The conditions created in China by the present conflict have been responsible for the departure from Swatow of an American family who had become, as a resident puts it, almost ar institution in that port. Captain G. St, M. Stocker, went to sea in 1891 in the last days of the sailing ship era and for seven years he was second mate in the American barque Harry Morse. For another seven years he served in the United States Navy and was present in the Philippine Islands during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine insurrection. He then joined the Imperial Maritime Customs and was wrecked in a preventive schooner during the famous typhoon of September 1906, off Stonecutters Island, Hongkong. Three years later, in command of another preventive vessel he rode out a disastrous typhoon off Lintin Island, when numerous foreign vessels were lest in and around Hongkong. Leaving the Customs Service in 1917, he became a Swatow Bar pilot and marine surveyor, living on an island at the entrance to the port. There he experienced the typhoon of 1922, which is said to be the worst ever recorded on the China coast, and he also was present in Swatow when an earthquake took a toll of 20000 lives. In 1913 Captain Stocker married and all his six children have attended the Shanghai American School. Three of them are still of school age and on their return home will continue their studies, The trade of Swatow has been brought to an abrupt conclusion since the outbreak of hostilities and pilots are consequently temporarily unemployed. One of Captain Stocker's most acute regrets at leaving Swatow, where he and his family have lived for 20 years, is derived from the fact that if he had been able to remain a little longer he could have claimed to have piloted 4,000 ships—he left with just two short of that number. Actually he and his family have merely gone on leave, but there is every probability of their remaining in their homeland, so that this brief note of his career and the circumstances of his departure may be of interest to a large number of friends who may not have heard of his decision.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.