The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-06-25
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BOYS.


AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BOYS.
| have lately had letter from my
nephew. Johnny Briggs. AS the SPELL
ing and grammar are little defective,
| viii only give the postscripts, which,
however, contain the pith of the letter
itself. They run thus:
up. 5. one Reeson have deeydid to Go to
see is Because Am so fond of Fun and ad-
venchur.
up. SIS. can rize quickest in the navey or
By going in the Merchant servis?
JOHNNY BRIGGS"
1t is great many years since l was
a boy like JOHNNY great many; yet
not so long ago but that, after reading
his letter and its postscripts, fully un-
derstand Johnny's frame of mind He
is tired of the sameness of life-the eat
ing and sleeping and going to school
are all so uneventful. There are no
pirates, or wild Indians, or typhoons to
be encountered in this prosaic exist
ence, no fair young maidens to be res
cued from peril of field, fire or flood.
His ardent soul pants for adventure,
and he is afame to encounter the ex-
element which he fondly believes to
be inseparable from
"A life on the ocean wave"
According to his letter, this newborn
desire is due to "a unquenchibel Spirit
of Rowing" Which he darkly hints
is an Inheritance from a very re-
mote ancestor, who is mentioned
by Johnny as a freebooter. My
own impression, however, is that it
arises from the fact that the news
dealer at the corner of the block where
Johnny lives deals in five-cent nautical
novels of the most startling kind. |
saw one of them once. 1t was called
1.-The Boy Blockader; or, The Strange
Secret of Hampton Hail." | was inter
ested to notice that the publishers an
nounced it as of thrilling interest, and
intended especially for the instruction
and edification OF youth All for five
cents! But | am wandering from my
subject
Now Johnny has asked my advice on
this matter of going to sea. True,
know that, like advice asking people in
general, he will only take so much of il
as comedies with his own ideas-the
remainder will be contemptuously
ignored as the views of an old fogy.
But Duty with a big d stands at my
elbow, so out of my past experience /
have evolved the following:
My DEAR NEPHEW:-"T The Burling-
ton Hawkege man, who is one of the
most charming persons know, says
this: Everybody likes candid man
till he gives candid opinion that in
terfereS with their own. Then he's a
bigot.' So before [ finish this letter
you'll know what bigot is, and that
will be something.
"Your fondness for fame and adj
venture is if may so express ia
family weakness. 1t sent your father
to California in 40, and brought
him home with rather less money than
he took away with him. Me it sent to
to sea; and if / learned nothing else
there, | found out that present-day sea-
going hasn't quite as much fun or adj
venture about it as present-day sea-
stories would have us believe. If you,
my dear Johnny, should 90 to sea, you
would probably make the same dis
covery. | doubt even if you would find
among your shipmates daring Dick
Dashaway,a romantic Ralph Rackstraw,
or even jolly Jack Easy. The men
who have taken the place of these
heroes of fiction are literally on earth,
earthly, rather than of the sea, salt.
don't know Just why the salt should
have so lost its SAVIOR since the days
of Cooper and Marryatt. But one
would think nowadays that it was
henceforth fit for nothing but to be
cast out and trodden under foot of men,
such downtrodden race are the sailors
of to-day.
For you will no longer, my dear
Johnny, find the jovial tar who in the
words of your favorite song.
"'sings as he views the gathering cloud
to be the manly, independent mariner
of fiction. Rather is he Qiterally, oft
entimes) under the iron heel of brutal
taskmaster.
/" have never heard heard him sing
as he viewed the gathering cloud,
though l haze heard him, under his
breath, use unpleasantly emphatic
words on the subject of the weather.
And my impression is, my dear nephew,
that after you have been to sea a short
time, you yourself will not look upon
the gathering cloud in the light of a
subject for tuneful melody; because
when man is called out of his watch
below to help shorten sail four or five
times every twenty-four hours, he is apt
to lose his ear for music.
"Why, the summons to this unpleas-
ant duty is of itself calculated to make
boy think of home. The officer of
The deck does not send word for ard
that as the weather is likely to be I'M
pleasant he would be obliged to the
sailors if they would kindly arise and
appear on deck as soon as they can con-
veniently. Oh, no! But the second
mate, who is muscular of arm AID pow
erful of voice, thunders away at the
forecastle door, shouting in tone that
doesn't admit of discussion:
"'Turn out here to short'n sail; and
be quick about it, toor' 30
81 may remark in passing, my dear
Iohn that IL will at aunh a tipna ho ,1oa