FEAR PARSONS WHILE AT SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

FEAR PARSONS WHILE AT SEA.

OLD SALTS BECOME SUPERSTITIOUS WHEN THEY HAVE A PREACHER ON BOARD SHIP.

Merchant skippers, almost without exception, have a great dislike to having parsons aboard. Navy men, owing to their respect for the Queen's regulations, do not care to talk on the subject. The commanders of big liners are also rather shy about discussing the subject. I once wished one a pleasant voyage.

'Pleasant voyage!' he retorted savagely. 'That's likely, ain't it, when there's three parsons shipped, and one ot them a bishop!'

Here his feelings became too much for him, and he called to the steward to refill the glasses. I was not surprised to hear that a cylinder cover blew off in the bay.

Sitting in my club one night, a skipper came in. I shook him by the hand and hoped he had had a good voyage.

'Voyage!' he replied in heartrending tones. "Don't call it that. I've never had such a dog's time in my life. Got Iwo parsons aboard at Sydney, and another at King George's Sound, and, blame me, if two missionaries did not join at Colombo! Sooner than sail with five parsons again I'll break an arm or a- leg and get put ashore.'

But to see the prejudice in all its glory one must talk to the masters of ocean tramps. I have known of one case in which a skipper feigned serious illness sooner than take command when he found that five missionaries were booked as passengers, and two of them ladies.

As it happened, the ship had a particularly bad voyage, and the unlucky missionaries had more than one near squeak for their lives.

Once a case was quoted to me as showing great presence of mind and seamanship on the part of the skipper.. The ship had a couple of parsons aboard, and, as the crew expected, the voyage was disastrous. The misfortunes culminated in the decks being swept and three men washed overboard. One was a parson who ought to have been below.

After this the weaither suddenly abated, and the ship came safe to land. I remarked that the parson ought to have been under the hatches. 'Ah!' replied the old sea-dog who told me, 'Cap'n S. is a good man. He talked it over with the mates, and there seemed nothing else to be done. So they got him up on purpose. Better one man than an whole company, and the parson ought to have been prepared, while it warn't in reason that the whole crew should be.'

Skippers have told me that, danger apart, parsons are not desirable passengers; they interfere too much. One told me that the wife of one clerical gentleman insisted on holding little religious conversations with the stewards and the orew and giving them tracts till they nearly had a mutiny.

At length he found her trying to improve the moral condition of the steersman, when he threatened that if he caught her abaft the funnel again he would put her in irons, after which the subsided. —'Church Gazette.'