CHAPTER IV.

FOOD.

ONE of the most general causes of complaint is still the food, and there can be no doubt there is every ground for it. We are told by many that you can never satisfy sailors in the matter of food, that however well they are fed they will complain, and one or two old stories are given in support of this contention. If sailors can never be satisfied with regard to the quality and quantity of food given to them, how is it that men in the forecastles of the first-class liners do not complain of the food? How comes it that men in American ships, if they do not always happen to get good treatment, yet nearly always admit that they are well and properly fed? Why don't the sailors on the English coast complain? How is it that on certain British ships, although very few in

proportion, coming to San Francisco, the sailors willingly say they are well fed and have nothing to complain about? These things are hard to answer, and the plain truth of the matter is that when sailors are properly fed they do not complain, and are as willing to acknowledge it as any other men; but that on the majority of sailingships the crews are miserably fed, both in quantity and variety-half starved as they often tell you they truly are. The writer has frequently heard both men and apprentices describe the food given to them on a long voyage as 'cruel.' When we hear literally thousands of men and boys complain, many in most bitter terms, about their food, when captains will state, as a number have stated, that the majority of sailors have just cause for complaint, that very large numbers are wretchedly fed, and that what is called the 'bare whack,' when rigidly adhered to, is barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, surely then there must be ground for the prevailing discontent on the question of food.

We hear statements made by high people about the improved scale' and 'inspection of food' placed on ships, and the enormous

quantity and variety which is put on board for the sailors' use, and many persons are disposed to think it is all talk on the part of the sailor. The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating; only unfortunately under the present régime it will be impossible to ask our critical friends to put it to this particular test, as there is, practically speaking, no pudding to eat. For months together on many a ship no vision of any pudding is ever seen by the eyes of either apprentice or sailor, unless indeed it is one hurried glance, and a still more hurried and unsatisfying sniff, as the steward rushes past bearing in his arms the pudding for the consumption of those who dwell aft.

So welcome in many cases is the sight of a pudding that the writer, having dinner in the cabin of a large four-master one Sunday, heard three ringing cheers come from the sailors in the forecastle. The cause of their enthusiasm proved to be that the previous day they had rendered some slight assistance to some landspeople who were in difficulties with a boat, and these people had sent them off a present of a plum-pudding. So great was the pleasure excited by its appearance in the forecastle that it was greeted with loud

cheers. It was the first pudding of any sort or kind they had seen for nine months.

When people speak of the improved Federation scale we must recollect that not by any means do all ships have it in its entirety. We must also remember that this improved scale is optional and not law. Until it is made law and strictly enforced, there will be a number of shipowners who will be content to supply their ships only with the old scale of the Board of Trade, commonly called the 'bare whack,' which will insure the discontent and misery of every man and boy on those particular ships.

CHAPTER V.

SHIPS' TAILORS.

It should be borne in mind by the reader, who may not perhaps be conversant with the conditions under which seamen work, that when a ship 'signs on' a crew in Great Britain or elsewhere, they agree to take the ship to her outward port or ports, and to be paid off when they reach home or at the expiration of three years if the ship is away from home so long. The crew cannot by law touch, for their own use or pleasure, or even send to needy relations at home, any of their wages earned or due to them on their arrival at a foreign port, before the expiration of the time stated, except at the goodwill of the captain or owners of the ship. This system of withholding wages, even as regards a fair allowance of pocket-money to men-however respectable they may be-in port, besides