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From: "Patti Hand" <>
Subject: [Ont] Grandma's Scrapbook - Page 8
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 22:14:42 -0600


Oops, last one was Page 7, not page 6.

These clippings were saved in a book by my great-grandmother Sarah Elizabeth (SELBY) AGAR, or perhaps by her mother, Eliza (BELL) SELBY. Unfortunately, most are not dated and I do not know which newspaper they were from. However, I suspect that many of them were from The Alliston Herald. I will type them just as they appear -- spelling mistakes, punctuation and all!

Each posting here represents one page (one side) from the book.

*****

U. of C. Student Girdles Globe on $3.85
Alfred C. B. FLETCHER Travels Three Years as Teacher, Sailor and Adventurer.
Was Arrested As A Spy
Thrown Into Prison in Japan; Fights Typhoon in a Chinese Junk.
Three years of adventure and 30,000 miles of travel through the seven seas ended yesterday when Alfred C. B. FLETCHER, university graduate, journalist, school teacher, Government official, sailor and miner, returned to California with a Kiplingesque stock of personal experiences and jingling with silver surplus over the $3.85 with which he left San Francisco in 1909.
FLETCHER was arrested as a spy in Japan, battled with pirates on a Chinese junk in the Chinese sea, visited Bethlehem on Christmas day, attended the Durbar in India, toiled in a mine of Norway and has returned from the rough and tumble of world adventure to study theology for orders in the Episcopal church.

Leaders in University.
In 1907 FLETCHER was graduated from the University of California, where he was a leading figure on the campus. He was editor of the "Daily Californian" prominent in other student affairs, and the Psi Upsilon fraternity.
Three years ago he decided to take a graduate course in the school of hard knocks and see the world on his nerve and native hardihood. He bought a steamer ticket to Honolulu and waved goodbye to his friends at the pier with a promise that he would not return until he had swung around the [one word unreadable] of the globe.
At Honolulu he halted for lack of funds to get him further transportation and entered the business of school teaching. Between school periods he took examinations for work as a Government official on the Pearl Harbor project, more from curiosity than a desire to quit his school teaching. His examination marks were high and he [one word unreadable].

Travels on Earnings.
Several months of the Pearl Harbor work got him money enough to go on and he traveled for several months on the earnings. On this leg of the journey he was accompanied by a young Dartmouth graduate whose method of travel was akin to his own.
While in Japan they snap-shotted pictures of Japanese fortifications and were arrested and thrown into prison. The services of the Secretary of State were secured before the two young college travelers were liberated. For the rest of their visit in Japan they were shadowed by agents of the Japanese Government and they found the pursuit so uncomfortable that they shortened their stay.
In China FLETCHER became an instructor in a Pekin [sic] school of engineering. He traveled leisurely down the coast to Hongkong, making inland trips and long stays in all the great ports of China.
By the time he reached Hongkong his finances were low and a trip across the China sea to Manila was made in a junk. On the voyage a typhoon struck the rickety craft and the Chinese, believing they were lost, flocked around the images of their gods with shrieks of terror. FLETCHER rushed to the deck, saw the danger to the unmanned ship and compelled the Oriental sailors to return to their posts.

Moral Force Necessary.
For several months he remained in Manila, serving most of the time as an official of the Territorial Government in its department of education. From there he journeyed on to India and witnessed the Durbar spectacle.
His travel was broken by spells of work on land. Frequently he signed on steamers as sailor or deckhand. A long stay was made in Palestine. From the Eastern Mediterranean he went up into France and England, and for the first time in years looked into familiar faces. Many of his former college friends were found traveling in Paris, London and studying at Oxford.
The experience in Europe took his last cent and he worked his way to Spitzbergen, Norway, where a friend of college days is superintendent of a mine. There he spent several months and gathered sufficient funds to insure his return to California.
FLETCHER is visiting his brother, John D. FLETCHER, at 2320 Le Conte street, Berkeley. For a few days he will renew old associations around the university and after a visit in his home at Covina in the southern part of the State he will leave for New York to enter a theological seminary.

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