Still Working.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 7, 3 October 1907, Page 11

Still Working.

NONOGEN ASIAN'S CAP.EER.

Who Slid: "Too old ai forty?" Sydney Talbot is not too old at ninety-eight..

Until, a few weeks ago (cays a Home paper) lie was in active work as an engineer 011 bor.r(l the deep sea tug Ulin. 'l'lkmi a "slight indisposition," as ho, terms it.—it was a touch of paralysis— compelled him to go into the Seamen's Hospital Society's Institution at the Albert 'flouts, lie is recovering rapidly, however, and expects to return, to work in a few days. Long-live.! Family. He confidently anticipates living another six or seven years, and bases his expectation o ntlic following family record leather died at JOG • Jtotlicr' ~ ~ 195 Sister „ „ 102 Sister „ ~ 102 A reporter visited Talbot in the hospital. Above his bed hung the usual card, bearing his name and age, and particulars of his illness. But Talbot was not in bed. Jle was walking briskly, with the aid of a stick, about the ward, cracking jokes. His cheeks are fairly full and rosy, with little of the parchment texture and hue generally associated with extreme old age. A Ithougli his hair and heard are white ho is not much bent. Ho stood upright, and flung'out his arms, with surprising quickness yesterday, as he playfully pretended to box the " Express" representative. . A Frcncii Smuggler. ' N "I was bora in Brooklyn, in the United States, on Afay 1, 1800," he said, " and I came to England when I was twenty-one and had studied for seven years in -an engineering college in my native place. I knew England was the country where I should get on as a sailor, and I wont to Southampton as a qualified engineer and draughtsman. " Since then I have served many masters, always as a marine engineer. • 1 have worked o:i 11,I 1 , and 0. and White Star ships among others. I was one of the crew that went round the world with Lord Brnssey in ■ the Sunbeam. I have also worked for Thornycrofts, and 1 put in two years (quite by accident, because I did not know what I was going to) on a French smuggler in the Mediterranean. " I have been on the tug Ulin for a few years, and it was when wo last came up to London that I was taken ill. I have earncd'as much as ,810 a week in my time, and on the Ulin I was getting ,£D. ;■ Experience of Wracks.

"Four limes J. have boon wrecked, two of tlie occasions being' oil' the Cape of Good Hope, where one ot my ships was burned. Another timo our ship foundered l in (he Ecd Sea, and eleven of us were castaways in a ship's boat for five days. Wo nearly went man with thirst, and when at last a passing vessel picked us up, 0110 of my mates made 1 a frantic rush for the water tanks '■'id .'rank himself to death.

" 1 have (always beeii temperate in drinking ami smoking. A pint ami 11 half of ale a day is my allowance, ami I get almost as much as that in this hcspital. Shag on shore and 'ship's' aboard is my tobacco rule. 1 never had an illness i:\ my Ufa until this o'.ie, but [ .-im feeling almost well now, urn) whe.i I (jet out on the sea again, ami get myself nicely soaked, I am sure I shall lie all right, _ " I hope to go down to Dover in a few days, and begin work again on the Ulin.''