bride, I hope they'll take these words of an
old sailor to heart, and think what sort of a
Home they would get upon the ocean in a
merchant's barque, more especially if there
was a particularly rolling sea. That's the
sort of place we merchant sailors live in when
we are at home; as for your sailors' homes
ashore, they're very good, but we don't live
in them long enough; we can't carry them
aboard. If the honourable House that has
looked a little to our commons, would just
legislate a little humanely for the lodging of the
common seamen on board ship, just as it has
legislated for the lodging of the emigrants—
if an Inspector were required to step down
into every forecastle before a trader left port
—I don't think there would be a very wrong
thing done. But then I'm a forecastle man
myself, and dare say I'm ignorant and don't
properly consider owners' interests, and then
don't rightly feel that the size of the cargo is
of more worth than the health and comfort
of the crew.

Now I have something to say about the
common seaman's victuals. Parliament
regulates the quantity, but quality depends upon
the pocket of the shipowner. In some
London ships I know, and I dare say in a few
ships from other ports, the provisions
supplied are excellent; but in most English
vessels, and especially in those from other
ports than London, they are either second-rate
or bad. My teeth are most used to such
biscuit as would never be put on board an
American trader, nor on board many Scotch
ships. Salt-beef is known justly in the
merchant service as salt-horse or mahogany.
Every cask of mahogany is opened in the
presence of the steward, who picks out the
good bits for the cabin, and leaves the worst
for us forecastle men. Our tea—our greatest
luxury—is of the cheapest and coarsest kind.
Masters, mates, men-of-war's men, emigrants,
and convicts, are all supplied with preserved
meats, soups, vegetables, &c.; but anything
of that kind is as rare a sight upon the
English merchant seaman's chest, as turtle
soup upon a tradesman's dinner-table. In
spite of all improvements, and all new
preparations, there has been little change made
in the kind of provisions supplied to us
during the last half century, except that we
have had our grog stopped, and got nothing
in its place.

Of course we may get hardened by usage
to this kind of treatment, but we are not too
stupid to make comparisons, and as some of
us have seen a little of the Yankee vessels—I
for one—we grumble; we grumble, even,
dissatisfied wretches, at the savage way in which
we are obliged to eat our food. We want to
sit before it like Christians, but can't. Tables
are impossible in our small den, and we know
no more than the wolves do about table
knives and forks. The pork and pea-soup, or
beef and rice are served up in small tubs,
which pass round from hand to hand. Each
pours his allowance of soup or rice into a tin
pot, and eats his bit of meat out of the lump
with the clasp-knife that hangs about his
neck. Breakfast and supper are alike with
us; we get a quart of black mess mixed with
small twigs and "cabbage," and in that we
soak our brown and flinty (if not always
chalky) biscuit, fishing up the pieces with the
points of our knives.

Just now I said that I had seen a little of
the way the Yankees treat their sailors. I
will tell in a few words what the sailors' home
is aboard the best American ships. Some
few English owners, I am told, have followed
the example. From the break of the poop to
the hawse-holes the deck is flush, unbroken,
on both sides. The forecastle is on the same
level as the waist, and guarded by high
bulwarks that shelter the men well. In the
middle of the deck there is a round wooden
building, called the Round-house, where the
crew are lodged. The roof is dome-shaped,
and so gives height to the room within,
which is six feet high round the sides, and
eight feet in the middle. The tallest of the
seamen walks erect in it. This place is fitted
up with berths, much like those in our
forecastles, only more roomy and comfortable.
Every berth is lighted by a little window,
beneath which there is a long shelf, or rather
a narrow cupboard, divided into several
compartments and closed by a door with hinges
to it. Along the front of each berth hangs
a curtain, making it completely private.

In the middle of the round-house is a table
with ledges round it, to prevent dishes from
slipping off, and about the table there is fixed
a broad bench, upon which the seamen sit
down properly to dinner. There is another
bench, too, running along the edge of the
lower bunks. Beneath the bench that goes
about the table there are lockers that contain
a good supply of knives and forks and spoons,
and things that civilised men who live ashore
use at their dinner. Their solid food is
brought to the men on board these Yankee
vessels in bright metal dishes, and their soup
—in a tureen! The men, instead of tearing
the tough beef to pieces with their fingers,
as we do in English forecastles—where we
must sit as we can, with little piles of broken
biscuit on the ground beside us—the men in
the round-house sit down ship-shape at table,
handling their knives and forks over a piece
of "prime mess" that has come after a course
of fresh "soup and bouilli," and that is made
sweet and wholesome by the help of a dish of
dried potatoes, and by a good supply of
pepper, mustard, and pickles. Those are
articles of which every sea-going man knows
the value, but which are rarely given to us
English seamen. The house itself of the
American sailors has a clean, wholesome,
homely look. It is large enough to lodge
properly the whole ship's company; and it is
well lighted and warmed. A lamp hangs
from a small skylight, protected by strong