Morning journal and courier., 1884-09-25
A Sailor on a Sailors Book.

w. Clark Russell in the Contemporary Review.l
 Dana was the first man to look at the sea- life as real thing, and to make the world know it as real thing America should be proud of that triumphant book, "Two Years Before the Mast'' We are great maritime people; the oceans of the world our realm, and every pillow that rolls from north to south, from east to west, carries a British interest alcng it's liquid path. Is it not won derfu1 that we should have waited for Van
 kee student to show us how to write book that should be true to the sailor, true to the ship he sails in, true to the great deep he navigates? For my part, I heartily begrudge Boston her famous ''yarner," and for the honor of this country could wish that his grand sea picture had the union jack hanging over it instead of the eagle that is perched for all time upon it's frame. The difference between s'Two Years Before the Mast'' and
 most of the nautical novels which have been
 written on this side the Atlantic is the diff
 ference between the marine drama we are
 accustomed to witness it in London and pro
 yincial theatres, and the calling it carica-
 lures. Dana's book is 8 solid fact from be-
 ginning to end-not one jot more so because
 it forms collection of his experiences when
 at sea- than because of the superb sailor-hke
 spirit the exquisite accuracy and the great
 hearted sympathy that every page is full of.
 q vowed, ,' he says, after describing the fog
 eing on board the Pilgrim-''I vowed that if
 Ged should ever give me the means, would
 do something to redress the grievances and
 relieve the sufferings of that class of beings
 with whom my lot had so long been cast"
 He could not have gone to work more effect
 uallv than by writing ''Two Years Before the
 Mast" It was time that somebody showed
 the public down into the merchant ships
 forecastle, pointed to the hunks in which the
 sailors sleep, the dripping earrings, the evil
 smelling slush-lamp, the water splashing
 through the scuttle, the poor clothes of the
 heavily worked men, the infamous food and
 vile water on which they subsisted. It was
 time I say No landsman could guess the
 truth, and those who had suffered, who could
 speak of the horrors of seurvy from dark
 ness and damp and fare such as a hog might
 disdain, were ignorant and unable to put
 their story before the world. But then
 comes Dana, a fine genius, full of spirit. He
 ships as a foremast hand in Q. little brig bound round Cape Horn to the western
 American coast, and he spends three years of his life among sailors, working with them,
 suffering with them, taking their few poor
 pleasures with them. We are used to his hook now and since his time plenty of inter est has been taken in the merchant service; but I sometimes think that an extraordinary amazement must have been excited among
 those of the public who cared for sea yarns when 'tTwo Years Before the Mast" was first published. By what magic could Dana ab- sorb the attention of his readers by a plain nnyarnished narrative of forecastle life in a little brig? But that was not quite it. How did it happen, dare say people wanted to know that these poor sailors who so deeply interested them in Dana's work were so ut terly unlike the mariners they had been ac- customed to read about since the days of Smollett? Where was the Saturday night larkings where the cans of grog? the "wives and sweethearts2" the dancing on the main deck? the gay uniforms, the handsome mid
 dies, the sea-battles, the lovely heroines, and all the rest of the well-known stuff! Instead of this they found brutal, coarse -mouthed skipper, couple of mates neither handsome nor sentimental, and forward an odd collec- ton of rude and rough figures in Scotch caps and old shirts. There was no heroine, there was no fighting, there was nothing ! more spirited in the way of diversion than a I fandango at Santa Barbara; but there was | the best of all things in this world-truth 1 Because of it the book went straight home | to the heart, and inasmuch as that it is as | true in the main of life on board ship to-day as it was when written forty-five years ago, | there can be no excuse for anyone desiring | to write for or against the sailor, not to very ] fairly understand the nature and duties of | Mercantile Jacks life while fsTwo Years Be 1 fore the Mast'' remains in print.
 Yet let it not be denied that so far as the
 merchant service is concerned the need of an other Dana grows urgent. Life in sailing | ship remains much as Dana represents it; but | steamers are now plentiful; there is more | greed than there used to be and more maWs to satisfy: competition has resulted in sor- didness that is a permanent menace to human 1 life. Another Dana is wanted to give us | three years before the mast, not in one, but in several steamers; in the dangerous ''well deck,n in the undermanned tank, in the 1 cheap boat that is sent across the Atlantic in winter furnished with engines scarcely pow