The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1905-02-17
SAILORS TRUNK.
There is no Difference in it the
World Over.

!5d1t 10 4 NEW l Olk Sull lSPOil%4, -
canvas bag cylindrical in form and
about four feet long and eighteen
:nches in diameter, and when he's got
that bag packed with his stuff the
whole outfit, bay and all, constitutes
mis- kit. He couldn't carry regular
trunk even i: he wanted to, for there
would be no place for it in ships
;orecastlc But dunnage bag takes
80 only so much room as the stuff
inside of il takes up-that IS to say.
II it's only half full you can fold it
down 20 half its space, and then il
The bag is full you can press it. and
OH can twist and bend it. you can
make good stowage with it III the
place where it has to go and so YOU
san get it, with as much stuff III It
as a trunk would hold. into a space
where you couldn't get trunk at all.
<sAnd then this bag is mighty
sight handler to carry than a trunk
would be when the sailor man goes
ashore, or when he goes from his
Boarding house to vessel when ne
aAips for a new voyage. He can just
:pick that bag up and sling it over MS
shoulder, and it's flexible enough to
fit there easily, and sag down little
forward and aft, making it easy to
carry.
NIn the days when deep sea sailing
ships were commonly used, before
the day of steam kettles in the old
days when the jibbooms of ships
along the waterfront used to stick out
across the street in long rows for
block after block you cold see a ship
captain walking down South street
with a dozen men trailing after him,
his new crew, each man with his can
vas trunk, or dunnage bag, his kit,
on his shoulder, making for vessel
lying out in the stream ready to sail.
@You can't see such professions
much nowadays, for the days of the
square rigger is more and more wan
ing, but still you can even now oc-
casionally meet man walking along
South street with his dunnage bag
over his shoulder. There are still
some ships, and the sailor man hasn't
quite gone out yet.
@'You can buy dunnage bags in any
of the sailors outfitting stores, and
you can also buy them second hand,
just as you can anything else in the
world that I know of. And then
some sailors make their own dunnage
bags, many sailors being mighty
HANDY with the needle, and every
sailor carrying in his bag house
wife, with needles and thread and
buttons and such things, just as every
soldier everywhere carries in his
-lnapsack.
AJf the sailor man makes this bag
a: sea he gets the material for it OF
new canvas from the ships canvas
supplies in charge OF the sallmaker,
+u7 maybe the captain gives him for
1t a piece out Of an old WORKOUT sky
:s.:il-one that perhaps the sailor has
more than once furled himself-the
canvas from the bigger lower sails be-
:.ng TOO heavy Tor il
The bag is made with a sl1irrlne
string at the open end. by which il
can be closed there Sometimes ii
mis- bag is packed SO plumb full that
he can't close the end the sailor puts
over his stuff, on top, vancas disk
for a stopper, and then draws the
:shirring string on that.
Sometimes the sailor carries his
,dunnage bag always just as it was
made, in the plain canvas, and then
sometimes he paints it to make II
waterproof. And sometimes they or,
2nameut them.
"A common way of doing this is tc
paint on the butt or closed end ot
the bag a star. maybe a double star
o:,e inside OF the other and in differ,
sent ,colors, the innerstar in ring
.znd outside the ring the rays of an,