long apprenticeship of boys who are ready to enter this
adventurous and arduous calling. Few occupations require a more assiduous
preparation, and the members of but few callings are able to guard
themselves so well against the danger of over-competition. Nevertheless
the earnings of the pilots are not great. They come under the operation of
the rule already noted, that the more dangerous a calling is, the less are
its rewards. Three thousand dollars a year is a high income for a pilot
sailing out of New York harbor, and even this is decreasing as the ships
grow bigger and fewer. Nor can he be at all certain as to what his income
will be at any time, for the element of luck enters into it almost as much
as into gambling. For weeks he may catch only small ships, or, the worst
ill-luck that can befall a pilot, he may get caught on an outbound ship
and be carried away for a six weeks' voyage, during which time he can earn
nothing. But the pilot, like the typical sailor of whatever grade, is
inured to hard luck and accustomed to danger.

Such are some of the safeguards which modern science and organization have
provided for the sailor in pursuit of his always hazardous calling. Many
others of course could be enumerated. The service of the weather bureau,
by which warning of impending storms is given to mariners, is already of
the highest utility. The new invention of wireless telegraphy, by which a
ship at sea may call for aid from ashore, perhaps a thousand miles away,
has great possibilities. Modern marine architecture is making steamships
almost unsinkable, more quickly responsive to their helms, more seaworthy
in every way. Perhaps with the perfection of the submarine boat, ships,
instead of being tossed on the boisterous surface of the waves, may go
straight to their destination through the placid depths of ocean. But
whatever the future may bring, the history of the American sailor will
always bear evidence that he did not wait for the perfection of safety
devices to wrest from the ocean all that there was of value in the
conquest; that no peril daunted him, nor was any sea, however distant, a
stranger to his adventurous sail.

Much has been said and written of the improvidence of the sailor, of his
profligacy when in port, his childlike helplessness when in the hands of
the landsharks who haunt the waterside streets, his blind reliance upon
luck to get him out of difficulties, and his utter indifference to all
precau