PARSONS AS JONAHS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17259, 24 September 1921, Page 2

PARSONS AS JONAHS.

AN ARCHDEACON'S ADVENTUBES AT SEA.

(FROM OUR OWN COnEESPOS'DENT.) SYDNEY, September 14. .Sturdy and humorous to his fingertips and the grandson of Australia's first white woman, Archdeacon Ookes ia known and loved by settlers in the most remote parts of New South Wales. On foot and on horseback, in a gig and, in more recent years, by motorcar, there are few parts of tho Far West that he has not visited, and in all his long tcurs he used to leave a trail of marriages and baptisms behind him. One night, he relates, a nervou3 bushman approached him nt a distant homestead and asked if he wouid be prepared to marry him on the following morning before he was in his saddle and off at 6 a.m. "Certainly," said the Arehdeaeon, • "and who is tho lady?" The prospective bri beos>me reticent. The f"ct of the matter was, • he confided, he had not proposed yet! However, he was ready at 5 o'c'ocfc the next morning with his bride, and the Archdeacon's morning meal was a wedding breakfast. At the' present moment tlie Archdeacon is visiting Northern Queensland, nnd in a letter relates an amusing storj* against the cloth of the trip up the coast. "The sailors," he say 6, "evidently believe the s,tory of Jonah and the whale. There were, as a matter of fact, three 'Jonahs' on board—a Roman Catholic priest, a Mcfchodi.st , parson, nnd myself. One priest, thev said, means being an hour or two late; three mearfs four hours' delay, with the possibility of the ship going to the bottom 1 "Certainly the captain told us that the second night at sea was the worst he had experienced for some years. Ho was called to tho bridge at 3 a.m., and had. an anxious time. There was a 50milo gale, together with a seven-knot current, black darkness, and blinding j rain. At 7 a.m. a steam pipe blew out, and the vessel wan delayed exactly four hours. 'lt's all through those Jonahs,' the sailors. Very few of us went I to breakfast next morning, and most of the passengers cancelled their through tickets at Gladstone, and took tho tram to Brisbane. I decided to remain aboard, though I was frankly assured that if things did not improve I should be handed.to the whale 1 Strange to say, the other two Jonahs Jiau no sooner gone than the sea becan\e decentlv smooth, the storm completely abating. My character was quite reI habilitated."