while owners in London are allowing landsmen
to work out their passages to Australia at five
pounds a head, and enter such men as a portion
of the crew. As if this didn't pinch us
sailors, that do know something about seamanship,
sharply enough, we are sent out
with two pound ten a month, and sometimes
no advance and never an allowance made to
wives or parents. Those wages- are given
although freights have advanced thirty per
cent., and men hired in Australia for England
would not work a ship for twice the money.
Of course, when we have got out to Australia,
we very often don't choose to come home upon
such terms.

A Queen's ship is to be sent, I've heard,
to the St. Lawrence to try and stop desertion
at Quebec. Labour lost, I'll wager!
Why, the worst craft that sail upon water
are the hulks that go out to Quebec for
timber. The men are knocked up with extra
labour, working at the pumps. The vessels are
neither coppered nor sheathed; and, on the
return voyage, all sorts of plans are contrived
to keep some of them from tumbling asunder
in the sea. The Venus brig came home with
as many as seven chains passed under her, to
bind her frame together. Then they sail badly
—as may be supposed -- make long voyages,
and run short of provisions. The logs of
timber, on the return voyage, are piled high
above the long-boat, and washed about the
deck by the sea. It is no wonder that the
crews of such craft will desert, when seamen
can earn a dollar a day in the country dragging
timber; and when crimps are offering them
all kinds of inducements from the builders of
new ships, and the masters of vessels bound
to port for want of hands. As for stopping the
crimps from taking us in tow by orders from
the holystoned deck of a man-of-war, I should
like to see anybody stopping them. There
is nowhere a stricter river police than at
Quebec. The men row round about the ships
armed to the teeth; they are up to every
move; and, what is more, know all the crimps,
but still the work goes on at a rare rate in
spite of them.

It is all very well to have shipping-masters
appointed by the owners to act between us, give
us contracts to sign, to pay us and to take our
receipts. We do not like the shipping-masters,
for we see that they take more pains to
secure us to the owners than to see that we
have been considered fairly. 'Tis a pity that
we are not better at our learning. I knew a
man, James Glanford is his true name, seaman
of the Rodney, who found out when he
took the balance of his wages at the shipping-
master's office, after a voyage to Hobart Town
and Ceylon, that he had made a blunder, and
had been underpaid three pounds. But he had
given a release, and could not get the mistake
set right again, either by force or favour. If
the shippiug-master would have helped him
to make out his small bit of adding and subtracting,
he would have had his dues. But
that wasn't the shipping-master's business.
He did not represent the forecastle interest.

But of all schemes put in force against us
that we are told to consider for our good,
there is none discussed more than what is
called the Registration Act. There is one
owners' clause in it that we think rather
insulting. It is that in case of wreck or loss of
ship, every surviving seaman shall be entitled
to his wages only on the production of a
certificate trom the master or chief surviving
ofiicer, to say that he "exerted himself to the
utmost to save ship, cargo and stores." It is
to be assumed that he didn't do his duty,
unless somebody will step forward and vouch
for him that he did. If the clause had said that
seamen having been proved guilty of neglect
of duty in the hour of shipwreck should forfeit
their wages, that would have been another
thing, and not offensive to us. As it is, though,
it is better for those by whom such clauses
are suggested, no doubt. It leaves owners a
better chance of saving something from the
wreck, though it be saved out of a survivor's
wages. I don't say that I think because — I
do not think — that there are many owners
who would use any ungenerous construction
of this clause; but there the clause is, and we
think it shows the spirit of the law, hauling
taut against the forecastle, but all a-slack in
favour of the owners and the after-cabin.

But the great fact about the Registration
Act is that, according to it, we are all ticketed
and numbered; and, without producing his
ticket a man cannot be admitted to
employment under the English flag. That is no
grievance, to be sure; we go and sail under
the stripes and stars. To us sailors these
documents are so much lumber: they are of
no use to us in the world. We must produce
them here, produce them there, and Jack has
to go before a magistrate if he should lose his
ticket. Then he gets another and pays a fine
of from two to ten shillings and costs. The
consequence of all this registering and
passporting is, that when a man has once deserted,
he deserts for good and all. If he's to be
identified and put in prison or fined wages
when he gets to England, he takes good
care to remain with brother Jonathan. The
system costs, I think, somewhere about ten
thousand a year, but the big register of all
our names and ages can take no account of
those who work their passage to America, nor
of those that ship aboard Yankee vessels in
England; and loses sight of those that quit
seafaring life and settle down ashore, and of
those that die in the colonies, or emigrate;
and can't take note of any of the odd drains
that have carried men away for seventeen
years — to say nothing of our being scattered
and living and dying unheard of by the
Registrar in all parts of the world. So I
hope the list will be found important to the
nation on the breaking out of war. However
the Register, such as it is, mayhap is better
than no register at all, and I take it for