tionary provisions for the proverbial rainy day. Perhaps the sailor
has been getting a shade the worse of it in the literature on this
subject, for he, himself, is hardly literary in his habits, and has not
been able to tell his own story. The world has heard much of the jolly
Jack Tars who spend in a few days' revel in waterside dives the whole
proceeds of a year's cruise; but it has heard less of the shrewd schemes
which are devised for fleecing poor Jack, and applied by every one with
whom he comes in contact, from the prosperous owner who pays him off in
orders that can only be conveniently cashed at some outfitter's, who
charges usurious rates for the accommodation, down to the tawdry drab who
collects advance money on account of half a dozen sailor husbands. The
seaman landing with money in his pocket in any large town is like the
hapless fish in some of our much-angled streams. It is not enough to avoid
the tempting bait displayed on every side. So thick are the hooks and
snares that merely to swim along, intent on his own business, is likely to
result sooner or later in his being impaled on some cruel barb. Not enough
has been said, either, of the hundreds of American lads who shipped before
the mast, made their voyages around Cape Horn and through all the Seven
Seas, resisted the temptations of the sailors' quarters in a score of
ports, kept themselves clean morally and physically, and came, in time, to
the command and even the ownership of vessels. Among sailors, as in other
callings, there are the idle and the industrious apprentices, and the
lesson taught by Hogarth's famous pictures is as applicable to them that
go down to the sea in ships as to the workers at the loom. It is doubtful,
too, whether the sailor is either more gullible or more dissolute when in
port than the cowboy when in town for a day's frolic, or the miner just in
camp with a pocket full of dust, after months of solitude on his claim.
Men are much of a sort, whatever their calling. After weeks of monotonous
and wearing toil, they are apt to go to extremes when the time for
relaxation comes. Men whose physical natures only are fully developed seek
physical pleasures, and the sailor's life is not one to cultivate a taste
for the quieter forms of recreation.

But the romance that has always surrounded the sailor's character, his
real improvidence, and his supposedly unique simplicity have, in some
slight degree, redounded to his advantage. They