The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1915-11-04
IN THE SAILING DAYS
MEN WHO WORKED SHIPS HAD
HARD, LABoRlOUs LIVES.
"RuIe Of the Strongest" Was the Only
Law Known, and Shanghalin9
Was Accepted as Mat
ter Of Course.

A great deal of sentiment Is mis-
| placed or wasted on the passing of
the sailing ship and the age Of sail
navigation IL there is truth in many
of the old chronicles of the sea. The
condition of the men who go down to
the sea in ships has nightly changed
for the better within two or three gen.
| erations. There was a time when
'strong-arm" methods were commonly
employed in getting work out of the
crews and in operating ship from
port to port. Brutality was not ex-
| ceptional; it was common, and ac-
cording to the lights of the time 1t
was not looked on as brutality.
The practices which were then con-
sidered necessary and proper could
not be countenanced today. even
| though there has been marked re-
version to barbarous practices both
on land and water. An old writer has
said that the principle on which most
ships were worked was that sailor
men were brutes, and must be treat
ed as SUCH" The law of the fist and
the Delaying pin was the only one
they knew. Their crews seldom
shipped willingly. The shanghai
system invariably gave them their
| men. On the eve of sailing, in the
dark watches of the night, boats would
draw alongside and discharge their
cargoes of inanimate men, breathing
stnrtorously as ore does who has
been "doped.'
Next morning, out at sea, merciless
man-handling, wherein "knuckle-dust-
er5" and monkeywrenches played
prominent part, brought the luckless
fellows round to little consciousness.
They might complain who would, but
the skipper had their papers, signed
with a cross, their receipt for
months advance Of pay. Remon-
STRANGE was met with an iron fist.
One of the consequences of the bru-
tai practices was that, being so long
and often resorted tc, they seemed
to become necessary in the working of
the ship. A moments relaxation would
have meant red mutiny. In the event
of the vessel having to be abandoned
it was not unusual for the afterguard
to take the only available boats at the
point of the revolver, leaving the crew
to drown like rats. That was gentle
precaution against a possible short
age of supplies.
The Yankee ship, and especially the
Frisco hooker" had an unenviable
reputation among the men of the sea.
An old authority on the condition of
sailors has written that the work
aboard these ships was slavery. The
men were required to work all day on
deck and keep four-hour watches
throughout the night. Tasks were in
vented for them. They were sent to
overhaul skysails before breakfast ito
give them an appetite" They had to
take to the rigging barefoot, and woe
betide the laggard. This was the
Yankee shippers motto: Aboard my
ship you mustn't walk and you mustn't
run; you must blame well fly" The
charge has been made that all the
efforts of the officers were directed to
making life unlivable, so that the
men would desert in the first port,
leaving their back pay in the hands
of the skipper 1t was a profitable
way Of getting labor.
Every now and then there is an
echo of the oldtime shanghaiing prac-
tices, and a couple of generations ago
such practices were particularly COM
mon. The system was to provide a
seaman with board and lodging pend
ing his signing-on in return for his
months advance Of pay. 1t was to
the boarding masters advantage to
get rid of that man as soon as posi-
BILE, and If he would not go willingly
there were always the fighting man"
and the dope" Whe.. there was
shortage of men the "touts" went out,
Swallowed likely looking sailormen and
took the first opportunity of drugging
their drinks.
The usual price of blood money"
which shippers bound for a long yoy-
age paid for man was $50, and the
boarding masters were not particular
where those men came from nor their
condition when they were shipped. 1t
has been recorded that once an Ameri-
can admiral was "shanghaied' in Ia
coma, and that when he recovered he
forced the skipper to put back into
mort