Show A WNDERER AND IllS BOOK Strange True Stories of a Boy Who Would Not Be a Parson There Is a charm about a retired sea captain Any man who has lived a I roving life and stored his memory with strange avEntures on land and sea Is easily a her And i a m1n has crowded into a few short year more experiences than usually occur In alf a-lf Umc and in his sturdy young manhood man-hood he cart tel about them in a frank modest manly fashion he Is easily an author When a man has done this asH as-H Phelps Yhltmarsh has done it in his picturesque book The Worlds Rough Had which has recently been making so much talk and left the pub lie with an appetite for more then the fragments of experience which he drops in informal taU sitting with pipe and slippers before the evening fIre arc worth haying evenng I never had much train ng for writ lag said Mr Whimarsh rather gloomily after he had been ersuaded to talk about himself You see I was too busy to go to school and have read very little a few stores as a boy and a few others on shlnboard My father Is an English clergyman and as I was his only son it was arranged ar-ranged that I shoud becQme a Parson lIy father kept me studying the Bible and the vrayerbook but boyle I preferred to read the Vaverly novels which wee all I had until I was thought to be old enough to read one of Captain lIaryats sea stories I was delighted with Captain Marryat but the Quaint direct phrases of the Bible more probably than anything else helped me to a means of expression expres-sion NOT CUT OUT FOR A PARSON Of course I had no serious notion of becoming a parson There had been several sea captains in my family and a roving disposition came to me by inheritance in-heritance Then there were many things that encouraged In me a ionic lag for the sea I happened to be born In Canada where my father was doing do-Ing his first work as a missionary When I was 3 years old my parents par-ents took me back to England and that first voyage made a great imression on me I still have a vague recollection recollec-tion of It I was a troublesome lad from tile very first and the fact that I was the only son and the eldest of the family did not hel maters After I had reached my teens I took maters into my own hands and told my father that I was going to sea As he saw that I was determined to go one way or another he put me on board the training ship Conway at Liverpool On the Conway we divided out time between be-tween navigation and practical seamanship sea-manship We learned the use of the sextant and the theory of solar and lunar observations and alto were exercised ex-ercised in manning the boats and arts and doing the actual work of sailors MADE LOVE TO ThE DAUGHTER I was significant tat Mr Whit marsh could recall with great distinctness ness the ships punishments He alto recalled mow as a petty officer he took his turn making love to the captains daughter He would lower himself OVer the side during prayers and dlasc hands with her through the window of her stateroom But in spite of his nonsense he proved a apt JPi and won prizes for special work in navigation naviga-tion After his two years on the training train-ing ship he had no difficulty In shipping as an apprentice on a southwardbow1d I merchantma There were three other apprentices on the ship and although they did the work of ordinary seamen they had their own mess and a part of the deckhouse deck-house to themselves The ships frt destination wa Australia and after puttng In at Adelaide she sailed across to the west coast of South America and came around the Horn to England so that the lads first voyage took him around the world FELL THROUGH TE SKYLIGHT On the first voyage said Mr Whit marsh we got plenty to et but often longed for delicacies that we had no means of getting I agreed wIth the other approntcc3 who were on the ame voyage that there should be no such lack on the second trip We filled our quarters with such a stock of tinned goods marmalqles hams and other luxuries that there was barely room to get in ourselves As the ship stood out the harbor with a lively breeze I was sent aloft to clear the tlrgaffsal itt the tale I was standing upon the masthead and with my foot tried to push the sal clear of the stay While I had mv weiht unan It the sail cud ha sai denly came clear and losing l my balance bal-ance I felt myself falling through the air and wondered where I would strike When my senses returned I found myself my-self lying In the cabin Much to my surprise the captain wag havIng his head fixed up with strips of courtplas ter and the cabin was littered with bits of glass They told me that I had fall OIl upon the skylight breaking the heavy glass and bringing It down upon the head of the captain who was working work-ing on some papers at the table underneath under-neath His scalp had been cut open from his crown to his forehead while I had a lot of bones broken A small steamer was hale and T was sent ashore to spend months in a hospital but I was not so troubled by my injuries a I was by the thought Qf leaving all the good things to eat that we had laid 1 for the apprentices mess TERRIFIC FIHT WITH A HAWK I was nine months before I was able to go to sea again and ten I I shipped on a vessel bound for the west coast In the channel a hawk which had been driven of shore by the wInd alighted on the tip of the yard At that time I made a fad of taxidermy and that hawk presented an opportunity opportu-nity too god to be lost I went aloft just a I was with a waistcoat on but without a coat and It was not until I was out on the footropes that ioccu red to me the hawk mIght pt up a fight Ta save my hands I took off my waistcoat and threw it over the bird which was too exhausted tl be frightened fright-ened from Its perch Then there was a struggle dutng which the hawk got party out of a armhole of the wals coat and sunk its claws into the back of my hand With my other hand I tried to choke my prisoner into releasIng releas-ing me and meantime forgot that I was standing balanced upon the foot rope and merely leaning against the yard The ship gave a lithe courtesy that sent me over backwards fabling helplessly towards the deck After dropping some distance I caught one leg over a footrope of a yard and hung head downwards wIth the hawk In one hand and my unreliable waistcoat In the other I easily reached the deck without further injury and In due and time mounted that hawk was properlY stuffed I U 14 U AMJ J U Adi E PHS WTSHrom ecent Photograph I Another adventure aloft is recalled Mr Whimarsh by a very distinct scar on the third finger of his right hand He was sliding down a wire backstay and when about half way to the deck found himself stopped by the strain upon his right hand A broken and unwound strand of wire had gone through his finger close to the bone His finger had sUpped down a foot of more over the broken strand With his feet and his one free hand he did his best to raise himself so as to get clear of the wire I seemed impossible He was losing strength and as he did not relish the idea of falng and tearing away his finger he got out his sheath knife and cut himself loose Mr Whitemarsh was five years at sea before he reached his majority I was In such a school as this that he got his training for the more uncertain and adventurous life in Australia Three times he encircled the glob before he decided that the game was not worth the candle I Is at this point In his life that he takes up the narrative in his book The WOrlds Rough Hand He knew the sea and was in the way soon to get the command oCa ship but the life had proved unsatsfyIng He had opportunities oppor-tunities to become either a clergyman or physician but after studying with his doctoruncle for a few months he decided he did not care to become a professional man BECOMES A SUNDOWNER Thence the book takes him to Adelaide Ade-laide in a sailing vessel and up 10 Si vertoa as a sundowner A sundowner sun-downer is a man who travels on foot through the country and at sundown apples at a ranch or station for food and a place ta sleep The sundowner Is supposed to be traveling with some definite object In view but In many cases he Is a tamp traveling aimlessly aimless-ly over the country and living on the bounty of the people Yet i was the only way of getting Into the interior fifteen years ago unless a man had am pIe wealth to spend upon horses The three years that followed young Whitmarshs arrival In Australia were jammed with exciting Incidents which he has crowded still more compactly in his boook When he had money he risked it freely in some ambitious adventure ad-venture and when it was gone he worked for more at anything he could find to do The ups and extreme downs of the life followed one another rapidly from the time he started out as a prospector till he wound up as a pearl diver diverI is difficult even to outline the story but all through It runs the picture pic-ture of an Intelligent young adventurer adven-turer who bore hunger and destitution with a stout heart and persistently tool an active pat In the control of his fate fateIt It Is a true storya true as I could make I said the author I is my history but I is hardly typical I had an advantage because I was a sailor You see I knew that If I could get to the coast I was always sure of a chance to ship and that helped to give me confidence In the most trying times Yes I Is true I was shipwrecked but many people are shipwrecked and It saying comes is In the days work as the I PEARL DIVING NEAR BORNEO The pearl diving Is about the only part or It rely out of the common and that experience Is a very interesting ing memory Some men are natural unfit for diving even though they have the opportunity and I was fortunate in getting onto the thing very easily Pearl diving was the frs thing I ever Tote about and that was hi a emergency emer-gency to get money to go on a vacation vaca-tion I was much surprised when my brief sketch was accepted and I de temined to cultivate my power of ex presalon I have a great pie o store which wee begun but neve ended as a reminder of that attempt My work on the Worlds Rough Hand was really commenced several yeas before WykofCs artIcles and other trmp1e experience had begun be-gun to appear but even then I probably prob-ably was affected by the prvaing spirit and tendency My idea was that interest In the story would depend upon the personal tinge give it Tats why I told the true story about myself I was not quite a long a I expected t J make it but I sopped writing simply because there seemed to be nothing more to tell The same thing has happened hap-pened mar than once Not long ag > I got an idea and thought that I cull build a novel upon it After some do > liberation I arranged to publish it a a arng serial in a magazine and finally sr priced myself by condensing it in J ber comparauveiy few page for one nu MR WHITMARSH AS HE NOW IS Wen one knows that Mr Wit marsh has bee in Boston seven year dealing in essential os that he has graduated from a seafaring Ute from the mines of Australia from the peal fisheries and from various otc oeu pato it is astonishing to meet the well knit well dressed active your man of 35 who looks eve younger Hr appears and talks more like an American ican than an Englishman and has a business mans incisive way of using the typical expressions of the day Per lisps the mot comprehensive term tat can be used is clear cut That fits him to 3 nicety Ie lives wIth h s I wife and young daughter in a caring vinecoveed cottage In one of theplens atet suburbs of Boston pes Te worlds rough hand has apparently appar-ently taught 11 Whlteah to take comfort in the best and stxnplest god things of the world It aU sees t show a strange foresight in the la c 20 who decided that there must 1P something more satisfactory in U than going to sea But perhaps even then he did not deide unaided |