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Show fk, ,; By ELMO SCOTT WATSON x -i Drawing by Ray .Walters.. ". HO said that Romance IS kept and were In the possession ol uie t I , . ., i , Russian n n:i rt ermaster of the pirate " By El.MO SCOTT WATSON Drawing by Ray Walters.. fHO said that Romance Is (loud in these modern dnys, in this year A. D. 1927? .Pieces oT eight ! Doubloons! Doub-loons! Treasures of the Spanish Main ! Pirate KoUl ! BURIED TREASURE! TREAS-URE! Do those words bring hack memories memo-ries to you memories of your boyhood hiys when you lirst read Stevenson's 4Jrti , , T,,l ,1" 1 Tint -lB lAH"1 ngo,' perhaps, unci yet Here are three dispatrlips which liavo appeared in our newspapers -within the l-.ist few weeks. Head them jind see if they don't give you a sort ' tin-ill : NEW YOKK.--Residents of Asbury Park and -nearby villages are warm In. 5 up to a hunt for pirate treasure as tho result of tho discovery by Percival G. Tillman, Jr., of No. 96 Lake street, Asbury Park, in that city of a fossilised fossil-ised boot of the type worn by swashbucklers swash-bucklers twu centuries ago. Kmbedded t the rock-encrusted boot ITU man found a woman's gold ring, set with a larpe pearl. The boot was found near the spot where a fl in t lock carbine was picked tip a month po. A band of sea marauders, ma-rauders, led by a woman, took refuse t the spot. The woman cut her hair Bhort and was a ruthless plunderer, the original "bobbed-hair bandit." NEAV ORLEANS. Mysierlous bands of treasure hunters still range across the Louisiana marshes. They are seeking seek-ing the buried spoils of the pirate Jean Lnfltte. The hucervaeer Is said to have cached vast s lmes of doubloons and pieces of elht along the great coastal stretch southwest of New Orleans. U'M'orted discovery of a burled treas- ! lire near Vermillion bay a year ago oiiiiV'd considerable excitement. ue party of treasure seekers went far as to pull up a post set by government gov-ernment surveyors, evidently believing that the stake was one of the markings mark-ings made by Lafltte. It is said that two members of La-flti La-flti e's band once lived in the vicinity of the city of Lake Charles. CLKVKLAND, OHTO. Doubloons, pieces of eight, and other treasures of -the Spanish Main, to the value of $50,-000. $50,-000. ono, llo buried on a South American island, ready for the person who Is wilting to dig, according to George Klnluy Simmons, curator of ornithology orni-thology of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, who has just returned from the island. The cache includes much p olden plunder taken from the Im-a Indians by the Spaniards, who in turn were robbed by the two pirates who burled the loot n century ago on the island off the coast oT Brazil. On e of the hoards, Simmons says, mounts to S 10,000.000, and was buried by the Spanish pirate, Jose Santos, who raptured a ship laden with gold and silver Ingots, altar vestments and candelabra from the churches of Lima, Peru. More than JS.000.0 00 more was buried on the same island by an P.ng-Ush P.ng-Ush ptrat e, bo styled himself "Zul-miro." "Zul-miro." Records of this cache wero kept and were In the possession ol uie Russian quartermaster of the pirate ship until lie died in the Far Bast. Eight expeditions were made to find the treasure between 1800 and 1892, but most of them never reached the desolate coast of the island. Tho3 that did found that the landmarks, marked on the map, had been wiped out by a landslide. "Robert Louis Stevenson used the place as the scene of 'Treasure Island,' Simmons says, "but the plM-der plM-der found in fiction really Is BtUI there." Such items are not at all uncommon in our newspapers and probably will continue to appear therein for many vears to come. For, among our most cherished traditions Is the belief that every pirate who sailed the main at some time in his career buried a part of liis loot somewhere and never recovered re-covered it. And there (wherever "there" is) it lies to this day awaiting await-ing the lucky discoverer, whom through blind chance or because he has come across some old document which puts him on the trail, it will enrich beyond his wildest dreams. As a matter mat-ter of fact it is much more likely that the average pirate squandered more of his ill-gotten gains than lie ever buried, that not one in ten of all the stories of buried treasure have the slightest foundation in fact and that more money has been spent In the efforts to find this hidden wealth than all the treasure which all the pirates In history ever buried is worth. But these facts, even if they couid be deiinitely established, probably would fail to dim the lure of the supposed sup-posed buried treasure nor dampen the enthusiasm of those who go out to seek It. That lure and that enthusiasm enthusi-asm are based upon a universal human weakness the "get-rich-quick" desire. Perhaps Edgar Allen Poe is as much responsible as nny one for nourishing the buried treasure angle of that desire. de-sire. So long as the tradition of hidden hid-den treasure on our coasts persists and so long as his "Gold Bug" Is read by successive generations of Americans, ' so long will we have the great American Ameri-can sport of bunting pirate gold. Only a year or so ago a Canadian announced his invention of the inetalo-phono. inetalo-phono. an electrical "Gold Bug," which could detect the presence of buried metals even though they were concealed con-cealed beneath more than 50 feet of solid rock. Immediately the word went out that the metalophone was to he used to find the buried treasure on the historic Cocos island, which lies in the Pacific ocean about 500 miles southwest of Costa Rica and which was a favorite lair of pirates in the old freebooting days. In fact Cocos island has been a magnet for treasure , seekers for many years because there Is an apparently well-authenticated story that the mutinuous crew of the British ship Mary Dear hid on the Island Is-land treasure valued at $12,000,000 (some accounts put it at $35,000,000 and others at $60,000,000) more than a hundred years ago. Soon afterwards after-wards the secret leaked out and scarcely a year has passed since that time that someone has not tried to uncover this vast wealth. As late as 1925 a party of British scientists set out for that purpose, but if they or anyone else have been successful, the world is yet to hear of it. The treasure which the famous Captain Kidd Is supposed to hava buried somewhere along the New England coast Is nearly as famous and as much sought after as the COcos Island wealth. It is true that he did bury a part of his loot on Gardiner's island, off Montauk point on Long Island, N. Y., when he returned from his trip a-pirating, but that was recovered re-covered soon after his arrest. And that is all of Captain Kldd's gold that has ever been recovered. The famous Blackbeard Is said to have buried part of his piratical wealth in New Jersey. Wherefore "gold diggers" have made the dirt fly at various places in New Jersey but more particularly at Burlington. Legend says that Sir Henry Morgan hid part of his loot beneath the soil of Oak island, off the coast of Maine, and more than $200,000 has been spent from time -to time digging on Oak island to recover It. So far the net result has been nothing. The gold of Jean Lafitte has kept treasure seekers busy at various places along the coast of Louisiana and Texas. This legend Is almost a perfect burled-treasure yarn. There is a document, bequeathed by a father about to die, to his son, bearing tho date of 1S13, which tells of the burial i by Lafitte and liis men of 70,000 doubloons doub-loons and a bar of silver. It is signed by a number of the pirate's followers and- has as Its seal the usual pirate marks, the skull and crossbones and a dagger. There occur also the words "mutiny," "cruelty" and "inquisition" and on the other side is a rude map which Is the key to the. location of the hoard. There is a story of a party of men who stumbled upon the place where they were sure that the treasure was burjed, then went back to get spades to dig and could not find the place again. So there (wherever "there" is) lies Lafitte's buried treasure treas-ure worth $1,120,000 for someone, i But, in the argot of the day, "try and get It." |