den or a cigar!

The food that was supplied to these north country
"southspainers" was neither plentiful nor good. It was not
infrequently bought in the cheapest and nastiest markets--in
fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that large quantities
of it were not fit for human beings to eat.

The owners were, as a rule, of humble birth. Many of them
inherited frugal habits from their parsimonious parents, and
many of them became miserable misers independent of any
hereditary tendency. If their generous impulses ever did
swell big enough to give the captains a few delicacies, they
were overcome with fear lest extravagance should enter into
their lives, and therefore they hastened to caution them
with imploring emphasis to take special care not to allow
too much to be used, as luxuries of that kind were very
costly! The captains were put to sore straits at times to
carry out the wishes of their owners in doling out the food;
and it often happened in the process of economising they
became imbued with the same greedy ways as their employers.
It would not be fair to charge all north-east coast owners
of that period with the shame of stinting their crews of
proper food; those who did so had no idea that they could be
accused of being criminally mean. Their lean souls and
contracted little minds could only grasp the idea of making
money, and hoarding it after it was made. Hundreds of fine
fellows had their blood poisoned so that their teeth would
drop out, and their bones become saturated with virulent
scurvy owing to the unwholesome food the law provided they
should eat. The hereditary effects of this were in some
cases appalling, and yet while this was going on never a
voice in the country was raised effectually against it; and
if the conditions under which the sailor lives to-day are
vastly improved on what they were in the sailing-ship days,
he has neither the country nor the Parliament of England to
thank for it, but the new class of shipowner who sprang into
existence simultaneously with the introduction of steam.

There were many of the old shipowners and shipmasters
generous in all their dealings with their men; but my
experience compels me to say that a great number of them
were heartless skinflints. The economical measures adopted
by some captains in order that their supplies might spin out
were not only comic, but idiotic. For instance, the master
and his chief officer had their meals together, and if they
w