SEA AND SAILORS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 48, 27 February 1911, Page 3

SEA AN D SAILORS.

FROM THE SEVENTIES ONWARDS j A WELLINGTON SAILOR'S MEMORIES. * " (By Eareye.") Nearly all men have known the sailor, for the sailor, even the old sailor, is an elemeutal type, and has grown but slightly in complexity since Homer saw him on his oar-bench, ploughing the wine-dark -water to an old tune.— John Mosefield. Take an ancient mariner to the Oriental 'Beach, where the little children play, and sib there with him while a. fussy little black duck of a steamer tows out a noble albatross— a full-rigged ship. Take care to glowingly of the sailer's lines and spars — and then listen to the ancient mariner. After a few preliminary rumbles the geyser gushes ; the smarting soap has done i£s work. ' Forgotten words and phrases flash into the veteran's mind, and surge from his lips. Ho rails upon that ship, he rakes her fore and aft with a quickfiring battery of nautical wrath, and before the spasm is past one fears that the angry ancient mariner will be wading out "to shout to the captain what he thinks of the "make-shift." The critic has the sailor's modesty. He is not eager to give his name to the, public, but one navigator, well known in Wellington, Captain Felix Black, now retired from the sea, will recognise the historian, for Captain Black once did some bard work on the Strathearn, of the Allen Line, which was the ancient mariner's first ship, in 1871, flying to and fro in the Western, Ocean, as the Atlantic was always termed then. BEATING THE STEAMERS. The Strathearn was a thing of beauty and power, said the "'A. M." She once crossed the Atlantic in nine days, with <a full spread of canvas bulged taut before a good wind all the way. Often eh<> was able to say "au revoir" to steamer* of those times, when tie wind was kind. Her tonnage was 1750, and officers and crew totalled forty-six. f A velssel of that size now would not carry more than fifteen men, sighed the old«timer. The Sfcrathearn was once caught in. a storm in the North Sea, and lost her masis. She was towed into Hamburg, and sold for a trifle to the Germans, who refitted her, renamed her Henrietta, and used her well in the eastern trade. Once more the masts went by the board, j this time in a typlioon off Kaichow, into which the derelict was brought, and sold to Chinese for "old junk." A steamer dragged the doomed flier to Shanghai, and during the tow one of the steamer's engineers photographed the wallowing cripple at the stern. That engineer was a son of the "A. M." of ■6hi& story, and the father, to whom the picture was sent, at once recognised the Strathearn in: the Henrietta. "GET THE 'JIMMY GREEN.' " The "A.M." does not agree with John ' Masefield that the sailor does not appreciably change. The "A.M." believes that Home good, solid manhood goes to sea still, but he is convinced that the material is not shaped so well as in the seventies. He could step on to a sailing ship to-day, and talk the old terms, but> he might as well talk Sanskrit. If he said "Get the Jimmy Green," somebody might bring him a belaying-pin. The ships had changed, and the men, too. Ah, there was. sailing then, such flying. -He spoke of the pretty racers, with their sky-sails and six head-sails, "to say nothing of the 'Jimmy Green' " This same "Jimray" was set right out below the end of the flying boom, "lashing the foam like a wild wolf." Weary men in the fo'c's'le, snatching a brief sleep between long watches, woke to curse "Jhnmy Green," for when, the prow dipped into a comber "Jimmy" was ap<> to' take a large drink, and the swag of brino, suddenly jolted up, sent a shudder through the ship's shoulders. When the order came tr> haul in sail, "Jimmy Green" was addressed in the chanty thus : — "May you never come in, you son. of a gun." WHERE HAVE THE "WHISKERS" GONE? In the "A.M.V time the display of boom at the bowspit was magnificent. There were 30 feet of "whiskers" (transverse spars) from the "catsheads 11 (by the anchors). Now, says the "A.M.", it has come down to an iron stump, like a fox-terrier's tail, compared with a greyhounds. The rigging and general equipment have been simplified, and the manning proportionately reduced, under stress of competition. In the seventies ships cost £14 a ton to build in wood. They had goodly deckhouse of teak, and a noble main-rail of green-heart. The deck and fittings gave full scope to the shipwright's art, and then came the painter to complete the prettiness. Steadily, pitilessly, the iron intruded ; beauty was gradually squeezed' out by the pinch of iron. IS THE "OLD MAN'S" GLORY GONE? When the ''A.M." took the water in '71, the captain, or "old man," was an. awe-inspiring figure, fully conscious of his importance. He was a potentate before whom all quailed. On sea or shore, thft master was a master, with the deportment of a Drake. "How now, though?" added the old sailor gloomily. "The master mariner may be the slave of an office boy. He is no longer king on the high. seas. The electric cables started to tie him up into a much smaller space at sea, and the wireless' telegraphy is finishing him off. He is only a cab-driver now. His orders fly ahead of him ; everything is cut/ and dried. Tap the magic key ashore and the figure works. No more bottomry rates," he laughed. Yet the "A.M." had spoken pessimistically. He can expect to have many disagreeing with his doctrine. THE OLD "HELL-WAGONS." Back to that Western Ocean of the seventies. The "A.M." did his first four years in a very hard school for a total payment of £27, in annual sums, thus— £3, £4, £8, £12. He -has somo sad memories of give-and-take between men and officers. On the run out to America the men were sometimes sullen and even mutinous, with the prospect of the "land of the free" as a refuge. When a ship got near New York "crimpers" or "boarding-masters," the plunderers of snilors, came out in special tugs and fairly grabbed the men. "They were blood-suckers, body-snatchers, resurrectionists,'* said the '.'A.M." On the voyage back to Jlngland, after the "crimpers" had returned the •"well done" and drugged sailors to their ship, the officers' turn came. These v.-ere the j "hell -wagons," ships manned in such a way that there was an "after-guard" of officers strong enough, with arms, to quell mutiny. i THE "YARMOUTH MITTENS." Are there many sailors calling here who have worn the " Yarmouth mittens" ? The "A.M." had a pair when he was on a ship that ran to the Gulf of St. Lawrence for timber, great logs that were rafted down to Quebec. The mittens -were worn in winter of course, and, when they were on, the cramped hands looked like claws. A hand had the "mittens" when sea-cuts almost bared the bones of the parm and fingers. With these raw claws in the dark, stormy night hardy men had to fly to the order : "Lower away and clew." Sleet and

snowy slush had beaten on to tho canvas, and solidified there in needle points. : It was like rolling up sheets of spiked glass. And salt had to be used by those bleeding hands, too, when furling the sails, for it was necessary to safeguard them_ against packing into an icy cast-iron stiffness. Sleep was a very i irregular luxury, in shori supply, in those Spartan times. It was "Calashy watch" for all hands, and this meant : "Work when wanted. Rest when you can." The work was always on call. The oniy chance of a, spell was when the ship was jammed in an ice-pack, and the odds then were that the master would send the men over the side with belay-ing-pins to slay a few hair seals. .THE HOME OF THE CHANTY. The Western Ocean then was the home of the sea chanty. Americans chanted all sorts of quaint folk-lore, and some of them invented special rough-and-ready songs for the fo'c's'le, with a simple chorus, easy to learn and easy to bellow. Those men had to have frames of 'iron and nerves of steel to stand 'the wear and tear of that wild Western Ocean. They had a contempt for "deep-water-men." or "South-Spaincrs," those sailors, however hardy, who voyaged south through soft sunny latitudes. But if a North Atlantic man ever drifted in a mood of weakness to the despised "SouthSpaining," he seldom went back to the Western Ocean. The times have changed. The steamers have put "Yarmouth mittens" out of fashion for ever in the North Atlantic.