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MARINE REVIEW. 9 Around the Lakes. Capt. Benjamin Yocum died at Duluth last week. He was an old resident of that port and was engaged in marine work. The Senate has passed a bill to extend to Marquette the ee of immediate transportation of unappraised merchan- ise. : Capt. Laframbois is endeavoring to secure the machinery from the sunken hull of the big wrecking tu ae; re was burned at Cheboygan last fall. g tug Leviathan, whic As a matter of record the steamer City of Paris can be put down as the first boat through the straits this season, having made the passage down at 3:30 p. m., April to. Capt. H. W. Williams is building at South Haven a passen- ger boat for World's Fair traffic. She will be 175 feet over all, 31 feet wide, will draw 9 feet of water and will cost $75,000. _ Capt. James Davidson of West Bay City, has laid the keel for another tow barge for the Davidson Transportation Com- pany. She will be 210 feet keel, 35 feet beam and 18 feet hold. The treasury department has honored Capt. Edward D. Ballentine, last season in the Elfin-Mere, with a silver medal in recognition of his services in rescuing the crew of the propeller Oswegatchie on Lake Huron last fall. The Chicago underwriters have fixed grain cargo rates as follows: To Lake Michigan ports, 30 cents; Lake Superior, 60 cents; Port Huron, Sarnia and Detroit river, 40 cents; Georgian Bay, 50 cents; Buffalo and Lake Erie, 50 cents; Lake Ontario, 60 cents; Ogdensburg, 65 cents; Montreal, 75 cents. An association of lake stewards has been formed at Buffalo with sixty-five charter members. 'The officers are: 'I'. Hogue, president; C. Patchen, vice-president; B.Crangle, second vice- president; H. Heritage, recording secretary; J. Nord, financial Secretary and treasurer; J. V. Lee, conductor. 'The trustees are J. V. Lee, B. Crangle and C. Osborn. The Huron Transportation Company, of which H. B. Loud & Sons of Oscoda are the visible head, has chartered the pro- peller George L. Colwell and consort D. P. Dobbins for the sea- son and they, with the barge Montgomery, will make a tow. The barges Church and American Giant have also been bought and a steamer will be picked up to tow them. Their exact route has not been made up, but they will carry the company's lum- ber, along with as much outside lumber as they can. George C. Baker of Chicago, who has put a large amount of money into a submarine boat of peculiar design, which was built for him by the Detroit Boat Works, gave the craft a trial at Detroit last week. The boat, which has steam power for sur- face work and an electrical storage battery for propulsion under water, is said to have attained a speed of over 10 miles an hour when submerged. Mr. Baker, who was in the barbed wire busi- ness at Chicago, has give up active connections in that regard in order to look after his invention. He will try to interest the government in his boat. All bids for the exclusive privilege of carrying passengers by lake between the city and Jackson park during the World's Columbian Exposition, have been rejected by the subcommittee having the matter in charge. This committee has been studying the bids for two weeks. The reason given out for rejecting those presented was that the bidders calculated the percentage they would give the exposition management from so many dif- ferent standpoints that it was impossible to tell who was the lowest bidder. New proposals may be invited, or the committee 'may simply make terms with one of the bidders without further formality. It would be difficult to find a more unassuming collection of business men than the lakes present in the heads of transpor- tation companies and other leaders in different enterprises con- ' nected with the general trade. An explanation is probably found in the fact that to a large extent these men are self-made, and owe their prosperity toa most pleasing disposition in the con- duct of business. Capt. David Vance of Milwaukee, who is at the head of the insurance agency bearing his name, and Mr. Stanley B. Smith of Detroit, who operates the Detroit river coal docks, are among this class of lake men. Both were in Cleve- land during the week. H. W. and John D. Baker of Detroit, who released the schooner Gleniffer from the beach on the Canadiaf side of Lake Ontario last season with marked success, a few days ago brought the schooner David Stewart to Cleveland, afterhaving been even more fortunate in removing her from a berth on the shore near Geneva, O., where she had lain all winter. A costly effort last fall to release the Stewart was unsuccessful, but the Baker brothers floated her this spring before the ice had hardly left the shore and they are understood to have profited by their work as the expense was less than $1,000 and they get $5,000 for deliver- ing the boat in dock. Wanted to be a Sailor. M. Quad, whose famous writings on the Detroit Free Press extend back to about the close of the late war, has many times written very interestingly on subjects pertaining to the lakes in the days when seamen were required to handle trim schooners and sailing vessels of allkinds. The Free Press was the first lake newspaper to report the passage of vessels in the Straits and at points along the rivers and was then a favorite journal among lake-faring men. Among M. Quad's amusing writings during that period is the following found recently in a scrap book kept by Capt. Peter Minch of Cleveland: "Seth G. of Virginia writes: 'I have determined to be a sailor on the lakes. I am fifteen years old, and I want to ask you how much pay sailors receive, and how I can get to be one?' "Exactly my boy. If you have determined to become a fresh or salt water sailor the best thing that could happen you would be to give you a chance. Your writing is terribly poor, and it is evident that you have no desire for education. It is quite probable, too, that you intend to run away from home. How- ever, come right along. Some dark night about April 1 tie your clothes up in a red handkerchief, let yourself down on the roof of the woodshed, and drop to the ground with a good-bye to the old home. You can walk to Cleveland, Toledo or Detroit in about four weeks, and by living on bones and crusts and sleep- ing under straw stacks and fence corners you will get toughened up to the sailor business quite a little. When you reach one of the lake ports named, just walk down to the wharves and say to the first captain you meet: '« "Say, captain, I've run away from home to become a sailor, I want to plow the raging main on your schooner. Will you take me?' 'The chances are that he will. You'll sign articles for the voyage or for a month, and in about three minutes after you have put your name to them the plowing will begin. You'll do more hard work ina day than you have done in a week. It won't take you long to discover that vou havea boss. He is called the mate, and it won't make any difference to him whether he hits you with his fists or uses the end of a rope to tickle your back. You will be the drudge and the dog for the ship, and any hesitation about obeying an order will bring you a kick or a cuff. You probably imagine yourself wearing a sailor's hat, silk necktie and flowing pants, and you dream of loafing around _ and listening to yarns trom old Bill, the pirate. Just wait my boy. Your pants will flow with holes and patches, old Bill won't be on that ship, and when the mate catches you loafing around he'll stir you up till you think ot bumble-bees. "The fare may possibly be as good as you get at home,whil the pay of a veteran sailor is about the san.e asa veteran ditch digger. It's all right to read about the 'heaving sea' in feetiy but when the heaving ship heaves, a boy about ycur <¢ge wi wish for his bed in the chamber of the old Virginia homestead. You may see the sun rise out of or sink in the lake, but you'll have tar on your hands, an ache in your back, and the mate close behind you. You'll see gulls, but the smells of the dark forecastle will make you forget the gull question pretty sudden- ly. Maybe they'll let you have a hammock, but after you are called out of it at midnight to go aloft in a gale and hang on with toes and eyelids the romance will disappear. How do I know? Didn't I try it once uponatime? Yes,I did, and it didn't take two days to convince me that 'plowing the raging main' was the hardest plowing any human being ever tried. If I hadn't sailed I should want to beasailor. Nothing will do for you but to try it. Make your arrangements, therefore, and if you are not drowned on the first voyage, and can find your way back to Virginia, you'll return home and be willing to turn the grindstone all day long."