterans who watched the cotton presses, and we parted such good friends, that they rushed to the ship for news of me, the first time she returned. For many years, I have figured as a radical Northerner in the South — as an embryo rebel in the North ; even going so far as to caution a friend in favor of the memory of one whom I had, in the fire eating days, gone to the expense of ' hanging in effigy," much to the detriment of a " man of straw " whose business it had been to scare the birds from the cherry trees ; and which violent patriotism .lid not save me from a mild chastisement, at the hands of a parent — who has since, probably, got me down for a most hopeless rebel — for ruining his garden beds with scattered straw.

I have talked Conservatism to Fenians, Liberalism

IO INTRODUCTION.

to Conservatives. I have championed the laborer to the employer's face, I have loudly expostulated with the former for ruining his cause, by combining for ultimately useless and detrimental resistance : I have protested to the " goose " for not laying more " golden e§gs>" I have begged her life from those who would ruin themselves by foolishly killing her ; and all this without giving offense, except in one case : and in this the man was not satisfied with my favor, but wished me to fight for him. But I know that what is written is not as easily covered by the next judicious sentence, as what is spoken ; so shall strive hard to be as careful as I can, consistently with an ingrained prejudice against prejudice.

Chapter I. The New York Herald

Probably most people have wondered why human beings, in the eYent of some great change that appears to the spectator to be entirely to their advantage, show discontent, and a desire to return to their old way of life. We read of the adopted street Arab, whothriYed on the squalor of city slums, languishing in the embrace of comfort and plenty. We haYe heard of prisoners shrinking from the open iron door which has shut out the sunlight during the best part of their lives, and showing a preference for the darkness of the dungeon, to which they haYe become inured. But perhaps the friends of the writer, who know that he loves to use his tongue otherwise than

to

" Give the word, above the storm, To cut the mast and clear the wreck "

and who have often asked him why he goes to sea — not knowing, poor souls, that it is as impossible for him to earn a dollar on shore as it is for his sailors to keep one, since the U. S. Government has, by the appointment of that modern guardian, the U. S. Shipping Commissioner, provided a means of accurately informing those who live by the sweat of Jack's brow, of the exact day and hour he is to receive it ; giving them a chance to locate it with a view to a transfer — unknown to the days of the pri-

12 UNPRECEDENTED CIRCULATION.

vate pay table — may be surprised to hear that he has recently learned to tremble at thoughts of living in the mad hive on shore, even if he should succeed in winning the necessary competence to enable him to do so.

For many years I have, when about home, purchased the Herald pretty regularly ; because it has the shipping news " par excellence," and on account of its association with the Jeannette and Arctic icebergs— with Stanley and the hidden mysteries of "Darkest Africa." That any one ever read it never occurred to me until very recently, since I commenced to read it myself. (For fear that I may ruffle editorial fur, and cause an expedition to be fitted out to intercept me on my next voyage " to far Cathay," I will here explain that I have never read any other newspaper — much.)

There are probably many daily journals in the world which claim the largest circulation within certain limits. (No one who has travelled from the " Golden Gate" to the Sierra Nevadas, can doubt that " the Chronicle has the largest circulation on the Pacific Coast," because he has seen it proclaimed from every railroad-fence, rock, barn, tree and stump, not previously appropriated by the proprietors of "Magic Oil" and the "Rising Sun") I learn from the editorial page of the Herald that its circulation is 190,500. These figures I am inclined to doubt (one moment, Mr. Editor, please; I assure you 1 shall advance weighty reasons). How they can be true in the face of the fact, that a copy is to be seen in the

WHY I READ IT. 13

hands of nearly every one of the 500,000 persons which (as advertisers are assured) travel daily on the elevated roads, and in nearly every office, club room, saloon, restaurant, hotel and barber shop of the three cities ; that stacks of them occupy news-stands all over the United States, and that my acquaintance with any member of a newspaper staff in the most remote antipodes, results in bales of them being sent on board of my ship, I leave to abler mathematicians than myself to determine. Whether or not the Herald claims the largest circulation, I do not know ; and am not in a position to judge ; but if it claims the 7i>idest, I will back that position with every dollar that I can borrow. If I should be sailing around some "corner of the earth," and, gravitation failing, my vessel should take a flight to the moon, I should walk into the nearest newspaper office and ask, with perfect confidence, for their latest copy of the Herald, in order to learn whether or not the "Commercial cable" had announced any other vessel as making a like voyage.

If the reader is curious to know why, having so often seen the Herald, I have only just commenced to read it, I can easily explain. Heretofore I have received the usual bale, glanced at the shipping news, skimmed through the file to learn with what nation we were " talking fight," and whether Congress intended — in case of their accepting the gauntlet— to lay a plant for the manufacture of guns, appoint a survey to locate a good site for a fort, and advertise for tenders for the construction of a battle-

14 A NAUTICAL LIBRARY.

ship, or to depend on the eloquence of some millennial-minded senator, to induce the enemy to disarm — thereby effecting a balance of power at less expense— and retired to the perusal of something more easily digested. If I was ever tempted to go deeper, the words " Boodle " and " Boodlers," in huge characters, at the head of nearly every page, was quite sufficient to dissipate the temptation.

On the present voyage, owing to the fact that ''Looking Backward " and other such works of lunatic dreamers, had penetrated to the South Pacific Colonies, and the inhabitants of these resorts of " peace and plenty " having thereby learned that good pay and a good prospect of future wealth was not good enough for the masses — but that it was necessary to fore-arm against the chimerical " Process of Perspiration," of which they had read — I was so much absorbed in the struggle to navigate my ship through strikes, riots and boycotts, and get to sea without a " union crew" — who would probably want to submit the question of when to reef the spanker to arbitration, that I neglected to take my usual stroll among news-stands and book arcades; and the re suit is, that my'present available library consists of scarcely more than a Nautical Almanac, a Bowditch's Navigator and a Bible. The Navigator and Almanac, consisting mostly of tabulated figures, are of interest only for a few minutes after the sun has passed the meridian, until I have ascertained the ship's position; and the Bible — well — since it is falling into disfavor with the American Public Schools — we do not feel

A NAUTICAL LIBRARY. 15

constrained, on ship-board, to read it oftener than once a week. The cook-book is a volume necessary on shore, but useless when at sea with a steward who not only knows exactly what the Phoenicians had to eat on each particular day of the week, but who persists in the theory that we are to follow the gastronomical example of those ancient navigators and explorers, with a pertinacity which promises to partially supply the place of an almanac, if we should sail without remembering to purchase one. Therefore we do not have that useful work. Hence the reason why I have dived so deeply into those hitherto unexplored columns.

Chapter II. Contrasts

On commencing the perusal, I found it somewhat diverting to note the wonderful contrasts which appeared in different columns. To read in one that a senator from the peaceful and snow-clad slopes of the White Mountains wished to postpone the building of battle-ships until we had applied all our eloquence to John Bull, Esq., to try to induce him to dismantle his American fortresses and withdraw his bristling turrets from American waters ; and then turn to another and learn that the revenue cutters of the Pacific had received orders from the Government to proceed to Behring Sea and seize all illicit sealers, though the bellowing of the powerful bovine seemed to indicate that he would regard such a measure as an act of war. Also that Admiral Walker had received orders to proceed to South America with his all-powerful squadron of four cruisers — profusely covered with white paint, if deficient in armor — and see to it that none of the Powers of Europe were allowed to count a vote from Terra del Fuego to the Rio Grande.

To read in one column a sermon in which a millennial Divine insists on the theory that there is to be no more fighting, that it must, in future, give place to argument ; and turn to another and learn that in the late encounter between " Jake Slogan, the spider of the Allcghanies," and " Sam Bruiser, the scorpion of

CONTRASTS. 1 7

the South-west," there was some "beautiful slugging," and, taken all around, it was a " fine show." (Why should this not tempt some eloquent, peaceful, non-athletic man to arrange a match with the great and admired John L. for $3000 a side, and then try, by dint of argument, to induce that heroic slugger to yield the stakes without a blow ?)

If this were all, it would only be amusing ; but amusement must give place to indignation, when we read in one column that labor has won a great " victory " (apparently over the employer, whom it deserted while on a large contract, with a heavy time penalty — but really over its own future welfare) ; and turn to another and learn that a like attempt has resulted disastrously in destruction of property — which must cause misery to the destroyers — in violence, arson, bloodshed, starvation and murder.

Finally, indignation must become mixed with pathos, when we read that Congress is becoming so reckless in the distribution of pensions that national bankruptcy is threatened ; and then turn a page and learn that the mother of the late Lieutenant Cushing (the lady who gave birth to one of the world's greatest heroes, who gave him a mother's blessing, and bade him " God-speed " when he started on an enterprise which, for brilliance of conception, vigorous prosecution, heroic valor, success, effect on the cause of a bleeding country, and miraculous and masterly escape, stands second to none in naval history) is suffering from want and in danger of becoming an object of charity. Surely, if Congress appropriates l8 DIFFICULTIES.

too much money for pensions, some of it must be sadly diverted from its most worthy objects.

Following this easy diversion comes the more serious problem of getting initiated into the " topics of the day." Before the reader condemns me as being hopelessly imbecile for not having read the newspapers whenever opportunity offered, let him imagine himself cut off for six months or a year, and sometimes for two or three years, from his daily and weekly newspaper, his Harper s, his Judge, his monthly magazine, and even his opportunity of selecting from the book-stand the latest novel, and then glance at a " daily " laden with the " topics of the day." If he knows that any thread that he succeeds in recovering will again be hopelessly lost in a week or two, and is aware that it is his transient and long looked-for opportunity for becoming acquainted with his mother, will he use much time in an attempt at the solution of the problem ?

Why ! on the occasion of my last witnessing a game of base-ball, the superb batting of Brouthers and the great Mike Kelly were insufficient to divert my mind from vaguely wondering what could be the name of ihe New York journal which the urchin at the ferryhouse had described as the " Sunny Wall." A charitable friend has since informed me that the cherub was announcing that he was in a position to furnish to the by-standers and passengers a copy of the Sun or the World !

I have spent hour after hour in mid air above the New York streets, vainly cruising from end to end of

REFORM. 19

the vast city, in consequence of the guards of the " L" roads systematically using every vocal sound which the English language affords, excepting those which I have been taught to ascribe to the letters which form the names of the streets where the trains stop ; South Ferry and 129th Street being the only two that I could hit with any degree of accuracy, and these owing to the fact that one must leave the train immediately or get himself kicked out.

The easiest thing to learn is that the Jlera/dprides itself on being areformer" from away back ;" and makes it a point to expose every item of villany, bribery, corruption and boodleism, from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande, from Mendocino to Hatteras. This is probably well and necessary ; but would it not be advantageous, while there is a chance of our having a possible shred of national respectability remaining — in the estimation of the world — either for some other journal to take the matter in hand, or use some other medium for the dispensation of American news in "the corners of the earth," and keep the great reformer nearer home, where it can sink deeply into the hearts of the tolerators of " lobbyism," and gnaw at the vitals of "cable stealers and street grabbers " ? Why should the denizens of remote islands be informed of the fact that the immaculate members of the New York police force had been unjustly suspected, by an ungrateful government, of having an interest in the sale of base intoxicants ?

The writer has often wondered why, when he has — in foreign ports — hoisted the delicately tinted

20 ITS EFFECT ABROAD.

banner of whose symmetrical stripes and superb constellation of stars he has ever been so proud, the people regard it much the same as they would if it were of sombre black, and surmounted by a skull and cross bones ; why he himself is regarded as a kind of modern Kidd ; why his lady friends lose the most of their interest in him, when they learn the sad fact that he has not been married and divorced several times, and why his gentlemen friends — if over twenty — expect to learn of his many " hair-breadth 'scapes " from flying bullets on native street corners, and if under that age, never fully forgive him after they learn that he has not got a pistol in each hip pocket, and a "bowie knife " in each boot leg. He has also wondered why, — though war, revolutions, rapine, popular murder, anarchy, nihilism and such effects of misgovernment, are constantly being reported from nearly every other country on the face of the globe — he continually has to face the fact, that his own capitol is thought the very hot-bed of corrupt legislation. Can he wonder longer after having read a long file of Heralds, captured in a journal office of 'i remote colony ?

Chapter III. The Kemmler Case

In regard to the " Kemmler case," and the threatened blow to the hemp industry through the substitution of electricitjr for the removal of the barnacles of society, perhaps it will not be fair for me to write much ; I having an advantage of the Herald through having read, in a South Sea journal, a cablegram which showed that the carefully prepared " chair," was a far safer place than " Mr. Westinghouse's " light poles, with their wires insulated by his most profound experts ; proving that all-wise organ at fault for once.*

Not having been aco^ainted with Kemmler at the time, I do not remember whether or not it was he who took the leading part in that horrible and bungling tragedy ; but I earnestly hope it was not. Not knowing the circumstances of his crime, I cannot help thinking that the honor of being the pioneer in the candidacy for the great blood-curdling experiment, and living for several days in the expectation of at any moment being led to the fatal seat, was

*" The experiment of death by electric current is worth trying. It has been effective in the case of a score of wage working linemen : let us see what it will do for a murderer." — N. Y. Herald.

One who admires courage hopes that these "linemen " will dare to earn their bread, after reading about the great experiment. [Author.]

22 A SUBSTITUTE.

sufficient punishment for one man to endure. And% one who has led a somewhat secluded life, and has seldom seen anything more sanguinary than a dog fight, or an occasional skirmish to decide which end of the ship shall rule, cannot help hoping that the scientific cannibals who gathered at the prison to see the fun, satisfied their perverted taste by the sacrifice of the "calf" that seems to have been "caught in a thicket by the horns " (if he had any, and one " who has been there " thinks he must have had — or have been wonderfully "fatted" — to have weighed five hundred pounds) for the purpose : and that after holding a barbecue on the charred remains, they returned to their Bluebeard dens, leaving the modern Isaac to benefit by that most inscrutable of all writs — Habeas Corpus.

At least it is gratifying to learn that the reprieve " made him easier in his mind," and let us hope that he apologized to the humane warden for the "lots of trouble" (which may or may not, have included the vain tears shed by his lady in that " tearful farewell interview") which that official suffered in consequence.*

*" I do not know whether Kemmler was told the hour, but when Mrs. Durston went down and had a tearful farewell interview with him and then went * * * * the man must have known that his time of doom was near," * * * *

" Late in the afternoon Warden Durston went down to Kemmler's cell and said :

" ' Well, Kemmler, you have got a reprieve.'

" ' All right,' said Kemmler.

" ' It causes us lots of trouble,' said the Warden.

A SUGGESTION. 23

If the Empire State still aspires to using that instrument of vengeance, which appears to a rude (and perhaps superstitious) navigator to belong peculiarly to the Almighty, I, judging from the little I have heard when ashore, think there is no better scheme than to sentence the offender to "one year's hard labor " in the service of a lighting company. Perhaps six months would be sufficient, but if the circumstances of the crime were peculiarly atrocious, I recommend a year to make all safe. This will not only assure " the deep damnation of his taking off" on the improved plan, but have the additional advantage of keeping him yet more deeply in ignorance of the day and hour. — Vide Herald, April 30, 1890.

" ' It makes me easier in mind,' said Kemmler.