A STEAMBOAT RACE AGAINST TIME.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 7, 9 January 1871, Page 4

A STEAMBOAT RACE AGAINST TIME.

".;,. The, New York Tribune says of the late; race by the; steamer Natchez ; agajnst time:— J A Captain Tom Leathers, of the steamboat Natchez, has been 1 trying the' little ; experiment of annihilating lime -arid space by running hid cr&ftjfrjbm NewlOrleans.to St. Lmris in three-days, ; tw^Rtyvpne^iours, and Tfifty-eight minutes. It seems that in 1844

the steamboat J. M. White made the same trip in three days, twenty- three hours, and nine minutes — a fact which filled tho soul' of n "[tfri" Tom Leathers ivith jealousy and inspired bim with a noble ambition to beat this superh time or blow npjn the attempt. To a plain, prosaic Eastern man, unaccustomed to the nautical contests of the great river, a difference of one or two hours inH.be ruu from New Orleans to St. Louis does'"no<; seem to be of any vital consequence ; but in St. Louis the exploit of Captain Torn Leathers was 1 bought to be one of tho historic incidents of the century. Of course -dhe trial afforded a noble opportunity forgetting, which was by no means left unimproved ; and probably Captain Tom Leathers hims&lf had part of hi*s little pile, if uot his bottom dollar, staked on the'; event. When he steamed triumphantly "iip tothe pier at St. Louis, he was a hero iudeed. A crowd of excited citizens rushecron board to proffer to the great Lealherarfau ovation. There was as much joy ou e^-ery countenance as if intelligence had been received that, the Capitol was to be removed from Washington to St. Louis this very autum|i. Probably it cost Leathers very little .upon that happy occasion for liquid refreshment. And yet it, might hav.e been otherwise. As the Natchez rushed up the river with the speed of a comet, with the tar-barrels blazing in her furnaces, and her' engine puffing as if it had five hundred concentrated asthmas, a b-ad; attack df':*6ollapse might then and there have overtaken her, to the great corporal disintegration of Captain Leathers, whose, fragments we cau fancy shooting through indefinite space— his right leg reaching one bank, of tbe river with its fellow flying tothe other, his head soaring to the stars, and the rest of him sinking ignominiously in the turbid stream. But Leathers was in -luck.. Fortune favors the brave, and the great time of the J. M, White has\ been beaten. It is all very gratifying; ouly if we have occasioa to voyage from New Orleans to St. Louis, we shall, at apy cost, avoid embarking with Captain' Tom. We like to have our limbs remain as nature arranged them. Scalding cannot be pleasant even in the very midst of a victory over the other boat. Leathers is no Palinurus for us.