The Providence News

HARDING TELLS TALE OF SEA.

Grandson of a Chicago Lawyer Says He Was "Shanghaied."

INVITED ON BOARD VESSEL.

Anchor Weighed and He Found Himself a Member of the Crew Bound From New York to Calcutta.

Chicago, Oct. 18.--'Shanghaied' and forced to serve as a common sailor before the mast on a sailing vessel bound from New York to Calcutta, India, Abner C. Harding, Jr., the grandson of George W. Harding, a wealthy Chicago lawyer has just returned to his home in this city after a cruise of more than a year.

Harding left Chicago, according to his own story, a boy of nineteen, in February 1900, for a visit in New York city. Shortly after his arrival there he made the acquaintance of the proprietor of a sailor's lodging house, who invited him on board a vessel in the harbor. A few minutes later the anchor was weighed and Harding carried out to sea. In alarm he sought the captain of the vessel, who coolly informed him that a contract had been signed with the lodging house keeper for Harding's service as a sailor for the next five years. Fifteen dollars had been paid to the keeper as Harding's wages for the first three months. Whatever other money was due the young man, it was stated, would be paid him in person at the end of the time for which he had been engaged.

Harding then was told, he says, that the ship was an English vessel bound for Calcutta with a cargo of paraffine oil. For weeks he suffered from sea-sickness. The work he was forced to do and the wretched food provided the sailors made him long for death as a pleasant alternative and when, in rounding the Cape of Good Hope and later in passing north through the Bay of Bengal, the ship tossed for weeks at the mercy of a gale that threatened to tear her to pieces, Harding, according to his story, was indifferent as to whether he and his fellow men survived or perished.

When the vessel arrived in Calcutta in August Harding made his escape only to be attacked, he declares, by India fever and confined in a Calcutta hospital for five weeks. On his recovery he found himself without funds and the only work he could obtain was that of a sailor on board a vessel bound for British Guinea with a consignment of 700 coolies for English companies in South America. The coolies were herded like sheep between decks and not a day passed during the trip around the Cape of Good Hope that one or more of them did not die. A large red shark, the young man related, had followed the vessel from the Bay of Bengal to the cape, and the only amusement provided Harding and his fellows by the captain was tossing the bodies of the dead coolies overboard to the scavenger below. Harding himself became an expert in such employment, and records the fact that one day he tossed a coolie right into the mouth of the big fellow."

SAILED BACK TO NEW YORK

Unloading what remained of the cargo of coolies at Georgetown, British Guinea the ship proceeded to Trinidad and then set sail for New York. In reaching that port sixty-eight days were consumed, owing to fierce storms encountered off Cape Hatteras. When the vessel finally came to anchor in the harbor Harding found himself bound by a contract he had signed at Calcutta to four years' additional services before the mast By the payment of $20 he was released from his obligation and obtained what remained of his wages for his services during the voyage from Calcutta, in all $5. His parents had searched for him for a year and then given him up for dead.