allowed shore liberty. Now consider the case of the first
foreign port where liberty was granted, Rio de Janeiro in South America;
and what happened in Rio was what happened in other ports.

It was five weeks or more since leaving home, and during that five weeks
they had been for twelve days steaming along one of the hottest coasts
(Brazil) in all the world--the tropics--and it was summer-time once they
were south of the line; and in all that time no chance for an enlisted
man to get a drink of any kind of liquor--no beer or light wine even--no
matter what the intensity of the thirst which may have possessed him.

Now he is suddenly thrown ashore with his pockets full of money. He has
only to go to the paymaster and draw pretty much all he pleases. By
actual figures the men of the battle fleet--about 13,000--drew $200,000
in gold to spend ashore in Rio--about $15 a man. For five or six weeks
not a drop to drink, and all at once 4,000 of them thrown daily to roam
into the midst of 500 grog shops with their pockets full of money, and
no restrictions placed upon them, except one: they must be back to their
ship that same night!

I was a passenger with that battle fleet, and night after night I stood
on the great stone quay in Rio and watched them returning to their
ships. On no night did I see more than forty or fifty who might be said
to be "soused"; on no night did I see more than a dozen or fifteen who
had to be thrown into the accommodation barge with the "dead ones," the
helpless ones who were so far gone that they had to be carried up the
sides of their ships from the barge which made the last rounds of the
fleet.

Now I would like to make an observation; gratuitous, but perhaps of
human interest and pertinent right here: I think if we took 4,000
lawyers or doctors or authors or car-drivers or clerks--4,000 of almost
any sort from civil life--and locked them up so that for five or six
weeks in a warm or a cold climate they could not get a drink of any kind
of liquor, no matter how great their fancied or real need; and at the
end of that five or six weeks took the whole 4,000 of them, with their
pockets full of money, and suddenly threw them into the middle of all
the grog-shops of a great city--I do think that more than forty--that
is, one per cent of them--would be found "soused"--that is, if we had
means of locating them all at the end of the day.

The heroic sailor of tradition has passed--a sailor of anothe