The Price of a Victory Cup

The Nora, G. V. Johnson's new sloop, returned Saturday night from Victoria, where she was entered in the yacht races. The crew are all elated over the Oak Bay trophy which they won. It is a beautiful silver cup of fine workmanship and appropriate design. They also speak in the highest terms of the treatment they received from the Victoria yachtsmen. There is one incident of the cruise, however, that is a touchy point to the young tars. On the return trip, they anchored off Port Townsend and were boarded by a customs officer, a self-important deputy. He inquired if there was any more cargo than when they were outward bound and received a negative answer. But one of the crew, flushed with success, could not refrain from saying the only new thing they had aboard was the silver cup they had won. Instantly, the officer’s keen sense of duty was aroused and he insisted on duty being paid on the trophy. In vain the yachtsmen protested that the cup had been in use on the other side and had been baptized in British beer. The stern guardian of Uncle Sam's interests could not be moved. As fortune would have it, the Nora's crew had enjoyed themselves so thoroughly in Victoria that their purses were depleted, and there was not enough among them to pay the damages. It was not until one of them had gone ashore and made a draft on his banker at Seattle that the Nora was permitted to weigh anchor and sail for home.