Southold High School - Snuffbox Yearbook (Southold, NY)

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THE SNUFF BOX not know the hell that was in store for them, black ivory! They were put in tiers without room to move, let alone sit up. Three or four of the poor devils tried to escape hut were whipped to death to make an example of them before the others. After these two weeks, the vessel set sail, and we headed back to America. Once every two days or so. the slaves were brought up on deck and made to dance to limber up their cramped legs. The ones who disobeyed were whipped cruelly with a cat-o'-nine-tails weighted with lead. After three weeks, sickness broke out among the blacks, and about five bodies a day were cast overboard. About this time our water supply ran short and so the blacks got none. Many died of thirst and suffocation. The stench became so terrible that it couldn’t be borne. Because of this, all the hatches were closed, which made it even worse for the blacks. Two more weeks went by. and things became much worse. By then, we were nearing America, and great care had to be taken. Two days after this, we spoke a sail on the horizon. Immediately, we put on more canvas because we did not wish to be spoken. In spite of this she gained steadily and was abreast of us by the middle of the afternoon. 1 was very happy to see that she was a man-o’-war, for the sake of the blacks in the hold, even though it meant jail and maybe death for me if we were captured. However, to my dismay, she did not make us heave to for search, but kept on. Acting on the impulse of the moment, 1 leapt into the ratlines and. drawing two handkerchiefs from my pocket, signalled desperately in the code my father had taught me in my youth. Suddenly, a pistol spoke beside me. and 1 felt a searing pain in my side. Then 1 felt myself falling, falling deep into a dark, fathomless pit. and knew no more. When 1 awoke. I found myself in a comfortable bunk in a small stateroom. A man was bending over me and had evidently just finished dressing my side. He informed me that, thanks to me, the slaver had been captured and was on its way back to Africa under a prize crew. “Then I’m not a prisoner? 1 spoke wonderingly. “Why, youngster. he said to me. “the credit of capturing the slaver goes to you!” 1 drifted off to sleep happily, knowing that I had accomplished my task. VERSE A little bit of thoughtfulness. As you have all heard told. Makes a mind of truthfulness And a heart of gold. 29 B. L. L.

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THE SNUFF BOX coils of wire and magnets, but without success. It was not his way to give up, and finally he discovered the secret; motion was needed either in the coil or magnet. Though he was forty years old. he danced around his laboratory like a boy. He built a larger machine than the one used in the experiments, and was able to make a spark jump a small gap. These discoveries were the forerunner of the modern dynamo and electric light. Faraday also set about standardizing measurements of electric power. Years of hard work in the laboratory, lectures in the afternoons and evenings was a hard grind for Michael. He had always been troubled with a bad memory, and this intense thinking made him worse. He realized this loss of memory and hated to talk because he could not work; he wanted to talk of his work. He found it necessary to seek a variety of mantal relaxations. He traveled and visited all sorts of places for amusement. Fie spent much time in the zoological gardens watching the animals. Many universities bestowed degrees upon him at this time, and because of his poor health he refused the presidency of the Royal Institution. All his successes and honors did not change him. He merely grew older mentally and physically. On June 20, 1862 he gave his last lecture. He lived for five more years, fading in mind and body. On August 25, 1867 he passed into a sleep from which he did not awaken. Michael Faraday had finished his work. He made possible this wonderful age of electricity in which we now live. R. H.. ’35. BLACK IVORY There I was, thousands of miles from home, somewhere off the dark, dark coast of Africa, and aboard what I had come to learn was a slave ship. I was born in Massachusetts in 18—, of a good New England family. I had early expressed a desire to go to sea, which was against my father’s wishes. However, being set in my ways, as was my father, who had been in the Navy in his younger years, I stole away one night and shipped on a vessel as a cabin boy. My father came aboard hunting for me. suspecting that I would try to ship, but I bribed the second mate, who had charge of the vessel at that time, to deny having seen me and thus I escaped. 1 soon discovered that the vessel was a slaver, but it was too late then, to turn back. I determined, however, to betray her to the authorities, if I ever had the chance, even though it meant my own capture. When we reached the coast of Africa, the captain went ashore and immediately started bargaining with a native chief, who had been expecting us, for his prisoners from the interior. We stayed on the coast for two weeks, loading hundreds of negroes who did 28

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THE SNUFF BOX THE CRIPPLED AND DEAD Mud! Everything in France was mud; or so it seemed to me, who had been plodding along with my regiment, which was nearing the front, all day. It does grow rather tiresome to lift from five to ten pounds of mud with each step you take, and to have to get off the road every once in a while for every brass hat’s aide on his motorcycle. In the distance we could hear the deep boom of cannon. At last, about five o’clock, we stopped in a small shell-torn wood for a rest and something to eat. One of the men built a small fire to warm himself. About fifteen minutes later a “frog” officer came running around a bend in the road and yelled something at us in French. Immediately orders were give, and we were soon put of the woods. None too soon, either, for just then a bombardment of the woods started. They must have seen our fire. Luckily for the man who had built this fire, nothing was done about it. At midnight we reached the trenches, and then came the bugs— cooties, to be exact. They soon had us well populated. Boy, did they itch! Thank goodness, we soon got used to them. About this time 1 struck up a friendship with a man in our platoon, and we became buddies. We shared everything. Then one awful day, we were ordered over the top—a charge! Over we went, climbed and cut through the barbed wire entanglements and broke into a run. Men were falling all around me when suddenly my buddy, who was beside me, fell. I dropped down beside him to see if he were badly hurt. Fie opened his eyes and spoke to me. He could not speak very plainly as he had been hit in the left lung, and blood was filling his mouth; but he got these words out, slowly: “Listen, Bud, I’m slipping fast. Tell my folks my last thought was for them, and—and so long, mon frere.” Then he gasped and died, there beside me. I lifted his body and took him sadly back to the long rows of dead and dying and returned to seek my regiment. Failing in this, I slept in a shell hole, and we charged again in the morning. 1 his time it was even worse. More and more men fell. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my left leg. and then I knew no more. When I came to, I was lying in a long row of wounded. I tried to move my leg, and then the horrible realization that 1 had no leg dawned upon me. To think that I must be a cripple all the rest of my life! I was later sent back to the States. That is what the war meant to me; losing my leg and my best friend. ar isn t romantic, youngster. I he man becomes a machine sent out to destroy other machines and be destroyed by machines. What chance has a mere man in a modern war? It’s for young-people like you that we try to prevent war. You'll be the machines that are crippled and killed, in the next war. 30