Show BEFORE THE MAST Rough Experience of a California Lad who Shipped as a Sailor Special to THE HERALD Examiner Dispatch TAUNTON Mass 16 Fred Hall a frightened looking farmers lad hailing from Ferndale Cal was on the steamer Puritan arriving at Fall River yesterday moraingHe hadhadenough sea experience to banish what clamour it bad for him and camour he feels that there is little justice on the high seas This is the boys story Pie received re-ceived a letter last spring from a cousin I Mrs C W Gibson Springfield Vt say ing that if he came east he could get employment em-ployment He started without a cent in his pocket working his passage on the steamer Mary D Hume to Frisco where he intended securing a birth a boy or ordinary or-dinary seaman on a vessel hound around the Horn Ho reached Frisco June 22 and within an hour after his arrival went up Jackson street in search of a shipping office of-fice He was tapped on the shoulder by a man who asked him if he wanted a chance to go to sea He replied that he was anxious to reach an eastern port He was told he would be found and given 20 monthly Ho was invited into the saloon where he got a drink but he remembered re-membered nothing more until ho awoke next morning aboard the ship Commodore Cmmodore T H Amer Captain Merrion for New York He was hustled on deck by Second Mate Caine He requested the mate to allow him to tend word to his relatives but was referred to the old man For attempting at-tempting to speak with the captain tho mate kicked him off the poop deck and drove him to work Thence until he reached New York 103 days afteij his life was one long misery He was kicked and cuffed until he had serious thoughts of I jumping overboard One day while working work-ing in one of the channels t the ship lurched sending him overboard He was rescued with much difficulty and pulled aboard exhausted Yet Third Mate Saul I set him to cleaning brasses until ho was almost crazed with misery Jobs were assigned him at all hours of the day and nightand he was beaten with belay ing pins until he was black and blue One day he was kicked in the groin by the brutal third mate and almost disabled but there was no cessation of the illtreatment Arriving at New York he was told by the captain that nothing was due him Ho appealed to the mate who gave him four bits and kicked him ashore Hall found a United States commissioner but was told the ship was not paid off COVe and dis spirited the poor fellow rambled to the Puritans pier where telling lis story Mate Kennedy gave him a chant to work his way to Fall River He is looking for a chance there now to earn enough to pay his way to his cousins home Hall almost a wreck and told his story to your correspondent correspon-dent while tears rolled down his thin cheeks |