The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-04-03


who hold forth there.
Condition and Requirements %
merciAl Marine. >,
TIE seventies practised towards sailors -
sur commercial marine have latterly subjected
Ms to some singing reproaches on tho part Il
the EDglish press. We might reply by we'll
founded recriminations, but we have a more
useful object in view than to resort to such
arguments. There Is undoubtedly good deal
OF exaggeration in the statements put forward
rom time to time by our contemporaries across
the water but there is also, unfortunately, but
too much truth in them. If we would applva
remedy to state of things which is confess Ay
bad, and which is undermining the chars. .er #
our merchant service, 1t will not do 70 gloxs
over facts which, damaging as they Aay DO 70
us, will still force their way into evidence.
Although we are far from desiring to ex-
tenuate the harshness which o. sasionally brings
American captains before TIE Liverpool police
courts, we must say that they are, in general,
more the victims of q system than intentional
wrong doors. With such elements as he has got
to contend with, a ship master must be endowed
with more than christian temper and forbeaE-
ance not to- bo brought into daily and violent
collision with his men. Owing to the
present pan of paying the sailor advance
wages, chip owners have lost all control
over the character and qualifications of the
Grey whom they employ. The money
thus advanced goes, not into the pockets of the
sailors, but into those OF the boarding house
keepers and laudsbarks, who live upon Jacks
earnings. The ship owners cannot, in fact, be
said to hire sailors; they buy them of the land
lords with these advance wages. DID they not
DO so their ships might rot at the wharves SO
deepotic is the power which these harpies exer-
cise over their unfortunate victims If they
got what they bargained for-good' and expo
rienced men-there would not be so much
cause for complaint. All sorts of dsceptio1s
are however, praotised upon them. Coed
looking and likely men are sent to the captain
to pass an examination and get an order to
sign the articles; when, however, the ship is
towed out into the stream and the crew is got
on board, it is found, in nine cases out of ten,
that they are parcel of 6lear' eyed druukards
dragged out of Five Points rum hole, and
"shangbaed" when men are scarce. We have
it on the authority Of Captain Goldman, an old
and experienced shipmaster, that to such ar
extent are these frauds carried, that in several
instances dead bodies have been hosted in an {
slowed away in the berths Of the forecastle :
drunken sailors, and that for these corpses TIVE
months advance has been paid. The vessel be-
ing under sailing orders, and it being necessar,s
to take advantage of a favorable wind, Of
course it is too late to get other men, The
ship goes to sea with crew thus organized and
fearful amount of responsibility is imposed
on the shoulders of the captain. What wonder
is it, then, that with the vile characters he
has to deal with, and the provocations to
which he is hourly subjected he should be-
come almost crazy and be driven to acts which
in his natural frame of mind he would never
have dreamed of committing
To the experienced sailor the system of ad.
vance wages is equally demoralizing. He be-
comes the slave of the boarding house keeper,
and is treated by him in manner far more arbi-
trary and inhuman than the negro has ever been
treated at the South. He no sooner arrives in
port than he is dragged into the den of some
boarding house crimp and intoxicated, drugged
and robbed. He is then sold by his landlord
to some other ship owner, and is put on board
a strange vessel, drunk, and without knowing
anything of the arrangement made for him; the
balance Of his pay for the last voyage and
the two months advance for the present
being appropriated by the boarding house
keeper. And so he goes on from year to year,
working for these land pirates and undergoing
all sorts of hardships and sufferings until his
constitution finally breaks down under tho
influence of disease, and he is relieved from an
existence which has become intolerable to
him.
Although, as we have said there is some
truth in the excessive severity charged against
the officers of our merchant vessels, it should
be stated that many of these accusations origi-
nate in a confederacy entered into between
the boarding house keepers and the pettifog-
gers who hang about the courts. These
wretches induce sailors to provoke their Off
GERS to strike them, and magnify slight as
saults into formidable cases of personal VIC
lence. Scarcely ship, we are told, arrives
from foreign voyage without prosecution
inevitably awaiting its officers. The COM
plainants are drilled by the landlords as to the
testimony they are to give, and case is made
out so strong, by perjury, that the officers
charged have no alternative but to submit to Q
money compromise or be detained from going
to sea. Of the money thus extorted the sailor
of course gets but fractional share.
The remedy recommended by practical men
for these abuses is the abolition of the law by
which seaman can claim no pay from ship
owner in the event of vessel being lost, and
the doing away altogether with the system Of
advance wages When there are no induce
ments for landlords to play upon the credu-
lousness and simplicity Of the sailor, there will