The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-30
SAILORS AND SHIPS.

srouHueu OUT Win The fatnesS OF luxury. Inc
gales dow hercely and Jelly, and the heavens
themselves scantlly hide browning proy1-
dence' that heayes sleety rains and chilling
SHOWS upon the wretehed mariner Even the
sea resents his intrusion on its eminent do
main, and the hungry waves are ever reaching
out grasp1ng hands to drag him down with
"bubbllng moan" into the dark graye-like
deeps.
The unmitigating and unending hardships
OF MS days ana nights naturally leave their
impress upon MS being and he becomes man
unieenng ana In measure inhuman, yet not
brutal. Jack grows tough in fiber, but his
newer nature never brings him to the COM
mission of those acts that stand out in the
pages of crime.
The sailor of to-day is not criminal. The
forces that bear him down in the social scale
stupefy, but never brutalize. His first finer
perceptions gone, he is more foolish than
roguish, and yet the milk of human kindness
is not absent from the sailors makeup, and
his free hand always lands him in the penury
that eternally menaees him, and consequently
into the open jaws of the sharks that swim the
shore. While there is no man among the tribes
that roam the earth so deserving of charity as
the sailor, and while his apologists have an ex-
eellent case in his defense, Jacks Imperfect
tons cannot be hid under a bushel. While
being philosopher-at-large and accepting
life OF harsh treatment as the inevitable which
no man may shun, he does deal of unpracti-
cal kicking and would use up his nerves-if
he had any-in battling with the minor ills his
flesh is heir to.
When he is not issuing from one of the catas-
trophies that break so frequently the monotony
OF his existence, he is looking through glasses
that focus unfavorably and the hue CT the
prospect never strikes him rose-colored. His
present ship is always harder than the last
one, and to-day's bill of fare is much worse
than that of yesterday. The officers that OPP
press him now can swing q Delaying pin with
dexterity and frequency unknown to the
pugnacious mates of yore. His memory is
short and the fire of his resentment soon burns
itself out. Rob, beat and starve him and he
growls awhile, then wipes his fearless eyes
and mans the topsail halyards, forgetting his
wrongs in an effort to masthead the yards and
get the canvas to drawing handsomely before
the spanking breeze that is blowing him
along.
Change his work, his watch, his diet, in fact,
break into the routine of his life in any man.
ner, and he considers that principle is thereby
involved and it is his duty to growl In short,
Jack is living paradox and an example OF the
eternal unftness of things. He storms when
tits calm and is calm when it storms. He is
miserable when he is satisfied and satisfied
when he is miserable. He knows no fear when
death rides on the gale and is child when
confronted by the ordinary and simplest affairs
of life
Nowhere in civilization is q human being
treated worse than in the merchant marine,
especially the American service. Occasionally
one ship is an easier berth than the Others and
in it the sailor is not treated quite so doggish,
but the same needless abuse, the same unneces-
sary, unmeaning crushing down of the mans
DrpV9ilS 10 is
outcast from that which makes life
worth living. He is quartered and
fed like the lowest brute, and his value is
about equal to that of topsail-sheet block.
His physical endurance is strained to its ut
most tension, and his food, foul and unwhole-
some, is as healthful as the hard hanGspike that
often breaks his head. Who may wonder that
free American citizens are leaving the sea and
American sailors are no longer found in Ameri-
can merchant ships?
In the American naval service it is different,
and the white cruiser is being filed with the
better class of native marines Just Legislation
and intelligent officers govern the bluejacket
and there is constant upward lift in his
social condition. 'Give me iron hearts
in wooden walls" said IL famous Yam
kee admiral years ago, ''and III
take my chances on the sea even among
ironclads," proving that the metal in the man
W
in the United States navy is not pampered and
petted, and punishment humane and fitting
fellows swiftly upon breach OF the regula-
tons. He gets better pay than laborer on
shore and his job lasts all through life, con-
tingent upon his behavior. He is always gov
erned with justice, cared for in sickness, en-
couraged to save his wages by system OF
banking that pays him interest upon the
salary he is earning and his latent manhood
hi hat lex
to crew her noble fighting machines with men
of metal-not wood.
Possibly the personnel of the merchant serv-
ice viii arise TO the plane of her naval sister.
Possibly the plant of the ill-treated man at
the upper topsail halyards-a paint whose
echo is sometimes, but should not be, heard on
the warship-will be hushed, and the merchant
mariner be accorded the righteous usage dealt
out to his more fortunate brother in the rife
turrets. The intelligent legislation that builds
an American hull must build an American
crew, pure and simple, to man her. Then
Yankee flags, Yankee tars and Yankee ships
will be found in every sea-
Unfortunately Jack will carry his inherited
prerogative to grumble from berth to BERTH
and he is seemingly no respecter of ships. He
slips from the dark noisome horrors of the
merchant forecastle into the bright, wholesome
compartment of the man-of-war, and too often
CetDThUeS Ills emancipation ITUm II
wretched existence, from the brute of ships
mate and the brute OF boarding-master, by
arraying his newly found manhood against
the discipline, rules and practices that have
been in vogue in the naval service before he
was launched on LIES stormy sea.
He sets himself up as limb of nautical
Jurisprudence or, in marine parlance, "a sea-
lawyer" He really means no particular harm
and does not quite understand that he is injur-
ing the good name of his new floating home
when he publishes his imaginary woes to the
public. The iron men of the old navy never
called their noble ship "a SLAYER" To them
she was the home of the free, and naught else
walked her decks from the starry jack on her
bowsprit to the crimson stripes waving abaft
the mizzen. They sailed and fought under a
regime more severe than obtains in the young
navy of to-day, and the glory of the old service
is an eternal sunburst along the sea.
The cruiser Olympia, one of the fairest craft
that ever flew the ensign of republic, is being
made a hiss and byword by the reports that
come from certain of the recruits among her
crew. and "the folks on shore are beginning
to wonder if the 'stern lieutenant of song
and story is worthy of his hire, and if the
stern warrior that manned the ship of long ago
has not degenerated into plaintive pleader