Their lean souls and
contracted little minds could only grasp the idea of making
money, and hoarding it after it was made. Hundreds of fine
fellows had their blood poisoned so that their teeth would
drop out, and their bones become saturated with virulent
scurvy owing to the unwholesome food the law provided they
should eat. The hereditary effects of this were in some
cases appalling, and yet while this was going on never a
voice in the country was raised effectually against it; and
if the conditions under which the sailor lives to-day are
vastly improved on what they were in the sailing-ship days,
he has neither the country nor the Parliament of England to
thank for it, but the new class of shipowner who sprang into
existence simultaneously with the introduction of steam.
There were many of the old shipowners and shipmasters
generous in all their dealings with their men; but my
experience compels me to say that a great number of them
were heartless skinflints. The economical measures adopted
by some captains in order that their supplies might spin out
were not only comic, but idiotic. For instance, the master
and his chief officer had their meals together, and if they
were not on very lovable terms the few minutes allowed the
mate was a very monotonous affair owing to the forced and
dignified silence of his companion, who eyed with disfavour
his healthy appetite; but this did not deter him from
continuing to dispose of the meagre repast of vitiated salt
junk.
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