SAILORS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5181, 30 October 1877, Page 3

SAILORS.

(From the Nineteenth Century.) The sailor who goes long voyages in sailing ships, even if married, is practically a homeless and friendless man. Rare, indeed, are his opportunities of advising with a counsellor in a sphere superior to his own, or gaining the favor of a powerful patron. The ship-owner knows nothing of the seamen in his employ, and no ties like those that bind together the landlord and tenant, the cottager and the squire, can be established between them. Again, there is a difficulty in giving tothe sailor a direct inducement to diligence. That is done in other employment by piece-work. The nature of the occupation forbids the extension of such a system to the sea ; and thus the sailor is not animated by the incentives to vigorous exertion which exercise such a wholesome influence over other classes of workmen, in correcting the indolence which is part of human nature. A lesson may be learned by contrasting the privileges of the quarter-deck with the disadvantages of the forecastle. From time to time the newspapers have been filled with complaints of the misconduct of British seamen in foreign ports. Their bad behaviour is an almost inevitable consequence of the peculiar circumstances in ' which they are placed.. After a weary voyage, who does not sigh for the blessings of the land ? The sailor, confined for months in the narrow and unattractive limits of the, forecastle, shares the universal longing of human- nature. He lands, an utter stranger, without a friend, unnoticed by the crowd, and ignorant of the language. He is soon accosted by a fellow-countryman, one of that low class who make an ill-gotten livelihood by pandering to tho vices of young seamen. The tempter invites his victim to lodgings close at hand, and engages to cheer his life ashore with all the pleasures that are supposed to delight the sailor. The sequel is only too plainly foreshadowed. : After an interval of a few days, the unhappy mariner returus to consciousness, only, to find bis pockets empty, and his brain stupified with drugged liquors. No longer in funds or credit, he is hurried on board , a ship which he has never seen, for a voyage the nature of which he scarcely cares to inquire. Thus a new term of privation is commenced, with another ; equally miserable orgy in prospect at its close.