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26 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. [May 7, LIFE IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE. Romantic and picturesque smugglers of the ccast, who plied their dangerous work of luring ships on the rocks by falsa beacons, have practically disappeared from North America, and with the best lighted and patroled coasts in the world there is little opportunity for these latter-day pirates to operate. 'The lit- tle smuggling that is carried on is of a petty nature, and consists chiefly in carrying a few goods across the Canadian boundary by small peddlers and tradesmen. Occasionally a s!oop or fishing schooner is fitted out in some Newfoundland or Canadian port with a small cargo of goods, and after loading up with dried or salted fish to conceal the real nature of her business, she will attempt to make the run to some American port «n the Atlantic coast to discharge her. dutiable cargo. But such experiments are of the most risky and adventurous character and the alert revenue officers discourage a se:ond undertaking in the most efficient way. It is rarely that such a load of smuggled goods passes inspection and reaches its dcstination without being seized. The smuggler has thus been practically eliminated from the ocean, and if he operates at all it is chiefly on land. Consider- ing the vastness of the American seacoasts and th> width of the great oceans which wash either shore, this is no small accomplish- ment for the reventie service. From the northern coast of Maine to New Orleans, the coast is patrolled by revenue cutters, the duties of which are primarily to p-event or stop smuggling, and, secondarily, to look after the general interests of shipping and shipwrecked mariners. On the Pacific coast the revenue patrol extends from Alaska to Mexico. The duties there are somewhat different from those demanded on the Atlantic coast. 'The revenue officers act as policemen at the internaticnal boundary, where the seal and whale fisheries are constantly cnusing disputes, and in some of the isolated fishing hamlets and villages they act as health boards to stamp out smallpox or other contagious dis- eases. Smuggline would undoubtedly quickly flourish again along the extensive seacoasts if eternal vigilance was not exercised by the revenue cutters. In the past twenty years some gigantic plans for smuggling have been frustrated by the modest young officers connected with the service. Their detective and police work has proved so successful that unlimited praise should be bestowed upon them. The fact that the high seas are safer today from robbers, pirates, and smug¢lers than the streets of large cities is evidence that the revenue officers perform their duty without fear or favor. The revenue cutter actively employed in patrolling the coast has a large beat, extending hundreds of miles along a shore in- dented by scores of sharp coves, bays, and sounds suitable for smuggling purposes. A glance at a map of almost any section of the country will show how difficult it must be fcr the revenue cutters to patrol every part of it. There are hidden bays and 'coves where cluster legends of shipwreck and smuggling in the days before lighthouses cast their warning lights far out to sea; high, rocky headlands where many a good ship has tripped in the darkness and struggled vainly against wind and wave to escape the relentless clutch of the sea; stretches of sandbars and treacherous shoals and rock-ribbed, desolate islaads where un- fortunate seamen have starved and waited in vain for help to come. All of these desolate places the revenue cutters are sup- posed to visit at regular intervals. After each heavy storm the exposed parts of the coast must be visited to pick up shipwrecked sailors or to report disabled barks. No fishing hamlet off the coast is too small or insignificant) 10 be ignored. Time and again the revenue cutters have proved the salvation of whole colonies of fishermen. Cut off from the rest of the world by high tides and hurricanes, with their lomes flooded, and in some instances washed out to sea, the inhabitants have starved and frozen until the welcome revenue cutter appeared with clothing and food. In this work of humanity and mercy the revenue service may be said to be a complement to the lighthouse service. 'T'he latter warns and directs the mariner, and the former goes about to pick up and succor the shipwrecked, who in spite of warning signals have fallen afoul of rocks and shoals. All through the days and nights immediately after a storm at sea the revenue cutters steam up and down the coast hunting for wrecks or disabled craft. Every part of the coast is carefully examined, and the paths of commerce are followed to find drifting derelicts. These float- ing menaces_to commerce must be speedily located and destroyed, or they may cause the sinking of some large ocean steamer with its hundreds of passengers on board. When a derelict is dis- covered it is either towed by the cutter to some neighboring har- bor or blown up by the cutter's guns or dynamited. he equipment of the cutters is probably the most complete of any class of government boats. Besides guns and dynamite apparatus for blowing up derelicts or for attacking smugglers, they carry medical appliances for wounded or frostbitten sailors, complete fumigating and disinfectant supplies for stamping out contagious diseases in small fishing hamlets, provisions and cloth- ing sufficient for a whole hamlet of starving and freezing peo- ple, and steam, electric and hydraulic machinery for towing dis- abled vessels at sea. The latest and most modern of the revenue cutters have the appearance of trim little war vessels, and in times of war they do become members of this branch of the public service. 'The navy department then employs them as dispatch boat:. The Semi- nole, which is stationed on the New England coast, is a fair representative of this class of boat. She is 188 ft long and can steam 18 knots an hour. She carries three light guns as her peace armament, but she is fitted to carry heavier ones in time of need. Over sixty men make their home on the Seminole. The equipment of the cutter is designed to make the quarters for the crew and officers as comfortable as possible, and the men enjoy the life exceedingly. But the officers and crew are never located permanently in one section. They are shifted around continu- ally, so that they see service in ail parts of the country. One season they mav patrol the New England coast, an' the following find their station moved to Alaska or on the Gulf coast. In this way monotony and discontent are avoided. An officer who has been in the service a dozen years has con- sequently seen service on all sections of the coasis, having been successively shifted from one station to another until the whole circuit has been completed. As the duties of the different sta- tions differ very much, the new officer or member of the crew has much to learn. He is not considered thoroughly educated in his' work until he has practically been on every station. . Very often the revenue cutters on the Atlantic coast are ordered to a station on the Pacific, and the officers and crew tike their little craft around Cape Horn and pay visits to unfrequented portions of the southern hemisphere. The officers of the revenue cu:ters are graduates of Annapo- lis or of the schoolship Chase, which belongs to the service and which is continually recruiting young sailors and officers for fu- ture work on the cutters. The cngineer officers of the cutters are from the different technical schools. The civil service exam- inations required to enter the revenue service ate severe, and require for the different grades quite a wide knowledge of affairs. The officers, besides their technical education, are supposed to know all the matters and rules pertaining to United States cus- _ toms laws, and those who have heen longest in the service are quite well educated in general international maritime AW. os In many instances they are placed in positions where they must act as representatives of the government in important mat- ters. According to their acts must. often be determined the drift of international disputes. whe revenue officer who knows just when to seize a ship of a foreign nation caught poaching on pri- vate fishing preserves, and when to draw a fine line of legal dis- tinction between an offense and one that merely approaches to, but does not quite overstep, the boundary, is a man whose ser- vices are specially needed in those quarters of the globe where the different nations' interests are apt to clash. Many a revenue officer on the Pacific coast has saved thousands cf dollars and endless meetings of committees by discretion of .action founded upon a thorough knowledge of international maritime law. The revenue officer in command of a cutter is thus a police- man, and oftentimes a judge with wide discreticnary powers. Some days his duty is merely of a petty, routine character, but occasionally there dawns a day wnen the best of his intellect is taxed to decide questions of world-wide importance. He has no library to refer to; no helpful legal associates to guide him; but he must reach a decision promptly and immediately of his own will, So thoroughly familiar are these revenue officers with the coast which they patrol that in emergencies they can act as scouts and spies for the navy or other. branches of the government. During the Spanish war the cutters were turned over-to the navy department, and they were organized as a part of the so-called mosquito fleet. They not only performed great service in this field, but many of their officers acted as pilots on the troopships. When the smallpox broke out in Sitka, Alaska, a year ago, and threatened to become epidemic throughout the whole of that part of the coast, it was Lieut. Winram of the revenue service, stationed at that port, who had complete charge of stamping. out the disease, saving the natives from an epidemic which would have decimated their numbers more than the rigors of the cold climate. Several times the revenue officers in the far north have had to face this scourge and employ harsh methods of extermi- nating it. The tendency of the disease to spread among the natives in that portion of the globe is so great that revenue officers have absolute police power to take complete charge of any village or town threatened with the disease and to isolate it until the epidemic is checked. Every season hundreds of lives of starving and freezing sailors are saved by the revenue officers and crews of the cutters. These shipwrecked men are picked up by the vigilant cutters from islands, wreckage, and from ships caught on the rocks or shoals. In the north and south, on the Atlantic and Pacific coast, the disasters of the sea are beyond the prediction or wise pre- vention of man. The lighthouse service can merely warn the ships off certain rocks, and the life saving station men can only rescue those unfortunates cast upon their particular section of the coast; but the revenue cutter men sail forth to look for them and pick them up from out-of-way places where they have been cast up by the sea. Life on the cutters is not altogether inactive and monoton- ous, and in the pleasant summer scason there is more of pleasure than of hard duty. The cutters visit port after port, and the men 'have. a few hours ashore frequently. 'They touck at seaside re- sorts, and for a short time mingle with those of their kind en- gaged in pleasure seeking. The revenue officers are always welcome visitors at the different ports and summer places which they touch. Every lonely inhabitant of a lighthouse or light- ship hails the cutters with genuine joy. Frequently they are the means of bringing relief to the lonely watchers by the sea. Last