The Argosy — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Sailors. 29 he gets none of it. He must submit to the tyranny of a harsh captain. to the cruelty of the chief mate, his master: and how tyrannical some Captains can be, and how cruel some mates are, the world gets an ankling of from time to time. When news reaches us of the loss of some magnificent ship with all on board, we bewail the fate of the officers. The newspapers sound their praises, men and women talk to each other in a strain of lamenta- tion and pity for them and their families. And justly so. But who thinks of the poor sailors? Few of us, I fear, as a rule. And yet, hhow hard their lives had been, compared with those in command. They had to encounter the same sudden death; their souls, perhaps -quite unprepared, had equally been summoned to meet their Maker. We ought to help a sailor because he is so very helpless ; we ought to compassionate him because his life is so hard and is worn out so early ; we ought to be considerate to him from the never-ceasing peril in which his days are passed. At many seasons of the year—and this 4s One—we cannot take up a newspaper, but it contains accounts of wrecks at sea. When a wreck occurs, nobody hears anything about the poor sailors sescued from it. What becomes of them? They must have lost all their clothes and possessions; and it sometimes happens that they are injured as well. Who is to take care of them until they can turn shemselves round and ship again ?—who will supply them with clothes? Qf all helpless men, I must repeat it, a sailor is the most helpless. His home is at sea; he has none on land. When he comes home from a long voyage where has he to go? Generally nowhere. No kind and anxious friends are looking out for him; no homestead is open to receive him. He is not perfection : it is of no use to attempt to gloss over that obvious fact; he is foolish and impulsive and reck- less. But look at the temptations that beset him !—some of us, wise -and educated people that we are, might not always walk off the other way. As soon as the vessel comes up to dock, and the sailor steps ashore, the finds himself amid some company who have gone down to meet him. The man who keeps the wretched boarding house, and has in it a flaring tap-room: he is there. The woman with the rolling eyes and the painted cheeks, and the false words on her wicked lips : she is there. These, and others of their class, stretch out their hands of welcome to him. Of course he can’t resist, for the sailor is, of all men, the most simple, and away he goes with them. Where else has he to go? Seated at the fire in the tap-room with a glass of hot grog in his hand, and perhaps a fiddle playing, he contrasts this warmth and ease and jollity with the hardships he has just been enduring at sea, and thinks he has tumbled into Paradise. <A few days of the..Paradise,)and the man is turned into the street; his money has come to an nd. e ConnicloOolkks. Com