The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-04
SEA STORIES.
snip Captains-roTscr
A writer in an Buglish magazine says;-


ship ns-Pursers-COoIxa
writer in an BDglish magazine says;-
'The captains OF some OF our ocean steamers
can scarcely be said to lead solitary lives, for
they spend all their waking hours in sooi ty.
Al least three times q day they play the host
at the head of a hospitable board, and unless
they are very cross-grained fellows, every one
treats them with Difference and consideration.
They can converse, If they SO please, with this
siidest aud most dignifed of the male passeh-
gers; while the prettiest aud wittiest ladies' on
board are flsttered by their attentions. Alto
gether, think the captain Of Cunarder has
rather good time of it. Think of the oharao-
ters he meets in the course Of twelve
months butfetipg with Atlantic waves A
Cunard captain who should keep a carefully
diseIiminated diary might produce q work as
interesting in its way as BJswelPs LIE Of
Johnson. He sees all sorts OF noteworthy
people. He carries the Ambassador accredited
TO the court of st. James, or Washington, az
the case may be- he carries eminent actors
and eminent songstresses going TO reap rich
harvest of laurels and dollars in the United
States; celebrities of all sorts gather their
meat at his table. Sometimes too, he carries
people whose fame marveously resembles
iniamy--the abscondiDg bankrupt, the fraud
ultnt clerk running away with his employers
cash box and his employers wife. Sometimes,
doubtless, a murderer-well-tO tO-do, or he
would not be able to afford a passage on board
the Capard bost-stained with the blood OF
his iellow-man, yet calmly chatting and sip
ping his claret, hOnors him with ten days
visit.
PURsERs.
."In the old days, during the great
French war, the purser in the Royal Navy was
rather an unpopular parsonage. The officers
looked down on him as sort of huckstering
tfadesmanlike fellow, the seaman despissd him
as a noncombatant While the deck ran
blood and arms and legs we're flying in all
directions, the purser, they averred, was
crouching in some safe recess in the inmost
part of the vessel, nefariously scheming how
to draw rations for dead men, and so put the
proceeds into his own pocket He
was ordinarily known by the opprobrious
nickname of 'Npoheese,' and to this
day the Objectionable Jumps which are
found in bag Of flour are called 'purser'
plums' The position of the modern purser
in The Royal Navy has been materially i'm
proved; he is no longer under the temptation
OF increasing his income by chicanery-poun-
dsges and percentages are abolished. lie
takes rank with a colonel in the army, and is
usually just as honorable and we'll bred a
gentleman as any other officer in her Majesty's
service. As for the puTsers on board the mail
steamers and such like vessels, they approxi-
mate very closely to naval pursers, being
wel-uressed, portly, urbane men, spending
most of their time in little slip of an otice
and addicted in their leisure hour to playing
backgammon with the surgeon. But there is
a kind of purser sometimes to be found on
board of a passenger ship who has much
harder work to do, and who is not nearly 81
spruce in his apparel. He has probably been
clerk in the shipowner's service and being
of an active and adventurous turn, chooses
this mod of working his passage to the colo
rilo Won p1a " col m atfrad in m old hT1a
shirt and pair of duck trousers somewhat be-
smeared with molasses, serving out stores on
the main deck to clamoTous crowd OF emf
grants, or retailing beer and porter at shil-
ling bottle; from behind his dimnutive bar.
The ordinary purser is stout and middle-aged,
full of dignity and reserve, never soiling his
fingers; but this sort of purser is youthful,
nimble, and totally devoid of dignity; hoisting
chests out of the hole opening barrels of pre-
served tripe, and bottlipg off brandy and whis-
ky. But there is one thing he won't stand he
won't allow the passengers to call him
'steward;' steward, he maintains, Is a dife-
rent kind of animal altogether"
SHIPS COOKS.
"On board frst-class passenger vessels the
cook is an important, well-paid parsonage, aud,
therefore, is very much like cooks ashore. Bat
the ordinary ships cook, unless he is an Atr-
can, has seldom much of the Soyer or the
Francatelli in his com position. He is simply
sailor, who, in addition to his other duties,
undertakes to prepare the food Of the crew.
When all hands are called he must desert
his galley, and in tacking and wearing the
ship it is his especial duty to work the fore
sheet. The cooking arrangements on board
our smaller vessels are very defective. There
is very little space, great want of proper i'm
plements, snd the food is prepared in the rudest
and simplest style possible. The dietary on
board of an American merchantmen is gem
orally superior to that of the English ships.
l have heard men declare that this good
living is the proximate cause of the extreme
brutality often displayed by American captains
and mates. 1t doesn't answer, they say, to
feed Jack too well. He Immediately WAKES
impudent, and then row ensues. have
heard such scene described by an eye-wlt-
ness. A man refused to obey the mate, the
mate instantly knocked him drawn with his
fist; another man struck the mate in return,
whereupon a regular free fight ensued. Be-
laying pins and hapd-spkes flew as thick as
hail. casp-knives were drown aud used, till
at last the captain quelled the disturbance by
threatening to use his revolver. The curious
thing was, that directly the mutiny was over,
the captain descended to the medicine chest,
brought upa roll of plaster, and spent the
next hour in anxously binding up the wounds
which he and his myrmidOns had inflicted.
81 once saw cook whom pited good deal.
He had been a ships cook for thirty years or
more, but in his old age he rashly shipped as
cock on board an emigrant ship; he soon found
that to cook for thirty forty sailors was one
thing, to cook for four hundred passengers was
another. These passengers were divided into
about fifty messes, and each mess had its own
particular pudding or piece of meat. The pur-
ser had endeavored to introduce very syste-
matte arrangement; every mess was provided
with pudding bag and meat net, and to every