The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-11-02
SHIFTLESS LABORERS
Mississippi River Deck HANDS Worst
in the Country.
one of the Picturesque Features
OF old-Time Western River
steamboatins That IL SIN
In Evidence.

and Of the decline of the old times they
leave out Of account the negro deck
hand.
One who makes a trip up the river
and watches the antics of these negroes
and listens to their weird songs and
tales will not agree with the iconoclast
who says that all the beauties and The
picturesque features have faded out OF
the steamboatman's life. AS the line
of negroes goes up the hill under the
sesrchlight, with their peculiar swing
ing tread, and sing the music which
seems somehow to be an essential pary
OF the action, the sight is n which
has a strange w.ldness about 1t and
a fascination, too. The negro Is not
the same as he was before the war.
Conditions have changed too much for
that. But he has retained his love
for the fantastic and most of those bar
barrie customs which civilization seems
unable to eradicate from the Ameri-
can mind.
The first mate has undergone a
marked metamorphosis also, and to his
change is due some portions Of the new
deck hands character. Time was
when the first mate had a vocabulary
which would make a golf player green
with envy or an ordinary sailors par
rot die for shame. He had his vocabu-
larry, and the negroes held the same
opinion as the one who answered when
.a -
asked if he did not object TO the mates
abuse: mo, boss; OATS whit he's
paid for. He's gotter make out he's
dom somethin', an 1t don't do us no
harm" Now the deck hands actually
object to being sworn at when the
oaths become too vigorous.
The negroes Of the present deck hand
class are the most shiftless Of an or
dinarily devil-may-care people. They
do not look as far into the future as
a bat can see in daytime, and they do
not care even when they do see clouds
on the horizon. Heaven only knows
where. they live from one trip of the
boat to the other. Many spend ihe
time, after a carousal, OF the rock pile,
and can he accounted for. Others show
u3 ready for another trip and cannot
tell where they spent the time after
;hey left HE boat OF the levee.
The deck hand Is always a rather
Young ram. He raGst have the strength
ana endurance which only youth as a
rule possesses. The work he does saps
away this vigor rapidly, and the man
who lasts more than a few years as a
deck hand is rare indeed. Dissipation
adds to undermining effects of the
labor itself, and the Marine hospital
usually receives a man after he has
done a few years service.
Like all other severe labors it is well
paid for. The deck hand who spins
yarns and catches maps between land
ings and then gets out to carry ashore
the groceries and bring back the seed
and cotton earns more money thar any
man who pores all day and far into
the night over a set of books. The pay
of a deck hand is usually $50 a month,
even w.aen the business is only mod
erately heavy, and last winter during
the big rush a crew Of negroes refused
TO ship because the wages did not suit
them. They were offered 500 per
month, but wanted 800 for the trip.
K II is not in The negro deck hand as
n personege only, but in his phrases
as the center of the web of odd GUS
toms that he excites interest. The first
popularity which strikes the observer
about the deck hand is his walk. He
has climbed up the steep river bank
when there was the mud Of buckshot
land all over it. and he has come
down that same slide with a heavy
weight upon bis back. He has adopted
a step which prevents him from slip
ping, and this gives him g peculiar
shutting step unlike any movement
seen elsewhere. He combines with this
a hosting of the shoulders and a pc.
culiar turn of the head, acquired from
turning his face to let a sack rest upon
his shoulders. These three traits are
distinctive and give the deck hand
a strange appearance upon the levee
or anywhere off a boat or away from
the river.
As he works going up the inclines
or alorg the gangplank. precariously
resting upon a @levee's crest, he has q
rhythmic sort of chant which fits In
with bis music. Always the same class
of songs are sung. Usually there are
no set words, but some leader chants
and the others voice the chorus as they
bend to their tasks. There are sack
songs and barrel songs and music fol-
A. oo4fo, hale and tho ordinary Docir