THE PRICE OF BREAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13727, 18 April 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE PRICE OF BREAD.

HOW IT IS BROUGHT CHEAPLY TO EKG'L&p. *' Th»: GRAtx-CAaftntwC' by Kd**rd Noble (Blackwood, Edinburgh!, to which much attention i* being dr*wn. is » wrict of living pictures in which the craw, tor cheapness is pitilessly pilloried. Alter one. of the '* warehouse)* founder* off th* Horn, the survivors are in an open boat *m an Antarctic Sea. Collins, waiting for (he Magician to find them, is atdi the British ct*/t*in. 1 he crew slept, on. Only the one stirrer far in the bow*. Then suddenly he leaped erect and stood brandishing arm,* at the pitiless star?. The boat lurched violently, and Collins espied him. "Stand ."till he ordered. "Sit doirn '.'' The man shorted with laughter. Shook with it. He climbed on » thwart and stood balanced, amazingly dexterous. Collins found his revolver. "Sit down!" he cried out, stem,, swift to ad in the presence of this peril. "Sit * —do you hear "!" "Sit be -dolled—sit yourself! I'm tired of sittin' .... tired—sec. . . ." __ The man moved aft, lurching over th« figures which lav. He maintained hi? balance on the thwarts, approaching slowly, head thrust out. " You have whisky "' lie shoutej. " Give us .1 drink ! A drink— h— ! sire us -i drink ...."' He paused, sway ins; above them. The j boat rocked. Collins lifted his revolver and fired. l»i,,g ' The man span in the air—a swift teetotum movement — limbed sidelong into the sea. But the beat maintained its plate. Again there was .-Heme, And when resotiod he discovers that his frost-bitten feet are mortifying. Col iins turns to Iris friend, McNeil, and commands an operation. This will interest surgeons accustomed to modern hospitals ; M> X-al bent over his task. Trt'lanick, the steward, and Freddy | were his assistants. One held » sponge, I the other a lamp: Trt'lanick handed and j prepared the tools. As an aueethotist the j steward had hul a little experience, but he was tractable; as an assistant Freddy was useless, but In could hold « lamp as well as the next. He wa* learning, too, the business which one day he himself must conduct,

Collins lay on an improvised bed, » shutter-like contrivance of plank? at which our hospitals would shudder. 11 rested on the boy'f> sea-chests. He lay there in a profound stupor, eyes fixed", breathing strenuomlv: ho | Bv without movement, limp, like a bag " half-filled with sand. The air was heavy with a curious odour blend of carbolic and chloroform, carbolic predominating. At. the side of the plank bed hung two lamp;', suspended tiorn the adjacent bunk; at its foot, and slung from the beams, was a largt? dioptric riding-light. In all its rough-hewn year.- the boys' quarters had never be tort! been so brilliantly illuminated. Collins reclined on the board.*, hit" shoulders slightly raised, his legs stripped. _ Freddy, white to the bps-, stood focussing a bull's-eye on one leg. McNcal stooped <> -j it. bare-armed, handling a tool which gritted under the movement he gave it. A t< mil, as of water drip ping in a pool, accompanied it. McNcal sawed. Overhead, searching the mis!,, Philip crept about the poop, a cold sweat on his brow. He noted the glare thrown by the deadlights over the half -deck—*aw that it twisted and flowed away like luminous steam ; examiwd the corresponding dead-lights of the room where Kite slept, and saw they were dark. No gleam anywhere except there where Colling lay; only the solemn drip of moisture from aloft-an echo of the pound within. Darkness, silence, mist on deck ; light, movement, speed in the half-deck. Opposite poles. De-vine praying for the moment to pass; Collins, with staring eye*, happily unconscious that anyone prayed. He lay on his back muttering; the steward h.!d closer the sponge; Freddy, whiter, more intent than before, pushed nearer, holding the lamp with a grasp that trembled. McNcal no longer sawed. He lifted a red hand and held it towards Trelanick—"(Jut," he demanded— a mere whisper of sound. The carpenter passed it, and the hand moved back. McNeal stooped over the shorn leg, gathering the red flesh, tying the arteries. His lips ere set in line, his gaze concentrated, his lingers moved swiftly. From time to time he raised his head and glanced at the steward. The steward, holding the man's puis.-, nodded back. He picked up scissors, snipped the silken fastening, and stooped again, busy with the led flesh. Snip. Snip. Intervals intervening, and amidst it the mind of water dripping in a pool. McNeal straightened his back. He plunged his hands in a bucket, and the smell of carbolic became stronger. He bathed the flesh—" mopping up," he termed it, in his beard— again hi? voice sounded. " Loose yon lashing." Trelanii released a tourniquet and stood watching. McNeal bent down— Light here .... close," he.whirpered. Freddy advanced. In his eyes was a scared look quit*' foreign to him— but he remained steady, instantly obedient. McNeal fingered the ties. I'm come minutes he watched and sponged ; then again he looked —"Gauze," he demanded, " wool." He. dressed the wound. Silently, without a quiver, McNeal accomplished this task ; then taking the tourniquet from Trelaniek, he fastened it about the other leg. He stared at his patient, lingered hi- pulse, nodded at the stcwatd, and bent down. Again he took up the knife and stoopedcutting, [dunging it in water; again laid aside the knife, and pushing Freddy near or the bunk, took a fie.di tool from Tic lanick. Again he sawed. Collins brejthed hard, his face pucker ed with effort. The steward watched him. .McNeal moved swiftly now. Once more came the. cry for gut, for wool, gauze; once more the flow was slopped, and McNeal tree to lift a straight back over the bed. "That will do," he said. "Take it awa'." The steward obeyed, and McNcal came over and seated himself beside his patient. He looked proud. "If any of you," he, whispered, " want tae make sure o' frost-bite, fill your sea-boots wit? water an' lie till ye"een feel naething. Then come tae me—l'll doeter ye." Collins breathed less heavily, and McNeal turned to watch. " Eigh !" he said softly, " but he's cornin' to bonny—bonny." And front-without came, the wheezy not* of the foghorn, the ripple of water moving past the ship's gaunt side, the cry of Cape pigeons fighting, like plover in a newlv-ploughed held, for scraps. And this is the lesson of " The Cram Carriers," the requiem over the sinking Padrone, struck to the heart by a gigantic wave : "The Padrone lorded nothing at this moment-least of all herself. She ley guzzling the sea which had conquered her. As a waichouse she was a failure; as a ship, inefficient; as a competitor with the Germans, the French, and all the tribe who stood smiling at her ugliness, she was unfit. She lacked strength. She lacked honest work at the hands of those who built her. She lacked buoyancy, all the attributes, of a ship. Sin/ was a tank, a biscuit box rounded at the ends; and the nation which desire; cheap grain, cheap cloaks, cheap pots and pans, in order that it may find more spate cash for beer and music-halls, which justifies competition—the tierce, throat competition of modern days— may take her as a sample of the coffins which crawl the world's gr.wt waterways that it may live."