The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-30

by such warish attitudes strike terror into
the heart of the mboat-man alongside
with a stale stock of pastry, pipes, hair
oil, iackknives and other ship chandlery,
or of the grocer's clerk coming on board
with bill for the captain.
The next instrument of torture which
the doctor uses on the candidate is the
stethoscope. Ii there is anything that
goes to the heart of man it is the stetho-
scope. 1t gets right down to the source of
motion and counts the beat and heave and
swing of the engines of life. The hiss of
clogged vein, the gurgle of a defective
valve, the discordant murmur of the
diastole within ventricle may consign
him to long life ashore, in the very in.
ception of his sea career.
The candidate is then examined for
color-blndness. The possession of this
visual defect may assist him in disasso-
ciating the banner of his country from the
flag prodigally displayed during the ford
flow OF political stump-oratory, or waving
from the center pole of the circus tent
The prostitution of the National ensign for
private advertising purposes is one of the
highly priced liberties of a free people.
The public is given to know that a candi-
date for constable is capable of serving a
subpoena, or that some freak show is the
best on earth or-money-refunded-a t-the-
door, by the exhibition of the sacred SYM
Dol of state huttering around the prem
Uses.
After the recruit has passed the doctor
he is figuratively chalked o. K, like a Gus
tom-house rihed valise guiltless of contra
band, and enlisted. Then he is ready for
other victories. He looks UP the masts to
the truck pointing into the clouds above
him and wonders when he will be sent up
there to nail flag to the slender stick.
That is one of the jobs of a sailor, he
knows, because he has seen so often on
tobacco packages and show cards the
lofty tar with his legs twined around the
royal pole with a shoemakers hammer
driving nails through the colors into the
timber. That means mo surrender to
the blooming tar and to the quality of
goods for sale. He begins to hear sounds
around him. They are the explosions of
preconceived notions of life on shipboard.
Sallormen don't talk as the novelists have
Photographed, nor act as the dramatists
have cast them. He is the most written and
worse written man within reach of a pen.
He IS either portrayed as a frolicsome colt
f1lnging his voluminously trousered legs
around like the ships pennant when the
wind is unsteady, or as a mindless old
human hulk Warped and weather-beaten
and ready to be picked away in his deep
sea tomb.
There is nothing in common between the
man before the mast and the man abaft it.
A shift from one locality to the other may
be called an organic change. Put the fore
castle hand on the quarterback and, presto!
he Is an officer. Even the way he advanced
is lost. He instantly feels that he is in
different place, and they as quickly forget
that he was ever in any other. It's the
way of the seattle Deep inexplicable,
spell-working, mysterious sea.
Jack drinks grog, becomes drunken and
sleeps. 1t is his only escape from the self
contemplation of the eternal hopelessness
| n No soil lava \
calling, and most all hate it. Few escape
that life which promises nothing but
shot and winding sheet, my lads-a shot
and winding sheetl The ship is the last
resort. Old sailors go to it because their
lives are ruined for things better, and the
recruits because of temporary failure on
land, and because of ignorance of what
awaits them when the mystic influence of
the ocean has wrought in them condition
untitled for the shore.
The new navy-man gets into his toys,
which are supposed to clothe the wearer
ir sort OF wild freedom of action, and
the hllariousness of the idea coming sud-
denly upon him runs him quickly afoul of
some rule or regulation-sometimes one,
sometimes the other; frequently both. In
every square loot of man .of-war is woven
deep in the fiber OF wood or steel rule or
| egulation-sometimes one, sometimes the
other; frequently both. In every cubic
| foQt of air bluejacket breathes is con-
tanned rule or regulation-sometimes one,
sometimes the other; frequently both.
This method of discipline-drill is perfect,
and is not very OnerOus practice upon
the recruit, but the monotony of it wears
upon his nervous system. The wisdom of
it gradually unfolds as the patient sinks
down in sort of apathy. 1t destroys his
nerves. These things are painful luxuries
and out of place on the sea. The painful
necessities occupy pretty much Of ones