The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1906-02-21
THE SAILORS TRUNK.
A Round Canvas Bag Four Feet Long
and the Same the World over.

| salt, "is canvas bag cylindrical in
form and about four feet long and
eighteen inches in diameter, and
when he's got that bag packed with
his stuff the whole outfit, bag and all,
constitutes his kit. He couldn't car
ry a regular trunk even IL he wanted
| to, for there would be no place for it
in a ships forecastle. But dun
mage bag takes up only so much
room as the stuff inside of it takes
| up-that Is to say, if it's only half
full you can fold 1t down to half its
space, and then If the bag is full you
| can press it. and you can bend and
twist it, you can make good stowage
with 1t in the place where 1t has to
so, and so you can get it, with as
| much stuff in 1t as a trunk would
hold, into a space where you couldn't
get trunk at ALL
"And then this bag is a mighty
sight handler to carry than trunk
would be when the sailor man goes
ashore, or when he goes from his
boarding house to a vessel when he
pick that bag up and sling it over
his shoulder. and it's flexible enough
to fit there easily and sag down a
little forward and aft, making it
easy to carry.
"In 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 could see a
ship captain walking down South
street with a dozen men training after
him, his new crew. each man with
his canvas trunk, or dunnage bag
his kit, on his shoulder, making for a
vessel lying at a wharf, or for a tug
to take the men to some vessel lying
out in the stream ready to sail
you can't see such professions
much nowadays, for the daw of the
square rigger is more and more wan
ing, but still you can even now occa-
sionally meet a 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 outfltting stores, and
you can also buy them secondhand,
just as you can anything else in the
world that 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 one
| in his knapsack.
"If the sailor man makes this bag
| at sea he gets the material for it of
new canvas from the ships canvas
supplies in charge of the sailmaker,
or maybe the captain gives him for it
q piece out of an old wornout sky
| sail-one that perhaps the sailor has
more than once furled himself-the
canvas from the bigger lower sails
being too heavy for it.
THE bag Is made with a shirring
string at the open end, by which it
can be closed there. Sometimes IL
his bag is packed so plumb full that
he can't close the end the sailor
puts over his stuff. on top. canvas
disk for 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 it
waterproof. And sometimes they or
nament EN-.
"a common way of doing this is to
paint on the butt or closed end of
the bag a star, maybe double star,
one inside of the other and in differ
ent colors. the inner star in ring,
and outside the ring the rays of an
other star, running round like the
points of compass Sometimes they
paint pictures on them, maybe pic.
lures of ships.
"a sailor might paint on his dun
mage bag picture of his favorite
ship, Just as he might have such a
picture tattooed on himself Or II
he couldn't do it himself. and he
wanted such picture, he might find
| somebody in the forecastle who could
do it for him, and paint very pretty
ship, too; how he came by his art no.
body knows.
But whatever they NAV do about
such details as these. the sailors of
whatever country use a dunnage bag
in which to carry their personal be-
longings. The world over, in the
ships of every nation, a dunnage bag
serves as the sailors trunk. New