The morning news., 1897-08-29
JACK TAR AND THE NEEDLE.
WORK GF THE WOMAN'S DEPART
NENT ON A MAN-OF-WAR.

For Their Clothes an Embrofdcr
ghcir own COIIars-Very Expert
nt Making Tides and Laces-Thc
Net-N orI< of the Ropes Tells Them
ttoxy 10 Handle the Skeins of Cot
ored SiIk-The Iowa, Massachusetts
ana Indiana Forbidden to sew.
BROOKLYN Navy Yard, Aug 27.-If you
mention needlework aboard the good new
bsttieship Iowa or on the Indiana or the
Massachusetts,, you will be received with
8 silence of a deep marine hue. Needle
work. that art dear to the sailors of by
gone days, has been forbidden to the sail
ors on the new cruisers.
The navy has new rules and new regu-
latfons. and with its new routine comes
a regular dress that forbids embroidery.
ami even gives the sailors no time to use
the needle If they would. .
But this is only on the newer battle
ships. The others still have Jack Tars
as familiar with the art of sewing as
with the pulling of ropes They conduct
o woman's department on battleship
and turn out work as clever as any wo-
man 5.
over on the receiving ship Vermont at
the Brooklyn navy yard, on the glorious
old Constitution at Portsmouth, N H.,
and scattered on board ships which ap-
pear in the Naval Register as ''receivine
ships or an 'unserviceable," you can
find gnarled and knotted old sailors who,
with huge bowed spectacles and bands of
curious shape, knit tides, turn out fancy
embroidered mats, and will spin you in
terminable yarns of the time they made
tablecloth for the captains table so
many fathoms long and so many faith
oms wide. He insists on making his own
clothes also, as all good sailors used to
do. He has poor idea of sailor who
cannot do a piece of embroidery as neat
" as my lady in her chamber
He mourns over the degeneracy of the
service, and VIII tell you, I'm my day,
sir, the cat~'o-nine- tails lay alongside
the Bible on the capstan every Sunday
morning. and the crew were piped to
prayers as regularly as to grog." He
hes little use for the modern sailor, and
believes in the old-fashioned, swearing,
fighting, drinking, knocked k-down-and-drag
out kind who was handy with his knife,
his fists, his grog and tobacco and his
needle-a curious combination, and yet one
which carried the flag of the United States
victorious over every sea.
OF all the accomplishments of the old
time sailor that of doing fancy work was
the last to be given up. 1t began to go
ont with the boarding pike drill, which
was clung to In the navy of the United
States long after the navy of every. other
civilized nation had abandoned it as OBJ
solete. 1t was ten years ago that the art
OF embroidery and knitting, the making
of fancy mats and the art of tailoring,
carried to its apotheosis, began to be
dropped in the navy of the United States.
New ships, with the different sort of rou-
tine; new regulations as to clothing and
shorter cruises were the causes of it,
The old sailor was ''sui geners"-so is
the new-but he is of different type A
navy sailor is, has been and always must
oe OF race apart. The sailor is born
OF the eXigencies of the sea service and
as those exigencies change so does he.
1et IN all the ages the true sailor must
ne different sort of creature from a
landsman.
The change from the sort of a sailor to
another sort was sudden in the United
states navy, because the building of the
new navy was a thing conceived and car
n ilea out In so short a time. In the old
navy sailor used constantly to handle
uie complicated maZes of the rigging of
q tae wooden ships. His eye was trained in
lOJhhng at network of ropes to see just
Waat function each one had in the whole
s2neme and the threads stretched over a
n hdihe ior making a piece of fancy work
H were never more complicated than the
Hdss OF ropes alOft on a full-rigged man
vl-WHF' 1t was part Of his trade to
hhot ana splice (as it is to some extent
now plt nothing to what it used to be),
@Hd IN MS leisure moments it became easy
~ Aim to make the most delicate and
neauuiul pieces of fancy work. Yet to a
.'HuSilaR It was the most incongruous
thing Imaginable
Il ihe writer remembers once seeing an
~ sailor, hardened and scanned and
4 ~'aIaed the survivor of many a we'll
H 'sHt utttIe OF the civil war for nearly
t"ll q century tossed about by every sea
~ "a. Tolls and his face furrowed by the
''0iH gao weather. of every cline come
n - 80 lne sldteroom of an officer on a man.
"al ana say, in a voice that rumbled
"IIt-E.I Iere underneath the ships keel:
mere pair o Tides / made We. sir"
n - Iie same time putting down two beau
az AL ple.es OF fancy work that would have
# i5"leH the heart of the instructors Of
4 49,, "lh In young ladies' boarding.
a 49, ~ did not seem possible that
,tfoiu oiu Iarpaulin Jack" had made these
Unes. but he had.
Nhat real sailor ueed r,ost - ..1oris,,
htr.-a
~,I5 r''i'5et m was his embroidery. Sailors
"A bstt'. MAKE their own clothes and en-
s, ,'sH mem with the most elaborate
s beautiful needlework Around the
NJ omar, at the openings OF the little
X m the breast. in the corners OF
psres.tt.aI and on the upper part of the
gga g hitting trousers ingenious In de-
ss5 @nu @nu requiring much time. patience
n.y. skill 10 produce. Then tbe saiior
M h's sap and in the center OF its
~ embroidered again with great
ana profuseness.
n, W. Qua days a ship would be AT sea
s.n months az time upon occasions. and
fat'. cruise was a long one. When tho
n6.tg y tne ships work was over the
tr uaa p.enty of time for fancy work,
t,, tllllIhs songs OF "Truxton's Vie
NJ thn 'the Guorrore a Frigate Bold"
al y tew days from port 20 port.
M = 'oal shin and clean up after il.
y ultshtw0rk an the time, when
a., ~ dfil with the guns. or torpo-
N. y Win some other new-faneied no.