STEAMSHIPS AND SUBSIDIES 215 



to pieces, we're making no headway, and we are 

 at the end of our coal." We were looking like a 

 wreck, paddle boxes torn away, and the great 

 skeleton paddle wheels laboring as they revolved 

 with many of their paddle boards missing. The 

 captain continued, — "I may have to go about, or 

 try to, any minute and then your house will go 

 overboard the first thing and we'll be lucky if 

 that is all that happens." 



"Isn't there plenty of woodwork about the ship 

 that can be taken without weakening her, furni- 

 ture, my house, and the coal bunkers?" 



"It wouldn't last any time at all. We've got 

 several hundred tons of sugar aboard and that 

 burns when the store that holds it is on fire; I 

 never heard of its being tried under a boiler, but 

 it's all that is left to us." 



"I hope it will work," I replied, "and the boxes 

 that hold it will help some, but I'm afraid you'll 

 have a foot of molasses in the fire room in an 

 hour." 



The experiment, unique so far as I ever heard, 

 was an amazing success. Boxes of sugar were 



