Jukes

“ The history of the notorious Juke family, featured by almost every modern advocate of the “fatal heredity” theory, is a case in point.
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The first Jukes of whom anything is known were five sisters of obscure parentage who lived in Ulster County, New York, in the second half of the eighteenth century. At least four of the five took early to a life of vice, and eventually all married and had children. ”

“ Captain MacWhirr and Jukes kept hold of each other, deafened by the noise, gagged by the wind; and the great physical tumult beating about their bodies, brought, like an unbridled display of passion, a profound trouble to their souls. One of those wild and appalling shrieks that are heard at times passing mysteriously overhead in the steady roar of a hurricane, swooped, as if borne on wings, upon the ship, and Jukes tried to outscream it. ”

“ Jukes wanted him to leave the sea, to drop his beloved wireless work and take a desk in his office! He was also to act, it seemed, as a sort of companion for Tom. It was a life of ease and offered a future which few boys would have had the courage to decline.
Jack knew that every round of the ladder he had elected to climb could only be won by stern fighting and keeping the faith like a man. ”

“ The assumed name of Jukes is given to the descendants of a worthless woman who emigrated to America upwards of a century and a half ago, and from whom hundreds of criminals, paupers, and prostitutes have descended. ”

“ Maybe he hide up there.”
“It seems worth trying at any rate,” said Mr. 243 Jukes, in the manner of one who has reached a decision.
“It seems reasonable to suppose that if Broom had taken your brother and his men anywhere on the island it would have been to some such inaccessible spot as that,” said Captain Sparhawk.
“Well thin, what’s to privint us going up among the 'balloon’ men, or whativer they call thimsilves?” asked Muldoon.
“It may be attended by some danger,” said Mr. Jukes. “From what Salloo said the Kini-Balu men are a very war-like tribe. They might attack us. ”

“ The reader will recall the famous story of the Jukes family published by Richard L. Dugdale in 1877, a startling array of criminals, paupers, and diseased persons, more or less related to each other and extending over seven generations.
Dr. Winship has undertaken to compare this family with the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, and from [52] this comparison to draw certain conclusions. It is a striking comparison, but unfortunately not as conclusive as we need in these days. ”

“ Jack's daring rescue of Millionaire Jukes' little girl resulted in the lad's obtaining the position of wireless man on board a fine ship, after he had looked for such a job for months in vain. But because Jack would not become the well-paid companion of Mr. Jukes' son Tom, a rather sickly youth, the millionaire became angry with the young wireless man. However, Jack was able, subsequently, to rescue Mr. Jukes from a drifting boat after the magnate's yacht had burned in mid-ocean and, following that, to reunite the almost frantic millionaire with his missing son. ”

“ When he finished, Tom Jukes sighed.
“Gracious! That’s interesting, though! I wish I had adventures like that. But they are doing their best to make a regular molly-coddle out of me. The yacht and Bar Harbor in the summer, Florida in the winter and a private tutor and a man-servant! It makes me sick!”
The lad shot out these last words with surprising vehemence. “I know a lot of fellows who’d change with you,” said Jack.
“You do! They must be sap-heads,” said the rich man’s son; and then suddenly, “How would you like to try the life for a time?” ”

“ The Jukes did not wander far from the haunts of Max. They stagnated like the motionless pool, while the Edwards family is a prominent factor in the mercantile, industrial, and professional life of thirty-three states of the union and in several foreign countries, in ninety-two American and many foreign cities. They have been pre-eminently directors of men. The Pacific steamship line and fifteen American railway systems have had as president, superintendent, or otherwise active in the management one of this family. ”

“ Jack cast him a grateful look. “But what have you done with my brother, you ruffian?”
“Ah! I was coming to that,” said the rascal with an insolent smile, “but you can also have him for the very insignificant sum that I have already mentioned as being the price for you and the boy.”
“You’re worth a whole lot more than that, Jukes,” put in Judson, with an equally insolent air. “You’re a regular old money-bags, you know.”
“You’ll never get my money,” raged the millionaire.
“We won’t, eh?”
“Never.”
“Hunger makes a lot of difference, Mr. Jukes,” smiled Broom. ”

“ Jukes’ gaze. Although such spectacles had been almost nightly ones since they had steamed into the tropics, there was something wild and sinister about the present one that thrilled him.
Captain Septimus Sparhawk, the brown, gaunt captain of the yacht, whose thin face was decorated by two little dabs of grayish whiskers forward of each ear, passed by.
“Nothing to do but to look at the sky, eh?” he asked Jack, as a suspicion of a smile crept over his face.
“That’s about all, sir,” rejoined Jack, with a laugh. “I expect to see spiders spinning webs on my instruments every day. ”

“ I wouldn’t wish to push any one down the hill when there was a chance of helping them up,” said the millionaire, musingly. “Well, I’ll see about it,” he added after an interval of thought. Just then, as Captain Sparhawk came up, the incident was ended and the two elders set out for a trading store to arrange for supplies and other necessaries for their dash into the interior, for Mr. Jukes had resolved to act on Donald Judson’s unexpected clue and make his way up the river. ”

“ I’m afraid the poor lad has a bad injury. Help me put him in the tonneau and then make a quick run for the nearest hospital.”
By a strange fate it was Mr. Jukes’ car that had approached Jack as he fell senseless to the street. The shipping magnate was returning home, as he had said, from a dinner party on Staten Island. Finding the streets by the South Ferry torn up, he had ordered his chauffeur to proceed along West Street and then cut through the village to Fifth Avenue. Thus it came about that his employer it was who had picked up poor Jack. ”

“ Jukes, this boy has seen and talked to your brother within the last two weeks,” was the announcement from Jack that sent the millionaire staggering back against the hotel desk, for once in his life giving way to uncontrolled amazement.
132CHAPTER XIX.—HE TELLS A STRANGE STORY.
“Bless my soul,” he exclaimed, when he found breath, “you boys are always digging up somebody. Who is this?”
He regarded the ragged figure of the unfortunate Donald with some disapprobation. Jack explained, and then Donald, stumbling and stuttering somewhat under Mr. Jukes’ steady eye, told his story. ”

“ What’s the matter?” demanded Jack, running to the edge of the dock where the crowd of ’longshoremen and deck hands and sailors were clustered.
“It’s Mrs. Jukes’ little girl. She—she’s fallen overboard!” cried a man.
“She’s down there in the water,” explained another one. “She was clinging to a pile a minute ago. We’re trying to get a rope to her.”
“What! There’s a child down there and nobody’s gone after her?” cried Jack indignantly. ”

“ Jukes is to tell all that he knows and believes to be true, rather than to win favour from his readers by his manner of telling it. There is not a pretty phrase, an exaggeration, nor an invention in the two volumes of Mr. Jukes; all is plain unadorned fact, and because it is so, is deserving, not merely of perusal, but of study. ”

“ Only this horror is real.”
“I would like to know what it all means,” said Jack. “These men can’t be just common robbers; they appear to have a regular hang-out here.”
“I can’t help thinking that I’ve seen some of these ruffians loitering about Bomobori,” said Mr. Jukes.
“That struck me, too. At any rate they must be the party Thurman wirelessed to me about as leaving just behind us. They’ve followed our trail pretty closely, too. We should have been more on our guard.” ”

“ Jukes means to get a clue in Bomobori, where Broom is probably well known,” hazarded Raynor.
“That is probably his idea,” said Jack. “Anyhow, he is not a man who would give up his purpose for any ordinary difficulties.” ”

“ Donald Judson, looking hang-dog and abject, was huddled on a bench in a corner of the room. He had been picked up after the fray, having shammed insensibility to avoid being injured, and was easily captured by the victors.
237“You certainly came in the nick of time,” said Jack. “From what I could hear them saying, that scoundrel Broom was actually contemplating torturing us if that check was not signed by Mr. Jukes.”
The millionaire shuddered. His experiences had greatly affected him. ”

“ Almost at once the two were espied by their friends. A more amazed and glad set of chaps would have been indeed difficult to find anywhere.
“Honest, Jack,” cried Bill, tears of real joy in his eyes, “we had given up all hope of ever seeing you again.”
“Man alive!” declared Tom Jukes, “you can’t imagine how we felt, for we knew that there was no chance of getting through to save you.”
“Blues—here—everybody!” exploded Pottle. 281 “Funeral cheerful in comparison—no eat—no food—just blues!”
“Come, Jack,” invited Bill, “and de Garros, breakfast with us and tell us about it.” ”

“ Seeing a crowd on a dock, Jack went to find out what was the matter. He soon discovered that the young daughter of Jacob Jukes, the millionaire head of the great shipping combine, had strayed from her father, who was visiting a great “oil-tanker” moored there, and had tumbled overboard.
Jack leaped from the dock, while the others stood paralyzed with helplessness, and saved the child in the nick of time. This won him Mr. ”

“ Stern and capricious as the magnate was, still, Jack, in his inner soul, admired his forcefulness and driving power; and as for Tom Jukes, he had formed a genuine liking for the frail lad.
He looked out over the sparkling sea. It was hard to believe that it might have witnessed a marine tragedy within the last few hours.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE MATE’S YARN. Mr. Brown was soliloquizing.
“Nothing so bad as fire at sea,” said he. “Take any typical case. The old man thinks he can fight it down and so do most of his crew. And so they let it run on till it’s too late, and then it’s all off. ”

“ At the meeting of the British Association at Birmingham in 1865 Jukes lectured on the South Staffordshire coal-field, in which he recommended further exploration of the coal-fields which are buried beneath the red rocks of the midland counties, and urged ‘that such an exploration ought to be undertaken at the national expense.’ He was appointed in 1866 a member of the royal commission instituted by parliament to inquire into the resources of our coal-fields. ”

“ He was educated at the grammar school of Wolverhampton and at King Edward VI's School, Birmingham, proceeding with an exhibition from the latter to St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1830. As a boy he took an active part in all games and sports, was fond of reading, and especially delighted in books of travel.
At the university Jukes devoted himself more to outdoor recreations than to indoor study, but he was attracted to geology by the lectures of Professor Sedgwick, with whom his energy and assiduity soon made him a favourite pupil. ”

“ This central district is traversed by many east and west faults, all having their greatest throw in the middle of their range, and all being downcasts to the south till we come to the space south of Tipton occupied by the Dudley Port Trough. The pair of faults forming the a Port Trough run parallel to, eat almost in the same line with, the Netherton anticlinal. They tend, however, to produce a synclinal rather than an anticlinal effect, and the faults on each side of them aid that effect, since their downthrow is always towards the Trough. ”

“ The Permian beds near Barr seem to be brought in solely by a fault, though perhaps even that is doubtful, while at the Lickey there is no occasion for any such supposition, since they seem simply to have covered up all the other rocks unconformably, and to be now partly removed from off a certain space by simple denudation. ”

“ The sky though clear of clouds assumes a hazy aspect through which the sun glows like a copper ball. Doors and windows are instantly closed, and men and animals all seem to seek shelter from the painful influence of this scorching blast. ”

“ Australia especially seems the very land of uniformity and monotony, the same dull and sombre vegetation, the same marsupial type of animals, spread over the whole, land from the gloomy capes of the south coast of Tasmania, and the stormy Leeuwin, to the cloudless and burning skies of Torres Straits and Port Essington. ”

“ There is, in fact, perhaps scarcely any situation more suggestive of feelings of awe, than a side of work in the "thick seam," when a large fall of coal is brought down from the dusky heights of that lofty chamber; the thunder of the falling masses which seem to shake the solid earth and fill the air with a thick cloud of dust, contrasting fearfully with the dead silence which ensues, and which the hardy colliers scarce break by a whisper, whilst in suspense they listen for the slightest crack which might portend a farther fall. ”