The Roanoke times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1897-1977, 1897-10-08
SAILORS LOST ART.
NO LONGER DO THE MAN-o,-wAR,s
MEN EMBRoIDER TIDES.

And They Don't Mako Their Clothes Any
nIore-When Wooden Ships Went Out,
Some Queer Old Customs OF the Service
Disappeared with Them.
Fancy work in tho navy Is lost art 1t
went out with the building of tho new
neet. Over on the receiving ship Vermont
ut the Brooklyn navy yard, on the glori-
GUS old Constitution mt Portsmouth, n.
H., and scattered ON board ships which mp
pear In Tho Naval Register as receiving
ships" or rs ''unserviceable" you can find
gnnrled and knotted old sailors who, with
hugo bowed spectacles and hands of curl
GUS shape, knit tides, turn out fancy en-
broidered mats and will spin you inter
1ninnble yarns of the time they made tn
Dieoloth for the captains table so many
1nthoms long and SO many fathoms wide.
He insists on making his own clothes also,
as oil good sailors used to do. He has q
poor iden of u sailor who cannot do u piece
OF embroidery us neatly as my lady in her
chamber.
He mourns over the degeneracy of the
service, and will tell you, Sin my day, sir,
the CATO -nino tails lay alongside the Bible
on the capstan every Sunday morning,
and tho crew wero piped to prayers as reg
ularly as to grog." He has littlo uso for
tho modern sailor, and believes in tho old
fashioned, swearing, fighting, drinking.
knock down and drag out kind who was
handy with his knife, his fists, his grog
and tobacco ana his neodle-n curious
combination, and yet ono which carried
the flag of the United States victorious
over every sea-
or all tho accomplishments of tho old
timo snilor that of doing fancy work was the
last to be givon up md to disappear forever
1t went out with tho boarding pike drill.
which was chung to in tho navy of the
United States long after the navy of every
other civilized nation had abandoned it rs
obsolete. 1t was ten yenrs ago that the
art of embroidery and knitting, tho max
ing OF fancy mnts and the art of tailoring,
carried to its upothcosis begun to DO
dropped In the navy of the United States.
New ships, with Is different sort of routine
work, new regulations as to clothing and
shorter cruises were tho causes Of it.
The old sailor was sui generis;'' SO is
tho new, but he Is of different tyne. A
navy sailor is, has been and always must
DO of racc apart. The sailor is born of
the exlgencies of the sen service, and us
those exigencies change so docs he. Yet
III oil tho ages tho true sailor must DO a
different sort of creature from lnndsman.
Tho change from one sort of a sailor to
another sort was sudden in the United
States navy because tho building of tho
new navy was thing conceived and car
rleu out In SO short II time. In the old
navy sailor used constantly to handle tho
complicated mnzcs of the rigging Of tho
wooden ships. His eye was trained in
looking ut y network of ropes to SEQ lust
what function each one had in the whole
scheme, and tho threads stretched over n
frame Tor making piece of fancy work
were never moro complicated than tho
mass OF ropes aloft on Il full rugged man
of-war. 1t was part of his trado to knot
and splice (as 1T is to soIne extent now,
but nothing to what it used to be), and in
his leisure moments it became easy for
him to make the most delicate and benuti-
ful pieces of fancy work. Yet to a lands
man 1t was the most homogeneous thing
imaginable.
Tho writer remembers onco seeing an
old sailor, hardened and scanned and beard
ed, the survivor of many we'll fought
battle OF tho civil war, for nearly half
century tossed about by every sea that
rolls and his face furrowcd by the "hnrd
glad weather" of every CLINE, come into
the stateroom of nm officer on man-of-
waranG say, In voice that rumblcd some
wbcro underneath the ships keel, "Hcros
time putting down two beautiful pieces of
fancy work that would have delighted tho
heart of the instructors of needlcworli in
young ladies' boarding school, 1t did
not seem possible that that old "Tarpaulin
Jack" had made those things, but he had.
What real sailor used most TO glorify
himself in was his embroidery Sailors
used to make their own clothes and embel-
lish them with the most elaborate and
beautiful noedlework Around tho wide
collar, at tho openings of the little pockets
In the breast, in tile corners of tho collars
ana on tho upper part of tho perfectly fit
tlng trousers there was embroidery, fine,
beautiful, ingenious in design and requir-
ing much time, patience and skill to pro-
duce. Then the sailor made his cap, and
in tho ccntor of Its top no embroidered
again with great beauty and profusoness.
In the old days a ship would he at sea for
months Mt time upon occasions, and
every cruise was long ono. When the
routine of the ships work was over, tho
sailor had plenty of time for fancy work,
Tor spinning yarns and for singing songs
of Truxton's Victory" and 1.-The Gucr-
rioro Frigato Bold" Now it is Il fow
days from port to port, and it is coal ship
ana clean up after it, and scour bright
work nll tho time, when it is not drill with
the guns, or torpcdoes or with some other
newfangled notion about the great floating
machine shop.
Tho modern sailor does not make his
own clothes, They are supplied to him
from the navy yard or by the tailor aboard
ship There can be no moro fancy en-
broidering on his shirt, his trousers or his
cap. The regulations forbid it, All must be
uniform In fact as well as in name APP
prentice boys nre still taught TO sew Mt thu
training school, but that is all that is left
to remind us Of the sailors lost art, which
once flourishod and blossomcd on men-of-
Wac. A g thcy can no lnnaa,. .x-aa= fauazz