“A Light to the Town and a Lamp to the Tide.”
Forecast for the twenty-four hours ending midnight: Fresh to strong south-westerly winds; showers; fog dispersing by degrees; glass falling.
Arrived, Monday
Sailed, Monday
In the Roads
And thirty-seven others, fog-bound, whose names could not be read from the Signal Station.The Lady Hester weighed at 3.40 a.m. and is berthing at the Ore Wharf; the other thirty-nine making ready.
Forty Vessels at Anchor in the RoadsPilot Cutter Reports the Roads Clearing
Ferry Strikes Buoy; No Lives LostForty Vessels Weigh; Ferry Buoy Recovered
Harbour Master’s Remarkable StatementHarbour Master’s Further Remarkable Statement
The densest fog within living memory came down upon Saint Elmo’s Bay at four o’clock yesterday afternoon, and by nightfall the business of the port was at a complete stand. Forty vessels lie at anchor in the Roads, their bells answering one another like so many impatient churches, and not a keel has moved above the Mole since the lamps were lit.
The mail steamer Orinthia, from Lisbon, was the last to make a berth. She was brought alongside the Victoria Quay by the sound of the Custom House clock and, it is said, by the smell of the kippering sheds, which her pilot declared the surest sea-mark on the coast.
The Ferry MishapAt twenty minutes to seven the Corporation paddle ferry Marigold, crossing from Quarry Stairs to Northshore with 112 passengers and the Northshore Silver Band, struck the No. 3 Bell Buoy a glancing blow upon the port sponson. No lives were lost. A crate of eleven hens and a euphonium went overboard; the hens swam ashore in good order, and the euphonium was heard to sound once, mournfully, as it sank.
The buoy, which broke adrift, was last heard tolling in the direction of the gasworks. Mariners are warned that it is no longer to be relied upon.
Harbour Master’s StatementCaptain Josiah Penhallow, R.N.R., the Harbour Master, made the following statement to our representative at nine o’clock:—“In one-and-forty years I have seen nothing to equal it. I held my hand before my face and could not find it; I am informed by the Mate that it was there throughout. This is not a local fog. It is a fog of a foreign character, and I shall say so to the Commissioners.”
Asked when the port might reopen, Captain Penhallow replied that he would open it directly he could see it.
Latest4 a.m.—LatestMidnight.—The fog remains as thick as a blanket. The Signal Station reports the glass falling and a breath of wind from the south-west, but cannot see its own flagstaff. Fog-guns are being fired from the Mole at half-minute intervals, and householders in Mariner’s Row are asked to bear with them.Four o’clock.—The pilot cutter Petrel reports the Roads clearing from the south-west before a freshening breeze. The ore steamer Lady Hester weighed at 3.40, the first of the forty, and the ferry service will be resumed at six. The No. 3 Buoy has been found against the gasworks jetty, uninjured and still ringing. Captain Penhallow states that he can now see his hand, and is satisfied with it.
The “Courier” Fog ServiceBulletins are posted hourly in the window of this Office, 7 Packet Lane, and will be read aloud, upon request, to any person unable to find it.
Mayor Opens the Corporation’s New Line
Ratepayers Protest at “The Penny-Three-Farthing Folly”
The horse car is no more. At noon yesterday the Mayor, Alderman Thomas Wickett, J.P., turned a silver key at the Pilchard Street depot and declared the Corporation’s electric tramway, from the Custom House to the summit of Gallows Hill, open to the public for ever.
The line is a mile and three furlongs in length and has cost the borough £48,600. Car No. 1, garlanded with daffodils and bearing the Mayor, the Town Clerk and as many councillors as could be accommodated on the upper deck, set out amid cheers at six minutes past twelve.
A Hat LostThe ascent of Gallows Hill was accomplished in four minutes, against eleven by the old horse car and seven by a man walking. The only casualty was his Worship’s silk hat, which was lifted from his head by the trolley rope at the Ropewalk curve and carried the remainder of the journey upon the overhead wire, where it was much admired.
The ProtestThe proceedings were not unanimous. Some thirty members of the Ratepayers’ Vigilance League, led by Mr. Ezra Pollard, of Gallows Hill, walked ahead of the car carrying a banner inscribed “A Penny-Three-Farthings on the Rates.” Mr. Pollard told our representative that he had climbed the hill on his own legs for sixty years and saw no reason why the borough should be taxed to carry other people up it.
He was afterwards observed to return to the Custom House by the 12.40 car. The fare is one penny.
Fireman and the Pillar-Box
“Sufficiently Prepaid”
At the Borough Police Court yesterday, before Mr. H. St. John Carew, Stipendiary, Thomas Geake, 34, ship’s fireman, of no fixed vessel, was charged with being drunk and disorderly in Packet Lane on Saturday night.
P.C. Tregear said he found the defendant endeavouring to enter a pillar-box feet foremost. He stated that he wished to be forwarded to Cardiff, and drew attention to a stamp upon his forehead.
The Stipendiary: Was it a penny stamp?—Witness: Three-halfpence, your Worship.—The Stipendiary: Then he was at least sufficiently prepaid. (Laughter.)
Fined five shillings. The stamp was returned to him.
The Horse KnewWilliam Odgers, carter, summoned for driving a coal wagon without lights during the fog, said the horse knew the way. The horse was not called. Dismissed with a caution.
A Question of HensMrs. Loveday Kitto, of Signal Terrace, sought advice concerning eleven hens which arrived upon her doorstep, wet, on Monday evening. The Stipendiary said he could not advise her to keep them and would not advise her to eat them. She should consult the advertisement columns.
Circus Performer Breakfasts on Eleven Mackerel and a Turbot
Applauded Himself and Left by the Fish Steps
Early porters at the Fish Quay were yesterday treated to a performance for which, in the ordinary way, the public pays sixpence. “Admiral,” the educated sea-lion of Signor Bartolo’s Grand Continental Circus, now wintering at the Old Rope Walk, let himself out of his tank on Sunday night and was not missed until he was seen, at five in the morning, seated upon the marble slab of Mr. Abel Nancarrow, fish salesman.
By the time Mr. Nancarrow arrived the animal had disposed of eleven mackerel and a turbot, the latter valued at fourteen shillings. Upon the completion of each fish he clapped his flippers and bowed to the company.
P.C. Tregear, who was sent for, stated that he approached the sea-lion and was offered a haddock. He declined it. The animal thereupon descended the Fish Steps with great dignity and was lost to view in the fog.
Seen at NorthshoreLater reports, which we give with reserve, place the animal at the bathing-machines at Northshore, on the roof of the lifeboat house, and in the second-class saloon of the ferry Marigold, where he is said to have tendered a mackerel for his fare.
Signor Bartolo offers a reward of one guinea, and begs that the public will on no account applaud.
Our Serial Story
Chapter XIV.—What the Keeper Saw
Readers will recall that Hester Vane, having discovered her uncle’s ledger in the oil-store, has rowed alone to Sorrel Point to warn the keeper, old Amos Trudgeon, that the lamp is to be put out upon the night of the spring tide.
The stair wound upward into darkness, and with every turn the voice of the sea grew fainter and the tick of the great clockwork grew more distinct, until it seemed to Hester that she climbed within the breast of some patient iron creature.
Amos Trudgeon did not turn as she entered the lantern. He stood with one brown hand upon the brass rail, looking not at the lamp but through it, to the place where the Shearwater Rock should have shown its tooth above the tide.
“You’ve come about the ledger,” he said.
Hester’s heart stood still. “You know of it?”
“I’ve kep’ this light three-and-thirty year, miss. A man that watches ships learns to watch men.” He lifted the trimming-cloth from the rail and folded it small. “Your uncle’s lugger went out on the ebb with no lamp at her mast. She’s lying under the Point this minute. I can’t see her. But I can see the gulls that won’t settle.”
Below them, very faintly, a door closed.
The old man looked at the girl for the first time, and she saw that he was not afraid, and wished with her whole soul that he had been.
“That’ll be him now,” said Amos. “Stand you behind the lens, miss, where the glass is thickest—and whatever you may hear, do not let the clock run down.”
(To be continued to-morrow.)
Match Abandoned, the Ball Being Mislaid
Bay & District League
| Leading clubs | P. | W. | Pts. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ropewalk Rovers | 22 | 16 | 35 |
| Dockers’ Inst. | 22 | 14 | 31 |
| Northshore W. | 21 | 11 | 27 |
| Gasworks Ath. | 22 | 9 | 22 |
Cricket
Drill Hall Winter League (matting wicket).—Harbour Commissioners, 94 (Capt. Penhallow not out 31; Bolitho 5 for 22). Pilots’ Association, 88 (Tregear 40). The Commissioners won by six runs. Bad light stopped play twice, the gas being low, and once more when a drive from Capt. Penhallow extinguished it altogether.
Fixtures
Saturday.—Gasworks Athletic v. Ropewalk Rovers, at the Retort Ground, 3 p.m., weather and visibility permitting. A whistle of greater power has been procured.
Customs & Excise v. Dockers’ Institute, at the Bonded Field, 3 p.m. Spectators are reminded that the touch-line is not a queue.
Sixteen words, sixpence. Readers may mark with a pencil those they wish to answer.
To AdvertisersSmall advertisements for to-morrow’s issue are received at the Office until nine o’clock this evening; replies to box numbers should not enclose fish.
Printed and published for the Proprietors, The Harbour Courier Company, Limited, by James Trewhella, at their Offices, 7 Packet Lane, Saint Elmo’s Bay. Telegrams: “Courier, Saint Elmo’s.” Telephone: Bay 41.