BOYCOTT AND SHANGHAI.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 190, 13 July 1936, Page 6

BOYCOTT AND SHANGHAI.

The two words in the captionone a surname, the other a placename —have been added to the English language as verb's, each witn a distinct application and meaning. “Boycott” originated in the eighties of the last century, and its origin was in Ireland. A certain Captain Boycott, who was an Irish landlord, fell foul of his tenants, and the latter prevented all communication with the captain and his family, even tradespeople being prevented from calling at the Boycott home. The isolation was novel, but complete and effective. The latest person to be boycotted is Mr Sean Lester, an Irishman, and the High Commissioner of the Free City of Danzig.

“Shanghai” is older, for it was in the eighteen-fifties that it was first used as a verb, and it had its birth in San Francisco. During the half century before 1960, “shanghaiing” was one of the most lucrative activities of the dive-infested waterfronts of San Francisco. In 1852, twentythree gangs were engaged in the trade. To sail from San Francisco to Shanghai one had a long, hazardous cruise, and a sailor forcibly shipped was “sent to Shanghai,” and later “shanghaied.” In those days sailors were frequently stupid, hulkingfellows, held constantly under iron discipline. They had no recognised legal rights, and were easy victims of the boatmen, the runnel’s and the crimps.

The boatmen, plying in large skiffs, were the only communication between the ships and shore; their best customers were the runners, whose duty ivas to deliver sailors, at 3 dollars to 5 dollars each, to the waterfront boarding houses. Thereafter the sailor was handled by the boardinghouse master, the crimp. Shipmasters usually welcomed the runners for with ships often lying in the .harbour for weeks, the desertion of sailors, which meant forfeiting their pay, saved the considerable cost of maintaining - the crew. Captains often paved the way for the runners by a process called “running the men out.” A week or so before making port they would make the sailors’ lives, miserable by deliberate cruelty, rotten, scanty rations, and back-breaking- tasks. The runners boarded the ship with ail equipment of revolver, knife, blackjack, a flask of liquid soap, obscene pictures, and many bottles of liquor, all liberally dosed. The liquid soap emptied into the stew kettle produced an offensive mess that inclined the sailor’s mind to the runners’ glowing accounts of pleasures ashore. The drugged liquor and alluring arguments were usually effective. Under the runners’ “code” a sailor was anybody’s game until he had uttered the name of a boardinghouse master, whereupon he became the property of the runner for that particular crimp.

Once in the clutches of the crimps the sailor hadn’t a dog’s chance. He was promptly robbed by the attaches; in the boardinghouse he was kept drunk on the whisky dosed with opium. In due course a shipmaster would appear to sign ou a crew. If able the men were permitted to sign the article, also, though they seldom knew it, a document assigning - two months’ advance pay to the crimp. While still in a sodden daze, the sailors were searched, and all valuables appropriated; any good clothing was replaced with castoffs or old blankets. Finally they were rowed out to the ships and hoisted aboard like sacks of meat. The crimp was then paid. This was the business of shanghaiing, which was cruel aiid merciless at every point. The practice began to decline with the disappearance of the sailing ship, and finally in 1906, Congress passed - “An Act to Prohibit Shanghaiing in the United States.”