Evening Times Republican

LONG TRIP ON LAUNCH.
Journey of Five Congressmen From Chicago to New Orleans.

Five Illinois congressmen recently sailed from the Columbia Yacht club at Chicago for New Orleans, says the Chicago Post. The party left on Congressman William Lorimer's gasoline launch, equipped for a month's trip, in the interest of the ship canal from Chicago to the gulf. Speeches will be made in all the towns visited along the route, beginning with Joliet and ending at New Orleans, from which point the party will go to Washington. Notes will be taken along the route to be used in urging the ship canal project before congress this winter. Besides Mr. Lorimer there are in the party Congressman Martin B. Madden, Joseph Graff, H. T. Rainey and Howard Snapp.

The launch, known as the Demisol at the Columbia club, is in command of William Lorimer, Jr., the eighteen-year old son of the congressman. Leonard Lorimer, a younger son, is engineer and first mate. The boys have studied all charts available of the Chicago river old Illinois canal and the other waterways between them and their destination.

That the party will not have smooth sailing all the way is expected by all the crew. The first "snag," as it were, was struck before the boat got under way. It was discovered that there was nothing to eat aboard, and Mr. Madden said there was no public house in Lemont where wayfarers could obtain food. Then Mr. Madden as commissary of subsistence ordered that the vessel put in at the Madison Street bridge where a store of ham sandwiches was secured. These rations were expected to hold out until Joliet was sighted.

Captain Lorimer had some difficulty in stowing his party, but finally the little boat was ready to start. Congressmen Graff and Rainey, each of considerable proportions, took their places in the stern, and the remainder of the passengers and crew stowed themselves forward, resting on suit cases, packages and gasoline tanks.

"We will be in New Orleans in less than a month," said Mr. Madden. "The boat goes ten miles an hour, and if we sail ten hours a day that will be a hundred miles a day."

The Demisol is only twenty-six feet long, and after the machinery has been taken care of there was less than fifty square feet of deckroom left. However, all hands expect to spend every night ashore in the towns visited. The boat will be sold in New Orleans.