ard the Neversink, it was the Purser's Steward that
sat at his little window on the berth-deck and handed you your letter
or paper--if any there were to your address. Some disappointed
applicants among the sailors would offer to buy the epistles of their
more fortunate shipmates, while yet the seal was unbroken--maintaining
that the sole and confidential reading of a fond, long, domestic letter
from any man's home, was far better than no letter at all.

In the vicinity of the office of the Purser's Steward are the principal
store-rooms of the Purser, where large quantities of goods of every
description are to be found. On board of those ships where goods are
permitted to be served out to the crew for the purpose of selling them
ashore, to raise money, more business is transacted at the office of a
Purser's Steward in one _Liberty-day_ morning than all the dry goods
shops in a considerable village would transact in a week.

Once a month, with undeviating regularity, this official has his hands
more than usually full. For, once a month, certain printed bills,
called Mess-bills, are circulated among the crew, and whatever you may
want from the Purser--be it tobacco, soap, duck, dungaree, needles,
thread, knives, belts, calico, ribbon, pipes, paper, pens, hats, ink,
shoes, socks, or whatever it may be--down it goes on the mess-bill,
which, being the next day returned to the office of the Steward, the
"slops," as they are called, are served out to the men and charged to
their accounts.

Lucky is it for man-of-war's-men that the outrageous impositions to
which, but a very few years ago, they were subjected from the abuses in
this department of the service, and the unscrupulous cupidity of many
of the pursers--lucky is it for them that _now_ these things are in a
great degree done away. The Pursers, instead of being at liberty to
make almost what they pleased from the sale of their wares, are now
paid by regular stipends laid down by law.

Under the exploded system, the profits of some of these officers were
almost incredible. In one cruise up the Mediterranean, the Purser of an
American line-of-battle ship was, on good authority, said to have
cleared the sum of $50,000. Upon that he quitted the service, and
retired into the country. Shortly after, his three daughters--not very
lovely--married extremely well.

The ideas that sailors entertain of Pursers is expressed in a rather
inelegant but expressive saying of theirs: "