I Know There Are Many Men Who, When A
Few Cases Of Great Hardship Occur, And It Is Evident That
There
is an evil somewhere, think that some arrangement must be made,
some law passed, or some society got up,
To set all right at once.
On this subject there can be no call for any such movement; on the
contrary, I fully believe that any public and strong action would
do harm, and that we must be satisfied to labor in the less easy
and less exciting task of gradual improvement, and abide the issue
of things working slowly together for good.
Equally injudicious would be any interference with the economy
of the ship. The lodging, food, hours of sleep, etc., are all
matters which, though capable of many changes for the better,
must yet be left to regulate themselves. And I am confident that
there will be, and that there is now a gradual improvement in all
such particulars. The forecastles of most of our ships are small,
black, and wet holes, which few landsmen would believe held a crew
of ten or twelve men on a voyage of months or years; and often,
indeed in most cases, the provisions are not good enough to make
a meal anything more than a necessary part of a day's duty;(1)
- - - - - - - -
1. I am not sure that I have stated, in the course of my narrative,
the manner in which sailors eat, on board ship. There are neither
tables, knives, forks, nor plates, in a forecastle; but the kid
(a wooden tub, with iron hoops) is placed on the floor and the
crew sit round it, and each man cuts for himself with the common
jack-knife or sheath-knife, that he carries about him.
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