Idaho semi-weekly world. (Idaho City, Boise County, Idaho Territory) 1867-1868, 1867-09-14
SATURDAY MORNING., SEPT. IL, 1861.
A CHANCE FOR PHILANTHRoPIsTs.


iorate the condition of the negro race, ant
who have been the means of demonstrating
society North and South, wherever they could
on the negro-equality basis, ought certainly tt
have some bowels of compassion for those O
their own color and race who suffer from the
unjust oppression of others They howled
against slavery in any form,'' against the
selling into bondage of any human being. Now
that they have stricken the letters from the
limbs of the enslaved blacks" they cannot in
reason decline to undertake a similar humani-
tartan service on behalf of a certain class OF
unfortunates-bIa as well as white, indeed
who constantly are made the victims of sys-
tenn of sale and slavery more horrible than
was ever the slave system of the South. We
refer to the traffic in all large seaports, in
which seamen are obtained by what is known
as the Strengthening" process, or by equally
atrocious kindred means, as carried on be-
tween sailor-boarding-h land sharks, and
shipping agents, and ship masters. By late
developments in San Francisco, growing out
Of trouble between the boarding house Sharks
and the ship masters, we learn that the system
has become more general, and more horrible
than in former years. 1t appears that sailors
are drugged the moment they get paid off from
voyage, and while stupefed their money is
taken by the land sharks, who then ship them
for another voyage without any knowledge or
consent on the sailors part draw their bounty
and advance, and pocket both, together with
the fee they receive from the ship agent or
master. Thus Jack is not only poisoned by
the horrible drugs poured into him, and robbed
of his wages, his bounty and advance, but is |
robbed also of his liberty, and becomes the
very slave of his poisoning robbers in the first
instance, who sell him, in the next, into that
worst form of slavery we have ever witnessed,
known as ga hand before the mast )" and his
purchaser, the master of the ship, receives his
human purchase with full knowledge of all
the infamous and atrocious wrongs connected
with his victims kidnapping, and compels him
to the hard slavery which sea discipline exacts.
Not unfrequently it happens that miner or
laborer from the interior is inveigled into the
clutches and dens Of the boarding house sharks,
there drugged, robbed, and sold into the slavery
of ship board for long voyage, shipped, and
is fast in the merciless power of his purchaser
before he is restored to consciousness. Then,
if he complains, or protests, or falters in the
duties imposed upon him-of which he is ig-
norant, never, perhaps, having been on board
ship before-his complainings, protestations,
gatherings, are all met by the same cogent, ter
rible agument which rarely or ever fails to
enforce compliance with commands or COM
pels silence when bidden--the ropes end upon
the barred back of the victim. This is no fancy
sketch. Several instances of the kind have
occurred on this coast, where miners and 9th
ers from the interior, who have gone to San
Francisco to take passage to the East, or to
the cold Country" with their earnings there
to make those depending upon them for sup
port more comfortable in life, and to pass their
days III easier toll, had been lured, drugged,
robbed and shipped as we have related. Some
of these victims have, after years of weary
yoyaging, managed to work their way back,
either to this coast or to their former home, v
themselves ruined in fortune, broken in health,
and perhaps shattered irrecoverably in their &
because Of the degrading, narrowing :
slavery to which they had been constrained t
Some are never more heard of, but the adver- t
tisements of Information Wanted" will en- a
able us to form an estimate how sadly their
absence is felt at the old home, by tender con-
nection, or dear relations, or anxious friends
Their dark fate may be ascribed to the horrors .
Of "sea slavery" which had no parallel in the
smallest slavery ever known in the South. If
the patent right philanthropists of the Radical :
stamp, who have done SO much for the negro,
will now only pay tenth Of the attention and
time, so bestowed, upon the class we speak Of, !
they will better deserve the praises of their
But we despair of their doing
this, for the simple reason that, for years, |
many of them, being ship owners or interested !
in ocean commerce, have not only winked at
this cruel and inhuman system of kidnapping
and slavery, but they have screened from just
those who were engaged in it, and o
given active aid and encouragement to the It
system. itself They made fortunes by doing !
so. They cried out against the humane slavery :
Of the South but they continue to foster and
protect the horrible slave system of the ocean. s