The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-23
SEA ROYERS OF MANY LANDS
CONTRASTS IN sEAMEY MET IN
 NEW YoRK'S SAILOR TOFM.

Who Turn Peddlers-rhe Helpless
 Arab mad the Depressed Filipino Thesmart Japs.
 sailortown used to lie along the North and East rivers, and sections of it may still be found there. especially in the re- zion between Pike street and the bridge. But the main Sailortown is now Ialong the water edge in South Brook lyn..
 It is a city of cosmopolites, the New York Sailortown. To West street come the big liners. with their lordly first class passengers, and their French silks, English cloths and German pottery.
 At the south end of the street are the West indian and South American steamers, loaded with bananas. Near by land the orange and lemon ships from Italy.
 On South street are the Spanish piers. haunted with the scent of raisins and lieorice. and close by those of the ships from China, bringing tea and cinnamon, lockwood furniture and eolr mating.
 Maybe there is a ship near by full of dates from the Persian Gulf. and per Ihaps another with entrants from Greece or mica from Greenland.
 | New York is the unsuitable consumer, and they come from every port to bring | her what she wants. Hence it is that every brand of desiecated English may be heard in Sailortown, and every brand II. F. fa1 1 They call the Scandinavians square heads" in Sailortown. They are ex- ltremely obstinate and are apt to get fixed ideas in their heads to which they adhere for life. The sea lawyer
 abounds among them.
 l That he is anxious to rise, and does rise, into the desirable yacht berths,
 where the pay is better and the life easier, and that he is also entering in large numbers Into the United States navy, prove that the Scandinavian is the most intelligent of his class. He is credited with being a hard drinker
 ashore, but he does not compare in this respect with British. Irish and Ameri- can seamen.
 | Another characteristic of the Seandi-
 navian seaman is that he lives less in Sailortown and has more home life
 ashore than any other seaman in this port. As soon as he lands he hunts up
 some brother or sister or twenty-fifth
 cousin, and stays at his house. An exact opposite of the Scandinavia
 an is the Spaniard. also a traditional
 sailor The Spaniard is one of the most
 slavish of all seamen. He will accept
 less food and pay and take more abuse
 than any other European seaman, and
 he is obedient. attends to his business, drinks very little, and then only light wines.
 He has also the reputation of being | faithful to his word, and showing up lwhen he says he will; very important item in the shipping of crew. He is
 not a good man for the hardest work, Tor to call on for sudden violent exer- tion. Germans and ScandiHavians are his superiors physically. But the Span
 iard is calm, steady going man, who
 does his duty and gives no trouble; a livery different reputation from that giv-
 en him by the story tellers of the sea. A curious little bit of sailor color has lcome to light in the records of the American Seamen's Friend society. This society has thirty-nine chaplains scattered over the world: and the re- port from every one of them is that the Spanish sailors become fond of the Bi-
 ble whenever they are once interested lin it. When once they have been per-
 suaded to read it and a copy is given
 them, they pore over it in way that people brought up on it never do.
 The Spaniard is more often found in I the firereem than any other nationali- ty. He controls the firerooms of this coast.
 This is not, as one might think, be- icause he can stand more heat outside
 as well as inside, as in his peppery food but because the Spanish boarding
 housekeepers have got control of the
 shipping for the fireroons of the coast It is the hardest and most disagreeable job on board, and the Spaniard is thor
 oughly in the power of his boarding housekeeper. He lives year after veal at the same house, is always in debt tt
 the proprietor. and seems to have little Initiative about breaking away. Greek seamen in this port may bt
 reckoned in with the Spaniards, as they
 are largely controlled by the same ele
 lment. The Greek has been the tradi
 tional sailor of the Mediterranean eve
 since he succeeded the Phoenician il
 that capacity, and he does the bulk o
 the carrying trade on that sea to-day. But when he lands in New York h,
 looks around for a shore job as soon a possible. He finds his way to the Gree colony on Madison street, with it's clas
 fsic names on the shop windows, an, , often becomes a fruit peddler.
 The Italian sailor shows exactly tn same trait. One of the strongest char tacteristics of the English or Irish sailo i is that he is good for nothing else. H ; is Jack Tar to the end of his days. Tn Scandinavian is ambitious, but he rise , in his own line. But the Italian, lik ! the Greek, hunts up friend and gets job ashore.
 And people who have worked amoni
 seamen for years say that they hay tnever yet known sailor who would g to sea unless he had to. They prefer shore life. Nowadays, when so man jseamen are machinists instead of sail lors. favorite job ashore is that of sta : itionary engineer. Many a man runnin the boiler in a Harlem apartment hous lhas sailed round the world half dog : en times.
 ! Since the French subsidy laws wer | itaa I,o