Year: 1869

s+@d The Fever ship.


The case of the ship James Foster, Jr., is
one Of the few which occasionally come into
notice showing the brutality Of management
too often charac.erizing the packet ship pas
sages on the North Atlantic. This ship left
Liverpool on the 10Th December and did not
reach New York until the 7th Of March, a
passage of some seventy-eight days. When
the ship arrived in port she had but three
days provisions on board. This alone Is
sufficient indication that the allowance to the
immigrants, at all times small and OF miserable
quality, must have been fearfully reduced 1t
is painful to contemplate what horrible fate
this floating pesthouse would have met had
she been blown off the coast by one OF our
winter gales with but three days provisions on
board. 1t is also evident that the crew en-
ployed were, like most packet ship crews, unfit
for service. The ship is of |, ,427 tons burden,
and 1t is represented that twenty-five men are
complement for her. This number is very
far from complement for ship of this size
even in the summer season, much less the
winter, on the North Atlantic. The captain
said that he shipped "forty men for the pas
sage and out of the forty only seven had ever
been to sea before that voyage" ''These men
came on board with only the clothes they had
on their backs"


In considering this case we are led to re-
mark upon the general management Of the
packet and emigrant ships which run between
Europe and New York. They are, as gen.
eral thing, unwilling to employ good sailors,
60 shorthanded, expect to get considerable
work out of the emigrants, and are oficered by
men who are expected to knock down, drag
out and fight their way across the ocean. Most
of the emigrantS, where the number is large,
are crowded into the ships hold in worse
manner than first class breed Of sheep. AT
the first sign of gale Of wind the matches are
put on, and the at oil times inferior and insult
cient ventilation is almost completely cut off,
The stencil created is in day or two intolera-
BILE, and can do nothing except breed pestilence
This appears to be the way the ship fever was
caused on the ship James Foster, Jr. The
crews Of such ships, with scarcely any cloth
ing when they come on board, make a general
raid on the sreenhorns and passengers and
supply their wants. Aprotest from the injured
party calls down shower Of curaes and blows.
The men shipped as sailors, unable to do duty,
receive the curses of the officers, and fire.
quently general fight follows, occasionally
resulting in loss of life. We are touching the
facts very lightly here, but, lightly as we
touch them, they are worse than anything that
ever characterized the African slave trade,
over which the philanthropists 60 into such
denunciations


These packet ships have such reputation
that & decent sailor win not ship on board Of
them, nor do the officers and owners care to
ship first class sailors. All the real. sailor
work is done upon the arrival Of the ship in
New York or Europe, and the men who are
shipped to work the vessel during the passage
are picked up generally drunk along the docks
and bundled on board without clothing. Woe
to the poor greenhorn who has more traps"
than he stands in, for the old ''packetarian"
will soon despoil him of his property. These
are the class Of men who are employed to
take care Of the lives of immigrants and the
rich cargoes Of freight that pass between here
and Europe. Good sailors and enough of
them, good food and good treatment reason
able pay and good, ofHcer-like discipline, not
brutality, would tell quite different story In
our sailing ship service. We should have q
thorough overhauling Of the whole system.
The laws made should be sternly executed, be
they against the officers Of ship for bad
management Of their vessel or bad treatment
of passengers, or against shipowners for insult
ficient and bad food and general neglect of
the interests of the public and OF those who
trust life and property to their keeping.