The wages paid to sailors from England out to San Francisco on these ships are from £2 10s. to £2 15s. a month, although it ought not to be less than £3 5s. to £3 10s. in justice to the work and the kind of life and food the sailors often have to put up with.

The wages paid to sailors who are shipped on board at San Francisco (if the original crew have deserted) to bring the ship home are £4 a month, so there is an increase of £1 5s. a month on the wages paid from England. It is therefore manifestly not to the interests of the shipowners to pay a crew off with wages at the rate of £2 15s. a month, and immediately ship another at a higher rate of wages, viz., £4 a month.

When ships have to 'lie up' for some time waiting for cargoes, those sailors on board of them who have not deserted are sometimes given the option of being paid off in San Francisco, instead of waiting till the vessel arrives home and the voyage is ended. This is a perfectly fair and legal act, only when they are paid off before the completion of the voyage for which they signed articles, it must be by a mutual agreement between the master and the men. If they agree to this, it must also be remembered it is considered

a 'privilege' to allow them to have their wages in a foreign port, and they must, in consideration of this, leave behind a part of their pay equal to the difference of wages, from £2 15s. to £4, for the voyage home, which will have to be paid for men to take their places. Consequently, when sailors are occasionally paid off in San Francisco, they all have to relinquish one, or two, and sometimes three months' wages for the ' expenses of their successors.

We

It is very seldom that ships arriving in San Francisco from long voyages leave the port again in less time than two months. There is a necessary delay of discharging, loading, etc., and the shipowner calculates this delay of two months or more in the ordinary estimates of the ship's expenses and the wages of the crew for the voyage. will take the case of a ship which remains in port two months and does not 'lie up,' on which a man having wages at the rate of £2 15s. a month is paid off when she comes in. He has to leave one or two months' pay behind him in order to get paid off. If he remained by the ship during the two months she was in port, he would earn £5 10s.; so if he is paid off when the ship comes in,

this is a lessening of the wages to be paid, calculated on by the shipowner, of £5 10s., in addition to the two months' saving in food for him, which must amount to something.

What are the expenses of a man to succeed our friend who has been paid off? The wages 'out of' San Francisco on deep-water ships are £4. The average voyage home is from four to five months, not unfrequently less. Making a voyage of four months at £2 15s. a month, this means £11 in wages per able seaman. At £4 a month, it amounts to £16 a man, an excess of £5. Now that there is no 'blood-money' to be paid, the only other expense incurred by shipowners who have contracts with shipping-masters is that they have to pay 4s. 2d. for each man supplied to their ships.

But the saving to the shipowners of the two months' wages in port after the man has left, which the shipowner must have calculated upon paying (as the sailor signed articles for the whole voyage, out and home), covers the extra wages to be paid; so why should not men be paid off with all their wages? It is merely fair and just.

When ships lie up many months, which they often do, there is no reason whatever

why a sailor who wished to be paid off should be forced to leave one or two months of his wages behind him. Yet it is almost always

the case.

That a crew can be paid off with every cent that is owing them, and the shipowner lose nothing, can be proved by the fact that not long ago the crew of the large four-master,

were paid off in San Francisco, and no deduction at all was made to cover the 'expenses' of extra men. She was an excellent ship-one of those vessels the sailors call a 'home.' For some months the vessel lay in the bay, and eventually accepted a freight. The sailors who had been paid off had spent those months sailing on the Pacific coasting vessels, and when she was ready for sea every man-the original crew-rejoined her, and made the voyage to England. The shipowner lost nothing, nor did the captain, and they had a crew who were a contented and capital lot of seamen.

Whether men are paid off or not at odd times in San Francisco, yet on one point many people agree-viz., that it would be a great mistake to pay off every crew in each port of arrival, according to the American system.

CHAPTER XII.

APPRENTICES AND DESERTION.

GREAT as are the evils attending the desertion of sailors, far greater are those resulting to apprentices when they desert ships. These boys come to sea with the express purpose of becoming officers in the Mercantile Marine. Large numbers of them are well-born and well-educated young fellows. Their parents fit them out at considerable expense for the voyage, and usually a premium is paid the shipowners in consideration of their taking them for three or four years as 'bound apprentices.' Very often the parents are by no means well off in this world's riches, and it is with no little stinting of their own comforts that they can fit their son out, and keep him well supplied with the necessaries of sea life during his apprenticeship. This thought the thought of a great debt to